Unnamed Memory

 7. A Happy Kind of Sadness
“Marry me,” the man said, and the woman hearing these words opened her eyes wide. Reflexively, she glanced behind her, but the pair were alone in the tiny forest clearing. He was talking to her and no one else.
Unfortunately, he was a nobleman. She threw him a pained look. “Have you really thought this through?”
The words sounded like those of a nagging mother, and he grimaced. “I have, yes. I’ve my situation, yours, and everyone else’s. I’ve especially acknowledged how your mother may kill me. Despite all of that, I want to wed you. I can’t think about anything else.”
He spoke honestly and from the heart. The woman’s red lips opened on a sigh.
As she stared at him, his blue eyes gazed back at her, as expansive and patient as the sky.

Upon returning to Farsas, Oscar settled Tinasha in his own chambers to rest. Her own chambers in the castle had been vacated prior to her coronation, and from a security standpoint, this was the safest place for her to be.
Tinasha had intended to return to Tuldarr, but she was so obviously worn out that it would damage her dignified reputation if she returned in her present condition. For that reason, Oscar had arranged with Legis for her to stay in Farsas for the time being, under the pretense of discussing Cezar’s recent invasion attempt.
Oscar posted a platoon of security guards outside the door and then set about the massive undertaking of processing the paperwork for the recent skirmish. His father, the former king, had taken on the lion’s share of his kingly duties while he was away fighting. Upon his son’s return, Kevin said simply, “Glad it went well.”
After an hour of finishing up some routine tasks, Oscar returned to his quarters to find Tinasha fast asleep, breathing evenly on his bed. She seemed to have bathed and changed clothes, as she was dressed in a comfy white nightgown.
Oscar sat on the bed and carded his fingers through her hair. For the past two days, he had been too busy dealing with the post-battle aftermath and his search for her to get much sleep, but for some strange reason, he didn’t feel tired at all. Unlike Tinasha, he could operate on four to five hours of sleep. At the moment, he felt more sheer relief at safely recovering her than he felt any sort of exhaustion.
Catching up one of her hands, Oscar pressed a kiss to it. Tinasha must have felt it, as she blinked her eyes open. “Oh… I fell asleep… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Rest if you need to,” Oscar said.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, sitting up in bed. Oscar wrapped his arms around her and settled her in his lap.
“All right, so can I finally ask what that guy was after?” Oscar said. He had inquired about it at the mansion, but Tinasha hadn’t given a clear reply because of the other people around.
Now that they were alone, Tinasha’s bafflement was obvious as she revealed Valt’s request, explaining that the two magic spheres were called Eleterria, and he wanted both.
“So it did have to do with those orbs,” Oscar mused.
While it was a mystery how Valt knew of their existence, he undoubtedly hoped to alter the past in some way. If he knew that Tuldarr and Farsas each had one, he must have been very well-informed. Not only that—he and others before him had spent years plotting to steal the time-altering objects.
Upon realizing that, Oscar scowled unhappily. “No way of knowing what’s the truth and what he’s just bluffing about.”
“But if just one orb can take you back into the past, why does he need both?” Tinasha wondered out loud.
“Great question. Maybe there’s another way to use them if you have two?” Oscar guessed.
“Like going to the future? If that happened, we’d have no hope of beating him,” Tinasha replied.
“It’d depend on what he uses them for,” Oscar reasoned. Speculating wouldn’t get them anywhere. The important thing was not to allow the orbs to get stolen. However, there was one thing that needed to be done.
“I’m going to ask my dad about the orb. The one in Tuldarr was sealed away four hundred years ago, right? So that means Valt could only have info on the Farsas one.”
Tinasha cocked her head to one side. “You think he knows something?”
“He understands enough to realize the orb’s important, since he put it in the treasure vault while his other mementos of my mom are displayed in his rooms. No matter how busy he may have been at the time, he wouldn’t have mixed that u—”
Oscar cut himself off mid-sentence, having suddenly realized something. He stared at Tinasha intently; she squirmed under his gaze. “Wh-what is it?”
“Well, you were gonna use that orb when those kids died recently, weren’t you?”
“But I didn’t. Are you going to lecture me?” Tinasha replied warily.
“No. Fifteen years ago, Farsas had its own rash of missing children,” Oscar replied. A series of kidnappings had occurred in the capital city. When the dust settled, over thirty kids were gone. One day, the abductions just abruptly ended.
Tinasha’s black eyes grew wide. “Are you saying that someone did what I wanted to?”
“It’s possible. No one has ever found the kids who went missing, so they must have failed,” Oscar told her. And if that were the case, it might have had something to do with his mother getting sick and dying right around the same time.
Oscar urgently wished to ask his father about this, but formulating a strategy to counter the larger situation was equally pressing.
“I’ll look into things on my side, so you just be extra careful for the time being. They’ve got an eye on you,” Oscar cautioned.
Tinasha shrank in on herself. “Sorry.”
Oscar burst out laughing and ruffled her hair. Tinasha glanced up, and he caught her eye. “Also, thanks for taking care of that evil god. You really saved us.”
She gave him a bemused look that soon morphed into an enchanting smile. Oscar found himself breathless as he beheld it.
Selfless affection shone in her gaze. Her grin was mesmerizing—it captured his soul.
Tinasha was flawed, though she closely resembled perfection. Wanting to draw such a rare, distant creature close to him, Oscar caught her chin and brought her near, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. For a moment, Tinasha’s eyes widened, but then her long black eyelashes fluttered as she closed her lids and accepted his kiss.
When he pulled back, she was blushing and averted her gaze. “You’re too close…”
“I told you to get used to it. Besides, you’ve acted so comfortable with me for the entire time I’ve known you,” he said snarkily.
“Because I thought I had no effect on you,” she pointed out.
“You always did.”
He’d always seen her as an alluring woman, although he didn’t confess as much aloud. Instead, he dropped a kiss on her earlobe and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed a line down from her ear to her décolletage. When he buried his face between her soft breasts, he could feel her tremble, and how hot she’d grown.
