[CN: Spoilers, mental illness/brain damage, mentions of prejudice against Lumens, institutional prejudice, classism, mentions of incest, murder, potentially triggering language against the mentally ill]
I own nothing.
"I hadn't realized you were so knowledgeable about flowers."
From her seat upon the couch in her sitting room, Elodie watched Brin as she clipped the stems of the althea flowers she had found on the river bank. The duchess performed her task with an expert hand; clearly, she had done this many times before. Brin's mouth twitched in a smile as she put them in the vase. "Did you really not know the meaning behind the flowers I sent you after the ball?" she asked, seeming to be torn between amusement and frustration. The sound of her smooth, deep voice (deeper than Elodie would have expected for a woman of Brin's relatively small size) filled the room. It was a pleasant sound; Elodie had grown quite used to it, missed it when it was gone.
Elodie blushed. "I've had more pressing matters to attend to than learning the meaning given to every flower in Nova."
The frustration bled out of Brin's face. "I can understand that." She smirked. "Tell me, are you also unaware of the fact that honey-flowers are poisonous when eaten?"
As it happened, yes, Elodie was unaware of that particular fact. She gaped at Brin. "Yes, actually." The young queen narrowed her eyes. "Is that supposed to tell me something about you, Duchess?"
Brin's smirk deepened, becoming something rather caustic. "It tells you something about the way I'll react if you discard me without a word. I've had quite enough of that for one lifetime. But have no fear, your Highness," she said in a lighter tone. "Unlike honey-flowers, the althea plant is not poisonous; it is, in fact, quite edible. The druids use the root as an ingredient in an elixir to soothe sore throats, and the ancient Novans ate the flower and the young leaves in salads."
Elodie raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen these flowers used in cooking before."
"It went out of fashion," Brin explained. "Likely around the same time that lettuce was first imported from Terrax, and the Novans learned how to grow it here."
That was something Elodie had learned about Brin—she was remarkably knowledgeable about plants. Botany was, as she understood, a hobby of the Duchess's. She sometimes wondered how Brin had come by this hobby, considering that most of Hellas's terrain was no good for farming. There were vineyards there, yes, but the farmers in Hellas were mostly farmers of livestock. But then, she asked herself how anyone came by their hobbies, and dropped the question from her mind.
"Ah, Elodie." Brin ran her thumb over the pruning shears gripped in her hand. "I was wondering. How has your father been?" she asked tentatively.
Elodie stiffened, her hands clenched upon her knees.
She had been so relieved when her father finally woke, over a month after his duel with the Shanjian king. Physically speaking, he had been very weak when first he woke, and the healers and priestesses had warned Elodie that he would likely remain physically frail for the rest of his life, however long he might live. If that had been all, Elodie would have been happy. If that had been all, she could have stood it.
It wasn't.
For the first few days, when her father could still barely speak, Elodie had not noticed anything strange. He recognized her, and that had been enough at the time. But as he regained the power of speech, it became evident that whatever injuries Joslyn had sustained in the duel and its aftermath, whatever frailties now plagued his faltering steps, physical incapacitation was not its sum.
Her father's mind lingered in the past. It was a constant struggle for him to focus on the present, nearly impossible for him to think about the future, and there were many days when he could not manage either.
For him, the tapestry of the world shifted constantly. At many times, Elodie cringed as she watched her father speak of her mother as though she was still alive, cringed as she watched him resurrect her in his mind. At times, Joslyn seemed to believe that he and Fidelia were still newly-wed, that she was the Crown Princess still and not yet Queen. He would talk of sending letters home to his mother, the previous Duchess of Caloris, who had been dead for nearly eight years now. On one occasion, Elodie ventured into the royal library to find her father there, surrounded by a pile of history books. When she asked what he was doing, he said that he was studying for an exam he had coming up in school.
He always recognized her. He seemed aware of the fact that there was something wrong with him. If Joslyn's mind had taken him to a point in time when Fidelia was alive, and had been crowned Queen, the sight of Elodie with the crown on her head made him frown, and then his clouded eyes would clear and he would remember that his wife was dead. If his mind had taken him to a point in time where he believed himself a boy or a young adolescent, a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, left haggard and graying and lined after the duel with the Shanjian king, snapped him back to the present.
