𝐄𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐔𝐌.
.ೃ࿐ ᴸᵉᵗ ᵘˢ ᵉˣᵖˡᵒⁱᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᵒᵒˡ'ˢ ᵖˡᵃʸ.
The catatonic idealisation of one's reflection is no longer beheld as solipsistic but self-respecting. Then what is the disparity between self-reverence and vain when you cannot pardon those around you? —Palace of Ulric labyrinths, Elvira Crest.
|Than—July 19, 7425|
|Than Palace|
THE SCENT OF foliage lingered in the air in a warm armistice, trees gliding over the heads of the many insects and spurting plant lives as the daylight above the garden throbbed to life.
“Oh, I'm not sure this is such a good idea, my love," a man's voice spoke tenderly. He watched the woman sprawled across his lap with a plenitude of fondness, the curling way in which her brown hair sat like soft petals across her skin. "How can you trust her? It's my life we're talking about, my dear. Our future."
The woman below him shifted in his lap so that now she looked up at him, green dousing into the castles of Sevgi. "I trust her, Levion, I really do. Sometimes I...I'm afraid I trust her more than I trust myself."
"Esm-"
"Please, my honey," she cut him off, sitting up so that they were now face to face, so intimate that she could feel his shuddered exhale prematurely kiss her lips. "We owe her our lives. And if it weren't for her, I would not be here with you right now, would I?"
His hands found the sides of her face and with a small peck, he let her face fall from the security of his palms as she laid back down, gazing at the chasm of wilderness surrounding them.
He could not argue with her there.
"Esme, my love," Levion started again, caressing the cheek that faced him. "Are you sure you want to go through with all of this?"
He could see an eyebrow quirk from his position above her. "I'm sure."
"Maybe we should reconsider, my love," he swallowed, watching only her as the garden around him blurred. He could only see her. His Esme. "Do you really want to throw away your life, Esme?"
At his words, she bolted up as if he had torched her, eyeing him with copiously insulted eyes. "Throw away my life?" There was a miniature strain to her voice as she spoke. "Is that what you call my love for you, Levion?" No, he wanted to say, never, but all he could retaliate was a spluttered mix of her name and the word please. "Me throwing away my life?”
"Never, my love," Levion muttered, "Never ever, not even when the stars collapse." His touch found her face once again, rubbing it so softly that he feared if he had let go of her in that instance, he would lose her. "I am honoured to have your love, Esme. Oh, my Esme, there is no such thing as waste when I have your heart."
Her irises percolated with love. "Then you understand why we must go through with it, Levion."
"But," he started, unconsciously twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers. "But what if we fail?"
"Then I will fail with a smile on my face, knowing that I had the chance to love freely with you."
"I just can't do it," Levion murmured, guilt eating at his rising heart. "My father will have you killed, Esme. And then he will have locked me up until my bones brittle with age." His movements hesitated. "I can't live an eternity locked up knowing that I will not get to see you again, my love, knowing that there will never be a day I get to touch you again." He traced the cherry red of her bottom lip which cracked feebly under the beating sun. "You can call me selfish all you like, love, but I just can't do that to myself."
"Then do it for me, Levion."
"Oh Esme, can't you see what you're doing to me?" Levion stood suddenly, careful to make sure her head did not hit the soil as he distanced himself from her. This woman. His woman. The woman who was tearing at the soundness of his soul. "Can't you see all the pain you're inflicting on me?"
Esme stood too now, following the speed of his pacing feet about the grass. "Pain?"
"In here." He jabbed a finger into his chest, facing her with a distraught look. "All the pain you're causing me in here."
"Levion, please—"
"I can't lose you again, Esme," he spoke, tripping against the cruel jest of his bullying thoughts. "I've already lost you the day I learned I could not have the world know about my love for you." He went on, speed surged until the shorter figure of Esme blocked his path. She latched onto his shoulders, standing on her toes so that she could look at him, so that all he could see was her. "I don't care how many promises I'll have you break, I cannot allow you to do that to me again, Esme."
"But don't you wish to be free from the shackles of that man?" She took his face into the palms of her hands, smoothing back the stray hairs that lurched out for her gentle touch. "Don't you wish for more than that obscene title?"
