Chapter 12 – Self Reflection

The door that Rickshaw had sent Lillia to was strange for two reasons. The first was the message on it about taking her first rest. The second was that she didn’t have to open the door. Lillia simply thought about how lovely a rest sounded and she popped into existence on the other side.

Unlike traveling with Rickshaw, Lillia didn’t get the privilege of closing her eyes. She was suddenly on the edge of the fountain, ankle deep in water and screaming. She didn’t know why she was screaming. Maybe her body knew something she didn’t. Either way, Lillia stopped.

Rickshaw had said that Lillia needed to head to the fountain, and she certainly wouldn’t have trouble finding it. The entire room she found herself in was the fountain. Meticulously carved statues featuring all manner of creatures—most Lillia recognized, some she didn’t—were scattered around the room, spewing water out into pools of varying depth that melded together in a shared shallows.

All the light in the room came from the pools themselves. There was a green-blue light somewhere deep underwater that shone through the entire place. The ripples from the fountain spray danced across the surface and the ceiling in a shared waltz. Lillia watched. Lillia’s chest unclenched. She flexed her hand and her fingers crackled. How long had she been wound up?

She knew the answer. As long as she’d been down here.

Lillia’s first splashing steps across the pool echoed through the room. On the far wall there was a door, presumably the exit. To either side of the door and running along the walls were sets of empty frames. Each was large enough to contain a mural that would have dwarfed Lillia, but all they framed was smooth, polished stone.

On closer inspection, the stone within the frames seemed newer, or fresher at least, than that around it. It had been replaced at some point, while the rest of the walls had been worn down by the humidity over time.

Lillia walked across the space, following the shallow gaps between the pools and looking down into each of them. Most were slightly deeper than the baths she was used to, some looked unfathomably deep. When she was finally near the back of the room, she paused.

This last pool was steaming. Warm water. Lillia bent to take off her heels. She stopped at the clasp to take in the statue that was standing above it.

A gorgeous princess carrying a pristine blade in one hand and a jug of water in the other. She stood high on a pedestal that was taller than Lillia. There was a mirror embedded into the pedestal. Lillia stared. Her reflection stared back.

It didn’t take a genius to understand the metaphor the dungeon was putting forward, but if that statue was supposed to be Lillia, the sculptor had taken generous liberties based on what the princess saw of herself in the mirror. Lillia tried smiling so her reflection would smile at her. She didn’t manage it.

Lillia turned away from the statue and mirror to remove her shoes. She walked across to another statue—a sleeping lamb crying the water—to place her shoes there instead of turning around. Lillia tried to find the clasp at the back of the battlegown’s neck that would allow her to remove it. The princess clawed for a moment before checking the text about it.

She had managed to put on the dress by thinking about it. Lillia removed the dress by unthinking it. After a deep breath and an instinctual check over her shoulder Lillia rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The room wasn’t cold, but it was colder naked.

The hat was the last thing to go. Lillia removed it quickly and cringed as her matted hair fell down onto her shoulders with a moist whap. There were a million people in court who would have said a million things about this situation. Even the handmaids who were used to seeing her in underclothes would have been speechless for every other reason.

Lillia didn’t know the room well enough to close her eyes on the way back to the mirror pool, so she stared at the floor. The second last thing she wanted was to look at herself right now. The last thing she wanted was a cold bath when there was a warm one available.

The warm pool was deep. Even with the light emanating from within Lillia couldn’t see the bottom. As far as she could tell she could have jumped into it and sunk forever. She was going to have to hold onto the edge. Lillia could swim, but she’d never practiced it after learning how to keep her head above water.

Lillia lowered herself into the pool with her eyes closed. The water was scalding, but there was a comfort in that. The princess pictured getting into a bath too early. Pictured someone shaking her head as she jumped into water that had just been pulled off the fire. She pictured kicking her legs and laughing at the redness of her skin before needing to jump out of the water before she sweat so much she needed to bathe again.

The princess went underwater. The heat pressed against her eyelids and seared the inside of her nose. Her lips tingled. Her lungs complained. She could hear a heartbeat under the water. It was slow. Rhythmic. Too calm to be hers. It was welcoming.

Lillia surfaced, pulling herself high enough out of the water that she could take a deep breath. Her hair had left a film on the water. She splashed it away, sending it off to the shallows as she wiped off her face.

How was she supposed to get the soap if she couldn’t reach into her dress?

Lillia considered the question and reached toward her sternum. The soap was back in her hand before she made contact. The empty damp of the room was replaced with honeysuckle. Lillia’s heart fluttered.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was time for battle.

Poems called women many things. Graceful. Lovely. Soft. Sweet. None of those titles applied to one dueling their hair on a bad day, and Lillia had several of those in a row.

To the soap’s credit, it held impossibly well. Even after Lillia dropped it twice and had to duck into the water to find it, it held its shape and size.

Lillia found the waterfall pouring from the princess statue’s jug and soaked under the scalding water. Soap and gunk Lillia didn’t want to think about sloughed off of her. Lillia made waves in the water to push the questionable liquid away from her.

A head shake. Long still-tangled hair slapped either shoulder. Lillia gripped the soap tight.

Back to war.

The cycle continued. Lillia scrubbed more than she thought she needed to. Lillia rinsed. The water that poured out of her hair was disgusting. That said, she could see the progress. Even if there was seemingly an impossible amount of gunk in her hair and on her skin, there was less each time.

Lillia lost count of the times she washed and rinsed. She also lost count of how many times she’d had to splash out her eyes. It bordered on obsessive. Three times past the first clean wash she kept going. She only stopped when she went lightheaded from the heat.

The shallow water on the edge of the pool was cool despite the heat right beside it. Lillia lay down and stared at the rippling light on the ceiling. Her chest heaved. She could feel sweat on her cheeks where she’d let herself get too warm. She hadn’t let go of the soap yet.

Lillia closed her eyes. With her head halfway in the water she could hear the heartbeat of the pool alongside the splash of the fountains on the surface. It smelled like honeysuckle. She smelled like honeysuckle. Lillia’s throat tightened. She squeezed her eyes tighter to hold everything in.

The princess tried to run her hand through her hair and got stuck right away. She had washed. She didn’t have a brush.

She should have asked about a brush.

Lillia tried picking the strands apart from one another, but it was a losing battle. She counted down from ten to give herself time to accept the birds’ nest she’d have and move on.

Ten didn’t work. Lillia tried fifteen.

Twenty.

Lillia hissed and pushed herself out of the water. She stared at the mirror. She looked disastrous, but at least it was the kind of disaster she could have gotten herself into back home.

Now that she’d had time to cool off, Lillia let herself back into the pool and pushed over to the mirror. Her reflection looked more frail than she remembered. She was a pale fragile thing in the glass. Her sharp collarbones weren’t a sign of restraint here, they were a sign of vulnerability.

Even with tangled hair, Lillia wasn’t an adventurer. The only thing that looked the part was the scar along her shoulder.

She hated it.

She always wore dresses that covered it.

Lillia’s fingers ran along the scar, her nails caught on the uneven skin. In all her years, she’d only gotten one. She’d been thrown off a horse while trying to follow her father on a hunt. Lillia stopped tracing the scar. Her fingers and attention lingered on it as she watched herself in the mirror.

How many more was she going to get? Where? Lillia dug a nail into her cheek and tried to imagine it. She stopped short of actually doing so.

Text appeared on the mirror as she properly examined herself.

[Lillia Ashvalin]