The Second Suicide (4/7)

The accusation that she had murdered the child in her womb stripped away what little standing Diana had left, until there was nothing at all. Among the drawing rooms of high society the story circulated in whispers — the Queen had killed her own baby — and no one would so much as speak to her anymore.

Even the priests, the last people who had ever pitied her, were no different. Whenever Diana came to pray, they would clear their throats, glare at her, and slip away, as though she were smeared with something unclean.

Giscard never again entered her chambers after that day. Beyond their meals, he had almost no contact with her, and he even ordered her to rest quietly instead of appearing at state occasions. It was, in all but name, confinement.

The Queen's Palace was so silent one could hear the whir of an insect's wings.

Diana's face went vacant. There is no meaning left in living. She wanted to die. And yet for Alexa's sake alone she had to go on — that child had done nothing wrong.

Lady Ruvienne alone she could never forgive. Diana had wished that woman dead — the woman who had killed a child too young to have ever been loved or hated — but she had no strength left for vengeance.

Each time Lady Ruvienne came to torment her, Diana trembled in anguish, remembering the days when she herself had been Lady Brien of Farnborough.

The Lady possessed everything Diana had lost, and that was what made her all the more hateful; Diana loathed the very breath of that monster who had stolen what was hers and lured her into a trap.

And of course, she hated Giscard every bit as much. The man who had refused to believe a word she said — the man who had spared the woman who killed his own child — was no different at all.

"My child. I am going to forget you now."

Diana murmured it numbly, stroking her belly. Their accusations had not been entirely wrong. Some part of her had wished this existence would simply vanish.

"If a mother with no right to be called one goes on remembering you, cherishing the memory of you — how could you ever leave?"

Diana laughed softly, the sound of a mind coming unhinged. Perhaps it was nothing more than a coward's escape. And so she buried the child deep in her heart.

News of Alexa reached Diana — she heard it by the sheerest accident of chance. Diana wailed for a long, long time. In the quiet of the Queen's Palace, where even visitors had all but ceased to come, she was free to weep to her heart's content.

There is no meaning left in living.

And yet, somehow, Diana went on breathing. Why was she still alive? It was a question without an answer. Then, to the woman living a life no different from a doll's, came a visit from the Lady who had been her enemy all along.

"Your Majesty the Queen. Forgive me my sins."

To ask forgiveness — for the sin of killing her own child. Diana looked at Lady Ruvienne. A smile curved the woman's lips as she gazed at her the way one gazes upon something pitiful.

"I am carrying His Majesty's child."

For an instant Diana could only stare at the lovely Lady, her face gone rigid. Ruvienne went on speaking with that adorable face, the kind of face you could treasure in the palm of your hand and never feel a thing.

"That crown of yours is nothing but a hollow shell. I will set you free from it."

"...You. You — how could you!"

Blood surged into Diana's face. It was beyond belief. The murderess who had killed a child — and she dared to speak of bearing one! And with the seed of the very father whose baby she had destroyed! At the first true fury Diana had ever shown her, Lady Ruvienne burst into ringing laughter and let her venom fly.

"Diana Brien. Lady of a fallen Farnborough. You cannot possibly hope to live in peace after daring to make our precious His Majesty a slave?"

Her breath caught in her throat. Diana could say nothing at all.

"Shameless woman. This is how you will live from now on — like vermin. You will crawl beneath the earth for the rest of your days, living a life that begs for death instead."

Then the Lady, who had been glaring down at her, changed her expression and broke into a sweet smile.

"So now I will be taking that seat of yours. You have sat in a place that never suited you for far too long."

"..."

"But don't worry. His Majesty will never cast you aside. He said he would never let you leave the palace."

After Lady Ruvienne took her leave, Diana stared blankly at the sky. For a moment a surge of hatred for Giscard rose in her — then the storm of feeling simply went still.

She did not rage at her child's murderer, nor at the man who had made that child. She did not spit a single curse at Lady Ruvienne, who had killed her baby. Only one thought remained in her head.

Ah. Now I can die.

Now I am permitted to die.

There is no choice left but death.

So — let me die, now.

At twenty-five, Diana chose death. She moved to throw herself down before Giscard's eyes — and swallowed poison instead, meeting her end in his arms. So closed an evil bond too tangled to ever undo.

