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Well, almost everyone.
Rune stands by the doors, waiting. Violet considers him but returns her attention back to me. I shrink in my chair, uneasy being alone with her.
“Elodie, dear, tell me a story.”
I furrow my brows. “My lady, I don’t think I could tell you a story that you’d find interesting.”
She swirls her glass of wine at me. “Tell me one anyway.”
I try to think of anything, but there’s only one story I know to tell. My story. So I tell her about Margo and Aunt Maggie. I tell her how I died.
“Then I wandered the forest... until I noticed Wren, and you know how that story ends,” I mumble. Rune leans against the door still and I hope he can’t hear us from all the way over there. He doesn’t need to pity me. I like the way our relationship is.
“Hmm, that’s a sad story, dear. One of loss and dreariness.” She sets her cup down and rests her chin on her palm, elbow against the table. “Now I’ll tell you a story.”
My bones ache. I already know her story... but I guess her perspective might be different from the rumors. So I perk my ears in interest.
“I was swimming when I died.”
Oh fuck.
“I drowned… then I woke, here in this wondrous place. Tomorrow. But unlike most that arrive, I was at the bottom of the sea. So far away from anything or anyone, left to cry the salt-filled tears of a dead girl never to be found. A lost treasure. I was born with water spirits in my blood. A Gremitie. I could breathe the water I was imprisoned in just as well as I can breathe the air.”
A Gremitie? Like the ones Naminé told me about… She’s the one who made the glass atrium. Gods, I may hate her, but her magic is beautiful.
She pauses and stares into an emptiness across the table. I’m already shivering with her words, but when I see the smile curl her lips into a genuine, somber lift of nostalgia, I want to cry.
“Funny though, isn’t it? I drowned in my human life because I couldn’t swim. So there I remained, alone and cold in the vast and dark waters. I can’t say how long I existed in that state. Eventually I became stagnant. Neither here nor there, waiting for death so I could rest.”
Violet’s eyes meet mine and I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“Then Lucius came. He found me in the depths of the darkest parts of the sea. I can still remember the light he carried with him. I thought he was a sun himself… You know what he said to me? When he brought me to the shores and we coughed up water, he said that heheard me. He felt my very being calling for him. So peculiar… isn’t it? An odd thing to imagine being possible, but how else would he have found me down there? In the dark. Alone.”
She sits back in her throne, her smile fading. “That was it. There was no one else for me. I knew then, no matter what fate I had, everything was okay. It was all going to be okay because he was with me. So why can’t I do the same now? Why can’t I hear him calling for me? I don’t feel his being sending me anything like mine did to him.” Her voice cracks.
I’m an empath. Anyone else and my heart would be on my sleeve. But Violet is malevolent. I can’t humanize her because then all she’s done to me will seem… more understandable.
There’s a small, tiny, insignificant piece of me that wants to comfort her.
I can’t fathom her pain. When I look at her I can’t help but see a little of myself. I’ve become a completely different person. Cold, calloused, and bruised. I’m not the same Elodie, I never will be… and that’s her fault. Our pain and trauma shape us, stain our souls until we change with them.
A sad reality, but it’s ours to keep.
She waits for a response that I don’t give, and after a few minutes of silence she pushes from her throne and pats my head as she walks by, retiring for the evening.
“Sleep well, dear. We will continue to take time off of our sessions until after the festival. I don’t want to see you or Rune there, am I clear?” She pauses at the door, looking the Dreadius from head to toe before she shoots me a testing glance.
“Yes, Lady Violet.”
8
Elodie
The walk back to my room is awkward.
I’ve had a few drinks and so has Rune. Though he is entirely composed, I still feel his gaze resting heavily on me. I know he heard my story because he has that gods-awful pity in his eyes that I was worried about.
I stop at my door and turn to say goodnight. It’s actually pretty convenient that his room is right next to mine. We’re literally neighbors in this cold, outcast part of the castle. It might as well be our own depressing little corner of the world.
