Chapter 25

25

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With seventy-five cards obliterated on the spot, only three remained. The Sun and Moon cards had melded to become Dark Eclipse, within which Lineer and Linore had been hiding for the entire duration of the Tarot War. The third and final card, Whisper of The Heart, had a barrier surrounding its entrance and would have to be left for exploration later. Caste flew high into the sky and thrust herself into The Moon's side of Dark Eclipse. Upon giving chase, Chise and Fiaerna were thrust into The Sun's side as the card mischievously flipped about-face before they could stop themselves from being pulled in. Immersed inside The Sun and The Moon's respective memories, the three could do nothing but watch as their stories began to simultaneously unfold. Lineer was a young maid who'd fallen hopelessly in love with Queen Delia's personal butler, Linore. Having both been street orphans found and taken in by Karnelian, Lineer took it upon herself to help Linore adjust to his life within the castle walls, taking secret joy in watching him succeed in his duties. She never told him how much they'd had in common, for he'd assumed upon meeting her that she had been born into a well-off family. Though they were both only ten when they'd first arrived, Lineer had always appeared to be prim and proper. Quiet and kind natured. He could never imagine that she too was a child of squalor, raised from the ashes of poverty only by chance. If Karnelian's horse hadn't gone wild and galloped into the filthy alleyway she'd called home, she'd never have lived long enough to acquire such lady-like behavior in the first place. His story was much the same. Karnelian caught Linore stealing from his steed's satchel during a hunting trip. "Those apples are for my stallion, you know. Specifically hybridized, altered and grown to aid in his digestion." The white horse whinnied. Linore spat the apple bits out immediately. Karnelian continued in spite of the boy's coughing fit. "If, however, you'd like some food fit for a man, come and work for my wife. She's an anxious over-worker and with your help I'd really like to change that for her. What say you?" Lineer and Linore took Karnelian's hand those fateful days. And yet, both would break the King's trust and their own hearts in the process. As the years wore on it was clear Lineer had an unhealthy codependent attachment to Linore. Scene shift. Caste finds herself at the young maid's writing desk, holding a shaking quill in one hand and crumpled paper in the other. The book on the desk flipped open to reveal Lineer's secret thoughts and misgivings. Within the young maid's diary were hateful scribblings which powerfully illustrated her disdain for the Queen. "I was never fussy even when he fawned over that blue blooded hussy I would do anything for my gentle Linore At odds are we forevermore I the nobody and She the Royal whore" along with delusional love letters to the man who would never truly see her, "We are Twin Flames and he shines brighter than the rising sun." But Lineer's sweet, childhood poetry had eventually elevated from spiteful to incredibly dark. At one point, the diary mused, she'd gone so far as to carve a sinister limerick into Delia's dress closet hoping she would see. Casterline's vision darted back and forth as she read, "Wandering eyes were the cause of my cries. With Love in doubt? I plucked them out...and now I have my prize. -Lineer, blinded by the Sun" Disturbing as it was, Casterline had already seen much, much worse in her time here. On Fiaerna and Chise's end, Linore exhibited that very same obsessive nature for Queen Delia Krowne. He was publicly somber during the mourning period of King Karnelian's passing but privately he was elated. It seemed terrifyingly obvious that Lineer and Linore were perfect for one another. Truly a match made in Hell. There was no ache quite like unrequited love, this was absolutely true. But the lengths they would go to. The self-inflicted torture of it all was so terribly sad to see. If only they could have truly loved one another. If only they'd never met. If only. If only. If only. The painful memories were seeping into the onlookers own hearts and they too began to feel every twinge of heartache shared between The Sun and The Moon. The diary was suddenly set ablaze. Footsteps entered the room of memories. "All I ever wanted...was to share in the Two of Cups...with you." Lineer lamented to the walls as she intruded upon the space, closing and locking the door behind her. She then slowly turned to face Casterline, in her hand she held a card made of her own Magic, The Jilted Lovers card. Fiery stars rose from the card and drove at Casterline like heat seeking missiles. "Reversal!" Caste screamed. The stars rerouted and turned on their creator. It was this action from both sides of the cards that revealed the true forms of her adversaries. Though only half of their faces had been made visible. Before Fiaerna's Darkness had crept into the hearts of the castle workers, Lineer was innocent, naive and full of hope for her first love. Linore was hardworking and loyal. Though he only had eyes for Queen Delia, Lineer found his loyalty to be beautiful and endearing. Knowing he would never love her back only made her heart ache more and more. Linore felt the very same for his own plight. Hopeless though their loves were, the two continued to agonize and watch one another from afar. Lineer grew to despise the Queen. Delia, too busy with her constant work, never noticed Linore's yearning gaze. She did receive mystery bouquets here and there but with no card nor signature, she assumed they were from an admiring subject of the lower lands. At first, he was besotted. But his love slowly soured over time and his bitterness turned hateful. Not towards the Queen, no. He took his unrequited rage out on Lineer. Eventually he would come to blame Lineer for every mistake he made. He would accuse her of things she'd never dream of doing just so that he could have a word with the Queen directly to discuss how best to correct Lineer's unbecoming behavior. His abuse of power over Lineer ended when they'd become inhuman monsters, and her Darkness overtook her. She remembered nothing of her human life but that she'd hated a woman named Delia and had loved a man she worshiped like the sun. The Sun. Her Sun. She knew only his warmth and he obeyed only her words. They'd awoken as a pair, rising from a long slumber beneath the desert holding hands. And for a moment, her life was bliss, until she'd spotted a woman resembling Delia and all of her hatred came flooding back along with her shattered memories and severely broken heart. Before she'd become a monster, she'd simply been a young lady starved for love. The same was mirrored in Linore and his Empress Delia card. His Solar Flare attacks, which shot from the Empress card's eyes, were thwarted just as easily by Fiaerna and Chise, and just as Casterline had done, Fiaerna shouted, "Deflect!" to turn all of Linore's rage imbued attacks upon him. Delia had taught her many card games using a deck of Scrying cards much like the Tarot decks of Casterline's world. And so the idea of reversal and deflection came naturally to her. Chise, of course, had her own idea on how to attack the enemy. She swallowed the Solar Flares and spat them rapid fire right back at Linore. Remembering all the colorful details of their human lives caused them such great physical pain that neither Lineer nor Linore could dodge the onslaught of return hits. Eventually, they were forced from opposing sides of their Dark Eclipse card by the three fighters. As the card slowly dissolved in a spray of fire and starlight, The Sun and The Moon locked eyes. As the facade of their inhuman forms melted away in a spray of red and blue glitter, it was as though Linore was finally seeing Lineer, truly seeing her, for the first time since they'd met so very long ago. His eyes were full of pain as he realized how much love he'd wasted on the wrong woman. Lineer had been at his side, cheering him on, loving him in spite of it all. His ugliness, his covetous nature, his jealousy toward a King he didn't even have the right to serve under, a good man. A real man. One he'd so quietly mocked in death. A Queen overwhelmed by grief. And a maid with a head full of weddings and fairy stories, a sweet girl who saw him and loved him no matter the cost. His pain became hers and now here they were at last, neither having ever felt more love than for one another. Real love. Mutual and whole. And he'd wasted so much time being so blinded by Delia's vibrant radiance that only now could he see Lineer's quiet beauty. Her poetry, he remembered, was actually quite lovely once upon a time. Her talent with the quill had given her the opportunity to leave her position in servitude to the Castle and join any prestigious academy of her choosing. Not as a student, nay. She was invited to teach the power of the written word to young aspiring authors and Magicians alike. But she declined the wondrous offer in order to stay at Linore's side. Her joy was in him and nothing else. She was beyond the point of caring about her future. This pained Linore greatly. They'd both been blinded by fantasy and speculation. Assumptions and wishful thinking. But now that the Darkness corroding their hearts was fading away with them, their deepest feelings and most agonizing regrets could be realized and communicated properly to one another. But just as Linore reached out his hand to grab Lineer's, their bodies began to turn to stone. "Lineer, I lo--" Their fingertips had been so close to touching. Their love so close to becoming real. Their hardened, statuesque bodies fell from the sky and into a card that had fallen face up onto the desert sands. "We can't let it end this way." Casterline whispered through tears.

