Still nothing.
“What is going on?” I screamed. I sprinted after her, my breathing heavy and harsh. When I was within reach, I grabbed for her, but only caught the blanket.
She kept walking, the blanket feeding out behind her. As it stretched between us, beige globs of what looked like paint rained from the material, dripping onto the grass. Rivulets of green streamed from the embroidery, mixing into the beige drops. From where my hand had fisted in the blanket, grayness spread.
I gasped and halted, releasing the material.
A moment later, Eda dropped the blanket, leaving it splayed over the grass, now an ashen gray color.
A sob tore through my chest, but I refused to cry—not until I knew the truth. Mud sprayed around me as I sprinted toward the manor. As I ran, the meadow grew sinister around me. The once-beautiful butterflies flapped at me like a swarm of death moths. The grass blades were a sea of spikes, stretching between the manor and me.
I stumbled onto the loose stone path that surrounded the east wing, my pulse pounding in my ears.
When I reached the manor, I grabbed onto the doorframe for support and threw open the east wing’s heavy door. My bare feet slapped the marble as I charged inside.
“Mother! Father!” My yell echoed down the vast empty hallway.
No one answered.
In my haste, I banged into the walls, my shoulder hitting hard on the corner at the stairwell.
At the top of the stairs, I grabbed onto the banister, looking toward the door of my parents’ chamber. “Father?” I meant to yell, but the word came out in a broken whisper.
The walls blurred, the color dripping down as I made my way forward.
At my parents’ chamber door, I hesitated.
A giant wet glob fell onto my shoulder, trickling down my side.
“I’m losing my mind.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted it to be true or not, for if my mind was gone, my parents might be in this room, whole and hearty. If it could only be true, I would gladly accept madness.
The paint of the ivory walls dripped down around me, a pearlescent sludge pooling at my feet, rising to my ankles, and then draining away. In its place, the walls stretched out in an ashen expanse.
I must have lost my mind—or, perhaps, I was caught in the most life-like nightmare I’d ever experienced. If it could only be true.
The metal was cool on my fingers as I turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open. As I entered, the walls and ceiling oozed their color, raining on the furnishings of my parents’ private sitting chamber. Streams of ivory funneled down between the heavy gilded frames of the paintings that stretched across every wall.
The color poured down in their bedroom as well, and I waded through the white sludge until it sank between my toes into the now-ashen floor.
The room’s furnishings, bed, and paintings remained vibrant, even as the room around them decayed to a drab, matte gray.
From a glance, I knew my parents weren’t here. The bed had been stripped to its mattress, as if even that sign of life had been cut out of the room.
“Empty,” I whispered to the cavernous room. Catching movement at the corner of my eye, I spun, but found only my parent’s free-standing cheval mirror. Upon catching my reflection in it, I flinched away. Framed in the mirror, a girl stared back at me. She possessed my shape and height, but she was transformed. When I moved, she did as well, walking toward the mirror.
Reaching up, I touched my cheek. The girl in the mirror touched hers, too. I looked down at myself, and then at the mirror, finding no color on me or my reflection. My deep-olive complexion, cinnamon-brown hair, peach gown—even the mud clinging to my feet and ankles—were all the color of fresh ash. The room, all but the furnishings, had lost its color as well—we were identical in our unnaturalness.
I had no explanation for it. But I, along with my surroundings, had transformed.
Turning, I staggered through the east wing, finding that the colorlessness had spread to every wall. And when I lurched out and looked back, I found that the outside of the east wing was also the pale, ashy color.
No one came to find me again, not on that day or in the long weeks that followed it. No one entered the east wing again, either.
The entirety of the east wing of Hope Manor, including its occupant, had been forgotten, and for three weeks, no person remembered or saw us again.
2
The Bride that Never Was
Lord Anthony Klein
Twenty days later
I dropped my chin on one of my hands and picked up my father’s pipe with the other. The carved wood reflected the flickering firelight as it rolled around in my fingers. I was not good at smoking; my father had never taught me how. My father had never taught me to do any of the activities of men that I desired tutelage in. Instead, I’d been treated to a lifetime of accounting, fair dispute resolution, and tenant management tutelage. All of which were matters my steward handled, anyway.
I’d have much preferred to be taught the fineries of Scotch and tobacco. Though, I was self-taught in those matters. Even on my eighteenth name-day, I would rank myself better in selecting and savoring both than most men twice my age.
I always tried to look the part of lord as well. Tonight, I held my father’s pipe, wore his red velvet smoking jacket, sat in his armchair, and sipped a tumbler of his favorite scotch. Despite the lacking in my education, I would say I did quite well all on my own.
My mood fell once more as my gaze snagged on the letter still sitting on the side table.
That damned strange letter.
Setting the pipe down, I picked the letter up again. The parchment wilted in my fingers. Spreading out the wrinkles on my leg, I scanned over the already memorized lines.
‘Lord Klein. Felicitations on the completion of your manhood pilgrimage. Here is a list of the final account for the goods and services ordered for the celebration of your upcoming nuptials.’
Below the brief note was an extensive list of orders, all of which were followed by astronomical sums. My fist clenched around the letter. When the message had been relayed by my steward, I had insisted on seeing the ledger.