When he was fit to travel again, Joslyn had asked to return to Caloris. It was obvious to all, including himself, that he was no longer fit to govern Caloris, not unaided, but Caloris had able administrators, and even Elodie could see how badly her father wanted to go home, where he would not face the prying eyes of the court. And as much as she did not want to be left alone, she could not stand to be around him. Not anymore. It hurt to admit that, even to herself alone, but it was the truth. The sight of him like this ached, as though somewhere her heart had been pierced and all her joy had poured out through the wound. She let him go.
"My father is… He is… much the same," Elodie said lamely.
Brin sat down beside her on the couch, put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and smiled sympathetically. Weakly, Elodie smiled back.
They sat like that, in silence. Elodie stared out the window; out of the corner of her eye, she could see Brin picking at a loose stitch on her skirt, looking more like a restless, fidgety adolescent than the grown woman that she was. Elodie, on the other hand, sat stiff and straight and still as she had been taught; she wasn't sure she even remembered how to slouch anymore.
Elodie's hand strayed to her pocket.
"Brin?"
Brin turned her gaze on Elodie. "What is it, Elodie?"
After taking a deep breath, Elodie reached into her pocket and took out a hand mirror roughly the size of her palm, which she laid down on her lap. It was solid black, and rimmed (though not backed) with silver. "I was wondering if you could tell me anything about this."
Brin's lips twitched as she looked at the mirror. "There are few who would carry mirrors of black glass, Elodie; I'd not taken you as the type."
Elodie shook her head. "It's not mine. Here." She held the mirror out to Brin. "Hold it so the rim catches the light."
Frowning, Brin took the mirror from Elodie and did as she was told. Her eyes narrowed. "There's… there's writing." She ran her fingers over the silver rim of the mirror pensively. "I don't recognize the script, though."
"Nor do I," Elodie said disconsolately. "It's unlike anything I've ever seen, and it doesn't match the ancient Novan script described in the history books."
Brin was still frowning at the mirror. "Elodie… Where did you find this?"
Elodie wasn't sure that she should tell her that. She remembered her father once mentioning to her that the line of Caloris secretly held in its possession a trove of mystical artifacts, and supposed that the mirror had to be one of those artifacts. Even if she was Queen, it was not Elodie's place to share the secrets of one of Nova's ducal lines, even with an intimate confidante.
But I can trust Brin. Surely I can trust her. If I tell her to keep this a secret, I'm sure she will. Elodie stared seriously at Brin. "You understand that what I tell you can not leave this room, do you not?"
Brin leaned back in the couch and smirked. "This is going to be good, I can tell." When Elodie glared at her, she held up her free hand. "I'm no tattler. I've been asked to keep confidence more than once in my life."
Elodie nodded, staring down at her lap. "After… After Dad challenged the Shanjian king to a duel…" She sucked in a deep breath. "After the duel, I found that mirror. Dad was holding it when he fell."
"You think it's what kept him from dying in the duel?" Brin asked sharply.
"I think so, yes. But I don't know how!" Elodie burst out. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, could feel her face growing warm, tell-tale signs of frustration, but she was not sitting before the court and she was not in the company of one who would think less of her for showing frustration, so she did not bother to hide it. "I don't know what it is about this mirror that saved him. I just… I just can't understand it."
Priestesses were traditionally the keepers of lore, and perhaps telling the healers would have caused them to give her father a different treatment, but Elodie had not confided the mirror's existence to them. She did not trust them. Elodie had precious little cause to trust those who did not explain their craft to her, and even less as regards to Lumens and those akin to them. Priestesses and healers were steeped in mysticism; their powers and traditions were not that far removed from those of Lumens. In short, they were suspect, and Elodie would confide as little in them as possible.
(There was no escaping the fact that her father was a Lumen now. Once a Lumen potential bonded with their crystal, the only thing capable of separating them from it was death; Elodie knew that much. But most of the time, Joslyn did not even remember that he was a Lumen, so Elodie chose not to remember it as well.)
Brin handed Elodie back the mirror. After a moment of staring off into space, lips pursed pensively, she said, "I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about this mirror, Elodie; mysticism and arcane knowledge was never my strong suit." She looked back at Elodie. "But have you asked your father?"
