Short Stories

Elpharae

Trigger warning: Death and gore. Also sadness.

Three years.

That was how long it took to destroy a nation.

A peaceful nation, of harmony and healing, of music and arts, of happiness and prosperity.

A nation who couldn't heal Elpharae Chalzut.

Who couldn't save the king consort from the withering.

Who let the Darashi die.

Nobrané looked over the battlements at the carnage that he had wrought upon Halania. The once brightly coloured streets of the citadel were stained red with blood, dark and dry upon the sandstone walls. Heads adorned spikes atop the empty shopfronts, belonging to the recently extinct militia who had defended the city from many an attack prior to his invasion.

Romalia had once been peaceful, with towering libraries and sprawling complexes filled with classrooms and lecture halls and access to all the knowledge a man could dream of. But that all changed when the Darachis, the ruler of the land, Nobrané's sister, had died.

He thought of the men slain in his desperate attempt to avenge his husband, the massacred many who had stood so bravely against impossible odds. Husbands, friends, fathers, sons, neighbours and relatives, all fell beneath the swords of the Romalian army.

He thought of the lives those men could have led, who those men could have become, what they could have discovered and created.

He recalled the first time he saw Elpharae, at a ball for his sister's coronation, standing in the ceremonial robes of the House Buldragis, the fabrics flowing in the gentle breeze that floated through the pavilion they were standing in. He had looked so young then, so full of life and joy and love, for everything from the smallest insect in the grass to the biggest whale in the oceans. They were seventeen then, and neither had witnessed the horrors that the world held. Nobrané was not the Darachis of Romalia, and Elpharae was still healthy and whole. They were just young fools in love, with not a care in the world.

He reminisced of their wedding day, when he had stood under the Great Binding Tree clad in a simple white toga, watching Elpha approach through the field of flowers laid out by loved ones. He looked stunning, wearing the same red robes he had at the coronation they had met at.

They had tied a pair of rings to a branch, where many other rings sat bound with the ribbons of young lovers.

He remembered the early months of the withering, being forced to watch as the most beautiful person on land and sea wasted away, the spirit fading from his eyes until nothing was left but a lifeless husk of the man he loved.

So much death had happened in the three years of grief that had seized control of Nobrané's life. Too much. But still, what's another going to do?

Red covered the once brightly coloured streets of the citadel. Now more would decorate the ghost town that is Halania Citadel.

He stood on a parapet and took a deep breath.

"I'm coming Elpha, my love, I'll be there soon." A tear slipped down his face as he whispered into the wind.

His eyelids shut and he stepped calmly off the edge, silent as the  night that surrounded him. A small smile graced his lips as he fell.

The impact didn't hurt, not in the way that Elpharae had.

"Nobrané? Take my hand. Come on, hurry up! We've been waiting for you!" A melodic voice called out. Elpharae. A shimmering hand reached out of the light and Nobrané took it, standing and following his first and only love into the gardens of the gods.

And so, as dawn broke, Nobrané's body lay on the bloodstained cobblestones, his soul reunited with the love of his life.