The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Chapter 13: Sibilia

Dear Scribs,

This will be the last time I confide in you. Please don’t feel sad, not for yourself and not for me either. Remember me with the same fondness I feel toward you, and guard my memories well. After all, we’ve both known since the beginning that this day would eventually come. The fountain pen is about to go dry. There’s not that many pages left. The holy scriptures say that everything in this world will run its course regardless of what we do—but believe me, Scribs, when I say this, I’ve cherished and valued our friendship more than anything else in this house.

There’s one more tale I want to share with you. I’m writing this in the drawing room—yes, I know, how shocking, dangerous even—but it seems only fitting to scrawl my final account under my father’s gaze. And I couldn’t anyway write in the room I share with Celestia. We have no light there, as we replaced the beads we unscrewed from the chandeliers with those from our and Elise’s room. More about those beads later.

It’s a full Moon tonight, and you know what this means. Oh, Scribs, my skin gets goose bumps even when I only think about it! I, Sibilia, wed Celestia to the Moon.

I know, Scribs, I can’t believe it true either. But true it is! My sister is now the Crescent Empress, bless our celestial father!

Can’t waste the last pages in something as trivial as gloating. I’ll tell you about the ceremony, but not in too great detail. You understand, if I were to disclose everything, anyone who read my account might be able to figure out how to perform the rites, and that of course would be a really bad thing.

In any case, here goes.

After Captain Janlav had locked us into our rooms for the night, we waited till the house grew silent and then some more. While I reread the important bits of the scriptures, Celestia retrieved the key ring and the two swan soul beads from the secret locker at the back of the wardrobe. Dressed only in her nightgown, she looked strikingly bare. She has no more secrets from me, of which I’m glad. And I understand at last why she kept so many from me earlier—she was protecting me in the only way she knows.

I, on the other hand… Celestia doesn’t know about me being up. I left her sleeping, a content smile on her face, and I’m pretty sure she won’t stir before the morning. I’ve not yet decided if I’ll tell her of my outing or not.

When the clock in the drawing room struck twelve, I pressed the book of scriptures shut (not that I could make out more than the shapes of the words in the dark), clutched you under my arm, and claimed the key ring from the nightstand. Celestia already waited by the door, holding a soul bead on each palm, close against her chest. I must admit, my heart beat quite wild as I turned the key in the lock. There was no sign of the ghosts, which was annoying, since they could have helped us secure the room. Scribs, I dreaded that Captain Janlav or one of the guards would enter the drawing room all of a sudden or midway through the ceremony so much that I hurried to place a chair against the door leading out. The floor squeaked under me, and I was acutely embarrassed about that as I returned to Celestia. She merely studied me from under her raised brows. I resolved not to take a step more than absolute need be before the ceremony was over.

“I’ll let them out,” I whispered. That, at least, was part of the plan.

Celestia nodded.

I unlocked Elise’s door first. She waited behind it, the strangest expression on her face. Scribs, you know when a horse decides not to move and you can’t coax it to take a step forward, not with a whip, not with a lump of sugar? As you surely recall, since my sister confessed funding the insurgence, she’s been in turns very vocal and then withdrawn. Tonight, it felt to me as if she were set to stay in her room and not play her part in the ceremony, even though that would have ruined any chance we have for leaving this house together.

But before I could say a word, she glided past me directly to the curtains, there to immediately start unraveling the thread holding them together. Scribs, tell me that I just imagined it.

Thanks. I feel much better now. Onward with what happened.

I proceeded to let out Merile and Alina. I had it in my mind to caution them to stay silent and not move around the room, lest their steps wake up the guards. But as I pushed the door in, they were ready, the rats sitting beside them. And something about them made me hold my tongue. My sisters looked more mature than their years warrant, Merile thoughtful, Alina completely fearless. And the rats… they were beyond vigilant, blessed by Papa himself, not mine to command.

Once we were all in the drawing room, I sat down on the sofa and closed my eyes to focus on the sacred ceremony that I was about to perform so very soon. Since the ghosts revealed the location of the swan soul and we decided to go forth with this plan, I’d spent my every waking hour practicing the spell and the rites to the degree that it was possible to do so. Yet, my thoughts strayed, just as they’re straying now.

