Legend has it, if you stand in front of a mirror, shuffling an enchanted deck of cards, you can open a doorway between dimensions.
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Prince Teodric of Springport remembers the promise he made his father: to *not* try to reenact the legend of dimen...
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"He died before being able to explain why."
The sentence plagued my mind as our scenery changed. From the tropical beaches, we crossed a quaint, cobblestone bridge, entering a dense diorama of wispy leaves and wet soil.
Hartland Forest—the jungle-like region that contained the city of Hartland, and Hartland Castle, where queen Tilda reigned. As far as I could tell, it was a tangle of twisting turns and muddy caves and exotic animals I wouldn't dare dream of encountering.
As Ysac pointed out veering vines that seemed to hang from the sky and named the turquoise lakes we trotted by, I lost myself. But not in his presence, as usual; I drowned in his past words. When he'd told me that he and the knaves—three of which were dead, he reminded me—were the only ones aware of the king's mistrust of his mages. But they presumed Gwenore knew, too.
I recalled where we were when he spoke of this. We'd tumbled through a curtain of dangling branches that caressed my cheeks like a mother's delicate fingertips. It was eerie and fascinating all at once. To traverse through so many climates and sceneries in so little time, almost as if each region were its own world, with its own rules.
He'd then warned me that he and his crew also believed that one of the Aces had backstabbed the king somehow, provoking his undoing. And his subsequent death. That had caught me so off-guard, I battled to stay atop my clubber.
An Ace back-stabbing the king?
Some time had passed, where he left me in silence to ruminate over what he said. Oh, I had plenty of responses, questions. But I couldn't formulate them, too in shock. One of the Aces, one of the magical beings I'd taken orders from, might have caused a king's death. I shuddered, doing my best to focus on the road ahead.
We continued on, and Ysac slowed down to pluck a hart fruit from a bush. He sniffed it, rubbed it over his coat to make it shiny, then offered it to me. I declined with a weak smile, because I had no appetite. Even when he tipped the peachy-looking produce closer, pressing it to my lips as he pouted, craving for me to taste it...I didn't melt. His sweetness and his once irresistible expression didn't weaken me.
Because I was afraid. Terrified. My blood ran cold, my stomach churned.
I couldn't get over it. One of the Aces was responsible for the king's demise? Until we'd visited Gwenore, I had no doubt these mages had the kingdom's best interests in mind, but I was no longer sure. Too many seeds of suspicion planted in me, and my attraction to Ysac couldn't kill them.
When I finally found my voice, and confronted the jester on this atrocious news, he shrugged. Shrugged. He was unbothered that a magical advisor might have orchestrated the death of his king, plunging his people into war-riddled chaos, prompting four daughters to bicker over the throne.
"You don't care?" I sensed my vocal cords constricting, and worried a screech would slither out.
"What more can I say?" Ysac's violet eyes vibrated with sympathy for a second; but he pulled away before I could read further into them. "What's done is done. Whichever Ace did this hasn't come forward and hasn't caused any further issues. And who are we, non-magical folk, to dare question such beings?"
