by Elizabeth Lo
No… it’s not that…
Lafayette sighs.
No… I don’t know, Orion, he says. Why do I care anyway?
Orion almost audibly laughs into Lafayette’s ears.
Because she’s your travel buddy, obviously, he says. It’s called making a connection with people. I know your unsocialized self might have some trouble comprehending such a thing but…
Oh shut it, Orion, Lafayette growls, unamused.
But somehow, there’s something rooted inside of him that has started to sprout these past couple of days. She had said something in the woods that he can’t seem to forget. There was a strange desperation to her as she said those words, and her eyes looked more intense than before.
You still exist.
She said it as if it was something obvious. And it is.
But the prospect of living just for the sake of living in some way seems cowardly, if not completely idealistic. One’s past will always play a hand in the present and the future.
One trip, one mistake, and everything will come tumbling apart.
But… what if it was possible? What if it’s possible to start over again?
No, no. What a ridiculous idea. There is no Try Two in this world. Not for someone like him.
Consider the options. He couldn’t ever earn a living for himself in any capacity—no one in their right mind would associate with him (except for one particular travel buddy out there) not to mention, he was born and raised in infantry and combat. He was bred to do nothing but kill.
You still exist.
No. Forget it.
I’ve been meaning to ask you… he says to Orion, to clear his mind of its muddy thoughts.
Yeah?
When Midnight told me the full logistics of the curse, your story suddenly doesn’t add up anymore.
Oh? How so?
You were busy sleeping off your little rampage while she told me, but if your killer was just some old-ass magician, then how did you get into my body?
It… was someone you knew well, he says, but there’s a shakiness to him. I told you, didn’t I? That I can’t give you the name—
Oh, cut the crap, Orion. We both know your little party story is a lie. There’s no way some magician would have cared about me enough to curse me.
Orion goes silent. Lafayette laughs.
Did you think I’m an idiot? Lafayette thinks. I saw in the dreams and flashbacks—you were no magic apprentice. You were a criminal, weren’t you?
Oh, someone’s there, Orion says instead. To the right of you.
The movement catches his attention. The person he’s been following has this distinct magical tone—listless but still daunting. They’re fast too, leaping away beyond his vision, barely staying within the parameters of his senses. Whoever they are, they probably have a connection to Midnight’s death. He’s been vaguely tailing them for a while now, but he can’t seem to focus completely.
And then, his target disappears. Erased from his senses completely.
He stops in place, looking around with ears and eyes sharpened. After a good ten minutes of wandering and waiting, he finds himself lost. Him? Lost? How?
After grumbling to himself, he proceeds to do what every lost child in a supermarket does: walk along every one of the aisles, looking down each one of them in hopes of finding a parent. Except this time, the aisles are burnt or burning buildings and he’s looking for Galviton’s latest homicidal maniac.
And eventually, he sees them. At first, he skips over them, almost mistaking them as a pile of dead bodies. But no doubt, lying on the ground, is a cluster of people suffering from severe shock and maybe something more.
They don’t say anything. They just look at him, their eyes similar to that of an exhausted animal still staying alert for any predators. They’re not sane anymore. He’s seen those eyes a few too many times. But some of these peoples’ minds have already deteriorated as much as the soldiers who had suffered the effects of the curse for more than three years.
Shaky movements. Eyes with a little too much white in them, warily watching his every movement. Trauma.
They’re all lying in a heap in the middle of the only road in Hanbury that’s not crumbling in angry orange heat. The remaining fire from the other streets sets an eerie glow on them in the bluish-brown night, and smoke, still acrid in the air, creates a dirty fog.
All of them are either clutching their heads in confusion or talking nonsense.
Lafayette approaches them, and all of their heads snap in his direction at once, as if ordered by an invisible commander.
For a second, everyone seems to freeze in place.
Then one of them looks back at an alleyway behind them. No, not in the alley. Above the alley.
Queen Glorieux Frost has joined them to collect her army.
Her eyes stare straight forward into nothingness from the top of a slightly less burned building. She doesn’t look up or down or left or right. She just looks straight. Something inside of him growls at the sight of her.
Once again, Lafayette raises his gun up.
BANG.
The bullet passes right through her chest, merely ripping her dress and slipping through her skin as if it was never there. Her dress is already riddled with blackened holes—she’s barely clothed properly.
The emotionless woman flicks her gaze down to him. He can’t tell if she’s confused or if there is even a person in there to be confused.
“Glorieux Frost,” he states to the air. “The beloved White Queen of Galviton. Long time no see.”
The small smile creeping onto her face is unsettling on someone who just burned down an entire city.
“Well, well. What do we have here… The proud son of the beloved, disgusting pig of a General.”
Lafayette smiles. Again. That terrible smile that he hates so much, reflecting hers.
“Indeed, Your Majesty.”
“Go back to your nest, Mr. Falcon. I’ll take care of the country.” The smile becomes more cruel, and her eyes narrow.
Their eyes meet as they recognize each other’s faces. Those polite, uncaring masks.
The air stills in anticipation of their performances.
