Death After Death

Chapter 158: No

Three months after his last patient recovered and six months after the Queen recovered, Simon received two unexpected pieces of news. The first was that Elthena was pregnant, and the second was that she was banishing him from the kingdom.

“What?!” Simon blurted out. Either piece of news would have shocked him, but the two of them together completely bowled him over.

“You heard me,” she answered calmly. “As much as I might love you, you can’t be here when I start to show, my dearest Simon.”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely confused. “Everyone was pretty cool with the whole consort thing, but after the whole plague deal, I don’t think that anyone will object to me—”

“No one would object,” she agreed, interrupting him. “It’s worse than that. They’d demand that we marry.”

“What’s so wrong with that?” he asked. “I’d happily marry you. We could—”

“It’s out of the question,” she shot back.

“Because of the prophecy?” he asked.

“Because of the prophecy,” she agreed.

Simon sighed heavily. He’d expected this insanity to resurface again one day, but not like this. He’d never expected anything like this.

“I don’t accept this,” he said flatly, trying to stay calm.

“I didn’t expect you to,” she said, leaning forward to hug him, “But still, it must be done.”

“You can’t make me, you know,” he said. “I could fight your entire royal guard to keep them from escorting me out of the building.”

“And with enough of your dark powers, I expect you’d win,” she agreed, “and then I’d have no choice but to throw myself into the sea.”

That terrible turn of phrase hurt more than he could have thought possible, and he was quiet for several seconds as he let it pass. He knew that his Elthena was strong-willed, but he had no idea that she was a zealot about this. Instead of freaking out, he tried another tactic.

Simon spent the next half hour slowly going through everything they knew about the supposed curse. Simon reminded her that Brogan had broken free of his volcanic prison without any help from her and that there was no reason to expect that the whole thing was a myth at this point. Still, she would not be denied.

The sailor smiled nervously at that and delayed a moment before he cut Simon’s bonds and released him. After that, the two went up on deck, where he found himself well out of sight of land, which meant they were at least half a day underway and well out to see.

The captain was a gruff man almost Simon’s age who took a look at him and then, uncharacteristically, smiled. “You know when Her Highness told me I’d be taken a mule onboard this ship, I almost refused, but when I heard it was for the Miracle Worker of Ionar, well, now how could I refuse that man whatever it was he wanted?”

“Mule?” Simon asked, confused.

“Aye,” he nodded. “In the hold along with the rest of your things. A right cranky old thing, too.”

“Ohhhh, Daisy,” Simon said as he suddenly figured out he wasn’t being called a stubborn old mule. Elthena had probably sent just about everything he might need with him. If she’d planned to send him away, she would have planned well. It was one more reason to love her.

“Aye,” the captain agreed. “That would be the one.”

The two of them talked for a while after that, and when they saw that he intended no violence, the sailors and their captain eventually loosened up around him. What did she tell them about me? He wondered.

Simon learned that he’d saved the life of the captain’s wife during the epidemic. The man was more than a little grateful for that and was happy to tell him exactly where they were going, even though he wasn’t supposed to until they were closer to their destination. He was even happy to alter plans slightly if Simon would rather go somewhere else.

“Within reason, you understand,” the captain explained. “The Queen would have my balls if I took you back to anywhere in Ionia so that ain’t happening.”

The ship was already on the way to the northern kingdoms, which was the right way as far as he was concerned. He told the man he’d think about it, but really, there were only a few port cities up that way, including one place that he definitely wasn’t going: Schwarzenbruck.

At least, that’s what he thought at first, but in the days that followed, as he was having a maudlin conversation with the ship's captain about the nature of life and death, the man said, “I really love the sea, I do. The only thing that bothers me about this life is the impermanence of it. You can’t see where you’ve come from or the way to get to where you’re going, and one day, when you catch a bad storm and sink beneath the waves, no one will even notice your passing except those you left behind at port. It's a tragic thing.”

Simon nodded along, sympathizing with that. If anyone knew impermanence, he did. However, when he lay awake in his hammock that night, he had a horrible thought. If what he’d done hadn’t been good enough to finish this level, then Elthena and the life they’d lived together would disappear in the blink of an eye. If he did, though, well, then he could come back in any other life he wanted. Hell, he thought. I could time my next arrival for the very day she sent me away and surprise her.

That would be clever, of course, but perhaps a bit too clever. More than anything, he thought about the grave for Freya that didn’t exist and how, no matter how many times he visited Crowvar or slew Varten, it would never appear.

That whole life, from the way he’d neglected her to the crude little ring he’d made to the way he hadn’t been able to save her, had never happened, and the fact that her missing tomb would never appear was a terrible testament to that.

That, more than anything, was what changed his mind. In the end, he was going to have to go back to Schwarzenbruck because that was the only place he could make sure these events were locked in just in case the worst happened.