LTSV - Lost & Found 52 (Patreon)

“They took it down after you died,” Cecily said, once they’d both recovered from the memory of the statue. “If that’s any consolation?”

It was, a bit. Mira sometimes feared that it was still up, somewhere out there in the multiverse, as the breasts wore down from the passing of thousands of hands. Worse still, it could have been moved into a museum to be preserved for the viewing pleasure of countless generations. She wouldn’t mind becoming a forgotten figure in that particular history. She wouldn’t mind if the entire wretched story passed out of memory. 

“Perhaps,” Mira allowed. She took the plate that Cecily had fixed for her and tried the mousse cake. 

It was every bit as good as it looked. The cake was the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and mellow. The sponge was just the right kind of chewy and didn’t distract from the bright spring flavors of the mousse. The taste soothed her smarting feelings so much that she was able to sort out the first question she wanted to ask her sister, now that they had a moment alone.

She looked at Cecily and just asked, “Why were you so young when you appeared to me as Melody?”

Cecily had just taken a bite of her macaron and had to chew before she could answer. She looked away. “That’s actually why I wanted to come around and talk,” she explained. “I think I owe you and Mister Adelram an apology.”

Mira waited as Cecily gathered up her words.

“Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I think Melody was wrong about Adramalak,” she said, after a while. “She really did think that her princess was in danger from him and those feelings overwhelmed me. Everyone around her was so certain about it, all the time, that there was no space for her to start to question that belief. It destroyed her when they failed and, worse, ended up being the reason that she—that you died. I don’t think she realized how wrong she was about her mission until they returned home and King Huron didn’t punish them.”

Cecily looked up and Mira saw the ghost of that long dead woman in her eyes. 

“Mira, I don’t think he even cared that you had died,” she said. The words were coming with less effort  now, almost like she couldn’t hold it back. “He didn’t hold a funeral! He threw a festival instead to celebrate Adramalak’s defeat and announce to everyone that he’d adopted Peleon as his new son.”

That was, unfortunately, pretty much what Mira would have guessed if someone had asked her to imagine what it looked like when her father received the news of her death. After all, her power wasn’t all that special anymore by the time she died. Without the spellpaint, she would have been a real threat to just about anyone on the continent—but only one on one. She’d been the first in a new age of superhumans, but there were plenty of new heroes by the time she died; more than enough that they could have taken her out if any of them banded together. 

She wasn’t the critical asset to her father that she had once been. In fact, her greatest value to him, by the end, would have been the way her presence kept Adramalak distracted from defending the demon realm’s borders.

“Typical,” is what Mira said, aloud. “I would have been very surprised if he did. I don’t think Melody would have known what my reputation was like when I still lived in the Kingdom. I wasn’t a popular figure before Adra rescued me from my father’s house and, afterwards, they weren’t really missing me so much as my use on the battlefield.”

“I…” Cecily stopped, wet her lips, squirmed, and then started again, “...Mira, what was that blue tattoo you had?”

“The spellpaint?” Mira asked, surprised. It was a little weird to her, the way Cecily was referring to Melody as a separate person, but she could well be perceiving it that way. Mira was hardly in a position to tell her how to acclimate to such a change. “Melody didn’t know about it?”

Cecily shook her head. “I think, at first, she thought it was something that Adramalak had done to you. They saw you in the middle of weird rituals a few times. The tattoo was never shown on your statues or the frescos, but Tio—Randall later told her that he’d seen it on you once before the abduction.”

Well, no. Mira supposed her people wouldn’t have chosen to memorialize that part. For one, the spellpaint design was ugly. Her skin underneath the paint was scarred, raised, and lumpy-looking. The spellpaint was visible on every part of her body; from the tops of her feet to her cheeks and forehead. For another, remembering that part would oppose the public narrative they had been telling each other about Mira.

“It was a magical restraint,” Mira explained. “A bit like the inscription I’m wearing to treat my seizures, but far more primitive. The paint sealed access to my mana, unless an authorized person used a release word in my presence. I think my father had a companion mark or used an artifact to control my mana, but I was sedated when they applied the paint and he never activated the spellpaint in a way that I could see or hear so I can’t really tell you the particulars.”

She noticed that Cecily had started to rub one of her wrists—a bit like how Mira rubbed her arms whenever her memories of the spellpaint got a little too close. 

“Cecily,” she said and not even she was sure what her tone was doing at the moment. She felt like she was speaking from a far distance all of a sudden, hoping that she was wrong about the suspicion that had just reared its ugly little head in the back of her mind. “Why do you ask?”

“I didn’t remember it at first,” Cecily said, instead of answering her right away. “Melody’s last memories are all jumbled and blurred. It didn’t click for me until I looked at the Prince Regent and realized that I recognized him the same way that I’d recognized you.”

Mira stayed quiet and let the girl talk. It was probably the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“The Blades split up after they went home,” Cecily continued. “Peleon became a prince. Lasol, Able, and Markim accepted positions in the army and the adventurers’ guild. Tio went back to his musical circuit and Melody started to work for her Goddess’s temple as a healer and public speaker. She started to get influential and then her magic started to get stronger.”

Oof. Of course she had. Mira was pretty sure she knew where this was going. Melody looked like she hadn’t survived Alanamira by more than five years, maybe even less than that.

“Eventually, Peleon asked her to marry him and be his crown princess,” Cecily wet her lips. “Um, it was actually kind of awkward. I don’t think Melody ever spoke to him again voluntarily after he stopped her from jumping after you.”

Mira blinked. “I beg your pardon?” she asked. “Did she want to die too?”

