As he slept, Sangfroid dreamed of his last conversation with the Bishop. His caretaker, his teacher, and his father.
He and the Noble Huntsmen had searched for the Bishop's whereabouts in all the wagons and caravans that managed to escape from Ilvedia. There were about 114 in total, and the number of people that survived was barely 600. More and more perish every day due to the dangers of the woods or health conditions that they were already suffering from before the attack and worsened and festered once they traveled with little to no necessities.
There was an extreme need for priests to bless the dead and give them proper burial so they would not turn into vampire corpses. That's why it has been so difficult to know where the priests may be because they personally travel away from the camp to bury these bodies in peace and give them blessings.
They finally found the Bishop during one of their early morning hunts performing a burial service while being pushed through a small cart by Vicar Garien. Garien explained that despite his warnings not to do so, the Bishop insisted that he uses his final moments in life to help the people in their crisis instead of 'loafing around like a bloated and dying fish on the shore'.
The Huntsmen had fallen to their knees to the sight of their Father, who never abandoned his compassion and goodwill to the people despite his body barely handling the slightest of exertion.
The Bishop just smiled. "My children, do not genuflect for me like I am a saint. Leave that for our Holy Dragon Lord when you have your time to give prayers at night. It is not like my deeds are comparable to the ones you are carrying and taking responsibility for."
"Especially you, Sangfroid." Though he was blind, he turned perfectly to the direction of the young Chief Huntsman.
"Yes, Father." Sangfroid solemnly stood up as instructed.
"I sense that this will be a less difficult day for you, compared to the others that are to come. If you do not mind, will you stay with me for a while and have a chat as I finish the proceedings?"
The Noble Huntsmen took this as their cue to leave. The Bishop is always known for this, if he asks to talk to someone specifically, he is also asking for everyone to leave them alone and give them privacy. They did not harbor jealousy nor became upset from the Bishop picking only Sangfroid to talk to after all the things that had happened, but instead felt grateful that their Father was still alive and they get to see him again.
The Bishop turned to the vicar. "Garien, you may also take your leave. Sangfroid will bring me back to our tent, I will be giving him instructions on the way. Inform the Destrout family that the burial is finished."
"Yes, Father." Garien nodded, and went on his way.
"Sangfroid....." The Bishop sprinkled holy water on the mound that has a freshly dead man on it. "I am going to die tonight in my sleep."
Sangfroid felt his heart tighten, yet his agony and shock cannot be seen from his face. His voice did not shake, though he wished it did to show how much grief he was already feeling just from this news alone. "....Did the Holy Mothers tell you, Father?"
"Yes. There is no way to change it. I already thank them for giving me peaceful death compared to the people I have to bless burials for." The Bishop turned to him. "You want to cry, don't you?"
"I do, Father." Sangfroid's body shook, but no tears came out from the ducts of his eyes.
"This is precisely why I choose to tell you among all others. I do not want to hear anyone crying over something as wonderful as my death." The Bishop said. "I will finally be with the Holy Mothers and the Dragon Lord, passing your prayers to them so they may be heard."
Sangfroid wanted to say he understands, but he really doesn't. His Father shouldn't take his death so easily. "But Father.....Wouldn't you miss the people who are still on Earth? Wouldn't you have regrets about your mistakes or the things should have done?"
"I do. Sangfroid, there is no person who died at my age that lived a life without any regrets. But I am someone who believes that everything is beautiful, even pain from separation and regret."
"Everything is beautiful?" Sangfroid repeated, blinking.
"Yes. Have you seen how beautiful the idea is? Once something is destroyed, something will be created. Once something is created, something is destroyed. The balance of things is truly beautiful, and it is in everything that we do in life." The Bishop picked a small dandelion flower and placed it on top of the mound.
"Once I die, something 'good' must come of it if people perceive death as 'evil'. So in the end, if death amounts to something good, can we really consider it evil? Once we live, we are forced to suffer the hardships of life, so is living actually an evil thing? There are no certainties in life, the rules that we made can be easily broken just as fast as we created them. That's a truly beautiful thing, the balance, the Big Gray, the in-between. Don't you think so?"
Sangfroid was confused and cannot answer these rhetorics. He has never been much of a philosophical thinker. He opened his mouth to speak something coherent. "I think—"
"Oh, don't worry about upsetting me from not understanding my perspective, my son." The Bishop beat him to it. "I am simply sharing my view with you because I am a dying old man turning senile. No need to think so hard about it."
"If you say so, Father." Sangfroid nodded, ears tinged red. He really wanted to understand his Father since he was a child, but there was just something about him that's so... ethereal and distanced from the rest.
"All I wanted to say as my final teaching to you is to consider what kind of outcome may be, and how you will learn to accept it. When you think that all has come for the worst, believe me when I say the next that will come is the best." The Bishop said. "That is how miracles work, from something you perceive as impossible and hopeless turning into something good and beautiful."
"I will always remember that, Father." Sangfroid nodded, his mind still in chaos from the fact that this man he was speaking to will die within a few hours.
And he couldn't even cry about it, because he was born as a freak that cannot portray emotions properly no matter how strongly he feels them.
"You are a miracle, Sangfroid."
Sangfroid thought he might have misheard, so he went closer to confirm. "Pardon, Father?"
