Deliverance (33 page)

“He wouldn’t even let you read?” Crystal
asked.

“No.” Althea responded, “Bogdan was a
chauvinist to the core, so I couldn’t enjoy my favorite past time
without making him angry.”

Just when Crystal was about to respond, the
vision Bogdan struck the vision Althea with the back of his hand
and knocked her to the floor. Crystal gasped and put a hand to her
mouth and watched helplessly as the vision Althea lay on the floor
sobbing and repeatedly saying, “I’m sorry.”

The vision Bogdan then sneered at her before
strolling casually out of the room and slamming the door shut
behind him.

Crystal looked at Blaze, who had been silent
the whole time, and saw the anger in his face. He brought his hand
up to his forehead and closed his eyes, unable to take in what he
just witnessed.

“Believe it or not, that wasn’t even the
worst of the abuse I endured,” Althea muttered. Her younger self
then rose to her feet when she saw she was alone, and Blaze and
Crystal both had watery eyes when they saw the large, bloody bruise
already forming on the side of her face. The poor girl touched the
side of her face and looked at her fingers to discover the blood.
She then walked weakly out of the room with a blank expression on
her face. “Bogdan always found a reason to hurt me. I suffered
through not only physical abuse, but also emotional and sexual
abuse on top of it. He always made me feel like I was his slave
rather than his queen.”

Blaze began breathing heavily out of anger,
so Crystal grabbed his hand and squeezed it in an assuring manner,
which calmed him down.

“After a year, I even tried to take my own
life, but thankfully, someone was there to stop me,” Althea said,
“and he would be the one person that would not only make my life
bearable, but he would give me all the things in life that no one
else would.”

The scene then changed again. They were now
in a large, run-down kitchen and a young man was on his hands and
knees scrubbing the floor with a scrubbing brush and a bucket of
soapy water. He was slightly lanky and had thin, dark hair that
reached the bottom of his neck. He wore torn old clothing that was
too big for him that was covered in patches.

Suddenly, the Althea from the previous
vision came walking through the doorway. Her face was still
bleeding and her face was soaked with tears. The second the servant
saw her, he dropped everything and wiped his wet hands on his
clothes as he rushed over to her.

“Let me see,” he said urgently. It was clear
by the way he said it that this wasn’t the first time Althea walked
into the kitchen with a blood covered wound. He was tall, but not
as tall as Bogdan, so even though he looked down at the teary-eyed
queen, it was in a gentle and calming manner rather than an
intimidating manner. The young servant gently lifted Althea’s face
with his forefinger and thumb, and carefully examined the
wound.

After he gave her a reassuring expression,
the servant then set Althea down on a nearby chair, wet a rag and
rung the excess water out of it, and knelt by her side, lightly
dabbing the cloth on the wound. She winced a few times, and so the
servant patiently paused until the pain stopped and then started
cleaning the wound again.

“He was always there for me.” Althea said,
“He may have been just a kitchen servant to the rest of the world,
but to me, he was the world. He always held me when I cried,
treated my wounds when Bogdan hit me, and before long . . .” After
trailing off, she watched herself stare into the servant’s eyes.
Without warning, the servant gently kissed the vision Althea on the
lips, and then the real Althea added, “. . . we fell in love.”

Crystal wiped a tear from her eye as she
watched the servant brush a curl from Althea’s face as he continued
to gently kiss her. She then looked at Blaze and saw a slight smile
try to form in the corner of his mouth. Upon looking back at the
servant, however, she couldn’t help but notice his eyes after he
pulled away from the kiss. They were brown, and the way he smiled
at Althea made him seem familiar to Crystal, but she knew she
couldn’t possibly know a servant from Daldussa.

“We tried to hide our feelings because we
knew that it could cost us our lives if we acted on them, but
neither of us could run from it anymore. Less than a year after we
met, he and I finally confessed our love and we had an affair in
secret,” Althea said.

The scene changed once again to Althea
staring out of her bedroom window. From where she was standing,
Crystal could see a carriage leaving a drawbridge and then
traveling down a mountainous path.

