The Mirror and The Sword: Chapter 4 (2,207 words)
Shyla woke, blind with sweat in her eyes. Despite the rain from the night before, a miserable cloud of hot and moist mist hung in the air, clinging to every leaf and sinking into every pore. She stood and stretched, feeling the stiffness and aches in every single tendon and fiber of her body. Every last inch of her was covered in cuts and bruises. Her clothes were no better off either. Her undershirt and tunic clung to her body, still sopping wet from the rain, her boots had a good inch of water in them. She brushed her damp and matted hair out of her face and continued onwards…
However, she did not know in which direction she was headed. Shyla had hardly ever stepped foot outside the castle when she was younger, but she had heard how to tell direction from the sky…
Except when she tried to gaze, the sun was obscured by the canopy and whatever glimmering sunlight that trickled down onto the forest floor hurt her eyes terribly. She sighed. Maybe she was heading west and she would run into Tanir on his way back to the Castle. Still, that meant she would have to go back. She would have to deal with Marrin and the probably very nasty concussion she gave him.
A breeze slid across her back and the winds sighed in the trees. Thousands of drops from the trees came crashing down from above, and Shyla winced. She was tired of walking, being wet.
“Don’t move.”
Shyla’s eyes snapped open and she jumped back, almost tripping and landing on her backside. Standing some feet away was a cloaked figure, bow drawn, every muscle taut, ready for a fight. Shyla raised her hands in surrender as the figure came towards her and towered over her easily, like a trapped animal. The figure pulled back the hood of the cloak, and stared her down with bright green eyes . Straw colored tied into a long, loose braid spilled forth. Shyla could not tell if the figure was a man or a woman by looks alone - every feature she could have taken to be female, long lashes, broad lips… they were matched by equally masculine features, such as prominent cheekbones and a strong brow. The voice that boomed forth from the figure was deep and strong as well.
“What business you have here?” She - Shyla assumed the figure was a she, at least - asked, arrow still drawn back.
“I’m sorry!” Shyla managed to spit out as her nerves cracked. “I just got lost and-“
“And what? You’re trespassing here unless you’ve got official business ‘round here.”
“Well, I’m afraid I might have known that if I knew where I was,” she said, immediately regretting her words as she saw a twitch of annoyance pull at the figure’s face. The figure relaxed her bow and stood, hand on hip, with a shadow of what Shyla could see as pure annoyance over her face.
“You really don’t know where you are, do you.” It was a statement more than it ever was a question.
“Well, no… I’m afraid I don’t.”
The figure sighed deeply, put the arrow back in a quiver at her side and approached Shyla. She looked down at her as if she were addressing a misbehaving toddler, and seemed even taller for it.
“What’s your name?”
“S-shyla,” she stammered.
“Well, Shyla, what are you doing here in Aelfus Fen?”
“Oh, is that where I am?” Shyla saw her narrow her eyes into slits and swallowed hard. “All I want is permission to pass, I suppose? Uh, maybe to the nearest town?”
“Permission denied. And the nearest town is nearly a week on foot from here.”
Shyla’s shoulder’s sank. “Well, that won’t do me any good.”
The figure stepped back and glanced her over. “No, it wouldn’t.” She laughed with mirth. “You don’t know where you are and it looks like you didn’t prepare for any sort of journey on foot very well at all.”
“Well, no.” Shyla frowned a bit. “I didn’t really get the chance to.”
“Where are you even from, anyways?”
“The Castle.” When the figure gave her a questioning stare, she said, “it’s to the south of here, I think.”
Another stare. This one Shyla could not read, but it seemed of deep confusion, bordering on incredulous. After a pause, the figure said:
“Well, why don’t you go back there, then?”
“No!” Shyla spat out without a second thought. “I’m not going back there.”
“Why not?” The annoyed stare had returned.
“I just…” Shyla swallowed again. “I just can’t.” She chewed on her lip. “I can’t say.”
“Try me.”
