Young Writers Society

Author's Note: I already mentioned this on my wall, but this chapter has to honestly be one of my favorites so far. Some of my favorite things about this novel are the mysteries that I've concocted for Orpheus, Kartiel and Telorum in general, and I was able to hint at a lot of them in this chapter. Hopefully you'll pick up on some of the odd things, whatever those things may be!

I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Words: 2,520

Last Line(s): Then he ducked his head back down, the occasional sob leaving him as they sat there in silence.

She stared down at her lap and waited for him to finish crying, unsure of what she was supposed to say or do now that she had been turned down. The sobbing eventually did cease, but neither one of them spoke when it did. They just continued to sit there—Orpheus with his head tucked into his knees, and Cass occasionally glancing back at him to see how he was doing. She knew it had something to do with that conversation she had overheard, but she wasn't supposed to have heard it in the first place. Kartiel could care less about her right now; Orpheus was all she had here. She couldn't stand the thought of losing him by revealing that she had betrayed his trust.She turned her attention away from him.

She had been too focused on comforting Orpheus to truly look at the room when she entered it, but now she was able to take all of it in. The air was heavy with herbs intermixed with a sprinkling of smoke; the large black cauldron slowly heating over a fire that strangely never spread outside a small, imaginary box explained the latter. The first could be traced back to the shelves adorning the wall closest to the door. Each was filled with a variety of plants growing in a variety of containers. Some were floating in little glasses of water, while others sat in clear vases. The most abundant were ones in picturesque terrariums. 

On the wall opposite of the herb wall, she saw another set of shelves. These were crafted slightly differently, with little holes to hold onto tiny glass vials. Almost all of the vials were filled with liquids of different colors and textures. Some bubbled in their containers, others swirled and the remaining were still. 

Tucked in between a large bookcase and the cauldron in the back of the room was a desk; it was one of the few things in the room that wasn’t an unusual sight. It was covered in papers and a few open books. It was hard to tell, given how many papers were obscuring them and their texts. Cass had assumed that, besides the bed, the desk and bookcase would be the only things that really looked familiar.

But then she saw the altar beside the rows of vials. Sunlight filtered in through the window it was pushed up against, casting the array of gems and herbs in an unearthly sheen. She got to her feet and hesitantly approached it. Orpheus shifted on the bed behind her, the bed creaking under his weight as she stopped before the familiar altar. It wasn’t familiar because she had seen it in Kartiel’s memories; it was familiar because she had seen in back in Rey, when Lira was talking with Nebris. She could imagine the god’s face appearing in the bowl’s waters as she stared down at it and her own reflection.

“It’s a communication device,” Orpheus quietly said from the bed. She heard him get up and walk over to her. When he reached her side, he began to push the gems into one corner of the altar and remove the herbs. “It’s like the mirror Lira gave you.” 

Cass looked over at him. “...Why don’t you use the mirror? You can’t move the altar, and then you can talk to the other person whenever you want.” 

Orpheus grabbed the bundle of herbs and maneuvered through the piles of books until he reached the cauldron. Crouching beside it, he threw the bundle into the fire. The flames briefly grew, but they never escaped their apparent container. “...Gods always use altars to communicate, so I guess it’s just habit,” he replied. He got to his feet again and looked back in the direction of Cass and the altar. “And sometimes it’s better to not be there whenever someone wants to call you.” 

Cass hid a frown, sensing that he wasn’t telling her everything.

But Orpheus didn’t offer anymore of an explanation—he just pulled up his hood, hopped over a few piles of books and grabbed a large messenger bag from beside the door. Its hinges creaked as he started to open it. Taking it as a sign that they were going to leave for the tour of the town, she followed him out of the room. 

She would just have to ask him more about it later.

xXx

She had seen glimpses of the city that lay outside of the castle in her memories and through Kartiel’s memories, but it was nothing like standing in the streets herself. They reminded her a little of Rey’s. Both had an abundance of magic around the streets and the same hustle of any downtown area, but there was something different about the atmosphere. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what that something was. Kartiel’s memories made her want to love it, but she didn’t need them to feel that way. Orpheus had to tap her on the shoulder to get her to stop standing in the middle of the street.

As they walked through the streets, Orpheus pointed out different important places. He showed her the building where the council met, where they had a market every week, and even the local church. He showed her little apothecaries tucked in between houses and shops, and the gorgeous library on the outskirts of town. He showed her the green that the city’s children played in, and Cass felt a tinge of childhood nostalgia when the kids asked her and Orpheus to play with them. When both finally started getting hungry—the last time either one having eaten being their trip to the kitchens on the castle tour—he brought her to “the best tavern” in all of Telorum for lunch. Some of the townspeople gave her wary looks, not unlike the ones she had gotten from the guards in Rey’s mayoral palace, but the majority of the people were friendly.

So when they finished their lunch and Orpheus had to make a quick stop at one of the apothecaries—a small one that had a limited amount of people that could be inside at any given time—Cass really didn’t mind waiting outside. She liked watching the people pass by. It was fun trying to imagine their individual stories.

“You must be Cass,” someone suddenly said from beside her.

She felt a simultaneous jolt of fear and recognition at the voice. The fear was her own; she didn’t like the thought of someone knowing who she was without her knowing them. The recognition may have explained it—Kartiel had to know them—but it still made her feel anxious when she turned to the voice’s source. 

The owner of the voice was a man who couldn’t have been older than thirty. She studied every detail of his appearance, but no name came to her when she looked at his tall figure, short auburn hair and bright blue eyes. Even his grimy clothes provided no information on who this mysterious man was.

He held out a soot-covered hand to her, only to pause when he realized how dirty his hand was. He wiped it on one of the few clean spots of his shirt and thrust it back in her direction.

“I’m Dari,” he said.

