Sea of Glass

My name is Evil. Don’t be alarmed. I was given this strange name by my mother, who on her deathbed prayed that all would fear me so that I would never have to suffer as she did. She had revealed to me that it was my true name moments before she took her last breath. I should have been devastated to know that I was named after all that was profoundly immoral and wicked, but I figured that the one everyone called me didn’t sound too different from it.

Evelyn, Evil - it was all the same. Regardless of what people knew me as I was still born of sin and strife.

My parents were soulmates, possessing the sort of bond that most people could only dream of. He was meant to marry her best friend Cordelia, someone my grandparents thought was a more suitable match. In their eyes, my mother Alexandra was not fit to be the queen of their island.

Of course, my father didn’t listen to them. Few resist the call of the soulmate bond. And my mother had a bevy of suitors he wanted to stamp out which was hardly surprising given her ability to turn heads and charm even the most stuck-up royals.

That was how she got my grandparents to love her. How could they not? She was blessed with the kindest eyes and the loveliest voice. Alexandra always took care to learn about people, to read them, and be in tune with their emotions. It was how she navigated Myranian politics while her opponents underestimated her for her sweetness.

People loved her almost as much as they loved our Gods. Her beauty left her a trail of admirers despite being married to my father, King Idris. Her wit drew laughs from everyone she spoke to. In the view of the average peasant, my mother was perfect. Her only problem, according to the palace gossip, was the scheming women jealous of her.

But behind closed doors, Queen Alexandra suffered. She was a mortal Seer, someone gifted with visions of the future and cursed with a short painful life. It made her prone to fainting and frequent headaches, mysterious pains that the doctors on the island had no cure for. She was accustomed to gritting her teeth through these ordeals, strategically retiring to a dark room to “read.” Even my birth nearly cost her life, making her frailer than she used to be. It was a miracle that she lived this long.

She hated her weakness. But the palace royals marveled at her delicate nature, romanticizing it as feminine grace. They refused to turn on her, fixating their venom on Lady Cordelia, the woman who refused to leave her side.

Their hatred came from simple jealousy. They all clamored for a piece of my mother, fighting each other for a compliment, a kind glance, or the most coveted thing of all, an afternoon tea with her. Lady Cordelia had all of these things handed to her effortlessly.

But no noblewoman would attack her directly. Any fool knew better than to display their resentment so overtly. If they wanted my mother’s favor, they needed to pretend to be nice to Cordelia. My mother never hated anyone, but she wove a web of social ties so cleverly that any royal that dared to cross her would be shunned. In that way, she protected our little family from the ill will that was the rot of all great kingdoms.

When she wasn’t entertaining the island royalty, she was plagued with bloody visions of the future. She would call me to her room often, complaining of her usual aches while her eyes were wet with fresh tears. I would go to her bed and she would hold me like a doll, sometimes weeping while muttering incomprehensible things. I knew better than to ask what kept her in sorrow. It was always a vision that was too graphic for her to put into words. So I let her hold me for as long as was allowed for the heir of a thriving island nation.

My lessons would inevitably get in the way, but I tried to make sure that I could see her once a day. I dressed well before I met her, draping myself in blue silks and glowing pearls. If there was anything my mother taught me, it was the importance of appearance.

Did seeing me make the pain go away? Arguably, the sight of me in her favorite colors seemed to cause her more anguish every time I visited her. She never showed it, but I could read the pain in her eyes just as clearly as I saw the strange bruises on her body that she tried to cover with powder.

My visits became less frequent even though my father encouraged me to see her more. None of us would say it, but she was on her deathbed. Any day now the Keeper of Death would come to collect her soul.

King Idris did everything to twist the strands of fate in his favor. He summoned Mages on all five islands of the Southern Continent, searching for a way to lengthen my mother’s lifespan or at the very least, lessen her pain. Queen Alexandra sent them all away, calling them charlatans and cheats. She already saw her death written by the Gods. Any attempt to thwart what the Pantheon wanted would end in disaster. We could only wait as all mortals did, moving as fast as the slow crawl of time.

My mother thought that was the perfect time to reveal my true name to me. She warned me to keep it to myself so no one around me could abuse my powers once the right God chose me for their blessings.

“You are Evil,” she said, lucid for the first time in days. “May all that behold you learn to fear your presence.”

I held her hand, taking in her words. She was far from the crafty social spider that ruled the royal court when she was younger. Otherwise, she would’ve known that fear only puts a target on your back.

But I understood what she meant. My enemies didn’t need to fear me literally, but they should think twice before going against the might of the Myranian military. Just like the noblemen of the island needed to fear me enough not to question my authority when I ascended to the throne.

She had one final piece of advice for me before she gave the world her last breath. As she held me like I was an infant again, tears streaking her face, she whispered nine words into my ear. She was so quiet that I barely heard them, deciphering them only after the fact.