“Well, when we’re done exchanging formalities, I’d like to talk with you about a few things…” He says, lilting his voice with the indifferent, shortened syllables of nobility.
“Hmm?” Glorieux says, gently folding her hands in front of her, her voice matching his.
“Like… Why you put the Memento Mori curse in place?” he says, folding his own hands behind his back and leaning forward slightly. “Or why you burned this… lovely city tonight?”
Her smile falters, and his widens ever slightly.
“I find it a bit… straightforward of you to ask that, Mr. L. Falcon,” she says, still upholding a curve in her lips.
“I find that to be the best course of communication,” he says lightly.
“What about you? Shouldn’t you be back in Falconry? Hanbury really isn’t a place for individuals like you…”
“Likewise. You as well, Your Highness. Why be here in this dank street with some… less fortunate… people at your feet? And dressed like that, well, I can hardly call it being dressed at all…” He finds this fun yet revolting at the same time.
But it works. Glorieux seems to be frozen, a smile still glued in place.
Without warning, she throws her head back, and a burst of manic laughter fills the street, overpowering the crackle of flames all around them.
Lafayette’s smile only turns into a smirk.
He won.
“Funny,” he says, his speech returning to its usual self. “How our smiles looked the same.”
Before he can celebrate any more, Glorieux’s head flips forward like a switch, and before he can blink, she Teleports down and punches him in his stomach.
The ground hits him hard. He struggles to catch his breath as he pushes himself up, still smiling.
“Aha, you surprised me there…” h
e says, facing her dead on.
Her face has changed. The polite smile is gone. Instead, in its place, is a mirror reflection of Lafayette’s eyes the day he had fired that pistol into the air of the cafeteria. Anger. Built up frustration being released in one large explosion.
Her sizzling fist is still suspended in the air, but her eyes are locked onto Lafayette who has already risen back to his full height once more, dusting his non-existent suit.
“I didn’t expect you…” he continues, laughing to himself. “To snap that easily.”
Glorieux’s jaw tightens.
“All of you… Everyone last one of you…” she mutters. Her fist clenches at her side, but her body bursts into flames. “Just wants to… fix me.”
Her breath starts heaving through her body as her anger heats up as much as the fire swirling around her.
“What about these people?” He gestures to the people huddled on the ground. “What happened to them?”
Glorieux’s silver eyes, now lit bright orange by the flame, narrow.
“Oh! I see…” he says, laughing. “You collected them, didn’t you? You loathed being a puppet, yet here you are bending others under your thumb for your own benefit.”
Her eyes twitch. Warm light dances on the dingy houses as Glorieux only gets more and more agitated. The fire bakes the wood, turning it black. A window shatters as the flames lick too close to it.
His smile widens.
“Hit a button, did I?”
Glorieux only bristles more, but once again, that laugh comes back.
“So what?” she sneers. “Think you’re so smart? You figured it out. Now what?”
He shrugs.
“Well, ordinarily I wouldn’t have cared, but…” The smile vanishes from his eyes. “Which one of them killed her? I’d like for them to have another taste of death.”
The woman before him seems to be dumbfounded for a second.
“Oh!” she exclaims. “That girl. The pesky one.” Glorieux Frost manages to make one of the most triumphant smiles he’s ever seen. A laugh starts to shake her chest even if her eyes don’t waver an inch off of his face. “I did, Falcon.”
“Oh,” he says, a sardonic grin lifting his face. “Pity.”
Indeed, Orion echoes. Would you like me to get involved?
Be my guest, Lafayette responds, wringing his hands together. “Well…” He takes off his trench coat and throws it to the side. “I happen to have a lot of time on my hands. Would you like to play a game of tag?”
The silver of his pistol looks exactly like the silver of her eyes illuminated by the slight glint of distant firelight. Fire begins to seethe around her, and he wonders in the back of his mind if it would be possible to die of heat stroke just by standing here. The answer doesn’t really matter, but it does mean all the more reason to get going.
It’s curious, this anger… So full, he can barely contain it.
“Don’t—” she starts. “Don’t get in my way!”
Taking his pistol, he wraps his arm around and points the muzzle behind him to the cluster of people.
BANG goes the gun. A figure in the background slumps down. He’s not sure if they’re dead, but he can be sure that he shot at least one of them. And as predictable as clockwork, Glorieux shoots straight for him.
The fire reaches its peak, and now, Lafayette and Glorieux begin their dance.
She runs and burns, he chases and shoots. Glorieux takes a right swing, and he jumps backwards, away from the crouching figures.
What a handful indeed.
Dragons like them should already be extinct, yet here they are, created by the very people they destroyed.
Glorieux’s screams are so loud the sound fills his head as if she’s standing right behind him. It seems she’s trying to head to the Summer Palace. At least, that’s the direction she’s leading them.
“May I ask something?” he asks between breaths. “What do you get out of doing all this?”
“Freedom. Revenge,” she hisses. “Control.”
Control.
Sweet, sweet control… Wasn’t that what he wanted to?
But, it’s just like Midnight said, isn’t it? There is no control. To grasp at it would be like grasping at rays of sunlight.
