Chapter 16: The Agreement
My breaths were lounging in a corner of my soul, refusing to come out. I was struggling to breathe. Despite breaking out in cold sweats, I couldn't stay still; I was pacing around my room.
I had lost the symbol of victory to Bilun.
I had lost the people's praise to Bilun.
What if I also lost the throne to her...
The Ankh was with her, the sovereign's crown was with her, and the throne was starkly exposed.
Çağın entered my room without waiting for permission after knocking. Even a brief glance at him didn't stop my stress-filled pacing.
"Hey..." Çağın said, trying to calm me down. His tone was born not of affection. "Calm down... It doesn't matter who has the crown, what matters is who will wear it."
I heard him, but I couldn't comprehend. His words felt muffled, as if they were coming from far away. He continued talking, but his words were crushed under the ones swirling inside me.
Suddenly, the breaths I'd been holding burst out, and I coughed. My breathing accelerated. Bilun winning the duel had led everyone to underestimate my power. Maybe... maybe they had done it on purpose. Maybe Bilun knew all the riddles' answers beforehand. They couldn't do this! They couldn't defeat the heir; no one dared defeat the heir. This would make the people doubt the monarch's power.
I grabbed the nearest object without looking and hurled it at the mirror. The sound of the glass breaking mixed with my scream and the outside celebration noise. My rage and rebellion were drowned out between laughs and congratulations.
"Calm down a bit!" Çağın raised his voice worriedly as I felt my eyes burning and every muscle in my body tensing. My chest heaved rapidly, my heart pounded wildly.
"I don't understand..." he approached me. "Is this anger because you lost-"
"I won't lose!" I interrupted him. My throat hurt from shouting. It felt like everything around me was spinning. The bitter taste of bile was in my throat. My hands moved to my hair uncontrollably. When my fingers intertwined with my disheveled hair, I pulled it down harshly.
Çağın tried to free my hands from my hair, shouting, "Don't be paranoid!"
When I pushed him away with all my strength, he stumbled back a few steps. "Losing something-"
"Shut up!"
I let myself fall to my knees, trying to regain control of my breaths. I wouldn't lose. My father trusted me, saw me fit for the heirship. I couldn't disappoint him, I wouldn't. I'd do whatever it took for this cause.
From now on, I wouldn't wait to understand things. I'd solve problems from their root. When I lifted my bowed head, I saw Çağın bent in front of me, looking at me with concern. He was keeping his hands slightly behind my shoulders, probably to approach in a controlled manner.
"Are you okay?" he asked in a soft voice.
I didn't realize I was grinding my teeth until I opened my mouth. I pressed my lips together again without speaking. Nodding affirmatively, the only thing on my mind was whether Hesna felt my crisis due to our loyalty bond.
Hesna...
I'd start resolving things with her. When I suddenly stood up, Çağın was taken aback and fell on his buttocks.
I passed by him without looking back, "My heir!" he called out. Ignoring him, I quickly descended the stairs to the garden and headed for Darya by the lake.
"Servant of the Grand Forest Avar!" I called out authoritatively.
Holding the hem of her black dress, she turned towards me. Bending her knees slightly to greet me, she said, "My heir..." Renan also bowed in greeting, to which I offered them both a fake smile.
When my gaze found Darya again, I asked, "Can you come with me, please?" Though my tone made it clear it was more of a command than a request.
Turning back to head to the palace, I knew she was following. When I opened the iron door to the tower where the dungeons were, she asked, "What are we doing here?"
"I have something to show you," I said, smiling. After climbing the stairs to the dungeon at the top, I unlocked the door and entered behind the iron bars.
When Darya followed, her furrowed brows scanned the surroundings. After she entered and stood beside me, I closed the door.
"What were you going to show me, my heir?" she asked curiously. Instead of answering, I muttered magical words and locked the door.
Stepping back to distance myself within the small dungeon, I said with a haughty smile, "I just wanted you out of my way."
Before Darya could understand what I meant, I teleported myself next to Hesna. Appearing suddenly in front of her, she was startled. Holding onto the throne for balance, she pushed back her purple hair covering her face and slowly turned her head towards me.
I raised my eyebrows, looking around. We were in the throne room. "Why are you here?" I asked with an unexpected calmness.
She smiled, not losing her usual positivity, "This is the only place no one else is." The diamonds on her cheekbones shone brighter than ever, their annoying sparkle spreading all over her.
A scornful laugh escaped my lips. She knew why I was there, felt my anger and disappointment. Without prolonging the conversation, I gestured towards the ring on her finger. "It's beautiful..."
