The Withering Flower

Lavenza answered with no hesitation. After all, from now on, there was nothing left to hide.

“I’ve possessed this flower for quite some time now,” she said.

“What?” Deme answered. “Since when?”

“A long time ago,” Lavenza said. “I retrieved Rafta from the Abyss years before we met, shortly after it was revealed that the Endire was dying.”

“And you didn’t—But—Then—But—”

Deme’s questions started and stopped. There were too many. She had wondered, almost every day, how many secrets Lavenza kept from her. She was always terrified to know. Now she knew why it scared her so.

“I knew your father,” she explained, “and I knew your mother. Their wish was for you to survive the end of this age, no matter the consequences. I loved your mother, so I set out to find a way to protect you. It didn’t take long for me to figure out how.”

“T-the Rafta that we found in the Abyss,” Deme whispered. She suddenly remembered. “Old Calvin said… he said…”

“Ah, yes,” Lavenza smiled. “One of the few legends the old man was correct about. It was the first I’d seen it, but Rafta withers in the presence of other flowers. The one we found in the Abyss reacted to the one in my pocket dimension. It’s also why I didn’t want to shove our beautiful black mare inside that space. The little beast might have eaten it before it was time.”

“Time? Time for what?”

“This doorway, the one that you claim to have seen in a dream,” Lavenza motioned to the darkness. “What lies beyond the door is what we Menuans refer to as the Whispering Chamber. In the final days, us Menuans were to perform a rite, to bless one chosen among us to await the rebirth of the world.”

“Chosen one,” Deme muttered. “Eco Severin.”

“Eco Severin,” Lavenza nodded.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Deme sighed. “You said one blessed among you? The ritual was meant for a Menuan, then?”

“Not just any Menuan, Deme. It was meant for me.”

“So what?” Deme asked. “I’m supposed to just take your spot?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t mean to offend you or your people, Venz, but I’m looking into this Whispering Chamber right now,” Deme frowned. “It definitely fits more than one person.”

“True,” Lavenza laughed. “But the magic required for Eco Severin can only be used on the blessed one. And the magic required is rather substantial.”

“The ley lines you’ve been gathering?” Deme surmised. “And the heart of the Demon King too?”

“Yes.”

“You really did know Antigonus didn’t you?” Deme grumbled. “It wasn’t a slip of the tongue.”

“Not intimately,” Lavenza shook her head. “He helped me look for Rafta in the Abyss once.”

“How? How many times have you lied to me?” Deme cried. “I don’t know—I mean…who are you, really, Venz? How do I know this Whispering Chamber isn’t actually a room that eats me alive?”

“If the purpose was to sacrifice you, child, I don’t think I would have needed to go through that much trouble,” Lavenza shrugged. “Deme, I know this is confusing—”

“It’s not confusing at all!” Deme shouted. “It’s because you make sense that it’s infuriating! You couldn’t just tell me about my mother and father’s master plan? You couldn’t just hand Rafta to me at the very beginning?”

“Had I handed it to you, you might have attempted to cross The Great Sea. I could not allow that.”

“Why not?”

Lavenza sighed.

“Deme, I need you to listen to me very closely, very carefully, okay?” she said.

“There is no such thing as The Opposing Shore.”

Deme flinched backward, so much so she almost stumbled into the chamber beyond.

“What are you saying?” she said. “The ships—We saw your friend leave…”

“The Opposing Shore is a convenient fiction,” Lavenza said. “It was made up to convince all of Aparthia that salvation existed if only people crossed The Great Sea.”

“So what’s actually across The Great Sea?”

“Nothing,” Lavenza said. “A long stretch of ocean, and then nothing.”

“But that would mean Samuel, Old Calvin,” Deme muttered. “Even Ariadne…”

“Deme,” Lavenza rested her hands on the child’s shoulders. “Listen to me. The death of the Endire is not something you can escape by simply sailing across the ocean. All will turn to ice and dust. And then we’ll be petrified, myself included, but not you Deme.”

“I can’t do it,” Deme cried. “I can’t! Why does it have to be me? Me alone?”

“Deme, listen to me,” Lavenza knelt down to the child and held her hands. “It has to be you, you hear me? It has to be you. I will not be going into the Whispering Chamber.”

“Then send Richard!” she screamed.

Deme’s anger seemed unyielding, and yet, to Lavenza’s great surprise, the child threw herself into her arms. She cried, staining the apostate’s robes with rivers of snot and tears. She thrashed frantically. One moment, she was hitting Lavenza’s arms with clenched fists. The next, she was clutching onto her sleeves as if to never let go.