I don’t know what to think about Elise anymore. Celestia sided with the gagargi because she was under his spell. Though Elise claims she was initially unaware of the gagargi being behind the insurgence, she doesn’t regret supporting it. It’s as if she’s not at all sorry to see everything our family has worked toward for millennia crumbling before our eyes.

The ghosts call her a traitor. I really… Can we return to this topic a bit later?

Ghosts and the soul beads. I shall write about those first.

Who’d have guessed! Though Celestia had searched the house through for the swan soul bead she knew Irina and Olesia had brought with them, it had never occurred to her, or any of us, that they might have split it into two separate beads, that we’d basked in our heraldic charge’s sacred light all along! No wonder our mother grew so afraid of her sisters’ cunningness that she decided to send them here. And I do feel sorry for what they had to go through, live here so very alone for over a decade, and then meet their end at Captain Ansalov’s hands! The thing is, even if they did plot against our mother once upon a time, they feel like family now. I know they’ll do everything in their power to help us escape their fate.

I don’t know how much time I spent with my eyes closed, wondering whether the ghosts would show up or not. I wished that at least Olesia would, because the ghosts were present when Mama wed the Moon and hence know how the ceremony should proceed in practice. That is, at that point, both Celestia and I knew how it should go in principle. But principle and practice are always two different things. Anyway, I had to remind myself several times that it mightn’t be up to them to decide whether they appear or not. They’re not in control of themselves anymore. They’re fading. Soon, they mightn’t be anything else but waning hauntings of a forgotten house.

I stirred to the sound of the curtains being drawn apart. Though the gap between the planks is narrow and the crack in the glass is small, barely the size of a copper penny, a thick, silvery beam of Moon’s light flowed into the room. My sisters and I, we drifted to bask under our father’s gaze.

This is when the ghosts finally appeared. Irina formed next to Alina, Olesia beside Celestia. In the Moon’s light, they looked more real, solid.

Scribs, I’d grown so used to seeing them but in a reflection, that to see them—not in flesh, but in the ghostly version of that word—greeting our father, his daughters just like us, my heart swelled with a bruising feeling, a sort of foreboding melancholy. But at that moment, I knew that our father would always care for us all, that he’d forgive us, no matter what path we wound up following.

Celestia stepped forth, toward the window, and turned to face us. Dressed in her negligee, holding the two soul beads on her palms, she seemed to gleam silvery luster—no, to reflect the Moon’s light. “Welcome, my sisters. Welcome, our honored aunts.”

Olesia curtsied, but Irina didn’t. She chose to remain still, taller, thinner, her outline sharper than that of her sister, with the gap between her and Elise sore like a ruined grin. She simply said, “The guards are asleep.”

I glanced at the chair with which I’d barred the door, still happy that I’d chosen to do so. Even if the ghosts had checked up on the guards, there was no guarantee that one of them mightn’t wake up.

Scribs, you’re right, I’ll be running out of ink and paper before I get to the ceremony. Hence, I’ll be skipping the greetings and some other bits. I’ll try not to leave out anything that might be of interest to you.

“Shall we begin?” Celestia asked, and not only to check if I was ready for my part, but to also verify from the ghosts that everything was in order.

I held my breath. Celestia and I had done our best to combine what I’d figured out from the scriptures and what the ghosts had told us about the ceremony. But how could we really know if we’d still got something terribly wrong?

“I see no reason for delay,” Irina replied, and she was right. The late-summer nights are short still and the gagargi will be sending for Celestia well before the next full Moon. This might be very soon indeed.

This thought in mind, we hastened to our assigned places: Celestia at the exact center of the Moon’s light, Elise to the right of her. My place should have been there, next to her, but of course tonight it wasn’t, as I had the sacred rites to perform. Merile, Alina, and the rats gathered to the left of Celestia, uncharacteristically attentive. Irina and Olesia remained where they’d appeared. They were to be the rest of our family summoned to witness the most sacred of ceremonies.

Once everyone was in the right spots, I untied the knot securing Celestia’s negligee. With my fumbling fingers, it took me two separate attempts to manage this, but once I did succeed, the garment slipped off her shoulders, off her. She stepped out of it, to reveal her unclothed body for her husband-to-be. In his light, she was slender and pale like a young birch, the shadows of her ribs the stripes. Rooted to this moment.

