The Never Forgiven

Chapter 7

~Orpheus~ The day after the mind battle

Lady Aurora had left me yesterday with an odd feeling. The way she said my name... and left so quickly. 

I have to find out if it's really her.

The look in those hidden orange eyes of hers just sent the feeling of familiarity through me. I had readied my clan as quickly as possible to set up for our final location of base. That is... if nothing would change.

I arrived at the massive doors of her manor once again, seeing those orange eyes gazing out to me through the dim window on the top floor. It sent a small tension to my spine, the mystery of what lied below that hood making me utterly curious. She had promised her identity today once we were done setting up camp here. 
The butlers and their hardened expressions opened the doors for me, allowing me entrance, the same one as last guiding me up to her office. The door to that dimly lit room opened, Lady Aurora standing with her back turned to me as her piercing gazed watched outside the window. The only difference there was from before was that she no longer wore that identity-hiding cloak. 

"Orpheus..." She said once again as she did yesterday... that familiar voice. I was almost certain, yet the dark room didn't allow me to look at the color of her hair quite well. Black? Brown? Red? It was surely a darker color. She did not turn to me, yet continued watching out of that window.
"Have a seat."

I sat on the chair opposite from hers. 
"Is this the time you will truly reveal yourself to me, Lady Aurora?"
I had asked, a bit agitated that she still kept her face hidden from me.

"Of course. Though, I wish to ask one question alone before I do so... Is it true? You have been in the underworld all these years?..."

These...years...

As she asked the question, she turned, the chimney suddenly lighting with fire, revealing her face and her familiar black hair.

Aurora.

I then felt another agitation rush through me. 

Tick....Tick...TICK

"You....You...."
My voice grew a bit, anger beginning to boil through my blood. A small pulse of purple aura erupted from me, spreading through the room.
"Where... Were YOU..."

I stood from my chair, my fist pressing onto the desk.

I should've known it as her... how idiotic of me... powerful woman with the name of Aurora with ages old materials and power? I should've KNOWN.

"Where were you when I lie in the dirt... rotting away and allowing the underworld to take me? FOR 2  CENTURIES I rotted in that desolate place... feeling unimaginable pain for 2 CENTURIES, Lady Aurora..."
I sneered at her. How could she? Leave me and prosper on her own throughout the years? Leave me to die on the battlefield?!

Tick...TICK.....TICK

The boiling of my blood rose, flashes of the underworld once again clouding my mind.

She stood there, staring at me with her blunt and blank porcelain expression.

"You act as I LEFT you..."

"YOU DID." I interrupted

She shook her head and gave a smug laugh.

"As if . My army was annihilated. Wiped from the face of this earth just as I... I was left there to die on that field as well, Orpheus. No hope of living until my one last living captain dragged me from the place to the cave in which we just battled yesterday. I saw visions of the underworld. I was so close to entering that place." 
She countered.

"VISIONS? I LIVED there for 2....centuries. YOU ALMOST died? Why didn't you answer my call for assistance? Why didn't you call to fallback? Why didn't you call for assistance? There's such thing as telepathy, Aurora! WHY didn't you use it? Why didn't you notify my men?-"

She cut me off.

"I COUDLN'T." She hissed. "I would have if I was able to! Do you not understand? MY MEN AND I WERE ALL FALLEN.  There was something that the enemy had done to tear off our communication and separate our flanks."

"You could have at least come back to find me-"

Once again I was cut off.

"I DID. I buried your body beside that cave myself. That is why I chose that destination in the first place. To see if you would recognize it all. I. Buried. You."

"You obviously didn't bury me well enough, did you? You didn't even try bringing me back to health? Was I far from life when you came to get me?"
My blood still boiled yet my tone softened, yet it was hardened like venom.

She furrowed her eyebrows. 
"Who do you think I am? Some traitor? As if I were the enemy here. Ha!"

She crossed her arms and shook her head. 

"Leave this room and do not speak to me until you have thought through my explanation."

I glared at her in fury. "OH I see. You want ME to leave this time? I understand." With that I turned and exited out of the room in a rush. I was in no mood to continue our angered banter. I went into the quarters in which were assigned to me.

Couldn't contact me? Impossible.