Elenoir Isabella Deveraux was not a person unused to disappointment, pain, or cruelty. In fact, it had been a staple of her life since the day the Grand Ascendancy had identified her talent for three different schools of magic, and especially when it had discerned one of them as Force—the rarest, and most broadly potent of all schools of power.
Her eyes traced the assembling ranks of meticulously dressed soldiers in silence while she reflected on the burden—or blessing, as it had been phrased—which placed her in her current circumstances.
The Hierarch had been quite insistent the night before on the need for haste in assembling the available Ascendancy forces in Stormharrow for a grand expedition, and for all that she had—carefully of course—questioned and needled for information, she had discovered little. Jacques du Valais was as devious as he was cruel.
She had the healed cuts across both sides of her body to prove it.
Elenoir’s mind immediately shied away from that recollection, however, and she pushed the memories of her traitorous weakness from her mind while focusing on the task at hand. She was in her element where she stood, stationed upon an elevated platform used for speeches and declarations, while watching thousands of soldiers garbed in Ascendancy white trail in, and form disciplined ranks. Her armour was her shield, her comfort, and her place of total control. In her platemail she was a warrior, a knight, and a champion.
Not even the whispered memories of Jacques' cruelty could take that away from her.
Her Anointed, her greatest and most elite knights, stood at the forefront of that gathering; their platemail resplendent, the golden sunbursts on their armour shining, and their various tools of war—from greatswords, to spears, axes, halberds, staves, and even longbows—ready and close at hand, as always. When her golden eyes scanned them, she found a wave of resolve and discipline looking back at her.
In some of those eyes, namely the women, she also saw accusation.
Hurt.
Betrayal.
Elenoir ignored that particular element, and the self-loathing guilt that came with it.
The Hierarch’s orders for cajoling the various nobles and political factions within the city had been absolute, and for all that she often fantasised about showing Jacques du Valais exactly what her Force mastery was capable of, she also inherently understood that there was no means at her disposal for such a display. The oath that bound her to the Ascendancy simultaneously bound her in service, and will, to Jacques; and he had taken great pains to remind her of that.
Repeatedly. Nightly. Vigorously.
Again her mind shied away from the thought, and she felt her Paragon’s Pertinacity flare to life at the same time as her fingers spasmed subtly in helpless rage. The Epic Skill soothed away the growing knot of fear, disgust, and panic in her gut, and allowed her to resume her mantle of cold intensity. It was perhaps no wonder that she’d developed such a Skill, one which aligned not only with helping her maintain her force of will, but also inferred a stubborn obstinacy—a trait for which she had become famous.
It was useful. It was powerful.
It had helped her survive Jacques.
Elenoir turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, and her Expert Tier senses identified the arrival of a messenger immediately. The man came to a quick halt atop the platform, once he had closed enough distance while holding a large box in hand, and she witnessed the same look of awe, reverence, and fear that filled every soldier’s gaze when looking upon a Commander of the Anointed.
It made her sick to her Core.
“All units report readiness, Commander. We are still stocking our supply train, but the understanding is that you will be departing before that is complete?”
“Yes.” Elenoir replied with the same chill tone she knew discomforted many. To her it was a shield, one which she would never willingly surrender.
It kept her separate. It kept her in control.
“The Hierarch was emphatic about our need to march with all haste.” she continued coldly. “One cannot refuse such orders.”
She knew that better than anyone.
Another wave of helpless fury followed, and Paragon’s Pertinacity roared back to life.
The messenger, thankfully, noticed nothing.
“That is what I understood as well, my lady.” The oblivious sycophant said with vapid awe. “I will inform the Lords Captain of their imminent march, per the Hierarch’s will. I also come bearing the Mace of Command,” he continued while lifting the box held in his hands and unlatching it reverently, “for your emplacement as Lord Captain Commander of this Crusade.”
“Very well.” Elenoir said while carefully suppressing her irritation for all the formality.
