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An Alternative Fate

Anya

H ammond released my hand and stood to retrieve a stool from the base of the stairs. He placed it in front of my cell door and sat, his long legs spread wide. The lantern—which rested on the floor by his foot—glinted off his rose-gold vambraces, accentuated his ever-flushed cheeks. Without his hand to hold through the bars, I shifted positions so that I sat cross-legged, my skirts spread across my lap like a blanket.

Once we were resettled, Hammond rested his forearms on his knees and regarded me seriously. “How much do you know about the Mirrors of Fate?”

Unsure of how this was relevant, my face scrunched. “As much as anyone, I suppose. That they’ve been around for generations, are housed in Fenrir City, and tour the Kingdom annually to show people their Fortunes and Deaths.”

“Do you know of how they came to be?” Hammond asked.

I shook my head. “Not much, other than that they were forged in the Well of Fate.”

He clasped his hands and leaned closer. “The story starts seven hundred years ago, when a prince of Fenrir, Sharmond the Third, was engaged to marry the King of Marona’s daughter as part of the alliance that brought Fenrir under Marona’s rule. Back then, the fertile hills in the south had not yet been conquered, and Fenrir was mostly known for its ore. Prince Shar—rather a romantic, even by my standards—wanted to craft a wedding gift for his beloved bride: extravagant gilt frames, inside which their royal portraits would be displayed.”

“All due respect to your charge, Hammond,” I said, voice feeble, “but what does the history of the Mirrors have to do with my sentence?”

He held up a palm, bidding me to be patient. “At the time, Kelebraim-on-Gray was a small but well-respected city of craftsmen near one of the larger mines. The frames were forged of the purest Gildium, a rare metal found only in certain parts of the Bone Mountains. They were tooled in Kelebraim by the most skilled artisans in Fenrir and plated in gold and silver to represent the prince and his bride.”

In spite of my impatience, I thought of the frames’ sun and moon carvings, and how well the motifs matched the purpose of the Mirrors. Confused, I said, “But they’re labeled with an F for Fortune and a D for Death.”

Hammond smiled, seeming pleased by my observation. “Consider the traditional marriage vows of Fenrir.”

I’d been to many a wedding in Waldron. Raging affairs spanning at least three days, with ten-course meals, endless music, and plenty of dancing. As much as I loved the party, I always found the ceremony—occurring on the second day of three—the most touching. “‘Our marriage, forged in fortune, broken by death,’” I recited.

“Fortune and Death.”

“Yet the frames were originally meant to contain portraits?”

Hammond nodded. “You see, the fine work of the artisans in Kelebraim took time, and they were not keen to be rushed. The royal gift wasn’t finished until four nights before the wedding—and Kelebraim was a five-night journey to Fenrir City, where the ceremony was to be held.

“Prince Shar demanded the shipment be rushed, insisting the Royal Carriers travel a faster but more treacherous route out of Kelebraim, a northern pass that led through a maze of geothermal pools. Not only was the terrain full of hidden sinkholes and boiling geysers—it was rumored that the waters there were…peculiar.”

“How so?”

“Magical. Cursed. Haunted,” Hammond said. “Ancient accounts don’t agree on which words to use, only that the pools were strange—granting odd powers and visions. Only one pool was unanimously foretold to bring new creation, but its location was disputed—and its blessing was not worth the risk of touching the waters of the wrong pool and ending up cursed. Most folktales from Kelebraim were warnings for children not to venture to the pools at all. Not even to look upon.”

It reminded me of Waldron, where children’s folklore warned against entering the western forest. People don’t have to understand the dangers of a place to know it’s dangerous.

“The Royal Carriers were not to stop, even at night,” Hammond continued. “They were not inexperienced travelers, though. They entered the geothermal passage at the top of the second day, and made it through successfully by nightfall,” he said. “But that second night, as they skirted the final pool—their path opening up to trees, forest, and a more easily traversable terrain, with the worst of the journey past them—a geyser at their backs erupted, spooking the horses. The wagon containing the royal cargo was jostled, and the frames fell into the pool.

“When the men fished the frames out of the water, their faces had turned silver and reflective.”

“Mirrors,” I whispered.

