by Kristal Lim
There was pain, so much pain that it filled the whole world. He thought he heard screams; Raven's normally cool voice sounding ragged and raw as he called Meran's name; someone shouting like a madwoman, "You're not real! You're not here! He made me kill you!" But the pain was too great and, soon, everything else just faded away and all he could see was darkness. Then, flashes of light appeared before his eyes and he saw a beautiful face peering down at him with curiosity but no concern. Then there was more pain as something in his chest burned and he felt like he was on fire.
Trevor woke up screaming, his chest heaving and laboring for breath. His entire body was slick with sweat and his thrashing had thrown off the blankets covering him. For a minute, he thought that it had all been a nightmare and he was safely in his bed. But as his eyes became accustomed to the dim, smoky light, he saw that he was in a strange room roughly carved out of gray rock. He was lying on top of a hard rectangular block of white, translucent stone with a glow that was slowly fading away by the second as his most recent memories came back to him. "Oh, God," he gasped in horror and sat up when he remembered that Aline had stabbed him in the heart. His hands frantically examined his chest for the gaping wound he expected to find.
"There is no wound. Not even a scar. You've been healed completely." Raven appeared out of the shadows and approached Trevor. His handsome face was not as smooth as before and he carried himself like a man who had suddenly been burdened by the weight of the world. For a second, Trevor almost didn't recognize him because he looked so somber.
"Meran? How is she? She was hurt." Fear filled him completely. Was Raven looking so terrible because Meran was–he could not bear to consider the possibility.
"She has been healed of her wound as well," Raven said to Trevor's great relief. "The knife Aline used was made of sky iron, so it very nearly poisoned her, but I was able to help her in time."
"Thank God." He suddenly breathed easier. Then his brow puckered. "Wait. She used the same knife on me, too. But it didn't poison me or anything, right? Since I haven't stayed in the Strangelands as long as Meran has. So I'm completely fine, right?" He just wanted to hear Raven reassure him of that fact.
However, Raven didn't look at all reassuring. In fact, the other man took his time before answering Trevor's question. And he spoke very gently, as if he didn't want Trevor to be frightened.
"You," he faltered for a moment before he went on, "You died." Then he watched Trevor very carefully.
"Wh-what?" Trevor tried to laugh. "You've got to be kidding. What do you mean I died? I'm here talking to you right now, totally fine."
Raven took a deep breath before he launched into an explanation of what had happened. "My brother knew I was helping you. So as soon as I got him alone on a pretext of wanting to talk to him, he tricked me and captured me, and then had his guards lead me away. Then I heard Aline start screaming like a madwoman and I managed to escape from my captors in time to see that Meran had been injured and you were dying. I got us out of that ballroom by using a nearby pathway then slipped through another one until we came to my mother's castle where I was able to heal Meran. You, however, were already dead when we finally got to safety. But my mother arrived then and offered her help. I'm no good at resurrection magicks, so I had no choice but to accept her assistance."
"And?" Trevor prompted. "There's something you're not telling me. There's more, isn't there? Spit it out!" He was on the verge of breaking down, but he somehow managed to retain some control over himself.
Raven looked almost sorry as he gazed at Trevor. "You died in the Strangelands, and you were resurrected in the Strangelands. You are one of its creatures now. You can never go home again. Being in the mortal world will kill you."
Trevor was silent for several minutes, simply staring at Raven's face and waiting for the other man to say something, anything, that would give him some hope that his situation wasn't hopeless. But Raven just stared back at him levelly, waiting in turn for Trevor to accept the truth. "Get out," Trevor finally said after a long while. "Just get out."
Raven nodded and disappeared without another word.
Trevor sat, his eyes unseeing as he tried to absorb the enormity of Raven's news. He had died and then he had been resurrected. Because of that, he could never go back to his life, his world. He would have to stay here, in this beautiful and dangerous place where nothing made any sense, if he wanted to keep breathing. Suddenly, he laughed. The whole thing was so absurd. He laughed and laughed until his laughter turned into sobs. But he never even realized that he was already crying. His despair utterly consumed him.
