“Be that as it may, Mother. She is dead. Long dead,” she said.
The mistrell only smiled and said, “But we know of her story, don’t we, my daughter?” the mistrell said and she was caught off guard.
She may be dead, but her ideology, her achievements, could still resonate within some people. They could be inspired by her. The mere idea of her was more dangerous than she originally thought.
If the tomb was attacked, it just confirmed what Tamiron and the others have suspected. This was indeed a rebellion. She tried to forget this for now and then proceeded to leave the command tent to check on her troops.
BACK IN THE COMMAND tent of the Unibeltrasian Forces, Glaivel walked towards the command tent. He went inside and there he found Sevidon, deep and lost in his own thoughts.
“Why are you alone here?” he asked but Sevidon only looked at him.
He sighed and walked inside. He wanted to talk to him badly but it seemed Sevidon wanted the exact opposite.
“Are you thinking about that?” he asked, catching Sevidon’s attention who had a mean look on his face. He scratched his head, “I was right then,” he said as he found a chair to sit on, “It’s always this day, huh? The day that you are not yourself.”
“Stop it,” Sevidon said then looked away.
“How long has it been, two-hundred? Three-hundred years ago? I can’t remember—”
“I said stop it!” Sevidon suddenly shouted as he stood, throwing the chair he sat on. Guards popped in but chose not to intervene upon seeing him inside.
“Forgive me,” he said as Sevidon tried to calm down.
“Do you honestly think that you will be forgiven?” Sevidon said. He felt ashamed as he let Sevidon talk. “Do you honestly think, that what you said right now, what you have been saying to me all these years will change anything?” Sevidon said as he walked towards him.
“I know what I did — and I am so sorry. But I had no choice. I wanted to protect you,” he tried to explain himself to him but he would not listen, not even before.
“I will not hear the same excuse over and over again, Glaivel. Because of you, I got banished! Because of you, I lost my home!” Then Sevidon suddenly pulled him by the collar, he still avoided eye contact. “Because of you, I lost her. You betrayed us, you betrayed me. And for that, I died too that day, and I will never forget that.” Sevidon threw him to the ground and left.
The guards checked on him again but he waved them off. He took another deep breath and sighed. For after all these years, everything was still the same for Sevidon. He could never forget that day, the day he killed Sevidon — his brother and his human lover with an arrow plunged to her back.
LUNA’S LIGHT SHINED over the Plains of Thromasda and a full battalion marched towards the hill tomb of the Lioness. Their march echoed in the ground as most of the insects and animals of the night stirred clear of them.
As the great pillar atop a hill rose from the horizon, was the tomb, covered in dirt and soil, buried beneath the ground and the only thing signifying its existence was the great pillar. Slowly, pink pillars of light began to break out from the hill.
The guards halted, alarmed. The commander of the battalion walked a little bit forward as more and more pink pillars appeared from the ground appeared and the ground started to shake. The guards stood their ground when suddenly, the great pillar began to topple and pink and red lightning struck out from the hill.
The ground shook more drastically while the pink lights started to grow and the cracks did the same. The hill was erupting.
“Fall back now!” he shouted and the soldiers began to flee when the ground shook more violently than before and they began to sink as they ran. The roaring, crumbling sound of the ground stopped, but the ground kept breaking and when all of the sudden the hill and earth around its vicinity exploded from below with a blinding light of pink, red and maroon shooting up to the sky.
The light slowly disappeared and the cloaked figured revealed himself as he hovered over what used to be the tomb of the Lioness. The figure began to be engulfed once again of maroonish pink orb and as the orb disappeared, so was the attacker.
End of chapter X
XI: A Death remembered
Sevidon was still shaken as he entered his tent. He couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t help himself but remember that awful moment in the past and being with Glaivel brought the pain even more. It was as if it happened only yesterday but the memory of such a feeling was like an awful sensation that pulsed through his chest.
He remembered it in other days, but this particular day was difficult for him. He dropped to his bed and covered his face with his arms. His hands fisted and he began to tear up.
He remembered the day that the cold rain dropped on his forehead, the last day he was able to touch her skin. It was the day he last held the woman he loved. He held her arms as they ran through the drenched forest.
“We need to wait for my brother!” the woman dressed in leather said as her wet hair bellowed from wet blown wind. She pleaded to him as he practically dragged her back to safety.
“I’m sorry but we can’t! I heard the horns a while ago, we can’t afford to be caught now!” he said as he ignored the plea of the woman.
She was barely holding herself together as her tears fell with the rain. “Sevidon please, I beg you! My twin brother, we need to wait for him!”
“We can’t! I’m telling you now, we can’t!” Sevidon held the woman by the arms and tried to bring sense to her. “Averice, you are a strong woman! We need you alive, the others need you alive! I spent all these years keeping them safe from my own people’s hands! You will lead them to peace,” he cried.
“I need Mozarel, and I need you, Sevidon,” she said.