“Throughout the next two years, there were
times when Bogdan had to leave for weeks and sometimes months at a
time to see to business with his military. While he was gone, my
lover would sneak into my bedroom every night,” Althea told
them.

In the vision, they then saw the servant
walk through the door and lock it behind him. He and Althea then
approached each other and without hesitation, passionately kissed.
Crystal blushed as she watched Althea unbutton the servant’s shirt
and pull it off, and she looked away when she saw the servant begin
to unlace the back of Althea’s dress as he kissed her neck. Crystal
noticed that Blaze was looking away too, but fortunately, the scene
changed again before it just as the two of them fell onto the bed
and began pulling each other’s clothes off.

The scene now showed Althea six months
pregnant and sitting in a rocking chair with Bogdan looking down at
her. He was smiling, but in his usual sickening fashion, and
actually boasting about finally having a son.

“Bogdan often yelled at me for not giving
him a son, and finally, he got his wish. I became pregnant, and
even though no one could have known it was a boy, he still wanted
to believe it was. I prayed and prayed that I would have a boy out
of fear of what he would do if I didn’t. Obviously, though, my
prayers were answered,” Althea then smiled at Blaze again, who
managed to smile back.

The scene shifted again suddenly to a very
sweet and heartwarming sight. Althea, who was the same age as the
spirit speaking to them, was sitting in a chair in a nursery
holding a tiny newborn baby with thick black hair and blue eyes.
Crystal smiled and laughed as the baby Blaze grabbed one of
Althea’s curls and giggled. The vision Althea kissed her baby boy
over and over again and the tiny Blaze giggled more.

Crystal then looked at the grown Blaze that
she knew and was stunned to see his eyes watering. It broke her
heart to see Blaze this way and she wondered what would have
happened if Althea had lived long enough for her son to have
remembered her. She knew he felt blessed to have taken after her
instead of Bogdan.

Suddenly, in the vision, Bogdan walked into
the nursery and sensing his presence, the vision Althea grew silent
and now bore a fake smile. He stepped behind her and put his hand
on her shoulder, and Crystal could see her wince.

“He’s going to be a fierce warrior someday,”
Bogdan said proudly, “just like his father.”

Crystal saw the vision Althea close her eyes
to fight back tears, and when she looked back at Blaze, she saw the
guilt and shame flood across his face.

“That was the moment I decided that I could
never let you be like Bogdan, Blaze.” Althea said, “Bogdan gave me
only one choice the entire time we were married, and that was what
to name you. I chose the name ‘Blaze’ from my favorite book as a
child. He was a noble and kind hero, and I wanted you to be the
same way. You see, my lover had found a way for us to escape the
castle so we could flee the kingdom and get married, but I felt I
couldn’t leave because I was afraid that you would be put in
danger. However, I finally decided that I was going to give you the
choice to be the person you wanted to be, and so, my lover and I
decided to leave Daldussa and flee to Cierith.”

“Why Cierith?” Crystal asked.

“Well, there are beaches there in the south
and east. In Balim, I lived next to the ocean and always wanted to
go swimming in the water, but I was not allowed. My whole life I
dreamed of swimming in the ocean, so my lover wanted to take me
there. Obviously I couldn’t go back to Balim, because my father
would have found me and shipped me back to Daldussa, so Cierith was
the best option,” Althea explained.

Crystal’s heart sank, but then she directed
her attention to the scene changing once again to the castle
library. It was in the middle of the night and Blaze and Crystal
watched as the servant led Althea, who was clutching the infant
Blaze in her free arm, to a bookshelf. The servant flipped some
kind of switch in the back of it, and then he carefully pulled the
shelf outward like a door to reveal a secret passage.

“He found it a month before. The passage led
to the outer walls of the castle, so we could escape without anyone
ever knowing where to find us,” Althea said, “but . . .”

All of a sudden, dozens of guards flooded
into the library with torches lit and swords drawn. Crystal’s heart
sank and as she watched a raged Bogdan march into the room and yell
for the guards to take Blaze. Crystal cried as she watched the
screaming baby Blaze being ripped out of Althea’s arms and another
guard holding her from running after him. She cried her son’s name
repeatedly, and the grown Blaze took several steps back shaking his
head in disbelief.