My sister said, “I am ready.”

Scribs, speak of a pressure! I can’t even begin to describe how nervous I felt as everyone turned to stare at me. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, let alone move. My sisters’ fate, the very future of the Crescent Empire, rested in my clumsy hands! We had but one chance for the ceremony, only one swan soul. If I were to say the wrong words, mispronounce the glyph, if the beads were to slip from my fingers at the wrong moment…

“Sibilia.” Celestia’s voice was laced with confidence.

I drew a deep breath. She believed in me, and if she did so, it had to mean that I could really perform the ceremony. I pushed any opposing thoughts aside and strode to my place, before her.

“The sacred marriage that binds the Moon to the eldest Daughter of the Moon is the most blessed of unions,” I said, and my voice didn’t waver at all. More confident now, I opened you, Scribs, and turned over the right page. I cursed myself for having written sideways over the passages. But then…

Our father’s light lit the paper white, and the black letters grew bolder under my gaze. Each word was so easy to make out, so easy to say. And so I recited our father’s wisdom in a clear, loud voice, coaxing forth the glyphs that would bind my sister to the Moon. And they came to me, in orderly groups, though I’m no gagargi.

When the time came, Celestia extended her bare hands toward me, the soul beads resting on the cups of her palms. With each passage I read, the light inside the beads changed form. White threads surged under the glass, radiant but impatient. We’d speculated on the complications of one soul being split apart and being reunited later. The ghosts had reassured us that this should pose no risk. Or that was what the young gagargi had told them all those years ago.

And now that the final glyph emerged from amongst the words, I had to believe in the ghosts and the young gagargi I’d never met, that they’d been right, that they’d known what they were doing. Because as the master of all glyphs expanded in the Moon’s light, winding more complex with each heartbeat, I for sure had no idea whether I was going to succeed or not. Scribs, there really was but one way to find out.

“Celestia, the oldest Daughter of the Moon,” I addressed my sister, so very keen to pronounce the master glyph, but terrified as well. For the glyph was so impossibly elaborate, a hundred times more so than any I’d ever coaxed forth from the pages before. Being so for a purpose. “Will you marry His Celestial Highness, the Moon?”

“I will.” Celestia smiled at me, and it was as if her whole being, her body was radiating the answer, her eagerness in the form of lustrous white light. I could feel my sisters’, the ghosts’ expectant gazes on us.

I willed myself to remember the glyph in its whole glorious intricacy, and then, Scribs, I closed you, and having no other place to put you, I clasped you between my knees. My hands shook violently as I extended them toward Celestia’s.

She met me with the most trusting of gazes, as blue as the innocent summer days of our childhood. “Sibilia, the one our father has favored with the deeper understanding of his words, will you perform the rite?”

I forced myself to take a slow breath, and in our father’s presence, I at last found calmness. My hands ceased to tremble, and Celestia placed a bead on each of my upturned palms. “I will.”

And then, I pronounced the glyph that was the key to the Crescent Empire’s future.

Scribs, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you of the things that unfolded next. It’s not for selfish reasons, but a matter of necessity. My father’s secrets are not for me to share. But I can tell you that the moment he took my sister as his wife was both beautiful and terrible, deafeningly loud and silent, short and long, and all the things in between.

This much I can say: the ceremony changed Celestia. Where she had been serene before, now her blue gaze is wide and deep like an ocean that knows no boundaries. Where her posture had been tall and proud, now it’s even more so. And where she’d been fair before, now she gleams our father’s blessed light even when he’s not present.

“It worked,” I whispered under my breath, but I didn’t dare to move, as my knees had suddenly turned very wobbly and unreliable.

Celestia glided to me and took hold of both my hands. When she spoke, her voice was different, too. Imperial. “That it did, my dear sister. And we have you to thank for that.”

I blushed despite myself as my sisters and the ghosts gathered around us. And it wasn’t only to pay homage to the Crescent Empress, who stood before them still bare of any jewels and clothes, but also to acknowledge me for the part I’d played in the ceremony. It was a curious feeling, to be the center of attention because of something I’d done, rather than because of how I look, but I think I quite liked it.

