Chapter 10: The Hallow's Silver Curse
Accursed Kiss
I awoke in a gasping sweat. We'd been travelling too many suns, and my dreams were starting to distort reality, or at least my perceptions of it. After the attack at the temple, Jasmin had gone to investigate and found almost no indication that anything had happened there.
I was at least happy to know I hadn't imagined the place, even if everything else seemed to be missing.
Jasmin's arms were tightly wrapped around me, just like every morning since I first invited her to lay with me. Her breath settling on the back of my neck cooled me so deeply it alerted me to the slowly subsiding film of sweat that had built, probably as a result of the intense dream I'd had recalling the events of the attack.
"Are you awake?" I whispered the words, not wanting to bother her or our guest Vanara, hoping both were still resting.
When no answer came, I gently nudged at Jasmin's wrist in hopes of getting her to roll away and free me from her arms. It normally worked without issue, but something was different. My fingers made contact not with the rough cloth wraps she normally wore, but on skin.
My eyes clapped shut.
Several seconds of intense squirming and wiggling were barely enough to properly roll myself to face her, safe from the potential to invade her privacy, but nowhere near safe from seeing her face mere inches from my own.
I'd been with Jasmin for several moons by now, and I hadn't considered in that time that my initial view of her had been hasty. But with our breaths mingling so closely, and her lips set in a contented pout, she reminded me of someone or something. A distant memory, a distant place. Silver and emeralds, a song-like voice that filled every space around me.
The image faded as quickly as it began, and Jasmin's eyes shot open, an eerie green shine to them faded back to her striking amber as she took me in.
"While I'm not complaining that I'm waking to the face of a beautiful maiden," her sleep-filled voice was a mirror of her hazy expression, "I am certain, my dear, that you were facing the other way."
"Yes," I said it a little too harshly, making her face bunch up. "Sorry. Your wraps have come undone. I didn't want to invade, so I turned before I could look."
Jasmin gently knocked her forehead to mine before sitting upright. I instinctively closed my eyes as she moved about. "You can look, dear," it was a question. Like 'do you want to look' but coloured with a request 'please look'. I squeezed my eyes more tightly. "It doesn't look pretty, but I've seen yours."
Keeping my eyes closed, I rose to sitting and began feeling about for the wraps. I found one and held it up. "Whether or not that's the case, this is yours to show, to share." My hands moved with the confidence of knowledge and experience as I wrapped her right arm, carefully making certain to never peek.
"You care for me too fondly, my dear," her tone was pained. "People might think you love me."
I tucked in the end of the wrap, and smiled cheekily as I moved her left arm out of my line of sight before opening my eyes and looking deeply into hers. "Would that be such a bad thing, darling?"
We'd begun using the pet names entirely naturally well before the arrangement to pretend we were married. That probably played some role in my slowly mounting feelings, even if I wasn't ready to admit them aloud. But more than that, the endearing terms felt natural.
Jasmin leaned forward and gently whispered, barely breathing the words. "I think it'd be lovely, Roisin, if you and I were far more than fake wives."
As always, my name on her lips sounded like life itself. If a single sentence could destroy a person's hesitations, their sense of self, their entire being, then I would have been a victim in that moment. Instead, I could no longer hold back.
I took a bit of her hair in my hand as I pulled her face to mine, whispering softly, "Forgive my impertinence, my lady," before kissing her gently on those soft and welcoming lips. She didn't stop me. She didn't even resist. Instead, Jasmin allowed herself to be taken in for a few seconds, almost not breathing.
My hands roamed her body, taking in the feeling of every inch. She didn't fight my exploration. Everything about her begged for me to move further. Calling it a divine moment would cheapen the experience. Her body was perfection, and something told me divinity couldn't compare.
As my hands moved along her arms, I felt the cloth I had carefully re-wrapped on her right arm and the bare skin on her left. The contrast was stark, enough for us to pull away, halting our onslaught of affection.
"We should talk," she finally managed, gasping. "But first, do not ever apologise for ... that again." Her smile was hungry, desperate for more, pleased to have finally gotten even a scrap. "You want to give me time. You are desperate to give me space. But you don't have to." She placed her right hand on my cheek. "Please, don't look away."
Her left hand slowly worked its way between us, and my eyes fell on what she'd been covering. The lines were impossible to miss, familiar to anyone who'd lost someone that way. A mix of silver veined scars and poisoned blood vessels stretching from her wrist to her elbow. She'd been poisoned with Queen's Heart.
But that was impossible. She should be dead.
