Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The woman’s footsteps echoed in the vast white marble hall. Her immaculate quarters were worthy of her high rank as the Guardian of the Threads, one of the three powers of the High Council. At that moment, she was inside her palace in the bathhouse, making her way to the indoor pool.
Magnificent white wings rose from her back. She wore neither jewelry nor a crown, as she did not need them to look imposing and powerful. The warm steam in the room made her silk dress cling to her skin, highlighting the curves of her voluptuous body.
A service spirit opened the door and bowed. “Your Excellency, the A’aruin you ordered to be found have been captured.”
“Have them wait for me in the hall,” she ordered, letting her dress slide to the floor and submerging herself in the warm thermal waters.
Her Silver Thread looked different from that of the other inhabitants of A’aru; it was visibly thicker and brighter, floating toward the ceiling where it separated into thousands, millions of strands, like an infinite cosmic lattice.
She was the Guardian of the Threads, absolute monarch of the destiny of the unions designated by Lethe.
Floating in the water with her gaze lost in the sky, she contemplated the silver weaving with satisfaction, knowing all those souls were under her dominion.
She spent nearly an hour enjoying her bath, and only then prepared to head to the hall.
She covered her nakedness with a thin, almost immaterial robe through which it was possible to guess the contours of her body, having no reason to feel modest. After all, the captive A’aruin would not leave the room alive.
The hall followed the same elegant line as the rest of her palace, with magnificent pillars framing the corridor that encircled the chamber.
A stained-glass window in the ceiling allowed the entry of the pristine light of A’aru’s eternal moon, bathing the couple waiting in the center with its rays.
The sentinels had not taken the trouble to chain the prisoners, for who in their right mind would try to escape the Guardian of the Threads?
There was simply no place to hide when it came to her.
The prisoners were a man and a woman. Holding hands, they firmly faced the sovereign’s look of disapproval.
“You have the nerve to do that in my presence,” she said in a soft voice. “Part.”
An order from a Guardian of A’aru carried extraordinary binding power. Resisting was useless, even painful, and the couple released their hands with a gesture of suffering, trying to oppose it without success.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” she asked, approaching them. “Did you believe you could break the laws of A’aru with impunity? Your Threads belong to me; there is nothing I do not know.”
“Your Excellency, we implore mercy,” the woman begged with a trembling voice. “Love in the human world is permitted. Why is it forbidden to us A’aruin, when we have the same heart?”
“A human love is a fleeting whim, condemned to be forgotten,” the monarch said, sitting on a throne in the center of the room.
“The love of an A’aruin is eternal, and that very eternity threatens the foundations of our society.
Look at yourselves right now, questioning the order of A’aru in the name of your love. ”
“Guardian of the Threads, we are not a danger to A’aru. We have not neglected our humans in this time,” the man argued firmly.
“So you believe, but I remind you that as long as you are an A’aruin, your only duty is to dedicate yourself to your human and to Lethe,” she continued without raising her voice.
“Do you know how I noticed this irregularity? The Threads that connect you to the human dimension are as fragile as dry husks. They are useless; they feed nothing into our system, they only leach energy from others. In other words, they are branches we must prune.”
She stood up, approaching them with a sinuous step, her presence dwarfing the condemned lovers.
“Guardian of the Threads… could you re-destine us instead?” the woman implored.
“If you unite us with a sacred Silver Thread, I am sure the new thread will bring benefits to A’aru.
We will not be a dry branch, and we will receive our punishment by being condemned to remain separated for the rest of eternity. ”
“How many times have I heard the same request? I have already lost count,” the Guardian stated.
It was a rhetorical question, and she expected no answer. “You are A’aruin corrupted by a carnal desire that must not be present between a human and an A’aruin. This would only bring more problems in the future.”
She stopped listening to the pleas of the condemned, as it was time to execute her will.
She turned first to the woman, whom she found more annoying because of her loud weeping.
She placed her hand on her Silver Thread, and as if it were a fragile hair, it snapped at her touch.
The A’aruin opened her eyes and fell silent, unable to say anything more, while her body dissolved into a fine dust that floated ethereally toward the lattice of Threads on the ceiling.
“Return to Lethe,” the Guardian said, looking up.
Moments later, she faced the man. She was about to place her hand over the terrified Aaruin’s thread, but she changed her mind at the last moment. “You can choose your destiny: either dedicate yourself to your human without another thought, or go to Lethe. It is your decision.”
He was in a clear state of shock, so he took a moment to articulate a word, but before she raised her hand again, he reacted. “I will obey, my sovereign. I will not stray again.”
She smiled with satisfaction, turning her back on him. She would take another bath, for she did not want any residue of dust on her body.