by Shelby Hild
He nodded to Vivilyn, shocking her so much that she didn’t nod back. Instead, she gaped at him with wide eyes. He chuckled silently and then focused on the scene before him.
The king sat with his head facing the sky. The girl held her hands in front of her with both eyes closed tightly as she muttered words too quietly for Vivilyn to understand.
A light filled the room, coming directly from the king, before splitting into a mass of light and a mass of dark. The light reabsorbed itself back into the king, while the darkness shifted into the bottle. A stopper appeared on the bottle when the darkness filled it.
The smile that formed on the king’s face chilled Vivilyn.
“Please,” the girl said to the king, “heed my warnings.”
“You are dismissed,” the king said as he picked up the bottle from his feet. “The kingdom will never forget this favor you have granted us.”
The girl’s face filled with shadows that looked darker than the essence in the bottle.
“Marina knew she’d made a mistake the moment she’d agreed to do it,” Wizard Vic whispered, glancing sideways at Vivilyn. “She knew she should have listened to her instincts and told him no. But if she had done that, then he would have found someone else. And that someone else might not have made it so his darkness could be reabsorbed. She couldn’t have known the darkness would be intelligent, could learn.”
The scene in front of them shifted until it was just the king, Vivilyn, and Wizard Vic in the throne room.
“She let the king decide which traits he felt were the dark ones.” Wizard Vic shook his head as the king smiled, looking at the bottle before pitching it across the room with such ferocity that the bottle shattered into thousands of pieces. “He kept his pride. And without the balance of other traits, it made him think he knew better than her. What harm could come of releasing the darkness to the world? If it went free, he would never be able to reclaim it. And he and his descendants would never need to worry about becoming evil and selfish rulers.
“She was correct that his desires were righteous, but he didn’t have the foresight that those with magic have. He didn’t truly believe how much harm could come from people only having parts of their souls.”
The room shifted again. Although it was still the old throne room, it was lit so well it seemed as though the sun shone directly on them.
“I know you,” Wizard Vic said, as he looked directly at Vivilyn. “You’re younger than I hoped, but I would recognize Cybil’s spirit anywhere.”
His smile comforted Vivilyn like a warm blanket in the cold night.
“Your power isn’t as strong as I would have thought, though.” He lowered his eyebrows and then closed his eyes.
The same green glow that surrounded Marina also encompassed Wizard Vic. Had she missed it before?
“So many of your energy-lines have been blocked,” he said as he reopened his eyes. “One is fully opened. The one that makes it so we can speak like this. Another is opening, the one that helps you see the unseen. But the rest…”
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with his left hand.
“All of your energy-lines should at least be partially open at your age. Puberty is what opens them. Puberty or head trauma. Unless…”
He looked above her. His eyes turned to a glowing green, similar to the color of the glowing essence that had been around Marina and him as they did magic.
“Of course,” he said when his eyes returned to normal.
He smiled again.
“I come to that scene time and time again,” he said, turning the subject back to the scene they’d both witnessed. “I’m trying to determine the exact spell Marina used in hopes of reversing it, in hopes of figuring out what to do. I have seen so many different possibilities. And so few of them turn out well.”
His gaze drifted to the throne.
“But I think you’ve helped me determine the only way for a future. Although, it’s not one I would ever wish to use. If I do this, there’s a chance you and your sisters will never fully grow into your abilities again. But they will grow. Find them. Find your sisters. Accept them as your family and the other pieces to your spirit.”
He looked back at Vivilyn and nodded before disappearing.
As soon as he vanished, so did the light. Heaviness filled the room.
Vivilyn felt the eyes of the dark mass that had been in the room with them earlier, that had hunted her when she’d been in the throne room before with the princes and the other women. She backed away until she hit a wall.
Vivilyn’s eyes sprung open in the darkness of her room.
Chapter 9
The next morning seemed to take forever to arrive.
After the sequence of dreams Vivilyn had, she was unable to go back to sleep. Instead of remaining in the bed, rolling around endlessly, waiting for the sun to rise, Vivilyn quietly slid out of the bed and tiptoed to the sitting room.
It was still so early, she didn’t hear any rustling of movement. No one else was awake yet.
Vivilyn vaguely remembered seeing some of her paints being dropped off the day before and went to unpack them. Her hands shook with the need to create something. She wasn’t sure what she would paint, but she had a sinking feeling she needed to paint something. If she didn’t, she’d be unable to sit still or relax.
Her paints and the easel were easily found, arranged neatly in stacks next to the door to her room. Initially, she set it up near the window, but everything around her seemed too light, too easily damaged if she were to drop paint or some were to slide off her paintbrush. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get paint out of the light blue rug that covered the area of the floor beneath her.
Rather than take the risk, she packed her materials back up and, still in her cozy pajamas, went to find a more suitable place to set up.
She didn’t walk very far, just down the hall, before she found the library. She stopped in front of the door and intended to move on somewhere else, but one of the windows caught her eyes. Instead of continuing on to keep searching, she quietly entered the room.
