Page 40 of Tricky Princess
“Yes, but you haven’t told me what that means.”
She’d questioned him on where tricksters came from, where she came from, but he kept pushing it off.
“I’m saving that lesson for once you’ve mastered the history and politics of this realm. I need you to focus on that, then we can speak of…other things.”
He cocked his head, and his hazel eyes bore into hers. With a nod of his chin, she realized he was trying to tell her something. Something that couldn’t be said out loud.
What was it?
Could her lineage not be spoken out loud?
“Speaking of this realm,” she said, pushing that scary thought aside, “what’s it like for the souls? Their day to day life.”
“Why don’t you go visit them and see?”
Ellea’s eyes widened. “Visit them? But we can’t disturb those that are at peace.”
That was what he had told her during their first dinner. Even though rescuing Jocelyn yesterday would definitely be considered disturbing the peace. But she wasn’t truly at peace without those she loved. Ellea pressed her lips together.
Fuck.
Had she done something wrong?
Was Jocelyn suffering now?
“You can visit them; sometimes people of the court, the guards, or others will go there. They visit the taverns or shops the souls have built in their time here.”
“But they are from this realm. What if I run into someone I may have known when they were alive? Isn’t that going against the rules? You said so about Esmeray.” A pained look flashed across Azzy’s face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You can ask about her. I’m glad you do.” He cleared his throat before raising his chin. Ellea could see the pain and love battling across his handsome features. “No one talks about her and it’s time more did. But you can visit the souls without disturbing them.”
He guided her to their usual table by a window with a magnificent view of the valleys and mountains. It was cloudy today, and Ellea reminded herself to ask about the weather after they got through this conversation.
“If you happen to see someone you knew, they won’t recognize you. They will see you as a living member of this realm, as they see me, the guards, or anyone else. They know they are dead, where they are, and that they have lived a happy life.” He paused, searching her face, which was painfully scrunched. “Are you following so far?”
She was but she wasn’t. It sounded so simple but so complicated. Still, she nodded, and he continued.
“Their state of peace will not change until they are connected with someone in the afterlife who had touched them on such a deep level that death could not keep them apart. Then they will join in the afterlife as they did before.”
“So if I were to see my grandfather, who I never knew since he died before I was born…” She chewed on her lip for a moment, thinking. “He would not recognize me now or after I die?”
He shook his head. “That depends. If your grandmother passed away”—he knocked three times on the wooden table, and Ellea did the same—“and reconnected with him, then you passed away and reconnected with her, he would know. Your grandmother would not rest peacefully if she did not have you in the afterlife.”
It seemed like this was where the dead lived a new life. Now she was very eager to go see how they spent their days. She realized something. “So you visiting Esmeray won’t disturb her peace, but yours? It would cause you too much pain.”
He gave her a sad smile. “Why do you think the living are not allowed here?” Ellea frowned and shrugged. “Because they would see how peaceful their loved ones were and would want to join them.”
“And there would be mass suicides everywhere.” It would be chaos.
“The dead do not dwell on the living. It is up to those who still have time to remember those who have found peace. It is up to them to spend the years they have left to make the world a better place.”
“And those who don’t deserve peace?”
Azzy leaned back in his chair.
“That is for Beelzebub and his court to deal with.”
Once again, her head hurt. She placed her face in her hands as more questions formed. Azzy never acted annoyed by her questions, but he had to have a limit. “What about the demons that go to my realm, why don’t they show them?”
