Shackles of Shackles

Because after everything that life has thrown at you, every chain that has bound you to the depth of that bottomless pit of despair and grief, every single form of constraint that exists in reality and the imagination, you realise that these shackles, have shackles themselves as well.

All you have to do is exploit them, and free yourself.

Here I was, walking along the pebbled roads of Jehanna, the one leading away from the ring of mountains.

No, I was not mad or delirious. Truly, I was free once more, and I could hardly describe how marvelous it felt to be in control of your own life once more.

I had hardly anything of value in my bag except for a small bag of gold. I had the clothes on my back, as well as a drab robe that would suffice as a change of clothing until I near civilization again, some dried food stolen from the kitchens, and my trusty shamshir.

I never expected to regain my freedom so easily. Always, I had expected to wait until Joshua's coronation, or whenever he decided to release me. But guess what? It wasn't even a challenge to become a free person.

It all began unexpectedly, when Queen Ismaire decided to send us, which would refer to Joshua and I, to the royal summer palace, tucked in the recesses of the kingdom in the valley of a ring of mountains. She said something about wanting us to forge a loving relationship before Joshua ascends the throne, which was perfectly fine with me, because that would only be the case when hell froze over, which didn't seem like anytime soon. Then she sent us off on Winchester and Amber, together with an entire army of soldiers, cooks, seamstresses, servants and even a professional masseuse, whatever we need the last person for.

Everyone was excited. The sun was shining, the roads were clean. Grado had been smashed and peace was restored. Everyone who participated in the war effort was duly rewarded with money and compensated for their losses. Gerik was named Imperial Weaponry Inspector, while Tethys became Senior Court Dancer. Ewan was awarded the title of Royal Magic Apprentice, and had hopes of becoming Minister for Magic and Healing someday. Saleh…was forgotten.

Forgotten, just like that.

They built a bit of a marble memorial for all the soldiers who had died and conducted a mass funeral cum burial. Everyone in attendance shed a few tears, some crocodile tears, others more genuine. They hired a cleaner to sweep the place every day and ensure that no vandals raided the tombs (as though they had even placed anything of value within the tombs that anyone would want to steal) and that was all.

The man who had given up everything in his life to save me and save Jehanna, was forgotten and now buried under layers of sand, gravel and soil. They even forgot to gave him a grand funeral (as Joshua promised), just threw him in like all the other victims of the war into a pre-dug hole in the ground with his coffin. And even the coffin was merely of cheap birch wood, plain, simple and still covered with the pungent smell of birch sap. For his heroic actions, did he not deserve something better?

When they had promised a grand funeral, I expected something like grandiose coffins made of white polished marble with golden engraved inscriptions citing their heroic deeds, with many people in attendance mourning, and large bouquets of flowers to see off the dead for their last journey.

But no one cared. No one cared except me. I suppose I could hardly blame Gerik, Tethys and Ewan for not remembering. They were inundated with duties and work after taking up offices in the palace. But Queen Ismaire? Joshua? They promised.

Of course, as the wise old men living in obscure mountaintops always said, promises can be broken.

How astute.

But everyone else was in high spirits, so like the lost sheep I had turned into ever since I first entered the palace, I plastered a small smile on my face and wandered alongside them, trying to admire the scenery.

I said trying, because it was spring, and the landscape was dotted with cherry trees in full bloom. Every time I spied a cherry tree from where I sat on horseback, my heart would involuntarily clench, tightening till I nearly tumbled off the horse in pain. The landscape evoked so many memories in me that it was nearly impossible for me to admire the spring.

But no one else noticed. Because no one else knew the significance of the cherry trees. Even Joshua, he was too wrapped up in the euphoria of having a break, that he didn't notice my strained expression, even though I was right beside him.

And so our entourage journeyed into the depth of the mountain and reached the secluded holiday villa built amidst the ring of mountains. Personally I didn't like it, whereas everyone else 'ohh'ed and 'ahh'ed over the palatial mansion. If enemies were to storm this place, all they had to do was stand on top of the mountains and lo and behold, we would be annihilated before we could even blink.

But the colossal palace was not without its little luxuries that made me admire it, despite the appreciation being rather grudging. First and foremost, its amenities were superb. They had an all-natural hot spring, built-in heaters for every room via underground heating systems, as well as an excellent courtyard complete with an abundance of bamboos and willows. Next, it was secluded, meaning that there were few disturbances of any kind, which was very pleasant. Then, the biggest advantage of all, there were few servants. Ever since that encounter with Belle, I had heightened my suspicions towards people waiting hand and foot on my everyday affairs.

After being toured around the villa, I was invited to this candlelight dinner with Joshua. I was so thrilled by the idea that I decided to arrive fifteen minutes late on purpose, just to miss the appetizer course.

Unfortunately, as I had deduced a long time ago, Joshua was not a fool.

"What are you doing, Joshua?" I asked in a huff, in the midst of combing my hair after bathing. The robe hung loosely around my frame, still wet from the water dripping from my hair. I frowned at the water stains on the silk. Before going to dinner, I would have to change into something else.

