Caryll explained that Veil was Malphent’s lover but after being killed she resolved to help their daughter and Skuldlach to kill Malphent.

“The fourteenth disciple was Malphent’s daughter. Not wanting her daughter to be killed by the three dragons… she left Malphent’s side to help the former disciples. Veil, she was the weakest dragon the most impressionable but one thing the three didn’t account for was her unending hatred for lies. With no choice, she pleaded to her mother Vritra to help but a bargain was struck. Vritra will force the dragons to either stay in a humanoid form or dragon form if Malphent is killed. In the end, the fourteenth disciple killed her madness-induced mother malphent.”

“What happened after?”

“The four dragons lost their dragon forms as Skuldlach did, and the surviving disciples began to hide fearing the worst. Hiding their true intentions, their faces and their names. Years later on the fourth eclipse of the second epoch… the dragons and disciples began to reappear but because they were without a master they began to grow distant. The five mad disciples began to search for ways to resurrect their master… whereas the rest lived and still do live their own lives away from that dark time.” Caryll grew ever so distant as she spoke on the matter.

“The dragons however stayed obscured, Skuldlach started a journey of penance which she still travels on now. The remaining sisters other hand care little for their own, Aries drinks and talks like a beggar on the streets. A hermit. Akron the dignified dragon lives in profound glory trying to reforge old bonds and there is Reclaimer. Bonded to Orin serves as his war beast and lover.”

“What happened to the people affected by all this?”

“Veil following in Malphent’s, and her daughter’s footsteps reincarnated. Having no recollection of her past. Crowna the forgotten disciple reincarnated never to be seen again and malphent became hidden by design… something she wished for. So close yet so far some would say.” Caryll concluded her speech by making me follow her down a largely empty street of design I didn’t see a resemblance to in any way. I just chalked it up to being unfamiliar with such a place. This was. This was new.

Not understanding the language, I prodded at Caryll yet she didn’t respond, just moving forward still. ‘Is this a world created by her design or something else?’ The words spoke out in my mind taking everything in. By the looks of it, the language was ancient, a mixture of symbols and hieroglyphs. It was a language Rias somehow knew how to speak yet she had no idea where she learned to understand let alone speak it. Following Caryll I saw more and more of the strange language in store windows that made it, so you’d look inside whatever store you were about to enter.

‘Where is this?’ I asked myself. The mind-numbing amount of bewilderment shook through my head, showing me visions of something I couldn’t understand, nor did I want to.

“You see them as well, don’t you?”

“Wh-What are they?”

“Visions. Two lives maybe four merged into an overlapping inconsistency. By now you can maybe hear one word. I knew the message wasn’t for me but for two others. This place was once a world now destroyed by its governmental bodies’ hubris. One word for two people REPENT.” The word repeated over and over and over again. Drowning all other sounds, hearing naught as I wandered aimlessly behind Caryll still in her owl form flying slow and low. Clutching my head, I tried my best to continue but alas I couldn’t, falling to my knees I screamed out in pain feelings of sorrow, Anger, Hate… depression. Like I was meant to be remembering something with someone.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t remember it.

My eyes closed as Caryll shifted into her humanoid form with magic laced around her fair skin, white light lingered on it like leeches on blood. Breathing heavily, I clutched my chest once again feeling the depths of one’s sorrow, Anger, hate and depression. When my eyes fully closed, I could hear to people talking, voices muffled. Slightly unintelligible but still there were voices. Opening my eyes I found myself back in my bed in the citadel of Numena the two people seemed to be Rias and Caryll now in her human form. Beside me asleep was Alex a book clearly covering her eyes. Samantha wasn’t that far, asleep sprawled over at the edge of the bed.

“Wh-What happened?”

Without saying anymore Rias explained everything with some input from Caryll. When I fell asleep a few hours before now my mind subconsciously attached to another place. A realm-hearth, a place free from time and space along with outside the constraints of the boundless known and unknown. Which was the greatest thing to hear then followed up with the fact that Caryll had no control over the Realm heath, my subconscious did. Everything that I saw in the Realm-hearth was by my mind's own design apart from the story of Malphent’s end which was Caryll’s idea.

According to Caryll when the world changed to a place with a language I couldn’t understand, even though I wasn’t there for long just a brief few minutes it took a major toll On my psyche, body and soul. According to her the only way the process of madness could be stopped was with me being saved by Caryll by her turning me into her einherjar. This took a long while to process even as they continued to explain that the word Repent was meant for me. The part I couldn’t understand was how Caryll had been there before. According to her, when I was in a former life of which I can’t remember I had a similar experience with her by my side.