Now, looking once more at it, an intense urge to throw the parchment into the fire took me.
Obviously, this was some sort of swindle by a master swindler. I had no intended marriage ceremony. I didn’t even have a woman I favored… whatsoever. Nor likely would I, ever.
Yet, as my gaze fell to the parchment, a strange coiling feeling settled in my chest. As sure as I was there was no wedding planned, the contents of the ledger were familiar to me. They had been so familiar that I knew the quantity of each before checking.
I heaved a sigh. There was more than enough business to consider without having to deal with this swindler and his ledger.
My fingers stroked across the soft velvet of the coat.
My aunt and uncle’s deaths were difficult for me—everyone knew that. To be honest, the deaths had hit me quite harder than I had expected. True, I’d spent nearly as much time with them as my own parents. I’d never looked down on my uncle, even though he was rather poor at managing his own income and had ended up mortgaging most of his estate to Father. Also, I would never have been so crass as to look down on Uncle for holding a lesser rank as a Lord of Domengrad. Rank was immaterial where affection was involved.
I would have never called upon the debt.
Yet… I wouldn’t have anticipated the strange coldness that lodged inside my chest. It had settled there even before the news had arrived post haste by courier.
I gazed at the light fracturing through the tumbler as I set it down on the side table.
Likely, the loss of my only living relations had been that much more of a severe blow since my aunt and uncle’s deaths were so soon after my own parents.
For much of my life, I’d wanted to summer at Hope Manor, every single summer. Some urge had driven me to return as often as I was allowed. I wasn’t even sure why, onl
y that trips there had brought me some sense of happiness. I remembered laughing there, racing and tumbling onto the grass. The memories were faint, blurry things.
I grinned as a sense of contentment surged within me. But like many times before, it extinguished.
And now, the manor was mine.
Raising the tumbler to my lips, I gulped down the remainder of the Scotch. The alcohol burned down my throat and warmed me, for a moment lessening the strange chill lodged in me. Without my consent, my eyes closed and reopened to a dying fire.
“Maid,” I hollered, my voice slurred and hoarse.
Brend, my butler, entered as if he had been waiting just outside the study door. “How may I help you, sir?”
I couldn’t help a small flinch at the sight of him. His attire and posture was impeccable, though the months since my parents’ passing had aged him—it was obvious in the man’s thinning white hair and ever-creasing skin. My father had trusted him for anni, trusted the man with his letters and secrets. I had to assume he knew quite a bit about my business also.
“Oh, you. I wanted a maid. Where are they? My fire is slow… I mean low.”
“Shall I, sir?” The butler did not wait for an answer. Crossing the room, he added a log to the fire and prodded the coals. The air filled with sparks and the scent of burning cedar.
I settled deeper into my wide seat. “Yes. That will do—now leave me in peace.”
I didn’t want him near me while I was thinking. There was always a possibility that some confidential information would slip out of me unbidden. “Who do you work for, Brend?” I muttered so low I doubted he could hear me.
He must have heard me though, for he replied, “I work for you, sir.”
“Of course you do.” I said it but I didn’t believe it. From his tolerant expression, I knew he heard the distrust in my voice.
I turned the pipe in my fingers.
The gossip had reached my ears. I knew what the servants and other lords whispered about me—that as soon as I was in my cups, I turned paranoid, that I was ornery, that the drink was loosening my wits.
They were wrong.
The truth of it was that the drink had nothing to do with it. There was no tangible way to know where any servant’s loyalty lay; many of them were with the highest bidder. And what proof could a lord truly have? None.
Unfortunately, they were necessary in the day-to-day running of things.
The butler nodded and stepped back, eyes averting to the floor. “You have another letter, sir. I thought perhaps you would rather wait until morning to read it.”
“Well, you thought wrong!” I held out a hand to the elderly man.
Brend hesitated, standing silhouetted by the fire. “The letter is from Collin Stewart, sir,” he said as if this might change my mind.
“Did I not tell you to give it to me?” I held my hand out further, my muscles straining with the position.
Brend extracted a letter from his pocket. He crossed the room and placed it in my outstretched palm.
Slipping my finger underneath, I broke the seal, sending the wax flying off, and jerked the letter open. Leaning forward, I squinted to decipher the words but they blurred across the page.
“Collin’s hand is near indecipherable.” I brought the letter so close it brushed my nose. Thrusting the letter away from my face, I held it up to the light.
“Would you like me to read it to you, sir?”
I clutched the letter to my chest, glaring up at the butler. “You want to read my letters?”
“No, sir, just to help you,” Brend said.
“That won’t be necessary.”
I inspected the page, trying in vain to detect some message from their words. The prudent thing to do would be to wait until morning when I could read the letter in private. But knowing Collin, he would never put anything a butler couldn’t read in his message.
I knew I should wait.
My hands shook as I folded up the paper. “I’ll wait until morning.” He was almost gone when I called him back. “Read it to me—read me the letter.”
Brend crossed over and took the letter, but again hesitated. Now I had decided on this inadvisable course, his hesitancy irked me.
