The reflection of the Queen: Exile

Chapter 21

I looked up suddenly as I was struck by a memory that, although not distant, seemed to me to be from years ago. I looked toward the dressing room, doubtful. All the articles of clothing I had kept in my old room had been moved to this one, except for my old uniforms, but my old dresses and warm cloaks were there, along with all my new dresses. It had been done by the mansion servants under the general's orders, but would they have bothered to rummage through the pockets?

I struggled to my feet and went into the dressing room. Yes, there at the back was my old clothes. There was even one particular garment that was not mine, but which I had obtained the last night Fyodor had beaten me. It was a black one, light as if woven of shadows and with a couple of pockets. I silently prayed to no god at all and reached into one of them. I smiled sadly as I pulled out a piece of paper on which I had scrawled, 'A drop is enough to ease the pain. L.'

The note crumpled as I squeezed it in my hand, ignoring the stinging of my wounds. I still remembered the confusion I had felt reading those words, that signature. It was a time when things were not sadder, but emptier. A time when I had no idea I was any different from anyone else, a time when I was still invisible, a time when I didn't raise my voice even when my adoptive father raised his hand against me. But at least back then I had a friend by my side, even if I was obliged to serve her. I was madly in love with the boy of my dreams, the love of my childhood and my youth, who seemed to me the sweetest, kindest and most attentive I could have found. All false, all of it. My former life had been nothing but a lie.

Deep down, I had begun to see it when a simultaneously irritating and sympathetic ethryn had made his way into my sad existence and opened my eyes to a dangerous and fascinating world that had been veiled from me since I was brought to this island, a brutal and harsh realm where, nevertheless, people were like me, like the person I wanted to be. That person was not the one Rodion had fallen in love with, if the one who had fallen in love with him. It was enough for him to give up on us that Fyodor and Aeneas ordered him to. I don't know what they would tell him that horrible night, maybe that what was between us was impossible, that I would go crazy and who knows what else. If they had told me to put him away, would I have obeyed? Persie probably would have, but now I was beginning to think I would have fought. I felt like fighting, fighting for me, for my freedom, for no more blood and sorrow, for the people I loved. It had taken me a while to realize that Lokih was part of that group.

When I imagined that ordeal without him, without his help, my world fell apart. I didn't understand how someone I had known for such a short time could care so much, when the people who had raised me did not. And yet, thinking about his sarcastic smile and sharp retorts no longer made me angry at all. On the contrary, while my head was spinning while chained in the clearing, I had heard his voice more than once. He was telling me, as usual, that he believed in me. He had done so unconditionally since we first met. All that time he had teased me, lied to me and saved me. When I thought love was warmth, he came to show me the fire.

I reached into the other pocket and took out the tiny crystalline bottle. Its contents, although colorless, reflected a yellowish light on the rest of the fabrics in the dressing room. I took the cap off and brought it to my nose. It smelled salty, like the sea. Tears that had come from the eyes of a supernatural being that I didn't even know existed until recently, like so many things that had had to be revealed to me about the place where I was born.

I removed the bandages I had just put on, holding back grimaces, and uncovered my scratches. The mere movement cost me at least a twinge of deep pain, and it did when I held the bottle, hesitant. A drop was enough to soothe the pain, but did I have to drink it or pour it on my wounds? If I was wrong, I would be wasting it. I hesitated, but with great care, I tilted the bottle and made a drop slip to my free hand. It burned at first, and I feared I had made a mistake until the warmth became a tingling that spread across my palm. Where the tears had moistened them, the sores slowly began to close, but only the ones the drop had touched. I checked the contents of the bottle, and realized that I probably wasn't going to have enough if I had to apply a drop to each one. I kept doing it on the most noticeable and deepest ones, but the others were still stinging and I had few left, so I decided to take a chance. I opened my lips and poured one of the last golden tears between them. The burning sensation spread down my throat, and then throughout my body.