This time around, the dizziness that always follows a spell came with a delay. When we broke off the embrace of sisters at last, Celestia guided me to the sofa before the windows, though I assured her I was fine. But when I did lie down on the sofa, I instantly dozed off. I came around only when my sisters had already swept the floor clean of the soul bead shards and sewn the curtains shut.

Alina dashed to check on me. “Are you all right? Please, tell me you’re all right!”

I held a finger up, against my lips, to remind her to keep her voice down, but I did smile at her. I felt great, not only physically, but also because of what I’d achieved.

While I got my bearings—I might have been a bit dizzy still—Celestia saw Alina and Merile to their room and Elise into hers. Of the ghosts, there was no sight. They must have left us while I rested.

“How do you feel?” Celestia asked me when we were alone in our room. With our lamp no longer working, it should have been dark. But it wasn’t, as my sister still radiated our father’s light.

“Tired,” I lied. In truth, now that I’d napped for a moment, I felt invincible and ready to face any challenge posed to me. Yes, Scribs, I recognize the ridiculousness of that thought all by myself. Hence the lying, though I’m not proud of that.

I undressed, and we went to bed, and there was no need to talk more. We both knew what had come to pass and how it may yet alter the course of events.

Scribs, I’ve seen my sister tired and happy and worried. But never have I seen her in such an utter state of contentedness as when she closed her eyes. She’s become what she was meant to become.

The Crescent Empress.

Sorry for the long pause, Scribs, I had to stop and really think about it. Here goes.

I wonder if in some convoluted way my sisters and I have become what we were supposed to become in this house, if we have done so due to the circumstances or because this was our father’s plan all along.

Alina is no longer afraid of the things she sees or even the Great Thinking Machine. She believes in the promise Celestia made to her during the council of sisters, that we’ll keep her forever out of the gagargi’s reach. As a result, though her mind-rotting disease may have gotten worse, she seems healthier now than back at the palace, and in the end, I suppose, that’s the thing that matters the most.

Since the magpie incident, Merile has grown up. Even though she still acts childish at times (like when she continues to insist that she and Alina really saw the witch in the garden once), I know in my heart that she would do anything to protect Alina. And there can’t be a greater quality to cherish than utter selflessness. She’s brave, too, and now that I further think about it, we should thank her for Celestia becoming the Crescent Empress. If she hadn’t demanded answers, Celestia would have never conceded how dire our situation was, and the ghosts wouldn’t have revealed the location of the soul beads.

Elise… I don’t want to write these words, but Scribs, I need to get this off my chest. So, here goes, regardless of how terrible this might sound to you.

Elise isn’t the sister I knew back at the Summer City, the buoyant girl I so envied. I don’t think I can trust her anymore. I don’t even want to talk with her. It feels to me as if nothing we ever shared was true.

And I really don’t like the person my sister has turned into. These days, her opinions are so wild and outlandish that sometimes I think she’d still be ready to side with the gagargi regardless of what that might mean to us. The worst thing is that she seems to genuinely believe that that would be the right thing to do.

I don’t know how she can do this to us, her family! The ghosts call her a traitor. Perhaps that’s what she is.

Scribs, would it be such a very bad thing if I never said another word to her?

Can we continue with what happened tonight? Thanks.

When I was sure that Celestia was truly and deeply in the land of dreams, I got up as quietly as I could. I know, what a silly thing to do, but Scribs, tonight I felt as if I needed to get up, out into the drawing room, and meet once more with my father.

Hence, I retrieved the key to our room from the wardrobe’s secret compartment. I don’t know how Celestia always opens it so easily, but I was sure I’d wake her up with all the prodding and pushing. Luckily enough, my sister remained fast asleep. I prayed thanks to Papa, snatched you with me, Scribs, and sneaked out.

In the drawing room, Moon’s light trickled in through the holes of the sewn-shut curtains. My father’s shine drew me to him, and I felt as if I were drifting, barely more than a ghost of myself. I hesitated to unravel the thread—Celestia never lets me touch it. I think she fears that I might accidentally snap it, and I’m tempted to agree with her. But tonight, there was no other option. I lowered you on the floor and set to work.

I thought I knew what to expect when I drew the curtains apart. But I was wrong. So very wrong.

The crack in the glass is at the same level with my eyes, and as the light seeped in, it felt as if I were directly meeting my father’s gaze. I was blinded and granted sight. The world ceased to be and went on without me. I was no more, and yet I was more than before.

