How To Rule ✅COMPLETE

The Feeling Of The Lost

Tenen watched the girl he called his. She wore the smell of blood and death like a perfume. It terrified him because she looked like she did not care even one bit.

Not even for him.

He had come to help her defeat the darkness he could feel it even now surrounding her like a cloak; but the darkness in her seemed to want to overtake him. Darkness spilled from her and if he was not accustomed to it he might have even drowned in it. She took a step closer to him and her voice dropped an octave more that he did not miss the anger laced in her words.

'You did this. You hurt him.'

Rin watched Tenen, her actions and all the deaths she had caused that night wanted to weigh her down but if she let them she would crumble to the floor a crying mess so she decided to focus all her emotions on him, twisting them into one emotion that would not make her cave in his presence.

Anger.

'Rin I had to, he was a monster. Please don't try to humanize him. Haven't you ever asked why we head the Rebel's yet we are so very young.'

Tenen watched as her hand slightly relaxed the sword pointing at him, the blade no longer glaring at him menacingly as before.

'Do you want to know why.'

Rin tapped the tip of the sword on the ground, it no longer pointing at him signaling him to continue. She had wondered how they at such a young age had proved to be a thorn in her father's side for this very long without him finding ways of exterminating them. She had just assumed they were impecabble leaders with strategies fit for her father's generals. Maybe she had been wrong.

'He killed them. All of them. Rowan's father and the rest of his counsel. He killed them. Slowly tortured them till their bodies couldn't fight anymore. Then he mailed their corpses back to us. Have you ever seen your best friend so broken that he cried in your arms. I don't think so. I did everyone a favour by driving that sword into his body.'

Tenen knew his words were harsh but they needed to be said. She needed to see the truth about who her father was, so that the shackles he clearly had over her could be broken and she could finally see him for what he truly was.

A monster.

The news about her father did not shock her in the least. He had never hidden who he was to her so as she grew up she had seen each and every descision he had made leading to him being branded as the tyrant king.

Once when Rin had wondered why everyone hated her father and when she had asked him he had replied with critic words but as she grew older with each of his decisions the people deemed bad she had understood those words even more.

The decisions I make as ruler are for the benefit of my kingdom and not so I can be liked by them. If hate will make them respect me as a ruler then I will hone the skill till no one is left who sees my humanity.

‘Stop please, this is not you and you know it’

Tenen watched as she walked towards him, if it had been any other person he was certain he would have been warry of an attack but something in his gut told him, she would not hurt him just as he would never hurt her. Her bloodied hand came up to land on his cheek and if they were not standing among dead bodies he would have leaned into her touch. A slow sinister smile spread on her lips and he knew he would not like her next words.

'Who says this is not me. Trust me this is the truest version of myself, I have just been hiding it for all this time. You forget I am my father's daughter, only I'm much worse.’

Rin had not planned to touch him but he disoriented her everytime she saw him. Even as her words finally registered in his mind she found it hard to let go of him but he had hurt her father and if she was not careful he might hurt her too. He held her heart in his palms even if he did not know it. And war always seemed to destroy everything good.

Love being among it.

Tenen watched as she walked away. He knew he should give her time to process what she had done so he stayed rooted to the ground even if every fiber in his being told him to chase after her and hold her and never let go. As she begun to teleport he shouted the words he hoped would sway her.

'It's not you because I know you'

Tenen words followed Rin and even back at the palace they still rang in her ear. Did he really know her. They had spent less than three days together but did he really know her. People tended to lie to get their way and she was scared to believe him just this once, maybe it was just an elaborate lie to get her to turn against her father or was she just overthinking it.

Rin walked the hallways dreading to see her father. He had looked terrible the last time she had seen him and she dreaded what he looked like now. Though she had won against those rebels he had tasked her to fight she did not feel like a champion. She was slowly losing her sanity and she feared she would lose him too when he saw the lengths she would go to to fulfill her father's wishes.

Rin did not have a destination in mind but it still shocked her that she found herself before her mother's catacombs something inside urging her to go in. She had never gone in alone, always accompanied by her father so as she stood on the threshold it scared her how badly she wanted to go in but the fear won and reluctantly she turned going back to see her father hoping he had gotten better.

Arion felt it. The last gift from his wife to their daughter. He had hidden it well but now he was weak. And as he grew weaker its call for her grew stronger. She could not resist it and when he died it would make her pick it up. He knew how the cycle went, he had watched his wife go through it. Long time ago he had tried destroying it but he never could; it refused to be destroyed so he had hidden it and bound it by too many spells but they were slowly unraveling and with it a fear he had forgotten for sixteen years started to come back. It was darker than dark magic it was black magic; what had turned his wife insane causing her to take her own life promising immortality.

A hoax.