I stood in my room, staring at the mirror.
Mirabel was behind me, brushing my hair with that practiced gentleness she used only on me.
She liked doing this for whatever reason, and I was not one to refuse most of her demands.
Her hand moved down the length of my hair as I retold the events I could not stop thinking about, speaking them aloud to steady myself.
"I think she will be okay now. Okay with herself, I mean." I spoke as Mirabel flicked the dust from the end of my hair.
She smiled, soft and steady."As long as she forgives herself, all else can be forgiven."
The closest way to God is the forgiving of self so that God may forgive you. It is the acknowledgment of sin.
Sin is what this world is contingent on. It is a contingent world, fragile in its certainties and cruel in its rules.
"I want to connect with all those who fear or hate me, the people, the knights, the nobles."
The words felt like both a promise and a threat.
She chuckled, then her expression shifted. "I forgot to mention. The Golden Authority has sent St. Satire to visit."
My eyes widened and my heart began to pound. I had almost forgotten. This was how they always found a new way to trap me.
Satire was a devourer of time, a woman who called herself a saint and moved like a blade.
She was a time mage who slaughtered the in-between, severing moments so cleanly nothing bled through.
She had come to the castle when I had tried to escape once before.
She slaughtered everyone, and it happened before a moment in time had properly passed. She was vile.
"I see," Mirabel said, steadying herself. "We should prepare. But trusting the Golden Authority, I will not."
Blood splattered across the mirror, a sudden black bloom that made my stomach drop.
Mirabel froze. Then she wrapped her arms around me and pressed her magicae into my skin, warm and deliberate.
Her power cleansed what my illness poisoned. Her magicae was light where mine carried a negative echo, a corrosive twin.
She healed me with a will that refused to accept my decay.
"What is it you fail to tell me, Nicholas?" she asked softly, her chin resting on my shoulder.
I forced a smile that tasted like iron.
"I am a fool, Mirabel. An idiot. Can this idiot not spare you his foolish thoughts?"
She knew, of course. She always did. She could not give me answers I refused to accept.
She only held me until my magicae felt a little less tainted.
"When she comes, I want people watching her. And I want knights to escort her everywhere." My voice sounded small in the large room.
Mirabel nodded and rested her chin on my shoulder. "As for Nicole?"
I thought for a moment, the thought a sharp stone in my mind. "I will assign her a new role. She will participate in the war."
Nicole should have been crown princess, but my parents decided I was the better fit.
She had never wanted the throne. She wanted something else, something beyond titles.
So she became a fighter, and later a servant. Fate and punishment are strange that way.
Mirabel hummed, surprised and approving. "You have considered all of this. I am impressed."
"No, I'm greedy, I'm selfish, I want to accomplish all my goals with the least amount of effort or loss, I'm vile."
I looked forward, into the blankness behind my eyes. The world restricted me too tightly.
Time in this world obeyed laws most people never understood, the law of noncontradiction among them.
Nothing could both be and not be in the same way at the same time.
But time beyond that law was greater and stranger. It was not a river that flowed one way.
It was a thicket of tangled paths where paradox breathed, where causality folded and touched itself.
To reach into that thicket meant to hold two opposed truths and let them coexist.
That is what I wanted. I wanted to reach the fifth wall before the war began.
It was an arrogant thing to admit aloud.
To aim beyond the walls was to claim mastery over the shackles that bind all beings.
To say I would bend the rules the world uses to keep itself from unravelling.
Yet the world's restrictions made it nearly impossible. Reality enforced consistency.
Magicae required structure and punished anyone who tried to pry at the scaffolding beneath the concept.
Manipulating time with magicae required a pool of power as deep as creation.
Those who could touch time without shattering were rarer than saints.
Satire was one of them. That was why she was dangerous. She already walked where I only dreamed to step.
My skin burned as I thought of admitting this. The shame of desire. The sting of ambition.
How grand my wish. How cowardly my voice. And how vast my hatred for those who took everything from me.
Those who were granted the sight of time were rare. Those who controlled it were rarer still.
Time was not merely a force. It was one of the greatest will, of those above imposed upon us.
I wanted to climb. I wanted to reach the walls they deemed unreachable.
The fifth wall was a blasphemy dressed as a goal. To desire it with such a time was arrogance.
Yet here I stood, asking to step where even the honored refused to look.
Mirabel tightened her hold, her magicae settling into my bones. "Then we will be careful," she said, simple and steady.
I turned around and faced her. "Currently, do you think my potential is great?"
She looked at me for a moment. "You are a genius."
I was not. This all came from my prior knowledge, though I would never refuse praise from her.
"Beyond that?" I asked calmly. "What of my physique?"
She placed a finger on her lip, the brush resting lightly in her hand. "It is terrible. We will have to mold you."
I laughed at that, because it was so blunt. "Alright. Tomorrow, I want to visit the altar. I wish to retrieve the heirloom they left behind."
She looked happy at that. It was something I had always refused to do.
My ancestors had set up a trial for every ruler who came after them.
I was supposed to complete it when I turned fifteen, but I refused, ever the lazy little bastard.
[Would he go against his nature? Nicholas might be developing into a real human.]
This damned voice was even more blunt than Mirabel or Malachi, talking to a future king like that.
I sniffed. "Am I weak, Mirabel? Am I a monster?"
She appeared almost hurt, hugging me tightly. "In my eyes, you are an angel."
[Falling victim to his lover's lies. How delusional.]
All human beings in this world were delusional. It was a given. So I did not care.
I shook my head into her chest. I allowed myself to be embraced, allowed myself to be deluded, all while plotting to break the truth itself.
I came from the future so that the future would have hope.
I broke the future so that the future would become me.
The night was drawing in, and we were both dressed to sleep.
I had forgotten what it felt like to rest beside another person.
To share warmth without feeling the cold weight of consequence pressing against my spine. It was good.
I was such an idiot, and yet even as I acknowledged that, I still indulged myself in her presence.
"I'm tired, Mirabel. I've done too much. I'm far too lazy to continue."
She chuckled softly, brushing her fingers through the ends of my hair. "Alright. It is getting late. We can sleep now."
Her voice made it easy to feel at ease. I would need her voice forever; I could not continue without it, not truly.
[A foolish lover boy. A foolish lover boy who would bring doom.]
I acknowledged my fate and walked to the bed.
I plopped down across the black covers, letting my exhaustion spill through the mattress.
Mirabel lay next to me, her eyes fixed on mine with a softness I wasn't sure I deserved.
"What made you change, truly?" she asked, her voice quiet enough to tremble.
I did not think I would ever be able to answer that before speaking with my sister.
But now I could, now that the truth had been dragged out of its hiding place inside me.
"Love. Is it not enough to love you, my sister, my kingdom… to rid myself of my foolish actions and ideals?"
She cupped my cheeks gently, her smile warm enough to steady everything inside me. "No. It is enough. It is definitely enough."