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Last chapter for the day. Happy New Years!

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Christine

Chapter 96

The Chamber

Once upon a time, Prince Eric and Maiden Kristine lived happily ever after. Their story had been the stuff of imagination - of idealizations. Of untold emotions and wishful thinking. And their story had already been finished. They'd been given a happy ending, so their tale now had to end.

And a new one needed to be told.

Somewhere else, somewhere far from where happy endings were born, there was a boy with the curse of death. The people of his village saw that curse and took from him everything he loved. They took everything that loved him.

They sold him to the Underworld, where no sunlight would ever reach - where its king kept him there and tormented him endlessly in a seemingly inescapable prison. It was only when the king killed the Underworld's guard-beast, the great three-headed dog, that the boy killed the king and travelled up, up, all the way up to the surface.

And once at the surface, he discovered a magical land of moonlit rivers. A land of talking animals. He'd stumbled upon paradise. A fox found him hungry and alone; it offered him a home in its den. He shared this den with several other creatures as well - a dragonfly. A cat. A stag. A bird. The boy accepted. To blend in with his new family, he himself became a spider. But there was trouble in this paradise - the ruler of the land was a terrible, cruel, monstrous wolf who despised the fox and all the rest. When the beloved bird died upon laying her eggs, the boy insulted the wolf in his grief. The wolf, with his pack, came and killed every animal in the den - except for the boy, hidden well in his spidery form.

So the boy continued on.

He wandered. Aimless. Until one day, he was taken to a land of thorns and vines. The lord of the thorns tasked him with destroying any plant he deemed unworthy of life - any plant that challenged the Thorn Lord's existence, that threatened to tear down the thousands of strangling vines. And so he did, but plotted to demolish the thorns and vines himself. He knew that doing so required a sacrifice, and decided that he would go down with the ruler.

But then the Thorn Lord gifted him a rose, and the boy with the curse of death fell in love with her.

The rose fell in love with him, too.

And when the time came for him to kill the Thorn Lord as well as himself, the rose took the boy's place.

She would not allow her love to die.


For a moment, there was silence as I stared into the Shah's eyes. Surrounding us was what looked like a forest of iron trees - but I knew that only the one existed. All of the others were a mere reflection. A single light in the metal ceiling of the chamber illuminated the space, but dimly. The forest, with its silvery color, looked eerie - the dozens of nooses hanging from their branches did not help.

The tree, the real one, began to heat. I could feel the heat coming from it already.

The Shah's wide eyes looked to the iron.

I heard Ibrahim's voice clearly, even through the glass: "Allah..."

And then Erik's heart-wrenching yell as he realized what I'd just done. "No!"

I couldn't see them. Any of them. All I could see was my reflection, the Shah's reflection, the tree's reflection, over and over again.

The tree continued to heat. The space started becoming warm. Very warm.

"Christine!" cried Erik. I could hear panic, anguish in his voice. "What have you done?"

I heard Nadir let out a stream of uncharacteristic curses.

It was then that the Shah realized what had happened. Truly understood. His entire face opened in fear as he stared at me, then went to one of the walls of the Chamber. He put his palms flat against it. Through his heavy intake and outtake of breath, he spoke in Persian as calmly as he could.

No one responded.

His face contorted in anger and he banged on the glass. He spoke louder, more forcefully.

The Prince was the one who replied. His voice was calm, serene, and I recognized the Persian word for "No."

The Shah screamed. He slammed his body with all of his might against the glass. He did it again. And again. It didn't so much as crack.

The Chamber's wall material was simultaneously strong enough to withstand a grown man's force, but delicate enough to emit sound through it. And the Chamber itself, what it was capable of, with the self-heating tree, a glass box with a mind of its own at the shutting of a door - Erik's engineering abilities were so far ahead of his time.

"Perhaps we should," said Erik. I could hear terror in his voice. "We should tear it down. Christine could die. She could-"

"No," said Nadir. "No, we will not touch the Chamber."

The Shah continued slamming his body into the glass.

"Christine could die!" Erik growled. "Put your need for revenge aside, please, for just a single moment-"

"And if we take her out," explained the Daroga matter-of-factly, "then she will absolutely die. The Shah would see to it immediately."

"Not if we-"

"Kill the Shah? And how exactly do you suggest doing that in a way that doesn't indicate struggle? Remember that our alibi is that he chose to die - that he is ending his life willingly within the Chamber. Now, our weapons are our hands, my Echoes' guard guns, and...do you have your lasso? No? No, because why bring a defensive weapon when you fully expect to die? So we are down to gunshot wounds and bodily bruises to murder him - which of those screams 'died by suicide within a self-heating chamber' to you?"

Erik let his words sink in for a moment, then let out a strangled wail. "Christine! Christine, you're so...you're so stupid! How could you do this! I can't lose you too; I can't-"

"I can't lose you, either," I said softly. "So now we are even."

"Even!" he yelled. "Even! This is not a game! This is not the time to act on your pride!"