It was one of the burdens, and annoyances, associated with summoning so many different orders of the Faith Militant to prosecute anything; they needed to validate her authority over them, as if they had any real choice in the matter. “I accept the Mace of Command, and do hereby assume the mantle of Lord Captain Commander.”
She reached into the box and withdrew the silver mace while she spoke.
The weapon was ceremonial more than anything else, and made of silver and platinum both. Golden sigils of authority were inscribed upon its haft and flanged head, which Elenoir ignored while gripping it formally in her left hand. “Send the order to mobilise. We march at the top of the hour.”
“By your will, my Lord Captain Commander!” the man said with a salute of metal on mail.
Elenoir watched him leave in silence, and looked down to the mace in her hand for a moment. It was neither the first time, nor likely the last time she would hold such a symbol of power, and while she did hold it, the oaths that bound each of the Lords Captain to their various positions would, in turn, bind them to her.
It was a thing of power, of compulsion, of duty.
It was exactly what Jacques had over her, and she hated it.
“Am I truly any better?” she muttered while looking down at the weapon.
She had doomed the dowager’s daughter to a fate arguably worse than her own if the stubborn old woman refused to play into Jacques’ hands. She knew the Hierarch was applying pressure, and seemed content in the moment to let things play out—but she also understood Jacques as few others did, and all of his particular predilections as well.
It would be no surprise to Elenoir at all if the man decided he was tired of waiting, without so much as a letter to the dowager, and instead set the secondary plan in motion. The idea of it coiled her stomach into knots, and she fought hard against the self-loathing, and hatred for her own cowardice, which bubbled upward like a bad case of heartfire.
I cannot control what he does.
The lie was little comfort to her conscience, and Elenoir felt her Paragon’s Pertinacity flare once more as it soothed away the sudden wave of guilt and pain that washed through her like a cloying wave; buoyed on tides of regret, and shame. Even with the skill’s ability, the eddies of remorse were not entirely banished, and Elenoir could not fully dismiss the image of the girl, ravaged and broken, in the dark, dirty streets of Stormharrow’s poorest slums.
The Dowager’s daughter wouldn’t last an hour if she were left there truly unguarded.
Elenoir’s first instinct was to attempt some sort of shielding against the girl’s fate, but even considering the action caused a tightness in her chest, and a shortness of breath that forced her features to pinch in consternation. The physical oppression of her oath of fealty weighed upon her like a physical thing, driving the breath from her lungs and forcing her to subtly lock her jaw in order to fight against the weight of it.
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Every time her mind moved toward an alternate solution, or one which allowed her to protect the girl; the weight of her bindings compressed more tightly upon her until she felt them like a fist, squeezing and pressuring her Core and Soulforce with divine indefatigability. She could not oppose the power that sought to coerce her obedience, and just like every other time… she stopped trying.
Elenoir swallowed back the cry of frustrated and impotent outrage that threatened to leave her lips, and surrendered herself to inevitability. The girl’s fate was in the Dowager’s hands, and there was nothing she could do to alter it now. The Hierarch would give the order if he wished to, and though it would be his hand that sealed the innocent’s fate, Elenoir would always know it was her suggestion, her idea in a moment of petty envy of the girl’s own freedom and innocence, which had doomed her to suffer.
To suffer as Elenoir had suffered. At the time, it had only seemed fair.
Now she felt every bit as filthy and stained as when Jacques forced her beneath him.
The pressure vanished when she accepted the weight of her fealty, and Elenoir very nearly sagged under the sudden release. She was too disciplined for that of course, but she desperately wanted not to be. She cursed the day her father had all but sold her to the Ascendancy for favour, and cursed her younger self for believing every lie they’d told her.
Her innocence had lasted a month, until a brute of a proctor had seen her in linens.
At least it had given her time to grow used to the nightmare.