When the servant tried to pull the guard off
of Althea, Bogdan ordered several other guards to restrain him. He
then marched over to the sobbing vision Althea and grabbed her by
the hair. She shrieked in terror as Bogdan pulled her hair downward
and forced her to face him.

“Did you honestly think you can put out to a
servant and not expect me to find out?” he growled at her. He then
faced her towards the servant and gave him the most heartless and
gut wrenching grin before taking a large knife out of his vest and
plunging it into straight Althea’s chest.

Crystal cried out and put her hands to her
mouth. Her tears began flowing uncontrollably as she saw the
servant screaming in horror and blood dripping from the vision
Althea’s trembling lips. Blaze was visibly shaking and fighting
back tears, and he nearly lost it when the young Bogdan removed the
knife and tossed Althea to the floor like an old rag doll. The
servant managed to break free of the hold the guards had on him and
he fell to the floor next to Althea. The guards went to grab him
again, but Bogdan held his hand out for them to stop. As sickening
as it was, the king seemed to take pleasure in watching the
heartbreaking scene.

Just when Crystal didn’t think she could cry
anymore or could witness anything more shocking, the servant placed
his hand on Althea’s face, and she breathed her last words, “I’m so
sorry . . . Gavril.”

“NO!” Blaze cried, “It can’t be!”

Crystal felt numb. She couldn’t believe she
hadn’t recognized the same warm brown eyes that always comforted
her and the same smile that assured her things would be all right.
She then watched with a broken heart as the young Gavril leaned
over Althea and sobbed hysterically.

“Please don’t leave me!” Gavril cried.

Then, Bogdan leaned over Gavril and uttered,
“I bet you wish you hadn’t slept with that bitch now.”

In an act of vengeance, the young Gavril
then removed a knife from his vest and blindly swung it upwards.
Bogdan flew onto his back screaming, and Crystal had a feeling it
was more out of rage than pain. When Bogdan looked up again,
Crystal’s heart sank at the sight of an enormous and deep gash
across his left eye.

In the ten years since she first saw
Bogdan’s scar, she never in her life would have thought Gavril put
it there.

Several guards ripped the knife out of
Gavril’s hand and held him to the ground while holding his arms
behind his back and his legs to the ground. Bogdan rose to his
feet, clutching his face again, and ordered the guards to stand
Gavril up. The men obeyed without hesitation and even though Gavril
still struggled, he couldn’t budge an inch with all of the guards
restraining him.

Bogdan then walked over to an old desk and
opened a drawer to reveal a black box inside it. Bogdan picked up
the box, opened it, and pulled out a red and black knife. The blade
was dark and curved and had strange, demonic symbols on it. Bogdan
began to chuckle as he turned to look at Gavril and said, “I never
thought I would have to use this blade. It was forged by a demon
sorcerer. There is a dark curse on this blade and once it is used
to stab someone, the victim’s blood boils and the flow slows down
dramatically. A wound that would normally bleed out quickly would
take weeks to do so, and because the blade makes the blood boil,
the victim lies in agony the entire time they wait to die. It will
literally make the victim feel like they are being slowly burned
alive, and therefore, I believe this is the perfect punishment for
a worthless piece of shit like you.”

Bogdan smiled inhumanely as he twirled the
cursed dagger in his hand mockingly as he walked towards the pale
and petrified Gavril. When he got up close, he ripped Gavril’s
shirt open with his free hand and without hesitation, he plunged
the blade into Gavril’s abdomen. The then scene went dark as they
all heard Gavril’s screams of agony.

Althea bowed her head, sniffed, and
tearfully said, “The last thing I heard was Gavril’s scream, and it
has haunted me for years. To this day, I have no idea how Bogdan
found out about my affair but I am just so relieved that he didn’t
harm you, Blaze.”

Blaze paced back and forth with his hand on
his forehead. His anxiety reached its highest level, and he kept
muttering to himself, “Why didn’t Gavril tell me?”

Althea’s head snapped up and she asked
Blaze, “What do you mean, Blaze? Do you . . . know Gavril?”