As Jasmin removed the wrap on her right arm, the marks there were a perfect replication of those on her left. Bright silver blood vessels collided with each other and ran below the permanently black branching tracks where her skin had tried and failed to keep the poison out. Usually, that meant death.
Yet here she was, breathing on my neck when we slept, holding me close.
"I've always had them. Or as long as I can remember," she said the words wistfully, too far separated from the event to feel its trauma. "They tell me I'm cursed. That this only happens to people the goddess hates." A fuming growl pushed itself from her gut. "How would they know? No one else has them. All they tell me is that the goddess is punishing me."
"Does it hurt?" I ran my fingers along the lines, remembering the first time I'd seen someone poisoned with Queen's Heart. They were a kid in Powell's Square, playing in the woods. Their whole body was covered in those marks when we laid them in the ground.
Jasmin quirked her whole head as she considered it. "Not really? It's warm. And it draws attention, but it seems pretty safe. Like, I'm not worried that you're tracing my scars." She chuckled lightly. "Not that I could mind it, given that I did the same while taking care of you."
I blushed at the notion. "We can come back to that," I stammered, picturing Jasmin inspecting my unconscious body. "But I want to focus on this. On you. When I saw the marks on your collar," I indicating my own as I said it, "I assumed these were caused by the same event. Now I'm not so sure."
"Connected. Not the same," Jasmin averted her gaze, choosing to focus on the ground beneath us. "These," she fanned out her fingers, lining them up with the holes the best she could, "were a mark given by the queen when she branded me Hawthorne. No longer fit. Only meant to serve and protect. 'A gift,' she'd told me, 'for surviving'. And a punishment, I'd overheard, only given to traitors."
She described for me in detail how the punishment was carried out. A criminal would be strapped to a stone slab in the middle of the throne room. Their chest would be marked with ink in a straight line, evenly spaced. A wood drill was used to bore the holes slowly, straight through muscle and into bone.
If the criminal were killed in the process, so be it. If they survived, they'd be exiled or forced into labour. Jasmin's survival was uncertain and unexpected. When she didn't die, she was given the title of Lady Myrtia, a sham title and a joke. Her punishment was extended into a permanent insult.
Jasmin's 'crime'? Whatever it was that gave her the scars on her forearms. I knew it was Queen's Heart – silverthorn – but no one had ever told Jasmin what did it. She'd been poisoned by someone and punished for it. And she didn't even remember having been poisoned.
"This is the 'not technically a princess' story, isn't it?" I had to know for sure. Jasmin just nodded. "So your name is technically Jasmin Liatris?"
Her wide-eyed stare was incredulous and fearful. "That's treason, Roisin. And even if it weren't, I don't want that name. Not anymore. And I don't want Hawthorne. And I don't want the title." She'd gone from fearfully incredulous to outraged. "I just want to live my life, marry, maybe have children, and eventually die. And the queen took that from me. My mother took that from me."
"Yes. And if ever I get the chance, I will make her bow before you and beg forgiveness."
"I'd like to see that. Maybe we should reroute for the capital after all."
Rustling movement outside the tent alerted us that it was time to re-don our fake identities and face the chaos of our journey as it was presently progressing. I gently kissed Jasmin on the forehead, then the lips, then crawled out of the tent and greeted the sun.
Flowers of the Fractured
Thornwood Hallow felt different after the dreams, the temple, and the kiss. Instead of a fearful place, dread filling every hollow, it felt holy. I couldn't place it, but there was a purity, a safety, a divinity to every shadow, every shard of light dancing through the trees to light our way.
And then there was Vanara. The anchor to mortality that reminded both Jasmin and me that there was something sinister to the place that was likely why the sign called it 'desecrated' and 'evil'. But even with their constant presence, Vanara couldn't quite bring me back down to the surface. Life felt good.
"Tell me again, dear," Jasmin and I had been walking in silence with Vanara and the horse for a few hours when she spoke, "what exactly happened in the dreams? What happened at the temple?"
I brushed off the implication that the temple might have been a hallucination. "Well, in the dreams, I sat atop the platforms in the temple, holding flowers. A red one, a gold one, a black one, a white one, and a silverthorn. I thought about the world, and then I woke up."
She thought for a moment before her next question. "Can you tell me more about the flowers? What kind of petals did they have? Were the stems wood or vines? You can't possibly remember only the colours."
"The black one was a black woody stem with black leaves and black flowers. A delicate thing that drew me in."
"Sounds like voidstem," Vanara's face suddenly appeared between Jasmin and me, causing both of us to jump back from the offending protuberance. "Draethis gave one to each of us when we met."
