by Tracey Tobin
“That is when I arrived,” Eden whispered.
Tori watched through wide eyes as a single tiny flame flickered back to life. It jumped, and danced, and it must have made some sound because the marred woman’s head rose and she crawled on hands and knees to get closer to it.
“I explained to her that I am an old being,” Eden spoke softly. “One of few who have been around since the creation of the world. I told her that she was a miraculous woman, brave and selfless, and that if she truly wanted to protect her world she needed to continue to be brave.”
Tori saw a slow understanding came over the marred woman’s face. Blood dripped down her beautiful skin, along with tears, casting red streaks of pain down her lovely dress.
“I told her that, although she had managed to stop Iryen’s plan for now, she had not been in time to stop the spell he cast. Though it would take time, he would eventually learn how to control the dark forces from beyond this plain of existence and return to finish what he began.”
The marred woman nodded, stood, and offered her hand to the tiny flame. It jumped onto her skin and danced happily.
“I asked her for her body.” The little flame flickered across the marred woman’s arm, along her chest, toward her heart. “I needed to take a physical form to have the ability to put my plan into motion. You see, the dark magic that Iryen cast was rooted in the blood magic of his family, and only blood can defeat blood: his own blood.”
The castle faded away, and now they were standing outside a small fishing vessel on a dingy pier. The marred woman, who was now swaddled in white robes that hid all but her lips and fingertips, was speaking to an unkempt man clutching a fishing pole. He spoke rapidly, with a look of disbelief on his face, as the Eden from the past smiled and nodded.
“Iryen knew the limitations of this, the most powerful of magics, and so before anything else he had set out to have his entire bloodline assassinated, taking no chances that one might rise against him. Thankfully there was one relative he had been unaware of: a kindly fisherman who was the only son of the only son of a previous king’s younger brother. The fisherman’s ancestor had disliked royal life and set out to make his own way, changing his name and effectively vanishing into the crowd. It took a great deal of time and convincing, both on his part and on the part of the people, but eventually I was able to place him on the now empty throne.”
Back in the throne room, the fisherman stood with his head held high, looking both proud and extraordinarily nervous.
“I had hoped that his bloodline would be strong and plentiful, but unfortunately it was not to be. He bore one son, and that son bore one son, and that son bore one son.”
They watched as the fisherman stood with his wife and child, and the child began to grow. Soon that child was king, standing with his own small family, and as that son began to grow he began to look very familiar. By the time the final child had become a man, Tori’s throat and chest became tight and she felt tears spring to her eyes.
The king stood with his blushing bride on their wedding day, and though he had much longer hair and she was primped and preened almost behind recognition, there was no doubt in Tori’s mind who the faces belonged to. “My parents…” Tori whispered, almost too softly to be heard.
Eden reached to wipe the tears from Tori’s face and gave her a small nod. “As the Kynnon line went on I was always there to guide them and warn them about the impending danger, but as time passed and peace reigned, they began to think of my warnings as nothing more than fairy tales.”
They watched as a happy-looking king and queen smiled and nodded and brushed off a pursed-lipped Eden.
“I had been seeing signs of the approaching darkness for some time, but no amount of pleading could convince the king and queen. They had become complacent in their happy lives, and soon they hardly even heard what they considered to be my ramblings, because they were expecting their first child.”
They found themselves in a lavish bedroom, with a fire burning heartily in the hearth. The queen was laying in the bed, propped up by pillows and attended by a group of three midwives.
“It was the night of the baby’s birth that Iryen finally returned.”
The castle filled with shouts and screams that echoed in Tori’s head. The scene was at full volume now, with every sound and word filling Tori’s heart with dread.
“What’s happening?” the queen cried.
The midwives flitted about in every direction, clearly anxious, but they knew their place and their responsibilities, and they focused on that. “You must concern yourself only with the baby right now, your majesty. Please now, you’re going to have to push any moment.”
The screams of the castle’s other inhabitants became interspersed with the labor cries and sobs of the queen. The midwives wiped her brow and spoke encouragement while also hardly ever taking their eyes from the bedchamber’s doors. The clash of swords had arisen amongst the din, but still they worked on, diligent, pushing the queen to breathe, to think only of her child. And then, though it was beginning to seem that it was never going to happen, suddenly there was a tiny, squalling baby in the eldest midwife’s arms.
“It’s a girl,” one of them announced. At those words Tori felt a strange thrill go through her entire body.
They’d barely gotten the umbilical cord cut when the doors burst open and a knight rushed inside. There was a sword in his hand, and the shield on his back bore an image like a wingless dragon. His ruddy brown-red hair was darker, but his blue eyes were exactly like his son’s.
“Father…” Jacob whispered.
The Eden of the past stepped into the room behind the knight and moved immediately to the queen’s side. “Your majesty, the day has come and there is no longer any time for discussion. We must leave this place immediately.”
“Are you mad?” balked one of the midwives. “Her majesty can not be moved in her condition!”
For the first time in the passage of this history, Eden showed something that looked like true anger. “There is no time!” she bellowed. “The darkness comes and it will not wait for her majesty to take her rest!”
