Chapter 72. Lorelia: One Step
I look down at the Capital. Everything seems so small from up here, so insignificant.
I couldn’t just live with the fact that I cause so much pain to Felix. I’m not afraid that Felix will kill me, so that’s not why I’m doing this.
I just can’t live to see Felix in misery. I don’t want him to be in so much pain that he actually destroys everything around him. He shouldn’t have to experience that in this life. I want to protect him from the future. If I die now, he wakes up again, utterly clueless about what happened to me.
He will be happy. He will fall in love with one of the women he has married before. He will live happily before the mana eventually takes control of him, digging his hatred toward the Palace back out. Maybe I should start killing myself before that happens in future loops too, even if I never see him. I don’t want to be the reason he has to live through that over and over again, even when he doesn’t remember it happening.
Just one step and it’s over. But somehow that one step is much harder than ever before.
“Lo! Please, stop!”
I turn to look behind me, shock from seeing him is overwhelming. Why is he here? He shouldn’t be here.
No. No, no, no.
“Please, Felix, just leave.”
“Not without you. I won’t live without you. You can’t leave me. You promised, Lo. You promised.”
My tears start to flow as I watch his face. My heart breaks into a million pieces because of it. And it’s my fault. I’m the one who just keeps causing him more and more pain. But that soon changes.
“I’m sorry, Felix. I have to. That’s the only solution.”
“Solution to what?”
He takes a step closer to me.
“Don’t move! If you do, I do that too.”
He freezes.
“I won’t move. But please, Lo, talk to me. Make me understand. Why would you ever jump down? Is being with me really that hideous? Just tell me what you want from me. I can change. I’ll mold myself to fit you. Just please tell me what I need to do.”
He is crying. I can’t believe I made him cry like that.
“I told you that I’m a horrible person. You should have believed me when I said I can’t be your Queen.”
“You are not a horrible person. And even if you are, I still love you, Lo. Just please tell me why you are doing this.”
I glance down; my stomach knots. I guess since he is just going to forget everything, it doesn’t matter if I tell him the truth. I guess that’s the only thing I can do after messing up his life with my presence.
“Do you know why people are afraid of heights?” I ask in a calm voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I think people are afraid of heights because of their own thoughts. When people look down, all they can think about is how it would feel to take that one step and fall. How would it feel to just fall down, knowing there is nothing you can do except wait for that final thump. So people are afraid of heights because they are afraid they will give in to that thought and take that step.”
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“Yes. Even though I have taken that step many times, I’m still afraid of heights.”
“What do you mean you have taken that step many times?”
“I’m cursed, Felix. That is my big secret that I didn’t want you to know about.”
“Cursed? By whom?”
“By the Devil. It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I chuckle, sounding a little hysterical. “The miracle, Lorelia Helesantra, blessed by the God of Creation with eternal happiness, only to be cursed by the Devil to live in eternal misery.”
“What is the curse?”
“I have died 28 times.”
“What?”
“28 times I have died and woken up on my eighteenth birthday. Twenty-eight times I have lived and witnessed our country’s downfall.”
“What downfall?”
“You are the downfall, Felix.”
“Me?”
“Every time, you end up destroying the Palace and killing everyone in it. Every time, you end up killing your Queen too. When there is no one to take the throne, Barham goes into civil war. Some time after that, I always die and wake up on my eighteenth birthday again. I do it over and over again. Every single time, I have sent a letter to the Palace asking to withdraw from the Selection, and every time they have agreed. But this time I forgot to send the letter and ended up here. That’s why I avoided you. I thought you were just some psychotic murderer or something. But you kept pestering me, kept dragging me from my righteous path. And I realized you weren’t the monster I thought you were.”
He just stares at me silently, so I keep talking.
“When you made me your Queen, I thought maybe I could somehow prevent the future from happening and learn something more. But when I talked to Master Loneflare, that hope crumbled, since he said there really wasn’t anything I could do to help you control your mana. But I still thought I would stay with you, knowing you would kill me eventually, only because I was selfish and wanted to be with you.”
“What changed your mind?”
