Chapter 8
Blood stained glass
“The rebels are out there. Those who rebel against the King of Light, The High King Solaire Gideon and his rule. Those who still follow the old Queen of Duvessa, the Queen of Darkness, still roam Terran; however, their numbers are dropping and soon will seize to exist.”
The following text has been transcribed in an oath of truth by Volda Keely Darkblood of the Darkblood Witch Coven.
The original text has been destroyed upon command from the High King of Apollo, Solaire Gideon.
Morana
There was no place other than Merlanis that could be cold at night and yet blazing hot during the day.
The cloak I had worn when leaving for the Oakenhold Forest had been torn off my body and discarded.
My body had an ache that made me want to drop onto the soft mossy floor.
The reason I had made it this far at all was that I was subconsciously telling myself that the ache was just a dull pain that would eventually lead to light bruises scattered across my body.
I scowled, as I felt the gruff man behind me pull onto the rope that was wrapped around the horse’s satchel.
I kept a firm hand on the rough rope, leading the horse through the dirt road path that would take us in direct contact to Lord Dritan's estate.
I turned to look at the adjacent ropes that were held by both Ezra and myself.
Four.
There were five of them.
The bandits we had captured were four.
The fifth...
I shook my head trying to rid those repetitive thoughts. To say that I had felt this hunt was a success would be a lie but Dritan would be pleased to know that his special visitors would have no casualties to deal.
"We're near the gates, I'll take them to him. You should see a healer and get cleaned up," Ezra spoke up, the face of his skin looked ashen and almost swollen. His movements tense, as if not trying to show his state of exhaustion.
"No, it's just a little closer. I can make it," I immediately answered and walked forward a bit more determinedly. My legs roared in protest, my calves burning. I did not usually go to the healers; by the morning I’d be fine except for the ghost ache of memories that lingered.
"Mor, please, you're in worse shape. I can do it. Now go." He untangled the rope from my hand and began to walk on before I could disagree.
Without the weight of responsibility from the ropes I held, my shoulders sagged and I instantly thought of how it was me, who obeyed Fala, and took this mission to please her.
I remembered how Ezra had said that if it weren't for me, he would have never agreed.
And now, I can't help but see why. The mission we had completed tonight was unlike all the other missions we had experienced.
It used to be about the adrenaline and raw ego that would have us conquering mission after mission due to our teamwork and gifted skills.
Things were different now, we were no longer kids.
We had nearly died in Oakenhold. It was a different setting than the usual anxiousness of being in the arena.
In the forest, it was dark. Lonely. And horrific.
It was not for my life I had feared, it had been Ezra's.
If anything had happened to him, it would have been all my doing.
I bowed my head down to look at my blood-crusted nails.
Sunrise came near, I could hear the birds begin to sing, waiting to take flight when the sun had fully risen.
The night sky was still upon many tents as I made way to my own.
The bandits we had tried to capture were different. They had a purpose. Not just to steal from the "special visitors." They were hunters—bounty hunters. They intended to kill whomever was visiting and they all wore an odd emblem. The emblem of stars woven into the leaves of a branch.
"The rebellion," the fifth had called it.
The fifth man whom we did not capture. The fifth man whom I looked in the eyes and struck my fire blade into his neck.
The fifth man who was nothing but charred bone and ash.
Today, I had taken a man's life. A man who was fighting for his own people.
Ezra would give the information we had found to Dritan, and the lord himself would take it as his responsibility to interrogate the rest. My body trembled, remembering the man clutching onto my fist tightly, as I saw the life draw from his eyes.
I could still feel the pressure of his hand as I had pushed my blade all the way into his body.
My head pounded as I rushed towards my tent.
Pushing open the flap and colliding to the ground.
I couldn’t help but let out a soft whimper, but not from the impact of the floor beneath my body.
But from the overwhelming panic I had in my chest. I scrambled towards the small wooden chest that had a glass set upon it.
My vision had begun to get blurry with tears as my hand roughly knocked over the glass that shattered onto the ground.
"No... no... please, not again," I whispered out in pain.
I shakily thrust my fist into the glass, hoping the pain would subdue the voices in my mind. My thoughts travelled to the fight. The man's gaze was determined and yet his body knew he had been outmatched.
"Yield. Just yield. Don't give me a reason to end your life." I grit out as my unlit fire-blade made its way to his neck.
"There is no such thing as yielding where I'm from. Here is where it ends. Here is where I die."
Those words rang in my mind. A choked sob escaped me.
I closed my eyes and inhaled, as I felt a sharp sting in the middle of my fist. I couldn't help but hold the glass tighter, clutching onto it for dear life. Another wave of memories rushed passed me.
Over the distance, I had heard the metal of blades being clashed, coming from Ezra and one of the men he tried to capture.
As a last futile attempt, the man I was fighting used his arm to hit the side of my head, hoping to render me unconscious.
But I'd been trained by enough hard hits that it would take a lot more than that to bring the darkness my mind craved.
It was too late to notice that he had knocked over my diok that had been used to conceal my dark hair.
My fire-blade was commanded alight instantly and swung close to the man who only whispered a few words before his stunned eyes closed.
"It would be an honour and a tragedy my—"
The rest of his words were incomplete as he drew his last breath.
I forced my mind back in the present, feeling the warmth of my blood drip down my hand.
I couldn't stop the voices whispering in my head.
Those whispers would become luring voices and soon will begin screaming.
I blinked, closing my eyes again and when I did, I saw her in the black abyss.
The girl who ruined it all. I saw the little girl from my dreams. I always saw it, saw how the chaos happened from her point of view.
She killed the ones I loved. She killed the kingdom I lived in. .. and I hated her.
"What's wrong, Mor?" she asked.
"It's all your fault," I whisper and grab her small arm.
"Mor... you're hurting me. Please stop," the little girl pleaded as tears came into her eyes.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't hate me.
This is for the best," I heaved in deep breaths.
Her scream was sharp and deafening, rattling the darkest parts of my mind that seemed to be cut off from the world.
The voices in my head, including the little girl's all began to scream in symphony.
I clutched onto my head and buried my face into the ground to try and get away from the shrill torture of those sounds.
***
The voices subdued to faint calls in the distant parts of my mind, I held my bleeding fists to my chest. The songs of the birds had gotten louder and warm light shone through my tent.
Sunrise had come and today I would force myself to get rid of the plagued memories from last night.
I looked down at my wound with little emotion.
The cuts would be healed in a few days and should only be scars when the arena performance comes.
"It would be an honour and a tragedy," the dead man's voice whispered to me.
I don't know what it was that weighed down on me so much.
Was it hearing about the unknown guests?
The disastrous confrontation with the cliftolights?
Or this gods damned hunt Ezra and I had gone on.
I let out a trembled sigh and squinted when something shone into my eyes.
It was the creeping light that caught a glint of the bloodstained glass that stared right at me.