"Yes, I have. He couldn't tell me very much."
On Elodie's last visit to Caloris, she had taken the mirror from its usual place in her dress pocket, and shown it to her father. She had hoped, desperately hoped that he would know what it was. She'd hoped that he would know the secrets of the mirror and how it could allow a Lumen who had bonded with their crystal less than a day ago survive a duel with a Lumen who had likely had their crystal for decades and spent those decades learning every piece of magic they could.
It had not been one of his better days; Joslyn could walk no further than a few feet without tiring and had spent most of the day sitting down. Still, Elodie tried, holding hope in her heart that he could provide her an answer.
Joslyn had taken the mirror from her and stared at it for a long time, saying nothing. His gaze was unfocused and his labored expression one of a person who was struggling to concentrate on something that should have been very basic.
"It blocks the path to the future," Joslyn had said. He held the mirror back out to her, keeping his gaze downcast like a docile child. Elodie almost expected him to start squirming in his chair like a child as well.
Looking at him, Elodie wanted to scream. Instead, she leaned down, kissed his cheek, and went to speak with an administrator she had scheduled a meeting with.
Brin shrugged. "Then I'm afraid I can only tell you what everyone already knows—the line of Caloris is well-educated in the lore of the past. And I remember Joslyn from school; he had a passion for history and lore." Suddenly, she smiled, and reached out to squeeze Elodie's hand. "But you are the Queen. You have access to the largest library in Nova, and greater resources than anyone else in the domain can boast. I would suggest you look into it yourself."
-0-0-0-
As it happened, Elodie had already begun to "look into" the matter of the black mirror.
After visiting her father, she had taken the mirror to a discreet glassmaker in town. She'd not said anything of the mirror's potential "special" properties and she'd not said where she found it—she asked only if he could tell her what it was made out of.
Obsidian, the glassmaker told her. Elodie had frowned at that. She had heard of obsidian before, but had never understood exactly what it was. Asking had revealed that obsidian was "volcanic glass, very rare in Nova. It sometimes forms in lava flows."
Once at home, it was easy enough for Elodie to find a book on volcanoes in the royal library. She learned that there were no active (nor even dormant) volcanoes in Nova. Volcanoes were found in the far south of Arcadia, at the southern tip of Terrax. They were found littered across Borealis and Australis, the continent to the southeast of the world. Malini boasted volcanoes, as did the far west of Jiavar.
There was so little known of Australis that no one could say for sure how wide across it was. It seemed unlikely that turning her search in that direction would bear fruit. For similar reasons, Elodie dismissed Borealis out of hand. All of the volcanoes in Borealis were far from the coast, and could a mirror even survive the at-least six hundred years it would have been since the areas anywhere near those volcanoes was habitable?
There was plenty of information in the library on Malini and Terrax, both having once been parts of the Novan Empire. And Elodie knew from the histories that there was supposed to have been a race of people living in Jiavar that were building great cities when the Novans were still cowering in caves. She still wasn't sure that a mirror could survive the thousands of years it had been since that civilization had walked the earth, but it would be a place to start.
-0-0-0-
Unfortunately, being Queen didn't allow Elodie much time to do research on anything, let alone something irrelevant to the governance of Nova. It got easier, little by little, as time went on, but not by much, and it was still ridiculously time-consuming.
There were reports, still, of Shanjian bandits roaming the countryside. Their numbers had dwindled over the past few months—while the nobles mostly set about fortifying their estates (and Elodie was pleased to note that the bandits were steering well-clear of Caloris), the commoners didn't take kindly to having their homes ransacked and their belongings (and livestock) stolen. Elodie's agents told her that the commoners of Nova were taking up arms to defend their homes. And that was fine, for now—the drain on the treasury from all the damage incurred made fielding and properly equipping soldiers difficult—but what happened if, when the foreign bandits were finally expelled, all those commoners decided that they hadn't had their fill of blood?
Shanjia itself was posing some cause for concern. Elodie would never understand what had possessed the Queen of Shanjia to actually marry that man she called her (late) husband, but it seemed that she had genuinely loved him, for, since the Shanjian generals had returned to their land, Elodie had been receiving letters filled with distraught recriminations from Queen Junko.
