Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses

by A. W. Cross

  Charles’ expression stayed neutral, but I thought I saw a flicker of annoyance in his gaze.

  I wanted desperately to go home, or tell Clarice I was heading home alone, but she looked so happy, and it would be impolite now to say I couldn’t after Clarice had already expressly agreed for the both of us. God, sometimes my sister was so insufferable. Hadn’t she just been worried to dead seconds ago?

  Were all people in love like this? I wondered while Clarice practically dragged Charles to the tavern.

  I lingered behind them, trying to think of a good excuse I could use in case I felt the overwhelming need to punch Charles in the face, something which I was sure would happen in a matter of minutes after we’d sat down.

  The tavern was located square in the center of town. On the exterior, it looked similar to every other building, limestone walls, straw roof, and if not for the wooden board dangling above the door that said ‘Tavern’, there was nothing that made it stand out from the other houses.

  Inside, at least a dozen tables with accompanying chairs took up most of the space. A large bar occupied the back wall. Several hunting trophies lined the walls, skulls and antlers of animals the Hunters had killed over time.

  In the middle of the room hung the most gruesome trophy of all: a skull of one of the Tainted. The town’s people seemed to love having it there, as if the fact we managed to kill one of the Tainted suddenly gave us power over them. Or as if we should no longer fear them, simply because of one skull decorating a stupid tavern wall.

  Not to mention that the Tainted, before the Blight overtook them, were once people of flesh and blood. This person, whose skull was now used as cheap decoration, had once been someone’s child, parent or sibling. It was tasteless to display this skull here, but apparently, I was the only one who thought so.

  “Charles!” One of his friends and fellow Hunters, Duncan, called the moment Charles walked in. Duncan seemed one beam of enthusiasm, but when he caught sight of Clarice and I, his enthusiasm melted like a snowman standing in the sun.

  “Belle,” Philippe stood up quickly, nearly toppling over his chair. “Let me get you a chair.”

  I hadn’t realized yet that Philippe was also there, seated at the table with the other three Hunters. I thought about what Amélie and Clarice had said about him this morning. Was he really interested in someone? If so, who? And why hadn’t he told me yet?

  Charles grumbled something and finally moved to grab a chair for Clarice, considering his friends had only saved a seat for him, and not for his unexpected companions. Clarice thanked him and even blushed a little when he shoved the chair back so she could sit down.

  “Here you go.” Philippe put a chair down in front of me and gestured for me to sit down.

  I did, and he shoved the chair forward, closer to the table. “What brings you here?” he asked right away, not even giving me a second to take in who else was present – Duncan, the rude best friend of Charles; Gerard, a shy boy who was always nice enough and who I had caught reading a book, once or twice; and Richard, who was always calm and calculated, and perhaps the most intelligent and mature one of the entire group.

  “Uh… Oh, well, Clarice asked me to go shopping with her,” I answered Philippe’s question, stammering. “And then we ran into Charles.”

  “I invited them along. I hope you don’t mind.” Charles showed more emotion being apologetic to his friends in this one moment than he had during the entire conversation we’d had with him outside. I didn’t even know why he was apologizing. Clarice was his fiancé, it was normal that he asked her along, right?

  The others waved his concerns away, but Duncan pouted as if someone had just stolen his favorite dessert from right in front of him.

  “We don’t mind at all,” Philippe said, flashing me a wide smile that showed his white teeth. Looking at him objectively – or trying to, at least – I realized why Amélie would see something in him. He was the sweetest guy in town, no doubt about that. He was nice to everyone. And I had to admit he wasn’t exactly bad looking. His brown hair, bangs tossed in front of his face, and his emerald-colored eyes had a certain appeal. Spending all those hours training as a Hunter had also given him a good physique. But I also wondered about what Clarice had told me. Philippe and I had known each other for years; we had been best friends since kindergarten. Even now, beside of my sisters, Philippe was the best friend I had. How could he keep something like that from me? And why?

