#lindal

She hates herself for keeping them prisoner in the palace, but she does not know what to do. They could buy a house in the city— she has the money— but she does not know how. They could leave Del, but a part of her wants to stay.

And for that, she loathes herself more.

Barda visits frequently, and Jasmine always lets him in. Faith adores him, and is endlessly fascinated by the largeness of his hands.

“Did he tell you?” Jasmine had asked when they had first returned to Del.

“He did not,” Barda had sworn. His eyes were dark with betrayal and anger, and she had known that he was telling the truth.

Sharn comes too, with toys for a girl who never had any. She quietly pleads with Jasmine to just speak to Lief, and weeps when she refuses.

“I am so frightened for him,” she whispers. “Oh, Jasmine, you have not seen him.”

“I do not care,” she says. Sharn’s face crumples, but her eyes are steel.

When Sharn leaves, Jasmine crawls into the bed and pulls the blankets over her head so that her sister will not see her cry. Sharn’s visits become sparse.

Ranesh and Marilen visit a few times, and tell her all about Lief’s lesser secret. She finds she likes them, and looks forward to their visits as she does Barda’s. She hardly remembers being jealous of Lief’s supposed bride. How could she have ever hoped that Lief would want her? But when she sees Ranesh and Marilen hold hands, or speak of their wedding, she feels a great loss gaping like a cavern in her heart.

One night, she wakes to a quiet knock on the door. Faith is asleep beside her, with Filli curled in the crook of her arm. Jasmine waits for the visitor to leave, but the knocks continue. Faith begins to stir, so Jasmine rises and tiptoes to the door.

She unlocks it and opens it a crack. When she sees who it is, she tries to push it closed, but Doom slips his booted foot in before she has the chance.

“Get out!” Jasmine hisses, still trying to force the door shut.

“It was for your protection, Jasmine,” Doom says, his dark eyes burning. “We did not have a way to enter the Shadowlands. We did not want you to risk your life there, and yet that is what happened!”

Jasmine stares at him, her mouth agape. She wills herself not to cry in front of him, but her body rebels. “You had no right,” she says savagely. “This was not your secret to keep. You would have left her to die!”

“It was a mistake,” Doom admits. “But you need to come out of this room, it is not good for either of you to be locked away in here. I know you must hate it. And I… I wish to see her.”

Suddenly, Jasmine wants nothing more than to let him in. She wants to show him the daughter he has not seen since she was just a few days old. But then the door opens wider, and Faith is beside her, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looks up at Doom, whose stony eyes are now velvet-soft as they flicker between the two girls before him; green-eyed ghosts of their mother. He steps back, freeing his foot from the door.

Faith’s eyes grow wide and she tugs at Jasmine’s nightclothes. “Is he our father?”

“No,” Jasmine says coldly, and slams the door shut.

Doom loses his family once more.

—

Lief tries everyday. He knocks, he apologizes, he pounds, he pleads, he cries. But Jasmine still has the echoes of the conversation they had had amongst the freed slaves ringing in her ears.

“You knew.”

“We were trying to protect you.”

“You lied.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

She had turned her back to him then, even as it broke her heart, and had not looked upon his face ever since. Sometimes she can hear him breathing behind the door. Sometimes she presses her forehead against the wooden frame, imagining him doing the same on the other side. And then her heart hardens, and she pulls away.

One day he does not come, nor does he the next day, or the day after that.

—

Their sanctuary is not as safe as she would like. She can keep people out, but not the voice. Whispers curl into her ears day and night, like smoke rising from a fire.

You have brought the girl from one prison and into another.

You should see how the boy cries. You should hear how he screams in the night.

He told you he loved you, but that must have been just another greedy lie.

What a weak and foolish little girl you are.

All she longs to do is press her hands to her ears and scream until she is louder than the voice.

Faith catches Jasmine’s wrist with her tiny hand. “Why do you always look so sad, sister?”

Jasmine had been staring out the window into the palace garden, trying to distract herself from the hateful whispers that only seemed to be growing louder.

“I am not,” Jasmine forces a smile. A plan begins to form in her head. “I am very happy.”

—

“I should have told her,” Lief tells Barda one night. It is very late, or very early, but they are sitting at the forge’s kitchen table. Lief’s face is twisted in agony, as if he is being eaten alive from the inside. He has lost weight, and the candles on the table cast flickering shadows across his hollow cheeks. “This mistake… it has ruined me.”

Barda is torn between two worlds. He will not abandon either of his friends, but when he looks at Lief, he does not quite see the same person he once did.  

—

One morning, the woman who usually brings Jasmine and Faith their meals finds that her knock on the door goes unanswered. This is not too uncommon, so she places the tray in front of the door and goes back to her work. When she returns at lunchtime, the tray is untouched. She knocks on the door again, but is greeted by silence. She abandons the lunch tray and runs to find the captain of the guards.