As I stood there, frozen, my father spoke to me, words of light that I didn’t understand then, and have still not been able to figure out. There were images, too, or perhaps they were visions, but they went past so fast that I can only recall one. Merile’s rats running through a dense birch forest, a bird black and white framed by the Moon’s light. An echo of the future, perhaps?

To be honest, I have no idea.

I don’t know how long I stood there. I don’t really care. Eventually a cloud slipped to cover the Moon, and when it passed, my father had shared with me everything he wanted me to know. Yet I didn’t feel like sleeping, rather like writing, and so I settled on the sofa chair closest to the window.

Tonight, my account has been full of important events that will no doubt bear historical significance in a century or two. But I think I’ve written enough of that now, wouldn’t you agree with me, Scribs? Yes?

Good. For I only have two or so pages left, and I want to fill them with something lighter, but very personal still.

THE LETTER!

I’ve been dying to write about the letter since the Ball, but haven’t. I needed to first make up my mind about a few things, including the kiss that could have been. Needless to say, I really haven’t yet, but I’m ever so slowly running out of time to do so.

Here’s what you need to know.

Celestia and Elise gave the letter to me to read while they fussed with my impossible hair. They reassured me it’s from K, that it was smuggled here by the Poet, under the false bottom of the box of chocolates that left a bitter taste in my mouth. The letter might eventually do likewise.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about it and what came to pass after the last dance a lot, but funnily enough, not K. I know, unbelievable, considering how many of your pages I wasted drooling after him. I’m sure he’s still handsome and all that. No doubt about that. But…

The letter says that he’ll love me forever and was planning to gallop to my rescue. But then his family, who’d sided with us of course, had to flee the gagargi’s persecution, and his parents forced him to leave the country with them. He’s safe now, at the Southern Colonies, where the sun doesn’t warm him like my smile once did, where the night is cold but not as cold as his heart is without a reassurance of my eternal love.

Once upon a time, the words would have sent me tearfully brooding for weeks, if not for months. Or years. To be finally confirmed that he loves me! To know he’s safe!

But I’ve had a lot of time to mull over both the first and only time we met and every word written on that precious piece of paper. I’ve come to realize that what I felt for him was never more than a passing infatuation, nothing upon which to build my whole life and existence. Nothing for which he should risk his life either—that I should have had the audacity to dream of this!

Scribs, I bet you noticed, I have my doubts about the letter’s origins. I, too, have changed during our confinement in this house, but it might be that my older sisters haven’t yet realized this. I know they have pitied me in the past—and possibly still do so—and I can’t blame them. For months and months, I only prattled about my debut and wanting to be just like Elise used to be (the Moon bless that I never actually turned into someone like her). I do appreciate them arranging the Ball. It was fun while it lasted. And enough.

I can see beyond the surface now. The handwriting on the letter isn’t that of my sisters. But who says they didn’t ask one of the guards, Captain Janlav perhaps, to write it, in a well-meant attempt to console me? If that’s what they did, I can say with a clear conscience that I won’t hold it against them. And if the letter is really from K, I wish him all the best and that he won’t cry after me for too long.

For even if we were to return to the Summer City, I don’t think I’d like the life there. And though my sisters mightn’t believe me—and hence I won’t share this with them—even if we’ll never leave this house, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. In the end, it’s not the balls and dresses and music and refreshments that are important. But being content.

I’m not lying here, Scribs, it’s the same thing as it was with the kiss. I thought I wanted it, but at the last moment, I changed my mind. Though Boy really likes me, and he’s turned into quite a handsome lad (I don’t know how I didn’t see it earlier), I don’t feel the same way about him (and it’s not because I’d still dream of Captain Janlav. That, too, was just a passing fancy). There mightn’t come another chance to kiss and be kissed, but for now it’s enough for me to know that if I’d so wanted, I could have done both.

And with that said, I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is.

Scribs, I don’t know if you can make out any of these words. The ink is running very low. And in any case, we’ve come to the last page. I want to thank you for your friendship and your company most loyal. You’ve helped me discover who I really am, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

Fare you well, my dear friend, I shall hide you in the secret compartment, for someone to find you.

For them to remember me.