Elenoir’s eyes refocused on the massing Anointed, and she buried deep the trauma and self-loathing that threatened to bubble upward. There was neither time nor energy to spend on the rabbit hole of her recollections. She had a job to do, and a mission to fulfil. She had people counting on her. People she might have failed, in many ways, but people who—inasmuch a manner as was possible—meant something to her.
Good soldiers. Loyal comrades.
“Prepare to depart,” she said with a sudden and carrying use of her Fourth Temper lungs, her [Gryphon’s Roar] Expert Infusion making itself known in the force of her voice. “We will march forth into the Desolation, in keeping with the orders of our most holy Hierarch, he who is Solarius’ voice in Stormharrow; and in doing so attempt to rescue the captured Princess-Royal Suraiya Karelian from the clutches of no less than the blasphemous hands of Elyseans. You all know them well! Those vile, heretical remnants which once attempted to destroy the very Realms within which we make our homes.”
A roar met her words, and she lifted the mace high.
It was sudden and impromptu.
It was a distraction from her inner monologue.
She didn’t care.
“Ours is the task of a most righteous and holy duty. Ours is the burden of the venerated, the respected, the most pure! We shall ride forth! We shall take back the Princess-Royal of Stormharrow! And if indeed she has been sacrificed in some profane apostate ritual, we shall give no quarter! We shall show no mercy! If we cannot save and restore to Stormharrow its Anointed Princess-Royal, then we shall certainly avenge her! For the Ascendancy! For Solarius! For every righteous soul in the Realms!”
The roar of approval was more raucous this time, and Elenoir swallowed a bitter scowl for how easily they lapped up the lies, and the deceptions.
I deceive and mislead so easily, now. Perhaps I am tainted—as tainted as he says.
Once she would have quailed at doing such terrible things, yet now… now it was as easy as breathing. Her thoughts shifted while she surveyed the sudden spectacle of mass movement, and watched the soldiers readying to depart.
She thought back to her last conversation with the Hierarch.
> “The eyes of Light have reported back, your holiness,” she had said with oath-enforced diligence. “The Princess Royal has been spirited away by a band of hitherto unknown savages within the Desolation, dressed in grey cloaks and wielding chitinous bucklers, and short spears. Our reports indicate all of them at Initiate Tier or higher.”
>
> “Do we have any notion as to their identity?” Jacques had asked with a rare demonstration of genuine interest.
>
> “Elyseans, my lord,” she had answered with genuine disbelief and scepticism. “So they say.”
>
> “Elyseans?” the Hierarch had asked in mild disbelief, before looking down at his desk. She had attempted to catch a glimpse, then, of whatever he was staring at—or looking at without seeing, as the case might be—but had been unsuccessful. His arm obfuscated it too well.
>
> “Shall I maintain the original plan of deployment?” she’d asked when it appeared he had become lost in his considerations. She had not wanted to interrupt, but her oath bade her do so. She was bound to obey, protect, and assist Jacques du Valais in whatever manner he demanded, and whenever he demanded.
>
> That also, regrettably, meant occasionally taking initiative and being proactive.
>
> “No.” the Hierarch had said after a few more moments’ consideration. “No, that would be folly. If the Princess is indeed taken in by these Elyseans, then we must move quickly. You will assemble the Faithful Orders you have marshalled, take your Anointed at their head, and you shall drive deep and hard into the Desolation. Find the trails left by our spies, locate the Elyseans’ hidden blight-accursed settlement, and put them all to the sword.”
>
> “All of them, my lord?” she asked in perfunctory confirmation.
>
> Jacques hesitated for a moment, and she nearly raised an eyebrow in surprise.
>
> “Well, perhaps not all of them,” he’d replied with the cold, thoughtful look she had learned to associate with something blood-chilling. “Bring me as many of the women and children as you can. Even some few of the men. It will be good to test them, too, and their fortitude. I have heard many things about Elysean constitution, and it will be good to investigate for myself.”
