The Garnet Locket

Achi turns the picture over between her fingers. It is small, small enough to fit into the locket she’d removed it from. For the moment she sets the picture to the side, opting to inspect the locket instead. She holds it up on its silver chain, the sunlight that peeks through the curtains glints off of its inlaid garnets and rubies and throws soft prisms across the room and over the wall. Beyond the jewels it is a simple diamond shaped thing. It is aged, its silver has lost its luster.

She hasn’t seen it in ages. Not since it fell from Malloree’s chest. 

Achi’s own chest constricts. The emotion is foreign, so much so that she almost doesn’t recognize it at all. It is only the faintest pang, but it still cuts through her indifference. She hasn’t thought of Malloree in decades, she does everything she can to keep from thinking about Malloree. About her kind smile and the way the sun used to put a shimmer on her copper locks. 

In part she feels as though it was she who had killed Malloree. The locket twirls and she can see the teeny ‘M’ engraved in cursive upon its face. She swallows and sets the locket down as she tries to extinguish the nostalgic sense of sorrow; it doesn’t sit well with her, doesn’t suit her to feel any sense of mourning. 

She has long since lost the capacity to feel it, or so she thought. 

It is startlingly easy to push that feeling of yearning and grief aside. She does so just as she had slid the locket across the coffee table. 

She takes a drag from her kiseru and watches the smoke trail up towards the ceiling where it dances amid the onyx crystals that cascade from the chandelier. At one time, she and Malloree had sat beneath the very same chandelier. 

Achi scowls to herself and picks up the portrait if for no other reason than to take her mind from that godforsaken locket. What she finds is not much of an improvement. Malloree’s face beams up at her, her arm slung over the shoulder of a younger boy. 

Achi decides that looking at this portrait is infinitely worse than dwelling on Malloree alone. The boy in the photo is stoic especially next to Malloree. His eyes are dim. Dim from years of emotional abuse and a degree of the physical sort. 

And it is no wonder, he was weak. He hadn’t fought for himself. He hadn’t the means. Not at the time anyhow. 

Achi holds her hand up and lets the dark magic swirl into her palm. It bursts up like a lick of rave-feather fire. 

She supposes that it was a fair trade; him for what she has now. She lets that dark energy build and die away, suddenly abundantly aware of the weight of the crown on her head.

She doesn’t think about it often, but when she does it makes her stomach queasy. 

She fixes the portrait back into the locket and stands. Gathering the thick, lacy train of her form-fitting dress, she makes her way out onto the balcony. The courtyard below is still and silent as a newly finished funeral rite. Mist crawls along the cracking flagstone path and twists around dead oaks.

With a snarl twisting her black tinted lips, she tosses the locket as forcefully as she can. She imagines the clink of it hitting the ground. She isn’t sure where it has landed but she hopes that she won’t come across it again.