Cecilia could hear her friend’s sobs, which felt like they turned the knife in her heart a little more to the side each second while she swam back up. She held the jar tight in her hand, her heart racing in her chest. She walked out of the pond, cold water soaking up through her clothes and skin down to her bones. She prayed to all gods, primordial or not, for Adam to still be alive once she got back to him. Cecilia walked to Adam’s stiff body and kneeled next to him. She hastily opened the jar, took the liquid and rubbed it on the bite marks on Adam’s face. A shiver went through her as she felt how cold his body was. Now that she looked at it closer, his nose had turned a deep purple just like his fingers now were. She rubbed the liquid for a good ten minutes before it felt warm to the touch. She stopped rubbing when Adam’s breathing became normal, or at least as normal as it could be. For around an hour, she watched anxiously as Adam’s nose and finger turned back to their original color, as his blood rushed back into his cheeks, and as his lungs took in more and more of the air they had dearly missed for the last hour or two. Cecilia stood up and started walking, her legs still hurting from the walk she had to do to get to the pond. Her chest went up and down much faster than she had wished it to. Her vision blurred from the tears and the water from her clothes made her feel like she weighed a thousand tons. Her eyes glanced over at Adam before she stood up and hastened away, further into the dead forest. Elephtheria’s appearance and her death stare were burnt in her brain, just like the screams and the flames in which non-humans burned when humans recognized her as a Saint. She used to feel empowered by it. She used to feel this sense of justice and pride at the sight of humans becoming the ‘rightful’ rulers of the kingdom, but now it had turned into a past she wished she could just erase. She had first taken the Gods’ eternal punishment as a blessing but after a while, she understood why it was a curse and why they had taken the blood of her victims to turn her hair from its original jet black to a scarlet red. She watched as her human friends all died of old age in front of her, her name was used to justify wars she had never been in favor of, and her disciples acted in the most depraved way she had ever seen. Every day she looked in the mirror or saw her hair in any situation, it reminded her of her terrible deeds. The only reason she had built the Night Elf inn was that Mr.Kelb and the other pimps needed her to keep the soldiers at bay. Just as they had done with Jesse.
Cecilia stopped walking after a few minutes. She bent her head down toward the forest floor. Little by little, the emotions grew and grew, filling her torso like lungs filled to the brim with air.
She screamed. She screamed out everything. Her anguish, her guilt, her pain. Until her throat hurt, her legs buckled, and her knees met the ground. Her scream had covered the sound of dozens of birds flying away in fear. Her breathing was labored as she fell completely to the ground. She felt empty. Empty of all emotions, of goals, of everything. She had felt like that for a while, but the recent events in her life had brought emotions to the surface that she wasn’t used to anymore. She welcomed that emptiness she had called home for centuries. Her chest gave birth to a small giggle, barely audible but still there.
“Have you finished screaming?” said an annoyed voice behind her.
Cecilia barely moved from where she was. She heard a ruffling of leaves coming to her, and even then, she didn’t move. The man behind her sighed heavily.
“Talking about a Saint..” he mumbled under his breath.
A deafening silence replaced her emptiness, slowly replaced by anger. Cecilia stood up as well as she could with her empty shell of a body and looked Adam right in the eyes. The calm baby blue was pure ice, threatening to stab the man.
“You seem to have forgotten that I’m still human. I am allowed to have feelings.” she said coldly, her voice echoing around the forest.
Adam looked at her. His skin tingled from her glance, but her display of emotions made him feel sick. The both of them stayed stuck in this position, glaring at each other until Cecilia walked toward Adam, her right hand resting on the ax tied to her right hip.
“You’re still like the others.” she commented resentfully as she stood next to him, her face next to his ear, “Taking my name to justify any wrongful actions you can think of.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t start this.”
Cecilia’s hand tightened on her ax.
“You can kill me,” he said smugly, “But without me, you’ll get imprisoned and executed before you even know why that witch doesn’t want you to go to Ravenwood… or before we can find your precious kids.”
Cecilia’s mouth turned into a rictus of disgust as she tried her best to not take out her ax and cut his head right off his shoulders. Cecilia looked at the moon which, even though the day had started, was still there, hanging in the sky, reminding her of her fate. She silently prayed to her chosen patron, Amara, elf Goddess of the moon and protector of the unwanted to help Jesse and Vagraad and keep them safe.
“Let’s get to the horses, miss Saint.” announced Adam, with a point of venom still on his tongue.
Cecilia followed a tired Adam to their horses, mounted them, and followed the dirt road to Ravenwood.