And so Shyla tried. Every word struggled out from her mind and onto her tongue unwillingly. She had never needed to explain herself to anyone before, but as far as Shyla could recall, there had never been anyone who may have cared enough to ask her anything about herself. She spoke of Mirr, Tanir… and felt her loneliness, her despair, her anger take her voice and bend it to their will and out of her control. She spoke about the twins, their dreams of her, Cait and her nudging. Her voice cracked when she talked about Marrin, how she was not even given a say, what Mirr had been keeping from him, her, and buried under stone. When she spoke about how she had managed to hurt him fairly badly (at least on accident) and ran, she suddenly felt hot shame flush her cheeks.
When all was said, Shyla felt deep embarrassment. It seemed that when she heard herself say every word, one after another, it was nothing more than just a simple, childish story. A story that seemed to hardly fit together, sentence by sentence, and that only she could understand.
After a long silence, the figure spoke.
“So, let me get this straight,” she said, tilting her head, “you’ve left the only home you’ve ever known, because you didn’t want to marry this Marrin guy? But you didn’t even think about where you were gonna go even for a little bit before hand? That wasn’t exactly the smart thing to do.”
Shyla sighed deeply, as her face flushed with embarrassment and her eyes lowered to her feet. “Yes, I know.”
“Regardless,” she said, “call me sympathetic. … Or at least understanding, I suppose. Have you anything to eat? You look like you could use a bite or too.”
“No not yet, Miss Sympathetic,” Shyla said.
“That was an expression you know that, right?” she asked. Shyla stared at her blankly. “Never mind. My name is Aera Celtis,” she said, holding out her hand to her. “You can just call me Aera.”
“Alright then, Aera,” Shyla took her hand and shook it, albeit awkwardly - she had never shaken anyone’s hand before and was certain she was doing it wrong now. “Obviously, my name is Shyla… er, I’m afraid I don’t have a surname, though.”
“S’alright. I’ve known a fair number of people without one; good people all the same.” Aera smiled. “Now, let’s go find something to eat.”
Marrin was fuming.
Or at least he fumed the best he could while a grey-haired, plump woman stitched up the broad gash in the back of his head. Mirr stared him down as she sat in a chair in front of him in the small infirmary.
“That was a stupid idea,” Mirr said, arms crossed, back straight, eyes alight with smoldering rage. “What were you thinking, going up to her room like that?”
“Please, you knew she was listening to us in the library,” he hissed back.
The plump woman patted him on the back gently as she finished up the last of the stitches.
“Thank you, Rose,” Mirr said politely. Rose simply smiled and left. Mirr turned back to Marrin. “Don’t start with me. You know that if the twins saw it, then it was going to happen.”
“How do we know that they’re even being truthful? They could be lying for all we know.” He sucked in air sharply in pain as he felt the back of his head where the stitches had been sewn in with his hand.
“I trust them. That’s good enough.”
Marrin snorted. “Anyone could deceive you and you wouldn’t know it.”
“They haven’t been wrong yet,” Mirr shot back. “That would be enough for nearly anybody. And weren’t they completely right this time as well? Did I try to stop her?”
“No, you didn’t.” Marrin said, his voice heavy with bitterness.
“There was no point in trying to,” Mirr said, her anger subsiding. “She’s old enough to decide what she wants. It’s better for her that she leaves.”
“How can you even say that?” Marrin asked, incredulous. “What would Tanir say if he could hear you right now?”
“He would probably agree. If she stayed here, she’d… well, I don’t even think I should tell you,” she said, shaking her head.
“Why not? Why won’t you even try?” He asked, angry now. “What would happen if she stayed here?”
Mirr looked at him curiously. She stood slowly, smoothing out her dress skirts in thought.
“Are you well enough to stand?” she asked - all hints and twinges of anger in her voice had suddenly disappeared.
“Yes, I think so,” he said, confused.
“Then follow me.”
Marrin trailed behind Mirr as they passed through the corridors. He had long since given up trying to keep track of very little twist and turn they made through the Castle - they had passed by rooms Marrin had never seen, tapestries with symbols he could not understand, torches whose flames did not burn yellow or orange, doors that opened nowhere, and walls that seemed to shift as he glanced at them in the corner of his eye.
In fact, it did not feel like they were in the Castle anymore at all. He was certain they had been walking for an hour or more, but never saw the sunlight shift in the windows that they had passed, many times over already. If Marrin paused as Mirr took the time to contemplate the next turn, he swore he could almost hear whisperings here, songs there, and soft heavy breathing that was not his own or Mirr’s for that matter. As they continued to walk, he once or twice let his mouth hang open and felt his tongue suddenly taste metal - a crackling, unpleasant sensation of unbridled power that he winced at.