"What will my daughters do without their father?!" For all the damage the Shanjian king had wrought, Elodie could not help but feel a twinge of guilt at that. She knew what it was like to lose a parent, and to be far away when it happened, and to not have any clear idea of what had happened. But she did not answer. These were letters written in grief and rage; surely, given time, Junko would calm down enough to see reason.
Neither did Elodie answer the much more discreetly-sent and worded letters from certain Shanjian ministers. Evidently, Togami had not been terribly popular among the royal court, and there were many who weren't exactly sorry to see him gone. Still, the bad taste of sending such letters while their ruler was still in mourning was appalling.
To the east, Yeveh was much the same as it ever was. Elodie did not think that the nomads cared very much about anything that went on outside their borders. To the south, Ixion had given Nova no more trouble since Elodie had paid them off to withdraw from Imbrium.
To the north, Tombula was surprisingly quiet, for once, and Elodie was considering sending diplomats to help ensure that it stayed that way. The way things were going in Talasse and Pyrias, she could use an ally right about now.
The Duke of Sedna was making trouble at the border with Elath. This was, Elodie was beginning to understand, nothing new. The Sedna line had been infuriated decades ago, when the ruler of Nova had denied them inheritance of Elath, despite their having a strong blood claim to the land, and the Dukes and Duchesses of Sedna had been determined to get the land back ever since. It was mostly the same old song-and-dance: raising tariffs and making trading across the border difficult. This time, however, the Duke of Sedna seemed determined to establish a military presence in Elath, and had been trying to push troops over the mountains.
Even more worrying was Arisse's response. The Duchess of Lillah, determined to protect her step-son Adair's inheritance, had responded by sending her militia into Elath to set up watch along the border with Talasse. Elodie had considered asking the Duchess under whose auspices she had thought it her place to raise an army, but thought better of it. She needed to stay on Arisse's good side too badly to try and keep the Duchess of Lillah in line, and if Arisse could maintain Novan sovereignty in Elath, so be it.
From Pyrias, there were troubling rumors. Apparently, the scattered tribes, traditionally unwilling to cooperate with one another except in the governance of their own lands, were taking steps towards creating a more united Pyrias. Pyrias had traditionally been hostile towards Nova; they had once been a dominion of the empire, one that had not parted with Novan rule amicably. Then again, this did not necessarily mean that they were planning to pursue war with Nova, and even if it did, the mountains were nearly impassable at the border between the two domains, so Nova would have plenty of warning.
The histories forever warned against putting a child on the throne (even one who was legally considered an adult), and Elodie was beginning to see why. A child ruler was forever seen as weak and vulnerable, and neighbors saw a domain with a child ruler as easy pickings. If ever again I have the money to field a proper army, Elodie thought moodily, the first thing I am going to do is set up more watchtowers on the borders. I'll show these warmongers that Nova is not ripe for invasion just because her Queen is a fifteen-year-old girl.
On the other hand, receiving letters from friends and family was a source of cheer, even if she couldn't see them in person.
Gwenelle could not come to the capital to visit. Like Elodie, she was new to ruling and could not leave Sudbury; she was still trying to establish herself among the earls and countesses who held her as liege-lady. Elodie thought to herself that Gwenelle probably wasn't having as much trouble as she was; Gwenelle looked the part of a queen, and spoke with such confidence and surety that surely she would little trouble convincing others to have confidence in her capabilities as Duchess of Sudbury. On the bright side, she appeared to have somewhat patched things up with her mother, who had turned out to be her strongest supporter in the duchy.
Countess Lieke sent Elodie her best. Anciet asked her to say hello to Banion and Brin. Elodie grimaced when she realized that her upcoming marriage to Banion would make her Anciet's aunt and Gwenelle's step-aunt.
Emry had recently fallen from a tree and broken his ankle; Lucille wouldn't let Charlotte go travelling so long as he was still healing. But little Emry was on the mend, and Charlotte expressed hopes that she would be able to visit soon. Elodie hoped she would; it could be good to see her cousins again.