“Never trust anyone who claims to be your soulmate,” she said.

Those were the last words of Queen Alexandra, the Golden Flower of Myrania. I should have been lucky to receive her final prophecy. Most Seers didn’t have her clarity or accuracy.

But I was just a girl who lost her mother. “Lucky” couldn’t have been further from my actual emotions. And her prophecy didn’t seem characteristic of her given how much she would go on about the Soulmate Bond she had with my father. Shouldn’t I embrace my other half as the Gods decreed? But her ominous words stuck with me even during the funeral procession.

If I were a peasant girl, I would have cried with reckless abandon. Plenty of the nobility did, wailing like the banshees in the trees. But I remained stone-faced like my father as they lowered her coffin into the royal plot.

My mother died young, beautiful, and loved, something that can’t be said for most mortals.

I never inherited the gift that took her life, thankfully. No one knows how Seers are made. They come when they’re most needed, a few years before war or famine. While there are plenty of fraudulent fortune tellers that line the streets claiming to know the future, their skins have too many wrinkles for anyone to take them seriously as the real thing. Seeing the future is a gift that no one truly wants to have, even if they are anxious about the configuration of the rest of their lifeline.

Even if you know what’s to come, when you are mortal, you are helpless to change it.

Like the wedding between my father, King Idris, and the newly crowned Queen Cordelia. One didn’t have to be a Seer to know that he was making plans to remarry one year after my mother’s death.

It was a decision made out of necessity, rather than choice. My mother played an important role in maintaining diplomatic relations with the other four islands on the Southern Continent and creating the great libraries of the island. In addition to that, she was also a vital patron of the arts.

I was too young to fill her shoes, taught skills that made me fitter to take my father’s role. Women from all over lined up to be the new Queen, but King Idris already had someone in mind. I heard it in the whispers they exchanged in the shadows when they thought no one was listening.

“Evelyn needs a mother,” he pleaded. “And Myrania needs a Queen.”

“You can’t beg. Not when you bite the hand that has fed the royal family for centuries.” Her voice was softer than her words.

“I will make amends,” my father promised. “Ask anything and I will provide it.”

If my mother was the Golden Flower, then Cordelia was the Silver Blade of Myrania. She was strong in ways that my mother wasn’t, taking up her mantle and bringing a new force with it. With her at my father’s ear, Myrania conquered its small surrounding islands and flourished with its new resources.

Under her sharp eye, our military expanded to include Mages, something that we kept secret from the rest of the Southern Continent. There was an unspoken rule that magic shouldn’t be used for combat, but every island on this side of the world made enough exceptions that suggested Myrania needed to follow suit or be lost to the bloodshed. Our Mages typically formed contracts with Brin, God of the Sea, meaning that our alliance with them would strengthen the navy tenfold.

It would all work brilliantly as long as we didn’t anger the Pantheon. We made sure to flood Brin’s altar with offerings, giving her temples the finest fish and glimmering gems.

There was only one more piece of the puzzle left that would seal the deal: me.

The heirs of the Myranian throne have always been the Chosen Ones of Brin. There was no reason why I should be the exception. When my father was a restless youth, Brin gave him powers that ensured the prosperity of Myrania for decades. She filled our ports with food and traders while molding him into a capable ruler by sending him on daunting quests. He still tells me stories of those days, describing the monsters he killed and the tricksters he outsmarted. I’m told to look forward to the glory because I would be a hero that the bards would sing about just as he was.

The reputation of my nation rested on my shoulders. I had to live up to my mother’s beauty and my father’s strength. There was also the greater challenge of finding a worthy King Consort to rule with me, but I wouldn’t worry about that, not with my dead mother’s ominous last words ringing through my ears.

I cried every day in bed, unable to escape my sorrow over her. I kept my pain private like she did, showing the rest of the world a capable heir that deserved the throne. But it ate the rest of my family.

The grief stole my father’s smile, something that was already rare, to begin with. It took away the sparkle of a newly wedded bride, who should’ve been glowing with pride at securing an alliance with the royal family. Worst of all, it silenced my voice, taking away words that used to come so easily to me.

Queen Cordelia was not one to be stuck in the eternal circle of depression. She looked at my father and me with her gray eyes, the sort of eyes that made her seem older and wiser than most would think she was and said four words that gave me hope that we’d still function as a family.

“I miss her, too.”

My father may not have married her for love, but she was determined to give it regardless. In that sense, I truly felt that she was a good mother.

We visited the late queen’s grave together, leaving flowers and sharing intimate stories about her. My voice slowly came back as I described the things that gave my mother joy. Between Cordelia, myself, and the bards, the Golden Flower of Myrania remained alive in our words.

By being there for me, my stepmother was showing me her faith. I would have the Silver Blade at my side when I ascend the throne.

May the Gods lend me enough strength so that I don’t let her or my people down.