Chapter 37: [34 – queen; fiction and reality]

Brioc muttered a long string of profanities under his breath that was far from princely, and Soren almost swore himself. 

"Gross." said the prince simply, squinting in attempts to blur the view. 

Alvara remained unaffected, blinking ahead and taking in their expressions with confusion. Vendra only revealed a glimpse of surprise, though her reaction was rather mild compared to the others.

"There's no way that's the Queen. If that is, then I pity her. And anybody who had to look at her." remarked Brioc while scrunching his nose, while the 'Queen' stared back at him with a light smile.

"I am very much the Necromancer Queen, although I'm sure you would like to think otherwise." said a voice that was not Raphael's, nor manly or feminine. 

Asmodeus sighed. "The Queen takes on the appearance of somebody who is prominent in your memories. Good or bad."

"It's a hobby of mine." smiled the Queen lightly.

Soren stared quietly at this 'Raphael', who sat with an unmatched elegance, painted black nails moving with the light movements of their hands. This Raphael looked arrogant in a royal, sassy way which Soren found confusing. Disturbing, too.

The Queen noticed Soren's stare and raised a brow with Raphael's face. 

"Now, am I appearing as somebody you despise or love, I wonder? Your expression is disgusted, but you seem to be enamored."

Of course, it was only a joke. Disgust was the only present emotion on Soren's impassive face, and the Queen saw it. Even so, she chuckled when his indifferent face noticeably darkened.

The clothes she wore remained the same for whatever appearance she took, and that wasn’t by chance, but choice. It was awfully entertaining to watch their reactions when they saw somebody — who they liked or dislike — wear such clothes.

Brioc interrupted and wondered, "So the necromancers are still alive?"

She glanced at him with a deadly curve of her lips. "Very much so. They weren't, not for a moment, ever 'gone'. My people have always remained under this Kingdom where humans cannot find us... except for the few who do."

"Interesting."

“Isn’t it? I do take pride in my Kingdom, though I won’t give you a tour. There is not a single necromancer here that would open their doors.”

“How cold~” said Brioc with a glimmer in his violet eyes. “I would’ve thought we’d be welcomed.”

"I would say welcome, but it isn't a pleasure to have you here." said the Queen from upon her death-coated throne. "Asmodeus, I must've been too kind to you over these years for you to lead humans to my chambers."

Asmodeus shrugged. "Threaten me after you look at them carefully, Necromancer Queen. Then tell me again that I shouldn't have brought them."

For the first time since they entered, her eyes seemed to focus, illuminated by the faint light from the open double doors. Raphael's eyes trailed over them with lazy care, and Soren felt uncomfortable.

Piercing and deep were the eyes, but they were definitely not Raphael's.

Then, as those false black eyes peered at Soren, the Queen's smile fell.

"A moment, please. Why is it that so much death surrounds you, when you are here standing before me?"

"I won't speak to you with that face." stated Soren bluntly.

"You don't like it?"

"No."

While she continued to stare at him intently, she chuckled and waved her hand.

In the place of where the strange Raphael hand been appeared an elegant, mature and deadly woman, her sharp eyes cut from the coldest stone and bloody lips curved in a faint, arrogant smile. 

Yet there was an androgynous air to her appearance that made her gender ambiguous. 

"Is this better?"

"Yes." answered Soren with no hesitation.

Then, her eyes trailed over the entire group once again, surveying them, as if her gaze would swallow them whole in her ancient knowledge. She was confirming something. 

Making sure whatever it was that surprised her truly existed,

"What a queer group." muttered the Queen, her ruby eyes resting on Alvara. "I thought you brought me one of my own, but it was just a girl whose time was played with by a God."

Alvara listened and widened her eyes in surprise. "What?"

"You're alive because your time was kept frozen in a half-death state. In that death-like trance, you accumulated death mana and became accustomed to it, hence your abilities and your appearance."

"W-what? Why would a God freeze my—"

"There are secrets and stories even I don't know, my dear."

Alvara swallowed and the Queen smiled vaguely before her eyes met with Soren's once again.

The truth behind the necromancer had come crashing down suddenly, revealing an unpredictable fact. That was how news was at times, unexpected and random, and very much unwanted.

Soren felt as if whatever was coming next,would only be more terrifying.

The Queen stared at him strangely. As Soren stood, he felt a strange feeling wash over his bones and sink him in a chilling water. Instinct told up him not to listen, reason told him to wait. 

Soren was always one to follow his intuition, but for once, he didn't.

He couldn't. Not when he felt as if his instinct wasn't trying to save him; it was trying to make him run away. 

