From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 72: Forgiveness in Wax

When Elian whispered the final line of the old prayer, the flame didn’t waver. The priests helped him with the ceremonial wax, and left him in the confessional hall to speak with the Goddess of Wax.

Elian knelt for hours, hardened wax pooling around him like forgotten blessings. The Shadowrite Grimoire floated beside him, closed and silent. He bowed his head and said aloud, "I don’t ask to be saved. I want to be seen."

These words weren’t from any text, or from what Lucian learned.

There were no sanctions and no glyphs.

But the words were his, and they were said sincerely.

He had been praying to a large wax statue in a little alcove. She was a woman wearing a silk dress and hood, hands folded over her heart. The Saint of Tenderness had been silent and unmoving.

And then a crack formed from her brow to her cheek.

He looked up, mouth slightly open as he watched her open her eyes. Instead of pupils, her eye sockets had glowing amber flames.

"You were always loved," she said simply.

Elian’s throat tightened.

"I disobeyed."

"No, Elian. You kept the memories." she corrected. "Just as the Goddess has taught us to do. Another kingdom tried to stamp it out of you, and you held onto the last sinews of your faith."

He bowed his head.

And the Saint stepped down from her pedestal.

+

The Annex, Garden

-

Alice sat alone in the hidden garden beneath Staesis. There was a flat rock table made for practicing glyphs. Her hands were stained with pastel-colored chalk dust, fingers trembling over the circle she’d drawn.

I...do I still have time to erase it? Remake it? I wasn’t taught how to do these things...

She had to focus. Alice stepped away for a few moments to view her spell circle, and corrected it. The glyph was still unrefined and imperfect, but it was hers.

And full of intention.

Alice pressed her stitched hand to its core, and waited.

But nothing happened.

She was about to feel disappointed when the wind shifted.

The chalk circle glowed, and the glyph opened. It wasn’t a portal of light or darkness, but instead, soft leaf piles of memory.

Without thinking about it, Alice jumped in.

+

Alice found herself standing in a study. It was full of velvet-bound books and above the fireplace was a painting of the royal sigil.

Rosa stood at the window, clutching a letter. Her stitched face was pale, and her lips a pale pink. She looked a little frightened, but stood her ground. Behind her, Queen Marguerite stood, her face in shadow.

"So you do not deny it?" The Queen asked.

Rosa didn’t even look at her. "He betrayed you, Your Majesty. Not me."

Her tone turned harsh, far from the soft-spoken Queen in Rosa’s memories.

"And yet you still defend him."

Rosa turned to face the Queen now, and Alice saw her for the first time.

Half of Queen Marguerite was dead, and her eye socket had a fierce blue flame on it. The other half had flesh stretched over the bone.

Alice’s knees trembled but she noticed Rosa looked up calmly, though her voice wavered. "I was asked to guide him. And that is what I did. You said he doesn’t have to stay at court."

"But allowing him to escape and not reporting it right away?" The Queen’s voice was cold.

"I was unable to report it because I never got the chance to slip away." Rosa said truthfully.

Marguerite was not placated. "You know far too much. It makes you a liability."

Rosa’s hands trembled. "I know enough."

"You will forget." the Queen said.

She raised one gloved, bony hand and cast the memory-wipe glyph. It felt like the time Rosa accidentally slammed her hand against a hot stove.

Alice screamed at the same time Rosa did.

And the memory snapped.

+

Alice was back underneath the willow tree, and the chalk circle burned faintly on the flat rock.

Lucian ran toward her.

"Alice!" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

She looked up.

Eyes wide.

"She erased her," Alice whispered. "She erased who Rosa used to be. And then the Spymaster made her into a vessel."

Lucian knelt beside her, and the Loom shivered in its case.

That meant Rosa had not been a doll at all--not in the beginning. She truly had been a real person. And when Marguerite erased her memory, the Spymaster had permission to make her into a living doll, of sorts.

Lucian didn’t know whether to be disgusted or just...sorry. Sorry for the life Rosa didn’t get to live the moment he disobeyed the Queen’s orders.

+

The Edge of Frost Hollow Mountain

-

Gabriel’s mask fractured. From his right eye to the chin, there was a jagged break. It glowed like a geode. Opposite him, the Marionette stood, her basket empty. The threads were as still as her five daughters, all obediently waiting for their mother’s business to conclude.

"Ah. So you cracked," she observed. "I take it you broke the first time she lied?"

He completely ignored her, and lifted his head. He turned toward the distance, where Staesis would have been marked on a map. Gabriel felt the mask fracture a second time as he whispered a name.

"Seraphine."

+

In the Annex’s garden, Alice froze when she heard a deep voice call a name.

"Seraphine."

It wasn’t hers.

She was Alice, after all. That was her name.

...isn’t it?

"I...I’m not--You’re w--"

Lucian held her shoulders, concern all over his face. "Are you all right? You just started talking while you were knitting."

He looked at Alice, but her eyes seemed to be seeing something far beyond his reach.

+

Up at the mountain, Gabriel didn’t move again. The cracks on his eye and lip glowed, like they remembered something too early. Like she was not a new person, but someone who had returned to the land of the undead.

+

The Annex, After Dinner

"I’m fine, Lucian. I just...saw a vision, and heard someone else’s name...not anyone we know," Alice said quickly, before Lucian could ask. She stared at the chalk circle.

It was no longer lightly burnt, and resembled ash more than chalk.

"Whatever it was, it spooked you real good," Merry said gently. "Do you want to learn something? Take your mind off it?"

Alice looked up. "What?"

"To draw," Merry said softly. "To write glyphs that hold. To shape threadwork without the Loom’s help."

"But it hates me."

"No," Merry said, smiling. "It’s afraid of you."

Alice blinked.

Merry reached into her satchel and pulled out a softwood slate and a jar of ink.

"Let’s begin with the glyph for ’truth.’"

Alice took the brush.

And the ink did not resist.

+

The Obsidian War Tent

Even if Cadrel hadn’t seen Prince Alexander in ten years, he still had to report back. He was just afraid of what the prince would say when he returned. Quietly, Cadrel pulled his scarf up to his neck.

When he reached the Prince’s tent, there were still soldiers he barely recognized. Their eyes widened and saluted him. "Brother Cadrel," one said, his voice cracking with emotion. "The prince said you might return one day."

He nodded stiffly. Life was a bit harder now, and he still couldn’t stand crowds or loud noises. When he thought about the battle stance he’d adopted weeks ago in the Chateau, his hands shook.

Present Cadrel was a different man than the past.

Weaker. More jumpy.

But he was moving.

The prince was sitting on a throne of cracked stone, still, checking one map: what Staesis looked like above ground. A place he had never been able to visit since the betrayal.

Alexander didn’t turn as Cadrel entered.

"I heard you’ve begun traveling again."

"Your shadow is still long," Cadrel said quietly.

"I needed someone old," the prince replied, "to tell me if I’m about to become my father."

Cadrel’s breath shook as he realized there was nothing to worry about. Prince Alexander knew he had returned. And now he wanted any information he had.

"Thankfully, your Grace...I do have an answer for you," he said quietly, and started his story.