The Princess was buried the day after her death. The Emperor watched from his bed by the window. He overlooked the castle graveyards where the procession was carried out. The General stood beside him, watching.
There was no remorse in either of the men. The men of Eltarin showed no remorse. Moreover, he felt little at this moment. To him, she was only an heir lost. He had never really shown much interest in her, she was practically useless to him. She had little talent for warships and she wasn't much of a scholar either—she was just a pretty little thing that pleased the eyes of the Court. Regardless of that, she was still a tender-hearted empath.
"General," He spoke with a raspy voice, sipping on his medicine. "Why did my daughter fail to emerge like Faith did?" His eyes remained upon the young woman clad in a dark cloak.
"I'm not sure, Your Majesty." It was snowing, now. But the gathered crowd did not stir. He had not seen such a huge crowd since the late Empress's death.
"You know, General." Thaddeus assured the general. "Serria was too emotional, too caring, too feeling. And today she is dead. Soon she will be forgotten. It is a shameful death."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Abraham was obliged to agree, and Thaddeus knew that.
Her body was lowered to the earth. Faith's shoulders shook slightly—and he knew it was not grief but anger that haunted her. He had always known that something useful could've been made with that young woman. Unlike his daughter, who would be damned even in Hell.
"Your Majesty," Abraham addressed him again, "There are grave matters that must be brought to your immediate attention."
The Emperor turned his head to his general, who had been a constant companion in his conquests, and who had secured him several victories. His general had never learnt what fear meant, but now he sensed the same in his green eyes. Anger began to swirl in the Emperor's own pair.
"I have been on my sickbed for only three months, general." He scoffed. "And our kingdom is already threatened?"
"Not a human threat, Your Majesty." He continued, "Demons. They killed your daughter.Eltarin is under the threat of demons."
The Emperor did not waste a moment. "Summon the Oracle." Was his order.
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Yesterday was a blur. Today was a blur. She did not recall rampaging through the catacombs, slaughtering the demons that remained. Even when they were dead, she had butchered them, leaving behind a mass of disintegrating flesh.
But Serria was still dead.
And Faith was not.
She found herself walking towards the edge of the cliff. This spot was often visited by the Princess and her on hot summers. Sometimes, Kaien and Arechin would accompany. She could bear with Kaien, but never Arechin. A few other friends would gather, and they would—the privileged adolescents of Eltarin—would go for a swim in the ocean below. Some of them would leap from this very spot, laughing about how they could die. She had done it too then—and she remembered how careless it was of her to take the Death Dive.
But she found Arechin already standing there, his head held up high as always and his hands folded behind his back. He was looking onto the frozen ocean and beyond. And he was terribly lightly dressed.
She straightened her own shoulders, approaching him.
"Where were you?" The last time she'd seen him was after she had returned to the room after she had spent her rage, slaughtering those demons. He was kneeling on the bloody floor, trying to piece his sister's dead remains. That memory would forever haunt her.
"Does it matter?" He spoke, and there was no hint of sorrow in his voice. "To you, or to me. She is dead now."
She tried glancing at him, but she could see little of his face hidden beneath his thin cloak.
"She is your sister." She bit out.
"Was." He continued, "The men of Eltarin show no remorse." And Thaddeus Ravenswood had preached that.
She wanted to scream at him, and claw out his face, his mouth—
She sighed.
He was a man. He was the son of the man to whom death meant nothing.
He turned to look at her, and she did not know if it was intentional. Because beneath that thin cloak, she could peak at a bruised cheek and red eyes. Knowing his habits, he was brawling it out at an opium den while his sister's corpse—or what remained of it—was being given a noble burial.
Now, she did slap him. And she knew his jaw was stinging as much as her hand was. That was not the end of it though. She also spat at him.
"The least you could have done for her was to honor her." When it came to Arechin, fury hath no bounds. He went up like a lit torch. And before she even knew it, her throat was under the grip of his strong arms.
"I'm going to kill you, Reaper." He was choking her, and it was working. But then when she was just thinking that a man could not be worse than Arechin Ravenswood, he pulled down her cloak, setting the thick mane of hair free. She tried freeing herself of his grip, but his other hand took her hand.
