No.
"W-wake up!"
No.
"S-say som-ething—!"
What was happening?
"D-d-don't do this."
This couldn't be happening.
The incomprehensible shouts blended with the shuffling of feet and rustling of leaves, the synchronised marching of soldiers along with their groans and grunts fell onto her ears as loud stomps, crushing her to the ground. Life escaped her limbs as they fell limp to her sides, having no will to cling onto the man before her. Empty, she felt hollow as the noises that she once longed came piercing through what was left of her soul and leaked it out of her.
When Tibetha wished for Emir to save her— this was not what she meant.
Saving oneself comes first, right? Saving people does not mean sabotaging yourself, right? Saving people makes you the hero, being saved is supposed to feel good— but what was this sinking feel that was clawing her heart and soul down into the depths of despair? Mangling her insides in a dance of guilt.
This gut-wrenching dread numbed all senses but the sight — because seeing his warm face grow cold and the light leave his eyes was a part of the experience. To let the fact sink in: it happened because of you.
To sit, alive and breathing, yet regret every breath and detest every waking second of his absence because it reminded her: it happened because of you.
There were no blood splatters or agonizing calls of doom or villainous monologues to go along with the incident, it was just him steadily toppling over and falling into her arms with his slowly hardening body. Him going limp against her, his back rested against her chest, and eyes were a hollow calling for peace, reminding her: it happened because of you.
This was not supposed to end like this.
Emir was not supposed to die like this.
He had a betrothed, he was to marry and finally have a family for himself. He was supposed to live and love, be free and share his warmth and joy with the world.
He did not deserve this.
All of this wouldn't have happened if Tibetha had never walked out of Seashell Plateau with him.
She was abandoned for a reason. She was a curse and Lord Emir was an innocent victim of it.
Just like al—
"Like all those you've already killed?" The scratchy voice in her head returned, "At this rate, you should get used to it." It sounded almost humoured by the circumstance.
Tibetha's body shivered with the embrace of the cold night wind. The flaming torches in the hands of the charging soldiers did not hold warmth. The only source of warmth she had ever received had grown cold right into her arms, yet, no tears made their way out for mourning.
Who would mourn him if not her?
Tibetha tried grabbing at his arms to lift him up, to not let his sacrifice go to waste and run away, but her shaking fingers could not get a grip on reality. They kept slipping off the fabric—in haste, in sweat, in nervousness or lifelessness, she did not know. Her body was not functioning the way she wanted it to, there was no escape. Lord Emir died in vain for a useless person.
"He isn't dead because of you. It was his decision through and through," the voice said.
Tibetha did not believe it.
The soldiers had made their way to her, with their sharp swords blazing like fire against the torches. They were all pointed at her, all well deserved. She should have died a long while ago.
Emir did not deserve to die.
It should have been her instead.
"Let me make this right for you," the voice requested.
A sharp sword point pierced her nape.
Tibetha closed her eyes, in acceptance of her fate.
Was there anything that could redeem Lord Emir's life?
A vision bled into colours in front of her eyes. It was Lord Emir in a garden of flowers, spread around a small cottage, dipping paper boats in a pond with a kid. They were laughing and his eyes were bright in reflection of pure joy—all that he deserved. It pushed Tibetha's heart down but elevated her soul.
"Hurry up, capture the witch! Don't let her do anythi—"
Black flames, like tendrils of shadow, began to snake outward from her body and formed a circle around her. The sky above grew dark and ominous as the flames painted the horizon with their malevolent glow. All sound ceased as the tendrils shot up to the sky and converged in the form of majestic flames. They scorched and devoured everything they touched whilst in pursuit of the running and screaming soldiers, mocking their hasty gait. Trees crackled and the soil burned, charring into the perfect essence of dark nothingness.
For in nothingness, breathes life, ever since the onset of time.
Her haggard breaths pulled the circle inwards, restraining the flowering flames into a beam as its very source began lightening up and gave way to a radiant white, shimmering with an ethereal brilliance. In the white expanse of nothingness, dark particles birthed into existence as miniscule as a grain of salt. They meandered around each other, as if afraid of acquaintance before gravitating into each other as if family. Hazy formations of grass blades rooting a home for themselves and trees rising to their grandeur revolved in the atmosphere around her. Defying gravity's hold, the particles formed limbs attached to bodies and they floated in the air, suspended amidst the swirling energies, before they fell to the ground with loud thumps and the crunching of dead leaves.
The brightness compacted itself into the glowing moon illuminating the dark night sky.
What lay on the ground were unlit torches, gleaming swords, panting soldiers in a daze of existence, Tibetha's passed out cold body and a young boy, no more than a child, cradled in her arms. His chest heaved up and down in swift breaths that escaped his slightly parted rosy lips, all of his existence now teetering on the cusp of a miracle soon to be snatched out of its creator's hands when the backup arrived.
Alzack did not quite witness the voodoo of knock-off grim-reaper-earthling but there were too many testimonies to thrust the blame on a mass hallucination owing to cheap alcohol and festival time weed. The common word around the castle walls was: Reincarnation.
Soldiers swore on the lives of their dead or alive mothers that they had seen and felt death engulf them with its very cold clutches, only for them to be snatched by a force and fall back into life. Like magic.
"What folly; Magic, in this day and age?"