Book 3: Chapter 2 – A Time of Loss [Part 2]
Book 3: Chapter 2 - A Time of Loss [Part 2]
The cry rang clearer than ever, bright as a trumpet in her mind, and she suddenly recognized the voice’s owner. The serpent itself. Not a monster, but Cornelia, the Hydra she had raised from an egg. Memory broke like dawn: Seraphina de Sariens, highborn of Aranthia, giggling as she fed the small serpent anything and everything Cornelia had wanted. Tears welled, only to evaporate in a rush of rage at the sight of peasant sellswords wounding her most precious of companions.
And she remembered the necklace. A relic older perhaps than the Kingdom of Aranthia itself, the Beast‑Lore Amulet, a prize taken from a Trial of the Goddess where she had bested a Banshee at its own game. With it, she could speak to the beasts of the wild.
Seraphina drew the small knife at her belt—then nearly laughed aloud. This tiny thing against armor? Absurd.
Her gaze caught on a young sapling, and she smiled. Fury lent her arm iron. She seized the tree with both hands, veins standing proud, and ripped it free in a geyser of loam. The sapling became a massive club. With a feral cry, she charged downhill into chaos.
The Rogue blinked to intercept—eyes widening an instant too late as if his eyes could not quite comprehend the sight. One swing shattered his ribcage; he flew back boneless, landing in a heap.
A message she could not read appeared across her vision, as irritating as buzzing gnats. She snarled and blinked them away.
A cleric in silver plate-and-mail chased forward, holy sigil blazing, chanting a smite that cracked the air. Seraphina hurdled a fallen trunk, whipping the sapling overhead; wood met helm with a metal‑ringing crack that snapped the club in two. The cleric collapsed, light sputtering from his icon. Cornelia struck at the same heartbeat—one maw darting down to swallow a spear‑wielder whole, armor and screams muffled by serpentine gullet—while a second head’s acid dissolved the ground where a Frost Mage stood moments earlier.
Seraphina tossed the half‑shattered sapling aside as the flame‑caster shrieked an incantation. Fire blossomed; surviving wood exploded to cinders. She dove and rose miraculously beside two abandoned straight swords half‑buried in churned mud. It was as if they had been placed there for her, for this very moment.
More text appeared across her vision that she could not read. Again, she dismissed them.
They were heavier than what she thought she was used to; these were weighed more for brutal war than a courtly duels. The Grace-blades of her instructor at the Academy… And, as her fingers closed on the hilts, another ghost surfaced: a golden‑eyed tutor with an irreverent laugh, tapping her elbow, correcting her stance. Muscle memory flooded back. She stepped into form, pivoted, parried the mage’s panic‑born lash of living fire, and severed his staff in a single ringing stroke. Sparks cascaded; terror widened his eyes until Cornelia’s tail whipped him off his feet.
But steel alone could not hold against such spellfire forever. Bolts of frost tore through her cloak where she mistimed a parry or failed a dodge. They carved crimson crescents along her shoulder and thigh, and worst of all, spread a numbing cold that slowed her movements. A spiked mace clipped her ribs hard enough to crack bone. Unarmored, she bled freely. Pain flared—then her heart answered with a song most holy. The Song of the Covenant… Heal. Righteousness and forgiveness made manifest. For there could be no Justice without Mercy.
Words unfurled as golden sigils in her sight, lines of Holy. Her lips shaped the syllables; radiant warmth surged through wounded flesh. Torn skin sealed, and the girl was made whole. The mage who watched her wounds vanish stumbled back, shocked.
“How dare you lay your hands on me… You PEONS!” she shouted with all of her Strength.
And in the echoes of that violent shout blossomed another memory.
Seraphina smiled, teeth bared in triumph. Another memory blossomed: Wail of Judgment, dread hymn of destruction. She drew breath, loosed a note threaded with the Holy Covenant. Air warped; sin was judged; the clearing rang with silence so profound it cracked eardrums. Three adventurers froze, eyes glazing as life drained, bleeding from their eyes, nose, and ears. Two more collapsed, weapons falling from spasming hands.
More text appeared, but the girl could not read them.
The note of destruction died.
Miraculously, two figures remained upright: Gaellan, old breastplate dented, sword trembling, eyes wide with confusion; and Levine, slack‑jawed, blood seeping from a cut above his brow. Horror and love waged a visible war in his gaze.
They had been spared from the song of Judgment.
“Mina… why…” Levine’s voice was shredded with so much pain.
“My name is Seraphina,” she hissed, each syllable dipped in ice. “And how dare peasants give me a dead pet’s name!” She launched forward.
Gaellan sprang to meet her, grim resolve etching tired lines deeper on his face. He raised the curved sword she once had faintly dreaded on their dining‑room wall. She moved as she had been taught, but he moved with all the skill the years of training had gifted him.
Edge met edge. Sparks danced. Her borrowed blade skidded, slid past. But Cornelia saw the opening that no one else did. One snowy neck whipped sideways, hammering the mayor with bone‑crushing force. Armor folded like tin. Gaellan vanished beneath a mountain of serpentine flesh as ground and bone broke together.
Levine’s scream ripped through the air. He charged—yet grief made his swing wild. She sidestepped, slid steel between plates beneath his arm, through the mail of his armpit. The blade sank deep. He gasped; blood welled scarlet. For a heartbeat, their faces were inches apart—hers twisted with rage, his contorted in disbelief and such deep sorrow.
“I love you,” he rasped. Shock melted into tender grief. Knees buckled; he sagged against her. She let him fall.