When Diana came back to herself, she was staring blankly at her surroundings. She had thought it might be heaven, but this was not heaven. It was simply... a place she knew far too well.

Farnborough. Her room in the Brien ducal residence — the place she had longed to return to so desperately she could hardly bear it.

Had her suicide failed, then? But how could she exist here, where everything had burned to the ground? Lost in a daze, Diana laid a hand on the flower vase atop the nightstand. Cool glass met her fingers — and a small hand came into view. Far, far too young a hand.

She wiggled the fingers. Without a doubt, they belonged to a child. Startled, Diana hurried to the mirror.

"...Wha—"

She tilted her head, bewildered. Her cheeks still carried their baby fat, flushed as though dabbed with watercolor paint. Her neatly kept hair was tied back with a red ribbon, and she wore a dress of deep lilac.

She traced the surface of the mirror with her fingertips.

"Happy twelfth birthday, Ann!"

At the sight of the figure bursting through the door, Diana found herself running before she knew it. A shiver ran through her. She did not know whether this was a dream. But here, in the time she had missed so badly, she could meet the person she had missed so badly.

It was her brother! Ah — ah, he was alive!

It was the beginning of her second life.

"Brother!"

Diana threw her arms around him. Am I dreaming? If I am, then this must surely be heaven.

"What do you think you're doing!"

"Brother!"

"Honestly. Fine, fine."

He didn't seem to mind the affectionate little sister clinging to him; Emil let her hold on without pulling away.

"I thought turning twelve might have made you a little more grown-up, but you're exactly like Alexa."

"Twelve?"

"Have you really forgotten your own age? Fool!"

"..."

"Don't tell me you've also forgotten we're going to the royal palace today?"

"The palace?"

Diana tilted her head.

"Oh, wonderful. No sooner do you turn twelve than you plan to disgrace the family! Is this how you intend to make your first impression on His Majesty the King — without a shred of preparation?"

"..."

"Hurry up and get ready!"

Listening to Emil's frantic voice, Diana quickly understood that this was no heaven. Her brother's rather prickly temper, being twelve, the first visit to the royal palace — all of it was familiar.

"Ah, Duke — welcome."

She could not remember how she had greeted them. Since the King and Queen, her father, and Emil showed no particular reaction, she could only suppose she had managed it without a blunder. Greetings exchanged, they were sipping their tea. Diana looked at the fragrant milk tea, softened with cream. It was the moment she came face to face with a past impossibly far away.

"Now then, Lady Brien. Today marks your twelfth birthday, does it not?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Become the finest jewel in the realm."

"Your kindness is as deep as the sea. Thank you, Your Majesty."

"I shall give you a sapphire pin as your gift."

A sapphire pin? At the scene replaying itself word for word out of her memories of the past, a strange disquiet crept over her. Is this really heaven? If it were, such a day would never repeat itself. This place was strange after all.

She fixed her attention on their conversation. Once the birthday felicitations were done, their talk turned to the matter at hand.

"You don't imagine that witch would actually lay a curse on us, do you?"

At her father's words, the King nodded. Perhaps it was because he sat before a child and the ever-loyal Duke Brien — the King's face was full of worry. Diana drifted through the memory of the past in a daze.

"It is only right that the wicked woman receive divine punishment."

She remembered this conversation too. They were speaking of a woman's execution.

"But I confess, that woman's depravity and wickedness weigh on me."

"..."

"Why, people are even saying she was born of a swamp."

"If she were truly capable of casting such a curse, she would have laid it before her execution, not after."

"That may be so, but..."

Her father reassured the King in a firm voice, and at that firmness the King seemed to settle.

"Lady Brien."

At the sudden voice, Diana raised her head. It was the Queen, who until that moment had not spoken a single word. She wore a benevolent smile — but Diana knew it for the mask it was. The Queen had never liked her.

"What do you think, my lady?"

"On what matter, Your Majesty?"

"Do you believe curses truly exist?"

Diana narrowed her eyes. This gathering existed for one purpose: to introduce her to the First Prince, Ferdinand — her father wanted Diana to become Queen of Farnborough. But the Queen disliked her, and so Ferdinand was conspicuously absent today. The plan to pair them had failed.

