The Sculpture And The Sculpted

Chapter 5

The blood of nightmares did not often cling to Will's sleep as often as the years slipped by. The kingdom had soon forgotten all the darkness that had come with the unanswered questions and Will also found himself thinking about it less and less, but for some reason, Mischa was ever persistent that night.

Will rose from his bed, pulling Mischa's ribbon from his bedside table and let the cool silk slip through his fingers as he patiently waited for his breath to return to a normal pace. When he looked to the foot of his bed, he found Mischa there, patiently standing with the same empty blueness in her eyes that was always there.

"Alright," Will agreed with a whisper and a nod. He rose from his bed, finding his robe and slipping into it. "I can hear you. There's no need to shout."

Will didn't know how Mischa smiled, but his imagination produced the loveliest it could. Pale pink tipping upwards as she was acknowledged, unforgotten even as her memory faded from the other's in the castle. But never from Will's.

Will left his chambers, fingers still twisting the ribbon between them in a soothing fashion, as he walked down the same stone walls from his childhood and towards the library. He pushed open the door when he reached it and sighed as the scent of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of floral over an underlying mustiness rushed towards him.

The room was welcoming and he found that he was the only one, aside from Bella, who still visited this room. He clearly remembered the last time he had seen his mother leave this room, weak and sick. She had gone to fetch another book, but the action had proved too much and Will had seen her collapse on the way back to her room.

She didn't last much longer after that. Her life seemed to have been bound to the book she had taken to read. The night she turned the last page, her own story had come to an end and Will thought that maybe he finally understood the pain that came with losing someone one loved.

The night of the funeral, Will was back on that balcony, his own scream shattering the spring night air as courtiers danced in the ballroom somewhere below. It wasn't until that moment that Will realized he had loved his mother all along, absent as she was. But with how much he had taken on now that she was gone, he realized how much of her time was spent as a servant to the crown and how little of her own person she had been allowed to be.

He knew the exact placement of the book by heart. He had pulled it from the same shelf for the last five years, finally able to understand the language inside of it. He didn't need Mischa to be waiting at the bookshelf for him to find the well loved leather book.

He pulled it free and left the library, finding his way to the chapel. He had found peace in the walls there as they were often left empty unless a service was being performed. Will took in the darkness of the room, the only light from the moon as it poured through the stained glass.

Will took his normal seat beside a tomb that was a little smaller than the rest of them, and opened the book. The pages shone with age in the purples and reds from the windows. Will cleared his throat and began to read as he so often did for Mischa when she decided to grace his dreams.

The Latin no longer caused him to trip over his words and the poured fluently from his lips, though Will didn't think he needed the book any longer to quote from it. He had read it more than a dozen times. He had fallen asleep with it pressed to his cheek and he was certain that the information from the text had soaked into his skin straight from the pages.

"Will I always find you here?"

The voice caused Will to jump and snap back to the present. He blinked, eyes burning from the lack of sleep and from having read for so long in the dark that now sunlight was guiding his studies. Will stretched, body stiff from sitting on the stone floor for many hours and he yawned.