Chapter 30

“I saw father! So he’s ok!? Is what you said true!? Did Hector say he would release him!?”

I jumped back, startled by the onslaught of questions. While most dreams would fade in or give the sense of continuity, I was shaken by the abruptness of this one. I could barely focus her in the nebulous white space I found us in, both of us standing on nothing.

“I can’t believe you got the magic to work! And you even floated onto a horse!? Even if you did land a bit rough. And a dragon!? That sounds dangerous!”

“Rose, please,” I cut in, “slow down. What’s going on? Why am I floating here?” I looked around, feeling disoriented by the nothingness.

“Oh… sorry about that,” she apologized, chuckling. With a snap of her fingers, the environment changed, and I was sitting at our dining table. There was a large pot of tea in the centre and Rose was already drinking from a cup when I rubbed my eyes, mildly disoriented.

“So,” she began again, “you got magic to actually work for you?”

That seemed the least of my concerns at the moment, but I knew it was in her nature to knock down topics one at a time. “Uh, yeah. Thanks for that, by the way.” I didn’t quite know what to say, but that felt better than anything I had said to her about it so far.

“You’re very very welcome,” she preened, looking proud of herself. “Now, to the important thing. Father.” She took a deep breath, and I could feel the hesitation from her as she didn’t yet know how to sort it all out. “He lied to us.”

That was not what I was expecting her to say. “Well, yes,” I agreed, as one can only do to an objective fact. “But I think he had his reasoning. I mean, in his situation—”

“Oh, I’m not mad or anything,” she clarified, but she couldn’t hide the minimal annoyance that she felt. “It’s just that I… I mean… I don’t know!” she huffed. “He always told us that she died giving birth to us! And now it wasn’t that at all…”

Well, in a way, giving birth to us did cause her to be found, I thought but didn’t say.

It didn’t matter though, one look and Rose might as well have seen into my head. “Yeah, I know, I know,” she grumbled. “It’s still our fault…” She kept her head down, staring into her cup.

“No no! I didn’t mean it like that.” But I had, and she knew it. Denial was futile. “I don’t think we’re to blame. It’s still different. She was killed by Hector.”

Crack. The tea quickly spilt out of the pot as it fragmented, running over the sides of the table. I shuffled back, avoiding the tea-fall onto my imaginary clothing. Rose didn’t flinch.

“Then we’ll kill him,” she muttered. There was an aura around her, a dark cloud that I didn’t see with my eyes.

“Well, yes… maybe…” I answered, uncertain. “I don’t know how feasible that is. We still have T— him.” I thought better than to say the other name, stopping after the last second.

“Hmmm…” She let out a sigh, slumping back in her chair. The tea was gone from the table, now just plain wood. I saw the third chair that I couldn’t remember if I had seen a second ago where our father would sit. Rose looked over to it, appearing tired as she turned her head. “And Hector said that he would set father free?”

“Yeah,” I affirmed with a nod.

“I want to see it myself.”

I grimaced, the thought of reliving a memory unpleasant due to the nausea it induced, but it’s not as if Rose had been privy to the conversation. “Alright.”

Without another word I was back there. My stomach turned but I couldn’t move from where my feet had been rooted that morning. If anything, the fact that I physically could not throw up was a small grace.

“Ren, I’ll tell you what.” Our uncle stared us in the face, unblinking as he repeated the words to me. “If you do this, I’ll make sure that your father is no longer a concern. I won’t even keep him as a prisoner.”

See, I thought, He said he wouldn’t even keep him as a prisoner!

Hector jumped back, not physically, but rather appeared where he had been a few seconds earlier. “I won’t even keep him as a prisoner.” He jumped back again. “I won’t even keep him as a prisoner.” He jumped back again. “I won’t even keep him as a prisoner.” He jumped back again. “I won’t even keep him as a prisoner.”

Rose, please stop! I begged, living out a skipping movie. You heard him.

“Oh, sorry!” she quickly apologized, as if lost in thought while I felt like I had just ridden the worst roller coaster of my life.

The world spun once more and I felt like I was sitting in the chair backwards and upside down as Rose sat across from me. “It appears that that’s the case. We need to stay on uncle’s good side.”

I nodded. “I was told that he was naturally good with mana based magic. Given what we know about mother, that makes sense.”

Yes. If mother still was able to control her mana, just not perform magic, that would explain how that would be his natural attribute. Magic here is weird,” she mumbled.

“‘Here’? As opposed to…?”

“I mean, just in general,” she clarified. “It’s just that, a magic that can only be used by taking the souls of others for fuel? Kinda messed up.”

I nodded, completely in agreement.

“I just… I wish I got to meet her,” Rose said with a wistful sigh. I looked to the other side of the table, following her gaze to another chair that I had never in my life recall seeing sat in that spot. “And I am still grateful to father. This life has been amazing, all things considered.”

My head twitched a bit. It wasn’t the first time she had said something like that. “‘This life’?” I repeated.

“Hmm, what?” she asked back.

“It’s just… odd. You said that about mother, too,” I pressed. I didn’t want to hope, to think that in the past thirteen years I had missed something so potentially significant. Sure, she had been a quick learner, and smart, but so had I. But for a particular reason. “Is this not your first life?”

“What? Why would you say that?” It wasn’t a denial, and I could feel the shock radiating off of her.

“Rose, did you live another life before this one!?”

“Did you!?”

“Yes!” I shouted, sputtering in surprise.

“Me too!” she exclaimed, gasping. “Why didn’t you ever tell me!?”

“Why didn’t you?” I countered.

“Well… how would I even ask that?”

“…Ok, that’s fair,” I conceded. “But what were you? Japanese? American?” I blurted out. “No no, that’s probably too specific. Were you from Earth?” The word didn’t really translate the same, so I said it in Japanese, my mouth feeling weird even in the dream as I replicated motions. “Or Earth?” I repeated in English after taking a second to remember the word.

“What?” She looked at me as if I had two heads. “No, I’m from—”