Her gaze drifted to her ring. Lifting her hand in front of her eyes, she looked at the ring and said, "Thank you..."
"Can I try it on?” I asked. “I want to see how it looks."
Her smile widened. She continued to pretend not to understand. "I don’t think I want to share it."
I laughed again. My voice carried a fabricated astonishment. "How can the representative of an emotion that grows with sharing not want to share a small ring?" She felt belittled by my words.
"It’s very special to me..." The music of love composed in her soft voice.
My feigned smile turned into a cocky grin. Raising my eyebrows, I asked boldly, "If I wear that ring, will I learn the secret between you and Avar?"
She closed her eyes but kept her smile. Leaning her head slightly towards her left shoulder, the purple sparkles from her eyelashes fell to the ground. The daisies blooming among her hair wilted within seconds. When she opened her eyes, the purple of her irises turned to night. "I don’t want our bond to be harmed, please don’t interfere."
"A part of me..." I said, brushing past her shoulder. "Tells me you’re the one who will actually harm this bond."
As she started to mimic my steps, we circled each other without breaking eye contact. "I ask you again..." she said, ignoring my words. "Don’t interfere."
Crows perched around the massive windows of the throne room. Our tension must have frightened Elysian. I smiled. This moment felt familiar. "I
’ve always thought you resemble my mother."
She raised her eyebrows and spoke with her teeth showing, "Being compared to your mother is an honor for me."
"Maybe today you’ll join her, with a similar fate to hers."
My threat extinguished her laughter. "You can’t do anything to me." Love lifted the veil over its dangerous side. The eager gleam of the battle to come shone in her eyes.
"Is that so?" I reached for her ring swiftly, but within seconds, her muttered magical words teleported her away.
Without wasting time, I shouted, "Paraiso kolasi!" teleporting myself to where she had gone. The moment I opened my eyes in the forest, I started running. I had to find Hesna before the Grand Forest Avar noticed me, to learn what she was doing.
The screaming bushes I trampled meant my capture was imminent. Nonetheless, finding Hesna, not far from me, was quite easy.
Leaning against a tree to catch my breath, I watched her. She stood by the edge of the magical lake in the forest's center. She removed the ring from her finger and dropped it into the lake. The ring floated to the center of the lake and began to grow.
Where the ring enlarged, the water receded, and a diamond staircase emerged step by step.
Hesna walked over the water to reach the diamond stairs. The diamonds' sparkle reflected from the lake's water to the surrounding trees, filtering through the forest in beams of light.
As Hesna descended the stairs and disappeared from sight, I left the tree. Believing I could walk over the water like my sister, I stepped into the lake, but I was pulled down immediately.
The more I tried to swim up, the deeper I went. I should have been able to breathe easily, yet I was drowning! Panicking, I flailed.
Do we stop flailing because we realize we’re going to drown, or do we drown because we stop flailing?
In truth, we drown because we flail.
With every movement, I was pulled deeper into the lake. My body, burned by the water, lay like a sack on the sands when I closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in an empty room. Despite all four walls being made of glass and missing the sun's rays, gloom roamed the room freely, engraving the stifling air into my soul. In the center of the room stood a large white table, and in its center, a large knife with a black handle. I reached for the knife. Without a moment's hesitation, I plunged it into my carotid artery.
The blood pool I created in my soul burst forth from my artery, collecting on one side of the pristine white table. Then, suddenly, the blood stopped, and a brush appeared in my hand. I felt no pain, only pleasure. At that moment, I became a painter, and with my brush dipped in blood, I painted every corner of the white table with blood.
Then, a baby appeared on the table. The sun, finally finding its way into the room, cast all its light onto the baby's pristine white skin. Its golden hair, ocean-blue eyes, tiny nose, and pink lips surrounding its toothless mouth. Sitting on the table I had painted with blood, the baby held its tiny feet with its tiny hands.
The most miraculous being of nature smiled with such a gesture that all gloom and stifling air vanished. The sun almost entered the room, turning the glass walls diamond-like in the sunlight. Yet, the baby's dazzling presence overshadowed these diamond-like glasses.
With every look at the baby, my breaths nourished my soul. Not only my gaze but my entire being was locked on the baby. So much so, I didn't even notice the brush falling from my hand. The baby stopped holding its feet, placed its hands on the table, then swung its legs back and placed its knees on the table as well. As it crawled, I felt all my limbs numb, enveloped by an admiration that seized my being. I was trembling, but this shivering was akin to crying out of happiness. It was my soul's reaction to this unfamiliar emotion.