And now there remained but one final card. Whisper of The Heart. The Sun and Moon having jumped into Dark Eclipse earlier on, seemingly had no Arcana Cards of their own. Casterline sensed that their codepence upon one another had destroyed their ability to keep their individual realms within separate cards. There had to be a reason for their shared suffering. There had to be a happy ending for them. Caste was determined to make it so. "They're in there! Let's go!" Casterline swept Fiaerna up into her arms and flew into the last card with her faithful Summon beside her. The card reverberated, sending the girls backwards a small ways from it's entrance. A massive beating heart emerged from within before they could enter, stopping them dead in their tracks. None of them had ever seen a human heart up close before, much less one of such gargantuan size. "This is...the heartbreak card." Three swords, silver, gold, and azure in color were pierced deeply into it.

"We have to pull them out. It's the only way to end their suffering. We must set their hearts free. Ready yourselves, ladies." On the count of three they pulled their swords out from the massive, bleeding heart. The heart's slow, rhythmic beating began to quicken at an alarming rate until it took its final beat and exploded into oblivion. Casterline and Chise used their large wings to shield the group. All that remained where the heart had just been were the smiling, fading souls of Lineer and Linore. Wholly human. Wholly in love. And now wholly gone from this world. So marked the end of a tragic tale of mislead romance.