3 Thousand Years Good Night

chapter 97: the fall

"A good man is a man with valiance, one who faces all anguish with pride..." Theon could almost hear the voice of his surely deceased  instructor, Ismael, with whom he had a fond relationship with.

The pain in his forehead, chest, and limbs were so profound that it felt like he was dying ten times per second.

In his agonized stupor, he could only reflect on the days of his happiness, a joy that is undoubtedly out of reach in his current state.

All the while he heard her wretched voice humming to the heavens. "On ten swar laga ire niu arks vasette immortales, ole phasmatos eil monterre..."

He thought he was only imagining it but what came out from his grotesque wounds was mystifying. A shroud of liquid-like haze was secreting from his cuts. The dark purple substance was floating gracefully towards the sky and then dispersing into nothingness. The haze was dancing mockingly on top of his mangled body. Was he dying? Was that his soul? These were the things that were spinning in his mind.

He felt his body softened, weakened and frailed. He realized that it was the immortality spell from his veins that was coming out in the form of liquidized haze.

"On ten swar laga ire niu arks vasette immortales, ole phasmatos eil monterre..." Continued Vienna in a meticulous precise fashion. A curve in her lips was forming.

In the witch's second tune, even his eyes and mouth secreted the same substance: an ominuous dark purple substance that retained his youth and ensured his survival for three thousand years. A substance that he hate and need in equal measure. A substance that is being stolen from him as the pain drowned the beating of his heart.

He contemplated about life... And death. What is it like to die? Would he be basking in eternal light? Or shrieking in eternal darkness? Or perhaps, forgotten in eternal nothingness?

All these questions were tickling his mind. He never re-thought the concepts of death in his entire life. All he knew was that dying was a relief, at least this was the case a few weeks ago. At this very moment, however, death was something in his grasp, something he can finally achieve after all these centuries. But, he wasn't pulling the trigger this time. He was being murdered slowly as he breathes.

If he was to die, he wished for a peaceful, quick death. He never asked for the piercing pain and extreme fatigue he was experiencing now.

"A prince must remain eloquent, exhibit proper poise and elegance." He heard Ismael yet again, making him giggle in painful stupor. Eloquence, poise and elegance, he thought, have betrayed him numerous sunsets ago. Alas, in his dying state, poise was the last thing on his mind.

"On ten swar laga ire niu arks vasette immortales, ole phasmatos eil monterre.." the winds shriek and the leaves dance as the witch continued her spell.

Theon's vision was starting to deteriorate even more. He could feel the elixir that gave him life was slowly being sucked away, rendering him a soulless shell.

His breathing became irregular, the beating of his three thousand years old heart slowed down, nearly at its limit.

"On ten swar laga ire niu arks vasette immortales, ole phasmatos eil monterre.." the witch continued.

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Dome

"It's starting." Rayna announced as she watched the vial of red liquid boil slower and slower.

The other supreme witches felt their own hearts beat in aggitation. This was it, their final move against Vienna. Their spell is their hope for the future.