Just how much determination and doubt made up this fragile little body of hers?
He wanted to touch every single part of Tinasha—her smooth skin and the blood beneath it.
Yet the more he felt, the closer he got, the more he knew he could never reach her. No matter how much he longed to, he would never have her soul. Her boundaries wouldn’t permit it. All he could do was make love to Tinasha and be near her.
Aware of the insurmountable gap between them, he still found her very precious as he reached for her again.
He knew that the two of them shared that despair.
Her eyes were so hot.
I’m going to cry, Tinasha thought.
She wasn’t sad, though. Adrift on a sea of sensation and losing track of where she was, she felt content knowing that she was accepted for who she was.
The young woman blinked the moisture from her eyes. Gazing down at his face, a wave of affection overwhelmed her. An irresistible desire to hug him tightly filled her.
Instead of acting upon it, though, she used both hands to hold him at bay. “Wait, wait…”
“Why?” Oscar asked, truly confused as he stared at his fiancée.
Tinasha looked away, refusing to meet his eyes. “We’re not married!”
“But we’re going to be, aren’t we?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Then there’s no problem,” he decided, brooking no objections as he took Tinasha in his arms and lay her down in the middle of the bed. While she was still dazed, he interlaced his fingers with hers, pressing their hands into the mattress and gazing down at the beautiful woman.
“I’m not going to want to let you return to Tuldarr after this,” Oscar whispered after a pause.
Magic gathered in Tinasha’s body. “I’m asking you to wait. I will use force if I need to.”
With a little smile, Oscar drew something from his jacket pocket and snapped it on to Tinasha’s wrist. “I have tricks of my own, too.”
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” she cried. He had placed the sealing bracelet on her, the one stolen from Farsas forty years ago. Tinasha shuddered, remembering how the dangerous magic implement had fallen into the hands of a terrible person.
Looking down at her, Oscar asked, “What are you unhappy about?”
He was serious. And the power in his gaze made Tinasha feel compelled to obey unconditionally.
“I—”
Suddenly, Lazar’s panicked voice sounded from outside the room. “Your Majesty! Is now a good time?!”
“Of course it’s not,” the king grumbled, but he kept that quiet enough that Lazar wouldn’t hear.
Oscar let go of Tinasha and reluctantly got up. While she sighed in relief, the king had a strained look on his face as he undid the bracelet. “I’ll be stepping out for a bit, I guess. I already told Legis that you’ll be here today, so sit tight.”
“Th-thanks for that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Oscar said with a smile, and he patted Tinasha’s head. His affection for her was unchanged, which she felt a little guilty about.
Once he was gone, Tinasha frowned and let out a big sigh.
“So, what’s so important?” Oscar demanded.
“Ouch, ouch! Don’t pinch me!” squealed Lazar.
“I’ll pinch you as much as I want.”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Lazar cried as Oscar practically tugged him down the hallway by the cheek. When he was finally released, he rubbed his reddened face and blinked away the tears in his eyes. “A lady has arrived to see you, Your Majesty.”
“Who?”
“Ah—”
Lazar cut himself off, but not out of hesitation. It was as if there was a gap in his memory and he no longer knew what came next. His lips opened and closed like a fish several times before he finally hung his head, dumbfounded. “I’m very sorry, but I don’t know…”
Understandably, Oscar made a concerned face. “What’s the meaning of this? Why did you rush over to get me, then?”
“I’m not sure… I just felt that I had to retrieve you immediately…”
“This makes no sense, but fine. Where is she?” Oscar inquired.
“In the audience chamber,” Lazar answered.
Still unsettled by his friend’s odd behavior and this unknown guest, Oscar headed for the room in question, where he found a woman with deep chestnut hair in a ponytail. Her clothing was ordinary and plain, not at all the garb of someone visiting the castle. Stranger still, she was alone in the room.
Finding it suspicious that his guards were absent when they should not have been, Oscar eyed this woman with apprehension. She looked to be in her midthirties, with features that were a bit sharp but still quite beautiful.
At Oscar’s entrance, she looked him right in the eyes without wasting any time on formalities. Oscar was about to criticize her insolent, hard gaze when some strange malaise overtook him.
Something was off. He had the sense that he had met this woman before.
Irritably, she spat, “I wondered what you were doing when you got engaged, and now I see that all my hard work has been undone. Did that Witch Killer Queen do this?”
“I know your voice…”
Dull pain shot through Oscar’s head. Memories he should have lost flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning.
White nails
Moon
Depth of night
Blood
Ripped apart
Oscar stumbled a step back.
It felt for a moment like he’d lost his balance, but he steadied himself instantly. Mustering his strength, he drew Akashia and faced the woman with his sword at the ready.
He knew her voice and her figure. She had been a silhouette against the moonlight streaming in his window. Amid those memories he could not dispel, Oscar stood firm. “You’re… the Witch of Silence!”
“Yes, I am. It’s been a while. You’ve grown quite a bit,” she remarked with a sneer.
“What are you here for?” Oscar demanded, his voice infused with power.
Lazar, who was standing behind the king, turned pale.
The witch merely stood there calmly, her lips curling upward. “I thought a single curse would take care of it. This is quite irritating. But now that it’s been broken, I suppose there’s no use crying about it.”
She lifted her right hand in Oscar’s direction and jabbed her pointer finger at his face. “I will end your destiny here.”
Magic gathered at her fingertip, then poured forth.
Oscar inhaled sharply, then used Akashia to parry away an invisible spear. With its spell cut apart, the spear dissolved.
“Lazar, run!” Oscar shouted, without looking back. Then he lunged for the witch.
Without using incantations, the woman conjured more spears made of air. The relentless attacks left Oscar with no time to catch his breath, reminding him of Tinasha’s drills. Lances flew toward him from all sides, but he cut down every one.
Then Oscar closed in on her. Just when Akashia was within range of attack, the witch teleported away. She appeared in the right corner of the large room.