Things weren't going so well with Briony. Apparently her parents' divorce had hit Briony harder than Elodie thought it would; Briony was always complaining about her parents in school, so Elodie had assumed that she wouldn't care that much about them separating, but apparently she was wrong. Briony also desperately wanted to get her uncle Kevan out of her mother's house and away from her mother; given the circumstances, Elodie sympathized, but there wasn't a whole lot she could do. Having been made Duke of Ursul, Briony's father had named her brother Noll as his heir, and the two of them had moved to Ursul, far away from Mead; Briony hadn't seen either of them since.
"It's sick, watching Mom and Uncle Kevan together. I hate the fact that they act so innocent when I'm around. I know what they do in Mom's bedchamber, and they know I know, but they think I'm stupid or something and can't tell.
"I think I'm going to run away and go live with Dad and Noll (I hear they get a lot of pirate ships off the coast of Ursul). No, better yet, can I just come live with you? Everyone in my family is horrible! Well, except for Noll, but he's only seven; I'm sure he'll get to be horrible eventually."
Elodie had a feeling that she was going to be receiving another visit from the Duchess of Mead before too long.
When she had spare time, Elodie continued to do research. For now, she was concentrating mostly on Jiavar, researching volcanoes and the makers of mirrors. There wasn't a whole lot to go on; the royal library didn't have that many books on Jiavar. Considering current relations with Shanjia, they weren't likely to get any more. She thought that if she went through all of the books on Jiavar now, she would at least have gotten them out of the way when she turned her focus to Terrax and Malini (And eventually to Borealis, she supposed).
A week later, Elodie received a gift from Queen Junko, a heavy wooden box from which rose a musty, peculiar odor. She opened it, and screamed. Inside was the gray, embalmed head of a man, and a note written in flowing, elegant script, saying that this was what became of Shanjians who thought to ally with Nova.
No, she definitely wouldn't be getting help from Queen Junko.
-0-0-0-
"Did the Queen of Shanjia really send you a severed head?" Brin asked incredulously.
After that incident, no one was going to blame Elodie if she decided to spend a week or two away from the capital. There was also nothing strange about her deciding to spend time with her future sister-in-law in her own lands. Elodie liked to travel, and she had never been to Hellas before. As she wandered the steep, heather-coated moorlands, as the wind blasted across the hills and whipped her hair and skirts back and forth, Elodie felt some of the cares of life in the royal court leave her.
Elodie tucked her arm more firmly around Brin's, shutting her eyes and grimacing. "Yes, she did! Who does that? It's utterly barbaric!"
Brin laughed under her breath. "If the circumstances were different, I think I could have gotten used to living in Shanjia, personally. There are a few people whose heads I'd like to free from their shoulders."
"Oh, Brin, that's awful."
"True, though."
Brin disentangled her arm from Elodie's when they reached the crest of the hill. She turned about, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, her long, golden skirts billowing in the wind. "Keep up, Gowan!" she called, laughing. "The entire duchy's like this! You're going to have to get used to walking up hills now!"
"Yes, Aunt Brin!" the young boy called back, grinning and waving his hand.
Elodie frowned as she watched Gowan clamber up the hill. Gowan was Banion's seven-year-old natural son, fathered longbefore they had agreed to wed. It did not bother her all that much, that Banion had a child by another woman. She wasn't exactly marrying the Duke of Maree out of some passionate affection, and it wasn't like Banion had been promised to another woman when this child had been conceived. And at least Gowan's existence proved that Banion was capable of fathering children.
There were certain things, though. Things that left her unsettled on the topic of children.
"Do you really mean to adopt him as your heir?" Elodie asked in a low voice.
Brin nodded, keeping her eyes firmly on her nephew. Gowan had stopped at a large boulder, and was poking the ground with a stick. "I do, indeed. I've no intention of marrying or taking one of those one-night consorts as nobles sometimes do when their inclinations don't run towards the opposite sex. And I would prefer to keep this in the family. Gowan is Banion's son."
Elodie snorted. "Well, I'm sure that pleased him."
This earned her a throaty laugh. "It certainly did."
"But why not your brother Bennett?" Elodie pressed, brow knitted. "Or his son Anciet? Both would make viable heirs as well, and there would be less…" She paused. "…Fuss," Elodie finished lamely.