Rias chimed into Caryll’s explanation saying that through dreams she’s been having recently she has had similar experiences but more vivid than my own. Faces blurred, voices clear, unfamiliar sights feeling present and a language she shouldn’t be able to understand. One that shouldn’t exist. One word would repeat in her head in these dreams or nightmares. REPENT. To her, the word was spoken with a very ghostly and ethereal voice attuned to darkness whereas mine was screams. Prodding Caryll some more she told me and Rias a theory of hers, which she once shared with her father.

“This could all be a cycle… though in this context it doesn’t work. Something does bother me, why do all those buildings and writings seem so unfamiliar to me? For you two though it's familiar? According to Malphent, that language is one of her original home. She never went into detail as all she ever said was that it was a very advanced place. A world free from war until these cataclysmic dungeons came forth.” Not understanding what she meant, I prodded for a similar explanation.

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She in response she said that malphent might be from another world, universe or entirely different timeline far beyond our own. Caryll further explained that Malphent only spoke her language when speaking to her daughter Crowna who mainly spoke in that tongue she called Ascensionism. According to Caryll from the stories she heard Crowna like malphent and Rias was regarded as a nexus being. According to those same myths or legends, Crowna was on her way to becoming a true god.

“what’s a true god?” Alex enquired to Caryll in a hearty southern Tramonic accent, remarkably thick for someone who grew up in the heart of Riel’s noble district. Moving the book from atop her head gave me a split moment to look into her eyes. The feeling of hollowness wasn’t present in them like Rias's, Alex’s eyes also weren’t as lively as Samantha’s who was still sleeping sprawled out at the edge of my bed. Her eyes were alive, just alive.

Unlike her peers, Alex had heterochromia, caused by an injury messing around with mana and potions making her experiment go awry. Scarring the left side of her face which also caused her left eye to darken its pigment to near ashen black. Though the skin was fairly pale it was hard to see the scar as Alex hid it under her hair mainly because she was very self-conscious about it. Her right eye though was still its natural amber.

“A being who has ascended beyond what is possible for a primordial for example, another term we would use for them is ‘Aeon Hyperions’. So far, we know of four true gods. Malphent, Vetra, Samura and Igris.” Caryll began to go over what the true gods represent, malphent being war and divinity, Vetra being faith in existence and nature. Samura represents the stars and the afterlife beyond, Igris represents illusions along with hiding your true self. If Crowna became a true god she would’ve become the true god representing justice, law and death in all things.

Ideas rippled in my brain of what I knew about Riva being a disciple. Unlike Caryll, she rarely spoke about it, especially about the ones that betrayed malphent siding with Crowna. One thing was clear though she called all disciples siblings not in a blood-related way but a battle-worn way. Something about that always felt off to me like there was more to it and them as a whole. I didn’t press more into it as I knew if I knew more, I'd get lost in trying to understand it all. Disciples and malphent were one thing, true gods were another. My stomach and heart were telling me it was a place I wasn’t ready to delve my entire mind into.

Trying to lift myself from the bed, I suddenly gripped my chest following an intense pain that wrapped around my mana core connected to my heart causing me to scream out in pain. A pain worse than burning alive or giving birth. Continuing to scream, I gripped my chest so tight that my nails began to dig deep into the layers of skin of the area. Blood seeped through my clothes. The crimson blood turned to a dark violet as it crept through the crevasses between my fingers and down the white clothes I wore. In a heartbeat, Rias was at my side with her hand already torn open from her digging her fingers into her right hand.

Caryll and Alex jumped back in surprise just seeing sparks of lightning dance across the room seeing that Rias had no regard for anyone's safety other than mine. Caryll stared at Rias in bewilderment like something was amiss, seeing something so crude yet elegant.

“What was that?” Alex asked watching me grab Rias’s bleeding palm shoving it against my lips. Neither of us responded waiting for the lightning to stop skittering like disturbed woodlice, as I moved my tongue to lick the leaking golden blood Samantha eventually awoke to me still screaming in a muffled tone while taking in the blood. One hand on Rias’s right hand, my free hand began to grip Rias’s back where the skin was exposed. With a sudden jolt of pain, I clenched my fingers tearing into her skin down to the muscle that lay beneath with my sharp black nails.

“Rias… I can help.” Caryll hesitantly spoke.

“Don’t move a fucking inch.” Rias snarled back. The words came across worse than she probably intended, Rias had a habit of not being able to control her emotions when she saw me in a lot of pain even in my life as hera. Now she was no different. My body grew weaker by the day since I had awakened my wraith blood, according to my grandmother this was something like a rite of passage for me and only me. Against Rias’s wishes, Alex used her magic to check my condition.

“We heard noise what happened?!” Elinore came bursting through the door with artoria beside her whilst watching Alex carefully check my condition the best she could. Alex who did come close to using her healing magic on me, she happened took an involuntary step back nearly tipping over a chair. If it wasn’t for Artoria catching her she would’ve smacked her head on something.