“What an intriguing protective charm you wear… Is that the work of your little bride? Still, I do have another way,” she said and snapped her fingers.
Cold danger ran along Oscar’s nape. He ducked down, and something went whizzing over his head. Jumping back up, he saw that it was an entirely ordinary sword floating in the air.
“Ah. You’re going to use a physical object since my barrier can repel magic,” Oscar muttered. As if in answer, the hovering blade changed direction in midair, and then the sharp tip came rushing at him again. He parried it away with Akashia.
Immediately, another sword appeared right to his left. Somehow, he managed to twist himself and dodge away so it couldn’t run him through.
The witch said in a clear, ringing voice, “Your reflexes are quite good. I wonder how many you can dodge?”
She smiled as she manipulated the array of weapons—regular ones that were not made of magic. For a second, her smile appeared more self-deprecating than anything, but that could have just been Oscar’s imagination. A third blade dived for his legs, and Akashia smashed it apart.
Oscar leaped forward, evading more swords that came racing toward him from either side. As soon as he landed, he dashed for the witch. Another blade swooped in before him, however.
Without slowing down, Oscar smacked it away with the flat of Akashia.
He was closing in on the witch, whose cool expression remained unbothered. As he neared the final stretch, a sword jabbed at his left flank from a spot too close to avoid.
Thus, Oscar grabbed the weapon by the blade. Pain cut through his fingers, but he tossed the sword aside.
No sooner had he done so than sharp agony tore into his right calf. A blade had stabbed into it from behind.
Seizing upon Oscar’s slowed pace, his opponent threw a second sword, which bit into his left shoulder.
The pain nearly claimed his consciousness, but he kept going and made it to the witch. Oscar whipped Akashia up with frightening speed.
“It’s over.”
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
The witch wore a wan smile. Was it resignation in her eyes? Oscar couldn’t say.
As Akashia traced an arc toward the woman’s neck, an angry roar from the entrance to the room shook the chamber.
“Don’t kill her, Oscar! That’s your grandmother!”
Everything stopped.
He lost the will to fight.
His grip on Akashia weakening, the king opened his blue eyes wide.
The world was quiet, and only the witch dared to move as she fixed Oscar with expressionless eyes.
“You should dream of your childhood,” she said, but he didn’t hear it.

Oscar had almost no memories of his mother.
She’d died when he was five. Surely, that was old enough to recall a few things, and yet he couldn’t.
He was told she’d passed because of an illness, but he never felt sad about it because he was cursed so soon after. To break the spell and reclaim his future, he’d dedicated his youth to studying and swordsmanship. There’d been no time to mourn.
Everything related to her was just a blank.

When Oscar came to, he was in a long hallway. He glanced all around him—no one else was there. He was alone.
Recognizing where he was, he gazed absently at the walls. This was a corridor within Farsas Castle, a place he knew inside and out.
A row of windows lined the walls to his right, with doors on the opposite side. The windows were full of a lavender sky.
He couldn’t see the end of the hall. It simply went on deeper and deeper. A glance backward told him things were the same in that direction. He stared at the row of doors.
Have there always been so many rooms here?
Puzzled, he pushed open the closest door and went inside.
It led to the castle courtyard.
A boy of seven or eight stood there, his back to Oscar. When he walked over, the boy turned around. “Is this where you’ve been, Your Highness? His Majesty has been searching all over for you.”
Oscar recognized this child, for he’d known him all his life. The reply came to his lips naturally. “I only went out for a bit, Lazar. I’ll head right over to him.”
It was only now that Oscar realized he was a boy himself, only a little bit taller than Lazar.
It didn’t seem particularly odd, though. They were close in age, so of course he was.
“Anyway, stop calling me ‘Your Highness.’ It feels weird.”
“But that’s who you are, Your Highness,” Lazar protested, looking serious beyond his years. Up until recently, Lazar had called Oscar by his name, but for whatever reason, he had started acting more distant. Annoyed, Oscar sulked.
The practice sword at his waist had been crafted shorter to match his height. Unsure of whether he should leave it there, he decided to keep it on as he left the courtyard.
Oscar exited through the door and found himself in the long hallway again.
He didn’t know why he was here or where he was going. Confused, he pushed open the next door. It led to one of the castle’s lecture halls. When he approached the lectern, a man reading a book looked up. “Oh, Your Highness… what is it?”
“Have you found any clues about the curse?” Oscar asked.
“I’m very sorry, but not yet…”
Royal Chief Mage Kumu’s face turned grave as he rubbed at his shiny bald head.
Oscar smiled at him. To conceal his fears, he said cheerily, “No need to worry. Something will turn up.”
The mage bowed.
It had already been more than five years since Oscar was cursed and there were still no clues. As the matter concerned the future of the royal family, no one outside the nation could be consulted. All the mages could do was search for clues day in and day out under utmost secrecy.
Oscar tapped his fingers against his chin. “I know. What if we use Akashia to cut me? And then heal me immediately.”
“Y-Your Highness, that would be much too…”
“I’ll go ask if I can borrow it.”
“Wait!” the man protested, but Oscar turned and raced from the room.
He came out onto the hallway and looked left and right. Glancing back, he didn’t sense Kumu chasing after him.
The world was silent.
There were no changes. Nothing new.
Oscar went up to the next door and opened it without waiting. Inside, he found the training grounds on the castle periphery. A gray-haired general spotted him and bowed. Checking to be sure he had the practice sword belted at his waist, Oscar walked over to the man. The sword was already adult sized.
“Ettard, I want you to run me through some more drills today,” Oscar said.
“I’m afraid there’s no longer anything I can teach you,” replied the old man.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Spar with me.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” the general agreed, giving a deep bow. He stepped to one side and readied his sword. With a smile at Oscar, he said, “Next year or the year after, a new apprentice will come to train under me. His name is Als and he’s four years younger than you… He’s quite proficient.”
“I look forward to meeting him,” Oscar responded. Lazar was lousy with a blade, so he welcomed anyone capable and close to his age.
