XIII: Roads
Yours, Andreas.
Rose finished reading the letter and let her hand fall limply to her side, dizzy with shock. The hallway seemed to darken, receding into the distance. Only the papers clutched in her hand seemed real.
Gradually, she became aware once more of the red-garbed figure beside her. In a daze, she stared at the sleeve of Costellic’s uniform, a solitary splotch of brightness in the colourless corridor. At her side, her fingers shook, the papers rustling jerkily. She squeezed them together.
"Did you read this?" she asked when she finally found her voice. “I … I knew he’d talk to me eventually, but I didn’t expect … when I said what I said yesterday … I wasn’t ready to hear from him …”
She broke off, blinking through tears.
She knew then she had wanted to hear from him.
Telyra had let her live. Her first speech in the great hall had been a betrayal. Her second in Harmony had been an apology, not just to the people and to herself—but to him. The knowledge gushed with her tears, a dam bursting.
"No,” came Costellic’s soft voice beside her.
“What?”
“No. I didn't break the seal. Didn't you notice?"
She passed it to him. "I know now why Andreas Telyra didn't kill me … Read it.”
Dear Rose;
I address you today not as a lord, but as a man, to entreat you for a parley.
I have ruled for twenty-two years. In this time I have been a participant in monstrous bloodshed. There have been many justifications for the ongoing feud between our two families. You share in those justifications now. I have killed your father. I have also killed your brother. I do not apologize for my actions, but I am sorry for your pain.
I want to share with you the essential conflict of my life.
Twenty-two years ago, I found myself alone in the woods beside the Wall. I remember nothing of how I came to be there. It was then that my circlet came to me.
Perhaps you also find yourself missing some time from your life recently. Perhaps you also woke up terrified and alone, with nothing but a blind fear suffusing your soul. And then, just as my circlet came to me, yours found you.
Whatever our circlets are … they are not cold pieces of metal but living, thinking things. My circlet has the ability to move of its own accord and a magnetism that draws it to me as inevitably as a river to the sea. If I throw it from me, it returns. It always finds its way home. I expect yours does the same.
We’ve been raised to accept the bizarre behaviour of these objects on faith—even though they disobey the basic tenants of the universe. Are you okay with that …? Because I’m not. The belief that these circlets bestow on our respective lineages some gods-given right to rule—exclusive and non-transferable—has driven our people to insanity. But I believe the circlets hold a nefarious purpose of their own.
Malek Loren was not, to my understanding, a bloodthirsty man. He believed in his heart (as my own mother did) that he was doing right by his people. He believed me a tyrant, that it was his duty to protect his populace and pass on the glory of his birthright. For my part, I'd have given him my half of Talystasia, were I not so disgusted by the economic policies that have kept his people—now yours—in rags and starving in the streets.
I have never, and will never, accept this bloody war of retribution. I have no ambition, nor am I an idealist. I cherish the memory of my mother, but I understand the part her actions played in her death. I have nothing driving me to fight but a black rage and a lust for blood. For most of my rule, I have slaked my violence and my lust on your father's soldiers on the battlefield and his citizens in their homes, because he gave me the excuse. I reached a point three years ago where I could no longer accept that—and so I proposed a truce to stop this vile war and the waste of so many lives.
Your father accepted that truce … and broke it.
I am the last of my degenerate line. Please believe that if I were to conceive a child, I would murder that brat in its mother's womb rather than risk the slightest possibility of its survival. Everything inside me since the day I inherited this accursed thing drives me to rape and kill. I abhor destruction, and yet I relish it, and I think this circlet or whatever created it is desperate for me to produce an heir so the atrocities can continue unchecked for all of time. I won’t let it. One way or another, this ends with me.
The other night, I spared your life and line. Genocide hung in the balance with my soul. I had a chance to be free of this conflict—but at what price? Could I carry on my conscience that I had done this thing to appease the appetite of the scourge on my head? It was too much. I chose to ride away with what’s left of my soul intact.
These past three years have been extremely taxing. If I cannot exorcize this ... emotional pain ... that I carry, it threatens to overwhelm me. I cannot convey to you the relief—the release—that violence creates in me. Without a regular outlet for my rage, I can barely control myself. I feel the psychosis growing in me, and myself receding.
Still, I do not regret the truce, nor my act of defiance in sparing your life the other night—and I believe I have the capacity to maintain that truce for the rest of my life, and never kill another man, woman or child under your reign. Such is my hate, against this circlet and this war, and my pledge to you, should you choose to accept it.
But I fear ... that without an outlet for my bloodlust, I will lose control, and I will kill someone.
I don't want to be manipulated anymore. I want to be free; truly free. I want answers.
So do the Elders. They came to me, the night your father broke our treaty. They told me that we are at a threshold, that the supernatural evil I believe compels our affairs is now affecting theirs. They repeated the old decree, “No evil may enter the forest,” and told me that our blood has become poison to them when spilled on the earth. I was moved by their urgency. And the fact that your father chose that night to end our truce? It is hard for me not to find that remarkable. We are at a turning point, just as the Elders predicted.
