Arthur 4 : The return of the prince

Chapter 15

When he was sure they were alone, Eldarion turned and saw Selenia sitting on the edge of a chasm, her legs frolicking in the void.

"What a situation! I feel like I’m reliving my first adventure with Arthur," she laughed.

Then she stopped laughing, even with a smile on her face. Eldarion sat beside her, as if to listen to her.

"It was shortly before the fall of Necropolis that you married him, didn’t you?" he asked, with a tight ear.

"Yes, and I still remember that boy as handsome as he was naive when he tried to seduce me by all means, he was as cute as he was clumsy." replied Selenia, nostalgic. " I still remember I wanted to test his feelings as we crossed this path to Necropolis."

"For what?" asked Eldarion.

"I wanted to see if he was willing to die for me, and for that I gave him a stupid test." said Selenia. "I asked him to step back towards a chasm until he fell into it. And that's what he did, or at least that's what I thought he did.

There was a spider’s web in that abyss on which Arthur could bounce. But when I saw him fall into this abyss, I understood that I had lost a man sincere in his feelings, until I saw him bounce off this canvas. By the time I realized the deception, I became mad with rage at Arthur, but in the end, he and Betameche were able to prove that my test and my old beliefs about love were stupid.

I had to blackmail him to force him to apologize for what he did and save him from the spider that was about to devour him. I called him a manipulator but the truth is he played my game and won against me." She concluded by laughing nervously as she uttered her last sentence.

Eldarion said nothing and just listened to Selenia. Then she stopped laughing again before resuming my word.

"I love Arthur, but as much as he knows, as much as I showed him I love him, I never told him. Why I didn't, you may ask. Well, because the last person I told I loved her disappeared and never came back."

She paused to look Eldarion in the eye. Her smile was gone, giving way to an increasingly sad face.

"Eldarion, that disappeared person I loved so much was my mother."

Eldarion’s eyes receded. He was accustomed to shocking revelations, but this was the most shocking he had heard.

"Can you tell me what happened?" calmly asked Eldarion, though his calm appearance contrasted with his great surprise.

Selenia sighed before speaking again:

"I was just a little girl then. I must have been 300 years old at the most. I had decided to behave like an adult and to travel the Seven Kingdoms alone. I remember that my father had fainted when I told him, so much so that I had to warn Miro that I was leaving and that it was necessary to treat his King. I was already behaving like a little pest from an early age." For the third time, she laughed nervously before resuming.

"The trip had gone quite well, I had discovered all sorts of beautiful things, I met a lot of people. I even met the queen of a bee hive. Everything went well until I arrived for the first time in my life in the seventh kingdom, in Necropolis.

As I explored Necropolis and contemplated the horror of this place, I had fallen into a trap. The seides had captured me and brought me before M the Evil. He had planned to kill me, because at that moment he did not know that the first kiss of love of a princess could free him from his torment. I told him then that I was not afraid to die. He then replied that I could still be afraid to see my loved ones die.

I didn’t immediately understand what he was talking about. It wasn’t until he released me and I went home that I understood what he had done."

A slight sob was heard and a tear flowed on Selenia’s cheek. This did not prevent her from continuing.

"This vile traitor sent a letter to my parents, telling them he would kill me unless my mother took my place, in which case he would release me. By the time I understood what he had done, it was already too late. My mother had already left the village forever."

Sorrow was felt more in her voice and she cried more:

"Because of my disobedience, I lost my mother and made three serious mistakes: I deprived my people of her queen, I deprived my father of his wife, and I deprived my little brother of his mother when he needed it most. He blamed me for it after you left the village after my father’s judgment because of our final argument. I feel like I’ve never really been forgiven for that, maybe because I’ve never forgiven myself.

That’s probably at this moment when the seeds of anger and revenge were sown in my heart, which is why it was Arthur who took the sword of power from the rock, and not me. No matter how much I learned of the great book of our people, no matter how much I trained more than necessary in combat and all other sports, I never proved worthy of the sword of power, me, the heiress of my father’s throne.

It would also explain why Arthur had such a hard time with me when we first met. Me and the slanderous remarks I could make to him at first.

In the end, even if I love him with all my heart, I certainly had to be jealous of him. How could a boy like him succeed where I failed? This is the question I could have asked myself at the time when the answer is very simple: his heart was purer than mine, and it surely still is today."

Selenia ended her story while continuing to cry. Eldarion put his hand on Selenia’s shoulder, but she threw herself in his arms to mourn her sorrow. Although a little embarrassed at first, Eldarion slowly closed his embrace, began to see Selenia a little sister asking for help from an elder. And for his part, he began to take the first steps towards his own redemption, as the goddess of forest suggested to him in his vision.

"We are all haunted by our past, princess. And unfortunately, few of us have the opportunity to change it." he declared. "But that doesn’t mean that everything is lost, that we have no future.' So if we don’t change the past, we better change ourselves. We have to be better."

After several seconds of hesitation, he resumed:

"Selenia, when I was convulsing before you, I received a vision from our Mother Goddess. She manifested herself before me through you, and she gave me the leads that could help us find redemption. Now I know what to do, I just have to work out the details."

Surprised by Eldarion’s remarks, Selenia nevertheless knew that the least urgent questions would come later. For the time being, she had only one question, which seemed to be the most relevant.

"Can I do something about it?" she asked, breaking her grip.

"Not now, but don’t worry, your time will come. For now, go back to the first kingdom, tell everyone you found me. I will come back once I have finished my preparations." replied Eldarion with confidence.

"All right, I’ll go straight to the first kingdom then. Whatever you do, be careful, Eldarion," implored Selenia.

"You too, princess. May the Mother Goddess watch over you during your journey." prayed Eldarion before Selenia began her march, leaving Eldarion alone again.

Alone, but new determined. He would be able to clear his honour, finish the work he had begun several years ago and be able to find his people. Fate had made Eldarion and Selenia enemies, but this quest will make them brothers and sisters in arms.