One Crown & Two Thrones: The Prophecy

by Iseult O'Shea

  “It sounds like heaven,” Galean sighed watching how her face changed as she described the Garden of Calhuni, fascinated by her description for he was no poet, but she clearly was.

  “Do you think Heaven is a perception of what we deem to be the most scared place in our psyches?” Eveline asked keeping her eyes shut, not wanting to let go of the images within her mind.

  “I have been to Heaven and it fulfilled all of the perceptions that had lain deep within my mind.”

  “You have been there?” Eveline whispered, opening her eyes to look into his face.

  “I’m an angel remember,” Galean smiled kindly.

  “Oh yes I quite forgot, your just so…human I suppose,” Eveline returned with merry eyes, the aspirin taking affect.

  “Well I am part being too, so I do differ slightly in my appearance to other angels but not much,” Galean admitted thoughtfully.

  “What is it like? Heaven?”

  “It is quite like earth in the sense that it is filled with natural beauty, hills, mountains, rivers and seas.”

  “I always imagined it to be filled with white light and emerald palaces,” Eveline chuckled.

  “Well no not exactly,” Galean smirked. “There are towns, villages and cities much like our own but the architecture is quite different. The main city where the God Heiden dwells is called Aurorlas, were all light meets.”

  “Have you met your God?”

  “Once,” Galean said with saddened eyes, turning his face away from Eveline.

  “Is he frightening?”

  “When he needs to be yes, with his right hand he wields mercy, compassion and love and with his left hand, justice, wisdom and an iron rod when needed.”

  “A balance of light and darkness.”

  Galean turned to Eveline and studied her.

  “In a way yes,” Galean said flatly.

  “I cannot believe that God is perfect if you will forgive my saying so.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Perfection is a paradox in that to be perfect one must be imperfect,” Eveline said with a serious tone.

  “You quote Lucillo Vanini?”

  “Yes,” Eveline blushed. “What I mean is that all those who have thought about perfection and what it could mean have different perceptions and theories of what it is and how it functions.”

  “Aristotle believed that perfection occurred when something had been completed,” Galean added. “But to Empedocles perfection depended on incompleteness, thus the paradox.”

  “Exactly, so if we were to use Aristotle’s theory, then God cannot achieve perfection until everything He has created has been completed and how do we know if He has achieved completion?”

  “We don’t.”

  “And then we must take into consideration how imperfect the race of man is.”

  “I believe Aristotle said that the world could be perfect but that God could not.”

  “Well from my limited knowledge on the subject there have been many different theories on the concept of perfection, from the concept that perfection is not an attribute of God to the concept that it is,” Eveline said quietly as a women came and offered them both some hot tea. Eveline and Galean took the cups of tea with gratitude for they were thirsty. “The word perfection is explained as being free from any imperfection that cannot be improved upon, the word in Latin is I think perficio which means finishing.”

  “Have you read Origins of Species by Charles Darwin?” Galean asked curiously, enjoying their thread of conversation.

  “As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection,” Eveline whispered with a mischievous smile upon her lips.

  “Impressive,” Galean applauded the young lady who was quite obviously well read.

  “As I have already said I love nature, it is through nature that I find God and I think to some extent so did Darwin although to be perfectly honest I don’t suspect anyone will ever truly know the depth of his understanding or personal opinion of God and perfection but he seems to suggest that everything adapts and evolves towards perfection.”

  “And what happens when everything has evolved and becomes perfect? How does he see perfection?” Galean asked quietly, stroking Wordsworth’s head gently.

  “I think that he has figured out how things can evolve into goodness but absolute perfectionism I am not quite sure he himself has found the answer, if you think about it he states that everything will adapt to evolve and at a certain time will achieve perfection as though everything becomes finalised, but it is quite like human life, we all evolve and adapt to reach a certain point in our human life,” Eveline stopped to think a little. “What I’m trying to say very inarticulacy is that we all reach a peak in our life be it our health, age etc. etc. When that peak has been reached then we steadily go downhill and eventually die.”

  “So you think that the natural world will evolve to reach its pinnacle and then escalate downwards to its death?” Galean quizzed thoughtfully.

  “I am probably wrong but yes, I can see that very pattern in many things, a plant grows until it reaches its peak in life and then it dies away.”

  “The buds of the flowers may die away but not necessarily the flower itself, in many cases they come to life again the next year, and they spread seeds so that new life can begin” Galean smiled. “Do you think that God is the same?”

  “If true understanding of God is beyond our human thinking then I do not know, maybe he designed everything to have limited life span to give way to new life, a person dies and a baby is brought into the world. Everything must come from something and I think maybe that is true of God, maybe He comes from something and in His own time whatever that may be He will give way to another who will take His place.”

  Galean looked at Eveline with wide eyes, she had hit the nail on the head and had absolutely no idea that she or her half-brother where the next in line to Heiden’s throne.

  “Gosh all this in depth talking is going to my head now,” Eveline laughed quietly dropping her eyes to the sleeping Wordsworth. “Tell me why it is that I believe you to have some sort of aversion to your God, what happened to make you react so to His name? You are one of his angels after all.”