—

Barda breaks down the door with his strong shoulder. He rushes inside, closely followed by Doom. His heart sinks as he looks around the empty room.

“Jasmine,” Barda murmurs helplessly. “What have you done?”

The shelves are clear of Jasmine’s many trinkets. Drawers and cabinets are open and empty. Faith’s pile of toys are gone. The curtains flutter in the breeze made by the open window. Barda turns in a slow circle, devastated and useless. Doom, usually so collected and expressionless, turns to a table and shoves it to the ground with a crash. Barda has seen the man angry and hurt, but never like this. A scrap of paper flutters from the upset table. Barda bends and picks it up, recognizing Jasmine’s round and childish letters.

Do not follow this time.

—

Lief’s heart breaks.

He will never take a wife; never father any children. He knows he had the chance to love and be loved once. He knows that it is his own fault that it is all lost.

And when he can blissfully forget for a moment, the voice in his head is there to remind him.

—

“Where will you go?” Sharn’s voice trembles as she watches Doom sling his bags across the horse’s saddle.

“Anywhere,” Doom says shortly. “There is nothing here for me anymore. I have no reason to stay.”

Had Sharn known him in the time between his escape from the Shadowlands and the start of Lief’s reign, she would have thought that he had regressed to that same bitter and broken soul.

“That is not true,” she pleads. “You are needed here, Doom.”

His face softens for a moment, and he pulls his friend into a fleeting embrace. “I will write, I promise.”

“Will you not say goodbye to him?” Sharn asks as he mounts the horse. But Doom is already riding off, away from Del, and he does not look back.

—

Jasmine and Faith live on the road for a while. Faith follows without complaint, always trusting her sister to keep her safe. Eventually they settle in nearly-nameless village. A room above a small tavern becomes their home, and the gruff old woman who runs it teaches Faith her letters as Jasmine pretends not to listen to the lessons. The people of the village keep to themselves and do not ask questions, and so she decides to stay, at least for a little while. She washes dishes in the tavern, which is terribly dull, but it means her sister can have a safe home. She tries not to think of all she left behind, and as long as she does not, she can keep moving forward.

—

The people say their king has become a ghost who haunts their city. He attends the Full Moon Meetings with his head bowed. He listens to the city speak, and he responds when his answer is needed. All the while whispers swirl through his head.

It was not I who drove her away. It was you, little king, she left because of you.

Who will save you now?

You have already lost.

They look to you for hope, but you are just a broken little boy, playing at being king.

Fool.

Coward.

Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.

“Enough!” Lief roars, and the crowd goes silent as death. The woman who was speaking takes a seat, holding her baby tightly with trembling hands. Murmurs spread through the crowd, but no one takes their eyes off of the king. “I did not mean… I am sorry,” and he flees to the forge.

Barda watches him go, and wishes desperately to follow him. “The king needs rest,” he says instead, and answers the rest of their questions as best as he can.

—

Lief and Barda destroy the crystal later that night. As the voice in his head quiets, Lief thinks of Jasmine and wonders if she can hear the silence, too. But his peace lasts only moments, as he stares at the map fragment that he holds in his hands. These days he has difficulty getting out of bed, and now he knows he will have to leave Del and fight for his people once again, as his duty commands.

—

It is a hard journey, and harder still without Jasmine. They come across Lindal of Broome, and Lief stumbles away when she asks where Jasmine is. He does not know what Barda tells her, but when he returns, Lindal’s eyes are shadowed.

—

He dreams that she is running through the Forests, as he follows just two steps behind. He does not know why she is running, or why he follows, but he knows it is very important that he brings her home. Whenever he seems about to reach her, she laughs and runs faster. Finally, he manages to catch her hand. She comes to a halt, and brings her free hand to his cheek with a sad sigh.

“You know I cannot come with you,” she says, and fades away.

Lief wakes, his face wet with tears. Barda sleeps soundly on his other side. They are camping in the cover of a small forest. He rises to his feet and steps into the dark woods.

“Jasmine,” he whispers.

He says her name again, half hoping she will step out of the darkness.

“Lief?” Barda’s voice is rough with sleep. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Lief stepped back into the camp. “I thought I saw something.”

There was no use in chasing after dreams.

—

“Trust me, Lewin. This was fated to be.”

—

As the mask tightens around his face, Lief panics, for it feels as if his very soul is being swallowed. But he finds himself sinking into the loss of control. Yes. Take me. He relaxes, and lets go.

—

Barda goes to Tora. A deep wound on his arm leaks through his roughly wrapped bandages. His heart aches from loss. His body is weary, his footsteps heavy, but he does not pause until he enters the white city.

It is Sharn who finds him first: another cruel joke played by fate. She smiles when she sees him, shaking her head in happy confusion. He remembers watching prisoners walk to the Place of Punishment, and wonders if they felt as he does. As she draws closer, her smile fades, and she covers her eyes, as if unwilling to see what he is holding in his hands.