Mirr stopped.
“This is it,” she said simply, glancing at a simple, broad set of doors in front of them.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“As for that, I have no idea.” She pushed open the doors.
Marrin stared from behind her as the doors swung open into a maw of pure darkness.
Mirr snapped her fingers and every candle and torch in the room flew alight with fire that burned in unnatural shades of yellow and bright fierce white, flickering hungrily as they caught dust in the air. As Marrin followed Mirr inwards, he felt every molecule of air slow and freeze in his throat and lungs. The floor, walls, and every single object that lay uncovered was coated in a thick, dense layer of dust. In the center of the room, a mound of canvas stood, solitary, waiting.
Mirr approached it and in one pull, tore off the whole panel of dusty fabric, revealing an oval-shaped, standing mirror. Marrin saw that it was far taller than himself, and quite possibly taller than Tanir. Around the gleaming, polished glass was a frame of dark wood, neither of which Marrin had never seen before. They both approached it, their reflections standing side by side.
He stared at the wooden frame. It was carved deeply in places with symbols he could not understand, words that had no meaning, and pictures of things he did not believe existed.
“What is this?” He whispered.
“This is why Shyla cannot stay,” Mirr said, also quiet. “Has Tanir ever told you about Shyla’s dreams? I know she refused to talk to anyone else about them, not even myself.”
“No,” Marrin answered “I knew she had difficulty sleeping, but I didn’t know she had nightmares.”
“A nightmare, really,” she said. “ As far as I know, she’s never dreamed of anything else. It’s always this room. This mirror.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Marrin asked. He let his gaze slide of focus as he gazed at his reflection in the glass and was suddenly aware that the eyes that stared back at him were not his own. They blinked and smiled at him curiously; when he shut his eyes, they were gone, as if they had never been there at all. He was suddenly aware that Mirr was looking at him with deep concern.
In silence, she covered the mirror with the canvas. They left the room, and stepped out together into the Great Hall. The doors snapped shut behind them. Marrin glanced around, confused.
“It’s always harder to get to that room than it is to walk away from it,” Mirr said.
Marrin stared at her. He did not know what to think.
That night, Marrin left the Castle to find Shyla.
However, she did not know in which direction she was headed. Shyla had hardly ever stepped foot outside the castle when she was younger, but she had heard how to tell direction from the sky…
Except when she tried to gaze, the sun was obscured by the canopy and whatever glimmering sunlight that trickled down onto the forest floor hurt her eyes terribly. She sighed. Maybe she was heading west and she would run into Tanir on his way back to the Castle. Still, that meant she would have to go back. She would have to deal with Marrin and the probably very nasty concussion she gave him.
A breeze slid across her back and the winds sighed in the trees. Thousands of drops from the trees came crashing down from above, and Shyla winced. She was tired of walking, being wet.
“Don’t move.”
Shyla’s eyes snapped open and she jumped back, almost tripping and landing on her backside. Standing some feet away was a cloaked figure, bow drawn, every muscle taut, ready for a fight. Shyla raised her hands in surrender as the figure came towards her and towered over her easily, like a trapped animal. The figure pulled back the hood of the cloak, and stared her down with bright green eyes . Straw colored tied into a long, loose braid spilled forth. Shyla could not tell if the figure was a man or a woman by looks alone - every feature she could have taken to be female, long lashes, broad lips… they were matched by equally masculine features, such as prominent cheekbones and a strong brow. The voice that boomed forth from the figure was deep and strong as well.
“What business you have here?” She - Shyla assumed the figure was a she, at least - asked, arrow still drawn back.
“I’m sorry!” Shyla managed to spit out as her nerves cracked. “I just got lost and-“
“And what? You’re trespassing here unless you’ve got official business ‘round here.”
“Well, I’m afraid I might have known that if I knew where I was,” she said, immediately regretting her words as she saw a twitch of annoyance pull at the figure’s face. The figure relaxed her bow and stood, hand on hip, with a shadow of what Shyla could see as pure annoyance over her face.