“Talia… you’re dying. So is the child inside you.” The room fell quiet entirely. No one spoke, feet didn’t shuffle. Fabric from the bed and clothing just collapsed.

“What did she say?” Elinore questioned the words coming out of Alex’s mouth before I could even try to speak through the growing pain in my chest which was the result of me slowly dying from something.

Alex explained once again that she could use healing magic, but something was stopping it because it was protecting me whilst also killing me involuntarily. The magic protecting me was from the golden blood of Rias whereas the child inside me was killing me. Slowly pressing my hand against my chest, I looked inside my core towards the source of this discomfort. Seeing its source sent a shock through my body causing me to return to my senses on the outside. I didn’t want to believe it, but Alex was right I am dying.

“Please don’t let me die or her.” My voice was hoarse speaking through tears. Rias didn’t let go pulling me close trying to muffle my scream at the same time as trying to calm my heart. I had a child inside of me which was no doubt Rias’s from how its mana felt along its aetheric essence responded to me. Though she couldn’t speak from the mana itself, I could tell with certainty she didn’t want to die. Elinore reached towards me and Rias.

Bang. A bellowing thud of gushing wind shook the room from the sudden force of me smacking her hand involuntarily.

“I didn’t want to do that… what’s happening to me? Rias?” I stared at Rias who kept looking away from everyone. Worry that’s all I could sense. Rias spoke with a shaken voice trying her best to hide her worry, which drowned out all other emotions inside the room to nothing but fear, I had gotten used to this side of her as artura. Her blank gilded gold eyes turned scarlet in response to her emotions, a unique trait she held on her own. Forming the words into sentences the room fell quiet.

“I don’t know how I can tell but your grandmother cursed you. She wants you gone because you aren’t born from your Leonhart mother but from the current wraith queen.” The room once again fell silent. Rias couldn’t explain how she knew this but from my own assumptions it was likely because of how long her blood was in me, it somehow resulted in me becoming pregnant and making her able to see things that I couldn’t see or hear. So much was happening so fast, from me being able to read a language unknown to me becoming an einherjar to me suddenly on death’s door.

Still feeling the depths of pain, I trudged through my mind to try and lessen the slow death I was feeling. Rias’s blood just kept me alive enough to speak and stay open-eyed, knowing I didn’t have much time left I began to close my eyes until Lithran came bursting into the room holding a large cluster of aetheric wraith crystals used mainly for bombs and explosives against those phoenix pricks. Throwing it from the doorway, the crystal cluster was caught in hand by Rias who placed it above my chest. It began to glow brightly with a faint lucent white hue.

“This will hurt.” Rias tried to be as comforting as possible trying her damn hardest to not let tears flow down her marked cheeks. She began to hesitate, holding the crystal but doing nothing with it. Lending her a hand I placed my deathly pale left hand over her biomechanical one feeling her other one support me from behind. Saying nothing I just motioned to her through a bloodied smile that it was okay to shove the crystal into my chest.

With a faint smile, I pushed the wraith crystal against my chest, its intense pulsating heat warped around the curse covering my body. The more and more I pushed with Rias’s help the warmth from the violet, white cluster could be felt. Suddenly remembering what the crystal cluster was, a distorted broken laugh escaped my lips.

“Who thought I used the heart of a god to keep myself alive? Never thought I’d use its heart for something like this… ah fuck it hurts I’ll admit. Maybe now I can use my own power again.” I monologued to myself mainly. Pushing the heart further into my body, it reached a point where Rias was doing most of the work as my body grew ever weaker. My screams had stopped with my body being slowly healed along with the curse inside me slowly fading but it wouldn’t stop until the heart was consumed fully. The crystal cluster that Lithran had given Rias was one of the first gods I killed as hera to be exact it was the only female betrayer's heart.

Against my own protests, they gave it up to me believing that I'd have a better use for it than Orin or my makers ever would. They weren’t wrong in a way. Orin may have put it to better use than healing themselves on the brink of death but then again. That kid has done a lot while on the brink of death from killing the original concept of creation to shattering space and time by blinking. A slamming resonant force of aetheric particles wisped throughout my core as the heart dissolved into nothingness melting fulling into me, the process of consuming it wasn’t over just yet.

Letting me ever so delicately down, Rias laid me back down on our bed keeping an eye on my core as well as me in general even our child which was a weird thing to say. For a moment I had forgotten that we were both eighteen with ten to eleven months left until we could leave our training by Tyr, Morrigan, Riva and Akron whom we haven’t seen in nearly a year maybe more.

Whatever the case, something important stayed on my mind I needed to have words with the woman who cursed me. My own grandmother.