Inheritance

Chapter 35: Senses and Memories

As King Laurence waited for Kori to join him in his quarters after sending a messenger to go fetch her, he leaned his cheek on the cold window which had a beautiful view of the bailey listlessly.

He was lost deep in thought.

He was filled with fear about the upcoming ball and he prayed that Pollyanna would not bring about the end of his peaceful reign. The woman was an unholy terror, and he knew she would have no trouble killing everyone at the ball if she so wished. He had many plans in mind to try and detain the woman, and had finally decided on the only one that seemed viable.

He cursed the fact that he did not know the secrets to her immortality and knew of no chinks in her armor. He didn't know what to do, and so he wanted Kori's counsel as he usually did when he was upset and didn't know what to do.

He faced the window head-on and looked at himself in the reflection.

He was displeased at seeing fine wrinkles disgracing his otherwise smooth and clear skin and he grimaced at seeing his black hair which was plagued with many white strands. His eyes wandered from his hair, and they lingered on his own earthy, brown eyes.

They were just as clear as ever, however much the rest of him was aging.

He nearly wept at them after a moment.

They look so damned much like Shirley's... He thought to himself with unshed tears.

Whenever he was lonely, whenever he pined for Shirley's company, he would ask Kori to bring her to life again. Kori had a magical power that few other waifs did; she could let Laurence--or whoever she pleased--relive memories as if they were happening to the person in present time. Kori had no choice over which memories he relived through her magic—it seemed to be random--but he didn't care.

Even if it were the memory of Shirley getting killed, he didn't care. He just wanted to see her again.

He turned from the window and faced his room with a heavy frown.

It was empty and silent as his eyes explored its grandness. The blue, fur-trimmed carpet, the tapestries hung on the wall along with the expensive portraits of himself and his wife, and an elaborately embroidered quilt atop the covers on his bed. His eyes lingered there on the bed for a moment, and he guiltily and giddily thought of Kori. He looked away in shame after a moment and back at the window. Something caught his eye—a movement in the window.

He breathed sharply and panted in fear when, in the reflection, a woman seemed to form out of nowhere.

Her features matched that of Shirley's, but she was not the beautiful, blond-haired, brown-eyed girl he knew in life.

She was eyeless, armless, and her neck was mostly severed as it was in death.

He looked away from the window--although he still saw the ghost in his peripheral vision.

"I must be seeing things... I must stop thinking of her."

But he couldn't. His thoughts relentlessly led him to memory after memory with Shirley, and soon enough, he got lost in those memories and began reliving them even without Kori's help.

He and Shirley lived in a city just three days from Castle Maribel. The people there were overworked and overtaxed by the Arrozans and often had the scars from whips to prove it.

Laurence remembered vividly how many of the children in his home city of Brambel were so skinny that he could see their ribs; he remembered having to take extensive time off from his job as a cook to help make and erect yet another statue of the Arrozan king whose name he could not say without spitting it in a snarl of hateful rage.