His lips trembled as his hands did the same. He tried to hold her but he couldn’t. He wanted to go with her, to start anew, but his responsibilities got in his way. Being an elf was in his way. He tried to keep his composure, doing his best not to break down and be strong for Averice.
He knelt in front of her and held her hands as tight as he could. “Listen to me, Averice. We will be together no matter what. I will follow you. But we have to get going now for that to happen. We need to get you and everyone else to safety first, do you understand?”
“And what if you weren’t able to follow? What will you do?” Averice said as she looked deep into his eyes and placed her hand on her stomach, “I need you now more than ever.” She cried.
“No, it can’t be,” he uttered as Averice looked at her with a smile.
“I’m pregnant,” she said
It slowly dawned on him that moment as he was left speechless his jaw rendered open. As Averice’s slowly began to smile and she held his face and there he realized why she badly wanted him to come. He became teary and was about to talk when he suddenly a loud horn. He quickly stood.
“We have to go now!” he said.
“You, halt!” someone shouted from behind them. Three soldiers had followed them.
“We need to hurry!” he said as he let go of Averice and he pushed her to run faster. He drew his blade when suddenly he was ran over by a mounted soldier.
“Sevidon!” shouted Averice as she stopped on her tracks.
He was in a daze as he tried to get up. I have to get up or it will be all over, he thought as the soldiers gathered around him.
“Run, Averice! Get away from here!” he shouted as he struggled to stand and a fist landed on his face.
“You traitor!” a soldier shouted.
“You, our prince, of all people!” shouted another. But he paid no mind to them. He needed to get Averice to safety.
A soldier then pointed towards her and two of the soldiers prepared to take her as well.
He breathed hard and with all his strength he stood. He overpowered those who held him down and tackled the other two soldiers. “Averice run as far as possible now! I’ll hold them off!” he shouted.
Finally, she tur
ned and ran away. He was relieved and all of his strength that he was able to muster slowly disappeared.
“Get her! Don’t let her escape!” one of the soldiers shouted.
“No, I’ll handle it,” a familiar voice said. He turned to the voice and it was his brother, Glaivel.
Glaivel walked in front of him and waited he for what his brother would do. His hope shot up for he knew that Glaivel would help him. He was in on all of it after all. But his face paled when Glaivel drew his bow and aimed his arrow towards her.
“Glaivel, no! Don’t do it!” he pleaded to his brother as Glaivel took aim. He struggled but the soldiers already held him down. “Let her go! She has my child, Glaivel!” he added, Glaivel flinched, but it was too late. The moment he finished what he had said, Glaivel had already released the arrow. It streamed through the air as fast then it hit the woman he loved.
“Averice!” he shouted once more. He threw the soldiers that held him down and ran towards her in an attempt to save her. Time slowed down for him as Averice turned towards him. The arrow had struck her right in the heart. She dropped to the ground as she reached for him.
He cried as he screamed her name as she tumbled down to the ground. “Averice, no, no, no!” he begged her but Averice only beamed a smile. He ran his trembling hands on her face one last time as Averice struggled to breathe.
“Why,” she uttered but he had no answer.
He held her hand for one last time and then she lost consciousness. “Averice,” he called out as her eyes remained open, but there was no life. She had already stopped breathing. He screamed to the heavens as he held Averice’s body close to his heart. She was gone.
Of all the hurtful things that he had ever experienced throughout his life, this was the most powerless he felt. This was the moment all his strength was put to waste. Agony filled his heart as if he was the one hit by the arrow. He held Averice tighter as he shakenly held her cold hands. He held it as he moved both of their hands towards her belly, knowing that not only he had lost the woman who gave his long life in this world meaning, but also the very paragon ofthat meaning. Their child that he hoped would one day unite their two very different people. But most specially, their child, that was made out of their love.
It was the moment where he lost his sense of purpose. That was the day, he died.
He toiled the cells of Eiventolf, mourning the death of his woman and his child. He stared blankly at the wall without care for his well-being — he was good as dead the moment his brother took Averice’s life. He spent his days in the palace alone, in the dark, without ever touching the food he was given or doing anything.
They dragged him to the throne room to be presented in front of his father and threw him in the middle of the room. With his head lowered down, he kept his silence.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the king asked him but he remained motionless.
“Sevidon! You are being asked by the Elven King, show respect!” one of the councilors shouted at him as he was kicked to the gut by a guard.
“Attempting to help those people? What has gotten into you, Sevidon? Tell me only the truth,” asked the King again.
Everyone looked at Sevidon when he finally lifted his head and stared back at the king.
“That forsaken being you’ve just killed, are children of this world as well. You look at them as they are beneath you, well they are not—”
He was abruptly hit on the back by a guard again because he raised his voice as the king only watched him cripple in agony.
“Sevidon, you are right, they are a child of this world. But the race of men is a weak race. A destructive one. We are the sole protectors of the beauty and bounty this world that was given to us by the Gods and Animos. Anyone who dares stain that beauty will be met by our fury,” the king said with pity.