“No,” she moans. “Please, Barda, not my son.”

She reaches forward, as if to take the Belt from his grasp, but instead she crumples to the ground.

—

He tells them all that the king is dead, because the truth is far more terrible. And what is one more lie? The Belt will never again shine for Lief. It has abandoned him, like it abandoned his father.

Barda is numb.

He wishes for Lindal, and she comes.

He wishes for Lief, for Jasmine, but they do not come. In this, he is alone.

—

Marilen’s eyes are huge with fear and unshed tears as she loops the Belt over her robes, but she does not falter. The Belt shines gloriously as they stand to witness. Doom has come at Barda’s plea, and Sharn clutches the scarred man’s arm tightly. When the light fades, the new queen hurries to Ranesh, who embraces her tightly as she buries her face into his chest. It should be a moment of happiness and new beginnings, but instead it is one of sorrow.

There is an evil in the land that cannot be killed without Lief, and so it will thrive.

—

A man bursts into a dingy tavern in a tiny village in the north, shouting news of King Lief’s death. The young woman washing dishes in the kitchen begins to scream, as if it were she who had been killed.

—

The people voice their unrest. Food is becoming ever scarcer. Riots and murder become common place. The queen is frantic. She travels between Del and Tora as the cries in those cities become louder. She sees the yellow papers calling her a puppet, a usurper, and worse. She fears for herself, for her husband, and for their unborn child. She fears for her people, even as they curse her name as the cause of their suffering. She is not Lief, she is not a hero, but she is giving up all she can.

A sickness creeps through Del, killing slowly at first, and then with more greed. Plague, some say; poison others whisper. Many fingers point towards the queen, and her city. The death toll swells until the people give up on counting.

Sharn takes her last painful breath, and hears Endon whispering sweetly in her ears.

—

Del is a ghost town, abandoned by its people. The palace crumbles and falls. Some whisper of a golden dragon in the sky, but those rumours are dismissed as the rambling of the dying. Many of the people scatter, but the strongest among the survivors form an army and march on Tora, where the queen and king have withdrawn with their baby. They are stopped before they make it to the city entrance by a force led by the former captain of the guard and his wife. Doom once again answers Barda’s call for aid, and brings a group of former Resistance fighters who viciously defend Tora and their queen. The battle is brief, and although the defending army is victorious, they are not without their losses.

Barda watches the small army retreat. It is not the end, he knows, but it is good enough for a while. Many of the men whose swords had crashed against his own he had trained as palace guards himself. He kneels back down by the man he had been tending to, but Doom’s eyes are open and blank, his hands still pressed against his blood-soaked side. Barda bows his head, and says goodbye to another friend.

He and Lindal stay in Tora, for as he failed to save the king, he has taken it upon himself to provide for the queen. Life is hard, and the people of the land grow ever thinner. But there is happiness, too. He has children, many of them, and although their hollow cheeks pain him, their laughter brings him joy.

—

It is a cool autumn morning, and Barda is inspecting the grounds around the entrance to the city. He hears the snap of a twig behind him, and draws his sword before he has the chance to turn. Two women in worn traveling clothes raise their hands to show they do not hold any weapons, although they both have knives strapped to their belts. One of the women looks to be thirty, while the other is younger. Both their faces are burnt and lined by the sun, and they have tangles of black hair that fall past their shoulders. Barda heart swells, overcome with memory, but before he can do anything, the older of the two women cries out and runs toward him. He ignores every instinct and lets his sword drop to the ground, embracing her enthusiastically.

It has been twelve years. She is weary and far too thin, but her arms are as strong as ever.

Jasmine pulls away, her eyes flickering across his face. She is smiling and crying all at once. A long scar extends from her right eyebrow and across her forehead, and he brushes his thumb against it. She laughs, and calls Faith to her side. The young woman approaches, giving Barda a shy smile.

Jasmine kneels and retrieves his sword. Her face grows serious as she hands it back. “We have been dormant, for far too long, I fear. The Enemy no longer believes us to be the threat we once were.”

Barda has a thousand questions for Jasmine, and a thousand more things he wants to tell her. He wants to be furious at her for leaving him alone, but he only feels a sense of long forgotten joy and belonging. He can see the same war of emotions playing across her face, and all laced with a deep sorrow. Does she know her father is dead? He feels the sudden urge to tell her the truth about Lief, to finally tell someone. But it can wait. He has waited long enough.

He thinks of his family, and how much they deserve to live a peaceful life. He thinks of Marilen and Ranesh, working tirelessly to provide for their kingdom, and keep what little faith of the people they still have. He thinks of Sharn and her limitless hope. He thinks of Lief— good and brave and lost— and imagines for half a moment that he can hear his old friend eagerly greeting his two long lost companions.