Israel_P_Villareal

Chapter 91: the mysterious bird

Chapter 91: the mysterious bird


"Xerxez, calm yourself." Perlend, in a panic, tried to soothe Xerxez, whose reaction to the ashes scattered near the infant was one of terror. She calmed him while preoccupied with cleaning the remnants, yet the stain remained etched on the white linen of their bed.


Xerxez, desperate, resolved to investigate his surroundings, peering out the window, beyond the door, and even behind the massive cabinets. Perlend could not help but laugh. "The Phoenix of Peronica has approached our child!" Perlend exclaimed with joyous fervor, causing Xerxez to halt and sink onto a seat beside the infant. Xerxez gazed tenderly into Perlend’s eyes.


"The Phoenix?" Xerxez questioned, the word seizing his mind. "Is it not merely a legend of your country?" His eyes were clouded with a deep sorrow, a stark contrast to his wife’s elation. "Did you sleep well last night?"


"Xerxez—what has gotten into you?! To stare at me so... Do you refuse to believe?" Perlend rebuked, though her fervor for the Phoenix slowly withered. She handed the jar to Xerxez. "Come, join me at my altar." Perlend beckoned, taking the sleeping babe into her arms. She instantly brought the infant near the painted image of the Phoenix, the very one she had commissioned Xerxez to paint long ago. Xerxez placed the porcelain jar beside the altar. Perlend lit a candle upon the Phoenix’s altar, which also held a small wooden statue, a piece Perlend had personally commissioned from the lands of Vhorlandrus.


Perlend anointed Pyramus’s brow with myrrh, and suddenly, they witnessed the candle’s flame change its hue to match the color of the phoenix flower. Xerxez’s eyes were riveted to the candles, his jaw slack in astonishment.


"The candle flame is the color of the flower in the painting. How can such a thing be?" Xerxez picked up a candle, only for its color to revert, yet when he placed it back, the light of the two flames once more became identical.


"Pyramus is blessed by the Phoenix," Perlend answered, drawing close to Xerxez and embracing him with one arm. Xerxez felt the same emotion, both of them holding the child. "This means... the Phoenix of Peronica has chosen our child; the infant now carries the blessing of the Phoenix’s soul." Perlend’s voice was triumphant, but a sudden dizziness assailed her mind. She gripped Xerxez’s waist, and this was the first harbinger of the curse.


Xerxez paused, his mind reeling. He turned toward the window as Perlend sat, sensing the change within herself. Her fingers began to tremble as the curse came to mind, and she clutched the infant tighter.


"But is it not strange? According to the legend of Peronica... only those of the bloodline of the initial chosen may be selected... and I have heard that Queen Pyramia holds the last lineage of the Phoenix blood." Xerxez’s gaze was distant, his mind seemingly journeying to Peronica. "Yet, someone told me that Pyramia’s child bore a curse." He exhaled a heavy sigh, looking down where people busied themselves with their tasks, horses pulled carts, and soldiers marched toward the Rigil district. "This cannot be, for the child of Queen Pyramia is dead." Xerxez declared, turning to Perlend, his face etched with sorrow. "Could it be... that this is not the true Phoenix?" Perlend gave no answer, instead grasping her sword once more and declaring: "Or has someone truly entered here and attempted to play a trick on us?" Perlend merely smiled, but it lacked its former vitality, like a wilting bloom. Xerxez noted the paleness of Perlend’s face, her lips devoid of color, and unexpectedly, Perlend collapsed like a snuffed candle, her body hitting the polished marble with a dull clang. Xerxez was instantly consumed by alarm at her sudden faint. He questioned Perlend when she regained consciousness, but she merely remained silent, overcome with shame. As Xerxez left the chamber, Perlend wept over the truth of her curse, already feeling her strength draining away.


Nevertheless, Perlend was happy to be with her husband and child, but Xerxez did not know this: Perlend was enduring the terrible nightmare—the cursed malady. Fearful that Xerxez would abandon her, her tongue fell silent, her mouth bound by terror like a chained box, and she bore the suffering in secret.


That Sunday, Perlend returned to Peronica, the home of her birth, which she had abandoned for love. Yet, she learned of the King of Peronica’s demise, and the entire nation was now plunged into mourning.


The Queen of Peronica sat upon the balcony, her mind sadly drifting through the day’s ceremony. The Princess’s room, with a magnificent old dress adorning a large mannequin, and the King’s throne haunted her memories like a ghost. So, though weariness weighed on her bones, she rose and walked. Her own reflection in the mirror offered silent sympathy in her solitude as she passed walls of fragile Crystal. The funeral pyre ceremony for her husband, the King of Peronica, had just concluded. Her black mourning gown was weary from soaking up the Queen’s tears. Her sandals, too, seemed reluctant to carry her, like a carriage stalled on the road.


It was late afternoon, the sunlight was somber, and the whispers of the chambers were hushed; only the sorrowful music of the entire nation echoed in Queen Pyramia’s lonely heart. She walked barefoot, her shoulders drooping, clutching the King’s crown as she moved through the rooms.


As she passed the Princess’s chamber, she suddenly heard a noise—a sound like something clawing at a cabinet, like a thief forcing it open.


Pyramia’s immediate response: she seized the heavy sword from a nearby statue, slowly entered the room, and investigated the noise. Her fingers still carried the scent of the candle wax as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her hair resembled an abandoned bird’s nest; yet, in the Queen’s mind, she was ready to fight, though her heart was heavy with grief. The Queen indeed saw the cabinet shaking, like a fierce beast trapped in her daughter’s room.


