Chapter 75
Across countless ages, every human had been transparent to him.
Whether they were awake, asleep, or even drawing their final breath, he could see the current of their thoughts. Every memory unfolded before him with perfect clarity.
To Calix, the human mind had always been an open landscape. Something that revealed itself the moment he turned his gaze toward it could never be extraordinary. It could never be precious.
Reading another’s mind had never been a conscious act. It was simply how he perceived the world, as naturally as humans breathed.
Just as people never stop to assign meaning to a single breath, Calix remained utterly indifferent even as Prince Adrian’s brazen thoughts passed through him.
They existed only for an instant. To him, they meant nothing.
Prince Adrian, forever weaving one scheme or another, had died with his eyes torn out in one future. In another, he’d written a letter to his younger cousin. In another, he’d journeyed to Zelakent. In yet another, he’d stood smiling foolishly through a banquet.
There were tens, hundreds, thousands — countless millions of such paths.
That was why, after setting foot in the noisy capital, Calix had deliberately shut off his own sight.
He had intended to remain a detached observer lingering at the edge of the world, indulging humanity just enough before sweeping everything aside.
Even marrying the false princess had meant nothing. Once he’d rummaged through her mind and reduced her to an empty shell, disposing of her would have been simple enough. He had even accepted the poisoned cup his bride offered him without resistance.
What was beyond his infinite experiences, however, was absence itself.
To recognize that something is missing, one must first know what it is to have it. Calix never had. Not once had he encountered an empty space, something that denied being perceived.
The first time he realized Evelyn’s inner world was sealed off from him wasn’t at their first meeting. Nor was it at their wedding.
It was the moment he awoke after dying and found memories that should have been erased still burning clearly within his wife’s eyes.
Something that should have worked automatically…didn’t.
Even after he opened his perception, her thoughts remained hidden. Her memories remained hidden. The path her life would take remained hidden.
Only then did Calix finally understand. This woman had been closed to him from the very beginning.
The reason he had never noticed her until now was simple.
Even with the flow of time and the countless paths of every living thing spread before him all at once, his wife had been a transparent blind spot. A being with no visible path could never be found by an ability that read only paths.
The first unknown existence he had ever encountered stirred the mist with something dangerously close to excitement.
Unable to trace Evelyn herself, Calix searched instead through Prince Adrian’s memories until he found her — her limbs bound inside Zelakent.
He sifted through the memories of the prison guards, piecing together fragments of Evelia Locke’s life.
Then he followed the trails left by others, retracing the path of the prisoner they had brought to Zelakent.
Memory led to another memory. One path led to the next. Again. And again. Until, at last…
He found a newborn abandoned in a filthy alley.
The child now sleeping peacefully in the little cradle had been made in that image.
Golden hair. Green eyes. Rosy, vibrant cheeks. And a spirit that would never break.
He had created their daughter hoping she would become a gift for the wife who had grown weary of life. She would grow to be just like her mother.
Following the trail of mist after the maid who had secretly abandoned the newborn, he found that woman once again. The one who had already lost her mind.
“Mist fairy…”
Straightening herself, Rowena stared at the wavering mist before speaking.
“I made what you wanted. Perhaps that is…”
As always, the fog erased the mad princess’s memories before lifting its gaze toward the bookshelf.
Still unable to find so much as a trace of Evelyn’s path, Calix slipped a small notebook into the corner of the shelf, hoping his wife would someday discover something of interest there.
Then he followed the madwoman’s path once more. The princess, whose belly had not yet begun to swell, knelt upon the filthy floor and pleaded.
“I’ll do anything… anything it takes…”
The mist fairy spoke the same words it had uttered tens, hundreds, thousands — countless millions of times before.
“Well then… why don’t you try creating something that can’t forget me?”
Rowena slowly parted her lips. The mad princess had no idea what would follow.
Neither had the mist. Not until it began walking this faint trail did it realize that an idle wish, spoken without the slightest expectation, had first taken root here.
That was why his wife was a gift made for him alone.
Calix gathered Evelyn into his arms, holding her close. Freed from her nightmare, the lines of strain had finally disappeared from her sleeping face.
“Eve.”
Infinite awareness. Eternal time. Those belonged to him alone.
Even if the wife who lived only a fleeting human life were someday to die and scatter into the fabric of the universe, he would find her again.
“My wife.”
Just as he had before, his own will would bring her back into existence. Again. And again. Without end.
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