“You really don’t know where you are, do you.” It was a statement more than it ever was a question.
“Well, no… I’m afraid I don’t.”
The figure sighed deeply, put the arrow back in a quiver at her side and approached Shyla. She looked down at her as if she were addressing a misbehaving toddler, and seemed even taller for it.
“What’s your name?”
“S-shyla,” she stammered.
“Well, Shyla, what are you doing here in Aelfus Fen?”
“Oh, is that where I am?” Shyla saw her narrow her eyes into slits and swallowed hard. “All I want is permission to pass, I suppose? Uh, maybe to the nearest town?”
“Permission denied. And the nearest town is nearly a week on foot from here.”
Shyla’s shoulder’s sank. “Well, that won’t do me any good.”
The figure stepped back and glanced her over. “No, it wouldn’t.” She laughed with mirth. “You don’t know where you are and it looks like you didn’t prepare for any sort of journey on foot very well at all.”
“Well, no.” Shyla frowned a bit. “I didn’t really get the chance to.”
“Where are you even from, anyways?”
“The Castle.” When the figure gave her a questioning stare, she said, “it’s to the south of here, I think.”
Another stare. This one Shyla could not read, but it seemed of deep confusion, bordering on incredulous. After a pause, the figure said:
“Well, why don’t you go back there, then?”
“No!” Shyla spat out without a second thought. “I’m not going back there.”
“Why not?” The annoyed stare had returned.
“I just…” Shyla swallowed again. “I just can’t.” She chewed on her lip. “I can’t say.”
“Try me.”
And so Shyla tried. Every word struggled out from her mind and onto her tongue unwillingly. She had never needed to explain herself to anyone before, but as far as Shyla could recall, there had never been anyone who may have cared enough to ask her anything about herself. She spoke of Mirr, Tanir… and felt her loneliness, her despair, her anger take her voice and bend it to their will and out of her control. She spoke about the twins, their dreams of her, Cait and her nudging. Her voice cracked when she talked about Marrin, how she was not even given a say, what Mirr had been keeping from him, her, and buried under stone. When she spoke about how she had managed to hurt him fairly badly (at least on accident) and ran, she suddenly felt hot shame flush her cheeks.
When all was said, Shyla felt deep embarrassment. It seemed that when she heard herself say every word, one after another, it was nothing more than just a simple, childish story. A story that seemed to hardly fit together, sentence by sentence, and that only she could understand.
After a long silence, the figure spoke.
“So, let me get this straight,” she said, tilting her head, “you’ve left the only home you’ve ever known, because you didn’t want to marry this Marrin guy? But you didn’t even think about where you were gonna go even for a little bit before hand? That wasn’t exactly the smart thing to do.”
Shyla sighed deeply, as her face flushed with embarrassment and her eyes lowered to her feet. “Yes, I know.”
“Regardless,” she said, “call me sympathetic. … Or at least understanding, I suppose. Have you anything to eat? You look like you could use a bite or too.”
“No not yet, Miss Sympathetic,” Shyla said.
“That was an expression you know that, right?” she asked. Shyla stared at her blankly. “Never mind. My name is Aera Celtis,” she said, holding out her hand to her. “You can just call me Aera.”
“Alright then, Aera,” Shyla took her hand and shook it, albeit awkwardly - she had never shaken anyone’s hand before and was certain she was doing it wrong now. “Obviously, my name is Shyla… er, I’m afraid I don’t have a surname, though.”
“S’alright. I’ve known a fair number of people without one; good people all the same.” Aera smiled. “Now, let’s go find something to eat.”
Marrin was fuming.
Or at least he fumed the best he could while a grey-haired, plump woman stitched up the broad gash in the back of his head. Mirr stared him down as she sat in a chair in front of him in the small infirmary.
“That was a stupid idea,” Mirr said, arms crossed, back straight, eyes alight with smoldering rage. “What were you thinking, going up to her room like that?”
“Please, you knew she was listening to us in the library,” he hissed back.
The plump woman patted him on the back gently as she finished up the last of the stitches.
“Thank you, Rose,” Mirr said politely. Rose simply smiled and left. Mirr turned back to Marrin. “Don’t start with me. You know that if the twins saw it, then it was going to happen.”