“Ravenson!” the queen cried. “What has happened? What of my husband?”
Jacob’s father guarded the door. His face was grim as he considered the sounds of the approaching battle. “Dark creatures have invaded the castle, your majesty,” he explained with haste. “They have nearly made their way here. Lady Eden believes that they are coming for yourself and the child.”
The queen pushed herself up onto her elbows, though it was clear that it caused her a great deal of pain to do so. “And what of my husband, Ravenson?” she asked again, with more authority.
It was clear to see by the knight’s face that he would rather not have said, but he could hardly deny his queen. “I am sorry, your majesty. He is gone. The creatures have taken his body for their own and his corpse now fights for the enemy.”
The queen cried out a horrifying sound that echoed throughout the castle halls. The newborn baby let out a mewling wail.
“Your majesty,” Eden begged. “I am sorry for your loss, but if we do not move quickly the creatures will take yourself and the child as well.”
The queen’s face was streaked with tears. She dragged her nails down her cheeks and she stared at the bloodied blankets around her with haunted eyes. Finally, she turned and snatched up Eden by the hand, clenched her fingers tight, and pleaded with her: “Take the child. Keep her safe. Please, take her where no evil can find her.”
“Your majesty!” Ravenson protested. “You must flee with us as well! We cannot leave you behind!”
But the queen was shaking her head vehemently. “I will only slow you down,” she insisted. “You must protect my child at all costs. That is an order!”
Ravenson looked aghast, but he knew his place and his duty. With a grave face he nodded and offered his queen a low bow suffused with respect.
The midwife who was still clutching the newborn b
abe motioned her toward the queen. “Your majesty, would you… Would you like to say good-bye?”
The queen turned her head in the opposite direction. “No,” she struggled to say. Her voice cracked. Her eyes were as red as blood. “I mustn’t hold her. If I do I shall certainly never let her go.”
Tori felt hot tears streaming down her face as the midwife handed the baby over to Eden instead.
“I swear I will take her where Iryen can not follow,” Eden promised.
“Leave quickly,” the queen demanded. Through the tears in her eyes Tori examined the woman’s face and thought she had never seen anyone so brave in all her life. “Protect the rightful heir to the throne.”
As Eden and Ravenson fled with the baby to the wails of the queen’s sorrow, the castle melted away and was replaced by a dark forest. Ravenson had shed his armor in favor of an inconspicuous brown robe, but the hilt of his sword was sticking out from his belt. He appeared to be scouting the area. Once he was satisfied with his findings he veered off a ways until he came to a small field. Eden was waiting there with the sleeping child in her arms, protectively swaddled in a pink blanket.
“We must go immediately,” she insisted. “Or we will have lost our opportunity to make the switch.”
Ravenson nodded. “The coast is clear. Let us get this work done so that I may return to my own wife and child. I fear terribly for them.”
Eden carefully shifted the sleeping infant into Ravenson’s arms, and from her robes she produced two objects: a crystal pendant on a thin white gold chain, and a sewing pin. With the pin she carefully pricked the baby’s toe, and then pressed the crystal to the drop of blood that emerged. She followed by ensuring that she and Ravenson were both touching the child’s bare skin, and then finally placed the pendant around the baby’s neck. The moment the crystal touched her newborn skin there was a flash of light more blinding than looking directly into the sun. When finally the spots vanished from the spectators’ eyes, they were standing in a hospital room, surrounded by shocked emergency staff. One of them opened his mouth to shout in alarm, but Eden waved a hand and they were all still and silent.
“Where are we?” Ravenson asked. He looked awed by the white walls and the shining silver equipment.
“Somewhere where Iryen cannot follow her,” Eden assured him. She took the sleeping child back from his arms and then gestured to the table in the center of the room. On it lay another infant, her skin white as snow, beyond any help that the doctors could have hoped to administer. “Collect her,” Eden instructed.
Ravenson’s face blanched. “Must I?” he asked. “It seems wrong. Unholy.”
“The switch must be complete,” Eden insisted. “Iryen is aware that a child was born, so we must be able to convince him that the same child has left the mortal coil. Otherwise he will be expecting her to return for him and he will be prepared for that day.”
Ravenson slowly nodded, but the color did not return to his face as he gathered up the deceased child in a pile of bloody blankets.
“We shall ensure that she has a resting place of great honor,” Eden promised him.
At that moment the double doors to the room burst open and a young nurse with tears in her eyes burst in. She stopped short when she saw the state of the room and the strangers there, and for a moment she looked like she might turn and run. Ravenson tensed, but Eden raised a hand, gesturing for the nurse to approach. The young woman complied with wide eyes. Tori tried not to look at them, but she recognized those fearful eyes.
“Are you sure about this?” Ravenson asked.
“We have little choice,” Eden told him. To the nurse she asked, “The parents - are they good people? Will they love her and take care of her?”
The nurse didn’t seem to know how to respond, but eventually she managed to spit out the words, “Y-yes. I believe so.”