On the ground before the window was an old rug, already covered with stains and marks. From the window, she could easily see the fountain before her. The fountain was on and water swirled all around it.
All of the chairs nearby were light and easily moveable so once she finished setting up everything again, she moved one of them over and sat in it. As she sat and tried to relax, she attempted to focus her mind on what she would paint. Nothing specific came to mind, so she just raised her brush to the canvas.
She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. And repeated that three times.
Then she let her mind move her hand, while she only focused on the precise area she was painting.
Her thoughts drifted as her hands moved across the canvas with her paintbrush until they abandoned her mind completely, leaving it peacefully quiet.
All she heard around her was the soft dragging of the brush in front of her and all she could smell was the comfortingly familiar scent of paint drifting in the air.
“Don’t be afraid to empty your mind, Lyn,” she could hear her father say. “When all the world seems to be screaming too loudly, clear your mind of the distractions. The easiest way to jump to wrong conclusions is to jump when you’re rushing to react.”
The door to the library opened and closed, but Vivilyn remained focused on her painting. It was probably just someone making sure the room was warm enough to be usable before people started roaming through the manor. Even though she heard the footsteps approaching her, she didn’t pay any attention to them.
“That’s a super creepy painting,” Prince Aiden said, so close to her right ear that she jumped.
Without thinking, she squealed slightly and tossed the paintbrush in her hand at his figure and jumped sideways out of her chair.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, laughing as he lifted the paintbrush from where it had bounced off his shoulder
and onto the floor.
A dark blob of deep gray paint marked the shoulder of his green shirt where the brush hit him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hurrying into a curtsey. The cameraman stifled a laugh from Prince Aiden’s other side.
He waved off her apology as he pulled a chair next to hers. Then he handed her brush back.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained before he could ask. “Well, I did fall asleep for a little bit but I couldn’t stay asleep. Darissa is passed out though.”
“I completely understand that,” he said, as he gestured for her to sit back down and she complied. “Ethan is out like a log. Brayleigh, Freya, and I haven’t been able to sleep a wink.”
“Brayleigh and Freya?” Vivilyn said, her voice quiet. Even though she knew he spent time with the other women, something in her pained at the mention of him spending time with the others.
“Yeah, after taking a shower to warm up—that water was freezing, I’ve no idea how Freya swam that so easily—I went to check on everyone. Ended up spending more time with them than I intended. Although, they weren’t in their sleepwear.”
Vivilyn raised an eyebrow and smirked. Aiden blushed heavily before correcting his statement.
“Not meaning they weren’t wearing anything. They were in normal everyday clothing. Not pajamas like you.”
He gestured to what Vivilyn was wearing. She’d forgotten that she hadn’t changed into her daytime clothes yet. She laughed slightly as he blushed even more, until his face matched his hair perfectly.
“That makes sense,” Vivilyn said. Her mind started to imagine him with the other two laughing and joking together, making fun of Vivilyn and how much she didn’t belong with them.
Prince Aiden wouldn’t do that, she told herself. Not only would that be completely uncharacteristic of him, but he cares about me.
She didn’t know much about how the Trials would go, or how the people’s votes would work out, but she did know that much. Prince Aiden cared for her.
How can you be so sure? A voice whispered insidiously in her mind. It wasn’t the normal voice that caused her to doubt herself, though. It reminded her of the one she’d heard in the throne room. The one that wanted Aiden to touch the stone chair and wanted to know which of the Chosen possessed the Sight.
Because I wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t, she thought back to it with as much firmness as she could muster, but something of the doubt lingered heavily.
Her thoughts must have been more obvious on her face than she realized, because Prince Aiden set a hand on her back and leaned closer. His eyes were wide with worry. The warmth of his hand melted some of the doubt that had filled her mind.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I…” Vivilyn wanted to tell him about her fears of not belonging, but what could he do? Would he think her fears were childish? Would he just dismiss them? “It’s nothing really. Just a bit shaken up.”
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, gesturing to the picture.
As she set the brush down so paint wouldn’t get anywhere else, she finally looked at what she’d created.
She hadn’t paid much attention to what she was creating before, letting her mind and her hand work together without her consciously controlling it. Somehow it made it easier to get uncomfortable images out of her mind before they overwhelmed her.
She wondered, not for the first time, if her falling into a sort of trance-like state when creating some of these pictures had something to do with her ability. Were her visions trying to show her something?
When she did finally take a look at what she made, the darkness of it made her shiver. She’d painted the throne room and it was just as dark as it had been in reality, only slightly illuminated from random splotches of light from the torches.
The only things she could clearly see in the picture were the cobwebs and the throne. Almost visible, on the very edge, Prince Aiden stood near the throne with his hand lifted as though to touch it. His brother was running toward him. Behind the throne, a shadow seemed to be reaching out towards both the princes.
“What is that?” Prince Aiden asked as he pointing to the shadow.