  “What will it be?” The voice belonged to the innkeeper, Hugo. His gruff beard, belly tumbling over his pants, and bushy eyebrows almost made him look like a dwarf, if not for the fact he was a towering giant in height. He always seemed mad about something, and I wondered how much he liked his job, or if he was just doing it because it was the only thing he knew how to do. Besides, even if the world outside was infested with the Blight or not, you’d always need a tavern, at least, so it also gave some kind of job security, in a way.

  “A glass of milk for me, please,” Clarice said after Charles had ordered a pint of ale for himself.

  “For me too,” I said quickly.

  Hugo nodded briefly, huffed and then waddled off.

  “Milk?” Duncan snorted.

  Charles gave him a warning look, but he rolled his eyes. “I know your daddy never lets you do anything, let alone go out and have some fun, but ordering milk in a tavern, really?”

  I was too shocked to react.

  A blush crept up Clarice’s cheeks, and Charles look embarrassed—although, rather than be worried about his friend’s obnoxious behavior, he rather looked embarrassed that he’d brought us along.

  “Shut up.” Philippe gave Duncan a downright deadly look. “Shut up or get out. I mean it.”

  Duncan’s mouth dropped open, and he looked from Clarice and I to Philippe and the rest of his friends. He seemed angry that he got called out. “Fine,” he grumbled.

  Hugo returned and handed us our drinks. Despite Duncan’s reaction the innkeeper didn’t seem to think it strange someone ordered milk at all, as he just handed us the thin cans without any comment. The milk was actually pretty good, too, fresh and cold.

  Clarice still looked uncomfortable, so I wanted to change the subject. “So…” I didn’t really know what to say, so I said the first thing that popped in my mind. “Why are you going hunting again, now? It’s only been a week or two since you went outside the Wall, right?”

  “That’s correct,” Philippe answered, “but we barely found any wildlife last time. Either the Blight has started to get to them too, or they’ve moved more to the north, further away from our town, and further into Blight territory.”

  I shot him a worried look. “That’s not good.”

  “Or, it could just be a coincidence,” Charles interrupted. “Maybe we just got unlucky, that’s all. We did have a storm the night before, and that could’ve scared off the animals, chased them away, and it might’ve taken a few days for them to return.”

  “That’s also a possibility,” Philippe acknowledged, “and the one we actually hope is correct. But that is why we’re heading out again today, with Gallant, our Master Hunter.”

  Gallant was in his early fifties, but extremely strong and agile for his age. He was the one who trained all Hunters, and he’d been doing the job for over twenty years. He was also the oldest of the Hunters, a calm, reasonable but determined man.

  “Why else would they go north? If it’s not just temporary because of the storm,” I said quickly, before Charles turned angry that I’d even dared to question what he suggested.

  Philippe sighed. “Honestly, we have no idea. Maybe food is growing scarce. Maybe they prefer colder weather. The Tainted have no interest for them, so it can’t be because they’re hunting them or eating them.”

  “The animals will be back by now. No need to panic,” Charles snapped on a tone that indicated none of us better dare to question his statement.

  “Maybe we’ll just have to go deeper into the woods,” Dunca
n suggested. “I mean, if we don’t find him right away,” he added after his first sentence got him rewarded by a nasty look from Charles.

  “Further into the woods?” Clarice turned to Charles, worry written across her features. “You’ll be careful, right? You promise?”

  For a second, he looked angry that she’d even suggested he would get hurt, but then his gaze softened, and he squeezed her hand. “Of course, darling.”

  The word nearly made me puke, so I took a large drink of the milk in order to wash the sour taste from my tongue.

  “And did you see any Tainted, last time?” I asked the other Hunters.

  “No, none,” Philippe answered. “But it’s not uncommon. Usually, we don’t find any Tainted, or if we do, we barely manage to catch a glimpse of them. It’s rare that we actually encounter one closer than the edge of the woods, and luckily when we do come across them, they’re all alone.”