Eden turned back to Ravenson. “This is the safest refuge we can offer her,” she assured him. After a long moment he nodded his agreement. Without any further preamble, Eden passed the baby into the nurse’s arms and started for the door with Ravenson close behind her.
“W-wait!” the shocked nurse cried. “Who the hell are you people?”
Eden turned her head, just slightly. “It really matters not, my dear, but if it makes you feel better, you can call us her godparents.” And with that she and Ravenson pushed through the double doors and were gone.
The scene dissolved around them. Tori was once more standing in a circular room that was painted like the night sky. Three faces were turned toward her, waiting to see how she would react to the story she had just been shown as though they’d been right there while it was all happening.
Eden had that gentle smile on her lips. “Do you understand now, my child?” she asked. “Do you see who you truly are?”
Tori took several steps back, shaking her head as she went. She waited for some indication from Eden that it had all been some kind of elaborate joke, but the punchline never came. She looked to the Maelekanai elder only to find that his face was a mixture of grim understanding and reverence. And finally she looked to Jacob, inwardly begging him to scoff and laugh at the ridiculous tale, but instead he was staring at her with his mouth hanging open, his face full of something akin to a horrific realization. With a cracked voice he managed to spit out the truth that Eden had been trying to make Tori see.
“You’re the rightful queen.”
Chapter Six
Tori blinked uselessly.
Eden and the elder stared at her, seeming to expect something that the teen couldn’t fathom, while Jacob’s gaze was more a mixture of awe and seasickness. Tori herself felt as though her brain had been flipped off. She couldn’t think. Nothing would compute. She was barely able to register color anymore; it was like the visual processes in her mind were shutting down.
“Iryen is currently using his numerous Shadow creatures, and the ability to steal the forms of others, to rule the kingdom,” Eden explained as though she’d been asked a question. “As I entered the body of the woman who gave up everything to stop him, he similarly uses the bodies of the true king and queen as puppets to rule for him. For the past seventeen years the people have believed that their king and queen went mad, never realizing the truth: that the king and queen have been long dead.”
At her words the Maelekanai elder made a horrible hissing noise in the back of his throat. “It is a sick, unnatural thing that this black creature has done,” he growled. “I cannot believe that we have been living in fear of a creature that we did not even know existed.” At this he shot Eden a look that was both inquisitive and perhaps just a little bit angry. “If you knew of this, why did you not inform the people?”
“It made little sense to do so,” Eden justified. “As long as the people believed that it was truly King Kynnon ruling over them, they have suffered in silence, choosing to keep their heads low and just attempt to live. If they had known that it was not their true king, but a creature of darkness wearing his skin, they may have revolted. Such an action would have only resulted in pointless bloodshed, because Victoria is the only one who can truly defeat Iryen.”
Tori listened to all of this as though she was pressing her ear against a glass up to an outer wall; it was all a distorted echo that didn’t make any sense and wouldn’t come together in her mind. She was vaguely cognizant of the fact that Jacob was still staring at her, unblinking.
“How did you know?” the elder was asking. “How could you have been certain that the princess would be safe in this other world that you spirited her away to?”
“There are an endless number of parallel worlds out there,” Eden explained. She waved one hand over the other, and between her palms rose a tiny galaxy of pinprick stars. The little galaxy split in two, and for all intents and purposes the two appeared to be absolutely identical. “A world for every possibility, every decision made differently, every slightly different circumstance. Any two worlds may be identical save for one minuscule differ
ence, or they may have nothing at all in common except for, say, the color of the sky.” She waved her hands again and one of the little galaxies changed shape and color. Satisfied with her visual she pressed her hands together and the little balls of starlight disappeared. “In order to hide the princess I needed to find a world in which she could blend in, so the obvious choice was a world in which she could take the place of another version of herself. However, to avoid kidnapping an innocent and forcing her to experience out the fate that would await the princess in this world, I chose a world in which that child had already sadly lost her chance at life. We could then swap the infants without anyone ever knowing the difference. But you see, one cannot travel into a dimension in which the physical structure that defines them does not, never has, or never will exist. Ravenson, the baby, and I were all able to travel to that world because other versions of our selves already existed there. Iryen, however, could not have followed even if he had seen through our ruse, as his bloodline was cut short centuries in advance of his birth in that other world.”
The long-winded explanation had finally caught Jacob’s attention enough to drag his gaze away from Tori. He turned his wide-eyed look toward Eden instead. “So, you’re telling me that the reason I was able to temporarily travel to that other world is because that guy I saw with my face is actually me? Literally another version of me?”
Eden nodded. “You are not entirely identical,” she explained, “because experience and environment affect who a person becomes, but your being, the very essence of your body and mind, are the same. Your specific bloodline exists in both worlds, as did Victoria’s, but in the world where Victoria was hidden the man that would have been Iryen’s ancestor perished before he could sire a son. Therefore there was no possibility that the beast could follow after her.”
Tori had begun to ease her way backward toward the door. No one had yet noticed because they were quite entranced in their conversation about parallel worlds.
“Young Ravenson,” the elder interjected. “Are you saying that you have actually traveled to this other world yourself?”