  “I have no aversion to Heiden, we simply parted on bad terms,” Galean admitted as he played with his long fingers in frustration.

  “What terms were those?”

  “I took the law into my own hands and was exiled for it,” Galean said quietly as a baby near to them began to cry out as another bomb fell, causing a cloud of dust to swirl about the shelter. Eveline furrowed her brows as she wrapped her blanket about her shoulders.

  “May I ask what it was you did?”

  “You truly wish to know?” Galean asked, turning to her with curious eyes. “Are you not a little suspicious or worried that you have placed your life into the hands of a man that has been banished from the Kingdom of God?”

  “I know you are a good man and would not take the law into your own hands lightly if only you had no other option,” Eveline said with a serious face. “All be it I have not known very many men in my life except my husband and the reverend but I like to think that I am a good judge of character. So no I am not suspicious or frightened of you, you ran into a burning building to save a boy, that is the action of a good man not the man you seem to think you are.”

  “I had not been long in the service of Heiden when I met my wife, Marsalia,” Galean began, his eyes cast across the room as though lost in memory. “We married a few weeks after meeting and set up a home in Aurorlas. A year later she gave birth to our daughter, Rosalie, beautiful and feisty like her mother,” Galean smiled with love. Eveline found herself imagining Galean’s small family and found herself warming at the thought, she hoped that she and Theodore could start a family after the war when eventually they were safe from harm. When she found focus awaking from her imagination she saw sadness in Gal
ean’s eyes and wondered what had happened.

  “Did something happen to your family?”

  “When my daughter was six, I was away on a mission,” Galean replied, a mission to save her. “Whilst I was away there was an attack on the city led by a demon called Lagman.” Eveline felt her heart freeze, guessing what was to come. “When I returned, I returned a widow.” Silence lay between them as they both digested the information, each shaken and angered. About them, children lay against their mothers asleep whilst the nurses made their rounds, tending on the wounded and those who had recently sought refuge. It was quite some time before Eveline found the courage to speak, the pain in her foot beginning to ease a little.

  “What happened to them?” she whispered, watching Galean as he bent over himself, his shoulders tense and firm.

  “My wife was raped and executed in front of my daughter,” Galean said slowly as though to speak the very words burned him. “When I returned to the city, my daughter along with other children had been burnt alive.” It suddenly clicked why Galean had been so anxious to save the boy, fire bore a terrible mark upon him a mark that would never fade.

  “I don’t know what to say, only that I am truly sorry for you loss,” Eveline said as her eyes watered, the pain of his loss evident in his eyes. “I cannot imagine what you went through but if you were exiled for avenging theirs death then I understand.”

  “I searched all the corners of the universe for Lagman not finding him for years and when I did I felt no shame in killing him until afterwards,” Galean sighed. “My wife would have been ashamed, she had spent her whole life working to improve the legal system of Aurorlas. I knew that I should have brought him before the council but I was driven by despair and vengeance and paid for it.”

  “Your wife and daughter would have understood, not wishing you to be so hard on yourself,” Eveline soothed trying to bring him comfort knowing that words were futile and that comfort could not be borne, not when the pain of their deaths burned into his soul so brightly.

  “I am heir to a Kingdom Mrs Sampson and if I am to rule then I must abide by the law, not taking it into my hands when I feel the need for vengeance,” Galean said sharply.

  “I did not mean to offend you,” Eveline said with coloured cheeks, turning her eyes from him in shame. Galean groaned, if it had not been for her then maybe his family would still be alive and he settled and content. He should have felt anger towards the young woman who sat so diligently beside him trying to bring him ease and comfort, her eyes watered with grief at his loss. Yet he could summon no agitated feelings towards her, nothing akin to hatred or anger stirred within him, instead he found solace and friendship in her easy and caring ways. Galean turned from her sickened by himself, his weakness and stupidity. The sooner he returned to his homeland the better.

  Eveline felt pain as her new friend drew away from her, unable to meet her gaze, unable to speak with her. For a while she simply lay against the wall until nurse Ruth came to her to attend to her wounds once more, making sure she was alright.

  “You look pale, how is your head?” the nurse asked seeing the tension between the couple, wondering what had happened.

  “My head is better thank you, I’m just a little tired that’s all,” Eveline said as the nurse tended to the cut at her hairline.

  “I think you can close your eyes if possible,” Ruth said kindly.

  “It would seem wrong and perverse to sleep when such destruction is going on outside of these walls,” Eveline whispered, her eyes scanning the large room. “Not when people are desperately trying to stay alive.”

  “Eveline your body has been through major shock in the last few hours, you are pale and drawn, take a tip from your lovely dog and close your eyes for even half an hour if your feel so strongly about it,” Ruth said with kind eyes and a soft tone. “We have a long night ahead of us and most likely a long and trying day too. Close your eyes and give your body some time to breath before the aftershock kicks in.”

  “But what if I do not wake?” Eveline said, bending forward so that those around her could not hear her silly response.