  “So, basically I could walk to the edge of the woods and there would be no risk of any Tainted attacking me?” I mused out loud, contemplating whether I could risk it to go beyond the Wall and take the measurements necessary to implement Father’s newest invention. I didn’t want to risk Father going beyond the Wall, but we did need precise measurements…

  Usually only the Hunters were allowed through the gates, but I doubted any of them was adapt enough in mathematics to provide me all the information I needed.

  “If you wanted to kill yourself, sure.” Philippe looked at me as if I was crazy. “You never know when they can attack, and even just one of them could be enough to kill you. When they attack, they’re ferocious, much stronger than any regular human being. Sure, you could go outside ten times and get lucky that no Tainted is near, and then on the eleventh time, you could get ripped to shreds.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Thank you for the very graphic description of my horrible demise in that scenario.”

  “I mean it; don’t even think about trying it. We don’t even go out on our own, and we’re trained for these situations.” Philippe seemed a bit agitated at my suggestion.

  “Unless…” Duncan interrupted. He glanced at Charles, as if he needed the latter’s approval to continue his sentence.

  “Unless what?” I asked when he didn’t say anything else.

  “Unless you’re already Tainted in a way.” He gestured at my mechanical arm. “Then I’m pretty sure they don’t care about you in the slightest, and you could just waltz straight into the forbidden forest without anyone or anything trying to stop you.”

  I blinked, surprised, and looked from him to my arm and back.

  “Why would you even suggest that?” Clarice snapped at him, obviously catching on to what he’d said faster than I did.

  Duncan shrugged. “You can put your head in the sand all you want. They had to cut off her arm after a Blight attack; that tells me the Tainted got to her and that she’s Tainted too. And once you’re Tainted, the rest of the Tainted have zero interest in you anymore.”

  Duncan was George’s brother, the Hunter who had lost his hand due to a Blight attack a few years ago. Did he think the same thing about George? That he was now one of the Tainted, and should just waltz into the forest and risk death? I’d had to visit George a few times afterwards to nurse his wound from where we had to cut off his hand, and I remembered how haunted Duncan had looked when he’d let me in to see the patient. How defeated. As if he’d lost his brother, while George had been pretty lucky that he’d survived and had only lost his hand because of the ordeal.

  “I mean, technically, you’re already one of them,” Duncan said while looking straight at me.

  “She’s not one of them!” Clarice yelled. “You take that back.”

  “Duncan, that’s enough!” Philippe slammed his fists on the table. “You’re going way too far. Belle is not one of the Tainted. How do you even have the nerve to suggest that?”

  While my friends were defending me, I sat there, dumbstruck, staring at the mechanical monstrosity that was a symbol of my life before and after: before the Blight attack in which I lost my arm, life had been….well, perfect was not the right worth for it, but it had been very close. Mother was still alive, Father was the happiest I had ever seen him, my sisters and I didn’t have a care in the world. We were too young to realize the full magnitude of the threat outside the Wall, and we lived in blissful ignorance of how the world really was.

  Then one day, that all changed, and I was left with a mechanical arm to replace the limb I lost. I was left with the black veins that spread ever so slightly as time goes on. And worst of all, I was left without a mother, and with a father who was a shell of the man he’d once been.

  Clarice didn’t know about the black veins. No one did, except Father. The dark stripes, similar to the veins that weaved all across the bodies of the Tainted, pulsating with whatever evil they had been injected with because of the Blight.

  Duncan’s accusation was spot-on: I was Tainted, and maybe I even was one of the Tainted, technically speaking. I had just never heard anyone say it out loud. His further deduction that just because I was Tainted, they would not be interested in me anymore, was still up for debate, and I wasn’t planning to go outside the Wall and try it any time soon. If I would go outside, it was for Father’s experiment, not to support some ludicrous theory.

  “Oh, come on, as if that’s such a stretch. George lost his hand three years ago in a Blight attack. That thing was almost completely black before they chopped it off. You nursed him; you remember.” Duncan gestured at me.

