Page 16 of Ruby & Onyx

“Oh,” I gulp. “You’re planning to capture them?”

I don’t know why this surprises me. Clearly, if there is a threat to the village, that threat will need to be neutralized. But for some reason, it unnerves me to know that they might lose their freedom, or worse.

“We need answers to the very same questions you’re asking. No better way to get those answers than to ask the men directly.” She sits a little taller in her seat, and I start to wonder if she has more power in this village than she lets on.

“What would King Caelis want from Carcera? A tiny speck on the map shouldn’t be of interest to him.” For as long as I can remember, the two countries have coexisted peacefully, though I do vaguely remember mention of the wars of Ruby and Onyx from years past.

“It can be hard to understand the reasoning of a mad king, my dear. Our two kingdoms share a violent history, each one vying for power and control over the other for nearly four hundred years. This peace we’ve enjoyed within your lifetime is new.”

“What triggered the peace that we have now?” Maybe something changed. Maybe that peace was never meant to last.

“King Vani forced the Mad King to his knees,” she explains, and her eyes turn to calculated slits. “He devised a plan that would end the reign of King Caelis for good. And even though things didn’t go according to plan, he did force a retreat that sent Caelis into a vicious spiral. He went so mad that he cloaked the entire kingdom in uninhabitable darkness. It rained for months on end, bringing flood and famine with it. Once it cleared, the once moderate climate turned frigid, and thick clouds covered the sky, squelching the sunlight and dooming their crops, not that he cared about such things. To this day, you can still smell the scent of rot wafting in from the west. With the lands ravaged, King Vani pulled back and allowed the Mad King to fester in his wasted land.”

The darkness is what drove my parents to flee from Umbra – that much I know – but the rest of the details are absent from the records. It’s as if the particulars of what happened were shielded from history.

“What didn’t go according to plan?”

“Our army tried to kill both King Caelis and his queen, against all odds. But instead, we took her life and his sanity. It wasn’t the victory that we hoped for, but the fighting ended nonetheless.” She quietly adds, “None benefit from a war.”

My stomach lurches. How can we expect peace to reign eternal when that peace hinges upon the sanity of a mad king? “Are those prowlers here on his behalf? Seeking revenge for the loss of his queen?”

“I’m afraid that I know no more than you, my dear.”

These men could be just the beginning.

One thing that I don’t understand, though, the piece that doesn’t quite fit, is that those men didn’t ask about the village or levy threats against us. Their questions were mostly about… me. Both the first prowler and the men that I met yesterday seemed to have a peculiar fascination with my birthmark. I raise my left hand into the air and point to the faint discoloration on the back of my hand, those swirling white lines. I somehow muster the boldness to ask, “What does this mean?”

She pinches her brows together as if she’s struggling to see the mark. “What does what mean?”

“My birthmark. I never really questioned it until the men in the woods brought it up.”

“Did they, now? Hmm, that’s odd. Birthmarks don’t have meaning. I have a birthmark in the shape of a croissant on my right arm, can you see” She pulls up the sleeve of her gown, revealing a tiny crescent. “It doesn’t mean anything. Though, coincidentally, I do love croissants.”

Lady Lora and I hardly ever speak, but I would be a fool not to recognize a deflection so clearly designed to distract me.

“Are you sure that you don’t know?” I press, squinting my eyes to level some reason.

“Why would I lie to you?” The look that she’s giving me now conveys an unspoken message: I need to drop it.

Even though my brain is buzzing even more than when I came here, left with more questions than answers, I shut my mouth.

She smiles in a cold, almost derisive way, and all airs of pleasantry evaporate as she stands to escort me out the door. We quickly exchange our goodbyes and, before I know it, the doors of the lift are closing behind me.

* * *

My mother lies on the bed next to me with our hands intertwined. Her chest heaves with each pained breath. Her sunken eyes are devoid of their usual glimmer. The smile wiped from her face. As the color drains from her body, I know that these are her final moments.

She squeezes my hand a little too hard, taking me by surprise. But that squeeze means that she is alive, that she still has a chance.

Time moves in circles as the scene repeats on loop until she whispers something inaudible. I ask her to repeat her words, but she remains silent until her eyes fixate on something behind me. Her body stills until her right arm lifts to point into the distance.

“Leave her alone,” she says.

Those words ring in my ear as I wake.

When I look up from my bed, I see those familiar red eyes staring, narrowing their burning gazes on me. I wait for them to disappear, as they always do, but… they do not.

They’re not vanishing.

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