Enjoy!
Note: Chapter 92 should be fixed now! A lot of you were confused at the double 91 chapter. Sorry!
Erik
Chapter 95
The Goodbye
I will enter the Chamber at precisely eight tonight.
Should I not come back to see you by midnight, I will have perished in the Chamber.
This is how it will happen, Christine, should you wish to know. Should you rather not, then stop reading now and put the papers down.
The Shah wants to inspect the Chamber. He will have guards present, ready to destroy the Chamber should he become trapped inside.
But they will not be guards. They will be Echoes. Trained, as you know, to listen to no one but Nadir. And Nadir will certainly not be ordering them to help the Shah out of the Chamber.
Once two men are within it, and the door closes, it locks, and there is no way in or out. Not until either twelve hours pass or the noose on the iron tree is pulled. But you cannot simply pull the noose with your hands - you have to hang. The Chamber will know the difference. I designed it that way.
Nadir will be in attendance. So will Ibrahim and the Prince. No one else.
And the Prince will claim that it was all a suicide attempt. That he watched it all happen, that the Shah refused to let the Chamber be destroyed. That he wanted to either roast to death or hang, as he could no longer go on without his mother. The Prince will say that he tried to order the guards to help regardless; Ibrahim and Nadir will say the same. But the guards, when given a direct order from the Shah, must always obey. The Prince will say that he attempted to leave Mirror Hall to get other guards, but the the guards currently present refused to let him or anyone leave. There was no way to stop this death.
And should I survive, I will be exiled from Persia, for creating the very thing that killed the distraught new Shah's older brother.
Should I survive, I will see you again, my love.
If not, then this is goodbye.
I love you. Take care of yourself (and Ayesha, if you can). Fall in love again. Live a full life. I want that for you, should I perish.
I will love you until my dying breath.
Christine
Chapter 95.5
The Decision
I read it all.
Every word of his life.
I cried more than once. Many more times than once.
My father tried to knock on my door. But I'd locked it. I couldn't see him right now. I couldn't voice what I was reading. What Erik had told me. I couldn't, and I likely wouldn't be able to for a long time.
And when I was done, I laid down on my side. I curled up, wishing I would wither away into dust.
He could live. He could survive. We could all go to France.
Or I could lose him.
My head pounded. I was dehydrated from crying. But I didn't want to drink.
I pictured that room. Echo Hall. How it might now look with the Chamber inside of it. I imagined all those mirrors. Mirrors of the Chamber. Mirrors of the hall. Mirrors upon mirrors upon mirrors.
I wondered if the Chamber's mirrors were two-way - if that's how people saw in. I wondered-
I sat up with a gasp.
Mirror Hall.
That question I'd asked myself when I was in Ibrahim's care - about whether Echo Hall...
I looked at the clock. Seven-thirty.
I was up from the bed. I didn't have time to think. I had to go now. I had to see.
I unlocked the door. I began to run, but paused at my father's door. I could tell him where I was going, but...but there wasn't time. I sprinted down the stairs, through his house, and into the study. Only the servants and Reza were home, but no one saw me. Good.
I opened the latch to Echo Hall.
And I did my best to navigate. I moved on swift feet toward where I knew Erik's rooms were, but I visualized the palace.
Where was Mirror Hall?
I had no idea.
And with little time to think, I merely allowed myself to get lost in the dark, cold maze between the walls of the palace.
Under normal circumstances, I would have panicked, knowing that I didn't have a clue as to my location. But all I could think about was that time was running out. I could only hear my feet pounding into the floor like the rapid ticking of a clock.
And then, when I was sure I was deep within Echo Hall, deeper than I'd ever imagined going, I saw it.
Light.
Bright light, as though through an opening.
But it wasn't an opening. It was glass. A long stretch of the Hall was glass.
And beyond the glass, I saw, was a room of mirrors.
Within the room of mirrors was a structure of metal beams and even more glass, within which was a small iron oak tree, its branches just low enough that a man would have to reach up above his head to reach them. A noose hung from one of the branches.
The door to the structure, octagonal in shape, was on my side of the room. It had no handle. It was open.
And then I saw them. Nadir. Ibrahim. The Prince. All on one side, watching. Guards - who I knew to be Echoes - watching as well. The Shah entered the Chamber, fascinated. Erik began to move toward the door as well.
I didn't think.
I just acted.
On instinct.
I'd come to Persia alone. Frightened. A mouse looking into the gaping maw of a lion.
I'd been a drop of water in a forest on fire, ready to evaporate.
I'd been a fragile flower in a field of vines.
But I wasn't a mouse anymore.
I wasn't a drop of water.
I wasn't a flower.
I was Christine, and I would not watch idly as my life was determined for me.
I braced myself and ran straight through the glass. I fell, hearing shouts of men, and felt a shock of sharp pain as shards of glass went through my clothes and pierced my skin. But I didn't stop to consider if I was bleeding. I stood, adrenaline taking over, and ran to the Chamber's door.
I didn't look at Erik. Or Nadir. Or Ibrahim. Or Prince Izad. Or any of the Echoes.
I met the Shah's eyes as he stood watching me with disbelief. I met the eyes of the man who kidnapped me, stole the lives of dozens of girls, tore down Erik's soul, murdered Nadir's wife. The man who was so hated that his own brother and right hand man wished him dead. The man who would never, ever hurt anyone again.
And I closed the door behind me.