  I didn’t react to that. All I could think about was how sorry I was that George had this selfish prick as a brother.

  “A few months after he lost his hand, the black veins started popping up around his wound,” Duncan said. “He says it’s nothing, but I know what it means: he’s Tainted. That disease is still inside him, even if you chopped off the infected limb. So, it must be the same for you.”

  “That could just be a side-effect of losing his hand,” Philippe said, on a softer tone now. “Some type of other infection.”

  Duncan stared straight at me, hard, challenging me to deny what he had just said.

  When I didn’t say anything, he continued, still staring right at me. “I’m not the only one who thinks that. Or the only one who thinks the Tainted are a danger. Even if the disease is slumbering for now, even if it hadn’t spread yet, what if it does? What if you suddenly wake up and you’re one of them?”

  “What if your brother suddenly wakes up and is one of them?” I looked straight back at him, challenging him in return.

  “He stopped being my brother the day he got attacked.” Duncan shook his head, but there was no sadness in his voice, only anger. “If it was up to me, I’d banish him to live outside the Wall. I even petitioned the Town Council to do it, but the fools wouldn’t consider it.”

  Clarice gasped; her eyes wide. “You would banish your own brother?”

  Duncan snapped his head toward her. “I would do what I have to for the sake of our town. For the sake of our survival.”

  “Duncan.” Charles gestured for him to be calm. “Now is not the time to discuss matters like this.”

  But I could tell, from the way he spoke, from how unsurprised he sounded at his friend’s outburst, that this wasn’t the first time Duncan had said something like this—at least not toward Charles. Philippe on the other hand seemed completely taken aback by his friend’s comments. And Charles… Part of me believed that he agreed with Duncan.

  It was too much. People thinking I was a freak because of my mechanical arm was one thing, but thinking I would one day wake up and be a risk to town, and to everyone I loved, was something else.

  Mostly because it was true. I was a dead woman walking.

  The veins had already gotten slightly longer in the past year. One day, they would reach my heart, and then I would become one of the Tainted.

  I shoved my seat back and got up abruptly, nearly bumping into the table. “I’m leav
ing.”

  Without waiting for a reply from them, I turned around and strode out of the tavern. This had been a bad idea. Going into town today. Having a drink with Charles and his friends. All of it. I should’ve stayed home and ignored Clarice’s pleas to go into town with her.

  I felt tears prickling behind my eyes, and while I heard Philippe shout something after me, I couldn’t make out what he said, and I didn’t care. Seconds later, Clarice was beside me. She didn’t say anything, but she grabbed my hand, and we walked out of the tavern hand in hand, two sisters against the world.

  Once we’d walked for a few minutes on the cobblestone road back home, she whispered to me, “Is he right? Do you have any black veins, like the Tainted?”

  I didn’t dare to look at her when I answered, “yes”. A plethora of possibilities danced through my mind: in some, she pulled back instantly, yanking her hand away from me and screaming bloody murder. In others, she didn’t, but there was a slight hesitation when she kept my hand in hers, and she would distance herself from me over time.

  Unlike what I thought, she held on to my hand just as firmly, and she said, “Well, I don’t care. You’re not Tainted. You’re Belle, and you’re my sister, and I love you and I will always love you. And that Duncan fellow is the stupidest idiot on this side of the planet. We should leave him outside the Wall to be eaten alive by the Blight, but I doubt even the Tainted want a piece of him.”

  I stared at her in awe, my mouth nearly dropping to the floor. “Thanks,” was all I could mutter. The word wasn’t enough, not by a far stretch.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” she said to me. “You’ve walked around with this for years, so to think you’d suddenly snap and become one of them is absolutely absurd. People like Duncan are stains on humanity; they’re probably the reason the Blight came for humankind in the first place.”

  She hugged me close while we walked, and I wished that moment could’ve lasted forever, because it felt like something bad was coming, even though I had no idea what.