But for the moment, he preferred to focus on his practice. Readying his blade, he let out a long breath and concentrated.
It was growing difficult to keep track of all the rooms. Inside each, Oscar was always a child.
Once he entered a chamber, he forgot everything and thought that was where he was meant to be.
Yet when he left the room, a strange, impatient feeling washed over him.
There was no end to it.
No matter how many doors Oscar tried, he was never older than fifteen. He couldn’t view any of his adult memories.
I want to get out, something deep inside him cried. There were things like alarm bells ringing within him, but they weren’t loud enough for him to be conscious of their noise. He was only capable of opening doors and going into rooms.
Oscar continued into a new chamber. What he saw there petrified him for a moment.
It looked like a room in the castle. Blood stained the walls and floor, dirtying every surface. The furniture was thrown all over like a storm had swept through.
But what drew his eye the most was a woman on the ground near the center of the chamber. She was lying facedown in a pool of red.
Oscar couldn’t make out her face, but her chestnut brown hair was fanned out, soaking into the blood.
Looking down at her, he was seized with an indescribable fright.
I have to make sure.
He took a step closer, but for whatever reason, he was back in the hallway.
Oscar puzzled over the development. After a moment, however, he could no longer recall the crimson-soaked room or the woman.
He touched the next door. The faintest shock ran through his hand, but he pushed it open anyway. Inside was an unfamiliar chamber, one he couldn’t place at all.
It was empty, save for a wide bed, a desk, a sizable bookcase, a sofa, and a table. A stack of thick books rested atop the desk. When he walked over to them, he saw they were all volumes on magic.
Suddenly, the clear voice of a young girl came from behind him. “Oscar? What is it?”
He turned around to see a lovely girl with long black hair standing there. She was thin and had a sweet face. He stared warily at her fine, achingly perfect features.
Curiously, he didn’t know her name or how to respond to her. She came right up to him and met his gaze. “Is it time for our practice already? Am I late?”
When she said practice, he glanced down at his waist and found that, sure enough, he was wearing his training sword. When he looked back over at her, she was on her tiptoes and about to touch him. Her snow-white hand didn’t make contact with his face, though. Softly, she floated up into the air. From a little above him, she inspected his expression, her deep, dark eyes staring into his. She brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “Oscar… open the door to the next room…”
A jolt ran up his spine.
The words held a seductive lilt to them. They’d clearly been spoken by a woman, not a girl. Shocked, Oscar took a step back.
Evidently oblivious, the girl regarded him curiously, as if she had said nothing at all. “I’m going on ahead,” she stated with a smile and a wave, disappearing.
Oscar exited the unfamiliar chamber and realized he was standing before the door to the next room. He had a sense that something inexplicable had happened moments ago, but he couldn’t quite recall what.
He opened the door, getting déjà vu from the zap that ran through his hand. Inside was a large hall built of stone.
It was dark, not unlike a nightmare. People were sitting in tiered rows of seats that lined the walls of the oval-shaped space. In the center of it rose a staircase, reaching a full story above the ground. Because of the angle, he couldn’t see what was at the top of it, but he could hear muffled voices talking.
He decided to head for the staircase, but the woman spoke again in his ear. “Oscar… get out Akashia…”
There was no one there when he whirled to check. He fumbled at his waist for the sword and touched a hilt he was well acquainted with. This was his beloved weapon, the only one like it in the world.
I feel like I haven’t held it in years.
He went to unsheathe the royal sword, but while he still had his hand wrapped around the handle, a girl’s shriek came from the platform. It was so bloodcurdling that Oscar raced for the stairs.
Once again, a voice called in his ear, “Wait… Draw Akashia…”
“But…”
“It’s all right. Draw Akashia, Oscar.”
The words were faint, but insistent, and Oscar stopped in his tracks. In his moment of hesitation, he could hear the girl screaming and sobbing from the altar. Multiple voices spoke incantations over her heartbroken cries.
The woman’s voice held him strong, however, drowning out all else. “It’s all right. Trust me.”
Her words were sure and firm, thrumming with a distinct force. Instinctively, he gasped.
Believing in her, he drew out his blade.

When he opened his eyes, a woman was staring at him from very nearby.
He couldn’t immediately recall her name. But her face was very familiar, and she relaxed in relief upon seeing him wake.
Drops of blood dotted her cheeks. He reached out to wipe them away with his thumb. Her name fell naturally from his mouth. “Tinasha…”
“He woke up?” another woman spat. “Ludicrous. No one should have been able to overwrite my spell.”
Her disgusted voice made Oscar’s head pound. Slowly, he sat up from Tinasha’s lap. Looking around, he saw he was in the audience chamber where he’d battled the witch. At some point, a magical barrier had been erected around the whole room. Beyond it were Kevin, Lazar, Als, and his other advisers, gazing at him sorrowfully.
In the center of the chamber stood another, semicircular barrier enclosing Oscar and Tinasha. He was shocked to find two spirits collapsed nearby. A closer look revealed that Tinasha’s own blood colored her white clothing.
Despite her injuries, she flashed him a bewitching smile, as though she felt no pain at all. To the witch, she replied, “I can’t overwrite it, but I can use it. I introduced a dream of my own.”
“But it only shows dreams from childhood.”
“Which is why it was a dream from my childhood.”
The witch eyed Tinasha with suspicion, but the queen declined to elaborate. She maintained the barrier and her silence.
Oscar massaged his temples. He had a fierce headache. Fragments were still rattling around.
Tinasha’s eyes narrowed as she smiled at him. “Can you fight?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll need you to, as I don’t think I can move. I’ve closed up your wounds.”
“Okay,” he replied, and he got to his feet while checking to make sure he was holding Akashia. Oscar faced the witch and looked her over.
He saw another woman’s face in her sharp beauty.
The same green eyes, a regal nose, and a soft smile on her rosebud mouth. It was the face of his mother, the one he hadn’t been able to recall until that moment.