He pulled away from her, doing his best to look anywhere but her way with the knowledge that he would have fell straight to his knees and heeded her every word with just the sight of her.
"This is cruel to me," he exclaimed in a fraught voice, back turned towards her. "It is selfish."
"It sounds to me you're the only one who's being selfish here, cousin," shot a voice from somewhere behind the pair. A woman stood behind them, satin robes hanging off her shoulders, exposing her flaunting muscles that were tattooed in a dozen languages of the 12 planets around. Her blonde cut fell behind her with a swift turn of her head as she took in the couple. "I don't think I've heard such reluctance for autonomy, and I've heard some of the absurdest things to leave the lips of the living."
"Rosary," Esme gasped, stumbling to the woman and engulfing her in a hug. "Oh, Rosary! I was so worried you would leave us without a goodbye."
"And break your little heart?" Rosary said, hugging Esme back. Her eyes beat to her cousin over her friend's head. "I don't think Levion would appreciate me breaking any part of you, let alone your heart."
"And that is how it should be, Rosary," Esme bit back, hanging her arms around Rosary's neck as they turned towards the man in question.
"Why are you here, Rosary?" Levion inquired, looking displeased with the sudden appearance of the Than Sergeant. "What is it that you want?"
"Levion!" Esme scolded.
"No, Esme, it's quite alright," Rosary declared, gently tugging on Esme's arms until the woman's grip dropped from her neck. "I'm here because your father has been called into the Dermeenial Courts, Levion." She clasped her hands behind her back, trekking slowly and carefully towards him. "Two nights ago, an assassination took place in Garzabel's Sphere Chancery resulting in the deaths of several of Killian Draco's key counsellors."
"So what?" Levion expelled, doing his best to stand tall against the steely aura of the woman before him. "What does that have to do with me? I do not mingle in any of my father's political affairs."
"Please use your imagination, Levion," Rosary let out a sigh, watching him from under the drained lids of her eyes. "Who do you think has the money to orchestrate such a thing?" She glanced at Esme, scanning to see if she had gotten a whiff of what Rosary was insinuating. "Who has the ability to kill 34 of Garzabel's high advisors in a single sitting? What kind of person is not fazed by the order of a mass execution of this kind?"
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"What are you implying, Rosary?"
"Your murderer, Levion," Rosary continued, seeming somewhat agitated. "Seem to lack the mastership in restraining their cravings for killing."
"You couldn't possibly know it was her," Esme blurted, but Rosary paid her no mind as she stabbed a glare into Levion.
"They've given her a name, you know," she spoke, scanning the space around them. "An entitlement over the deaths of her victims."
There was no need for questions. Levion and Esme already knew who she was referring to when she said she. The assassin.
"The Tempest," she said musingly. "A monsoon, a typhoon of adversity, my God, isn't it all just a jest? Calling her after the very thing she wreaks wherever she goes?"
"We're just clients," Levion rectified. "We have no say in how our contacts spend their evenings." He stepped passed her, making his way to Esme's side. "Some prefer quiet picnics amongst nature while others may be inclined toward something more...melodramatic."
"Preference or not, Levion," Rosary said, not turning to face him. "You're forgetting one important detail."
"And what may that be?"
"That affiliation is an undying thing."
"Is that a threat, Rosary?" A muscle in Levion's jaw tensed as he watched his cousin cautiously. "Because I do not appreciate it."
"A threat?" She let out a putrid giggle, turning back to them. "Don't be so conceited." Her prompt strides had Levion stumbling back until she came to a halt before him. "They've put a face to all the murders. Uzen Rale and Guy Sal, both important advisors of Rollovo as far as I recall—And then there's the Garzabellien counsellors, thirty-four men and women that are worshipped enough to have their names carved into their kingdom's walls. Now one day, they're going to put a real and very correct face to that name--The Tempest--the face of the woman who killed all those people, Levion, and when finally they do, they will find all the strings attached to her person and that will most definitely include you."