I pursed my lips.

"I can't lose you," Erik said again. "I can't. Please. I can't take it. If you die, then I will die too. I won't be able to go on. Christine-"

Just then, the Shah stopped banging himself against the wall. He looked at me, fury in his gaze, glanced at the noose hanging from the branch, and went to me. I realized too late what he was doing, and before I could get away from him, he grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me up.

He began walking me toward the tree. To the noose.

To hang me himself.

Erik and Ibrahim both gave cries of rage, as the Shah shouted, breathless, at all of the men watching. I didn't know what he was telling them, but I could read his tone enough to know he was cursing them.

Initially, I tried to pull myself free with my hands. Or hit him on his shoulders or the side of his head. Then, when the fear of that noose overtook me, some kind of animal instinct took hold and I jabbed the nail of my thumb into his left eye.

He dropped me, screaming in pain - no doubt this man was used to very little pain as it was. I landed on my side as he brought his hands to his eye, trying to ease his own suffering, but my nails weren't short - a bit past the tips of my fingers. And I'd dug my thumb in deep.

I wasn't surprised when he pulled his hands away to reveal blood.

I half-expected him to go after me again. But he didn't. A predator realizing its prey wasn't the weak young thing he'd thought, he turned away from me - lest, perhaps, I go after his other eye.

A coward, I realized. This man was a coward. For all the hurt he caused, he was scared of it. He was terrified of pain.

Maybe that's why he reveled in it.

He was fascinated by what he feared.

"You're a craven," I whispered, moving away from him. From the tree. It was becoming unbearably hot. I wished, suddenly, that I'd had a drink of water after all. "A hypocrite."

I knew he couldn't understand me, but the words felt good to say regardless. I could feel the men outside watching us. I could feel Erik's eyes especially, even if I couldn't see them.


There was not much to do now, but wait.

I found a corner of the Chamber to sit, and Erik went to that corner and spoke to me, softly, in my ear. He told me that he loved me. He told me not to give up. He told me that I was brave - so stupid, he reiterated, but brave.

At first, I was responding back. But as the heat grew ever unbearable, I stopped talking. My mouth was too dry. My eyes as well. I closed them.

This scared him. He would ask me every minute or so if I could hear him. I would nod.

I had no idea how much time passed, but I knew now what it was to be inside an oven.

The Shah was sitting on the other side of the Chamber from me, still nursing his eye. I wondered if he would be partially blind now.

If he would, I had to remind myself, then it wouldn't be for long.

Should the Shah not hang himself, it wouldn't be long for me either.

I hadn't seen it before, but under the noose was a metal stool. I wondered if, even with that stool, I was tall enough for the noose.

No.

Don't even consider that. No matter how hot it gets, don't even consider that possibility.

Erik kept talking. I heard Nadir speaking to Ibrahim and the Prince tersely, though I had no idea what they were saying.

My face was slick with sweat. My tongue felt like sandpaper, and every movement hurt.

I didn't care who saw me. I removed my dress, so that I was sitting in my underclothes, using the dress as a shield from the burning floor. If I was going to die, then decency was the least of my worries.

I felt sick. I felt as though I would vomit. I did vomit.

When I looked at my own reflection at last, I saw that I'd turned completely red. I closed my eyes again.

My head continued to throb. My heart raced. I thought, perhaps, my brain would burst from the pressure I felt there.

After a while, I couldn't understand Erik anymore. He spoke in French, but I couldn't focus. I opened my eyes, and the trees seemed to dance. The branches grew big, beautiful leaves. The forest changed color - silver to black to green to blue to yellow and back to silver.

The trees, and there were so many of them, whispered to me to sleep. Rest. They would take care of me. They would watch as I dreamed.

That sounded so nice. It sounded nice, even as Erik sobbed from somewhere far away, as Ibrahim attempted in vain to comfort him, as Nadir continued to curse.

I was about to close my eyes again when, among the trees, appeared a group of individuals I had never seen before, but were familiar to me nonetheless. They looked at me with adoration - all of them.

A homely, kind-eyed red-haired woman.

A golden spaniel.

A black dog with three heads.

Two tan-skinned young men.

A girl with long brown hair, an infant in her arms.

A dark-skinned man.

A man with a cane.

I knew who they were. I could name them now. But my lips were too cracked, and if I opened my mouth, they'd surely bleed. My mouth would bleed. My lungs would bleed.

I was dying. I was dying and they were here to take me away.

Marie smiled at me. "Thank you for loving my baby."

You're welcome. It was a pleasure. I wanted to say it but couldn't. I couldn't move anymore.

In unison, they all looked toward the dancing, beautiful trees. At one tree in particular. The closest one. The one, I realized, that had stayed the color of iron the entire time. We all watched as the Shah rose slowly and went to the tree. He went to stand on the stool. Silence as he did so.

I closed my eyes. I kept them closed. I was sure I would never open them again.

I slipped away from consciousness, even as I heard Giovanni whisper to me, "It's not your time, Christine."