The both of them rode for three entire days and rested during most nights. Hunger made their stomachs rumble, but they both couldn’t care less. They spent their time barely speaking to each other. Adam’s prior admiration had finished melting away when he had seen her scream in the forest, so much so that even when she fought against more giant wolves and Undeads during the nights, seeing her looking like an apparition of a Goddess of War, he could only find bitterness in him. They had brought him up with the tales of her heroic acts; the Gods had chosen her to be the savior of humanity. They had given her the gift of magic to save humans from the extinction they faced as monsters pillaged and burned their villages almost every night and day. She had helped them get to the top, rule over all other creatures, and prove their superiority. And now she helped them. She built a stupid little inn where she helped those stupid little monsters. All Adam could see was weakness, a puny little human only good to be squashed like a bug. A traitor, not even worthy of pity or consideration.
The atmosphere between the two stayed cold for the duration of their trip. After the first day, they passed in front of Karme, a small underground town of dwarves who had built their houses inside of the rolling hills, usually covered in white daisies and purple crocus flowers, but with winter still stuck to the ground, the ruins of the previous town were more visible. Cecilia thought about the dwarves, the battles they had suffered, the losses, and the painful rebuilding of their town after the Uprising. They had put a mountain of hammers and axes around a giant menhir engraved with the names of the souls lost to their battles. Cecilia’s eye got caught by a strange shape in the stacks of axes for a second. The sunlight had worn down the colors, seams were ripped and the straw stuffing was coming out of it. It hit Cecilia, but not like the first time it had done it. The first time, it had felt like a knife had been plunged so deep into her heart that no one could ever take it out. This time, it was only a reminder, as if that stuffed toy had turned the knife just a little to the left.
“I heard they fought well for traitors.” started Adam, “A shame only cowards remained.”
Cecilia shot her head towards Adam, who was riding in front of her. She thought about bringing her ax to his neck, it was tempting but something in her kept her away from the act. If she killed him, she wouldn’t even be able to enter Salnas and get to her destination, no one would believe her if she said she was the Saint.
They rode again until Salnas, the port town a few hours by boat from Ravenwood.
Adam halted his horse as they got closer to the town.
“I should tie your hands now so that no one asks questions.” advised Adam as he waited for her to get to his level.
Cecilia nodded silently and stopped hers, letting the man take off a fabric tie from his clothes. She put her hands forwards and presented her wrists.
“Do you really think I’m that much of a fool?” asked the man as he took her wrists and brought them roughly behind her back before binding them.
“I’ll take that too,” Adam said as he took her ax from her belt and put it on his horse.
Cecilia felt very uncomfortable with the fabric digging into her skin and without her weapon.
“What’s going to happen once we are there?” asked Cecilia.
“I’ll untie you once no one will be in and then you’ll be able to go around and find whatever you want, since you want it so bad. I’ll cover your absence by saying I’ve put you in the torture chamber. It’s the only cell with a door and no way to look inside.” Adam answered.
“Let’s hope it works.”
Adam barely responded to her while he took the reins of her horse and kept them in his hands.
Salnas was a big and colorful town. The arch which made its entrance was covered in colorful paints and detailed carvings of the multiple creatures and races that sold or lived there. The streets were bustling with life, much more than Outer-Alvoort. When Outer-Alvoort’s streets were full of brothels and taverns and inns, Salnas’ were full of little family-owned shops, especially fish stands and spices coming from all over the Oldeon continent. People were coming from kingdoms she hadn’t seen in centuries like the orcs from the Blazing Lands, the nomadic tribes of ttac people from the Saoudal kingdom, the Saotie naval tribes of humans who traded anything and everything, and hlêg people who had been fishers here for decades. The port was full of boats, from giant warships of the Dobrin empire to the catamarans of the Saotie tribes, all wearing unique patterns and colors depending on their clan.
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A tear ran down Cecilia’s face when she looked at the surrounding life while they rode past the arch engraved with mythological figures of gods. She used to only feel disgusted at the sight, but now it was a strange mix of guilt, shame, and pride that she felt. She looked back at Adam, still holding the reins of her horse and his, parading on his high horse. She felt the fabric ties dig into her skin more and more as she tried to move her wrists. A slight chuckle went past her lips as she tried to decide who was the most stupid: her for letting herself follow him and falling back into the cold abyss which inhabited her despite knowing what could happen to Jesse and Vagraad, or Adam for thinking he was the smartest for successfully tying her up and getting her to get to Ravenwood in the end. She could feel the looks of the non-human races around her as they recognized her blood-red hair. Even after a few centuries, they still felt like knives planted on her back. She knew she deserved nothing better after what she and her disciples had done to all of them, but ever since she had woken up from her frenzy, it felt like that every time she saw any living soul, even when she lived in Outer-Alvoort.
