COF 3: The Fallen Dynasty

14 | Massacre (III)

A fitting end to a man who didn't know his limits.

When Elred set her feet back at the plateau, she dodged Viktir's swinging arm. She summoned her glass sword and stabbed it into his gut. Her dagger's dwarven metal tip drew a thin line of blood down the half-blood's neck.

"Monster," Viktir's chest heaved, whether from fear or aggression, Elred didn't bother find out. "You're a monster."

Elred snorted before pressing the dagger deeper into his chin. "Learn your place, soldier," she snarled into his ear. Viktir froze, recognizing that line she used to them during the time they spent in training.

Elred tightened her grip on both blades. "You can heal the wound from the sword," she rasped into his ear. "Go back to the Sovereign with this message: I am no longer yours. You're dismissed."

Elred dissolved the sword and shoved Viktir away. "Don't let me see your face again," she raised the dagger, still dripping with the other generals' blood. "Because when I do, I'll kill you."

Viktir clutched his stomach as blood slowly stopped pouring from it. He regarded her one last time before muttering a spell and vanishing. Elred was left alone with the bodies of the people she had once treated as her friends.

Her knees knocked together refused to carry her weight any longer. She plopped to the ground that she couldn't see due to her vision already blurring. That's what she always taught her generals. Fight without emotion and deal with them later.

A sob escaped her lips and before she knew it, her shoulders were shaking. A thousand tiny shards had found their way to her chest, wounding it over and and over. With a cry, she slammed her fist into the ground until her knuckles were raw and blood dripped into the freshly upturned dirt.

None of this would have happened if she hadn't allied with Synketros. The shard fairies wouldn't have to be stuffed in emergency catacombs, Helinfirth wouldn't have to be in ruins, and nobody would have died needlessly.

It's all her fault.

Elred stood up and dragged herself to where Nadia lay. The half-blood had grown a little bit of hair over the course of the months that passed. Nadia once had auburn locks. Elred wiped her tears and knelt before the mage. "I'm so sorry, Nadia," Elred whispered, passing a hand over the corpse's face, closing her eyes. Half-bloods weren't reduced to anything when they died. They just...stay there, forever. Elred touched Nadia's cold forehead. "With Pidmena's blessing, I usher you to the glories of the Afterlife. Aschui."

She sent her magic into Nadia's body, dissolving her form into thousands of shards, glinting red against the setting sun. Next, she did the same to Pikard whose shards were green, like grass against the blackness of dirt.

Elred flew down the plateau and did the same to Diran's body. His shards were of a thousand colors. Elred smiled. Even in death, all he thought about was the beauty of the world in pigments.

"You'll always be someone I'll look up to," Nadia had said to her back then. She was young, with her hair cropped close to her neck, her crimson cloak draped around her shoulders like a warm hug. Nadia had sidled up to Elred, her dark eyes holding a sparkle of admiration. "There will be no one who could replace you."

Diran had thrown his arm around Nadia, his black hair cropped short back then. "You'll forget about her once you meet your future bond," He had joked.

Viktir and Pikard, the ever silent twins, sat in the corner of the room, reading different books with one resting against the back of the other. Elred had plucked the book out of their hands despite their protests. She called them into attention and they piled in front of her, ready and stiff. Still, the shine of youth and that of idealistic hope sparkled in their eyes.

Elred would give anything to go back to that time again, where their days were spent cavorting around Synketros's grounds, sparring with each other. She missed the days when the four of them didn't see the need to grow up.

Time goes on, so does youth. Soon, Elred caught the Sovereign's attention and began involving her into the inner circle. She had been too happy to comply. She felt important, needed.

Then, the mission to Cardina came and Elred picked Nadia, Diran, and the twins to accompany her. There, they were forced to leave their idealism behind. They were looking for the Virtakios so that the Sovereign could use its power for her whims.

Unlike her life in the heights of Helinfirth, where she spent her days arranging glamours on her face and pleasing her mother, with her friends, it's easier to let those glamours fall away and be herself. When she's with them, she forgot that she had a family, that she had a home elsewhere. She forgot her duties, her place in the society.

How many times had she wished that those nights by the River of Wishes would stretch on forever? She still remembered Diran sketching his heart on parchment, Nadia telling Elred of stories the half-blood's fairy mother tells her when she was young, and the twins trying to push each other into the water.

Cold wind blew across the plateau, stirring Elred's pale locks and her sense of reality. Death floated in the atmosphere as if the souls that departed didn't enter Pidmena's bosom but rather clogged up the visible sky.

Reeca. Elred had to find Reeca. She had a promise to keep.

She found the varichria at the place that used to be Rabante, sitting cross-legged on an uneven mound, eyes closed and hands propped atop her knees. The wind ruffled her short, yellow hair.

It was quiet. No animals called. No merchants chattered. Not even the noise from the mines rang from a distance. A deep emptiness clawed at Elred's heart. She shook her head just as Reeca sensed her presence and cracked her eyes open.

How much more time did they have before the Helinfirth Queen found them and took action?

Reeca inclined her head at Elred. Elred clenched her jaw. "Come with me," she extended a hand towards the varichria. "Let's get you the thrones."