There is more. You will find enclosed meteorological charts that correlate to chief battles over the past two decades. You will see that in conjunction with each, there has been a formidable squall—easy to miss in a climate such as ours, but I am an observant man. I think you will agree it is statistically anomalous.
I believe that something supernatural drives us onto the field. Not idealism, honour, righteous vengeance or bloodlust. There may be some intelligence at work. Perhaps that invisible participant supplies those motives to us—through these circlets.
I do not trust that thing on your head. I think you want the same things I do, but I think that thing on your head wants you to stay ignorant and distracted. I believe ... given time, it will find a way to warp your goodness and twist it towards its own ends—as it did your father, and slowly, you will lose yourself, whether through ignorance, as Malek did, or through blind rage, as I do.
Whatever this evil is, you and I are the principle instruments through which it acts. Without us here to carry out its agenda, it will encounter obstacles. At least, that is my theory. As bloodthirsty as many of our citizens are, they respect (or fear, at the very least) the authority of the circlets. Human beings excel at blind obedience. Let’s use that to our advantage.
My proposal to you is that since we cannot remove the circlets, that we both remove ourselves instead, as soon as possible, and set out in search of any answers we can find. Unfortunately many of the answers we seek are probably here—but if we remain, you may soon unearth your own motives for war, and the cycle will repeat. This may be an empty pursuit, but at least for the time being we will disrupt the cycle. That alone is worth it.
I'd like to meet with you to discuss this further. Or, preferably, in order to depart on our separate journeys. I would invite you to travel together, but I think the results would be … unpredictable. You and I have been deprived of the lives we really wanted. This is our chance to stri
ke back—together.
I do this with no expectations, and if you choose to dismiss my hopes, I again offer you my pledge of peace without rancour—despite the pain it will most certainly cause me. But I beg you to do this thing. If you do not, you will most certainly become controlled, a pawn in this unnatural war and the continuing suffering of all the souls in our city. And if you resist, as I have, you will find your own personal torments deepening, turning inward and betraying those closest you. You too, will lose control of your pain.
Just as you were at my mercy the other night, I am now at yours. My life, Roselia Loren, is in your hands.
Please send back my messenger promptly with your reply. Show my letter to no one you do not trust. I think it is best we keep our intentions between us.
I spared your life; I mean you well.
Yours,
Andreas
… Costellic guffawed, abrupt in the silence.
Rose started, staring at him. His laughter felt like a knife twisting in her gut.
"He thinks he's possessed!" he exclaimed, wiping tears of hilarity out of his eyes. "Someone's got to be having you on. No way is this real!"
"But look at the seal!" She indicated the blue wax imprint in the shape of a "T" with a sword thrust through it, her happy tears turning to outrage. Does he think I’m stupid …?
"So? Anyone could duplicate that seal."
"But Costellic! He knows! And it's true! His circlet is the same as mine, I knew it! Father told me that Telyra’s was fake, but it isn’t, it's identical! It doesn’t come off; he can’t abdicate! Just as we guessed!"
"Anyone could infer that too, even without firsthand knowledge. The Telyras have alternately alleged and denied for centuries that the circlets have an abundance of extraordinary and improbable powers. So have the Lorens. Your father …” He shrugged. “We’ve talked about your father. He denied that particular property. He lied. Others before him have told the truth. So someone pulled a fact out of the rumour mill. It happens.”
"Hah, well, how did he know about my amnesia? I didn't tell anybody but you about that night. And Father never told me about anything like that, but maybe it happened to him too ... maybe it's happened to every ruler in Talystasia. Like ... an initiation or something."
"... Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say Telyra did write this letter. What makes you think he isn't simply trying to lure you out of the city?"
He spared my life … he means me well.
She could almost bring herself to believe it—of all the terrible lies that had surfaced over the past week, here perhaps was one shining truth: she’d also been lied to about Andreas Telyra … all her life. Only last night, staring through the darkness at the Wall, she’d wondered whether he could possibly understand what she was going through. And at that very moment, he might have been penning this letter.
“He had his shot at me. He didn’t take it,” she pointed out.
"Fine. Then he's insane, paranoid and delusional.”
"Why?" she demanded furiously.
Costellic skimmed the letter and read back, “‘But I believe the circlets hold a nefarious purpose of their own ... Everything inside me since the day I inherited this accursed thing drives me to rape and kill ... I believe that something supernatural drives us onto the field ... . There may be some intelligence at work. Perhaps that invisible participant supplies those motives to us—through these circlets.’” He paused, flipping the pages. “… And oh yes, here’s another winner. 'I do not trust that thing on your head. I think you want the same things I do, but I think that thing on your head wants you to stay ignorant and distracted …'" He looked up at her exasperatedly, crumpling the pages in his hands. “Come on.”
She shook her head, backing away.
“Besides, what’s this ‘I will kill someone’ bit? Telyra isn’t a man to balk at murder. Telyra is a killer.”
“I don’t know.”
"Why do you so desperately want to believe in this letter? Lord Telyra isn't possessed by an evil diadem, and neither are you; he's just ... evil."
