The Blightspawn Noble

Chapter 14

                                           Chapter 14

The sweet, soul soothing melody produced from Magarie's violin can't dampen the dread solidifying within her.

She hasn't heard anything from Apopis. His silence has become worse than his voice abruptly assaulting the chambers of her mind. She knows he is not sitting idly. Nor is he still in the planning phase by now. He is acting, but the machinations of his plan are not apparent, yet. Plans fail all the time. He simply comes up with new ones, and they get better until he has what he wants. He never loses a war. He always perseveres and adapts.

Magarie stops playing, letting the bow hang from her fingers as she glances out the window. A few drops, followed by a sudden hail of white droplets splattering across the window. Winds rise up to howl and thrash. Shrieks bellowed from down in the fields, students scrambling for the doors. She couldn't help but chuckle.

"The storm before the storm." she says, lifting her bow back up.

There's nothing to be done about it. If Apopis is going to return, he's going to get what he wants. Tonight, let the storm join her in a private concerto. 

The Rise and Fall of King Ambien.

A piece whose comical opening is its most well known, written to be evocative of merry and peace, but is now seen as more humorous. Most forget its much darker, more violent later portions to show his descent to madness and the violent massacre that would bring his downfall.

A man who rose from a violent upbringing, enslavement and the loss of his throne, to rise back, upend the invaders and bring a brief prosperity...only to become like those who had ruined his life before. Trapped in vengeance, forever tormenting his defeated foes. No harm he could do to them was ever enough.

Its something that nags at Magarie every now and then. A violent, dark nature that can't be overcome, even with all the good intentions in the world. That as much as she wants to avoid going back to the bolgias, perhaps it is the only place for her.

Its one thing to have good intentions. To want to be good. But those darker aspects of yourself do not simply vanish in this desire.

Lawrence seems to be the only one who truly believes in her, and its his job to do so.

Elves are not so far removed from the demons.

Magarie even less so.

___

The wet stone halls stretch cruelly. 

The open door way swinging tauntingly from the other side of a never closing gap. Her fingers scrape across the jagged floors, grasping for any edge or crack for leverage. Eliza pulls forward, looking away from, but still seeing, the faces and arms of infant pushing up from her legs, trying to pierce through the flesh. An opening in the wall causes her to pause, a figure masked in shadow stepping into her path. 

Eliza lifts her head.

Needles grow like suddenly blossoming flowers from the stone floor. She can only vacantly stare, with hardly a twitch of movement, as they stretch towards her.

___

Eliza's head narrowly misses hitting the upper bunk. Damn the fates, another nightmare.

The thought of waking Leon in those early, pre light hours is tempting. Whenever she woke up early from a traumatic nightmare before, Leon would be laying near by, and she'd remind herself Leon was right there if anything happened.

"But that is childish. I am above that now. " she says to herself.

Instead, she'll go to archery quite early and get some more extra work. It has to pay off eventually.