She kept sifting through the hazy memories of her twelfth year. Back then, she had foolishly been unable to answer at all. But she was no longer only that girl — she was the woman who had been Queen of Lodbrok, and a target of abuse besides. She knew exactly what feeling lay behind the question. The Queen wished to humiliate a child — and had even reached for a difficult word like exist to do it. Diana smiled faintly.

"I do not believe curses exist, Your Majesty."

"I am curious as to why."

"Are curses not simply the outward form of a guilty conscience? When one does something that weighs on the heart and misfortune happens to follow, one cannot help wondering if the deed is to blame."

At her words, they exchanged glances with one another. Then the King said:

"Then you are saying I am a feeble ruler, terrified of a thing that does not exist?"

How did the conversation end up there? Diana was dumbfounded, but she met the King's gaze steadily. She knew full well how timid a man he was. As her father opened his mouth to intervene, Diana spoke first.

"Taking a criminal's life is a grave matter, Your Majesty. To look back upon it more than once — is that not the very mercy and prudence befitting a king?"

The King's eyes went round at that.

"Mercy and prudence, you say..."

At Diana's artless answer, the King burst into laughter. The Queen's brow was furrowing. Diana watched them both. A Queen so bitter that her own house was not the first family of the kingdom that she took it out on a twelve-year-old girl; a King grown uneasy after putting a single woman to death.

To a true twelve-year-old, these people had once seemed like gods in the heavens. Now she could see them plainly for what they were. Perhaps the fall of Farnborough had been only fitting.

"You did very well."

Duke Brien patted Diana's head. Only now did she truly look at her father's face. He had never been one to wear his feelings openly, yet he had spared nothing for her. He had loved her in his own fashion — and then perished, hollow and meaningless, to the vengeance of that monster, Giscard.

Giscard.

Diana called his face to mind. Why had her beloved father ever brought Giscard here as a slave? He was a man who never so much as raised his voice at the servants. So why take the boy in — and then leave him to his fate, letting the grudge take root and fester?

"The weather is turning foul. Your father has more to discuss with His Majesty, so run along home."

With those words, Duke Brien turned and was gone. It had been an impossibly long day. As she climbed into the carriage, Diana looked up at the sky, where grey clouds hung packed overhead like smudged ink. I have gone back to my twelfth year? She turned the unbelievable truth over and over in her mind.

"That talk about curses — what on earth was that? Where did you read it?"

"What do you mean, where?"

"You were always the one frightened of curse nonsense. That stepping on black marble four times in a row means death, that writing someone's name in purple ink means death..."

"Those are superstitions, not curses."

Emil and Diana bickered back and forth.

"I think curses are real. Mother was taken by one too, wasn't she?"

"Hm?"

"Those demi-human slaves they executed in the capital recently — I saw them laying strange hexes."

Slaves. Diana's gaze dimmed. Farnborough was a nation that kept slaves. Lodbrok had none, and she had forgotten.

"...Those aren't curses, Brother. Curses don't exist."

"What?"

"Avoiding a curse is simple. You just... don't torment the weak."

The witch's curse had been born because people tormented a woman; the slaves' hexes, because people made slaves of them and abused them. A curse was nothing more than the creeping guilt born of cruelty to the weak. That was the truth Diana had come to understand.

Soon the rain began drumming outside. Listening to the water spatter against the roof, Diana sank into thought.

It was a day from more than twenty years past — a special day, the first time she had ever set foot in the royal palace, and so it lingered in her memory only as faint outlines.

And yet she could not shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. Diana forced the unease down. Her task was simple: keep her father from ever bringing Giscard into this house. He would arrive soon. She had to stop the tragedy before it could begin. She was still a child of twelve who had lost her mother. How was she to stop her father?

If only three years had passed...

By fifteen, she would at least have had a voice in this household. Diana clicked her tongue.

"Sis! What's keeping you!"

Alexa's sharp voice rang out. No doubt she was sulking at having been left behind while her brother and sister went off to the palace. A world where Alexa still lived — a miracle had truly happened. Smiling, Diana went into the room.

