Belford's Heart

Chapter 39: End of Malice

Grifford walked close beside Belford with Evelyn on the other side. Philip came into view from behind him, along with Grant, Mu'las, and Kharlan who clung to the arm of Thume who had just been pulled out of the chamber. Behind them, all of the former followers of the violet woman freed from her influence. The city that once rose into the mountains surrounding them brimming with the life left to it by father Vathas now stood as a shattered remnant.

Grant looked upon this city with familiarity. Even though it was a terrible husk of what had been presented, this, he knew, had been the truth. "Haradin! Reveal yourself!"

A hand appeared beyond a broken wall. The swollen fingers named its owner before he revealed himself. His body moved like a wave as he stood, his body covered in a full layer of sweat. "Here, colonel! He, too, wore a face of familiarity with the broken city around them. He seemed disappointed, but all the more accepting as the air did not hold the tension it had not long before he ran from the Eternal Peak. "I take it Lady Kressida did not fulfill her end of our bargain?"

Grant's face fell, but he nodded. Standing tall as he spoke to his duke. "No, my duke. She did not." He took no joy in the words, but he knew they needed to be said. "She is gone, my lord. Truly, as she already was."

"The girl!" Haradin said, meeting eyes with Evelyn, confused as the emerald coloring of them. "Where has our lady gone?"

Philip smiled, turning to the blue tower of light burning bright in a perfectly straight line into the sky. Its energy created a parting circle in the clouds above, lighting all of the city and part of the land beyond the gate that no longer stood. "She paid her debts to the world."

"This was part of my dream," Evelyn said, turning to each part of the city that was once beautiful around her. "Had this city been a true illusion?"

"It was a call to the world before," Mu'las said. "A mimic of the city our father left behind for our people. It was the heart you carried here within you that conjured it."

"It surely has seen better days," Kharlan said, squeezing one last time on Thume's arm before stepping forward to the expanse beyond the city. Its air was calm now. The land was no longer painted by the light of Kressida's malice. The fields of stone, nearly twenty years without true exposure to the elements of the world beyond the barrier, was dead and cold just as the city standing around them. "But it is still beautiful. Soon, our people can return here. The field of stone across the rift will no longer be our home."

Haradin scoffed. "And what of the quarry? The extraction?" He shook his head. "I don't know if you are aware how much work goes into maintaining my home, but-"

"Haradin," Grant said, anger obvious in his voice. The duke's title may have been officially lost to him in Grant's mind. "Everyone is well aware because everyone outside of yourself has been doing the work to keep Ghaulton alive. I will not have you speak to the exiles in this way anymore."

"And you are the one to stop me?" Haradin said.

"Yes," Grant said. "For one, you and I both must seek forgiveness for all the journeys we have made here leading girls to die in service of her. For two-" Grant's scowl faded slightly, and he smiled as his eyes turned to face Mu'las and Kharlan and all of the newly freed Thelonians behind them. "Those in the fields of stone are no longer exiles. Your...our duchess would not have you continue this. Join this place in recovery and allow time to finally heal us."

Haradin's face fell, looking to face Kharlan and Mu'las even though he greatly wished not to. They had led the exiles for as long as they lived within Ghaulton. But it was not the beautiful home they owed their lives for its payment. In truth, all but his lone castle that wasted away before the rift was dead and gone just like the city that rested before the new flame of the Eternal Peak. He felt the sweat running cold over his skin, and the body he had long since given up on since his Duchess had fallen to the violet woman. She was the beauty of that place, long gone even with Kressida's promise of her eventual return. The veil of coldness he had worn fell away, and his heart was heavy as it fell.