"Impossible," Cecilion mumbled, his face in disbelief. Keres thought she had the same expression. Helio's revelation was a hard pill to swallow. But eventually, she arrived at the conclusion that she was...in Helio's words, a divine being.
A God.
Perhaps not someone as powerful as the almighty Xenon, but a minor one. She didn't even believe she had powers. If one day she could discover she can summon an element, she would presumptively lose her sanity.
"Would that mean I'm...immortal?"
Helio stared intently before nodding. Keres did not know what to feel about that information, but at that moment, only one idea came to mind: "Then, we have a solution to my family's predicament."
· • —–٠ ☀ ٠ —– • ·
Martyrdom, or whatever it was called. Keres wanted to shoulder her family's pain, in the most literal way.
Carmilla was the only one who knew. She was the only one who cried for her sister's sacrifice, but couldn't convince her otherwise because the ritual was done and Keres had gone into an indefinite slumber, their sevenfold torment too much for her mortal body. Thus, she was back in that void.
That dark, unsettling abyss of nothingness. The whispering winds kept her company, no matter how dreadful their murmurs were.
Burn their bodies... Pierce their skin... Ruin their mind... Kill their child... They would whisper maliciousness and wickedness into her ear and had she known this was the kind of torment they'd punish her with, she would've chosen to just be physically tortured. Her mental sanity was more fragile than her physical body. Keres had never been this perturbed.
But as time passed by, she felt as if the voices were helping her plan her revenge. She had nothing to do there but look at the darkness and listen to the voices anyway; Keres let her mind work. And hence, the master plan was mapped out in the tenebrous abyss Keres named her sanctuary.
Eventually, the malevolent voices welcomed themselves into her mind. It was anything but forceful. And as she left her sanctuary, Keres took them with her. To the outside world. Where she can finally execute her plan.
A new God was born from the depths of the void. With her is a thirst for vengeance and a million baleful spirits hiding in the shadows of her mind.
She did not know if this was what Xenon planned for her, but even if it isn't, he'd be too late to stop her now. She felt reborn, a different streak of power surging in her veins... something forbidding, something more sinister.
· • —–٠ ☀ ٠ —– • ·
"Ah, it felt like I've been in there for years!" Keres exclaimed, a wide grin stretching her face and a wicked glint in her crimson eyes.
She broke from her long slumber and awoke in a minuscule cabin, decorated only by a barrel, her bed, and a single torch. Her head faintly tilted in confusion, her grin vanishing. Did they abandon her? Took her to this pathetic excuse of a cabin to rot away, now that she's immortal? Is she even capable of rotting?
"I wonder why..." she muttered to herself.
Traitors... the voices chanted.
She ignored them and placed her feet down, standing up from the bed. She glanced at the scrawny bed, noting the scratches and rags with holes in them. That bed has seen better days, it seems. Keres released a deep breath. Outside the cabin was a peaceful, unsuspecting woods. The orange-hued sky caught her attention the most. Ah, a change of scenery at last. Keres was fed up and done with seeing nothing but darkness. How long had it been in the outside world?
After minutes of watching the serene view, a space rift appeared in front of the cabin, revealing a cloaked man and a noble lady, hand in hand as they traveled through space. Keres watched the two familiar figures as they smiled fondly at each other. It appears the two have warmed up to each other. Keres folded her arms and waited for them to notice her.
When they did, the noble lady's mouth parted open and the wizard froze. She slowly neared; her crimson eyes wide in shock.
"Keres...S-Sister, is that you?"
"It seems I've been gone for a while," were her first words. She smiled fondly at Carmilla's flushed state. "How long has it been?"
Cecilion stepped forward, too.
"It's been four fortnights, good friend. It is a huge relief to see you well."
Keres's soft eyes on Carmilla went hard and intent on Cecilion's. She coldly told him, "Of course, I am immortal." She paused, remembering their closeness earlier, "It seems you've been enjoying time with my sister while I was away."
"She's been visiting you every day and I take her here every time. It was inevitable," he casually admits, not an ounce of nervousness in his system. The smugness of this man must come somewhere deep, she thought and mentally scoffed.
"Then I'm to thank for this...relationship?"
Keres frivolously waved her hands to both of them. Carmilla's face reddened at the mention of a relationship. Please, Keres bit back a laugh, she is such a teenager.
"By the by, has anything significant happened in my absence? What does the family know?" She asks, her questioning eyes set on her sister. Carmilla poised herself at the question.
"I told them you were training to be a mage."
Keres's right brow rose in disbelief. "And they believed you?"
A curt nod made her scoff in incredulity at it. She could not question it further, since the family believed that poor lie. They should've known, however, that the least she wanted to become was a mage. She'd rather give up immortality than be a mage. However, things are done and did.
Keres joined Cecilion and Carmillla in the space rift as they jumped through space and entered the Grand Wizard's tower once again, a great teleportation spell courtesy of the wizards.
When she asked why she was isolated in that rugged cabin, they reasoned that her screams were too loud they needed the forest to muffle them, and her often violent struggles leave them no choice but to send her to a cabin to keep everyone in the wizards' tower safe. In simpler terms, they isolated her because she was too dangerous—even if she was only sorrowing from the torment. Funny.
Keres returned to the familiar gilded castle of the cold north, where winter was eternal. However, there was also another carriage up front. She scrutinized the carriage; from the foreign design of the carriage, they had a guest. Judging from the insignia on its doors, the same insignia of their family, it must be a relative. And in the north, they only have one relative.
"Whyever is Aunt here? Shouldn't she be in the mines, after the recent scandal?" Carmilla murmured behind Keres.
It was only the two of them, Cecilion long gone, because no matter how smitten he is, he cannot leave the forest. He is a wizard of the Tower; he is confined within the forest.
"Scandal?" She repeated, earning a deep sigh from her sister.
"It happened while you were asleep," she started re-telling the scandal as they entered the manor.
Apparently, the mines their Aunt supervised were emptied long ago. However, Amarantha continued to labor the miners by digging a tunnel through the mountain. The mined ores did not go anywhere far from the mines, too. They were stored nearby, untouched and hidden, when they should be up for trading.
The rumors were speculating that Amarantha was planning to smuggle these ores to the enemy kingdom. This makes total sense since on the other end of that mountain was the ocean and just north of that...is the Phopis Kingdom.
A Kingdom constantly on the brink of war with Odrivell.
Keres's face darkened. She did not say anything further, nor did she have a chance to, because beyond the gilded paintings of the hallway, the lush red carpet that softened their steps, and the elegant vases that lined the wall, stood the bane of their clan, the shadow of their bloody past.
YOU ARE READING
Siege
FantasiTeaser: Eventually, the malevolent voices welcomed themselves into her mind. It was anything but forceful. And as she left her sanctuary, Keres took them with her. To the outside world. Where she can finally execute her plan. A new God was born from...
