16.

A kick to the ribs from the side jolted Lynn awake. He rubbed his eyes with his hand and found the assaulter staring down at him, spectacled eyes filled with loathing.

Lynn groaned and closed his eyes again. “It’s you. Is Vivian with you? I wanted to talk with her.”

“No,” Ida said with a snarl. “And if you wish to speak with her you should have sent your boy servant to come speak with me and I would have arranged it. Instead you broke into her chambers and dropped all these books here before sleeping at her desk.”

“My servant hasn’t said a word since the incident and all he does is mope around my chambers. I can barely get him to help me dress in the morning. Plus, I am not about to trust you in arranging a meeting between Vivian and me. You’d schedule it for in half a year’s time.” Lynn yawned and set his head back down on the desk. “I’ll just sleep here until she gets back.”

“You will not. I will not have it said that men are sleeping in Lady Vivian Topaz’ chambers.”

“First, I’m only one man so work on understanding singulars and plurals. Second, two weeks ago I was sleeping here every night.”

“Those were circumstances that remained out of my control and against my judgement. And those circumstances are now over. Now gather your mess and get out.”

Lynn got to his foot, wavering as he stood, and grabbed the wall for support to keep from falling back into the seat. “I’ll wait outside. My ‘mess’ has to stay here though. I need Vivian to have access to those books.”

Lynn reached the hall before slouching down against the wall and falling back asleep. He always felt so tired these days.

“Lynn?” A voice made his eyes flutter open.

“Eh, Vivian? Give me a minute. I need to talk to you.” For a second he contemplated falling back asleep. It would be a lot easier. But…he needed to talk to her. He stretched his remaining limbs and he felt them pop in response. “Vivian. I need to talk to you.”

“I know. You said that twice. Is there a problem? Something I can help you with?”

“I…I don’t know. I guess the best way to help would be to just listen to me. Can I come in?” Lynn asked.

“Of course. I’ve barely seen you these last few weeks. You’ve even been missing from the mess hall. Have you been eating?”

Lynn let out a dry chuckle. “It doesn’t take too much food to sustain someone who weighs 110 pounds. But, I guess I could be eating a bit more. Sorry I haven’t stopped by recently but I’ve been really distracted these last few weeks.”

“Only 110? How…” her voice trailed away.

“Losing weight is easy Vivian; however, it did cost me an arm and a leg.”

Flustered, Vivian opened the door. “Sorry. Well come in. I’ll have Ida fix us some tea,” she said.

“Actually, Vivian. I need to talk to you alone. And I need you to swear not to tell anyone else what I tell you. Not Ida. Not Rin. And not even Lord Ivory. I need you to promise me Vivian Topaz.”

The girl gave him a look full of questions.

“I promise Lynn,” she said. She turned to face her chambers. “Ida, I need some time alone with Lynn. Can you get yourself some dessert from the kitchens…actually, after you finish yours could you bring me back some too? Now that I’m saying the words, dessert sounds really good right now.”

“As you command my lady Topaz. If you are certain that is a wise idea I will leave you to it.” Ida curtsied to Vivian on her way out but outside of Vivian’s sight she assured Lynn with a look that her loathing for him hadn’t come to any sort of end.

Lynn returned her loathing with a smile. “Relax Ida, it doesn’t matter if anyone notices we’re improperly breaking customs. The only thing to gain or lose now is the opinions of others.” Lynn realized once the words were out that he had been spending too much time around Constell. Ida seemed to be attempting to compose herself in front of Vivian but she couldn’t keep the hatred from her face as she slammed the door.

“Lynn. What is it? And why are there all of these books on the ground in here?”

“I’ll get to that Vivian. I leave tomorrow for the mountain at the center of the island. Constell, my tutor, believes that visiting it could help me master my Mystic Art. But it’s going to be a dangerous journey so I need to tell someone about my life in case something happens and….” Lynn paused and took a deep breath. “And you’re the most trustworthy person I know. Please. Will you listen?”

“Of course,” Vivian said without hesitation.

Lynn sat on her bed and looked away from her. “It started as a normal day. I remember I went out with my little brother Elton and we were playing with the colts in the courtyard. Melvin, the stable master, gave us apples to feed them and so they’d nuzzle up to us for them. My father promised me one of them for my birthday so Elton and I had been spending every afternoon for two weeks trying to pick a colt out. That day my older sister, Catherine, came down to laugh at us and call us children. She laughed and I got so flustered that I threw one of the moldy apples at her. Then I ran off into the stable and hid under a pile of straw until I fell asleep.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Vivian said.

“I was still a child.” Lynn paused, he stared at a blank wall for a long minute before continuing.

“When I woke up the sky had become dark so I went back home. I remember a sinking feeling as I thought about how I’d missed supper and how my mother would scold me. As I stepped out of the stable I saw all the horses on the ground which I thought strange because they usually were put in the stables to sleep at night. Then, I got closer to one of them and realized the hair on it had become blackened and the horse no longer heaved with breath. I ran up into the castle, intending to tell my father that they’d become ill, but I stopped in the entry hall.

“Usually lit day and night, it remained dark and figures lay strewn across the ground. I ran past them and went to the bedroom I shared with Elton. I burst in and tripped on two corpses strewn across the ground. It took only a moment of confusion before I recognized the vest one of the corpses wore. My father’s pocket watch tumbled out of its pocket, and the corpse other wore the extravagant dress my mother had been wearing earlier that day. Other than that though…the skin clung to their bones, completely blackened. But not like a burn. It was like all the life had been sucked out of them and aged them hundreds of years. Their eye sockets remained utterly empty. That’s the last time I ever saw them.”