This was what he got for trying to find the missing part of himself. He had spent most of his life thinking that if he could only figure out what was lacking in him, then he'd be able to make sense out of things and finally even be happy without any holding back or reservations. But where did he actually end up in his search? For all intents and purposes, he was just a ghost now. He could never return to the world where he belonged and he knew he could never live in this new one. Raven's mother just wasted her power bringing him back to life. He should have just stayed dead.
How could he help anyone now? He came here thinking he could rescue a girl he didn't even remember while hoping she would give him a reason for why he had felt so incomplete. But that girl didn't even exist anymore. She was just a corrupted shadow of the person she had been. The years she had been forced to become someone's idea of a perfect love had driven her insane. She was not the Aline he had held in his arms, the one he had kissed and spun dreams about when he was younger. She was not the brave girl who had decided to sacrifice her own life so he could live all those years ago.
It took a while, but as Trevor went through the memories he held close to his heart, recalling each one with a piercing clarity that he had never possessed before, he gradually came to realize one soul-shattering truth: he remembered.
"Oh, my God," he exclaimed in shock. He was assaulted immediately by a great rush of memories once he let the floodgates in the dark corners of his mind swing fully open. He remembered everything that had happened seven years ago. Everything.
Moving with a purpose now, he got off the stone he had been lying on. He was only wearing pants, but he found his bloodied shirt and his shoes on the floor, thrown aside carelessly in haste as he was resurrected no doubt. After a second's hesitation, he put these on before leaving the room. There was a wooden door set in a far corner and, when he opened it, he was somewhat surprised to see finely-carved steps leading a long way upwards. There were torches on the walls, so he could see clearly, and he quickly started climbing up, hoping that he would be able to find Raven or Meran at the end. Since Raven had mentioned earlier that he had taken them to his mother's castle, then Trevor was quite confident they'd be upstairs somewhere.
Another wooden door waited for him once he reached the very top, except that this one had engravings of gold and silver that he supposed were charms or incantations since they resembled a form of writing. Fully expecting the door to be locked, he nevertheless tried pushing against it and was surprised to find that it opened quite easily. Cautiously, he studied the empty corridor that stretched out before him. It had no windows that allowed him to guess what time it was, but there were crystalline torches that illuminated the way. So he continued walking, hoping that he would eventually stumble into another door or, better yet, someone he knew. He must have walked for a very long time, but there seemed to be no end to the corridor in sight. It was beginning to frustrate him and he was seriously considering screaming out Raven and Meran's names so they would know he was looking for them when, in the distance, a faint white glow appeared.
The glow became brighter and brighter, and he saw that it was actually a ball of light that was speedily moving towards him. For an instant, he thought about turning on his heels and running because his experiences with strange mysterious things so far had not proven to be very good for his health. But the glow, as if sensing his fear, just moved faster until it be
came a blinding blur that filled the entire corridor then, before he could let out a cry, it struck him. Time seemed to stand still, then the world shifted on its side and he was suddenly standing in a luxurious dining room lit by gold sparkles captured in crystal globes that hung lazily in the air. The table before him was laid out with an otherworldly feast that looked and smelled incredibly tempting, but the occupants of the room were completely ignoring the bounty spread out in front of them.
Raven and an unbelievably beautiful woman with black hair and amber eyes that resembled his were seated on opposite ends of the long table, glaring at each other. At the middle of the table, and right across from where Trevor was standing, sat Meran, looking both apprehensive and irritated as her head whipped back and forth between her two dining companions. Raven and the woman, whom Trevor recognized as the one he had met in the park back when he was mercifully ignorant of his past, were apparently in the middle of an argument.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe if you had simply said, 'Raven, come home because your brother has gone insane and is threatening to plunge the Kingdom into war' instead of sending hounds to hunt me down, then I might have been more cooperative?" Raven was saying, his normally pale face now looking quite flushed with anger.
"Ha!" the woman snorted, managing to express the utmost scorn in that one little sound. "You have made it quite clear over the centuries that you care nothing for the welfare of Leralond. Even if hell itself were threatening to swallow us all up, you would not lift a finger to help anyone. So I had to resort to manipulations and schemes just to get you to see what has become of Benwyr."