"You are a miracle too, my boy. Look at you. You have been born to have a weaker physique than most, adding to that the damages from your infancy. When you came to us, nobody expected you to live long enough for you to be able to walk." The Bishop recalled, almost fondly. "Yet your scars healed, and you still prevailed."
"When I trained you, I did not expect you to be of any rank among the Huntsmen. Yet here you are, the Chief, and the most adept among them. You were like the butterflies you used to watch when you were young. I have never seen such a beautiful growth in my life that I am saddened to replace it for my visions of the future."
Sangfroid felt happy like never before from these praises, but suddenly felt unsettled by the last sentence. "Thank you, Father, but.... are you not afraid to say that when it was the Holy Mothers who gave the vision to you?"
The Bishop chuckled and waved his hand. "Oh, all those 59 women already knew I have never regret such a decision in my life as accepting the pact to see visions. I thought by seeing the future, I could take control of it and save the people I love, but alas, nothing has changed. Those people are too stubborn to listen to my warnings anyway. "
The Bishop made a small frown like he suddenly remembered something. "Has Casserome..... Has the king given any message at all?"
"None, as far as I know." Sangfroid clenched his fist. "He is probably living the good life back in Faldenhorf with no conscience to return to his people. There is no more king of Ilvedia, only a man who caused a kingdom to ruin."
The Bishop nodded quietly, and there was an awkward silence.
Sangfroid decided to first break the silence, but he and the Bishop ended up speaking at the same time.
"The vampire lord has offered me a deal."
"Do you remember the prophecy on where to find the missing pages of The Book of Xendros?"
The Bishop didn't hear him because of the overlapping. "I'm sorry, young one. What was that again?"
Sangfroid closed his mouth, and opened it again to only say: "You may speak first, Father. It is..... unimportant."
"So you say, but your tone makes it sound important to you." The Bishop smiled. "Being blind has its benefits too, like I said, all 'evil' can amount to something 'good'. I can now hear the nuances in your voice to have an inkling of your true emotions."
Sangfroid looked down. "I will wait for you to speak first, Father. We can talk about it later."
"Alright then." The Bishop allowed the matter to pass for now. "As I was saying, the two verses that I told you and His Highness back at Santimieda. Can you recall it?"
"Blood flows through the crevice, Cold seeps into the body." Sangfroid easily recited the verses with no hesitation.
"I told you that I was not allowed to interfere with your interpretation of this...." The Bishop coughed a bit, but suppressed it down. "But I want to have.... a little act of rebellion before I breathe my final breath. The Mothers will be taking it from me whether or not I help you, so there's no point."
He coughed again, and turned to air. "Yes, yes. Settle down, my ladies, most Venerated Ones. It will not be that much, and I am not even sure of my interpretation in the first place."
Sangfroid frowned. "If the Holy Mothers are highly against it, it would be best not to disobey them—"
"It's alright, they vetoed to allow me some leeway." The Bishop waved him again. "Such a young lad yet such a worrywart for an old man like me. I can handle myself, son. Now, listen closely."
"Blood is the essence of life. Therefore, they could be considered the same. When life leaves through the 'crevice', it may mean that it passes through the boundary of the Human Realm, and the Beyond. The cold that replaces it in the body would be death."
Sangfroid listened well to these words, and formed to a conclusion while staring at the mound. "Then could it be a place where people had died? A grave?"
"You have always been a smart student, my boy. I knew you would understand it so quickly." The Bishop patted his head while smiling wide.
"Who's grave was it?" Sangfroid formulated theories in his mind. Xendros' grave? But nobody knows its whereabouts.
The Bishop seems to read his thoughts as he said: "There is not only one missing page, Sangfroid. And the dead could not hoard things with him in his tomb. It is most likely that you are not looking for only one resting place and cold bodies, but scattered ones that do not lay on a single graveyard."
Sangfroid's eyes widened from realization. "The graves of the former vampire lords."
"Yes. Fitting, isn't it? He placed the methods he used to kill these monsters right beside the dead monsters themselves. All their weaknesses and powers, how they were made and how they were vanquished, written beside them like an epitaph."
Sangfroid's face darkened when his Father spoke of vampire lords as 'monsters'. "Father.... I don't know if it's useful to look for the missing pages anymore."
The Bishop raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do you not want to find a way to stop the vampire lord from controlling Leron and finally kill him?"
Sangfroid breathed deeply, and admitted the truth that he had long dreaded to tell his Father. "Father..... I do not want the vampire lord to perish."
He kissed his Father's ring as he firmly proclaimed. "I am aiming for a miracle that you speak of. I want to turn the evil into good, the monster into human."
------------------------------------------
~BRIBE ME, PLEASE~
Ok, I'm getting desperate and pathetic so now I'm willing to accept bribes. I get jealous easily of other books that have a huge following and get sad everytime, thinking what's the point of writing if I feel like no one's reading/appreciate it.
1 NEW 5 star review with genuine feedback (emojis and just saying compliments doesn't count) - 1 extra chapter
100 comments in a week (only those with TEXT count) - 1 extra chapter
5 NEW people voting for this book- (so invite your friends haha) -1 extra chapter dedicated to them
100+ votes in a week in any of my books - 1 extra chapter for all of them
Magic Castle and up - Burst update
If you love my stories and would want to read more of them, please show your support through one of these bribes. Thank you!