"We have no strings attached to her," Esme interrupted, standing between Levion and Rosary. "She told me so herself and after seeing what she’s capable of, I trust hwr. She's a shadow." She turned back to Levion, comforting him from any doubt Rosary's warning had mounted. "Nobody knows or will know that we have ever crossed paths."
"She may be a shadow but my cousin here is anything but," Rosary said, towering over Esme with turmoil. Her head fell to the side, passed her and at Levion. "Your funds have a cavernous hole in them, Levion. When you 'disappear', and that's if you haven't been scammed out of your inheritance yet, they will know that you paid a hefty sum to somebody in Alec." She pulled her head back, eyeing Esme. "It takes no idiot to know what kind of person dwells in Alec, Esme. It's a nation of savagery and one person is crowned in all that barbarity."
"I don't want to talk about this anymore, Rosary," Levion called, rubbing his forehead in despondency. "You're souring my mood."
"Then let me show you," Rosary hissed, flicking her wrist to her left and almost as if it were an instinctual response, the air around them came to life in the show of glistening sparks. Both Esme and Levion stilled in their spots, entrenched by the show of Rosary's grace just as the swirls of light came together to make the face of a woman. "Do you know who that is?"
Esme shook her head, turning towards Levion who was watching the show of grace cautiously, almost bitterly. Unlike his cousin or much of his family at that, he did not possess the ability to use grace. Esme remembered the year before they met, the first year he took over the broadcast for his father; rumours spurred the public air of his mother's potential infidelity and how her adultery was what destroyed her rather than sickness, 'the mark of Oswald Than's enmity' people would whisper. Other travelling gossips spoke about how the prince had simply drawn the shorter end of his ancestry stick and as a result, he became a pariah. An outcast of the elite.
"Do you know?" She asked him, pulling his gaze away from the scene before them and towards her.
"I do not," was all he could murmur.
"Her name is--was-- Dina," Rosary started, pausing to take a look at the woman whose face shifted serenely above them. "She's the woman who caused the Calignes Anathema."
The Calignes Anathema, that was all Levion and Esme needed to hear to realize who exactly that face belonged to, that shattered and relinquished face that gazed into the distance for more.
Dina Masoudi.
"Her aunt had arranged for her to marry a knight of the kingdom, a young man who seemed to have charmed her entire nation with his company." Rosary did not move this time as the images above them shifted with instantaneous elegance, soaring into the face of a vintage-looking man. She turned towards Levion, saying, "But of course, being a royal yourself, Levion, you must already know that it is not normal for a princess to marry outside of her circle. No matter how distinguished or charming one may be, blood always comes first." A ghostly frown birthed on Rosary's face at Esme's unsettled look, her hurt. "To simply put, this man was not just a knight. His veins coursed with power and grace that was inconceivable to anybody then."
"I've heard about him before," Levion spoke, shoving his hands into his pockets as he moved close to the scene. "I read about him in my father's archives when I was fourteen and extremely bored." He took a glance at Esme before turning to Rosary. "He was a Masoudi descendant, was he not? A fourth cousin once removed."
Esme looked sick. "Cousins?"
Levion shrugged his shoulder, "Back then? Barely."
"They were married for about a year, seemed really lovey-dovey in all the clips that are still around of them too," Rosary chortled, watching the face created by her grace change again. "Till he ended up killing her father, that is."
"Ah, yes, yes!" Levion blurted, revelation eating at his face. "I read about this. He killed her aunt too, along with thousands of her nation's people." He slammed a closed fist into his open palm. "He was cursed—scratch that, he was the exemplar of cursed."
"Cursed?" Esme asked, seeming confused.
"Corrupted by his grace," Levion explained, softening his voice. "It is when a person cannot control their power...their body becomes incredibly weak with the burden of their grace which eventually makes them sick."
"Demented," Rosary corrected him, eyeing Esme with understanding. "Unfathomably delirious."
"Delirious?"
"It makes them do things no normal human would ever think to do," She added, mulling over the correct words. "Uxoricide, regicide genocide, humanitarian crimes that exceed anything that should be possible...but again, once you're blessed with grace, nothing that consists of destruction is ever impossible."