The Diana of the past had hated being the one to soothe Alexa. The girl was sickly, and even their father indulged her every whim, and so she had a selfish streak. But that no longer mattered. Her being alive was enough. One of her own blood, entirely her ally. How desperately Diana had wished for exactly that.

Then, without warning, a dull ache seemed to rise in her belly. There had been a time, however brief, when she had carried her own ally beneath her heart. She tried with all her might to erase the memory.

"Was the palace fun?"

"Not fun at all. Look, it's raining. Reading to you would have been far more fun."

That did the trick at once; Alexa's mood melted. Diana read to her. She had always found it tedious — now even that felt like a gift. Perhaps because of the rain, Alexa's cough was bad, and after dosing her with medicine, Diana watched thunder roll across the sky. For some reason her heart had begun to pound. She ought to have been savoring the good fortune of her return to the past; instead, an inexplicable tension turned her fingertips cold.

"His Grace the Duke has arrived."

Diana rose from her seat. Even now, the memories of this day refused to sharpen. Perhaps she had failed to answer the Queen, been scolded by her father, and spent the rest of the day crying alone in her room. Gathering her skirts, she went down to the ground floor. The sound of falling rain resounded through the mansion. Then the door boomed open. In a house filled with nothing but rain, the noise was far too loud, and Diana flinched before she could help it.

The Duke entered the house, folding his umbrella behind him. A bright smile hung on the face of a man who was always so brusque. The sight was so foreign that Diana's heart beat harder still.

"Children, I have brought you a gift."

The Duke beckoned with a cheerful voice. In the same instant, lightning split the sky and flooded the world with white. Diana clapped a hand over her mouth at the sight it laid bare. The figure led in by the collar was, without question, the one who had ruined her life. More wretched, more pitiable than any slave she had ever seen, the violet-eyed boy entered this house as a dog — no, as a slave.

Diana understood. She had believed she met Giscard some time later, here at the residence; she had never known exactly when he had arrived. Her face drained white. It felt as though the god of fate were laughing in her face. She had not returned to some nameless day of her twelfth year. Time had carried her back to the day she first met Giscard.

"Who is that child?"

"Oh, my lady. That thing is a slave. You can see the restraint collar, can't you?"

At the servant's words, the pale-haired girl studied the boy hauling lumber with curious eyes. A neat, clean-featured face. Dirt smeared it thoroughly, yes, but his rare amethyst eyes were truly beautiful. Just then, the boy stumbled and fell — his leg had been dragging — and the logs slung over his shoulder clattered to the ground.

"You insolent wretch!"

The servant shrieked and charged at him.

"Do you have any idea what this lumber costs?! Useless slave whelp!"

The kick sent the boy rolling across the ground. Without mercy, the servant drove his boot into the boy's stomach. Diana jumped in shock.

"Stop it! What do you think you're doing!"

She screamed and ran to him. The boy sprawled on the ground was caked in dirt from head to toe. She crouched down and reached out her hand to him. She couldn't have cared less about dirtying her dress.

"My lady! It is a filthy slave. Do not touch it!"

"He isn't dirty at all. What exactly is dirty about him?"

The daughter of the noble House of Brien extended her hand to the slave as if to make a show of it.

"Are you all right?"

"My lady, a lazy slave requires proper discipline. If you would only let me—!"

"Even so, beating a person like this is wrong!"

The girl stood firm against the servant barring her way. The boy on the ground lifted his bruised, swollen face. Nothing was unmarked where the brutal blows had landed, and his leg throbbed as though the bone had cracked. But somewhere in the midst of it all, the girl's words rang strangely in the ears of the boy who had endured everything in silence.

'Fuck — what the hell is that goddamn girl saying?'

It was the ring of pure fury. All that hypocrisy spilling from her mouth — he found it loathsome beyond words. If only he had the strength, he would have wrapped his hands around her throat and twisted. That was how deeply the malice had taken hold of him.

The girl saw something hideous in the eyes of the fallen boy as he raised his head to look at her. The eyes of a beast, glinting with murderous intent.

But Diana could not read that emotion, for she knew nothing of human malice. A settled, implacable hatred — one deep enough to take her life. Yet having glimpsed that blazing, densely woven feeling, she found she could not tear her gaze from his eyes.

Hostility and hatred. Such was the first meeting of Giscard Lodbrok and Diana Brien.