Her eyes widened when the name registered. She went from staring at the hand to staring at the hand’s owner, trying to figure out how he worked into Kartiel’s life. Kartiel had mentioned needing to go to his shop in the last dream that she had. Orpheus had been vague about the unnamed man, but Cass couldn't help but feel a tinge of excitement when she realized Dari might help her better understand Kartiel.

His hand fell to his side, and he gave her an amused smile.

“You've heard of me in Kartiel's memories, haven't you?”

She stared at him.

This only seemed to make him even more amused. He tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and crossed his arms, a twinkle to his eyes. “I'm guessing that you haven't seen me yet, or else we'd be having a very different discussion right now.”

She managed a small nod.

She had expected that Kartiel and Dari knew each other, but she was more than a little startled that Dari apparently knew of their future contract. Contracts had seemed like private things to her—something you only shared when you absolutely had to. But Kartiel must have told someone, or else Dari would have never figured out her connection to the king. 

She didn't know how she felt about that. 

Dari gestured behind him at a bench sitting outside of neighboring building. A quick glance at the building's window showed that it was probably a blacksmith's; she could see a vast array of metallic creations gleaming in the sun's bright rays. She looked at the apothecary for a moment before doing as requested. Dari felt safe. She didn't know why yet, but something told her that she would be finding out very soon.

Dari sat down beside her.

“How did you know?” she finally asked. 

“About the contract?”

She nodded.

He leaned up against the shop window and looked up at the shop's overhang. “Well, Kartiel did have to explain why you were here to the council, and I'm one of the members.” He glanced over at her. “But, in all honestly, he actually told me before that meeting. He didn't know your name then, but he did know he was going to be getting a contracted in the future.”

Cass stared at him. “...I thought Kartiel didn't have a lot of people he...” She awkwardly trailed off, not sure how to continue it without possibly insulting the king in question. She had no idea if it was a sensitive subject around Dari or not, and didn't want to think of what would happen if it was. 

“He doesn't have a lot of people he trusts,” Dari confirmed. He held up his hand. “I can count them on here, I think. There's Orpheus, me, and I'd say tentatively you. Right now, you're on the same level as the council—he knows he should trust you, but he's having trouble doing that.”

“You...You seem to know him well,” she managed to get out. 

Dari smiled. 

“I've known him since before he could walk,” he explained. He turned his gaze away from the overhang, casually resting his hands at his side instead of keeping them crossed. “I was the castle gardener when he was growing up. He spent hours in the gardens as a kid, so I was usually the person he came to when he didn't want to talk to his parents. He's kept it up now, even though he's an adult and I'm now working as the resident blacksmith with my wife.” 

Cass studied him for a moment, then gave a little nod to show that she was paying attention. She wondered how someone could go from working in gardens to being surrounded by fire and grit every day. But Dari didn't seem to mind the change, if his dirty clothes were anything to go off of.

Her gaze dropped down to her lap.

“Could you...Could you tell me about the man he loved?” she asked. She knew it was a personal question, but also knew that Kartiel was barely talking to her. And she really did want closure with what had happened to him; it broke her heart to think that Kartiel and him had become separated, when it was so clear to her that Kartiel had loved him. 

Dari took a deep breath and let it out as a quiet sigh.

“What do you know about him?” he asked.

“Not much,” she admitted. She pressed her hands against her knees and continued to stare down at them. “I just saw him for the first time in a dream last night. But something about him felt familiar. They were in a room together, and they were talking. I think Kartiel wanted to bring him to your shop, but he didn't say why.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Have you heard of Kartiel's curse?” he finally asked.

She nodded, unsure of how it would play into the conversation they were having right now. “I heard about it in Rey.”

“Well, Telorum has a different version of it than Rey—or any other place in Partex—does,” Dari said. “It's a common belief that the royal line became cursed, starting with the creation of the lockets and Kartiel II taking the throne. No one ever straight out says it was the lockets, but we all think it's the cause of it in some way.”

Now she raised her head up, watching him with confusion clearly written across her face. She furrowed her brow and stared blankly at him, still unable to figure out what exactly the alternative curse was.

Dari met her gaze. She hadn't noticed it earlier, but his smile had faded. “The curse says that it's the royal line's destiny to always be alone. It started when Kartiel II lost his parents, and continued with our Kartiel losing both of his parents and the one person he's ever fallen in love with.”

“The man in my dream,” she guessed.

He nodded. “His mother died in childbirth, and his father was killed by his adviser. When Kartiel took the throne, he didn't have anyone. Then he met him. I hadn't seen Kartiel that happy for a long time. Anytime they were together, his face would light up. I'm sure you've already realized that, seeing that you've been getting some of his memories.”

He let out another sigh.

“But some things just don't last forever,” he concluded. “The man he loved, and who he thought loved him back, was just using him. He broke Kartiel's heart. It's never healed since then...You've realized that too, haven't you? You can't think of him without feeling conflicted, even if you haven't realized it yet.”

“...How did you...?” she managed to get out.

Dari gestured back at the shop. “Kartiel isn't the only one with a contract,” he simply said, and left it at that. He got to his feet with a stretch. He started to head back to his shop, but stopped in front of the door and looked back at her before he set his foot inside. “Cass?”

She met his gaze. 

“There's going to come a point where Kartiel's memories don't make much sense,” he told her, his voice suddenly much quieter than before. “As a member of the council, I should be telling you to ignore it.”

“But you're not going to,” she guessed.

He gave a small nod. “You'll figure it out, eventually. You just might need to...think outside of the box. And if you notice anything odd, no matter how large or how small, don't ignore it. Remember it. It'll make sense eventually—I promise. I can't say anything else with sacrificing my integrity as a council member, but hopefully that gives you a good head start.” 

And with that and a wave, he disappeared back into his shop.