As the baby crawled as if writing something on the table, the blood where it passed was wiped clean, and intriguingly, the still-wet blood didn't stain the baby at all. It was as if its crawl across the suicide-painted table heralded a birth.
Eventually, the baby stopped crawling and sat at the other end of the table. When its gaze found me, it smiled again. Its nonexistent teeth, squinted tiny eyes, and innocent heart confined to its small body created a smile on my lips as well.
After its smile, the baby disappeared as suddenly as it had come. I stared at where it last sat for a while longer. Then, I turned to the trail it left in the room. The baby had crawled across the blood-painted table, spelling out my name.
When I opened my eyes for the second time, I ascended suddenly from the bottom of the lake where I had sunk. While the dream I had experienced spun in my mind, I soared into the sky and then glided there. The wind, offering consolation as if to soothe me, whistled briefly by my ear. Then, with gentle movements, I was left in the middle of the forest.
I was gasping for air. Water dripped from my hair and dress. I hadn't recovered from the shock of the moments when I was about to drown or the dream I had seen when day turned to night. A passionate lightning bolt lit up the dark sky, and all the flowers and trees around me absorbed the light of the lightning. Yellow, green, red, purple, orange... Lights of every color surrounded me. There was a terrifying vividness. The wild voice of the forest had overwhelmed the wind's calm hum. The fog that covered us brought the smell of smoke.
My heart beat so fast it hurt, while my soul donned the guise of fear. I swallowed. I threw my wet hair back with both hands. Rubbing my wet hands on my wet dress, I turned around in my place.
The living beings that absorbed the lightning, causing my feelings to cower in the furthest corner of my soul. Suddenly, all the trees bent towards me, speaking with Avar's voice: "The price of betrayal to the Grand Forest is obliteration!"
I managed to hold back my scream at the last moment. I tried to swallow but ended up coughing instead. Trying to step back, my feet tangled, and I fell on my buttocks. "You didn't die..." Avar said in a raspy tone. It had truly tried to kill me. Elysian’s magical forest had taken up arms against Elysian's heir. While I couldn't accept this reality, "That dream..." it whispered. "So you have a pact with the Sacred Spirits."
My fear, my bewildered state, and my silenced tongue vanished. Furrowing my brows, I asked in a hoarse voice, "Who else has one?"
Avar, ignoring me, continued talking to itself. "Our late king's body went missing because of your pact."
A warm breeze blew. But even if it was warm, it made me cold because I was wet. Avar had discovered my secret; I was sure it could even guess where my father's lost body was. It couldn't use this against me, even if Avar was one of the most important regions of Elysian, it couldn't oppose the Sacred Spirits.
Reflecting the support of the Sacred Spirits in my bold voice, I asked, "Did Hesna also make a pact with the Sacred Spirits?"
"Silence, foolish heir!" the Grand Forest thundered.
Thanks to my pact made over my father's body with the Sacred Spirits, it couldn't kill me. Its anger was felt from the roots to the tips of the trees it comprised.
I hoped that only the two of us would know about the dream I had seen; if my siblings learned I had made a pact with the Sacred Spirits, I wouldn't have any leverage to play with. Therefore, when it said, "Release your servant," I nodded affirmatively, showing compliance.
"Now leave me alone," I said. "You've learned about my pact, and now I can enter and leave here as I wish."
I hoped for it to speak and acknowledge me, but it did not. Night suddenly turned into day. The light the lightning had spread to the trees and leaves vanished with the night. Avar left me unanswered; it teleported me to my palace.
I was in front of the dungeon where I had imprisoned Darya. Her brows furrowed, above her narrowed eyes. Her hands tightly grasped the bars, her lips puckered in anger.
Whispering magical words, I unlocked the door. After Darya stepped out from between the bars and scrutinized me, she wrinkled her face. "When you preached about justice, I thought we could trust you."
The disgust dripping from her voice made my lips curl in mockery. My laugh echoed off the bars and bounced off the walls before abruptly stopping. I regained my composed expression so quickly that Darya couldn't even hide her astonishment.
The woman standing before her was as mad as a monarch should be, and she had just realized it…
"If you don't talk about any of this, you can always trust me," I said in a stern voice.
She released a deep breath she had been holding, her lips trembling. Swallowing hard, she signed her disappointment. Shaking her head in disapproval, she vocalized her signature. "You're a disappointment."
"How I turn out is in your hands," I said, approaching her until there was no space left between us. "No one will hear of this..." After raising my eyebrows, I brought my face closer to hers. "...otherwise, fear me," I whispered, leaving her in a deserted fear without looking back at her face one last time, teleporting myself to my room.