Jasmin was quicker than me. She took a handful of Vanara's shirt collar and held them close to her face. "What is voidstem? Who is Draethis? Who is 'us'?"
Vanara's head quirking to the side was enough for me to know they were going to forget this moment as quickly as it started. "It's a flower. Well, a whole plant. Black as death, but brings peaceful dreams. Why do you ask?"
"Focus on my voice a moment, Vanara," Jasmin was calm but forceful. I made a note to request she speak to me like that sometimes. "Who is Draethis?"
They'd reached the end of their lucidity already, and it was clear when they asked. "Who is Vanara?"
Jasmin, to her credit, was undeterred, single-minded. "Well, what is your name, friend?"
"My name? I don't know. But you called me friend, so maybe you know?"
Jasmin released Vanara's collar and smiled at me. "Well, dear, I suppose that's one step closer." She stepped past the strange woman and took my hand. "Voidstem. Draethis. More mysteries to unravel, Fake Afina. But now those mysteries have a name."
"Why are you calling her fake?" Vanara was tracking me from head to toe. "She looks real enough to me. Even has the silver eyes."
"The what?" I barely had the presence of mind to speak at all, but I yanked Jasmin close and did my best not to growl at her. "Jasmin. What colour are my eyes?"
"Silver, of course," she said the words without understanding the gravity of it.
"I thought you said her name was Salora?" Vanara had heard me, but I was certain they'd forget it quickly.
"Not now, Vanara," Jasmin waved them off. "Dear, I need you to focus. Why are you so upset?"
"My eyes. They're not silver. They've never been silver. They could never be silver. What do you mean they're silver?"
As my anxiety mounted, everything faded. I was in the Thornwood with Jasmin and Vanara, and then I wasn't.
Every time before, there had been a moment of intense darkness. This time, the light faded from colour to grey, then the grey shifted like submerging in a lake. Then all at once I was in a hallway with glass walls.
An aisle ran down the hallway with parallel rows of odd-looking chairs all pointing to one end. At that far end of the hallway was another glass wall and a single chair pointing in the same direction. I was seated in the farthest row back.
Several rows in front of me and on the opposite side of the aisle, I saw the familiar figure of Rose. She was handling some kind of slate, whose surface seemed to change without her drawing or erasing.
"Fascinating, is it not?" Salora, the real Salora, spoke without bothering to greet me, like she somehow expected this moment. "You continue showing up here. And I continue to count myself surprised, Lesser Rose."
For once I had my full wits about me, and I was singularly focused on the task. "Salora. I don't mean to be rude, but what colour are my eyes?"
"Your eyes?" I met her gaze as she turned her head in the same way Jasmin did. "Or the eyes you are wearing now? Because I do not believe you want either answer, Lesser Rose."
"What does that mean? Why do you insist on speaking in riddles and half-truths?"
"I told you. There are some things I cannot say."
"You are as infuriating as ever, you know that?"
"Ask the question you really want to ask, Lesser Rose. Go ahead. I'll do my best to answer."
My mind raced as I tried to get my words together. "Who is the blue-haired woman, and why do I see through her eyes when I dream?"
"A dear friend of mine. I'll never understand why she took such an interest in you and your mother, but here we are."
"That was only half an answer."
She just shrugged and pointed toward Rose. Just as before, an image appeared above her once again. Delia and Jasmin, side by side. They stood at the front of a great army, preparing for battle. Their armour, and that of all their followers, bore flowers.
My heart ached as they took each other's hands and began their march to a place I couldn't see.
Just as quickly, the vision faded, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. "What are those visions she sees?"
"If only I knew, Lesser Rose," Salora looked as frustrated as I felt. "I've seen those visions thousands of times. I understand them very little. You want to know the worst part, Roisin? I've watched myself die thousands of times as I rewatch Rose's life again and again."
Her eyes went wide. Even she was shocked that she was able to say those words. All it did was leave me with more questions, but the vision faded too quickly for me to ask, too quickly for me to demand answers.
Something was different this time. I remembered something. My memory didn't fade from the scene. I remembered for just a moment as I gazed deeply into Jasmin's worried emerald eyes.
"Don't look away," I said, holding her shoulders. "Don't blink, don't break eye contact with me. Her name is Salora. And she died, or she is going to."
Jasmin's own eyes went wide with fear at my words, glowing brilliantly like flames. "Roisin. What are you saying?"
"I met a goddess. And she had your eyes."
The Twin-Edged Flame
My heart raced when I awoke, not held by Jasmin, but watched by her. As she looked over me, her brilliant sunshine amber eyes brought me peace, and I knew something had left me. I'd forgotten yet again something I didn't know. Something I couldn't know.