From a truth so terrible and confusing, he had erased it from his life.

"Prince Soren, you reek of death." said the Queen slowly with a frown. "Your time is warped, twisted to the point I can't understand it. Now she, the girl, has her time warped for the reason of the God that saved her, but you, it's different."

Soren's fists slowly curled at his sides, his head throbbing. What she was saying wasn't the problem, no, that wasn't it.

There was something else. Something worse.

"But why is it there's a scent that is the same as yours, yet carrying vague differences so faintly on your body?"

The man looked at her quietly through cold, icy eyes and said truthfully, "I'm not from this world."

The reactions of the other three didn't matter — he was stripped bare under the Queen's eyes. Whether he said it, or she, the result would always end up in the others discovering the truth.

Yet when he glanced at them, they didn't show any reaction, as if their ears were covered by a protective bubble, muffling all sound.

"Ah." The Queen raised a brow, raising a delicate finger to her lips. "Then that other scent, is it someone from your own world?"

"What?"

"Or is it... perhaps, you didn't realize? That you aren't so unique after all, Prince Soren."

"Who?" asked Soren a bit roughly, stepping forward slightly. "Who is it?"

Was it a person he knew? An old companion, or a hateful enemy? Perhaps one of the many he had killed or watched die under the world’s collapse?

Soren’s past haunted him — the dreary emptiness, and also the endless slaughter. 

The millions of times he thought it’d be better to die than live in such a bland life, but failed because he couldn’t. While he shows indifference to most things, there were some people he did remember. Some people he’d rather not meet again.

The Queen looked as if she were about to answer, but paused. 

Her brows furrowed. "The more I try to decipher the aura... perhaps I was wrong. Whoever's scent is on you, their time is so confusingly warped, even I cannot make it out. They must've died over and over again, and lived over and over again."

Soren's expression immediately changed and he narrowed his eyes.

The only person he knew of that he could even partially understand, the only other who knew the pains of living over and over again.

Raphael Han.

The sole tragic protagonist from the novel Soren had read of in that book, the one person he'd known about the moment he entered this story. A person that should've always remained fiction, but then fell into Soren's reality.

Only, Raphael was never fictional to begin with, was he?

Not if the words she spoke were the truth.

"However," continued the Queen as the words hammered in Soren's ears. "I can ascertain, without a doubt, that you both shared a single world at one point in the past. One with a death so deep, that I can sense the individual world on the both of you."

"Impossible."

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"I'm afraid not. You've thought of somebody, haven't you? Most likely, that is the person who I mentioned — few would meet the requirements, so there must be only one you've thought of."

Soren's head throbbed faintly, a dull beating at the back of his mind. 

A lock had just been opened.

Like memories trying to explode, so buried that they almost didn't exist. He frowned in annoyance, stepping back as Vendra moved forward with worry.

She hadn't heard anything. She'd only watched as Soren's expression grew confused while he listened to the Queen, watched as he stepped back with a flicker of pain in his face.

"Soren? Are you alright?"

Then, the pain disappeared. As quickly as it came, it dispersed into the million of particles in the sky. No new memories. No new pain. Just emptiness. As it had always been.

"Yes." Soren said slowly with a frown. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He looked back up at the Queen calmly, despite the frown which plagued his lips. "Everything you said is true?"

"Yes, of course. There's no reason for me to lie to you."

It was a ridiculous truth, one that he couldn’t have expected. It also brought along a few dozen, if not more, bothersome questions.

If Raphael was not fictional, then was this world truly a story? Or was he, just another character, dancing at the tunes of an author? His tragedy, his struggles, were they all a farce?

No, was his answer after silent thought. 

In the end, even if he was created by somebody, he was his own person. Just as how Damien and Raphael were not simple characters from the novel he head read, carrying their own thoughts and personalities.

Then he wondered, Raphael had come from the world of an apocalypse. What sort of role did this protagonist play in the world — their world’s destruction? 

What if, somewhere along those broken ruins, within those crowds of faces, they had met once? With Soren’s lacking interest in people, he wouldn’t have remembered a passing face, regardless of what they looked like.

But, Soren didn’t have a gap in his memory like Alvara, and Raphael’s observant gaze wouldn’t forget a face so easily. Well, Soren’s face wasn’t his own anymore. It wasn’t completely different, but it wasn’t the same either.

But his name — that he told Raphael — was. And Raphael didn’t recognize it.

Soren was a little curious. He’d mind his own business and rather avoid trouble before satisfying his occasional curiosity, but it felt… strange. 

