Spirit Speaker

I woke to someone knocking on my door.

"Master Lukas?"

I held my head, feeling like I was about to throw up. 

"Yes?" I asked, my legs wobbling. 

"The queen is calling for you."

My heart sank. 

"Understood. Can you give me a few minutes to get ready?"

"Very good, sir."

*

She was sitting at her desk when I arrived. 

It was barely morning, the sun had just appeared over the ocean, and yet she was fully dressed. 

She was wearing the same thing she had worn the night before. 

She hadn't slept. 

I knocked on the door. 

"You called for me, My Lady?"

"Yes Lukas, come in, come in." She was paging through paperwork on her desk. 

She saw me looking. 

"This is just minor correspondence." She said, waving it away. "The king is busy dealing with the impending arrival of the merchant delegation."

She looked nervous. 

I bowed my head. 

"What can I do for you, majesty?

"This is going to sound strange, but I need you to do something for me."

"Anything ma'am."

"Say my name."

I froze. No. No no no no no no no. 

She must have noticed the hesitation. 

"I knew it." 

"Ma'am?"

"Don't ma'am me, Lukas. You know more than you're letting on. And I will hear it."

I looked up and saw her trembling. Not anger. Fear. Fear of a future that had already happened. 

"Yes ma'am."

"What do you know?"

I winced. "If the lady wouldn't mind telling me what it is she saw? It might help me narrow down the problem."

"I…lay on my bed beside the king. He was broken, and bruised and shattered. He held my hand, and with his other, held yours. His eyes were closed, but he was communicating with Anna. And then he died." 

"What else did you see ma'am?" 

She drew a shaky breath. "I saw a room. Small, yet clean and neat. With lamps that turned themselves on. You handed me a silver mirror. You told me that Anna had said I wasn't sleeping. That I was missing my husband. You said that it would bring him back for a few moments."

"Did it?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, it did. And I felt joy, and sadness, and loss. And I felt it so keenly. I felt it so real."

I nodded again. After a few moments, I asked the question…the question I was terrified to ask. 

"Did you see anything else?"

"There was one more thing I saw. I had summoned you to my room, and I tested you. I asked you questions I already knew the answer to, and insisted you call me by my name. You wouldn't, and I persisted until you eventually promised to call me Lady Tila." 

"Did I pass the test ma'am?" I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"Yes, Lukas, you passed the test. And you joined me for dinner." She took a deep breath. "What did I see, Master Mage? Were we friends?"

I nodded. "Yes ma'am. We were friends. Good friends. We helped Anna when she ascended to the throne after the king perished."

"So it was real?"

"In another time, it was. In another time, the king fell from his horse during a hunt, and Anna took over The Kingdom far too young. You knew that she would need guidance, and you approached me with a plan to help her."

A lie. You were lonely, you wanted a friend. But you can't hear that now. You may never hear that.

 "How do you know all this?"

I looked down and swallowed. "I…can't tell you that ma'am. Sometimes speaking a future brings it into being. Just know that I will do all in my power to save the king." 

I felt her put her hand on my shoulder. 

"We were friends, Lukas. You were my first friend in the decades I lived at the palace." 

I nodded. "Yes ma'am. And you mine."

"Say my name, Lukas."

"Don't ask me to do that, Majesty." I managed to choke out. 

"I won't dismiss you until you do." 

"Ma'am. Please." I looked up, feeling tears threaten. 

"Do it Lukas. You were my friend once. Be my friend again."

I sank to the floor. 

"Lady Tila…" I whispered. 

"No, Lukas. That's not my name."

"It's all I can manage for now, ma'am."

"Not ma'am either."

She was not backing down. She wouldn't back down until she heard me say it. 

She wouldn't back down until she condemned me to a life of unrequited love and desperate misery. 

And the worst part was that she thought she was doing a good thing. She thought she was simply bringing her friend back. 

You always knew you were going to suffer in this life, Lukas.

"Tila," I whispered. "Your name is Tila."

And with that, I felt my heart break. I was caught. This was my one chance to escape. And now it was lost. 

I stood and bowed stiffly. "If I may be excused, Tila? I have to meet Lady Anna at the gates."

I didn't look at her. I couldn't look at her. 

"Yes, Lukas. You may go."

I stepped outside, closed the door behind me, and fell against the wall outside her room. 

And I pulled my knees to my chest, and I pressed my head against them. 

It hurt. It hurt so much. 

When the tears ran dry, I stood and dusted myself off. And headed to the gate, where I was to meet the princess.