The Falling Kingdoms: The Hidden Coffins

Chapter Eighteen: The Manipulating Vixen

I stood in the balcony of Joel's cottage watching the garden get decorated with flowers. Arnold's coffin was placed in between of all those. The sunlight touched my face like the soft feathers of peacock, giving a strange kind of pleasure. But no smile was able to form on my face. I kept staring at the dark brown closed coffin, not being able to believe that Arnold lay inside it, lifeless.

"Aviana?" The sweet voice of Leonie rung through my ears. I snapped out of my trance and glanced at her. She stood at the doorstep, wearing a strapless black dress and boots, looking gorgeous as ever.

"Yeah?" I responded.

"Let's go?" Her voice seemed unsure as she asked me that. I simply nodded and followed after her as she turned around to go downstairs.

I had a view of my plain black dress and dull, tired face in the mirror while walking out of the room. My eyes still glistened white. I hated that.

Nobody asked me yet if I wanted to stay after burying Arnold. Nobody forced the decision of joining the war again at me. Nobody even mentioned it. I was grateful of it but at the same time, nervous because I wanted to stay now. Whoever did this to my brother wasn't getting away with it so easily. And if taking my revenge meant staying here and preparing for war, my will power was strong enough to do it. The King suggested that this was the work of the demons, maybe they found out that Arnold was the first Nephilim. But I had someone else in mind. The lady in my head seemed particular to make me stay here. Whoever this lady was, I'm going to first get her out of my head and then kill her till her body was destroyed in millions of pieces. The amount of rage gathered up inside me was a lot, sure, but the amount of courage was more than that.

In the garden, everybody close to Arnold were gathered. The girl that liked Arnold stood in the corner, her nose shaded red and her eyes swollen. Joel was near me, awfully quiet and dry. She didn't cry after her outburst at seeing his body. Something was seriously wrong. A minute later, Adrian, Nick and an elder guy appeared inside the circle of people gathered around the coffin.

The elder guy wandered his eyes around and sighed.
Then he spoke, "Arnold was an obedient son and a wonderful friend. His absence would affect all of us in different ways. That is why, we are gathered here to mourn his painful death."

Everybody listened with interest and empathy.

"Now, I want you all to hold each other's hands and repeat after me as we travel to the graveyard and bury him with respect and dignity."
He continued.

We all extended our hands towards each other together. There were some fifty people present there. After we were all joined with each other, the stranger chanted "Veho Vecto, unison."

We repeated after him.

A white light covered all of us for a moment, fading away slowly after that and leaving us standing in the same position in the graveyard. The coffin also rested in the middle. My eyes were coldly staring at it, showing absolutely no emotion towards it. What am I supposed to do anyway? Cry my eyes out, sob painfully or pass out every five minutes?

The pain was too much to bear that now, I felt absolutely nothing. My parents' death broke me. And now, Arnold's death completely destroyed me. I was hoping to honestly die from the ache I was going through. My brother, the only guy in the world I felt safe and special with was not in this world anymore.

At that moment, life couldn't be more unfair.

"Would you like to say some words, Joel?" Nick question Joel with a few tears pooling up in his eyes.

Joel, without any words sauntered and postured between the circle. She hesitated to look up at first. When she finally did, the ache in her eyes was too much to look at it. So I stared downwards.