Beyond The Looking Glass - Words of the Unseen - Chapter 42
๐ฆ๐ธ๐ป๐ญ ๐ซ๐ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฎ ๐ช๐พ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ธ๐ป
Beyond The Looking Glass is the second book in the Unseen series, a story that came to me from the other side. A story where I thought I was just the narrator until I heard the Words of the Unseen.
This second story goes beyond time and place and mixes the long ago with the here and now. Because history keeps repeating, until we learn and do something about it.
Beyond The Looking Glass - Words of the Unseen - Chapter 42
I blink my eyes, and again. Then I rub them because what I see can't be real. There, a little lower down this dusty road walks Numico, but not the Numico that left me with a hangover eight summers ago. It's the Numico who crosses the steps of the palace with Kyra.
I know he's rich but I don't believe that they possess the fountain of eternal youth and yet with every step he takes closer I start to believe it more:
"Uncle Martio," then the pieces fall into place and I realize that I'm an old man who lives too much in the past and too little in the present.
"Kareino, boy!"
I've seen Numico's son once before and yet it feels like I'm holding my grandchild in my arms.
"Boy, what are you doing here, alone? Did you run away from them?"
"No, although I would like to sometimes. Okay yes, maybe a little but with permission. Father is traveling to take stock of the outskirts and introduce me here and there. I will have enough summers soon to succeed to the throne and, well, he says you never know."
I look at the boy, it is Numico exactly as I remember him until he speaks. He has the strength in the voice of his grandmother.
"But where is your father then," I ask while I peer down the hill.
"You will not see him, I am alone. Well, there is a soldier who camps half a day away from here and accompanied me to the bend in the river. I knew that last part completely, strange, I was such a small boy but I still knew it exactly"
I laugh but do not show it, it is a straight road but for this young prince probably the first step towards his manhood.
"So you are alone here, but ...," I do not get another chance.
"Kareino," Sei flies around the young one's neck, and next to this young one, I see for the first time that the tooth of time is also starting to nibble on Sei, although she remains eternally beautiful. Strange that it takes something like this to see that.
"Sei, do you still make cookies?"
Sei can't stop laughing and says, "well you haven't changed at all," while she turns around to get the rice cakes.
"Now tell me, why alone?"
"Nothing special, father is coming too but he has to wait. One of the important pieces of information won't be back for another three days and he needs that information. Well, I really didn't want to wait for that, so I asked if I could go ahead."
"Asked," and I look at the boy with my old schoolmaster look.
He starts to blush and nods "Yes asked."
"Kareino, I know your father and your entire family. Numico won't allow that if you ask."
The blush on the boy's cheeks now changes to a blush of shame.
"Uncle, do you remember what you told me about Dad? How he went after you without his parents' permission?"
I nod, "But boy, those were different times and Numico was no prince, and he had left a letter behind."
Kareino nods, "so did I."
After tea and cake, I take my old horse to the soldier and give him the instructions to tell Numico as soon as possible that his son is safe with me. I also ask him why he had not stopped the boy.
Kareino is his father's son, the young man had explained to him in detail how difficult he would make the soldier's life if he would even inform his father, if not now then when he was emperor. Evidently, that is what you get when you grow up at a court full of intrigues.
Back home I still can't believe my eyes, and at the same time, something is gnawing at me. The last time, Sei didn't feel it right away, but Numico and I were both unspokenly sure of it.
Now Sei is the most reliable of the three of us, but weren't Numico and I wrong, is one last time granted to us? I feel my eyes shining to see that boy one more time.
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