Bound by Roses (The Bound Series Book 1) (15 page)

“My little Snow White with feet firmly planted to the ground. My little Rose Red, with her heads in the clouds,” Lady Aka seemed to sing softly to herself as she stood. All that she knitted tumbled out of her lap. It disappeared to dust and mist before it hit the ground. The dust and mist clung tenderly to the ground, and hung as if time stopped.

“I need to go beyond,” Marguerite watched the elderly woman with slight hunch to her back hobble to the wall. The mist caused by her knitting swirled around the bottom of her gown. It followed her, as if it came from her.

“Beyond this room, Marguerite,”

She placed an aged hand upon it. Not far from where Marguerite looked. The moss and dampness, did not affect her wrinkled fingers. She closed her milky aged eyes, shortly after she removed thin spectacles,

“You will find nothing but sorrow, answers to questions unasked. And loyalties questioned.”

“I understand,” Marguerite was unsure that was the answer her heart wanted to say, but it was the words she spoke hastily.

“You do not, but that is all right, for when you do, I ask only one thing.” Grandmother opened her eyes her teary eyes.

“Anything, Lady Aka,” Marguerite looked at the old woman.

“Do not judge too harshly my poor, Saledii. She did what any ruler would have done. And that you yourself must do,” Grandmother’s milky eyes stared at Marguerite through dust covered spectacles, “Promise me this.”

“I promise.”

Marguerite’s words hung upon the air heavily. She watched the long dead ghost of Lady Aka melt away into the stone with a sad smile. The chair melted away, same as the knitting. They fell to dust and mist. The wall broke apart along the middle and moved to the side. Another doorway, to which existed another small room. A stone pedestal carved with deep grooves and protective runes sat empty. On the wall, hung a Mirror. Deep cracks ran across its surface. 

It seemed sad to Marguerite, almost lonely. She looked at the Mirror with pity. She wished she could wrap her arms around it tight. The glass surface glowed with utter softness. Much like the Magic Mirror her mother once possessed.

Diamond frame was petrified wood. Animals of all sorts carved and etched into its surface. Bright, colored jewels represented both the four principle elements and four corners that made up the world were placed into the four corners. The colored jewels glistened like stars in the Mirror’s glow. The room should have been dark, as the torches from the previous room extinguished themselves. The light came merely from the Mirror’s cracked and splintered surface. Marguerite could barely make out her ghostly image through the glow.

She was compelled to touch it. An urge that needed to be satisfied, the Mirror’s magic called to her. It beckoned her. Her fingers reached out. They shook uncontrollably. The surface was warm to her fingers, rippled like water, and rebounded as her finger moved away. The ripples danced within each separate shard of the broken surface.

“Hello,” a childish voice called out.

A young, pale, and tired face appeared. Eyes sunken with rings under them. It appeared throughout each fractured piece. Some close, some faraway. One held a single green eye. Marguerite stifled her scream with her hand. The face had surprised her but now looked at her with utter curiosity. Heart raced from shock.

Marguerite lowered her hand, “Who are you?”

The Mirror’s childish voice rang out like a bell, “I am not which you were expecting. Did Grandmother not tell you that much?”

“I meant do you have a name?” Marguerite wondered.

“I have no name. Having been destroyed before one could be bestowed,” the Mirror commented.

“You—” Marguerite began to speak but trailed off. Her voice did not carry as far or as long as the Mirror’s did. Her voice seemed stale in comparison to the ethereal chime of the unnamed Mirror before her.

Marguerite merely stared through teary eyes at the Mirror and his blunt honesty, “Why do you look at me as such?”

“I do not know,” Marguerite wiped a tear from her eye. “Why have you been smashed?”

“I was crafted by Dwarves, and shattered for a flaw they could not correct, and a price they regrettably paid. But you, my dear Snow White have seen my kind before.” The Mirror stated.

“What do you mean?” Marguerite ignored the Mirror’s statement, “the Dwarves regretted the price paid?”

“The Dwarves learned all they knew regarding the creation of Magic Mirrors, from that which was given to them by the Brother’s Grimm. Though, only the Mirror you know well, Specularii was bound to the Law of Three—”

“Three questions, three answers.”

“Correct,” the Mirror smiled and nodded to Marguerite’s response, “but the Dwarves were not as prepared for the price of a Talking Mirror as the Brothers Grimm were.”

“What price?”

“A willing Soul needed to be sacrificed.” The Mirror recanted, and Marguerite shivered with chills that ran through her.

“Is that why they shattered you?”

“No. The Dwarves were remorseful for what they did to the child they bound to it,” the Shattered One commented, “They never again tried to create a Talking Mirror.”

“You were a child?” Marguerite’s eyes filled with tears. Stomach sank. Heart ached terribly.

“I was. So long ago now that all my family has turned to dust. But I was shattered and hidden away,” the Mirror spoke, “for the Dwarves were unaware and unable of how to bind a Mirror to questions. As was Specularii.”

“Why are you here then
?
” Marguerite questioned and wondered, feeling the frame of the mirror softly with her fingertips. She wanted to feel the cool numb of magic come from the Mirror again. Unwilling to risk breaking the surface any further she moved them to the frame. It was once broken too, as her fingertips felt the cracks and where they had been so precisely put back together
,“
Who reformed you if you were shattered?”

“I would not call this reformed, but—it will happen. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. Centuries from now even, perhaps, unless the tales are unbound. Then I will have no place in this world. But to answer your questions, I was brought here by Lady Saledii Pastalia Red. Brought here for protection.”

“Protection? Protection from what?” Marguerite asked. Her heart pumped at the name of Saledii being uttered.

“Not what, but whom.” The Shattered One began.