Cecily looked surprised and shook her head. “Oh, no. No. She had a special pendant that the Gods had given her when they gave her that magic boat. It would have transported her and anyone she was carrying to any safe place within a mile. They gave it to her specifically so she could evacuate you without risking your safety. She would have been able to get you out, but Peleon interfered and he was never sorry for it afterwards. He said that taking you away from Adramalak was just as good as recovering you for the nation at that point.”

He’d probably been happy, too, which Mira knew neither Cecily nor Melody would ever tell her. Peleon was well over his crush on Mira by the time he’d chased her to the Obsidian Tower. He didn’t think she was brainwashed anymore. He thought she was a willing traitor to her people, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. In a way, Peleon was the only one of his Blades who came the closest to understanding Mira's feelings about her homeland, he just didn’t agree with her choices or necessarily care about her suffering. To him, to suffer for one's people was the most noble of callings and that it was the price she should pay for her power and life of privilege. Mira had received a recording of him making a speech to the Blades once from one of her spies. It hadn't been about Mira, specifically, but it had been about someone in a position very similar to hers so she didn't have to wonder what he would think if she ever had a reason to tell him her story.

“Melody told him no,” Cecily kept going with her story. “She said no and to never ask her again, either. She hadn’t taken any vows. She just didn’t want to be a queen because she thought it would interfere with the kind of work that she wanted to do—that and she knew that King Huron didn’t really like her. He always had a strange smile whenever they spoke. It made her uncomfortable. He never said anything mean or bad, it was just his something about his tone and the look in his eyes when he saw her. She wasn't talking to Peleon anymore and none of the other boys were in a better position to protect her than she was to protect herself, so she avoided the palace and the king.”

Mira went to pour herself a cup of tea, but then thought better of it and went to a console that served the study as a combination bar cart and sideboard. There was a cut crystal decanter of fortified honeywine hidden in the cabinet, kept out of the sun to keep the liquor from oxidizing. She got it out and poured them both a shot in their teacups. 

“What happened?” Mira prompted, when Cecily stopped talking to stare at her. 

Cecily looked down at her cup, firmed her jaw, and drank it in one go. She wheezed after and then seemed to think about it for a second before holding out her cup for another shot. Mira poured it for her. Cecily drank that one too, but then refreshed her tea. She didn’t drink it, but instead stared into her reflection in the pale gold liquid. 

“I think King Huron murdered her or she died when he tried to put restraints on her like the ones he put on you,” Cecily told her, still staring into her cup. “Her last memories are so scattered, I don’t think I’ll ever make sense of them.”

“Death is like that,” Mira said, shortly. “You’ll never retain much of the details. It’s too traumatic. Don’t even bother trying.”

That got Cecily to look up at her again. “I guess you would know,” she murmured. “Someone attacked Melody on her way back to the Temple one night; a lot of someones. She didn’t have any offensive magic and they got in close to hit her in the head before she could use any of her defenses. She did her best to fight, but the last thing clear memory she had was someone starting to smear blue paint on her skin and it burned. I don’t think they meant to kill her, but her head injury was too severe and she didn’t live long enough to see what the paint was for. She did recognize the men who attacked her. They were members of King Huron’s personal guard. I didn’t remember that part until that man started to talk to me and it all came flooding into my head—like the part of me that had become Melody was afraid that I’d believe his lies.”

Mira leaned back in her chair and the shadow matter that had been hiding under her seat flowed out to create a portal for Adra’s physical body. He rose out of the pool of darkness to take the honeywine out of her hand. “Don’t drink this, darling. That decanter has been in here since the previous generation of Princesses were in residence. It’s terrible.”

“It’s not supposed to taste like that??” Cecily squeaked. “Why did you wait until after I drank some!?”

Adra shot her a droll look as he took the crystal decanter out of the cabinet and dropped the whole thing into the portal at his feet. He made a little swirling gesture over the top of the sideboard and a bottle of pale pink wine rose from a tiny shadow portal along with two glasses. “A single glass of that vintage cost more than your former stepfather’s entire house, including the contents and both his sons. Use that knowledge to comfort yourself the next time he sends you a letter complaining about how much he spent raising you.” He uncorked the wine. It fizzed a bit, but didn’t overflow.

The next time who sent a what? 

“W…” Cecily beat her to outrage. She started to say something before stopping and scowling at Adra. “Have you been reading my letters??”

“I read all the mail that comes to the townhouse,” Adra replied. He poured a glass of wine for Mira and tossed her teacup of honeywine into the floor portal to follow the decanter. To Mira, he said, “It’s a rosehip infused sparkling pink wine from Moqui. This will pair better with the cakes.”

“Thank you, dear,” Mira had regretted pouring the honeywine as soon as she’d gotten close enough to smell it, well after Cecily had already done two shots of it. “Please stop reading my sister’s mail.”

“I don’t know if I can make that promise,” Adra said as he poured the second glass. For a second, she dared to think he’d hand it over to Cecily, but he kept it for himself. “Lady Carolina asked for help in gathering materials for her divorce. I need evidence that he’d been trying to extort money from Lord Bertram through Miss Cecily.”

“Oh,” Cecily blinked and then sat back down before taking her tea cup back. “Well, you only had to ask. I think I still have the originals in my burn box. You can have those.”

Adra cocked a brow in her direction. “My Lady Saintess is too kind,” he saluted her with the wineglass.

Cecily stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re incorrigible and I don’t know why Mira likes you.”

“Neither do I,” Adra allowed. “I only count myself blessed that she seems to.”

Were—were they getting along? Mira squinted as she looked back and forth between her husband and her sister. She wasn’t sure that she could tell.