That Raphael could’ve walked by him in the past, unknowingly to them both.

“Well. I can tell everything I’ve said is news to you all, so what will you do now?” interrupted the Queen with a curious, lighthearted smile. 

Vendra, however, unexpectedly asked, “Will you help save the world, Necromancer Queen?”

The question has been simmering in her mind since she entered. For this Queen who could make that indifferent prince show such surprise, know of Alvara’s secret which none could predict — she was powerful.

And to save a world that was dying, power was necessary.

“I don’t do favors for mortals.” said the Queen blandly, leaning back in her throne. “I’ll interfere when it’s necessary, but right now, it is your people who will face the brunt of the storm, correct?”

“Even so…”

“I’m afraid there is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. However, since that child is technically one of my own…” Her ruby eyes rested on Alvara. “I will do you a favor. One of my own choice, however.”

“Can you tell me why my time was frozen?” asked Alvara as the Queen shook her head.

“As I said, my dear, there are limits to everything. I do have a feeling, however, that you’ll find out as long as you continue this journey. That young prince over there seems to attract answers he doesn’t want to hear.”

Soren looked at her with a frown, and she smiled.

“I’m more interested in exploring.” said Brioc casually, stretching his arms as if nothing had happened. “Any places you’d recommend seeing?”

“There is a place outside my Kingdom, on the edge that is rather beautiful. The Bone Lake, containing an island of sin.”

“An island of sin?”

“Your companion over there has one, I can tell.” Her eyes raked Soren’s arm before she glanced at Asmodeus with interest. “A rather familiar one, at that.”

“What is it?”

“The Cursed Tattoos can be found anywhere, but originally, from where they fall from heavens or unearth themselves from hell, a unique place is born. The tattoos are created when an angel commits a wrong, or a demon commits a right. Isn’t that so, Asmodeus?”

“I regret ever meeting you, really.” replied the demon from the side. “It’s a trap, no living person can cross that lake.”

“Unless they’re not quite living.” said the Queen with a smile before she suddenly lunged off her throne, disappearing into the air.

Everybody drew their weapons with alert eyes, before she reappeared before Soren with a light smile. Before he could blink, her claws tore into his chest and violent pain erupted in his body.

He blinked several times, and scowled.

“Annoying.”

The Queen withdrew her claws in satisfaction, her eyes curved in an amused smile from where she stood, tall and elegant.

One.

Vendra rushed towards from where Soren dropped to one knee. “Soren! You, what in the world do you think you’re doing?!” exclaimed the Selkie at the Queen with fearless blue eyes.

Two.

Alvara too, stumbled forward with horrified eyes. “No… no, hey, wake up? You can’t be dead!”

Three.

Brioc stared blankly — even with his bloodlust, he didn’t simply kill anybody. Only those who attacked and those who wished to fight, and watching the dripping blood of somebody he walked with was far from pleasant.

Four.

“Oh?” Asmodeus raised a brow from where he stood, arms crossed.

Five.

The Queen’s smile widened. 

And Soren’s chilling, pale eyes opened.

He lightly moved out of Vendra’s grasp, scowling as he stood up again, only the bloody mark on his ripped shirt proving that it was real. 

The air went silent as the other three’s eyes remained glued to the deep crimson puddle on the ground, before flickering to the very alive Soren. He stared back indifferently, tugging the robe over with a frown.

“Satisfied?”

The Queen cocked her head with a smile. “What a lovely performance, prince.” Then, she turned to the others. “As you can see, he could manage to find the tattoo easily. He’d live — it’d only be a little painful.”

Vendra was still in a daze. “Soren… what…?”

Brioc blinked, laughed and then frowned, his own emotions turbulent. He’d seen many things in his aimless wandering, but nothing like this. The dead would always remain dead, just as how the alive would remain alive.

There was a line between that that couldn’t be crossed.

On the other hand, Alvara stared in vivid surprise before blurting, “Woah! That’s crazy cool. Well, on the surface at least…” Her voice trailed off the more she thought about the power.

She, who understand the desperate wish of wanting to die, decided it might not have been so cool. While it depended on the person, she said nothing more in case she probed at healing wounds.

The Queen didn’t care for their surprise and continued, “I suppose you have no interest in power, so you, prince? Therefore, I’ll throw in an extra favour. I’ll tell you two things—“

“—one which your companions might like to know,” Her eyes smiled at Vendra as she spoke before trailing to Soren. “and the other, about something you’ve wondered for a while.”

Soren looked at her coldly. “What?”

“The secret behind that strange body of yours.”