“So you’re my grandmother, huh? You do look like her,” he remarked.
The witch said nothing, and Oscar snorted.
Feeling the weight of his sword in his hands, he stepped outside the barrier.

The room was an ocean of blood. Crimson had been splattered all across the walls, gleaming as it dripped.
A huge pool of blood had formed on the floor, and a woman was lying facedown in the middle of it.
Her face wasn’t visible.
But he knew who she was.

When Oscar exited the barrier, the witch tossed him a scornful look. A spell coalesced in her right hand. “If only you’d just kept sleeping. You’d be so much happier.”
“It would be pointless for me to be the only happy one,” Oscar countered.
“Aggravating child.”
“Lavinia! Wait!” shouted Kevin. A never-before-seen look of desperation on his face, the former king appealed to the witch. “My son has done nothing wrong! If you have to kill someone, take me—”
“It’s not a matter of wrongs. If it were, then my fool of a daughter would be most to blame,” Lavinia retorted, then returned her gaze to Oscar. She extended her bespelled hand toward him, and the finely wrought magic followed. “You must die and balance out the fate that was altered.”
With that, she let the spell fly. A high wall of flames hemmed Oscar in. The temperature in the room soared, and Oscar’s lungs struggled to breathe in the scorching air.
From behind him, a woman said anxiously, “Oscar…”
“I’ll be fine.”
Oscar focused his mind. Taking a deep breath in and releasing it slowly, he visualized the spell within the flames. When the core became clear, he took a step toward it. Defying the waves of heat that every instinct told him to retreat from, he thrust Akashia into the heart of the fire.
The threads snapped.
Oscar pulled Akashia back, then did a lengthwise sweep to unbind the spell.
Searing winds blew his hair back.
The walls of flame disintegrated. Fire scattered across the room, struck Tinasha’s barrier, and vanished, leaving only scorching gusts.

The night was cloudy. Lights made of magic glowed at the corners of the room.
Unable to sleep for whatever reason, the child got out of bed. From the corner of his eye, he saw something flash past his windowpane outside.
Wondering what it was, he approached the balcony door. Then he recalled his mother’s warning.
“Do not open the windows or go outside.”
However, the boy spied a blue bird alighting on the balcony railing outside. The shade of its feathers was a deeper than the sky, vivid and striking, despite the clouds that covered the moon.
Is this what color the ocean is?
Excited over the idea of a vista he had never seen before, the boy rushed to undo the lock and push the door open. He came out onto the balcony and reached for the bird.
The little animal cocked its head. Its beady black eyes reflected nothing at all.
It didn’t look like it was going to fly away. He could almost touch it.
“Oscar!” someone shrieked at his back.
The boy jumped. Turning, he saw his mother in the doorway. The light behind her cast shadows across her face.
Gazing at the little boy, the blue bird let out a loud cackle.

Oscar swung Akashia at the swords bearing down on him from all directions, shattering them to pieces.
He couldn’t dodge every blade, though, and some grazed his flesh. Still, he made sure to smash any that would have fatally wounded him. Despite her exhaustion, his fiancée was doing what she could to help. Oscar spared a thought of gratitude for her while he closed in on the witch.
Sneering, Oscar asked Lavinia, “So I have to die? Is that why you cursed me?”
“It is. If you’re going to hate anyone, hate your mother,” she replied coldly. There was no emotion in her tone.
Several invisible vines snaked toward the young king, weaving between the swords. A strike from Akashia ended their encroachment. Oscar evaded the floating blades by leaping to the right, lopping off a vine curling around his ankle as he did. Next, he used his free hand to grab the hilt of a dagger before it could run through his left flank, then used that to parry away a sword speeding for him. Dodging the vines, he hurried toward their spell core.
As Akashia pierced and dispersed the magic, Lavinia declared, “The harder you fight, the more you’ll suffer.”
Immediately afterward, huge white claws appeared before Oscar—too close to evade.
Just as they had on that night, the white nails glimmered as they dived for his shoulder.
“No,” Oscar whispered as he caught hold of them before they could sink into his flesh.
These aren’t claws or nails. It’s just a dagger.
He hurled it away.
Ultimately, the claws had never reached him.
Instead, they’d ripped into his mother, who had thrown herself before him.

The nails tore into her shoulder and rent her body apart.
Although her face was racked with terrible pain, she wove a spell. Wrenching herself free of the claws, she flung them at the bird demon.
It flicked the red-tipped things away. Fresh blood stained the walls.
The moon peeked out from the clouds. Pallid, tranquil light shone into the room.
Numbly, Oscar stared down at his mother, prostrate on the floor, and timidly reached for her blood-soaked back. “Mother?”
Before he could touch her, the woman’s body vanished.
So did all the stains on the walls. All that remained was a shredded blue bird lying on the balcony.
Oscar flew out of the room, screaming, and made straight for his mother’s chamber.
It had to be a nightmare. It had to be.
When he burst in… his mother was there, reading, and regarded him with surprise. “What is it, Oscar?”
Her smile was gentle. She looked just the same as ever.
Relieved, Oscar flew into her arms. Between his sobs, he told her about the dream.
I knew it. It couldn’t be real.
That night, he slept in his mother’s bed. That should have been the end of it.
But the next night, he was faced with the sight of his mother’s death, exactly as it had been in his nightmare.

Akashia raised, Oscar approached the witch cautiously. Lavinia merely teleported away and reappeared near the door to the audience chamber, however.
Dodging the remaining swords, Oscar turned and gave her a strained look. “I’m not going to hate my mother. She protected me.”
At that, Kevin and Lavinia both made shocked expressions. As she healed her spirits, Tinasha looked between them in confusion.
“You recall it now?” Kevin asked.
“Thanks to those dreams just now, yeah. Are you the one who sealed my memories?” Oscar turned to Lavinia, who didn’t offer any denial. She gazed evenly at the young king of Farsas.