"But what does this have anything to do with us?" Levion intercepted, not liking the fright building on Esme's face at the sight of Rosary's grace.
"The point is, Levion," Rosary stressed out her words with a clipped sigh, "That he failed to kill the only person alive who could actually pose a threat to his reign." The particles around them sprung to life, swirling into the frame of a large man sitting slouched on his throne. There was a pause before the scene shifted again, displaying the vision of an injured Dina Masoudi being dragged away by a battalion of gild uniformed soldiers. "And when Dina finally escaped the clutches of her husband, she sought aid from Ames Alerian's soldiers who without hesitation, took the battered princess in." Sevgi soldiers. The pictures in Rosary's grace shifted once again, stapling high the portrait of the man in question.
Ames Alerian.
"And like many Alerians before and after him, Ames chose to follow the code of his righteousness and denied to extradite Dina when her husband sent over his Chief Commander to demand her return." An archaic illustration of the Sevgi's courts whizzed before them, 7 high seats curling about the walls of the space with an armoured man in the centre of it all. "There was uproar amongst the people of Sevgi who believed that it was only right for the princess to be returned to her husband in the interest of peace." A look of disbelief ran across Esme's face. "In order to stifle the objection of his people and to personalize the continuity of his decision, Ames Alerian did what he could only think to do."
Esme was absorbed. "Which was?"
"He married Dina Masoudi."
A laugh of incredulity spluttered out of Levion's mouth. "He married her?”
"On the day of her anniversary, believe it or not," Rosary added, seeming just as entertained by the build of her story. "Oh, and you can only imagine just how casterated Machir Kathos must have felt." The air danced with the glares of grace. “He killed his Chief Commander the second the words left the man’s lips and then declared war on Sevgi in the very same sitting.” The images shifted again, in a chilling speechlessness as the stories played before them. “But corruption never plays fair,” Rosary said quietly, solemn in her words. “He targetted Hezkeil first, decimating hundreds of people, many of who were migrants from his own planet.” Rosary’s grace refused to budge and display the images of the monstrosity. “The Lord of Hezkeil was a dimwit who devoured every word of Machirc’s, which soon led to Hezkeil also declaring war against Sevgi and its allied planets.”
“I still fail to see how any of this involves us,” Levion announced a bit begrudgingly.
“It really opens your eyes,” Rosary said, sparing an invested look to Levion. “How history has its ways of repeating itself.”
“You mean a war?” Esme inquired, sounding a bit fearsome.
“At the rate of things, perhaps so,” Rosary responded, watching as her grace collapsed out of their view. “I can only imagine what Killian Draco has to say after he figures out that the prince of Than, Oswald Than’s only heir, was working in cahoots with the murderer of his counsellors.”
“That is not going to happen,” Levion dragged, scrunching his face at her words displeasingly. “Even if it did, I will not be Than’s prince anymore. I will be a traitor to my planet and people, a reject that will be living his own free life with a beautiful wife that dotes on him and friends who love him for something outside of his title.”
“Even if it meant sacrificing the lives of innocent people?”
“My happiness,” Levion seethed, scowling in Rosary’s direction as Esme latched onto his robes, stopping him from acting on his emotions. “My life is worth more than a couple of hundred strangers!”
“Levion,” Esme gasped, letting go of him with a pained expression. “How could you-”
“Let him speak his truth, Esme,” Rosary interrupted, holding a silencing hand up in her direction. “Spoken aloud or not, he will always feel the same way.”
Levion sneered her way. “Is this why you came here today, Rosary? To get me to doubt myself and fall for your so-called all-knowingness?”
“If you're under the impression I'm here to deceive you, cousin Levion,” Rosary spoke, shifting away from him. “You're free to believe that all you wish.”
“Oh, I know,” Levion spat, turning away and marching his way toward the existing path of the garden. “I'll be seeing you at the upcoming ball, Rosary.” He took a single glare over his shoulder, latching onto Esme’s wrist as he hauled them away. “And please try not to stand out too much, dear cousin, I don't wish to ruin my evening.”
And with that, he was walking away, dragging the two of them away until they were no longer in the sights of the Than sergeant.