Up until about sixty years ago, natural children both baseborn and noble had been barred by Novan inheritance laws from inheriting any property of their parents. The only way they could come into possession of something of their parents was if it was given to them while their parents were still alive; after the death of the parents, natural children were completely ineligible to inherit anything, not even legally recognized as relatives of the deceased.
Elodie's grandfather, King Fulbert, had changed the laws. Natural children could inherit if their parents acknowledged them or a relative adopted them; among the nobility, adoption, either by the parent or by another relative, was considered a prerequisite for natural children to inherit anything. They were still eligible to inherit after children born in wedlock to the parent in question, but they could inherit. Nowadays, there was not the officially-sanctioned stigma against children born out of wedlock that there had been. Unofficially…
Today, though there were no laws against it, rarely were natural children allowed to inherit. Well, it would be more accurate to say that among the nobility, natural children were rarely allowed to inherit. The commoners embraced it more wholeheartedly than the nobility did, but the nobles of Nova did not particularly like having their or their spouse's dirty laundry brought to light. There was the still widely-held position that natural children, especially baseborn natural children, were not fit to rule over the most minor of principalities. And there was the fact that many nobles in Nova had a vested interest in making sure that their aunts or uncles or cousins once removed did not acknowledge a natural son or daughter.
Elodie could name two examples out of history of Novan nobles acknowledging and adopting natural children as their heirs. Both were minor countesses, and both had faced derision and suspicion for their decisions. Their heirs had been unable to hold the counties bequeathed to them, had been forced to relinquish control to more-powerful relatives.
Most agreed on this point: It was bad enough for a minor earl or countess to acknowledge an illegitimate child and hold them as their heir above their legitimate heirs. For a duke, duchess, or Good Lady forbid the ruler of Nova to acknowledge a natural child was madness.
"I could do with a bit of fuss," Brin replied easily. "My life's been rather too quiet lately."
Elodie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"And as for Anciet… Well, Anciet's a sweet boy, but my mother disinherited Bennett a long time ago. She made very clear that she didn't intend for Bennett or any of his heirs to inherit anything of Hellas."
"Why, exactly?" Elodie inquired. She had never understood why Bennett had been disinherited; the previous Duchess of Hellas had never explained why she disinherited her youngest child, and the previous Duke of Maree had never explained why he supported his wife's decision, and also barred Bennett from inheriting anything of Maree. And I didn't know that even Anciet was barred from inheriting. "From what I understand, she never gave a reason."
A rather cool expression came over Brin's face. "Some things are better left to rest, Elodie," she said shortly.
Elodie looked away. Another host of secrets, was it? She had had her fill of secrets, enough to last her a lifetime and over into the afterlife. The weight of the black mirror in her pocket was enough to remind her how much she disliked secrets. She turned her attention back to Gowan, but this provided no relief. As she watched Gowan (her future nephew, or step-son, or whatever anyone wanted to call him) playing amongst the rocks and the heather, Elodie's mind turned to other recent revelations regarding children, and relations.
Her father had recently acknowledged and adopted a natural son. No warning, no discretion, no writing Elodie a letter beforehand to make sure she knew what he was doing (Maybe he didn't have an obligation to warn her, but she would have appreciated it). Without warning, without discretion, Joslyn, Duke of Caloris, had made known the existence of a natural son, adopted him and acknowledged him as his heir.
The boy was supposed to be around seventeen. That would mean that, if this boy really was Elodie's half-brother, whatever relationship her father had had with his mother dated to before her parents' marriage. This made her far more relieved than it should have, especially considering the fact that the boy might not actually be her half-brother.
There were many who whispered that the Duke of Caloris's "indisposition" had left him so confused that he had actually named a child who was no relation of his as his heir. Elodie actually had been afraid of something like this happening, though she had been more worried about it being a noblewoman looking to marry her father and take advantage of his frail state. Fortunately, her father had shown no desire to remarry, which might explain why he had done… this. Frankly, a noblewoman looking to marry Joslyn to bolster her position would have been less of a threat than someone who may or may not be posing as his son.
