The wind battered the wooden house. Tension stressed the wood, and tension wafted through the house. Deborah stopped visiting Leo, and she ignored Lappidoth who supported the marriage between Leo and Rachel. The two younger daughters followed their mother's example and stopped visiting Leo as well.
It was a month later from the time that the suitor was rejected, and the town had stopped discussing it every single day. But occasionally, passerby townsfolk would glance at the window of a Leo's room.
Rachel sat in a chair.
She wondered if she made the right decision. She wondered about her future as the next Deborah.
Leo stared at the painting; he wondered, what it meant to truly love.
They would chat, and discuss the future, at times. They would talk about their common interests at other times. Today, they discussed Leo's past.
"Who were you before you became a Blackcloth?"
"What do you mean?" Leo said.
"Things like... Who's your mother? Who's your Father? Things like that."
Leo was silent for a while, as he pondered how to answer her question.
He knew he needed to answer, so he said, "My Mother's name is Elenor Lionsmane, and my Father is named Richard Lionsmane. You may not believe me, but my name isn't just Leo... I used to be the heir to the Lionsmane Dukedom."
Rachel looked at him softly. She wasn't sure if he was crazy, lying, or truthful, but she decided to believe him, or at the very least pretend to believe for the sake of their relationship. 'As long as he doesn't babble about this all the time or in front of neighbors,' Rachel thought, 'We'll be fine.'
Rachel said, "So, what is the son of a Duke doing in Sodom of all places? And wasn't he executed for something."
"I violated the taboo."
Rachel looked puzzled.
She said, "What taboo?"
He said, "King Brimstone loathes any mention of the Supreme Fairy, and he especially hates those who refers to it as a dragon. He hates the mention of Dragons most of all
"Why?"
Rachel had never heard this before. His claim became slightly more credible in this instant, and she waited to hear more.
"When I was a boy," he said, "I overheard my father say the word 'Dragon' in hushed tones in his office. I heard another man hush my father in the next instant. I opened the door and said the word, and the man with my Father, Duke Livingstone, looked pale with fright. My father rushed to my side and said, 'Never say that word again! Ever!'"
Leo's face darkened.
He said, "I never said the word again for the next few days, but somehow King Brimstone heard I said it."
He said, "My Father was executed the next day, and I was made into a Blackcloth at the age of seven."
Leo recounted how his mother was spared, for the sole sake of managing the Dukedom, and how he was turned into a weapon for the kingdom.
He said, "The Lionsmanes are good at fire magic. Burn some villages they said. So... I-I did."
"I killed for years, until I turned sixteen, when I saw how those without the bloodline I had were disposable tools. I realized I was no different, and that my hope of becoming the Duke would ever come to pass."
"So, I escaped about two years ago. Actually, so much has happened between the time I escaped and the time I came here. So much."
"I was just a kid when they trained me, when they turned me into a killing machine. But now, I'm not lost anymore."
"I know what it means to take a life. I know what it means to lie. I know what it means to try and save lives—and how hard it really is to save even one."
"I just need one, one answer. That's all I need. I need to know it's possible to defeat death. So far, I haven't been able to do anything of worth, not in my two decades of life."
Rachel watched as Leo lamented. She realized he wasn't lying. She realized what dangers would befall Sodom once King Brimstone realized Leo was who he was. She knew he hadn't considered this possibility. 'He probably thinks he's escaped.' Different from Leo, she knew how the truly vicious nobles were. They weren't benign, like Nabal. No, the other suitors she rejected were horrible. These types of men treated women like tools, and they saw women from families of prestige, like her, as trophies.
She knew a storm was coming. She just didn't know when.
"I won't abandon you," she said.
Not knowing the weight of her words, and the depth her love had reached in this moment, Leo said, "I know."
The storm outside of the town raged, whilst masking the shadowy figures approaching the city to destroy it.
The clouds were dark and angry, as if they were preparing for the Supreme Fairy to descend and destroy the evil approaching the city, along with the city itself.