And then, she was hanging by the cliff. Her neck was bruised and her hair was the rope that held her suspended. Only that, Arechin Ravenswood held the rope.
Her neck would snap. The pain was blinding.
But he only wrapped her hair around his palm, to make it hurt more. "You failed to protect." He gritted out. Her heart sank. Ever since that day in the Throne Room when she had knelt before the Emperor, her only obligation had been to protect the Crown.
To Protect, to Serve, and to Sacrifice myself. I, Faith Reaper, bind myself to the Crown, the Throne, the Scepter and His Royal Majesty.
In some way, she deserved it. But he was equally responsible.
"I did not permit her to lead the crowd. You did." She gasped out. The cold air filled her lungs, and tears were brimming in her eyes. If he let go, she would not survive the ice cold waters of the Whitbour Bay. If he did not, she would die either way. So she did not hold back. "You might as well have sentenced her to her execution."
He was sneering at her when he let go, and in an instant she was falling.
Falling.
To Serria.
But damn the Constellations, they would not allow that.
Help came from an unexpected source, a panicking Princess of Isleen whose bangles chimed as she held onto Faith's hand. The wind blew away the white veil she had donned, revealing the dangerous beauty beneath. The honey eyes looked at her with desperation, beckoning her to hold on.
If she had not held onto her life because she had been discouraged so deeply by the world around her, she now held on with the hope that she would see this foreign beauty again. She admired beautiful people, and Tana Khaos was the epitome of an enchanting being.
But strength overcame the beauty, and the Princess was slipping though she tried her best to dig her knees into the snow. She let out a grunt, glancing at Arechin whose eyes widened slightly at the sight.
He could not have another dead Princess right now, could he?
Especially one that evoked the wrath of a rebel army.
Arechin clasped his hands with Reaper's, not only bearing her weight but nearly half of the weight of Tana. But he struggled little as he pulled her up, slowly.
Slowly.
She was thrown onto the cold snow.
It was accurate to say that she pounced on him immediately, dagger drawn and pointed. Waiting. Yearning to kill. He was panting beneath his cloak, which she flicked away in a moment to reveal a weary pair of eyes. She dragged her sword against the skin of his neck, drawing a thin line of blood.
"Reaper," He warned, "I will have your arms mutilated."
She scoffed at his arrogance. She scorned it. Even when Death's at your door, you threaten Death itself. That was the way of a Ravenswood, which she best saw in this damned son of the Emperor.
She pushed back the hair plastered across his forehead, grasping it the same way he had humiliated her. She dug an elbow into his sides, and he grunted out in pain. She raised her dagger, hoping it would puncture his throat in a moment.
But a frail pair of hands gripped her arm. Trembling.
"Does your kind always seek violence to be an answer?" Tana Khaos repeated her question. She could've very well shaken away her grip, could've very well sent this woman rolling across the snow. But her words caught Faith off-guard.
Serria was dead. Her Princess, her friend, was dead. And she was mourning.
Through violence. Through violence that had been her sole companion for seventeen years, even when she was an abandoned child crying for her survival. Since the time she had first learnt to use a sword, she had begged for violence.
Even in Serria's death, she found comfort in violence. And she was sure that Arechin wasn't so unlike her.
They do. She wanted to respond, but she quietly withdrew, gently shaking away Tana's hands.
Arechin rose, but he would not look at her. And she would not either. But it was Tana who spoke again, and her words addressed Arechin.
"You are no man." She dared to tell him, "A man who dares to handle a woman in such a foul manner, who dares to lay a hand on her, is little better than a demon."
She thought that he would attempt to choke her then, and she was ready to defend her. But he only looked away and for the first time she saw shame flicker in his eyes.
"Your anger is not without reason." She advised them, but both their eyes remained fixated on the ground like how they would be when Abraham yelled at them. "But you are not channeling your anger at the right source. The Vannuth that slaughtered your sister, your friend, still threaten to wreak havoc, led by their master. And hell worse than this will break loose, unless they are controlled.
Eliminated.
"Find a way." She said, "Find a way to seal the portals."
To seal the portals?
Until a day ago, she wasn't even aware that portals could open anymore. It was just a story, a forgotten piece of history she had read about in her classes.
But Arechin understood what she couldn't. His ears had arched when Tana had spoken.
Find a way to seal the portals.