Elodie knew what she should probably have done about this when she first found out. She probably should have investigated her purported half-brother's claims, probably should have made absolutely sure that he was who he said he was, and if there was any chance that he wasn't, to make sure he got the boot, no matter what her father said or thought or felt about it.
She hadn't done any of that, and while it wasn't too late to investigate the boy's claims, it was probably too late to get rid of him if he was indeed a pretender. Her "half-brother" was too well-established in her father's heart for him to be gotten rid of, and Elodie… Honestly, Elodie didn't want to deal with any of it.
Logically, she knew that her mother was dead, that the fact this half-brother of hers was older than her meant that her father had never betrayed her mother, and that Fidelia would have been more upset if Joslyn had gone the rest of his life without at the very least acknowledging the existence of a child of his flesh. Elodie knew all of that. She was an adult. She should have been able to deal with this like one. A lot of people had sex outside of marriage, and though polite society liked to pretend they didn't, a lot of people had children outside of marriage. Elodie was not ignorant to these facts. Her own intended had a child, a child she was watching leap about in the heather right now, ignoring his aunts warnings to be careful.
But what it turned out to be was just another reason to avoid her father, to not want to visit him, to not want to be around him. Elodie wasn't sure which possibility bothered her more: the idea of a pretender manipulating her father and playing on his weakness and his affections, or the idea that she had had a half-brother all this time, and her father had never seen fit to tell her.
Gowan came running up the hill towards them, his arms full of heather. Elodie found that a walk through the moors of Hellas had not cleared her mind of worry like she thought it would. However, when Gowan offered her a few sprigs with a hopeful look on his face, she smiled anyways.
-0-0-0-
Not long after Elodie returned to the capital, she received a visit from an envoy from Borealis.
Though the people of Borealis barely eked out a subsistence living on the coasts, living off of fish and sea plants and bartering for much of what they used in their daily lives, they clung to their old traditions. The one that had brought this envoy here was that Borealis traditionally presented the new ruler of Nova with a gift—from what Elodie understood, a good-luck charm.
And doubtless they hope to hold on to Nova's good will. But I wonder which village sent this one…
From her place upon the throne, Elodie gazed at the woman Borealis had sent as an envoy. She was very plainly dressed for an envoy to a foreign court, wearing a blue wool dress, though given how poor Borealis was, this could have been finery by their standards. Was she one of their village's leaders? Elodie had heard that Borealan settlements were governed by "Lumen shamans", and while she was told that none of them were actually Lumens, the idea of this woman being one of them made Elodie want to curl her lip in anger.
The envoy bowed low and took a small object wrapped in cloth from her bag. Without looking up, she said in a solemn voice, "On the behalf of the people of Borealis, I present you with this gift. May you be protected from whatever ill will and malice is directed at you."
Her curiosity piqued, Elodie leaned forwards and took the object from the envoy's hands. When she unwrapped the cloth and saw what was lying beneath, she was barely able to bite back a gasp.
Resting in her hands was a small, black mirror, rimmed and backed with silver.
In a voice that sounded distant and too-calm and entirely unlike her own, Elodie asked the envoy, "If I may… Tell me, what is the significance of a mirror among your people?"
The envoy straightened, but kept her head lowered and her gaze focused squarely on the ground. "Our people have considered mirrors to be good luck charms since time immemorial. They ward off evils such as ill will, mystical creatures and malicious magic. An obsidian mirror is held to be the most potent of such charms."
Elodie nodded. Her blood felt cool and sluggish, and her limbs so stiff that she could have passed for a statue, but her mind was racing.
-0-0-0-
There were significantly more books on Borealis and its history than there were on Jiavar. As Elodie had discovered, when the hundred-year war that had devastated Borealis hundreds of years ago had finally ceased, many of its people, including some of the most powerful Borealan Lumens still living, had fled to Arcadia. Specifically, they had fled to Nova, and had taken their knowledge with them. And the people of Borealis did indeed have a rich, ancient tradition surrounding mirrors. One that they didn't see fit to carry with them to Nova; I had certainly never heard of mirrors being used as good luck charms. Now, why is that?
The runes she had seen on the rim of the mirror her father was holding, they were probably ancient Borealan characters. Unfortunately, Elodie still had no idea what they said; all of the books in the library were written in Latimerian script, and the one reference that led to the Borealan script was contained in a volume that appeared to have gone missing.