"Please," he rolled his eyes. "You have never had any love for Benwyr because you considered him to be the greatest rival to my claim to the throne. And do not think for a moment that I am not aware of the fact it was you who taught that witch the spell that has corrupted him over these years. I never breathed a word of it because he had vowed to kill whoever had shared the knowledge of that working. But, really, the madness that has gripped him would never have been so dark if you hadn't meddled, as you always have."
"So I owe you my life now, is that what you are saying?" she exclaimed. "I, who carried you in my womb and nurtured you as you grew, am now the one who is in your debt? Because I meddled? I have only ever done things for you, for the good of an ungrateful son!"
"Spare me the wounded theatrics, please! We both know very well that your ambition was to bear the seventh son, the one most likely to become Crown Prince and, later, the King. You even betrayed your own vows to the Kingdom to do so. But then Benwyr's mother had the gall to become pregnant at the same time, and give birth at the same time. So then there were two seventh sons, which tended to bring misfortune instead of luck in our case, and you just had to make certain that the one who would eventually succeed the King would not be Benwyr. He was the better Prince, but you employed every single trick you knew to push him into becoming a monster. I may have been responsible for his introduction to that mortal princess, but you are the one who made absolutely sure that things would come to such a disastrous end."
Meran eventually came to notice that he was present in the room and she stood up rather abruptly. "Trevor!" At her mention of his name, Raven and his mother suddenly shut up and stared at him. "Please," Meran was clearly begging him with her eyes, "sit down and join us." She sat down again.
Raven then glanced at him briefly. "Good. The spirit brought you here," he said.
Trevor was still trying to come up with a way to tell them that he remembered things when Raven's mother smoothed out her stormy expression and gave him a warm smile. He found it extremely disconcerting to see how quickly she was able to shift her mood. "Well, if it is not the young man who would rescue a princess from a cruel captor," she said. "Please, do have a seat."
A chair appeared in front of him and, a bit nervously, he sat down on it. Invisible hands then pushed him closer to the table and began to serve him food. Trevor's eyes boggled at the sight of knives carving meat on their own and wine bottles being lifted to pour their rich contents into goblets. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in sudden fright.
Raven's mother laughed. "There is no need to be so nervous. You will find yourself used to this soon enough," she promised, her eyes smoky and hinting at things other than the oddness of being waited on by invisible servants.
Her son shot her an annoyed look. "Would you please not try to charm him?" Raven said testily. "He has enough concerns without you ensnaring him as well."
"Force of habit," she blithely replied, and Trevor realized that she had simply been trying to get on her son's nerves. "Eat," she now said to Trevor with no hint of seduction in her demeanor. "Resurrections tend to sap your strength."
He realized that she was right. He was, in fact, starving. He began to wolf down the food on his plate and ignored Meran's worried gaze for the moment. So, instead, she turned to Raven.
"What are we going to do now?" she asked before he could resume his argument with his mother. "We just have one night left to free Aline. And with Trevor's condition–" she trailed off, and he knew that Raven had told her about the fact that he was the one trapped in the Strangelands forever now. He suddenly lost his appetite.
"It doesn't matter if I can't go back," he told them, quite aware that he was lying even as he said it. But he knew there were more important things than his eventual fate. "I still want to rescue Aline and break the Prince's spell over her. I'll do anything. Just help me."
Raven was silent for a very long time, and then he sighed. "The circumstances have changed somewhat," he began. "I've learned that in the time I was away from the Kingdom, Benwyr has done things in his madness that now push us closer to a war against our own people and against old rivals. Most of the lesser Nobles have turned on the Princes and the King, and these people have allied themselves with some of the Kingdom's enemies. They wait for the right moment to attack us and destroy the Royal Court. To forestall this, and hopefully to appease the rebellious Nobles, the King has sent an order to all the Princes to do what we can to prevent a great war from happening."
Trevor looked at him. He had never seen Raven so serious before. "So, what does that mean? What are you actually saying?" He saw that Meran was asking the same questions with her eyes.
"It means," Raven explained very quietly, "that the other Princes and I are going to war against our own brother. We have been ordered to destroy Benwyr, and all of his Court."
Trevor stared at Raven, his mind refusing to understand what the Prince was saying. "Aline–?" he began, then faltered upon seeing the grimness in Raven's expression.
"–has been sentenced to die," Raven finished for him.
~~~
Chapter 24