Jumping from roof to roof to avoid getting burned, all of his training comes back to him like an unwanted friend. He shoots select bullets and blocks, parries, and delivers punches all while leaping away from famished fire. From rooftops, they move on to the forest, and from the forest, they move on to the white castle on the hill. All the while, Glorieux’s little children trail them through the woods.
Yes, this is who he really is. Nothing but a fighter. If he can’t kill her, he can at least weaken her. She can’t Regenerate at this rate and not suffer a net loss of magic somehow.
But, irrationally, he wants to see Midnight. Because at least when he was with her, he didn’t have to be this ugly machine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Midnight
Once again, those red curtains are waving in my face from the push and pull of a cool nighttime breeze. A slight hint of moonlight touches the edges of my room. Maybe for the last time in my life. My legs are starting to fall asleep from sitting crisscrossed on my bed, but my mind is too preoccupied to care.
I’ve spent a couple of hours alone in my room preparing myself for what’s to come. It’s important this time. This death.
Sucre, as matter-of-fact as ever, simply told me that we’ll be leaving at noon tomorrow for the Summer Palace—where he suspects Glorieux is now. He then brought us back to the mansion, and we all parted ways. I’ve retreated here, to my bedroom. Once again.
A knock sounds on my door, interrupting my failing attempt at meditation. Sighing, I open it and find Phelix standing there quietly, his gaze averted to the side.
“Phelix?” I immediately start scrunching and un-scrunching the fabric of my shirt with a sweaty palm.
Phelix gives me one long, unreadable look, not saying anything. But after a few seconds, he takes a deep breath, folds the sleeves of his robe together, and approaches me, his pride MIA for once.
His eyes are still as cold as usual, but there is a tired look behind them.
“I just… wanted to see how you were faring,” he says. “Now is your last chance to ask your questions before it’s too late.”
Last questions, huh…
“Then I guess…” I clasp my hands together and take a breath. My conversation with Annabelle and Artemis comes back to me.
I want to enjoy life again.
“Will I really die?” I ask. “Like… really, really die. Forever.”
His eyes narrow.
“Yes,” he says tersely. “Fantastique’s Stone is essentially an enchanted object made almost solely with the ability to consume the souls of people. Even when borrowing its power, it is still ever-hungry, so when you die with it in your possession, it will consume your soul, and you will cease to exist.”
I gulp, and for once, my hands stop moving.
“I see… So there really is no chance of survival,” I say, breathing out as I try to control myself.
“Absolutely not,” he responds. “Believe me… that story you all think is merely a myth about your First King was most definitely real. After all, I watched his demise with my very own eyes.”
“But he was just a normal human being, right?”
“Oh, no, no, no…” He fluffs his sleeves proudly. “Of course he wasn’t. Do you think I would bring some random fellow off the streets back to Ronum? No. Your revered First King was just like you.”
“You mean he had…?”
“Yes. He had Arimean eyes just like you. I mean… I did pull him straight out of Arimea before they went extinct, you know. And yet that little buffoon exiled me when I tried to give his children the same eyes as him… Oh yes did he die at the mercy of that Stone—much to Sucre’s dismay.”
“Sucre…? So… I’m not the first you’ve sent
to use the Stone.”
“Me? No, I didn’t send little Tiqi Mova—or, excuse me, ‘Fantastique’—to that wretched little magic artifact. Sucre did—just ask him yourself.”
“Sucre…?”
Oh… but that might explain a lot. Like why Sucre was so cautious about telling me too much.
“How… did he die, though?” I ask.
“He bled out after pulling the largest magical feat in history,” he answers, a strangely desolate look in his eyes as he speaks. “Now then,” he says, swishing his robes to walk away. “I just came here to say goodbye, that’s all. If that’s all you needed to know, then I’ll be—”
“Phelix.”
He stops.
“What, girl?”
A farewell smile warms my face.
“Thank you.”
It almost seemed like Phelix broke for a second there.
“Thanking… me? For…?”
“Thank you for helping found this country. And thank you for trying so hard to save it.”
He blinks then clears his throat.
“Well… I suppose I have done quite a lot for this little piece of land. Though… I’m surprised. I thought you would be… bitter. Like that brother of yours.”
Strangely, his words don’t sting quite as much.
“I didn’t think bitter would’ve been nice to taste on my last day existing.”
He huffs and chuckles.
“Making me feel bad like that…” he mutters. “Then, if that’s the case, then I should thank you too. And… I guess I should also say… I’m sorry.”
He sighs and glances at the ceiling in thought.
“You know… I felt guilty over what I did. Immortality and all… I wanted it desperately. But you know, since my body is immortal, why isn’t anyone else immortal too?”
“The cost of it,” I answer. “In order to maintain a body such as that… or rather for the curse on your body to maintain itself, it takes a toll on you and your surroundings.”
“Well, I suppose you aren’t completely dull,” he says contemptuously. “Correct. I can never use magic ever again because of it. The one who cursed you at birth? An Assembler colleague of mine. Artemis is the one in charge of all the magic that goes on here, not me. I can only scribble in journals and tell people how to use their magic.