“You’re paying me to do this,” she whimpered. “You’re paying me with this stupid flower. You won’t give Rafta to me unless I go, right? That was always the plan. My father asked for this too, didn’t he? He knew I would listen to his dying last words, that sly old man.”

“Your father didn’t know,” Lavenza soothed. Her arms embraced the child. “He left the particulars to me and your mother before he passed.”

“My mother. She was the friend you mentioned in Centa Muis, right?” Deme sniffed. “So she knew before she sailed…I’ve never even met her.”

“You would not have liked her. She lies even more than I do.”

“I still like you, Venz,” Deme wiped her eyes with her sleeves. “I just—I don’t know. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here, finish my father’s armor, and then watch whatever happens at world’s end together.”

“No,” Lavenza shook her head. “The world has no more need for mages and empresses. It’s time to start anew beneath a new Endire. I’m not fit for that world. But you are, Deme. That's why you can't stay here.”

“You’re just saying that.”

Lavenza laughed.

“Let me tell you. I agreed to do this for your mother’s sake,” she said, “but I loved and hated you the moment I saw you. I loved you because you were everything your mother wasn’t. Excitable. Courageous. You wore everything on your face. I hated you because you looked like her.”

“Looked like her?”

“You were everything we were,” Lavenza said, “and you were everything we weren’t. I thought to myself, if I had a child, I would have wanted to raise her so that she would be just like you.”

“What’s even going to happen when I step in there?” Deme whispered.

“Nothing,” Lavenza shook her head. “A few hours will pass, a day maybe. You might grow a little hungry. Then, the doors of the Whispering Chamber will open, and you’ll awaken in whatever world comes after this one.”

“Will there even be one?”

“I think there will be,” Lavenza said. “Tamarin and Faye certainly believed that there will be those who follow in the footsteps of demonkind. Why should that not be true for us here above ground in Aparthia?”

“What if they’re so different, I can’t understand them?” Deme asked. “What if whoever is out there doesn’t like me?”

“Deme,” she smiled. “We’ve traveled for months. Years. Haven’t you forgotten? People don’t like me, the silent, unapproachable apostate. You’ve befriended people of all places, here and below. Besides, if anyone is mean, you’ll have your father’s armor, imbued with the flower that he wanted you to find.”

“I can’t do this without you,” Deme started to sob again. “You’ve always been here to protect me. I can’t do it without you.”

“Child...”

Lavenza hugged Deme tighter. When she pulled away, she asked for her hand and, into it, Lavenza placed the blossom of Rafta. Deme felt a power surge through her fingertips. It was pure instinct. Almost immediately, she knew in what manner she would set it to reforge her father’s armor. Lavenza curled the child’s fingers closed.

“Let me teach you one final word, Deme,” she said. “Akansha.”

“Akansha.”

“It refers to the body, the space, and the spirit,” Lavenza explained. “When the Endire fades, it will turn cold, and my body will transform into stone shortly thereafter. Then, a thousand years of listless winds will pull me apart, pebble by pebble, until even the smallest rock is eroded into specks of dust. When that happens, you cannot say for certain where I existed in this world.”

Deme buried her face again in Lavenza’s robes and shook her head.

"No!" she whimpered.

“But the spirit, Deme,” Lavenza kissed the child’s cheeks. “The spirit goes where no body or space can touch. It can vanish, certainly, but its quality is more powerful, made of loftier things than earth or water or flesh.”

She touched the Rafta in Deme’s hand.

“Right now, my spirit is here,” she said. “I’m right here, and as long as you remember me, I’ll always be right here.”

“Akansha,” Deme said. “I... I understand, Lavenza.”

“That's my girl," Lavenza smiled. "Eco Severin.”

Lavenza had no more words to say. She rose to her feet, carrying Deme with her. The child wiped her red eyes with her sleeves, but had to resort to her dry shirt collar instead. She walked forward into the Whispering Chamber. It wasn’t so dark once she stepped inside. It reminded her of Lavenza’s pocket dimension, that strange hollow where everything seemed dark but somehow retained a semblance of form and shadow.

Deme looked at Lavenza again. With a hammer, she smelted the apostate’s face into her memory. She couldn’t cry. Not anymore. One blurry tear and she would have ruined her mental sculpture. She needed the apostate she fashioned in her mind to last as long as the life that had been given back to her.

“Goodbye, Lavenza,” Deme said. "You’re right here with me.”

Lavenza nodded.

And then the doors to the Whispering Chamber sealed close.