What ghastly memories. At such a young age, Oscar had watched his mother die twice. Fearing that he would be psychologically scarred if he had to carry that around with him forever, the witch had sealed his recollection of the experience when she’d cursed him.
As Oscar wrestled with the bitter memories that had been lost for fifteen years, he stared his grandmother—the witch—dead in the eye.
His dead mother, a rash of missing child cases, and an heirloom that could reverse the flow of time.
Once he fit together all the pieces, an answer emerged.
“My mother… went back in time to save me?”
Tinasha gasped.
Oscar’s memory of his mother getting ripped apart by a demon had been shut away. When he thought on it, he realized that the mother in that memory was another Rosalia who’d come rushing in from a day in the future. No one ever knew at the time that there’d been two queens in the castle.
Fifteen years ago, Oscar’s mother had burst into his room after traveling from the future, knowing that he was going to be attacked.
And in her attempt to save her son, she and the demon perished at the other’s hand. She’d bled out and collapsed, only for her blood and corpse to disappear instantly—because she belonged to another time.
Oscar had burst into tears when she’d vanished and had run to his mother’s room to find her as she’d ever been, ready to welcome him. Her reaction was understandable, since that was the woman from the present.
Relieved, Oscar believed the gruesome death to be a nightmare, but that was wrong. Only a day later, his mother perished in a puddle of her own blood.
Lavinia took a deep breath. Her green eyes moved back and forth rapidly, as if she were recalling something from long ago. “Do you remember when you told me that your dream turned into reality?”
“I do,” Oscar answered.
“You were the one who was supposed to die. You became the latest target of the demon that had been taking children. But Rosalia… she couldn’t bear it. She committed the sin of distorting the past.”
The queen had used the magic orb and gone back in time to save her son.
And she had certainly succeeded, but her dying in the process complicated matters.
“One may succeed in altering the past, but this cannot erase the doom of a person who uses the orb, because it is no longer part of the past. The end of my daughter’s life was determined when she and the demon killed each other. Her time had come, and she met it unaware. As a result, my daughter saved your life… and killed your heart.”
Rosalia’s end was sudden, something she couldn’t have known until seconds before it happened.
But that simply meant her days were over. Eleterria was not capable of altering the fate of its user. When a person reached their appointed time of death, the same end would come to them, no matter what.
The child disappearances that had left Farsas terrorized came to a sudden end. Lavinia flew to the castle upon hearing of her daughter’s suspicious demise. Once she learned of her traumatized grandson’s story and that children were no longer vanishing, she deduced what had occurred.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, and I do not hate you. However, you are someone who should not be alive. And so you should not beget any descendants.”
From a modicum of mercy, Lavinia had utilized a curse instead of killing him. She had wanted to honor her daughter’s wishes, but also… she had felt sorry for Oscar.
However, he was no longer a child. He possessed his own will and he stood before her, armed with a sword.
He could move past his mother’s death.
Thus, Lavinia believed it was time to correct things.
Oscar stared the witch down.
There was no doubting that his mother and grandmother had saved him. If his memories hadn’t been sealed away, he wouldn’t have grown into the man he was. For that fact, he was truly grateful.
He thought of his mother. His emotions there ran deeper than mere gratitude. He wondered if this was how Tinasha had felt when she’d gone into magical hibernation.
Oscar held Akashia steady. He could see the witch was casting a massive spell. One corner of his lips curled in a smirk. “You might be here seeking retribution for my mother’s actions, but I’m still your enemy. I’m guilty of the same crime she committed, after all.”
While he didn’t remember that, Tinasha did.
He was standing here at the intersection of their intertwined destinies.
Lavinia frowned, puzzled. Her green eyes flicked over to Tinasha, seated on the floor. After a few seconds, those eyes grew wide with horror.
“The Witch Killer… No, it can’t be… What you put in his dream was…”
No one in all the land surpassed Lavinia when it came to curses.
That was why she had believed nothing could break through hers. Nothing except for the sword capable of killing witches, anyway.
To prevent Akashia from interfering, as it may have had power even in a dream, Lavinia had purposely only shown Oscar dreams of his childhood, from before he took possession of Akashia.
But ultimately, he had undone the spell himself and stood before her—through the help of the queen who’d overlaid Oscar’s dreams with her own.
“So that’s… how you did it.”
Lavinia had heard that the queen who once slew a witch had used magic to put herself to sleep—and that she was the recently crowned ruler of Tuldarr in the present day.
What had woken her up? Why had she gotten engaged to him?
The answers to questions Lavinia had never thought to ask now became abundantly obvious.
“You utter, utter fools!”
She shook all over with rage. A devastating spell materialized before her. Glittering a brilliant green, it swelled with innumerable swords that formed a gigantic net rushing at Oscar.
Tinasha cried in warning, “Oscar!”
“I remember,” he said. With a diagonal lunge, he swept Akashia out at the spell.
During training, Tinasha had cast a similar spell at him. She told him that if he didn’t break all of its multiple cores at once, it would repair itself.
He could see seven such spots. As he shattered blade after blade that shot from the magic, Oscar swung Akashia aloft and aimed right for the cores.
He exhaled slowly, but his mind raced.
Two, three, four… In his head, he counted the cores he’d destroyed.
When he broke the fifth one, pain shot through his right arm.
One of the witch’s swords had made contact. Blood dripped onto the floor.
Akashia’s tip narrowly managed to pierce the sixth core. Oscar stretched as far as he could go, and yet he couldn’t reach the seventh.
The shattered cores began to regenerate. Swords rushed at him from all directions.
Just as defeat seemed inevitable, the seventh core broke.
Tinasha had done it.
The net dissolved in midair and vanished. With a loud clattering, all the ensorcelled blades fell to the ground.
The witch stared at her daughter’s son. Hatred burned in her eys, but there was a recognizable hollowness there. “Why are you adding to your crimes? Has it not occurred to you that your actions may have shifted things beyond your intention?”