“How do we know that they’re even being truthful? They could be lying for all we know.” He sucked in air sharply in pain as he felt the back of his head where the stitches had been sewn in with his hand.
“I trust them. That’s good enough.”
Marrin snorted. “Anyone could deceive you and you wouldn’t know it.”
“They haven’t been wrong yet,” Mirr shot back. “That would be enough for nearly anybody. And weren’t they completely right this time as well? Did I try to stop her?”
“No, you didn’t.” Marrin said, his voice heavy with bitterness.
“There was no point in trying to,” Mirr said, her anger subsiding. “She’s old enough to decide what she wants. It’s better for her that she leaves.”
“How can you even say that?” Marrin asked, incredulous. “What would Tanir say if he could hear you right now?”
“He would probably agree. If she stayed here, she’d… well, I don’t even think I should tell you,” she said, shaking her head.
“Why not? Why won’t you even try?” He asked, angry now. “What would happen if she stayed here?”
Mirr looked at him curiously. She stood slowly, smoothing out her dress skirts in thought.
“Are you well enough to stand?” she asked - all hints and twinges of anger in her voice had suddenly disappeared.
“Yes, I think so,” he said, confused.
“Then follow me.”
Marrin trailed behind Mirr as they passed through the corridors. He had long since given up trying to keep track of very little twist and turn they made through the Castle - they had passed by rooms Marrin had never seen, tapestries with symbols he could not understand, torches whose flames did not burn yellow or orange, doors that opened nowhere, and walls that seemed to shift as he glanced at them in the corner of his eye.
In fact, it did not feel like they were in the Castle anymore at all. He was certain they had been walking for an hour or more, but never saw the sunlight shift in the windows that they had passed, many times over already. If Marrin paused as Mirr took the time to contemplate the next turn, he swore he could almost hear whisperings here, songs there, and soft heavy breathing that was not his own or Mirr’s for that matter. As they continued to walk, he once or twice let his mouth hang open and felt his tongue suddenly taste metal - a crackling, unpleasant sensation of unbridled power that he winced at.
Mirr stopped.
“This is it,” she said simply, glancing at a simple, broad set of doors in front of them.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“As for that, I have no idea.” She pushed open the doors.
Marrin stared from behind her as the doors swung open into a maw of pure darkness.
Mirr snapped her fingers and every candle and torch in the room flew alight with fire that burned in unnatural shades of yellow and bright fierce white, flickering hungrily as they caught dust in the air. As Marrin followed Mirr inwards, he felt every molecule of air slow and freeze in his throat and lungs. The floor, walls, and every single object that lay uncovered was coated in a thick, dense layer of dust. In the center of the room, a mound of canvas stood, solitary, waiting.
Mirr approached it and in one pull, tore off the whole panel of dusty fabric, revealing an oval-shaped, standing mirror. Marrin saw that it was far taller than himself, and quite possibly taller than Tanir. Around the gleaming, polished glass was a frame of dark wood, neither of which Marrin had never seen before. They both approached it, their reflections standing side by side.
He stared at the wooden frame. It was carved deeply in places with symbols he could not understand, words that had no meaning, and pictures of things he did not believe existed.
“What is this?” He whispered.
“This is why Shyla cannot stay,” Mirr said, also quiet. “Has Tanir ever told you about Shyla’s dreams? I know she refused to talk to anyone else about them, not even myself.”
“No,” Marrin answered “I knew she had difficulty sleeping, but I didn’t know she had nightmares.”
“A nightmare, really,” she said. “ As far as I know, she’s never dreamed of anything else. It’s always this room. This mirror.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Marrin asked. He let his gaze slide of focus as he gazed at his reflection in the glass and was suddenly aware that the eyes that stared back at him were not his own. They blinked and smiled at him curiously; when he shut his eyes, they were gone, as if they had never been there at all. He was suddenly aware that Mirr was looking at him with deep concern.
In silence, she covered the mirror with the canvas. They left the room, and stepped out together into the Great Hall. The doors snapped shut behind them. Marrin glanced around, confused.
“It’s always harder to get to that room than it is to walk away from it,” Mirr said.
Marrin stared at her. He did not know what to think.
That night, Marrin left the Castle to find Shyla.