Book 3: Chapter 2 – A Time of Loss [Part 3]
Book 3: Chapter 2 - A Time of Loss [Part 3]
She could finally read the messages that blocked her sight.
| You have slain Levine Traellis. You have gained 123 experience. You have reached level 26. 3 unassigned attribute points. 1 unassigned skill point.
|
There it was, the accusation of her sin.
But, almost automatically, as if rehearsed, she put three attribute points into Luck even as the words blurred behind sudden saltwater. Tears spilled, hot and senseless. The skill point she placed into Blind Fighting.
Seraphina’s chest convulsed in a sob that felt foreign, unwelcome. Cornelia’s central head lowered, nuzzling her shoulder with a perplexed rumble.
Why was she crying? The Hydra was safe, foes scattered, her power rekindled. Yet Levine’s still form carved an empty space beneath her ribs. Salt mixed with blood on her lips. She wiped tears with a shaking wrist, but they returned, unstoppable.
The heir to the Sariens Duchy could see all of her skills and abilities now, her Status window open for her perusal. They looked obscene against the carnage. She dismissed her Status with a ragged breath, gaze locked on the corpse of the man who had been simple smiles, who had taught her the forest songs. He ought to have been nothing, but grief speared her with every heartbeat.
And then, she truly remembered. Remembered that she was not even Seraphina de Sariens and that once upon a time, she had been common, too.
The world was always trying to take something from her.
Cornelia, still wary, curled protectively, three heads weaving slow circles above ruined ground. All was quiet save for the crack of settling timber and Seraphina’s uneven breaths.
Then, faint but insistent, new memories rose to the fore. The numbers climbed. Images surfaced: a red giant Dragonslayer tumbling from the heavens, her neural link flaring out like severed nerves; a domineering mother, a loving father, a silver-haired rival, a treacherous boy-prince, a girl who was her once-reflection… all of these and more. Last of all were the memories of a golden‑eyed woman, teacher, laughing as she drilled sword forms, as well as teaching her true humility. The very technique that had slain the man who had loved her… and that she perhaps had been falling in love with as well.
She staggered back from Levine’s body, almost tripping over a fallen shield. Her knees hit scorched loam. Cornelia’s heads hissed in alarm but did not strike. Seraphina pressed both palms to the emerald amulet, its rhythm thumping like a second heart. Tears fell, dotting forest soil.
For a moment, she wished she could curl into a ball or run away, retreat to a morning kitchen filled with a simple but lovingly made breakfast. But that Mina was a borrowed shell, cracked beyond repair the instant the sword slid home. Seraphina de Sariens knelt in her place.
Yet grief remained, raw and bewildering. Levine’s final whisper looped through her ears. I love you. Three words, fragile as spun sugar, somehow weighing more than titles or kingdoms. She tasted their sweetness and their curse.
Above the trees, clouds drifted, indifferent. Cornelia’s heads scanned the tree line. She rose on shaky legs, straightened her torn cloak, and placed a trembling hand on Levine’s cooling brow.
“I did love you,” she confessed in a cracked whisper she barely recognized, “or Mina did, at least. I will give you that.” Another sob slipped free. She let it, for there was no audience left alive to judge.
But beneath all of the grief was a rage. A rage at having been humiliated and manipulated. During her time as Mina, she had endured humiliation after humiliation in her ignorance. In her grief-twisted mind, she concluded that the people of Milani Village would have made her a slave, an indentured servant at best, in all but name. And this one at her feet would have made her his concubine.
They might as well have raped her.
Stoking the fire, Seraphina de Sariens remembered that Gaellan had attacked her first. And rage, it made a fine antidote to grief.
She straightened and kicked the corpse. Up, high above, a winged Wyrm-drone flew over the forest. Perfect, the young girl thought with an evil smile.
“Eat them all, Cornelia,” Seraphina de Sariens commanded coldly. “And be quick about it. We have business in Milani village. There will be a few more snacks for you there.”
“Yummy!” her cute pet replied, munching down another corpse of an adventurer whole.