“I’m not sure,” Vivilyn said. “There was something in the darkness down there. A shadow of some sort. And,” she paused with a heavy sigh for a moment before continuing, “I don’t know. It seemed dangerous.”
“That’s about what Brayleigh said,” Prince Aiden said, shaking his head. “There’s something weird going on there. We need to go back. The answers to all of our questions are down there, I’m sure of it.”
“No.”
Vivilyn was shocked by the fierceness of how she denied his suggestion.
“And that’s the same response I got from everyone else too,” the prince laughed slightly, almost uneasily.
“You don’t remember the room,” she said looking straight into his silver eyes. “There’s something malicious there.”
She couldn’t contain a shiver. The negative feelings that she’d felt while down there tried to rise in her mind again, but she blocked them out like a fortress in the midst of a siege. Nothing would get her to go back down to that room.
“Besides,” she said, quickly cleaning her paintbrush before she dipped it into another color of paint. “We can find plenty to do around here without going into spooky, locked-off rooms.”
“Oh?” The prince lifted an eyebrow. “What sort of things would you suggest?”
Vivilyn smirked and looked through the corner of her eye at the prince. With quick, deft motions, she moved to the side and drew a thick line of cyan across his cheek.
“Hey!” Prince Aiden said as he wiped at the paint, turning the single line into a large blob. “I just made it worse, didn’t I?”
As she nodded, covering her mouth with her empty hand to keep from giggling, he laughed again. This time it was a much heartier one than he’d given just a moment ago.
He tried to grab another paintbrush, but Vivilyn moved quicker than him and as she gave him another facial line perpendicular to the original one, she also grabbed her other four brushes to keep them away from the prince.
He stretched and stood in order to reach the brushes she held as far away from him as she could manage. Without any hesitation, he stretched over her chair to try and grab them, but barely reached the tips of the brushes.
The abrupt addition of Aiden’s weight suddenly caused the chair to fall backwards. Both giggled uncontrollably as they tumbled to the ground, even as the prince slid over Vivilyn, knocking into a bookcase.
At least, they did until the bookcase wobbled and fell sideways into another. After hitting the second one with enough force to make it teeter as well, the first bookcase fell to the floor.
A few seconds later, the other one fell as well.
Behind the second bookcase was a stone doorway.
“No,” Vivilyn said as soon as she saw the door. She stood up and straightened her clothes before walking to the knocked over bookcase. She bent in order to lift the bookcase and Prince Aiden jumped up and held his hand up to stop her.
He opened his mouth but Vivilyn shook her head.
“I’ve had enough of hidden passageways and rooms for this week,” Vivilyn said, shaking her head violently. “We are putting this back and not releasing some dark entity into this kingdom.”
The prince furrowed his brow.
“Release some dark entity into the kingdom?” He asked. “Where did you come up with that idea?”
She could almost see the same shadows that had been in the old throne room lurking in the darkness in front of her, taunting her from this newly discovered door. It felt as though it was daring her to go in.
“I’ve heard scary tales,” she said, thinking about the stories her friends always told when they would sit around a fire late at night. Ryso was especially fond of the scarier tales that ended with everyone dead.
“They always involve people doing dumb things,” she sa
id. Then she turned away from the door to look Aiden in the eyes. “You know, like going into a secret door after barely escaping another hidden room. Bad things always happen. I refuse to go in there.”
The prince laughed as they both hoisted the bookcases back up. Together, they worked to pick up all the books. Unfortunately, neither of them remembered in what order the books had been within the case, so they just guessed. The shelves didn’t look as nicely organized as they were before, but it would do until one of them could ask how they’d originally been arranged.
After they finished picking up the books, they went back to the window and looked outside.
“It’s gonna be a dreary day,” Vivilyn said as she could see the sun trying and failing to peek through the dark gray clouds.
***
Vivilyn was correct.
The sun never freed itself from clouds that just continued to grow darker as the day wore on. Off and on, it sleeted, but it didn’t snow. Vivilyn, and many of the other women, refused to leave the mansion.
In fact, the weather remained dreary and cold for most of the week.
She never took off the warm jacket Darissa had given her. Since Darissa had made jackets for each of the Chosen, all the women frequently gathered in identical outfits: black or gray leggings with a dark long-sleeved shirt and the jacket over.
Every time she saw someone she hadn’t seen since before she changed her hair, they always asked the same thing: What did you do to your hair?
Although she saw most of her team the morning after the throne room incident, she had yet to see Malcolm since arriving at the manor.
“Come on, Lady Vivilyn,” Fiona said, as Vivilyn set her paints down.
She’d spent much of the week painting in different rooms of the manor. On this day, the weather was slightly warmer than it had been most of the previous few, so Vivilyn and many of the other women were appreciating being outside.
To one side of the estate, darker clouds were slowly moving in. No one knew exactly when the first snow would hit Crysteal Manor, but many hoped when those clouds reached them, they would carry with them snow rather than sleet or rain.