by Marian Tee
She said awkwardly, “Yes.” Turning on her side to avoid his gaze, she murmured, “Ilie…may I ask a question?”
“What is it?”
“I am your only heartkeeper, am I not? I mean, I’m the only one who could be?” She felt his hand on her head still.
After a moment, he said, “Of course.”
CHAPTER TEN
When Soleil woke up the next day, there was no sign of the marquis ever being in her room except for a handwritten note on her bedside table. His handwriting was bold and elegant, just like the man himself.
Always a thought away.
Yours,
Ilie Marcovici
As soon as she had read it, she heard his voice in her mind, almost like he had been there the entire time, guarding over Soleil in her sleep. Good morning, ma lisse.
She couldn’t help blushing at hearing it. The words felt forbidden and intimate, but even so, she stammered, G-good morning.
I apologize for not being there, but I had to make haste for Brimstone.
Soleil was instantly worried. Why? What for?
To recuperate. I am not at my strongest and I worry that if I stay there, it would draw even more attention to you. I do not want you to encounter trouble while I am too weak.
I see. She bit her lip. How long do you think that would take?
It is hard to tell, but I beg of you---
What?
Do not miss me too much.
She said feelingly, Jerk.
He laughed. You are too easy to vex.
Hmph!
Now, now, ma lisse. Do not hate me too much or I will not be able to share with you my good news.
Fine, you’re forgiven, she said with ill grace. Now, tell me your good news.
It is the other reason why I am here in Brimstone. I have commissioned a ring for your finger.
Oh.
Oh!
I d-don’t know what to say. It was true. She hadn’t even allowed herself to think that otherworlders like Ilie would know, much less care, about such traditions.
It will be a ring that only you possess, for the gemstone being crafted as we speak is one that belongs only to the royal family of Lunare. It is befitting for a remarkably unique girl like my heartkeeper.
Oh.
Oh!
Do you know, she whispered, I would have never imagined you could be so impossibly sweet.
There was a pause before the marquis said, I’m certain you mean well, milady, but your words make me sound like a…boy who had just pleased his Mama.
Oops. Swallowing back a giggle at the faint distaste in his voice, she said, Sorry.
He sighed. You could have simply gushed about my manhood, you know.
Milord!
Another sigh. Ilie, ma lisse. Can you not be more used to calling me that?
She bit her lip. I’ll t-try. Ilie.
Thank you…Soleil.
Her toes curled hard. Oh dear God, how was it that simply hearing the marquis murmur her name was such an undeniable pleasure?
Even after mentally bidding each other farewell, the pleasure remained with her. In the shower, it was the same, Soleil unable to stop replaying the sound of his voice in her mind.
And so it continued for the rest of her morning. Over breakfast or while riding the carriage to ANEX, her thoughts were completely consumed by the marquis.
She only consciously pushed them to the back of her mind when she entered Crystal’s office. This woman deserved her complete attention above all else.
“I owe you my life, Crystal.” Soleil hugged the older woman tightly. “I don’t know how to make it up to you, but whatever you need, I promise…”
Crystal drew away laughingly as Soleil sniffed back her tears. “Is this really you, blubbering like a fool?” But her misty gaze was proof that she wasn’t as unaffected as she pretended to be. Waving to the couch, she said, “Go sit down and tell me how it happened.”
“What do you want to know?”
Taking out several canisters from her cupboard, Crystal said, “The heartkeeping, for one. I thought you were against it?”
“I was.”
Crystal nodded understandingly. Any kind of union with a demon was detestable, after all. “Then you tricked the demon into it?”
“Oh, no. I d-didn’t have to. You see, at first, I had planned to die rather than trap the marquis into a forced union with me. But then when I lay dying in his arms, he told me…he loved me.”
Crystal stilled. “And you believed him?”