"Watching my wife attending to her coiffure," he replied casually, leaning against the door with a smirk on his face. "Is that a problem for you?"

"No," I replied with as much nonchalance as I could muster as he strode towards me and placed his hands on my shoulders, peering into the mirror. "Get out. I'll be there in a minute."

He smirked. "Oh no, Marisa. I know what you are up to, and I am going to make sure I spend every minute of that quality time during dinner admiring your enchanting profile."

I shook his hands away from my shoulders. "Take your hands off me."

He grinned. "Do I make you nervous?" he whispered in my ear softly.

I was not even going to bother answering that statement. I tied my hair in a half-up hairstyle as I usually did and retrieved my shamshir from where it was propped up against the wall. "Get. Out," I demanded, pointing the blade in his face and a finger at the door. "I need to change."

He took the hint and walked out, threatening to barge in if I wasn't out yet in three minutes.

I slinked out just as he was about to break down the door, and we went for our dinner. He was in an extraordinarily good mood, while I was fighting to keep my boredom and sheer annoyance from showing on my face.

Who the heck still ate candlelight dinners? It was all oil lamps now.

They served lots of food, and by the seventh plate I was feeling bloated. I started to feel sick when the servant informed me that we were not even half-way through their twenty-course dinner, and all I had been eating were merely the appetizers.

Thanks to the free flow of wine, Joshua got drunk by the ninth course, very nearly cutting the plate in half instead of the steak. His complexion turned florid, and his words slurred. He grew more flirtatious, and he moved over to my side and leant against me as he emptied glass after glass of red wine.

Men. I shook my head. Always getting drunk.

When finally the dessert was served (vanilla crème brulee with chocolate ice cream and raspberry sauce), Joshua was already sound asleep against my shoulder.

Or should I say, Joshua was in a drunken stupor so severe that it bordered on unconsciousness.

Shaking my head at his imprudent decision to drink heavily, I attempted to help him up. I managed to prop him up against the wall with much difficulty, but before I could call for the attendants his sword had fallen from his belt.

It hit against the edge of the wooden table, and made a hollow ringing sound, just like silver on metal.

Bending, I retrieved his sword and I was about to fasten the sword back onto Joshua's belt when I stopped. Sword hilts were usually made of metal, like silver. That was normal. But usually sword hilts were made of solid metal, and thus when they hit against other hard objects they made solid ringing noises, not hollow ringing noises.

Leaving Joshua lying comfortably on the ground, I tested my theory using my own shamshir. It sounded solid enough. Then I swopped my shamshir for Joshua's sword and repeated the test. It sounded like a hollow silver bell being struck.

I tapped a fingernail on the hilt. It sounded hollow.

Perhaps it contained a secret compartment, somewhere. I was amused. Certainly Joshua would be the first to think up of such an eccentric idea as to hide something in his sword. Fumbling, I hunted for the switch, or whatever that would cause the secret compartment to open, that was, if there was a secret compartment in the first place.

After subjecting the sword hilt to several minutes of intense violation, I gave up. There was probably nothing in the hilt, and I was wasting my time.

That was when I accidentally slammed the sword against the table again, and the red jewel on the hilt of the sword pressed against the wood with considerate amount of force.

Very slowly, the hilt shifted, and the tip fell off. I could almost hear the clockwork turning in this piece of ingenious contraption. Picking up the sword, I peered into the hole that was created.

There was a piece of paper.

A piece of paper? I was annoyed. After all that time that I had spent trying to figure the thing out, all it yielded was a piece of paper? Still, it was better than nothing, and I tilted the sword so that the parchment fell out onto my lap.

It was pretty new, judging by the lack of yellow stains on the paper, and it was fastened by an elaborate ring, which I recognized, with some horror, denial and shock, to be the very wedding ring that I had so happily thrown into the fireplace after my first major argument with Joshua.

Did he…dig through the ashes just to find the ring? The poor man! The ring must have been worth a fortune for him to attempt such endeavors! Oh, and I refuse absolutely to believe that he retrieved the ring out of love. That was pure nonsense in its crystallized form.

I slid the parchment from its confining fastener, and unrolled it on the table on whichever plot of space I could find amidst the dishes and plates.

Oathpaper.

It was the oathpaper.

THE oathpaper.

I refused to believe my eyes, and I rubbed them several times until my eyes hurt from rubbing, then I looked at the large words on the parchment again.

It still read oathpaper.

I had found it! The oathpaper that I had been betting my entire freedom on was in my hands! Liberation was imminent and victory had never tasted so sweet as I stood up abruptly with a smile brightening my face.

With trembling hands and an unclear mind, I torched the paper in the candle flame. It caught fire quickly, and I didn't even notice that it was all in ashes until the corner I was holding onto also caught fire and burnt a blister on my thumb.

Momentarily, it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my back, and my limbs were no longer in chains. I was free. Free!

The smell of burning must have disturbed Joshua, for he turned and frowned in his sleep.

Joshua…he would be the other problem, wouldn't he? If I were to leave him forever…

A sharp pain stabbed through my heart, causing tears to well up in my eyes. After all that we had endured together, all the drama that we had lived through and all the times that we spent with each other, leaving him was…heartbreaking.