“But they can learn! They know where they belong yet you killed them like they’re mere animals for slaughter!” Sevidon yelled at him.
“That is enough Sevidon!” the king bellowed, “The race of men is destructive. Their hearts can easily be swayed by evil. They are greedy and they want to destroy all of this world’s natural beauty!”
“They do not destroy; they adapt to their surroundings! They conform with the natural order and even improve it for our advantage!”
“Carving a huge hole into the earth is adapting?” the king interrupted him, “They destroyed the unity of the great rivers! We elves tried to reason with them but they don’t listen! They only want to feed their greed as they attempted to cut down our homes, our forests only to build their houses and cities and monuments of greed! They have crossed with our path in the past, rendering our own duty here in this world very hard to do! As the Grand Elven King and keeper and preserver of the order I have made my choice and it has been finally realized, after all these years!”
“You bastard! You and your twisted view of the race of men!” he shouted to him then spat, but he got back handed by a guard once more. He struggled to get up, “I envy their ways. Their ways of adapting. Adapting to their surroundings. Their ways of fixing things, of how they can conform with the natural order. I envy their idea of freedom. Something that we lack,” he said as he panted from exhaustion of being beaten.
“And you fell in love with that woman,” the king said with despise. “Tell me, why her?”
He only smiled to his father as blood ran down from his lips. “Because despite this pitiful war that has been going on for millennia, she had hope that one day we could co-exist.” He laughed as he spat blood to the ground. “I thought first that she was foolish. But her idea has merit and has meaning. She wanted it to end with both of us, hand in hand, living side by side. I fell in love with her idea and in turn I fell in love with her undying hope for peace. Something that you could never think of, despite our thousand years of knowledge and wisdom.” Then he bowed his head then laughed.
The guards were about to hit him again when the king raised his hand to stop them.
“And you killed the future of their race, when your son — my own brother, killed the woman that I loved,” he added, panting.
The king gasped along with the room as he continued, “The woman that carried not only my child, but your grandchild as well,” he said as he looked directly to the eyes of his father. “In her womb she carried the answer to our unity! But he shot him with an arrow! You killed her!” he shouted and he overpowered one guard as he drew a sword from one of the guards and the room panicked as he approached his father and held the sword to his neck. “You might as well have me killed because of that. For what you have done, and what have Glaivel done, you killed the very reason of my existence in this tiresome world,” he said as his hand began to shake and he finally lost grip of the sword as he dropped down to the floor and wept.
“You dare bed with an insignificant inset and it bore fruit? You swine!” the king shouted at his son and slapped him so hard it echoed throughout the room, prompting a gasp from everyone. “Your brother was good enough to not let such an abomination exist in this world,”
A long silence lingered in the throne room that day, maybe even the longest that room had to go through, then the king stood from his throne. “Today, we have received news that my son, Viris Prince Sevidon Numenesse, has died in the La’Sarien Forest during their encounter with the fugitives of the race of men. I king of the Grand Elves, hereby banish thee, Sevidon.”
Everyone was shocked by what his father just said, including Glaivel. “He is hereby stripped of everything he has and he will not set foot in these lands in the entirety of his life!”
The council murmured loudly as the Sevidon held his peace.
“Throw him out of the kingdom. Banished from home he will be. Dead people have no place in the realm of the living,”
He was dragged out of the throne room, almost unconscious. But as he felt the floor made contact of his feet, he was convinced that that was the day, he really died from this world.
He remembered all of it. He could not help but remember it on the day she died. He could never forget her face in those last moments in time.
“Sire, Prince Glaivel is here for you,” A guard from the outside said.
“What does he want?” he asked when Glaivel let himself in. “What do you want?”
“Nothing, but your forgiveness,” Glaivel said.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you will not get it?” he said as he stood out of anger. “You left her dying there in the dirt like some mere animal. You honestly—”
“She was my friend as well!” Glaivel shouted. “I couldn’t possible bear the thought of leaving her like that. I already made peace between them — I think. But that is the least that I could do,” Glaivel added.
“You think sparing them from father’s torture is mercy? How naïve you are, Glaivel!” he shouted at him as he held him by the collar.
“No, I gave them a proper burial, a proper tomb even that only I would know,” Glaivel said and he was caught off guard by this. His grip loosened as he did not expect this.
He tried to look where their bodies were taken, but he ultimately failed. All this time his brother, gave them what they at least deserved.
“Several days after your banishment, I had my men prepare a tomb for them to rest. I made sure no one knew of its location,” Glaivel said as he handed over a piece of paper to him. He looked at it then looked back to Glaivel.
“How did Mozarel die?” he asked as he took the paper. Glaivel was about to leave after handing the paper before he answered.
“I shot him with three arrows and slit his throat,” Glaivel answered.
“Why?” he asked.
“I was afraid that the soldiers would tell father what they saw, I would lose whatever respect father had for me if that were to happen,” Glaivel said then looked at him. “You were his favorite after all. I don’t want to fall from his grace any further.”
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