Chapter 20 – Immortalia

“Guess who I found making out upstairs?” Milada burst out as soon as they stepped inside the room. Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at her and Aaron.

Aurora was still flustered. Her insides were bursting with positive feelings: happiness, excitement, love, hope, and now embarrassment. She could feel the blood rising to her cheeks, and the collected stares from all of her friends didn’t help either.

 “Finally,” Valeria said. “It’s about damn time.”

“Owh. That’s so sweet,” Sari chimed in.

“Way to go!” Zachary exclaimed, sounding genuinely excited. At this point, Aurora wished that her powers had been invisibility instead. This was all too much to take in at once. Their smug faces were starting to bother her—as if everybody knew it would happen before she found out.

“Milada says you’ve come up with something?” Aurora said, trying to change the subject. Lucky for her, they all knew when to stop. Everybody stopped grinning, and instead they all looked to Sari and Zachary.

Sari cleared her throat. “Yes. We have an idea that will definitely work.” She looked at a beaming Zachary. “Zachary suggested it.” She smiled fondly to him. “I was telling him about our lore, and he asked about the royal family. He’d already told me about your situation, so when I told him about our mark then he suggested that it might work on you and—“

“Wait,” Aurora interrupted her. “What mark?” She looked between them, trying to calm down the feeling of hope inside her. The Immortalia’s could be marked somehow.

Zachary’s smile was filled with pride as he took Sari’s hand and lifted it up, showing off the blood red fingertips. “This,” he said.

Confused, Aurora frowned. “What is that? Do you want me to get a manicure? It won’t work—I’ve tried.”

Sari shook her head and a stepped forward, showing Aurora her hand. “This is the official mark of the royal Immortalias. It’s one of the few things that work on us.”

Aurora stared at the hand, noticing the thin red lines that traveled from each finger. She traced one of them from Sari’s finger until it disappeared beneath her sleeve. “Where does it go?” she asked.

“They stop around the elbow,” Sari said while pulling back her sleeve. The red lines connected in beautiful swirls inside her elbow. As Aurora surveyed it, she thought she saw them move beneath the skin.

“It’s a sign of the royal’s powers,” Sari explained. “Shani and I got them when we were of age—you are more than fitting.”

“How do you make them?” Aurora couldn’t put her finger on it, but something seemed wrong.

Sari covered her arm again. “Oh, it’s not a big deal. Just some pledges to serve the country to the best of your ability, and then a healer will sew an enchanted thread into your skin—it hurts a bit at first, but it’ll heal and then you’ll be a marked princess.” Sari grinned.

It took a moment before it dawned on her. Her heart dropped, and she could feel her smile disappear from her face as every shiver of hope crashed around her. The catch was that she had to be a royal—something she wasn’t.

“And since, you know,” Sari continued. “You have Shani’s smell on you; it means that you have the royal bloodline, so the mark will work on you.”

“What?” Aurora could feel her hands trembling against her thigh. She couldn’t believe her own ears. “You’re kidding, right?” She stared at Zachary and Sari with wide eyes. They’d gone utterly insane.

Queen Sari reached out and took one of Zachary’s hands in her own. Intertwining her fingers with his, she smiled. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Aurora looked between them, trying hard to keep herself calm. She could overlook their newfound affection for each other—in fact, she found it somewhat cute—but their suggestion was outrageous

 “But I’m not royal,” Aurora said. It felt stupid even to say it aloud. The words tasted sour in her mouth, and she couldn’t wrap her head around what it would mean for her own future. Aaron hadn’t said anything while they were explaining, and now Aurora looked to him for a confirmation of her worries. “It’s ridiculous, right?”

He shrugged lightly. “I don’t know that much about the Immortalia lore. In fact, I know next to nothing about all of this.” He gestured around the room.

“But it’ll work, Aurora,” Zachary said. “And your soul would be free forever. Don’t you want that?”

Aurora nodded. Of course, she wanted to be free, but the mere suggestion that they could magically turn her into a royal seemed too good to be true. Furthermore, it didn’t make any sense why she should be eligible. She looked at Sari. “I’m not your sister, Sari.”

“I know that,” Sari said. “But you have a part of her in you. I can smell it—heck, I can even feel it. You’re more than qualified to be royal.” She averted her eyes, and her voice dropped. “You’re more qualified than me.”

“That’s not true.” Aurora sighed, and desperately, she glanced between all of them—all of her friends. “We have to find another way.” She turned on her heels and stormed out of the room. She couldn’t keep her disappointment inside any longer.

She turned to the right at the end of the hallway, arriving at an unknown part of the castle. The red drapes shifted into a dark green, and she found that the lack of sunlight made the whole place seem colder than the rest of the building. When paintings started to appear instead of drapes, she slowed down and took the time to glance them over.

All of them were of stunning, kind-looking people, and all of them had blood colored fingertips. Then it dawned on Aurora; she was looking at the royal bloodline. She walked among them, hoping to recognize someone. The memories from her life before the human world seemed so far away. It wasn’t until she saw the painting of Sari and Shani that she stopped walking altogether.

“Why me?” she asked, staring into the two-dimensional Shani. “Why did it have to be me?”

Aurora already knew the answer. Shani had made it abundantly clear that it was because she didn’t give up. She was the oldest. The thought caused her to scoff. What good would that be if she didn’t remember anything? Now this… Shani had already left so much responsibility to her—with the catalyst and all—but she couldn’t be a princess. She couldn’t help rule a country. Helplessly, she stared at the smiling Shani, hoping for some sort of answer. Unfortunately, the smiling faces of the two siblings offered no reply.