>
> Elenoir had wanted to curse herself for giving him the chance to reconsider, but her oath forced her silence. Instead, she asked a necessary question.
>
> “What of the Fallen Star?”
>
> “Mm. That will remain your primary objective. See if these Elyseans have recovered it, and if not, do so yourself. It is still your highest priority.” the Hierarch had reaffirmed. “The God of Light has seen fit to deliver us the chance to have a Nephilim as a means of experimentation, and I would not see the opportunity wasted. The Elixirs I could craft with such a specimen…”
>
> Elenoir’s stomach had twisted.
>
> She had grown up on legends of Nephilim.
>
> She’d been taught about their power, their might, and their singular propensity for immense strength. She had been tutored on the devastation they could unleash, when improperly handled or raised to ire. Calamities, they had called them; walking, talking natural disasters.
>
> “Are you certain we are equipped to handle such a creature?” she’d asked Jacques boldly, and with the knowledge it would likely cost her. The answer was important, however, and so the risk and consequence would have to be suffered.
>
> “Mm.” Jacques had levelled his eyes on her in the way that she had learned to fear, and she’d felt her skin crawl with both disgust and fear in how he observed her. She hated it, that weakness. She loathed herself for having it, and loathed him for continuing to inspire it.
>
> “I will worry about the Nephilim, Commander,” he had responded silkily. “But if you are truly fearful of your capability, then I shall address that, too.”
>
> The Hierarch had taken up his crop then, studded as it was with metal, and smiled at her without an iota of warmth.
>
> “Doff your attire, Commander. We shall begin with benediction through flagellation.”
>
> She had felt Paragon’s Pertinacity roaring while her compelled hands moved to obey.
Elenoir snapped out of the memory with another surge of her Mind Skill, and resisted the urge to bite her lip in anger at the slip into recollection. She knew better. She needed to be controlled. Confronting a Nephilim would take all of her focus, power, and expertise. She could not afford to be distracted by… other details.
Irrelevant details. She told herself firmly.
She even believed it, to some small degree.
“We are ready to depart, my Lord Captain Commander.” a hesitant messenger said to her left, and very nearly caused her to curse in surprise. She had been so occupied in her own mind she’d missed his approach, even with the passive awareness of her [Phoenix Firesoul] Spirit Infusion. Her Soul Sense very rarely failed her. She must have been truly distracted.
“Very well,” she said more coldly than she intended, and with a bitter grating to her voice. “Inform the Lords Captain I will meet them at the head of the column forthwith.”
The messenger paled at the bite in her tone, and promptly saluted before hurrying away.
Elenoir paid him no mind.
Her eyes instead moved to where she could see the Lunar Gate and barrier wall, far distant but not beyond a reasonable approach to the south. Her lips twitched upward in thought while she regarded it. Soon she would be beyond its boundaries. Soon she would be ensconced within the blighted nightmare of the long-dead land of the Desolation. Soon she would be surrounded by beasts, monsters, and blightmen to quail even the mightiest spirit.
Her eyes turned away and toward the palace, to the highest tower wherein the Hierarch made his roost. Her lips twisted down. Her Tempered body still faintly ached with the phantom remnants of whip-crack strikes from maliciously sharpened metal studs. The Desolation seemed not nearly as terrible as first imagined, in fact, while she stared up at the Hierarch’s tower in thought. Soon she would be well away from his reach, and outside the grasping range of his too-smooth hands.
Going into the Desolation was a welcome change, in that way.
There were worse monsters than those found in the blight, after all.
Jacques du Valais had taught her that lesson well.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/868964548219121694/1204182659660644382/file-x6IgmWU4S379jHKI5SVzk8QE.png?ex=65d3cd7e&is=65c1587e&hm=042136557e7fd0df65e84ab01f6eea11141fef4d508b2ccdc0afa81c4c151ede&]
Elenoir Isabella Deveraux concept art.