ES Chapter 14

Was it because on the way here she had picked up the spine-chilling history tangled up around this manor?

Or because of that tiny reflected figure in her pupils—small enough to produce any optical illusion it pleased?

Or because of Cyrix's face, elegant and beautiful, and never appearing to lie?

Honestly—looking at Cyrix, she was, it must be admitted, disoriented.

Even discussing something as entirely divorced from reality as the spirit world, the man appeared not foolish, not absurd; and if she didn't hold her wits taut, she found herself, at some unnoticed moment, having lost herself entirely.

Bewitched.

The soft yet composed manner of his speech, the earnest bearing that never lost its dignity, and beneath both of these the wall his bloodline quietly maintained between itself and everything else—these were what made it possible. She had marveled at it several times now, arriving each time at the same conclusion: so this is what the distinction of ancient royalty feels like.

But if this kept happening, it was going to be a problem.

She had to keep her head straight. Even writing articles calculated to bewitch a crowd, she herself had to hold onto reason. At minimum.

"Has much of your property been damaged?"

"Yes—all my quill pens are broken. Hmm..." She thought quickly. "I may need to go out—could you tell me the way to the nearest village market, by any chance?"

If he asked why she needed a pen, she'd say she had letters to write to her family.

But Cyrix offered the convenience before the question arose.

"There is no need to go out for writing instruments. My study has a supply. As it happens, I had intended to show you the manor—this works out well. Come this way."

He led Ayesha out of the bedroom.

Up another floor and through the long, winding corridors, she could not take her eyes off the objects accumulated on the walls. Above the lights that fell at intervals along the corridor, paintings recording the flourishing of House Etheldore hung framed from wall to wall. The quantity was extraordinary. Exactly as rumored, Langfield Manor was itself the history of one family—and, simultaneously, the vast artwork that encompassed an era.

Marriage. The founding of a nation. A king's death. And the birth of new succession.

Moving quickly past the works, estimating their meanings at a glance, Ayesha paused before one particular painting.

She couldn't have helped it. Anyone seeing it for the first time would have been taken aback.

The painting depicted a man and a woman in congress, through a translucent curtain.

The white-foggy length of the curtain veiled the detail, leaving only the faintest outlines of the two figures—but from the ridgeline drawn by the man's back, the muscles bunched and raised under full force, to the woman's white and slender arm draped limp across the bedsheet, and the abundant golden hair that flowed in waves all the way to the floor below the bed, what the painter had witnessed was sufficiently clear. A jet-black veil laid beneath the woman's back made her skin appear still more pale.

Each of the other works contained a page of history and was painted in a dynamic, lavish style—vivid, rich with paint, the colors living. This work alone had faint coloring and an imprecise, disorganized quality to the sketch that made clear it had been done in haste. What on earth had possessed someone to paint a scene like this and leave it for posterity.

And so it stood out more.

"The Immortal."

He had noticed her reaction, and opened the subject gently.

"The Immortal...?"

"You have heard the rumor, I expect. That House Etheldore has been cursed by a god."

She had, of course—a version of it from the editor before she left. But she hadn't expected the master of that very family to raise it himself rather than conceal it.

"If we trace back to the beginning—it is a story from roughly two thousand years ago. An Etheldore prince, in those distant days, seduced the Immortal while evading the eye of God. The difficulty was that the Immortal was a being belonging to God's keeping. God, learning of this belatedly, was filled with wrath. But by that point the Immortal had already fallen in love with the man."

The legend that followed was rather more preposterous than she had expected.

'Ayesha—do you believe in God?'

'God? No, I don't.'

Not only was this an assignment she had set out on after flatly denying the existence of any such thing—it wasn't merely a claim of divine curse. Someone had stolen the Immortal from a god's keeping entirely?

Afraid her awkward expression would be caught—she could neither agree nor, in front of her client, simply deny—she redirected her gaze to the painting.

So—by the logic of the story, the woman in the painting, lying with the man—that was the Immortal seduced away from God?

"Is that how House Etheldore came to be cursed—by the god who lost the Immortal?"

"It is."

"Then—what became of the Immortal?"

Cyrix lifted his chin and regarded the painting.

"What is your thinking, Ayesha? What do you believe would have become of her?"

"Well..." The questions were a tangle; the answer had been wrung out by force, and the words came accordingly. "If the Immortal means what it says—if she cannot die—then she should still be alive somewhere, I'd think."

"In that case," he replied, with perfect equanimity, "House Etheldore would not have fallen so swiftly."

Ayesha was left dumbstruck.

He'd just told her the whole story—the seduction, the god's wrath, the love already fallen—and now this was the conclusion?

"Only that a legend is, in the end, a legend. For a house that once founded a nation, the cycle of rise and fall came rather quickly—quickly enough that others might have supposed only a divine curse could account for it. Were the Immortal actually to have remained, one imagines House Etheldore would still be the ruling dynasty today."

"...Is that so."

Was he being sincere.

The painting hung in the middle of the central corridor—the most trafficked passage in the manor—displayed alongside works recording other historical moments. If this was where the family had placed it, the Immortal was a subject of considerable significance to House Etheldore —

"Ah—so this must be the prince who fell in love with the Immortal."

Having once identified the silhouette through the first painting, she began to recognize the prince's face clearly in the others.

War. Victory. Triumph.

Across the paintings, the prince was nothing less than a war god—a hero. He stood at the most dangerous vanguard. He led. Sword in one hand, reddish-brown hair loose and flying, commanding his soldiers or throwing himself at the enemy—the figure was rendered with a vividness and clarity that seemed on the point of stepping out of the frame.

Artistic license may have played a part, but the prince had a warrior's physique—a full head taller than the soldiers around him. In the first-night painting, the foggy handling had made him seem slighter; in the other works, where line and color were clear, broad shoulders and an exceptionally solid build came into focus.

A striking man.

"Yes," Cyrix said.

"He must be a tremendously distant ancestor. The two of you don't resemble each other much."

"So much time has passed. Even distinctive bloodline traits dilute gradually when the blood continues to mix."

"That's true—I'm the one in my family who doesn't match the others. My parents would debate it looking at my face: this forehead takes after mother's side, these ears take after father's. I could never tell the difference myself. When I introduce them as family, people outside are often surprised."

"We are in similar situations, it seems. There have been whispers, in my case, that perhaps my natural father was someone else entirely."

"...I beg your pardon?"

The suddenly introduced question of parentage—Ayesha scrambled for an appropriate response and found nothing.

Cyrix laughed.

"A joke entirely. I am the Etheldore heir in every sense."

She let herself breathe again.

"That was a merciless joke."

"While we are at it—shall I make one more? Which of the two do you think looks better, in your view?"

"Between the prince and yourself?"

An odd question, and genuinely amusing. Without a second thought, she pointed at Cyrix. The painted prince was a considerable beauty in his own right—but Cyrix, who existed in fact and was standing right here, was more handsome by any measure, subjective or otherwise.

"You look better."

An expected conclusion, really. A house of this standing would have selected renowned beauties as wives across generation after generation—naturally, the descendants grew only more beautiful over time.

"Your builds are similar, though. It seems the prince's traits haven't disappeared entirely."

"Is that so."

Hearing this, he turned toward the painting with a peculiar expression—sunk, somehow, in something she could not name, nothing in him that was quite laughing or quite crying.

His profile.