"He saved my life."
"No, he didn't kill you. It isn't the same thing."
"—And what's the difference? Between you and him—? Or what he did for me and what I did for you? Does that not count?"
For a long moment, he said nothing. He was heaving for breath, his lips curled back from his teeth in an apoplectic sneer.
He stamped his foot. "I ... have nothing in common with him, and neither do you."
"I think you do. I think we both do."
"Why do you need to believe in him?"
"I need to believe in me."
"This son of a bitch killed your father and brother—"
"... No," she declared quietly but firmly through her misery. "... They killed themselves. They forced his hand."
"YOU'RE NOTHING LIKE HIM!" Costellic bellowed.
"But ... I am." Snatching the letter out of his hands, she scanned it frenetically.
"Here," she said when she could speak again. "'… a blind fear suffusing your soul ...' I'm in pain, Lieutenant, so much pain. Emotional pain. I’m scared … and angry … and I miss myself. You don't know what I've been living with ... I know exactly the feeling he means. About being possessed! Different somehow. Like part of me isn't myself anymore. I thought ... I thought I was going mad, but I'm not, I'm not. To hear someone say it …"
"It’s not just what it says, it’s how he sounds—"
"Costellic! Costellic, I don't want to do this." She grabbed at the circlet, upsetting her veil. "This isn't right, it isn't good, I don't want this thing. I don’t want my life to dissolve into this perpetual, mindless waste. I want to fight. Not him, this, this thing that’s taking over my life. ‘If Lord Telyra gives us a chance, I think we should give him one.’ My words, yesterday. Are you with me ...?"
He eyed the floor, his shoulders slumping. "I won't let you do this," he sighed half-heartedly.
"Won't let me—" she began in ire.
"That's not what I meant," he interrupted. "I just don't trust him. Please ..."
"I ... don't either."
She exhaled, Telyra’s own self-assessment ringing in her head.
A good man? Who am I kidding.
"He is still evil. Besides ... like you said, this could all be some sort of a diversion, some sort of a trap. I'm a fool ... I just want to talk with him. God, so many lies ... my father ..."
"No." Costellic chuckled bitterly under his breath. "... You're going to pack your bags."
"I just want to talk," she insisted, but his words sent a thrill down her spine. I knew there was something more to Telyra ... to this city …
He sighed again. "I'm coming with you. You’re not going anywhere near that lunatic alone."
"Good! I don’t want to! Wait a second ..." She muttered, re-reading the last lines of the letter. "'... Send back my messenger ...' What messenger?"
Costellic opened his mouth and then groaned.
"What?"
"Shit," he said. "I grabbed the letter off some girl. On our way back from Harmony. I thought nothing of it."
"I want to talk to her.”
"Why?"
"Information.”
"Good enough reason ... She was a slave; the gate guard will have stopped her for questioning on her way out. If she left. If she’s still waiting for your answer, she won’t have gone far. We’ll find her."
"Great. That's excellent."
Costellic straightened his uniform. "I suggest you check the records in the library to confirm his accounts.” He snorted. “Evil weather … But who am I to argue? That … thing,” he paused self-consciously, quirking his mouth in black amusement, “on your head … is supernatural in at least one way, after all.”
“Father … made a comment before he died. It was just an aside, but … he remarked that we live in the real world.”
“In reference to …?”
“Just something silly I said about Telyra.�
�� She looked down at the floor. “The real world’s not what I thought it was.”
“You don’t appear possessed to me, my Lady, but the circlet is evil—that much I’ll grant.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It disregards your choice! That thing is as much a threat to your real sovereignty as your uncle was. We’ve got to figure out a way to get it off of you. If Telyra’s right … well, it’s something.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” She smiled ironically.
“Maybe so. After all, Telyra himself holds less sway over your life than that crown. Good luck; I’ll be back shortly."
~~~
It was voices that woke her, voices that sounded different from the jeering and catcalls of her neighbours. Groggily, Julia opened her eyes and sat up. Through the small, high window near the ceiling, she could see the evening sky. Her body was numb; she must’ve been sleeping after all.
“… improvements since the last sanitation report …”
One of the guards was strolling backwards, gesticulating toward the cells, speaking loudly. He was followed by a shorter man, also in uniform, who was openly ignoring him in favour of his tall companion, to whom he was chatting animatedly. His light blond hair was cut short, his uniform quite fancy.
With a start, she recognized him. She sat up to shout, but there was no need; the guard was already opening the door to her cell with a jangle of keys, showing the officer and his associate inside.
The woman was laughing somewhat tentatively—and now Julia recognized her too.
Lady Loren.
She stooped when she entered, presumably so her voluminous black curls would clear the doorframe. On her head was a familiar object—a plain, unadorned gold circlet, a perfect counterpart to Lord Telyra's, but lovingly polished where he’d long ago let his go to rust. Her poofy black gown was richly brocaded in wavy patterns, but sensible and subdued for all that. When she straightened, Julia saw that she was almost awkwardly tall, but moved with the ease of a person long accustomed to doing so a head above everyone else.
Talystasia: A Faerytale Page 30