“Not just that,” Soleil said shyly. “Actually, I love him, too, and…w-we want you to be our godmother in our wedding, if you are fine with that.” She bit her lip. “I know you do not think much about his kind, but he is only half-demon---”
Crystal’s fingers shook as she reached for another canister in the cupboard, one that was hidden all the way in the back, behind taller jars and bottles.
“And if you give him a chance, I truly believe you will see he is not that…bad,” Soleil finished awkwardly. She held her breath when Crystal turned towards her, bearing a tray of drinks, and exhaled in relief when she saw the resigned smile on the older woman’s face.
“If it is what you say…” Crystal sat down across her and offered Soleil a cup of tea. “Then perhaps I do need to meet him.”
“You’ll like him,” Soleil said earnestly. “I’m sure of it.” After taking a sip of her sea, she lowered the cup back to the table, asking slowly, “But you know…you never did tell me how you managed to acquire the knowledge about my curse.”
“I made a trade.” Crystal’s tone was light. “Of useless things that I hold on to but have little value in the world.” Before Soleil could ask more questions, her former instructor changed the subject, asking about her thoughts on Zari.
Over an hour had passed by the time Soleil left Crystal’s office, her mood even better because now she had secured the older woman’s promise to give Ilie a chance. Everything was going so smoothly, it was almost scary. She pinched her own cheeks, just to be sure she hadn’t lost herself in another nightmare, and was reassured by the pain she felt.
She went to Zari’s dormitory next. Knocking on the girl’s door, she said, “Zari?”
“Soleil?” The door opened completely. “Please come in.”
Once inside her student’s bedroom, she looked around her in appreciation. “You’ve got a good eye for decorating, Zari.”
“Thank you.” Zari smiled widely. “I heard congratulations are in order.”
She blushed. “I didn’t realize news could travel so fast.” She paused then reached for the girl’s hand, squeezing it as she said feelingly, “Thank you for your warning. You were completely right. It made me think of the right place to die, and who knows? Maybe if I hadn’t chosen that place, things would have been different---”
Zari was visibly bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“The shade of blue you saw in your vision,” Soleil reminded her. “Do you remember now? All those blue shades? I was in such a room last night, but the curse was thankfully lifted.” She squeezed Zari’s hand again. “So thank you.”
“I’m g-glad to help.”
Soleil’s smile faded. “You don’t sound like it, though.” In fact, Zari’s face appeared too pale, she realized. Elation over last night’s events completely forgotten, Soleil slid into teacher mode and asked in concern, “Are you alright? Do you feel anything?”
“It’s not that.” Zari shook head. “It’s just…I messed up. I thought you knew, or I thought I told you. I---” She bit her lip.
Unease skittered down her spine. “What is it?”
Zari inhaled sharply. “In my vision, there was nothing about a curse, Soleil. There was just you, fighting for your life, because someone – and not a curse – was trying to kill you.”
* * *
To treat every threat like it was real, to never assume anything was a lie or a truth, to always search for clues---
These were som
e of the first rules she had learned when studying in ANEX. These were rules responsible for keeping Soleil and her team alive, and she would never risk breaking any of them. Lives depended on her, too many of them, and no risk was too little to take when it came to saving and losing lives.
But if it was only Soleil’s own life concerned---
Perhaps it was because she felt giddy and overwhelmed by her first taste of love, Soleil found herself breaking all the golden rules with Zari’s warning. It was possible for soul seers to be wrong, couldn’t it? After all, only God was perfect, only God who was omniscient.
And so she decided to ignore Zari’s words of caution even though they never stopped to niggle at the back of her mind. Despite this, Soleil still couldn’t concentrate on anything but the soul seer’s warning. She thought about it over dinner, thought about it while chatting with Ilie in her mind, thought about it while she tossed and turned on her bed, feeling like she was missing something so obvious.
Will you just sleep, the marquis growled in Solei’s mind. I can hear you thinking all the way from here.
Then it’s a good thing you’re not here, she returned, or else you’d be deaf by now. She rolled her eyes. Grumpy, ancient---
I can hear you, milady.