“She’s beautiful, right?” Sari’s voice came from behind.

Aurora nodded. “You look so happy with each other.” Turning around, she faced the Queen. “I’ll never be her.”

“I’m not expecting you to be like her—you’re not a substitute for my sister. I promise,” Sari said, walking over to stand beside Aurora.

“I just don’t know how to react to this.” Aurora sighed. “All this time I’ve been compared to her in so many ways that I’ve lost count—it feels as if I’m trying to live up to a perfect person.”

“I know how you feel. I’m her little sister, after all.” Sari gestured to the picture. “Take that day for example. She had been after me for months, forcing me to take responsibility as the next in line after her. All my life it hadn’t been an issue. She was perfect, and everything I wasn’t.” Sari smiled sadly by the memory. “We’d been arguing for a week before we posed for that picture. She demanded that I was present for the official painting of the Queen.”

“Why?” Aurora glanced at the picture again. It didn’t show that Sari hadn’t wanted to be there. “Why didn’t you want to?”

Sari sighed. “It wasn’t the fact that I had to pose for the painting. It was why she wanted me to do it. At that point, she already knew that she would abdicate the throne. She’d told me two weeks before, and I refused—I didn’t want to be Queen. I wasn’t responsible enough. Not like her.”

“But you did it anyway.”

Sari shrugged. “I didn’t have much of a choice, really. She had decided already. Even if I refused, I would have to pose for a new picture when I was crowned to be Queen after she left.” She smiled. “I like to think that she pushed me to do it so I’d have something to remember her after she was gone.”

 “I like that thought,” Aurora whispered. Then she turned to Sari and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“It doesn’t look that bad, does it?” Queen Sari asked with a small smile at the corner of her mouth. She held up her hands, showing off her marks that now seemed more visible to Aurora—even in the dim light of the hallway.

Aurora couldn’t help but to laugh. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know. But Aurora”—she placed a hand on Aurora’s shoulder—“I don’t expect you to do anything. I honestly want to help you. This isn’t me trying to place a responsibility on you. Heavens know you’ve had enough of that already.”

Still hesitant, Aurora looked up to meet the Queen’s eyes. A movement caught her eye over the Queen’s right shoulder, and she arched her neck to see Aaron waiting, out of hearing range, a few feet away.

Sari turned her head, and a then smirked secretly. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

Aaron came over as soon as Sari had left the hall. With his hands behind his back, he bopped his head to the painting. “I bet you wish you could force an explanation out of that.”

She smiled. “Guilty as charged.” She frowned at the painting. “I’m not having much luck in succeeding, though.”

“So have you reached a decision yet? Will I be dating the future princess of Hellich?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It still seems like a rash decision. We don’t know if there are other ways to mark me, and furthermore…” Aurora stopped when his words registered in her mind. Surprised, she jerked around to face him. “Wait—dating?”

He took a step closer. “I didn’t kiss you because I just felt like it in the moment.” Another step. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. Moreover, I don’t want to stop kissing you now. So yeah… dating… if you wouldn’t mind.”

He was standing less than an arm’s reach away, looking down at her with a small smile. Aurora returned the smile, and for a while, she forgot the issue at hand. It was astonishing how he could make her relax completely—a weird, but far from unpleasant, feeling.

Then she remembered her own situation. “I’m hardly fit to be a royal.”

“I think you’ll be just fine.” Aaron closed the distance and placed his arms around her.

“I wouldn’t be able to go back to Haw Tech with you,” she muttered and leaned her head against his chest.

He chuckled. “I doubt that’s going to be a problem. I’m not going anywhere. Besides, we have a new mission, right?”

“Really?” She took a step back and looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re leaving Haw Tech?”

“For all they know, we could have been killed in the jungle. Daniel knows that’s a possibility.” He stroked her shoulder with his thumb. “And who knows. We might need to go back there to continue the mission, but we’ll do it together when we want to. And we’ll deal with our cover story when that time comes.”

Aurora bit down on her lip, tasting blood when she pressed too hard. “You really think I can do it?”

“How hard can it be?” he asked. “You heard the Queen. All you have to do is to look pretty and smile afterwards.”

“I don’t know why it seems such a big deal,” Aurora said. “Truthfully, it just feels like my whole life is being planned for me by her.” She nodded to the painting.

Aaron laughed, not taking his eyes away from her. “I know that feeling. She did that even when she was alive.”

“So I’ve heard… Sari had the same problem.” Aurora grabbed his hands, intertwining her fingers with his. “If I do this… What happens to the Catalyst and our mission?”

He kissed her forehead. “I think we need to worry about one task at a time. First, your contract. And then we’ll worry about the Catalyst.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to go back to the human world?” Aurora asked, as the memory of the people she’d met ran through her mind. Most importantly, she wanted to see Lina again.

“We might have to…” Aaron tilted his head slightly. “After all, Shani did seek to find the Catalyst there.”

“Do you think she saw who it was? Before she died, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” Aaron shrugged. “But we’ll find the Catalyst, eventually. First, we need to free you from the contract so you can move around freely.”

Aurora smiled at him. “Okay, I’ll do it then.”

Hand in hand, they walked down the hall. Strangely enough, Aurora didn’t feel nervous anymore. It was a tremendous relief that she still had some control over her own life. It didn’t hurt that with Aaron by her side, she started to envision a life after she found the Catalyst.

“I can do this,” she whispered. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and she could feel hope filling her from the inside. After all, she had no time limitations—she was an Immortalia.

 A/N: This is it. This is the end. The next part is a message from me, talking about the future of Immortalia, and I've added a character list as some of you have been asking for.

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