Vivian remained silent. The pity in her eyes almost made Lynn stop, but no, he powered through.

“I screamed. Oh, I screamed and cried and raved on the floor clawing my face. I wanted to reject everything in front of me. After a while my wailing attracted attention and a man appeared from down the hall. I remember his exact appearance. His skin gray and devoid of any color. His hair white as snow. I knew immediately that he was the manifestation of death itself. He grinned at me and his eyes were filled with greed as his hand reached for me. It brushed my forehead. I remember him saying words in a foreign tongue but I couldn’t recognize it. And then the pain.

“When I woke up everything still remained dark outside the window but I don’t know if I spent only a few minutes, hours, or days there. I tried to curl up into a ball but only my right arm and leg would move. And my vision disoriented me. I touched the place where my left eye had been and found it hollow save for an ooze which stuck to my fingers. I screamed more. I screamed and writhed on my bedroom floor next to my parents’ corpses. After a time, I didn’t know what else to do but I wanted away from my parents so I began dragging myself away. First I went to my sister’s room. I-I found her in the same state as my parents. She was completely unrecognizable other than the summer dress she had been wearing when I ran off. I fainted again at the sight of her.

“When I came to, I managed to drag my useless body to the stairs where I tried to slowly lower myself step by step. I ended up tumbling down the stairs but only the right side of my body felt the bruises. I didn’t know where to go so I painstakingly dragged myself to our balcony that overhanged the city. I pulled myself up onto the railing using my right arm. I remember hanging there, limp, staring out over it. The sun was just barely cresting the horizon and it spread orange light on a dead city. Silence. Not a bird chirped or a child cried. The trees and any plant life throughout the city had become withered blackened husks.

“I don’t know how I managed to continue, but somehow I made myself move. While crawling across the cobblestone streets of the city to one of the gates I saw withered corpse after corpse, each like my parents and sister. When I did reach the gate I had to search the guard’s body for the key. His frame collapsed with only the slightest touch, like a body that had been decomposing for months. I had to dig my hand into his abdomen to get to the key. Dragging the useless half of my body behind me, I left the city and kept crawling down the road until I reached a green forest.

“I collapsed and when I woke up I found myself in a lavish bedroom. Apparently, a merchant found me and brought me to a nearby city where the nobility kept me for questioning. After that I began my time as the crippled noble youth. The lord of dead lands.”

“Lynn, I’m so sorry,” Vivian whispered.

Another pang of pity, but he continued on. “I’ve spent the rest of my life studying and trying to discover more about the people who murdered my family, destroyed my home, and left me for dead. I don’t know how I survived but I’m not going to stop studying until I have the ability to cross the ocean and face the people who took my life. Getting into this library is only a stepping stone. I’ve found so many books about the people and now I’m going to try to develop whatever Mystic abilities I have.”

“Still, I need a failsafe. That’s why I’m telling you this, Vivian. If something ever happens to me, I need you to go for me. These books contain everything I’ve learned these past few weeks in them. Please. I know I’m asking for a lot.” Lynn fell to his knee and placed his face on the floor. “Help me.”

“Lynn,” Vivian said. “You’re my friend. I’ll make sure that nothing ever happens to you so you can go yourself and I’ll be there alongside you.”

Lynn looked up at her, he felt his right eye moisten. “Vivian, from what I’ve read in these books, it’s dangerous beyond belief. My home is a wasteland now but it sounds like a luxurious getaway in comparison to that country. Plants don’t grow there and people rule over one another like barbarians. It’s constantly at war with itself and the magic the citizens use to war with themselves is completely unlike anything you’ve seen.”

“You mean it’s not based around an element?”

“It is…I think.” Lynn scrambled and shuffled through some books until he found one with a simple gray cover and began flipping through its pages. “I haven’t found a single mention of the Mystic ability. But…whatever sort of element it uses, it destroys.” Lynn began unbuttoning his shirt and Vivian looked away, her face reddening. “This is the result Vivian.”

Lynn stood, shirt open, revealing his blackened left half of his chest in contrast with his normal right. He recoiled slightly inside at revolting disgust reflected in her eyes. He wanted to cover himself, ashamed, but he stood still as a rock and let her see what had happened to him.

“Their magic did this to you?” Her eyes fixated on the disgusting side of his body.

“Yes,” he answered. “I don’t know why I didn’t die alongside the rest of my city when that man came to me, but somehow only the left half of my body took the effects. When I reached safety that day, a surgeon amputated my dead leg and arm. Now I can attach a peg leg to my stump of a leg and stumble around.”

“What do you plan to do once we get there? Are you wanting revenge?” Vivian asked.

Lynn stayed silent for minutes, aware of Vivian’s eyes plastered on him. Finally, he looked up at her. “I returned a year later. I searched through all the corpses,” he whispered. “I don’t know where he went or why they took him but I’m certain that he’s not there. And there’s no sign of him anywhere else in the nation. I just want my brother back, Vivian. Elton never hurt anyone. Bringing him home has been the only reason I still wake up in the morning. He is the reason I suffered through therapy with my pathetic body. He is the reason I spent every day these past years studying. He is the reason I need to learn how to become a Mystic.”

“Your brother? He’s alive?”

“My brother. He’s alive.”