Attractive, intelligent---
Ilie chuckled. It almost rhymes perfectly, I will give you that.
She blurted out, I miss you. But actually what she wanted to say was, Come back to me now. Because without Ilie by her side, the world was just a little bit darker, drearier, and scarier, especially when the soul seer’s vision continued to play in her mind.
I miss you, too.
She drew a shaky breath and willed her tears to go away. Come back soon.
I will.
And then the connection between them slowly faded.
She, too, slowly drifted to sleep, only to hear someone rousing her.
“Wake up, Soleil! Wake up!”
It was Aurora, calling out from below her window. Her red hair was wet a straggling, and her blue dress created a puddle of water around her bare feet.
Wide-awake now, she threw the window open and said urgently, “Come back inside---”
Aurora shook her head and interrupted her, saying, “No, you have to be the one to come out. I need to show you something, and we don’t have much time.” There was a crazed look in her sister’s eyes as she gestured for Soleil to come down. “Come on, hurry!”
Sliding her feet into her slippers, she hurried down the stairs and opened the front door. “Won’t you dry yourself first---”
Despite the shivers racking her body, Aurora still shook her head. “Let’s go,” she insisted between chattering teeth.
“But Aurora---” Her senses prickled as she stared at her sister. Something was wrong with Aurora, Soleil thought. But what?
Aurora’s brown eyes blazed. “Are you going to leave me here to freeze to death?”
And finally, Soleil realized what was bothering her---
Aurora’s still dripping gown…was made of blue silk.
She swallowed. “Aurora?”
“What?” Aurora stomped her foot in annoyance. “Are you coming or what?”
Staring at her sister, Soleil heard herself ask, “Why is your gown wet?”
Aurora laughed, answering lightly, “Would you believe me if I told you it was because I fell into the ocean?”
“I see.” Soleil forced herself to laugh even as words of the soul seer’s vision flashed in her mind.
Blue.
The shade of her death.
Blue---
Like the sound of the ocean with its crashing waves, like silk tainted with evil and tarnished dreams---
Soleil said quietly, “You’re not Aurora.”
Even if this woman looked and sounded like Aurora, this person was not her sister.
In front of Soleil, the person masquerading as Aurora became deadly still.
“You found me out sooner than I thought you would.”
Before Soleil could answer, icy fingers gripped her wrist.
“I taught you very well, indeed.”
Soleil jerked. That voice---
The woman looked down.
When she looked up again, she no longer looked like Aurora.
This time, the woman looked like Crystal but not as Soleil had ever seen her.
Her hair had turned completely white, and her skin was oddly pale. Her lips were a ghastly shade of blue, her eyes red-rimmed. She looked…like how Soleil imagined a wraith would be.
A knife appeared in the air, and Soleil caught sight of her face on its shiny surface---
Blue, like her dying, haunted eyes---
The knife went down.
Soleil screamed, but instead of the knife finding its way to her heart it went completely past her.
It was as if Crystal was trying to cut something behind her.
She turned around and gasped when she saw that she was still on the bed, and a thread that seemed to sparkle with every color connected her two bodies.
Instinctively, she tried stopping Crystal from cutting the thread, but it was too late.
The thread snapped.
An invisible force swept into the house out of nowhere, sucking Soleil out of it.
The rest of the soul seer’s words echoed in her mind.
Don’t fall.
Don’t fall.
Don’t fall.
But she was already falling.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
An endless canvas of silvery white blankness spread out behind them, while in front of Soleil and Crystal was her bedroom. In it, she was still lying on the bed, pale and unmoving like a corpse.
Her family and the marquis stared down at her, grim-faced.
“Is it the curse?” the baron asked tautly.
Ilie shook his head. “No. This has a different taint to it.” He picked up her wrist, but the faint pulse offered only the smallest assurance. “She’s alive, but barely.” His jaw hardened. “Whoever did it is still here. Somehow, he or she is watching us. I can smell its scent.”