“Read it,” I demanded.
The butler nodded, looking behind me. “May I use your light?”
I rolled my eyes. “Can you not read by the fire?”
“It is hard for my eyes.”
“Then perhaps I need a butler with younger eyes.”
Now that I thought on it, I did need a new butler. The problem, however, was that a new butler was just as likely to have loyalties elsewhere.
“I can read it.” Holding the letter to the firelight, Brend cleared his throat. “Dearest friend, I send my congratulations on the completion of your pilgrimage.”
“Prat,” I mumbled. When Brend stopped reading, I gestured through the air in a wide circle. “Keep reading.”
“Did you manage to pay homage to the artifact of the crown of the magician Potestas? If not, I hope to one day venture there together. The arcamagyk was exquisite.”
“Sanctimonious prat.”
“As you will remember, I hoped to sojourn at your holdings upon your return home. However, should you prefer I delay, I would understand if you rather me to postpone. I do not wish to impose on your time. I regret the way we parted. Indeed, I cannot even remember the reason behind our quarrel, only that we quarreled. I do wish you would write to me—”
“That’s enough—don’t read any more.” I shot up from my chair and pointed into the butler’s face. “Throw the letter into the fire!”
Brend nodded, but he said, “Are you sure, sir?”
Jabbing out my hand again, I added, “Do as I say!”
He headed to the fire.
“Wait,” I said, just as he raised his hand to throw in the letter.
He froze.
“I’ll do it.” I reached for it, almost falling out of my chair. “I’d like to toss it in myself—give it to me.”
When he passed it over, I straightened my smoking jacket and sat in my chair. Clearing my throat, I looked at Brend. “Respond to him for me. Send my regrets that I cannot receive him at this time. Do not sound too cordial—sound uninterested—tell him you’re the one writing it and I’m too busy to respond. I don’t need to show him any deference—until his father passes, I outrank Collin by a large margin.”
As Brend hurried from the room, I slid further into my chair and muttered darkly, “What an idiot—he’s going to ruin me.”
My gods, what was all that nonsense about the joys of visiting the arcamagyk of the Ivory Templum? It would be just like the prat to be excited to pay homage to the discarded clothing of a magician.
If there was one thing I loathed more than Collin Stewart, it was arcamagyks.
My father always told me, “No boy is a man until his pilgrimage is complete. You must pay homage to receive your manhood.”
And so I did. To become a man, I traveled the country and paid homage… paid bags of gold to arcamagyks—jewel-covered boxes that contained supposed magical artifacts—anything from clumps of magicians’ hair, to toenails or undergarments.
I rolled my eyes again. Visiting arcamagyks had been duller than visiting with well-bred ladies, both activities intolerably tedious and unfortunately required of me.
The Templum of Weire on my lands housed an artifact only commoners saw fit to pilgrimage to. In terms of artifacts, the glove of a lesser-known magician was unimpressive. Though as a child, I remembered feeling some awe at the arcamagyk housing the glove and the egg-sized rubies embedded over the large gold case. My father had leaned down and whispered that the glove alone was worth more than Tableton, the small town on our estate.
“We should sell it,” I had said, rising to my tiptoes to see inside.
My father grabbed my arm, his nails biting through my thick coat. He leaned in with a finger to his lips. His big blue eyes rounded.
B
eside us, a monk stepped out from a decorative wall, regarding me with his black eyes.
“He will receive a beating for saying that,” my father called out.
“A beating?” I exclaimed, trying to shake out of his grip. I had never received a beating in my life.
“Yes, a beating.” He spoke too loudly, and his gaze bore into mine as he continued, “Son, magicians are the only race touched by the gods. Their artifacts not only contain a remnant of their power, but also a connection to the gods. You must pay due respect.” His lips had tucked into an unhappy line as he looked at the monk.
The towering monk had nodded once before his crimson-cloaked form vanished into the shadows.
That night, I’d received the first and only beating of my life, doled out by my father’s hand. The memory still sent anger surging through my chest all these anni later even after the death of my parents.
My gaze drifted to the fire as another wave of coldness filled me. Something had happened after that beating. My aunt and uncle had been visiting, and someone had held me. It was a girl… or maybe a woman.
A small voice whispered through my memory, “I’ll protect you, Tony. I’ll always protect you.”
A splitting pain pulsed through my head. That voice, that memory, it didn’t feel quite real somehow, more like a whisper from a dream.
The more I tried to remember, the worse the headache grew. Giving up, I decided it didn’t much matter who had comforted me. It had likely been my governess or aunt. The pain and humiliation I suffered had eased that night through someone’s comfort, but it didn’t much matter whose.
The memory was gone, along with many others, likely due to how young I had been. It made no matter. I was now considered a man in the eyes of the law and no longer under the observation of my very likely disloyal steward. No one would ever teach me a lesson with their fists again. I could sell my estates if I cared to, and perhaps I would.
That same coldness surged into my chest at the thought. A strange, jittery panic set into my arms and legs.
I could not sell my aunt and uncle’s estate, Hope Manor. I could not consider parting with it, not ever. It was a fanciful thought, a weak thought, but I knew it would rule me all the same.
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