Alabaster
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I groggily groan as I lift my head from the desk I seem to have fallen asleep at. I blink a few times before jerking upright at the sound of knocks coming from my door. Lifting myself from the seat, I take a look out the window, noting the time of day based on the sun outside. This would be about time for Baudouin to inform me about the banquet.
“Come in,” I shout at the door. The door opens, Baudouin stepping through the entrance.
“M’lord,” he kneels, just as he did the last cycle I made it this far. “His highness, your father, has called you to a banquet.”
Called it. “Right, thank you, Baudouin. I’ll be on my way shortly,” I respond, hardly considering the approaching revolution.
“Would you require assistance in preparation?”
“No need. You may see your way out.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
I watch Baudouin walk to the door, open it, and close it before I adjust my crimson cloak and brush back my hair. I wash my face, the cold water ensures any grogginess is banished from my senses.
As I look around the room for what might be the last time this cycle, my eyes catch on the coronet. I pick it up for a moment. My eyes linger on the alabaster inscriptions as I set it down and turn to leave.
I stop by the armory for a moment to sneak a dagger, which I hide in my cloak, and continue on.
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I raise my hand in boredom as I walk the ten minute walk through the golden halls. The angle of the sun, setting as it is, highlights the oils of my skin on my hand almost sparkling in the light. I shift my hand in the air, fascinated at the colors brought out by the sun on my pale skin.
My arrival at the pillared arch startles me out of my reverie. I look at the royal guards, guarding the entrance. One of them, I notice, is that boy from the mess hall. The one Friederich told to get us mead. I wonder for a moment where these two will end up. At the end of this cycle, will they be part of the revolution hunting me down? Will they be slaughtered by the revolutionaries instead? Or will they even be there when it happens? None of the revolutionaries wore royal guard armor, and I doubt they could take down trained soldiers such as the royal guard. So what happens to the guard? I suppose that is what I am here to find out.
I smile at the boy before passing into the grand hall, now more grand than ever. The tables are covered in crimson, gold-rimmed table covers. Banisters inscribed with the house symbols of the countless noble families under the empire’s influence adorn the walls, with royal guards, garbed in golden armor polished till you could read a book in the reflection, situated between every single banister. It gives off the impression of wealth, power, and control I am quite sure father wants the nobility to have of him.
The hall is filled to the brim with chatty noble ladies and haughty noblemen. Some dance to the tunes of the royal bards while others agree profusely with each other about subjects they quite clearly don’t agree on.
I take a seat near my sister, trying my best to ignore the commotions around me. There is a reason I so fervently rejected the invitation before. I really, like really, don’t like crowds. I find myself tensing up, a claustrophobic feeling rising in my chest. Unfortunately, I’ll have to bear it if I want to get to the bottom of this time loop.
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So, I sit straight in the chair, and keep an eye out for anything odd.
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Maybe ten minutes later, maybe an hour, a serving boy comes up to Emperor Loqtalios. He whispers something to father, before heading off in the direction of the pillared entrance. Father leans forward in his seat, tapping his fingers on the desk. That is the last I can make out of whatever is happening there before a number of nobles crowd around the emperor, blocking my view.
In the next moment, I start feeling sick to my stomach. Looking around, the royal guards stationed around the hall start to break that unbreakable stoicism. It doesn’t happen all at once. One moment one is coughing. The next, a dozen. As it seems to spread through the room, slowly but surely royal guards drop to the ground clutching at their throats. One by one, the sickly retching sound multiplies tenfold, twenty fold, a hundredfold.
The next moment, I am holding my breath to keep from coughing up blood and bile. I stumble out of my chair. My eyes look up as screams are cut short. The servants, carrying around platters of food one moment, stab the closest noblemen the next. It is a slaughter.
Before the nobles can fight back, the sounds of gunshots rip through the air as revolutionaries flood in through the entrances. A girl just in front of me turns around, and my eyes meet hers, hers with a stare of blank horror. Before I can say a word, a gun shot rings out, somehow louder than any before. My face is splattered with blood. Her blood. The eyes I was staring at just a moment ago no longer hold that look of horror. Just blankness. Nothingness. Lifelessness.
My sister. My little sister, dead in front of me.
I collapse to the ground. On hands and knees, I retch blood just as the royal guards did a moment ago, my insides tearing themselves apart. My dagger falls from my cloak and clatters to the ground. No use whatsoever. When my arms no longer hold enough strength to keep me up, I collapse to the ground. My face slams against the ground, my vision going fuzzy for a second, but I couldn’t care less.
As I find myself unable to breath, my mind clears up. The pain fades away. The screams, gunshots, and crackling of fire fade to a subtle buzz at the back of my mind.
I blink twice, exactly 3 seconds between the blinks. In those three seconds, my mind can only think of one thing. The one thing keeping my mind clear. The one thing keeping me from screaming in spite of my bloody torn esophagus. The one thing letting me ignore the pain. Letting me ignore the sounds of screaming. Letting me ignore the lifeless eyes of that girl, my sister, staring into the depths of my very soul. The one thing keeping me sane in this fucked up world.
Just one thing.
This.
Is.
Not.
The.
End.
And I let myself fade into the darkness I have grown so intimately familiar with over the course of these cycles. The darkness, that gives way to light.
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I open my eyes to the familiar sight of my bedroom roof for the fourth time since this all began. I blink twice, taking 3 seconds between the blinks to straighten my thoughts out. I look at the door, and, no less than a second later, the door opens with a click. Baudouin comes in and opens his mouth to speak.
“M’lord, your-”
“Yes, yes, my father called a meeting. I know,” I interrupt. “You can tell him I won’t be coming.”
Baudouin takes a moment to respond, flabbergasted at the interruption, before affirming, “o’ course, m’lord.”
As he walks out of the room, I stand up. I walk to the desk, placing my hands on the edges and leaning against it. A single word comes from my mouth, barely a whisper, “fucking poison.”
I lean across the desk, carefully pick up the coronet, and walk over to the mirror.
I draw myself to my full height. Raising the coronet, it glints in the morning sun. As I set it upon my head, the alabaster inscriptions on it seem to glow with a confidence as the sunlight glimmers off it. My smile spreads across my face as I turn my head to the sky.
To some, it may seem as though I am speaking to the roof. And I may very well be. But, to me, my words carry the weight of deep anguish. The weight a man can only carry, if he has crossed death’s doorstep four times. A weight that rings out in all its intensity as I speak to the roof, the sky, and whatever may be beyond it.
“God, the Devil, or whoever you may be up there, mark my words. I am coming for you.”
At that, I turn and leave through the door.
My coronet glimmers on my head for a short while after I leave the room, even without the sunlight.