Adam led her through the streets full of markets, the man was still filled with pride and glee, while her head hung low and her arms hurt from the tightness of the ties, her body felt lulled by the horse’s walk and the sounds of its hooves on the brick road. She didn’t dare look at the surrounding people anymore. She lifted her head only when the sound of soft waves hitting wood and the smell of the ocean became much stronger.
“I bring the Saint to Ravenwood.”
Cecilia saw two soldiers, lances in hand, in front of a shuttle boat adorned with the royal magpie, both looked rather small and out of shape, most likely trained once for battle but left to rot and shuttle back and forth between Salnas and Ravenwood.
“Not to offend you, Lord, but weren’t you supposed to have the new soldiers with you?”
“They’re dead.” announced Adam coldly.
Both soldiers gulped down hard as they looked more closely at Adam, Cecilia, and then at each other. They didn’t have horses from the army, Adam didn’t have his armor on that he would usually never leave, and both Cecilia and he had faint bloodstains on their clothes. The ones on Cecilia covered most of her pants and gave an off-brown color to her sea-green blouse.
“Are you going to bring us there or are you just waiting for the Gods to strike you with the inspiration to do so?” barked Adam.
The soldiers started moving around as if struck by lightning. One prepped up the plank on the dock and against the boat, while the other took the reins of both horses. Adam dismounted his horse and looked at Cecilia as she effortlessly dismounted hers, keeping her balance intact throughout the operation. Adam looked at her, he scoffed, smirked at her, and said nothing. He turned around and walked to the boat, standing straight with his head high. One soldier whistled, alerting more soldiers from inside the boat. Two more walked out of it and trotted to Cecilia, each one taking one of her elbows, holding her tight. They followed Adam to the inside of the boat while other soldiers that stayed on the boat took off the plank and detached the mooring lines from the dock.
They sat down on the wooden benches that made up all the seats inside the boat. Adam sat in front of Cecilia, gazing at her as if he was delighted to see her there. Cecilia, still stuck in between the two soldiers, looked out the small window, trying to take in how clear the sky was and the fading sounds of the bustling city as the noise of the wind and the waves crashing on the boat covered it little by little.
“Lord, are you sure these ties are enough for someone like her?” asked a soldier sitting next to Cecilia. “We have cuffs if you want-”
“Are you implying my knots are weak, soldier?” intervened Adam harshly.
“N-no, Lord.” answered the soldier, “Excuse me.”
Cecilia glanced at the surrounding soldiers. They looked tense and were standing too straight for it to be natural. They were very different from those she had been with when she was first arrested, it felt like she was looking at what these teenagers would have become if they had survived the attack. Adam was their Lord and the emperor’s brother and, therefore, could make or break their career in the military. Cecilia could feel he took pleasure in seeing these soldiers reacting to him in this way.
It took them four hours to get to Ravenwood. The prison stood tall, an oval-shaped tower, dressed in cold and irregular gray stone bricks worn by the wind and the salt, some of them at the bottom were covered in a dark green algae that seemed to take life when the water was high enough. The windows looked like the smallest of eyes, peppered around the walls in a pattern that looked hauntingly regular, barred with thick metal rods which blocked the small amount of light that could get inside the cells. The dark of the night barely falling made its looming height look much more menacing than Cecilia had remembered. They moored the boat to the rackety wooden dock where more soldiers were waiting, standing straight until they moved to prep the plank and went back to their station as if they were puppets. The horn blared as they walked out of the boat onto the dock. The drops of seawater felt like rain on Cecilia’s skin, she welcomed it and tried to print it in her brain as well as she could.
The two soldiers had resumed their grip on her elbows and led her to the iron gate where a tall and plump man was waiting for them. His hair was a dark brown and his eyes were so dark that they looked completely black. He was standing straight and had the same air of superiority Adam had.
“Lord Uzelac!” saluted the man. “I thought we had lost you in the woods,” he said jokingly.
“Never, Lord Warren.” replied Adam in a warmer tone than he had done with the soldiers.
“So, this is the Saint in question I imagine.” said Lord Warren with some admiration in his eyes as the soldiers who held Cecilia stopped walking.
“Yes, but don’t be too excited, she’s not what she once was.” he described with a point of condescension in his voice.
Lord Warren grunted, visibly disappointed at seeing Cecilia like this.
“You can see me sorry, I have had a rough journey he-”
Cecilia’s head violently turned to the left. Her cheek felt like it was on fire and her neck felt twisted.
“You talk when we tell you to.” growled Adam as he brought his fist back to his side.
Cecilia stayed with her head hanging low, surprised Adam had punched her with such force. However, the scene did not surprise Lord Warren in the least.
“Judge Harper should be here in a day or two. He has another Evening to conduct before coming here.” said Lord Warren.
