The Truth

Chapter 2 - Siblings

"It must've been a sight to behold what you did in there; you defeated three of my soldiers before they could even reach for their weapons. You impressed Hāleth too. I am quite sure he would've stopped you if you didn't. Now, tell me. What exactly did you do to them? I saw marks of stabbing on them but it was clear you didn't use any of their weapons." Cassandra remained silent. She firmly believed that she defeated the soldiers using the throwing knife his brother gave her. But after she couldn't see any knives, she was unsure as well. However, she knew better than to talk about her brother, and after all this, she doubted that her brother was ever even there.

"I found... a knife," she muttered. Dālef frowned.

"You found... a knife..." he repeated and she felt the doubt in his voice. He didn't believe her at all. "You haven't told me yet what you were doing on my property either. So? What were you doing here? Did you come to kill them?" It was a clear night, his watery blue eyes reflected the pale Moonlight back ominously. Cassandra turned away. She was searching for an answer. She knew he wouldn't let her go, especially after what had just happened. Despite it being the end of the summer, she shivered from the trembling cold air. She took some steps forward, towards the edge of the cliff. Below, in the valley an enormous cathedral was outlined in the moonlight. The shiny, black roof reflected back a thousand stars, and the light seemed to dance on the roof tiles. The light pierced the swirling fog in the courtyard of the church, where between the grim tombstones a modestly dressed man, seeming to be a monk, limped through. He looked up at them, standing on the hill, she felt like he was looking directly at her, then the man returned to the cathedral. She had an idea; not a good idea, but it was bound to break this uncomfortable pause.

"I came to see that," she indicated the vast building with her head, and lied. Dālef looked surprised. He frowned and acted clueless.

"What do you mean?" No human has seen that cathedral before. No one ever even visited it, apart from some old men, who were not quite human.

Although she saw my house and my men, he wondered.

"The cathedral," she replied. "And the cemetery." She added hesitantly.

"Now you've seen it." He answered coldly. She raised her green eyes towards the monumental building. The monk stepped out of its door again and approached them on a dusty road.

"I'd like to go home now," she exhaled. The old man laughed. It was a dry, calculated laugh, just like his voice up until then.

"No. You'll stay here with me. We'll have guests soon. They come to see you. They never saw anyone this special, like yourself, Cassandra." He stopped, then added, like he just remembered to ask. "What did you say, how old were you?"

"I didn't say" she wanted to reply but then continued, as she sensed she didn't really have any choice. "I'll turn twenty-one at the end of this month." The man turned away for a moment, as if he noticed something terribly interesting behind her back. He didn't look at her, just answered, or rather muttered a few words that she didn't understand clearly.

"So you are born of the Virgin." She wanted to ask back but then she heard a feeble voice behind her back. An old man's voice. When she turned, it was the monk she saw before in the valley. She looked him over. He was almost entirely bald, apart from a few patches of hair on his temples, and he was entirely grey. His small black eyes seemed to be wet with tears. His plain, brown linen cloth was loosely tied with a chain on his waist. On the chain there were keys on a keychain. The withered old man clasped his hands together and bowed before Dālef who only seemed a few years younger than him, and looked at him suspiciously.

"Blessed night, my lord! I came here to discuss the matters of the estate with you." He spoke to him again, then bowed his head towards Cassie and added. "Blessed evening to you as well, Noesenoch." Cassandra didn't understand the word the monk used, but nodded. She listened quietly to the two men's conversation becoming more and more heated, especially on Dālef's part, but she quickly lost her interest. It was flickering lights in the distance that caught her eyes. Red traffic lights, white spotlights, tired yellow halo of street lamps, that lit up islands of the distant road. Is the road this close? She wondered and then she noticed a bus stop. A gut feeling grabbed her, shouting: "It's time! Now, when the old man holds Dālef's attention." Alas, the opportunity slipped away.