That seems to be the tale with much of what King Latimer did, Elodie mused, rubbing her forehead. It was late at night, and her vision was beginning to blur from tiredness. That envoy probably would have recognized it. Should I have shown the mirror to her?
Oh, well. It's too late now.
As the envoy said, mirrors were held as good luck charms, able to ward off all manner of evil. There were some who claimed that mirrors had mystical properties that could be tapped by anyone with sufficient will and need, or only by those with training in spiritual arts, or only by Lumens. There were those who said that mirrors were portals to other worlds, left dormant at all times but at the stroke of midnight, when all manner of spirits and supernatural creatures would escape the shadow world and walk among the living.
But folklore and old superstitions, as fascinating as they were, would not provide Elodie with the answers she sought. Borealis had been ruled over by Lumen Witch-Kings and Queens for as long as civilization had flourished there, until the war. The mirror her father had held was likely imbued with its power by a Lumen, at some point. For now, Elodie was going to put aside her belief that a mirror couldn't last for six hundred years (Or longer than that, really). She began to peruse the Borealan Annals of the Kings and Queens, looking for anything that could possibly be helpful.
There were many stories of Borealan rulers who imbued objects with magical power. A king who ruled roughly twelve-hundred years ago charmed a spear so that it would never rust or decay or break. A cloak was imbued with magic so that it would take on the color and patterns of whatever the wearer was standing in front of. A well was cursed so that anyone who drank from it while not wearing a certain amulet would be consumed by flames.
There were many stories of Borealan rulers channeling magic through objects or imbuing them with power, but in all her searching, Elodie only found one instance involving a mirror.
Over eight hundred years ago, Borealis was invaded by fleets from somewhere to the south. The Annals never specified where the invasion force came from, and there was no record of Nova attempting to invade Borealis at that time, so Elodie could not say where they had come from.
The invasion force was led by Lumens, and the Borealan forces were hard-pressed to defend themselves. As weeks went by and the invaders made their way closer and closer to the capital, the situation seemed bleak.
Queen Livana herself led the Borealan army for what seemed like a final charge. She was a Lumen of extraordinary power, and the army took heart from her presence among them. But as they approached the enemy, she bid her army hold back, while she rode onwards.
Livana came to the crest of a great hill, and looked upon the invading army. Then, as the annals reported, she held up an obsidian mirror, rimmed with silver marked with sacred runes and imbued with her power, and the enemy was gone.
"'Gone'?" Elodie muttered, frowning disbelievingly at the page. "That's it? What's that supposed to mean?" She took the mirror from her pocket and shot it a troubled glance. "And what exactly is this, to be able to do something like that?"
It had to be the same mirror. Elodie would not accept any other answer. But this, while it was helpful, raised more questions than it answered. What had Livana done to the army invading her lands? How exactly had she gotten rid of them? Where did the mirror fit into that? And what did the text mean by 'gone'?
Trying to read about the rest of Livana's reign was no help. Everything about her ended there. There was nothing more written of Queen Livana in the Annals of the Kings and Queens.
Had she died? Elodie could have accepted that explanation, the idea that Livana had used so much magic in this venture that she had died, but the Annals gave no death-date for her. The reign of Livana's daughter, Queen Nerit, began seven years later, but there was no mention of Livana's death, and no mention of anything she might have done after repelling the invaders.
This doesn't make any sense. If Queen Livana's reign was a quiet one after this incident, I suppose that might explain why they've not said anything of what she did afterwards, but there should at least be a death-date. The Borealans were good record-keepers, better than we were at this time in history. Every other monarch in the Borealan Annals has a birth-date, death-date, and the dates for the beginning and the end of their reigns. Why is Livana the only one who doesn't?
And of course, none of this explains why Dad was affected the way he was…
Elodie sighed and rubbed at her stinging eyes. She wasn't sure what time it was, but she knew it had to be well past midnight. She could not afford to stay up any longer; there was too much for her to do tomorrow. And frankly, whenever Elodie went prying into history and secrets to answer a question, she came up with ten more. She was so sick of secrets. Better to stop before she drowned in them.