Character Interview: Eveline: Part Two

Eveline smiles gently, her face instantly lifting as her memory of Galean engorges her mind.

Eveline: He saved me and somehow brought me to safety.

Me: You speak of him with great feeling…

Eveline: That night was both beautiful and horrific for differing reasons. Horrific in the sense that so many were dying as I for the first time in my life, fell in love, not with my husband but with his best friend. That night in the shelter will forever be engraved in my memory. It was the night that I first looked into the eyes of Galean and found a purpose, despite the wall that already separated us.

Me: In love? But you are married?

Eveline: You think badly of me, yes?

Me: No, I just…I feel sorry for you, to have fallen in love with someone who isn’t your husband.

Eveline: I love my husband and my oath is sworn to him and will always be until death parts us. But our marriage has altered and changed and he is angry with me and I cannot separate him from his anger for it is just.

Me: Is that why you left him?

Eveline: Yes and no. The morning after the raid, Galean and I were reunited with Estelle and Belle and were met by my husband and his old friend, Jophiel, who was his fiancé before he was tasked to go to Unas with Galean and save me.

Me: What happened to your parents? I never asked.

Eveline: This is a very complicated story, so don’t feel under any pressure to fully come to terms with it in one go. Simply put, my brother poisoned my parents upon hearing of my birth. My parents brought me to the garden of Kings for safety and handed me into the care of Galean and Theodore.

Me: I…I don’t know what to say…just that I am sorry you never knew your parents.

Eveline: I believe that I am still coming to terms with their deaths, maybe I will never be completely accepting of what happened, but growing up already believing my parents dead does have its advantage.

Me: So you travelled south to Bath for the week?

Eveline: Yes, but as the days passed I became weakened due to the poison and my behaviour began to take a turn for the worst.

Me: How so?

Eveline: I was beginning to become paranoid and violent, turning on my mother in particular for no just reason.

Me: Did you know what was happening?

Eveline: I could feel myself succumbing to something much stronger than myself, as though my true self was becoming smaller by the day and this shadow of a monster was becoming larger.

Me: How did your husband and friends react?

Eveline: Galean was suspicious and had been since first we met, but the rest of my family and guardians thought I was simply suffering from trauma and stress. And I was suffering both from trauma and stress, Theodore was becoming angrier by the day and more possessive of me, all because of a prophecy.

Me: A prophecy?

Eveline: When my mother was a child she had a prophecy about myself, Theodore and Galean. But prophecies do not always bear truth.

Me: What was your mother’s prophecy?

Eveline closes her eyes briefly before letting out a long sigh.

Eveline:  Two hearts, bound by fate and time shall cast a great light across all seven corners of the universe. Under the tree of life shall they come, sipping from the fountain of time, binding themselves to one another, forevermore.

 Together they shall become one and one shall overcome all that stands in the way of the light. Together they will vanquish darkness and reign glorious forever more, never to be parted. Yet fate is not so easily cemented if bend it must. For man will try to part what does not belong to him, breaking the bond of eternity, cursing the light to forever live in chains, bound to the everlasting darkness.

Me: I can see why your husband grew suspicious. He believed Galean to be your fate, yes?

Eveline: I don’t believe he would have but for my grandfather implying that Galean was indeed the person whose fate is bound to my own. And it isn’t as straight forward as one would think it. My husband was once in love with Jophiel and I believe being under the same roof as his wife and once fiancé only worsened the situation.

Me: What do you believe?

Eveline: Not everything is black and white, the future can alter and with it the prophecy too can alter. Theodore loved Jophiel once and I cannot strip him of that, but he loves me too and yet the ironic thing is that his wife too loves another. A paradox some would say.

Me: I cannot argue with that.

Eveline: My fall into darkness acted as a buffer to the deeply troubling mess that was evolving between Theodore and Galean.

Me: How did you overcome the poison?

Eveline: I didn’t. I was falling into a trap, perfectly placed. And I fell deeply. When my husband found out that I had been poisoned by Nagtium, he and Jophiel journeyed north to Oxford to visit a professor and attain vials of antivenin, even though it wouldn’t save me completely, it would withhold the poison long enough for me to get to London on time.

Me: What went wrong?

Eveline: Mary was holding a small fundraising ball and during that night, Galean had been dismissed from the house by my husband. I should have let him go, I should have…

Me: Yes?

Eveline turns away from me and drops her head into the palms of her hands.

Eveline: I should have obeyed my husband and my marital oath, but I could not. I could not let Galean walk away forever to regret his steps, and so I ran after him, to stop him from leaving me.

Me: Did he?

Eveline: He said to me that if he loved me any less he would stay. He needed to return to his home, his Kingdom was in peril.

Me: Why?

Eveline: His youngest brother, Beon is waging war against his father.

Me: It seems that both of your kingdoms are in uproar.

Eveline: They are in the grips of oppression and war.

Me: So he left?

Eveline: For a time. I returned home and retired to my bed early. Unfortunately two shadows had interceded the party and drugged the drinks of my guardians, Peter, Ada and Bram, my mother, Estelle and my husband. I had forgotten to take the last vial of antivenin and fell prey to Nathaniel. Lagmar had during the night, taken Belle and Theodore from the house.

Me: Where did he take them?

Eveline: To a graveyard. When I awoke from my sleep, well…I wasn't myself, the poison had consumed me and I did unspeakable things…

Eveline tightens her hands into balls of anger as she speaks.

Me: You don’t need to rush, you can take your time.

Eveline: You must understand, I was not myself.

Me: I understand.

Eveline: Nathaniel was using my body, he…I, killed Ada, Bram, Peter, Mary and…and…Estelle.

Silence falls over the pub as Eveline wipes away a tear, her face pale and her hands shaking.

Eveline: She found the last injection and pierced it into my vein before falling to her death…When Nathaniel eventually was rendered powerless, I was too late to save her…blood was on both of my hands and all she could do was smile and whisper that she loved me.

Me: She knew that it was not you who possessed a murderous heart.

Eveline: If I am so powerful, why could I not fight him? Why was I rendered so weak and vulnerable?

Me: You were not in possession of the truth, you didn't know that such a power lay within you.

Eveline: Not until it was too late. I searched the house for my husband and Belle but they were gone, so I made my way downstairs to the front door, adamant that I would find them. But when I opened the door, he was standing before me and knocked me into a state of unconsciousness.

Me: What happened when you awoke?

Eveline: I awoke within a small building, a mortuary building. But I was not myself, I was under the control of Lagar. I remember the mortuary being filled with shadows, I remember seeing my husband and Belle tied to two large yellow stones. I remember laughing at Theodore and teasing him, before piercing the heart of Belle with a blade. And then I heard his voice and everything erupted before me.

Me: Whose voice?

Eveline: Galean. He and Jophiel jolted out of the shadows and came to our rescue just as Gabriel, Michael and a group of guardians entered the mortuary. The last thing I remember was falling to the ground as Gabriel placed a hand upon my head and rid my mind of the poison and him…Lagar.

Me: What happened to Lagar?

Eveline: He fled, along with Lagmar.

Me: And Belle?

Eveline: Jophiel sacrificed her life so that Belle could be revived and brought back.

Me: And did she?

Eveline: Belle is alive and well thanks to the selfless Jophiel.

Me: What happened next?

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