“The person I am now can’t answer that. But…” Oscar could sense the woman behind him. His fondness for her brought a smile to his lips. “If she’s in pain and I can reach her, I’m going to go to her no matter what transpires. I will never abandon her… Too much has happened already.”
A girl’s anguished scream—from the dream he’d witnessed—flashed through the back of his mind.
Oscar had no way of knowing whether that had really happened or if it was something that had been prevented.
Yet when he recalled that shriek, it raked at his soul. If she were ever in that situation again, he wouldn’t be able to sit idly by, even if Tinasha had told him to.
Oscar approached the witch, who did nothing to stop him. She only stared with those green eyes.
He adjusted his grip on his sword, gazing into the face of the woman who so resembled his mother. Step by step, he closed the gap between them. “Whether I altered the past or it was changed some other way, we are in the present, and that’s why I have to fight you. I have no desire to lose all I’ve gained.”
“Even if it means warping the very fabric of our world?”
“Should it come to that, I’ll still keep moving forward from where I am. I have no other place,” Oscar said with a grin. After all, there would be no end to the corrections once one or two were made.
Lavinia looked her grandchild up and down. Her clear eyes were a bit reminiscent of Tinasha’s. Oscar stood before the witch now with the strength of will he had accrued over his life. He lifted Akashia high and leveled the tip at the witch’s slender throat.
“I know how this looks… but I don’t want you to die. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though. I do tend to try having it all.”
The witch sneered. “It certainly seems that way… How frightfully greedy you are. It wasn’t enough to have the curse broken? You needed the mage who did it, too?”
“It was your magic that brought her to me. Perhaps I should be thanking you,” Oscar shot back.
The witch lifted one eyebrow. She glanced over Oscar’s shoulder at Tinasha. “She’s not much different from a witch herself. Should the two of you have a daughter, she would more than likely become a witch. Is it worth marrying her in spite of that?”
“It is,” Oscar replied immediately. Then he broke into a pleased smile. “A witch kid, huh? Bring it on. I’d love to raise one.”
Lavinia’s cold mask dissolved into a completely aghast expression. She turned over her shoulder to throw Kevin, beyond the barrier, a look of horror. “Did you raise him to be like this?”
“For better or worse, this is my son…”
Kevin’s apologetic response made the witch heave a deep sigh. She gazed at Kevin, then Tinasha, and then finally Oscar. Her lips quirked up in a sardonic smile. “Someday you might regret not killing me today. Have you thought of that?”
“I can always do it later,” Oscar shot back flippantly.
For the first time, the witch burst out laughing. Abruptly, she teleported to a spot in the air. “Do as you like, then. However…”
Her green eyes narrowed to slits. An all-encompassing, intimidating aura dominated the room. “You are not to engage in any more foolishness. The time of reckoning may draw near.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Oscar replied.
A terribly heartrending look came over Lavinia’s face as she stared down at him.
Perhaps that was Oscar’s eyes playing tricks on him, though, as the witch vanished in the blink of an eye.

When Tinasha woke, it was the middle of the night.
Blinking over and over in the darkness from her position lying on her stomach in bed, she sifted through her memories. Yet no matter how she tried, she couldn’t recall what happened after the witch vanished. Perhaps her body hadn’t been able to endure the stress of back-to-back fights. She still felt somewhat nauseated.
In the lightless room, she slowly pushed herself up. Next to her, Oscar appeared to notice and blinked his eyes open. “Tinasha?”
“Uh… good morning…”
“It is not morning. That much should be obvious,” he muttered, rising to sit beside the young queen. He scanned her face. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine. Just a little tired…,” she answered, trailing off as she looked down at what she was wearing. Puzzled, she asked, “Did I change clothes? Mine had blood all over them. I do remember healing my injuries, though.”
“I gave you a bath and changed your clothes. It was fun.”
“…”
“Just kidding. The lady-in-waiting did it.”
“You are not funny,” Tinasha pouted, cheeks puffing out. It was strange enough for her to find herself asleep in bed next to him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Oscar must not have wanted to let her out of his sight, considering the wave of recent incidents, but she still wasn’t thrilled about that, engaged or not.
After a deeply amused Oscar was done laughing, he carded a hand through his fiancée’s hair, stroking it. “Sorry for dragging you into a bitter fight.”
She smiled. Lazar had escaped from the audience chamber, found Kevin along the way and explained that Lavinia was there, then had run to get Tinasha. By the time he did, Oscar was already caught in the witch’s binding spell. Tinasha had gotten between Oscar, bleeding and collapsed on the floor, and had found the witch staring down at him silently. After erecting a barrier, she slipped her consciousness into the spell on Oscar while battling Lavinia.
Tinasha said, “She was stronger than the witch I fought a long time ago. To be quite honest, I probably would have lost even if my focus hadn’t been split.”
“She’s really that powerful?” Oscar asked.
And yet even so, it had looked like the witch was going easy on him during their battle. Oscar was struck with new awe over the fearsome power some mages possessed.
Tinasha gave an unhappy shrug. “Also, remind me never to fight you. I couldn’t bear to have you break all my spells like it’s nothing. It would be a waste of magic just to cast them.”
“Oh yeah? It wasn’t a walk in the park for me, either. I’d be dead if not for your help,” he pointed out.
“Only because you were up against a witch. We were lucky to break you out of the binding spell,” she said dryly.
That made Oscar recall the girl from the dream. He wound a hand through Tinasha’s locks and gave her hair a tug. “So that was your memory? You were pretty cute.”
“That’s very embarrassing. Please don’t say that,” she replied, most likely flushing, although Oscar couldn’t make out Tinasha’s face in the darkness. She had definitely turned her head aside, and Oscar grinned.
While none of it was new information, he now knew with certainty that he was the one who had rescued her four hundred years ago. He wouldn’t have been present in one of her adolescent memories otherwise.
Thinking of the sobbing he’d heard, Oscar wanted to ask Tinasha precisely what had transpired, but he held his tongue. It was in the past. He didn’t need to force an explanation. If he ever needed to know someday, she would tell him.