“How clever of him.” Crystal’s blue lips formed a smile that was almost eerily beautiful.
Almost, Soleil thought. Forcing her fears down, she managed to ask, “Why are you doing this, Crystal?”
The older woman sighed. “I am unutterably shamed, my dear. So very shamed, to hear you talk and know that I was like you once, concerned about the whys and the hows when we should always focus on the whats and the whos.”
She shook her skirts dry, continuing in an admonishing tone, “Your first question should have been, Where am I? What do you intend to do with me?” Her disapproving gaze settled on Soleil. “Protect yourself first, you foolish child.”
She gestured to their surroundings. “But since you won’t ask, I shall volunteer the information. This, my dear, is the world the nymphs and satyrs used to inhabit.”
“The woods?”
“No, no, that is merely a gateway, but one that has been closed and will remain so until the four horsemen unlocks it. Until then, this world, with all its beauty and magic, will continue to languish, inhabited only by those able to cross over.” When she saw Soleil’s eyes widen in understanding, Crystal’s smile widened into a grin. “Yes. You guessed right. I am dead.”
Soleil had been expecting that, but even so she couldn’t stop herself from sucking her breath at the confirmation. “I’m sorry.”
Crystal’s lips pursed. “There you go again, foolishly thinking about me when you should worry over yourself more.”
Ah. Soleil inhaled deeply, telling herself that she should remain calm in case the worst was true. “Then…am I dead?”
“It will depend on a few things, but alas, we are getting ahead of ourselves.”
A golden wingback chair appeared out of nowhere, and Soleil found herself falling on it. A moment later, she found her hands tied to the armrests and her feet bound together.
Her eyes widened with fear,
but Crystal murmured soothingly, “It’s alright, child. I only want you comfortable while I entertain you with a tale.” She waved a hand, and the scene of Soleil’s bedroom crumbled and faded, replaced by another scene. It materialized ever so slowly, like a puzzle coming into life.
The Woods of the Wraiths, Soleil realized.
“Once upon a time, there was a woman named Crystal, who only knew grief and anger.” As Crystal spoke, the scene played out like her words were a narration for a movie.
“In time, she might have taken her life because it had been so agonizingly empty. But fate intervened. She met a cursed child, and Crystal found something to live for.”
A fifteen-year-old Soleil appeared on the scene.
“She dedicated her life to teaching this child to be strong and finding a cure to her curse. Crystal wanted this girl to live, the way her son hadn’t a chance to. Years passed, and still death appeared to have the winning hand. And so she gambled on something unheard of. She went to the Woods of the Wraiths and tried to make a bargain.”
The scene changed, an older Crystal appearing as she knelt on the ground.
“She believed that the Wraiths would know something, having witnessed how the girl was abandoned by her demon sire. And it turns out she was right. The Wraiths had indeed seen how the curse was made and knew as well how to break it. The knowledge was hers…in exchange for her heart.”
Soleil’s lips parted in silent horror when she saw a wraith creep out of a trunk, crawling up Crystal’s body before sinking her sharp, grimy clawed fingers into her chest. The wraith drew out Crystal’s heart without leaving the smallest wound. As Crystal’s chest closed, the wraith took the heart into her mouth and began to chew.
“And so Crystal was able to save her beloved student, but in return she realized she also had to suffer losing her son all over her again.”
The scene crumbled into nothing, and now all Soleil could see was just an endless sheet of silvery white blankness.
Crystal had also disappeared.
“C-Crystal?”
“Boo.”
The coldly smiling voice was like an invisible slap to her ears, and Soleil jerked in her chair.
Crystal reappeared in front of her.
“Sorry. I just wanted to give you a shock.” She sighed. “How you are feeling now is how I felt when I realized that I no longer felt a thing when I think of my son.” Crystal touched her heart. “With this gone, I simply do not feel a thing. I try and try, thinking about our sweetest memories such as when my son brought me flowers to make me smile but the memories mean nothing---”