Queen Pyramia tentatively grasped the latch, her hesitation making her hand feel like a porcupine. The Queen’s sword was poised like a scorpion’s tail. As she opened it, the pale face of a woman was revealed, her lips white, as if encased in ice, and her breath whispering as if from a deep well.


"Perlend?" The Queen’s eyes widened. The sword clattered to the floor like a branch snapped from a tree, and for a fleeting moment, time stood still. "Is that truly you?" She recoiled, filled with doubt that she might be hallucinating.


"Mama!" Perlend called out, the sound slow, as if she bore the weight of the entire world. Instead of an embrace—a slap was delivered by Queen Pyramia, leaving a bruise on her cheek. Anger and shock drove her to strike Perlend, whom she had previously protected fiercely from even a fly’s touch. But now, Queen Pyramia could not restrain herself because of Perlend’s flight long ago. Yet, seeing her daughter, she recalled the curse, and Pyramia was consumed by pity and regret for having hurt her. She moved away from Perlend.


Pyramia could not yet discern the infant strapped to Perlend’s back. Pyramia avoided close contact, as if the woman before her were a leper, yet Perlend relentlessly pressed forward, weeping and striving for her mother’s attention. Despite her labored breathing, Perlend pursued her mother until she reached the doorway. Perlend felt the magnitude of her mother’s anger, especially since she had only now appeared after a year, during which everyone believed the princess to be dead.


"You had a secret passageway?" Perlend merely nodded at Queen Pyramia’s question, as if she lacked the tongue to explain the secret’s disclosure. Perlend’s vision wavered like an earthquake, and her head ached as if splitting apart. She longed to explain but was also ashamed that she had defied her parents.


Perlend’s mother rolled her eyes, refusing to look at her. Pyramia’s gaze became fixed once more on the cabinet, the very reason Perlend could leave without their knowledge; even Perlend’s father was oblivious to this, all due to the girl’s youthful recklessness, willing to do anything to follow the dictates of her heart.


Queen Pyramia had always been strict about her daughter’s travels outside the palace, fearing that no man would fail to desire the Princess. Fearing the curse of the Phoenix, she chose to be a stern mother. Yet, the Princess felt stifled by the Queen’s excessive worry about the curse. In this moment, Pyramia slowly acknowledged her own fault, realizing why Perlend chose to marry and elope with a stranger. Still, she could not fully grasp why her kind and quiet daughter would run away and hurt their feelings, especially when their sole desire was Perlend’s well-being.


"Mama, I heard about Papa... and—" Perlend began, seeing her father’s crown in Queen Pyramia’s hand. Perlend’s fingers trembled, and her breath caught; the curse was tightening its grip due to the sorrow she now felt, and a rash of pale bumps was beginning to cover her skin.


Perlend had learned of the King of Peronica’s passing only a week ago, coinciding with Pyramus’s birth. This was why Perlend had rushed to return to Peronica despite her failing health. Before reaching Peronica, she struggled to walk and was thankfully aided constantly by her personal maid, whom she had left outside the secret passage to await her.


"He grieved for so long when you vanished from Peronica. He refused to accept your loss. Everyone thought you were dead or devoured by a wild beast near that stream, the secret rendezvous of young women—and all because of that cursed passageway!" Queen Pyramia’s tears flowed anew as she recalled her husband’s intense grief over their lost child. "If you only knew, there wasn’t a day he stopped searching, nor a night he slept without thinking of you." Pyramia clutched the crown, the King she would never hold again. "And now you only appear when your father is dead?" The question hung in the air, a devastating blow to Perlend’s very being.


Tears streamed from Perlend as she heard of her father’s fate, a pain like a knife slicing through her heart, especially at her mother’s words. She collapsed at her mother’s feet, begging for forgiveness.


"Forgive me... forgive me..." she repeated over and over, bitter tears falling onto her mother’s feet. But those fresh tears kissed the Queen’s feet, a palpable sign of Perlend’s heartfelt supplication. Yet, her mother’s cold, mournful face merely questioned why she had done it. Her parents had given her everything, yet Perlend’s actions were worse than dragging and pushing them toward a chasm.


"Why?" It was a question that would make even the poets of history ponder deeply—they knew what happened, but they would still ask why it occurred. But for Perlend, the only answer was tears and regret. Her lips held no voice, a soundless groan escaping her open mouth. "Why did you do this to us, Perlend?"


Silence reigned for a few seconds, and both were consumed by their own regrets. However, the infant’s cry shattered their stillness, causing Queen Pyramia’s heart to clench at the sound of the innocent child, a symbol of Perlend’s obstinance. Yet, seeing Perlend’s face, her emotions hardened once more, and she asked Perlend: "Who is that child’s father?" The Queen’s eyebrows rose again, scrutinizing every tear that fell down Perlend’s face.


Perlend caught her breath, wiping the tears from her cheek with a defiant sadness. Her eyes were brave as she met her mother’s gaze, like a woman of great audacity. "I loved Xerxez." The Queen’s eyebrows crossed like clashing swords as she heard the familiar name. "A King of Thallerion is my child’s father."


"Xerxez?" Queen Pyramia’s lips trembled as she spoke the name, and she nearly fainted, as if struck by a hard hammer, at Perlend’s bold revelation of the child’s true father. "The wedding in Thallerion—that was your wedding, then?" She sank onto the bed, collapsing like a sandcastle washed away by a wave. "How could that happen?" Queen Pyramia could not fully comprehend the truth that Xerxez was the very reason for their princess’s disappearance. The Queen’s eyes were like a warrior’s preparing for battle, demanding to know why the King had done this to them.