“Who?” Marguerite’s words were lost even to her.

“A mysterious traveler came late one spring eve and knew of many things that even the shadows call secrets. Of what Saledii’s father, Lord Red, and your own, had hidden in this room. I was offered in trade,” the Shattered One spoke his tale.

“Why you?”

“For my protection, for I give information freely.” The Mirror said.

“What was traded?” Marguerite asked but already knew.

“The item you sought today,” the Mirror smirked.

“My mother’s spell book?”

“The very same, Snow White,” the Mirror echoed into Marguerite’s ears, its surface rippled, “but have all been betrayed on a scale larger than your mother’s stolen tome.”

“How?” Marguerite wondered.

“The protector is dead. Killed by Wolves, who are controlled by one who would benefit most greatly from either myself or the spell book, or both,” the Mirror informed Marguerite whose stomach sank further down. She wanted to vomit. She placed both hands upon the wall head low.

“What did Rose Red do?” Marguerite asked through closed teeth, ready to slam the Mirror with her fists. In her ghostly reflection she could almost see her heart beating in her chest. The Bloodstone seemed to glow and beat as well in the light of the Mirror.

“Rose Red betrayed the Realm, to allow a fleeting moment she believed would bring peace. But in the end she herself was betrayed,” the Mirror’s voice grew low and hushed. His green eyes looked about, past Marguerite. They looked out into eternity. Out into threads that only his eyes could see.

Marguerite turned away from the Mirror, “Tell me.”

“Once you have accepted the tale, you must accept the tales fate,” the Mirror spoke in riddles, as they tended to do. Marguerite knew this.

“Tell me
everything
regarding this matter of betrayal!” Marguerite did not look at the Mirror. She spat as she spoke. She did everything she could to fight back tears. She did not want the Mirror to see her cry, for the Mirror would remember it always and forever.

Breathes heavy. Knuckles white.

“I hope that these answers will lead you to that which you sought originally,” The Mirror’s surface erupted in a flash of green light, brighter in the cracks than on the actual surface.

“I do too,” Marguerite’s, voice barely a whisper to her own ears.

The entire room was bathed in the green glow. Marguerite turned around. Turned to find she looked at the face of Saledii. Sparks erupted from the cracks in the Mirror. They showered Marguerite in cold warmth that numbed her skin. The Mirror’s surface repaired itself.

It was whole again.

The Tale of Saledii Pastalia Red’s Betrayal

Steam rolled elegantly upwards from the marble basin in which scalding water had been poured from a bronze pitcher by Saledii’s handmaiden. She was dismissed. Saledii continued to stare deeply into her eyes. From three small crystal vials, nine drops of clear liquid were added. The water swirled with ruby, azure and emerald ribbons until they disappeared into the scalding water. The steam changed from ghost white to a beautiful and alluring light pink. Rose Red breathed in deeply the sweet smell of lilac and vanilla that the steam produced. Eyes closed, she wiped heavy condensation off the Mirror’s glistening surface. She opened her pumpkin eyes and stared deep into them. The outer edges of orange were wrapped by green. She always thought of them as vines protecting the pumpkin. Her curly fire red hair, bright. Two fires raged on either side of the marble basin. They were contained in brass urns, half the height of Saledii. They provided great warmth to the tiny room she was in. She inhaled deeply before exhaling softly,

“Marguerite, my precious Snow White. You may not find this for some time. But please, I beg of you, find it in your heart to forgive me for my actions. As well, any unforeseen repercussions they may lead to. I have done this, for the Realm, for our cities, and most importantly, for us who have grown so apart since father’s passing.

Listen well, and please understand.

I traded your mother’s spell book away.

I am sure, if you have found this, you already know that information.

I personally undertook this task, as it could not be trusted by anyone.

There are spies everywhere with great, and terrible powers, Marguerite.

The spell book was a small price to pay for this Mirror.

If the one who is searching for it, found this Mirror, all the peace we have known, all the peace our father’s fought for, died for, would come unbound. We cannot allow that to happen.

Please, forgive me, my Sister.”

The image of Rose Red staring at the Mirror with her pumpkin eyes, faded. The steam increased. Rose Red too faded away.

The image swirled about like a multicolored vortex.

The steam faded away, like morning mist hit by the sun.

Saledii with her fire red hair was in mourning. Gown blacker than pitch flowed elegantly down. The fabric sparkled with gems that made all who looked upon her seem as if they stared at the midnight sky. Upon the curly bush of fire red hair a thin silver veil. A mist hung over her face.

She kneeled before the body of her father, Lord Red. He lay upon a wooden slab before the throne of Zhan’ding, the House of Red banners beneath him. Flowers, all red roses piled around him, while stark white roses ring the bottom. Behind Saledii are gathered Ministers, royalty, and citizens of the city and beyond. Brought together to pay their respects to the deceased ruler. All dressed in black, but none as striking as Saledii.

She herself did not cry. She did not make a sound.

Saledii merely stared at her father.

His face pale, but scared, deep and unable to heal. Inflicted from the Wolf Queen in her escape, and attempted second imprisonment. Saledii knew, that under the bright crimson armor her father was laid to rest in, his body was broken. She could see that his armor was dented in places. It broke her heart to stare at him.

“You died doing your duty to the Realm, Father,” Saledii spoke to herself as she stood, “And for that, there is no greater honor.”

She held tight to a single red rose, whose tips turned both black and white. It was a flower that her mother was given, and one that has never withered. Saledii placed it tenderly upon her father’s unmoving chest.

“I miss you already.”

Saledii turned to find Marguerite and Lord White in attendance. He in his shining white armor, and silver cape, and Marguerite in a black gown that could not compare to night sky that Saledii wore. The gown was almost grey in comparison.