“Ah,” rejoiced Adam, “I miss Josiah’s Exquisite Evenings.”
Adam’s voice was full of nostalgia, while Cecilia’s heart was full of rage as she heard his tone. She knew about these Exquisite Evenings. Two hundred years before, a Lord had invited her to one and had explained to her that a new arrival of freshly caught non-humans would be brought to an abandoned manor and they could do anything to them, as long as it pleased the guests. He had added afterward that those who had been caught a week before were usually not even good enough to consider bringing in. The man mysteriously lost his head before going to the event, and so did anyone who went there. That night, she came back with a target on her back and her first foster child.
“Do you want to put her in a cell right away, or do you want to take care of her first?” Lord Warren asked.
“I’ll let you take care of her first. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your routine.” said Adam with a charming smile.
With a gesture from Lord Warren, the iron gate opened and the soldiers holding Cecilia walked through the inner courtyard, in the middle of which was a full-fledged tribunal protected by a wooden roof that seemed covered in moss. Not far away was a podium where stood a large log next to a great ax. The sight made Cecilia uneasy, not because of the prospect of death, but because she knew that if the executioner hadn’t sharpened his ax enough, it would be painful. The soldiers pushed her inside the prison. The smell hit Cecilia’s nose as if it was at war with it, throwing scents of mold, dust, dirt, and humidity at her, in that moment, Cecilia refrained from breathing in too much, while the two soldiers led her down a spiraling staircase which seemed to descend into the bowels of Ravenwood. The further they went, the more the stench of unwashed blood filled up Cecilia’s nose, so much so that she thought she would vomit before they arrived at their destination. After what felt like an eternity, they finally arrived at the bottom of the stairs. A soldier was sitting behind a counter, playing solitaire to pass the time. He lifted his eyes, sighed, stood up, and went further back to retrieve a little pile of dirty gray fabric.
“Didn’t think I’d ever see the Saint in my lifetime.” he said, putting the fabric on the counter.
“Us either Abdul.” answered one soldier holding Cecilia as he took the dirty fabric.
After that, they brought her to a different room, closed with a wooden door that had a small barred window in it. The room, as everything was down there, had walls made of the same brick as the outside, humidity covered the walls, and a pair of iron cuffs hung from the ceiling like an ominous artifact. The soldiers closed the heavy door and cut her restraints before pushing her to the middle of the room.
“Put that on.” ordered one soldier, throwing the gray fabric at Cecilia.
She unrolled it and found out that it was a long dress with long sleeves. It was visibly dirty and hadn’t been washed for a while, hence the color.
“Could I have a bit of privacy?” she asked.
The soldiers looked at her, not moving a muscle. Cecilia muttered a small ‘okay’ under her breath before turning around, presenting her back to the guards, and started undressing. She reluctantly put the dress over her head and felt its cold, greasy, and slightly humid fabric touching her skin. She recoiled, but resigned to finally putting it on fully. Cecilia had always preferred pants to dresses, they felt safer, they were less likely to get caught in anything and cause her to fall over when she was working. At one point, she had tried to be more feminine in a way that the world would accept her, but it didn’t feel right. The bling, the skirts, the dresses, the soft voice, and gestures, it simply wasn’t her. She was much more comfortable in pants and armors than she ever was in skirts and corsets. Once she took off her pants and folded her clothes, Cecilia stopped. She looked at them, trying to take in the fact that it would be the last time she would ever see them or wear them. The soldiers walked over to her, forcefully took her arms as they had done before, walked her to the wall, and attached her wrists with the cuffs, her back against the wall. Cecilia moved her arms as if to check if they correctly attached the cuffs to the wall. Who knew, after so many decades, it could be loose enough to tear out of the wall, but it wasn’t. The feeling in Cecilia’s stomach set in, it felt like a rock weighing her down, but she couldn’t ignore what felt like a cloud up in her heart, taking over her head entirely. She smiled, her smile grew and grew until chuckles which felt like honey in her throat, bubbled out of her mouth. The chuckles became a full-blown laugh. Her head and her heart felt light, so light she thought she could float up through the ceiling if her feet hadn’t been touching the floor. Cecilia’s laugh echoed and traveled throughout the empty dark halls of Ravenwood. What felt to her like an escape, a promise of an end finally coming, sounded like the demented laugh of someone whose mind had been broken and twisted into welcoming death.
“Why is she laughing like that?”Lord Warren, weirded out by a laugh he had never heard before.
The startled soldiers saluted the man before speaking.
“We don’t know, sir, she just started laughing.” said one of them.
“I think it’s time for her to shut up.” said the Lord as he rolled his sleeves back and walked towards Cecilia’s laughing form.