Life After Death

Hazel: outside voices

                 

{Hazel}

Vercyne was more boring than the Torninc, but also much more peaceful. Dinners here had nobility from across the country and it was quiet, demure, and subdued. Very unlike the raucous meals we would have at home.

After my curse, Adele did relax a little, and even began taking her meals with her remaining family: Westley, Tristan, and me. I had even seen her smile a couple of times. One part of my childhood had stuck with me at Vercyne; meals were important. Sure back home we would fight and squabble, but it was the time that we saw each other. We all remembered the time that Lionel tossed the whole cake at Parsifal and the two of them spent four hours cleaning the icing off the ceiling.

Tristan and I would usually adjourn to the roof gardens, because no one would come bother us up here. He told me this is where he had spent a whole month, only summoning what he needed from Vercyne below.

"Wouldn't it get too hot up here?" I asked.

He gestured at the shaded bench we were sitting on. "It wasn't so bad," he said. "In the thicker parts of the gardens, the sun doesn't even make it to the roof."

"How does Vercyne hold all of this up?" I inquired.

"Magic. How does Vercyne do anything?" He smiled, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

"Are you sure you wouldn't make a great king?" I teased. "You're strong and brave and oh so wise."

"I don't think I'm very brave," he countered. "You killed the spider yesterday, not me."

"That's because I hate spiders, and I wasn't going to wait for you to stop inspecting the type before I squashed it." I shuddered a little. "Were you serious about having children, back at the Torninc?"

"I don't see why not," Tristan said. "I like children. I don't want seven."

"My body doesn't want seven," I agreed. "I just wasn't sure. Parazide was unbearably cute, wasn't she?"

"What I've heard of your childhood, any child of yours will be cute and sweet and precious."

"Only, she would be only half me," I mock frowned. "Only half cute, sweet, and precious. The other half: dastardly."

"You wound me," Tristan laughed. "And who says he'll be a daughter? We could have a son."

"So long as he gets my good looks," I agreed.

Tristan shook his head. "Your good looks?"

"Watch yourself, husband mine," I teased. "I'll put you out on the couch."

"There's a couch out here?"

Tristan looked around, and I punched him lightly, scooting down the bench with a sniff.

"Your Highness?"

We both turned, though he was the only one with such a title. A servant stood at the top of the stairs, but hadn't moved out onto the roof. I suppose it didn't look very safe.

"Your father is looking for you," the man said. "If you would come down?"

"Certainly," Tristan replied. "Thank you." He rose from his seat but stopped, noting that I was not coming.

"It's just you and your dad," I told him. "Don't worry about me, it's lovely up here. I'll be down eventually."

"All right." He kissed me and left with the servant, just as the setting sun dipped below the horizon.

Ever since I was a little girl, I heard voices at night. Though voices implied more than one, and there wasn't. It was just the one, low strange voice. She would whisper strange things, things I was either already thinking or were the next logical step.

I had never paid a great amount of attention to the voice, it never responded to what I said, and nothing bad happened if I didn't follow her advice. But when I had, and married Tristan, it had turned out so well. The voice agreed with my decision not to remove Adele's curse, though no one knew I had done so, no one but Lionel. I trusted Lionel with the secret; he and I were close enough that he wouldn't turn me in.

What about tomorrow?

I had never heard the voice ask me as many questions as it had in the last week, or since Mom's birthday. They were vague, peculiar questions that I didn't have the answers to, what if Adele was gone, what if Tristan had the throne, what if I inherited the Torninc, what if I had a daughter; all of these and more, though the voice was not yielding any answers to her own questions.

I wasn't sure if this was something ever faery heard, or just cursing mages, or just me.

I listened in the stillness of twilight and then, just as the remaining light was slipping away, I stood, dusted myself off, and returned inside.