  “You will wake,” came a strong voice from beside her. Eveline turned and met Galean’s firm gaze. “I will watch over you and awaken you when its time.”

  “There you go, now stop making up excuses and close those eyes,” the nurse said as she got up. “And before I leave take these two tablets in another two hours okay?”

  “Thank you,” Eveline said with a grateful smile taking the tablets from the nurse who walked away, tending to her next patient. Eveline looked about her for a place to store her tablets.

  “Here give them to me I will put them in my pocket,” Galean said holding out his hand. Eveline handed her tablets to Galean before trying to find comfort in the cement wall.

  “I can’t sleep against this wall, it’s unbending to my needs,” she groaned, pushing her back up straight but finding no comfort, her body tired and aching, all the traumatic events incurred suddenly catching up with her. Galean watched her for a moment before letting out a deep sigh.

  “Sit forward,” he ordered watching as she moved forward. Galean got up and moved behind her, stretching his long legs to either side of her.

  “Mr Edwards I’m not sure this is entirely appropriate,” Eveline said with red cheeks.

  “We are both adults, intelligent adults, I am giving you comfort not my heart,” Galean said flatly as Wordsworth awoke, standing up with sleepy eyes. Eveline closed her mouth and carefully lay back against Galean, positioning her head upon his chest as he covered her once more with the blanket.

  “I wasn’t asking for your heart,” she groaned quietly hoping he could not hear her words as Wordsworth fell upon them both.

  “I’m sorry,” Galean said as he wound his arms about her. “Sleep Eveline and worry not, I have no heart with which to give.”

  Eveline lay back and let her eyes fix themselves upon the ceiling, her heart thudding deeply with anxiety. Galean felt her body tremble and looked down at her.

  “You never did tell me what happened in the garden,” he asked softly, his eyes upon her long nose, dotted with tiny freckles.

  “I didn’t did I?” Eveline smiled sheepishly, looking up into his face, her eyes wide and innocent. “Would you like to know?”

  “Yes.”

  Eveline rested her head back and closed her eyes, twirling the golden band upon her forth finger.

  “Sometimes when I walk through the garden I catch a glimpse of animals that greatly resemble deer’s and stags,” she began feeling her heart slow down as she found herself once more in the enchanted garden. “They sometimes look at me with their big yellow eyes before darting off into the forest.”

  “We call them Thegs,” Galean interceded quietly.

  “I always find myself upon the shore of the great lake where a small boat lingers close by,” Eveline could see the small boat and found herself walking towards it, the air sweet with the scent of the flowers. “I then climb into the boat and as if by magic it moves slowly towards the island. I love to bend over the edge and gaze down into the waters, where I watch the most beautiful fish swim about. If I am feeling particularly adventurous I let the tips of my fingers dance upon the water, the coolness easing my skin which is warmed by the high sun.” Eveline drew in a breathe. “When I arrive upon the island I am met by a tall and ancient tree, its branches are so wide and thick that they almost touch the shore.” Galean smiled at the memory of the island and how she so perfectly described the tree of life. “Under the tree is a very old throne, made of roots, how I’m not sure but it is, this I promise.”

  “I believe you,” Galean muttered.

  “I am always entranced by the throne feeling a connection to it, however illogical that may sound. Many times I simply sit beside it feeling as though I had been there before in a different life.” Galean sighed, remembering the first time he had laid eyes on the Celestine, now Eveline. She had been wrapped up in the arms
of her dead mother, crying, her golden eyes filled with sadness. Theodore had buried the King and Queen whilst Galean nursed the baby in his arms, singing to her softly, her tiny index finger wrapped about his own. He opened his eyes and looked down at Eveline, his hold on her tightening slightly with care. He had felt an instant connection to the child that had lain within his arms, her cheeks plump and her eyes red with tears. “It sounds silly I know but I feel a terrible pain in my heart when I sit at the foot of the throne.”

  “It doesn’t sound silly to me.”

  “It should,” Eveline chuckled deeply. “Then the dream always ends.”

  “Are all your dreams the same?”

  “No, they are made up of different scenes from a world so alike that they seem connected to one another,” Eveline said with mystified eyes. “That night that you found me I had had a very strange occurrence.”

  “What happened?”

  “I awoke from a nightmare and found this small ball of golden light hovering before my bed,” Eveline whispered not wanting anyone close by to hear, fearing they would deem her insane.

  “It was a dream?”

  “No it was real,” Eveline said turning her eyes to him. “I got out of my bed and went to stand before it but then it moved and I found myself following it out of my room, down the corridor and stairs till I stood before the cottage door. Then it disappeared through the door and so I had to open it and follow it down the garden path. And then something altogether strange happened.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was guided down to the shores of the lake and stopped before the water, but the ball of light kept moving until it hovered over the centre of the lake, bidding me to follow but I could not, for I cannot walk on water,” Eveline said with wide eyes. “But then it came to me and pushed be onto the water where indeed I did find myself walking upon it. Finally I came to stand at the centre of the lake and the ball of light suddenly turned into a door.”