Where did that word come from? Didn't my heart already break so many times that it was in such small shards that cannot even be pieced together?

I stifled a noisy sob that threatened to erupt. It would probably wake Joshua, and the last thing I wanted was to disturb his sleep.

As I stood there weeping like the helpless idiot that I was, I suddenly came to the epiphany, stupid as it was.

I was blind, okay? I was always rather blind. Bad genes, I suppose.

And thus I came to the concluding statement of my little heart-wrenching epiphany.

You can't stop loving someone.

If you ever stopped loving someone for some reason, it means that you had never loved him or her in the first place. There was no way to run from love, it would always come back to you eventually. When you fell in love, you had already given a part of you away, and regardless whether the other party accepts or declines your affections, that part of you had already been lost to you forever, and you could never ever get it back again.

Joshua gave another grunt as he snuggled against the carpet, breathing slowly.

How was I ever going to leave this man? In one year, he had let me experience more of life than what I had gained from all my past twenty years without him beside me. He meant too much to me for me to just let go.

But…he would hardly matter only to me. He still had Natasha who would be waiting faithfully for him, and his young son Henry would still be waiting for the day he could have a father. He had a family, a throne, a country waiting for him, all needing to depend on him.

As for me? Hardly any living soul would miss me. My father was dead. Saleh had died. Gerik, Tethys and Ewan all had important duties in the imperial palace and a glorious life planned out neatly ahead of them. There was no one left in this world who would care for me, much less provide for me. Would anyone even remember who I was?

It was only a matter of choice: I could leave now, quietly and without any fanfare or scandal, or I could wait for the inevitable expulsion after Joshua's coronation.

I swallowed, but straightened indignantly. If I were to be chased out of the palace, I would leave by myself. There would be little need for them to express their false sympathies and other forms of promises (which would be broken definitely).

I crept silently around the palace, gathering all that I needed and tying them in a silk bundle. Grabbing my shamshir, I cast one last lingering look at my sleeping ex-husband, and stole out of the room, out of the mansion and out of the ring of mountains. Hardly anyone would notice my disappearance. I was too insignificant a character.

I hadn't even thought of what I would become after I leave. With so few possessions and so little money, the best bet I had was so seek out the nearest town and hit the arena, where I would definitely excel and earn enough money in two days to last me for the rest of my life.

Heck, I was the legendary girl who pitted herself against a fully-armed general with a silver lance while carrying only my shamshir. The wager, set by the astounded arena manager, had been two thousand gold. He was in disbelief that I would challenge his fiercest and mightiest general. He was in utter disbelief when I emerged from the ring without a single scratch and in perfect condition to best some more of his warriors.

Well, they banned me afterwards, on the account that I was too aggressive. Sheesh, why don't they just admit that I was too good for their warriors?

Sore losers.

This time I would be smarter. I would just fight enough to win enough money for the week before I stopped. The money would cover my bills for accommodation at the posh inns I would have to stay in (after staying in the palace for so long, I don't believe I can still sleep on coarse bug-infested linen), pay for my meals and allow me to purchase whatever necessities I need. Maybe I could even start saving money in a little pouch or something, just in case of rainy days. And I could take a few coins and buy a bouquet to visit Saleh whenever my wanderings brought me back near the capital.

I closed my eyes as I walked, listening to the crunch of the gravel under my feet and the distant cries of eagles in the air.

I had a life before everything happened, and maybe, going back to that life would be better for everyone.

I might even see Joshua again, who knows.

Until then, I could probably just treat everything as a dream.

Because you know what, no matter how hard you tried, how many promises you made, how many pieces of oathpaper you hid, all of it were just words, words on a form of medium. With a simple spark from a candle, all the promises would be razed to the ground.

It was just like a grand beautiful city of houses and streets. It looked good, sounded great and appeared solid. But guess what, someone lit a match one day and there was a huge conflagration and the next thing everyone knew, the entire city was razed to the ground, leaving only black ash.

I smiled.

No matter how strong the shackles are, they were still external bindings. No one could keep me by force for long.

No one.

Author's Note:

Firstly, to address this chapter, yes, it's a bit short, and not exactly the best of all chapters. I did it in 1st person because the sequel will be also in 1st person. The sequel will be continued from this fic onwards, like another chapter kind of thing. I think leaving with a rational decision. I consider Marisa to be someone with pride and only spineless people will still stick with a husband if he is blatantly philandering, right?

Next, to address several queries I received...dark magic is not evil, I agree, but dark magic has the ability to corrupt, for it somehow absorbs your soul, like Nergal and Brammimond. It leaves you like an empty shell. As for resurrection, I pictured it as a parallel of Nergal's morph-creating process in FE 7, and morphs generally do not have feelings or anything.

Yeah, this will go on. Going to introduce a new character in the next chapter. I know recently my writing is out of sorts. Forgive me. Traumatising experiences I scarcely want to mention surfaced in my life. These two chapters have been horrid, I understand. The next one will be much better, I hope. XD

Till then. Love, snowylavendermist