“In every life, you have gone berserk months from now. But it's clear that I make you go crazy much, much sooner. And you can’t deny the fact that I cause you pain. I don’t care if you kill me. But I care about you, Felix. I don’t want you to be in so much pain that you lose control and destroy everything. I don’t want you to experience the pain your mana causes when it goes out of control. I don’t want you to die, Felix. Every time I die and wake up, no one remembers anything about the previous lives, no one except me. So if I die now, your pain goes away. You just wake up in your own bed, blissfully unaware of everything that has happened. You can keep being happy, able to fall in love with someone else, as you have in previous lives.”
“Blissful? You think forgetting you would be blissful? I can’t imagine anything worse than forgetting you, Lo. I don’t want to start over. I want to remember you, to be with you.”
“You can’t! Don’t you understand? We are going to die anyway! We have no future. No one in this whole world has a future, only because of me.”
“Surely there is some way to break your curse. Just come back with me and let’s find the solution together. I’m sure we can figure everything out.”
“There isn’t. I asked Master Loneflare about it. He said there are only two ways to break the curse: it has to be undone by the caster, or the caster must be killed. And he also told me the Devil is hiding tightly in Hell right now, so those aren’t options. There is only the possibility that God might have the power to break the curse. He wasn’t sure, but it’s the only chance I have. So I have to die and start over. I have to go back to being devoted. I really do. If I don’t, no one in this world will ever keep living. If I’m devoted enough, I’m sure God will help me break the curse, and then someday when I die, I won’t open my eyes again. That’s why there was a grave in the mirror. If I have a grave, it means I finally earned salvation and got free from the curse.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
''I tried to tell people about it many times, especially in the first loops. But almost everyone just thought I was insane. They looked at me like I was suddenly some freak who belonged in an asylum. Or if someone happened to believe me, they avoided me, thinking I’m the Devil himself or just a horrible person, since I must have done something unforgivable to earn the Devil’s curse. At some point, I became convinced that it was part of my curse. That I got punished if I sought help from someone by telling the truth. That I was meant to suffer it alone. I just hated the idea that you would either look at me with disgust or think I’m just a lunatic with a messed-up brain like everyone else. I’d rather you hate me for other reasons.''
“I could never hate you, Lo. I don’t care if you are cursed. I still love you. So please, Lo. Just come here and let’s go home. Let’s try to figure this out together. Let me help you. There must be more solutions to this. I’m sure we can break your curse some other way and figure out how to contain my mana. There have to be other options.”
“There aren’t. God is my only option. Master Loneflare said that if light magic really comes from God, it might be powerful enough to break the curse. So God really is my only option.”
“If you want to go back to the temple, I’ll let you. I won’t force you to be a Queen. I let you do anything you want, anything except jumping down.”
My tears are running so wildly that I know what a mess I must be. I glance down again; my stomach hurts from the sight.
“Lo.” Felix’s voice turns darker.
I glance at him, and his expression has changed, his eyes are purple, and the air around him is flowing with magic.
“Don’t take another step,” he warns.
“I’m sorry. I have to. You deserve someone better than me.”
“Lo. Don’t.”
He takes one step forward and grunts as he drops to the floor. The mana swirls even more around him. He holds his chest, his expression pained.
“See? I cause you nothing but pain!”
“Lo. It doesn’t matter. Just get—”
His hand drops to the ground too. He really is losing it. I have to jump now, before he ends up in even more pain.
“I’m sorry, Felix.”
I’m still facing him as I take a step back. I watch him through my tear-soaked eyes, my vision blurry. I hear him screaming after me, but it’s too late. I’m already falling. I watch the sky grow distant. Soon it’s over. I have died in many ways, but I have found that falling is the easiest one, the least painful one. When you hit the ground, you are dead before you even feel any pain. So I just wait for the all-too-familiar thud with a broken heart.
My only comfort is that soon Felix will no longer be in pain. Soon, he will be free from it. He will be free from me.
Oh.
I wanted to tell him that I love him. I forgot to do that. I left him a note with a pawn in his room, where I wrote that I love him. But I guess he never saw it since he came here. I should have said it to him before taking that step. I know he won’t hear me, but I say it anyway.
“I love you, Felix.”
THUD.