“Tinasha, I’m sorry.”
“What? What for?”
“For what happened four centuries ago.”
“Huh?!” she yelped. Dark, wide eyes stared at him. “Why would you apologize for that? Did you do something?”
“No… It’s just that, don’t you feel something besides gratitude to him? Or to me, or to whomever? You must be angry, too. Maybe you want to know why I rewrote the past or why I disappeared afterward.”
Those were things Oscar desired answers to himself.
He was grateful beyond words that his mother had saved him. However, it also made him sick to his stomach that she committed a taboo to do so, and that it had cost her own life. If only she hadn’t gone to such lengths, she would still be alive. Perhaps she should have thought of herself, too. He loved her, and he wanted her to honor that tenderness.
Regretfully, Oscar could never tell that to the woman who saved him.
It was different for Tinasha, though. She had him.
“I don’t have my memories, but I’m still me. It’s been bothering you this whole time, right? I’m sorry for that.”
“You don’t have to be…”
Tinasha gazed back at Oscar, a pained look on her face. Fierce pain and emotion ran deep in her eyes.
After a long, slow blink, Tinasha flushed a little. “I lived a very sheltered life until I was thirteen years old. I was brought to the palace soon after I was born, and raised to be queen one day… The only family I had to speak of was another person raised as a potential king. But even though he was like a brother to me, he chose to side against me.”
The words came calmly and evenly from Tinasha’s lips. This was the first time Oscar had heard any of this.
She glanced out the window, and her expression grew visibly nostalgic. “And then he came and taught me so many things. The days I spent with him were so happy. He didn’t just save my life… He gave me the love I needed to live alone from that point on.”
Tinasha’s deep, abiding affection for him bled through in her voice. When Oscar heard it, he could tell how much love the man who’d saved her had given her. In exchange for everything he had, he’d rewritten history to rescue her. That emotion was far too all-encompassing. The mere memory of it had brought Tinasha four hundred years into the future.
“But when I arrived here to repay my debt, you were so mean to me. I did this all for you, but you treated me rudely, kept your distance because I was from a different country, acted like you were so innocent all while harping on me about everything—”
“Hey. Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Oscar huffed.
“Yet I love how you never waver in who you are. You’re the one I want to be with now,” Tinasha confessed, glancing at him with a shy smile. It was entrancing.
A match between a tolerant king and a queen consort who swore eternal love and loyalty wasn’t unheard of, but that wasn’t who these two were. They faced each other as rulers of their own countries in equal right; at times they set boundaries and at others they butted heads. Still, they had chosen each other.
Some might have felt constrained by not having the freedom to choose anything but a life like that. Oscar and Tinasha, however, had long since accepted that it was impossible to separate their personalities from their royal identities.
Which was exactly why simply being together, laughing with each other, was so precious to them. They would be able to spend the days to come at each other’s sides.
Tinasha took Oscar’s hand in hers. She intertwined her much smaller, paler fingers within his, brought their joined hands to her cheek, and beamed brilliantly. “I am very happy now. Thank you.”
Such was her warm and utterly unguarded affection for him. Oscar found himself breathless in the face of her smile that enchanted his soul.
Without moving their joined hands, Oscar leaned in to press a gentle kiss to her soft lips.
If only they could communicate wordlessly.
He wanted her to know the feelings he was helpless to define.
It was difficult to tell if it was his body or soul that felt so hot.
Oscar pulled away and gazed into her dark eyes. “You have saved me.”
His reverent words made her dimple with happiness. It was exactly that look on her face that captivated him so thoroughly. He slid their joined hands down slowly, from her cheekbones to her mouth. As her eyes went half-lidded, he drew her close and kissed her again. Holding her upright as she went limp in his arms, he brought his lips to her ear.
“Are you hesitating because you want to preserve your magic?” he asked, somewhat wryly.
She knew what he meant right away. Contritely, she replied, “Could you tell?”
“You are a spirit sorcerer and all. Of course you’d be worried about that,” Oscar said a little bitterly as he drew back. Tinasha sighed; he was right about why she refused to go further with him.
Spirit sorcerers weakened upon losing their chastity.
Tinasha had access to more than just her spiritual magic, of course, but she did also tend to rely upon such singular and powerful magic. Should she lose her chastity now, it would require much more power to cast many of her spells.
That said, Tinasha knew that she could not remain in this state forever. In a year, she would marry into Farsas and become its queen.
However, considering the mistakes and defeats she had suffered in the half a year since she’d awakened, she was very reluctant to do anything that would diminish her strength. The thought of not having enough during an emergency was sobering. Still, she did think herself weak for feeling that way, considering she had power enough to stand far above ordinary mages.
Despite knowing all that, she still felt hesitant.
To distract Tinasha from her gloomy thoughts, Oscar cupped her face in his hands and tipped it up. “I know how it sounds to ask that of you after you’ve rescued me time and time again. No matter how weak you get, even if you can no longer use magic, I’ll keep you safe. I will give you back everything that you’ll be losing.”
“Oscar…”
Her hot breath tickled his skin.
Every single time she was with him, she felt heat within her rise—everything from a mind-searing fever to warmth that made her want to cry. He was the one who gave her more power than she needed, and he was also the one who made her believe in herself.
Before any tears could slip out, Oscar kissed Tinasha’s eyelids and grinned. “Well, you don’t need to worry about it now. We’ve got less than a year to go and it’s not like I can’t wait that long. Plus, knowing our luck, we may need your strength again in the months before the wedding. So I’ll honor your wishes. I’m fine with whatever you want to do.”
He sounded so easygoing that Tinasha couldn’t help breaking into a grin of her own.
Just as she had done when they first met underneath the palace of Tuldarr, she wound her arms around his neck and leaned against him. “I’m going to be the one to protect you.”
Tinasha had chosen her fate, no matter what was in store for them.
Never again would she lose anything to anyone. She would not expose such weakness to him.
Believing that thought to hold a power of its own, she closed her eyes.