Her lips parted in shock for she couldn't comprehend for a moment what just happened.
"Mother!" she whispered and patted her body.
"Mother wake up! Why are you are like this?" she questioned as tears started streaming her eyes again to see no flicker of life in her.
"Mother!" she screamed at the top of her lungs and hearing that people who were sitting and resting nearby gathered next to her.
Erastus held Eva as his father tried to check the pulse of Nefeli. He checked per pulse and then brought his ears close to her chest and then to her nose again. He repeated it a couple of times.
"What's wrong? What's wrong?" asked that little girl not wanting to believe that there was something wrong with her mother.
But all that she got as a reply, was sheer silence as the apothecary slowly removed his hand from her pulse point and closed her eyelids as he moved his palm over her face gently.
"No... No... No...." yelled Eva and gave out a wretched loud cry.
Even the dogs howled along with her in harmony as if they could sense that something was wrong. A tone of melancholy was spread again even though it was perennially present before.
She was angry with God for she couldn't believe that he could be so merciless to take everything that she had in her life and leave her orphaned in a day.
The anger build up to such an extent within her that she got up and wiped her tears and took a solemn vow to finish off the man who had taken away everything from her. She started walking towards the croplands as she knew that Nubeous had gone in that direction, probably still in search of that ingot.
"Eva, where are you going?" asked Erastus and came close to her. He didn't want the little devastated one to do something reckless on her own.
But Eva didn't reply and kept walking. Poor Iris who was watching the whole thing since evening couldn't come close to the little one to console her, so she shouted from afar.
"Eva, I need help."
And as If Eva woke up from a trance, she looked in the direction of Iris who looked like she was in pain.
"Come here, please!" begged Iris and Eva couldn't avoid her cry for help even though right now revenge was all that she could think of.
"What help do you need Iris?" asked Erastus who had come along with Eva.
"Come close to me Eva!" said Iris and then took out an amulet and wrapped it around the neck of Eva.
"From where did you get this? Why are you giving it to me now?" asked Eva looking at Iris with pain-filled eyes for it was the amulet of her brother.
"I think he dropped it before leaving. Maybe he wanted to leave something before..." and the words just stopped in her mouth. She knew that Eva was young but she knew that she was a smart one who would be capable enough to make the right decisions in life.
"Hold it close to your heart Eva. It will give you strength! Don't do something that they would not want you to do," said Iris and ran her fingers through the hair of the child who had lost everything in a day, in the flash of a second. Nobody knew what it felt like to lose everything in life than her. She survived it somehow, but she didn't know how this little one was going to deal with it.
Holding the amulet tightly in the wraps of her fingers, Eva said,
"I will not spare him!"
"But he is the chosen one, Eva! What possibly can you do to him? It's not the time to be reckless Eva. Let's gather whatever we have and leave the wretched place that this village has become," Erastus said and held the hand of Eva to take her back.
But she stood there all stiff for her resolve was undeterrable.
"He cannot be the chosen one!"
"My brother was the chosen one!" said Eva and started walking back. Holding that last sign of her brother she started walking towards the croplands to meet that demon who had no soul.
Erastus wanted to help her out, but he knew that it was going to be in vain. Many villagers tried to stop her, but she had made up her mind. She was not afraid of marching alone.
After all, she had nothing to lose.
.
.
Hundreds of torches had lit up the entire area near the cropland where the soldiers had been tirelessly searching for the ingot in vain. Their blood and sweat had almost drenched the cropland. The dead bodies of their brothers who came before them were still strewn all across for Nubeous had ordered them to ignore it and keep on digging.
Those unattended bodies with the arrows stuck in them had peeled away the smug smile that he had on his face after beheading Morpheous's father.
"Faster! Dig faster!" lashed out Nubeous at his men who had not found any sign of the ingot. Only a last couple of fields were left to be dug open and that was adding up to his misery which acted as the fuel for his rage.
He was pacing around when suddenly he could feel a pulse in his soul ring.
"It's here!"
"Yes, It's here!"
It was the same pulse that he had felt before.
Pure ecstasy ran through his veins as his search was finally coming to an end. The quest for the other half of his guide, the quest to be the eternal ruler of the soul realm.
The soldiers looked up at their master who looked all jubilant. There was a faint glow that had spread on his hands and they understood that finally, it was the moment that their master will be pleased.
So without wasting a moment, they started digging up faster, using up the last reserve of their energy in search of that ingot.
And then suddenly the shovel of one of those men hit something.
'Clank'
The sign of metal, the sign of the ingot.