“The men saw strange visions inside the frames,” Hammond said, “including one carrier who saw his death on that very journey. A day later, when he fell from his horse and hit his head on a stone, just as the Mirror of Death predicted, the men swiftly covered the Mirrors, fearful of what else might be foretold.

“When the frames reached Castle Might, Prince Shar was told of the incident and warned of the frames’ strangeness. Curious about how the man’s Fate had been predicted, Shar looked anyway, and saw his Fortune and Death: a great life laid out before him, ending in peace, surrounded by kin.

“He believed the Mirrors were a wedding gift from the Fates themselves and had them brought before the revelers on his wedding day. It was during the ceremony that he showed the citizens of Fenrir his Fortune and Death, and had his new wife do the same—her life mirroring his in its splendor. So inspired they were by their visions, and the apparent accuracy of the Mirrors, they enacted a decree for all citizens to have the opportunity to look upon their Fates. And so, the traveling of the Mirrors was begun.”

Hammond sat back, seemingly satisfied with the tale. Without his voice filling the dank hall, I was reminded of where I was: on the ground, in a cell, facing a Fate filled with grimness and uncertainty.

“That’s a nice story, Hammond, but again, I ask: what does this have to do with my imprisonment?”

He glanced up at the stairs, then dropped his voice to the faintest whisper. “The pool.”

“The…pool,” I stated. “The one the Mirrors fell into?”

His nod was solemn. “Known to you—and most—as the Well of Fate. It’s said to have the power to change one’s Fate if it so chooses. For hundreds of years, royals traveled there to plead with the Fates to have their outcomes altered.”

“Why have I never heard of this practice?”

“The custom was known only to royals and Mirror Knights during that time, then eventually fell out of fashion and was lost to legend.”

Not lost to Mirror Knights, though. I wondered why Hammond’s Order was no longer bound to keep that secret. Perhaps because the practice was just that—a legend . A false story borne out of the real history.

“Even if I could ask this magical pool to change my Fate,” I said dubiously, “you forget that it was Remy’s vision—not mine—that got me into this mess.”

Hammond appeared proud of his suggestion, energized by it. “I admit the idea is unorthodox, but what other hope do you have? Perhaps the Lord would allow you to visit the pool under guard and prove your innocence?”

As he spoke, the lantern caught his excitable gestures and cast odd shapes on the walls, making his shadow-arms appear overly long and spider-like—not dissimilar to the appendages of the monsters.

The recollection of them made me shiver. What I should have told the Lord was that I wished never to think or speak of the wretched creatures again.

I regarded Hammond, truly considering his idea and concluding it was too good to be true. “This can’t be real, Hammond,” I said with a shake of my head. “If it were, surely your Oath wouldn’t allow you to tell me all this. Today’s royals would be just as eager to alter their Fate as their forebears—and keep the Well of Fate’s gifts a secret.” I paused. “Unless…there’s a reason it fell out of fashion? A reason no one ventures there now?”

Hammond’s excitement fissured, then, his forehead split by a troubled crease. “Historical accounts are varied, but most cite a royal who became obsessed with her outcomes, visiting the pool over and over until she went mad. That…dissuaded others.” His face pinched further. “And…well, Anya, that which you cannot know or speak about—the secret that has brought you here—is said to spawn in the surrounding geothermal pools.”

A tired, hopeless laugh rushed out of me. “I see.”

So, Hammond did know about the monsters. I wondered if that was a privilege of his Oath or a leak among the ranks of another Order. Either way, he clearly didn’t understand the full extent of the danger he was suggesting I face.

“Look, Anya,” Hammond said. “The Lord will have a final audience with you tomorrow to dole out your sentence. No matter what, your Fate is…uncertain.”

“You mean that no matter what, I’ll die,” I said bitterly.

Hammond visibly swallowed. “Of all the possibilities, the Well of Fate could be your best shot.”

“It sounds like a death wish,” I countered.

“Giving up is also a death wish,” Hammond replied, standing. He returned the stool to its place by the landing, then reached through the bars to grasp my hands again.

At the feeling of his skin—his palms so smooth, compared to Idris’s callouses—I broke down into tears once more.

“It’s just an idea,” he said, releasing my hands. “An alternative to consider.” He took up the lantern and shuffled back upstairs, leaving me to ponder my miserable future.