Jasmin's eyes were puffed. She'd been crying, worried over me.
What happened? I wanted to say the words, but my voice wouldn't come. My mouth wouldn't form the words any more than my lungs could push the air to make them. Jasmin, I'm scared. I hoped she could see it in my expression.
"It's okay. I'm here," her words were steady, as much a promise as they were an assurance. "I don't know what happened. We were talking, and you freaked out, then you fainted."
What is wrong with me? I begged my body to say the words, desperate to speak.
"Don't stress yourself, my love. Just rest." She wiped sweat from my face and kissed my forehead. "If I have to, I will carry you all the way to Blue Stone and leave the horse with Vanara. I don't care. I need you safe."
No! Don't! I tried desperately to shake my head, to tell her to stop. That everything would be okay. Even if I wasn't sure of it myself. Jasmin, please. Just stay!
One step forward. Ten steps back. My daring recovery was set all the way back to bedridden just from whatever it was that I'd forgotten.
There was a noise of the tent's flap being thrown open, and Vanara shoved their way past Jasmin.
"Go make food, Salora Jasmin. Your Mavi needs the hands of one who remembers, not one who forgets." The words didn't make any sense. Vanara was speaking utter foolishness, but Jasmin didn't fight them. Instead, she allowed herself to be torn from my side.
Who are you, Vanara? The words echoed throughout my head, but they went no further. Even so, they answered.
"I don't know any better than you, but I do know that there is a way to fix you. Or at least to fix your body." They frowned at me and held a hand out, palm facing away from me. "I apologise, Afina Roisin, but this is likely to hurt. A lot. But you will feel better."
Vanara produced a cold-flame in their outstretched hand, turning it about as they inspected it. The flame itself was an intense violet, bursting in plumes that almost looked like flower petals. As they rolled their fingers, the shape of it shifted to something like a shimmering aura that barely left the surface of their hand.
They closed their eyes and pressed their palm to my chest, causing everything at once to go golden in my tightly shut eyes. Cold-flame wasn't supposed to burn. And even if it did, the pain should rest on the surface or wherever it touched. But as Vanara's hand pressed against me, every inch of my body was consumed.
Nothing existed beyond the pain for what seemed a lifetime. As it went on, Vanara's appearance shifted. Her hair was vibrant red, like fresh blood as it poured from a wound. Violet fire filled her eyes. She was much more than a mindless wanderer. For just a moment, she was something else entirely.
And then it passed. Vanara was Vanara. They were the same odd creature we'd found in the Thornwood Hallow several suns before. Their dull expression matched the dull tones of black in their hair and brown in their eyes. They were just Vanara, and my whole body was no longer in pain.
"I hope, Hardy Afina, that your soul feels renewed," they said as they stood and left me still lying there.
Sitting up, I tested my voice. A few odd sounds passed without issue before I attempted to speak. "Jasmin, darling," I said as I inspected the spot Vanara's hand had been, finding nothing, "I don't know what Vanara did, but I appear to be on the mend."
Jasmin nearly bowled me over as she rushed into the tent and basically collapsed on top of me. Only nearly, which seemed odd, given her strength. She said nothing, opting to hold me silently for several seconds as she wept.
"How long was I out? Please don't tell me it's been another sevensun of suffering." She laughed between her sobs and gently slapped my shoulder. "I'll take that as a no. Still. Why this reaction?"
She pulled away from me far enough to look at me directly. "I thought you died. Your heart stopped. Your breathing stopped. I was holding you for hours before your eyes opened. All I could do was hope. Pray to any goddess who would listen. Desperately plead for you to come back to me safely."
"I don't know what happened, or how, and I don't know if you should tell me," desperately digging through every recess of my memory, I couldn't find any detail from the moment Jasmin had said my eyes were silver. "But I think I was punished for something. For receiving knowledge I wasn't meant to have."
"From the goddess you mentioned. From —"
"Salora." We said it together, and for a moment Jasmin's eyes flickered that unnatural emerald colour again. "You took the name of a goddess. I don't like it. I don't know why. But as much as I hate it, the name suits you."
"Well, if she's so tough, she can come and take it back," Jasmin was acting tough, but she was still rattled.
"Jasmin," I said it in the way we'd grown accustomed, hoping she'd respond in kind.
"Roisin," my relieved smile at the name called forth a chuckle from her.
"Can you lie with me a while? I'm not ready to deal with being back alive just yet."
"Nothing in Lafleur would make me happier, my lady."