NOVEL NEXT Chapter 151 - For Honor and Enmity
Tristessa and Vergil accompanied Urias' group, trotting at a steady pace alongside the crimson vilecross named Milla, who pulled the chains of the wooden cart. The thaumaturges were sitting on the sides; they chatted over the sound of the wheels cracking the rotten earth caused by the Evil Dream, yet the gray-eyed girl couldn't hear them.
"That's for the better, not get distracted," she thought, controlling her breathing so as not to become dizzy from Vergil's sudden movements to keep the pace. "This nightmare isn't over yet."
The Pestilent Fields weren't difficult to navigate despite the blood vines, which thankfully yielded with the slightest effort. What did complicate the journey was the miasma of Discord that stagnated on the mainland. It obscured vision and acted as a natural barrier seeking to slow down with its density and penetrating, aberrant smell.
But the worst part was the effect it sought to impose on the psyche. Like a constant whisper of doom, scraping the surface of the mind nonstop, seeking to reach ever deeper. To make one feel distrustful of oneself, of those around them. Applying paranoid fear that intensified to infinity until it inevitably caused the collapse of that house of cards called sanity.
A simple gust of wind that eroded mountains. A mischievous laugh, coming from Selene Irandell, imprisoned in the darkness. The cries and screams of Tristessa Irandell, cursing under the weight of her failures.
A halo of Madness.
"I won't let you do it..." Tristessa thought, knowing full well what it was like to fall into that bottomless hole. Where her useless, cowardly, and selfish self resided. Behind the glass she'd smashed with her head in a past that no longer existed. "Get out of my fucking mind..."
To distract herself, she watched Milla move like an Earth locomotive, using her own legs as a cow-catcher to tear through every vine that blocked her path. She pulled the chains attached to a simple cargo cart, with no driver to guide her.
They hadn't crossed paths with any Fallen patrols yet. Tristessa knew the reason, and it was in the landscape before them, growing larger with each step they took: like a source of light stripping away the imposing darkness, the Evil-Warding Pillar, fully operational as it held up that semi-transparent dome with which it protected Entrana from a potential catastrophe; a destruction preventer against the Princess of Sin riding her black dragon, who could appear out of nowhere and without warning, according to the stories.
"All the Fallen Militiamen roaming these lands must have converged on the walls of Entrana, just like last time," she thought, almost lost in the beauty of the Pilar, that beacon of hope that doesn't repel, but rather invites. "Like moths drawn to the flame."
"Hey, Miss Tessa!" Xavier shouted from the edge of the wagon, getting her attention. "Do you happen to have a clarifying potion?!"
"Huh?!"
"You know, to combat the influence of the Evil Dream!"
"Ah… I think I heard Sev talking about it at the market. A potion to clear the mind, to block hostile influences that might attack one's sanity," she thought, reasoning with how obvious it was for the Empire to have developed such a concoction. After all, Madness was one of the Shadow Queen and her minions' primary weapons for wreaking havoc. "Sorry, I only have vitality potions in my backpack!"
"Then it'll just be a matter of continuing to resist this damn miasma… Hey, shouldn't you have a long gun or a firearm?!" Armin asked, shouting and turning to address Tristessa, who had moved as close as possible to the side of the wagon. "With only that dagger, you won't be able to do much. You're a very strange she-dragoon."
"You said it," Urias added, poking his head between his two friends, in a clear attempt of provocation. "A she-dragoon without a ranged weapon is like a thaumaturge without magical ability… Huh, doesn't that comparison remind you of a certain someone?"
"Ha! Here we go again…"
"Of course, not a day goes by that our dear Urias doesn't remember that buffoon!"
Armin and Xavier laughed heartily, encouraging the woman to continue, denigrating someone who wasn't even there to defend herself.
Someone Tristessa had no doubt about who it was.
"Of course it's Severus!" she bellowed, her tired eyes widening for the first time with the sadistic pleasure that only insulting the blood elf could bring. "His elemental magic can barely be considered thaumaturgy!"
Seeing her laughing with her friends made the madness inside Tristessa's head, the miasma of darkness brought by the Evil Dream, burst into flames at the sight of all the anger she was building up. The vein in her temple threatened to pop up, unable to bear another denigrating word against that elf.
"You have the nerve to mock someone behind their back, huh? Bloody cowards!" she blurted out, causing the three of them to look at her in confusion, almost in sync. And it wasn't going to end there; all the adrenaline from speeding on top of Vergil and the fury she felt toward Urias drove her to say something else, without thinking. "And you made the mistake of laughing at my lover!"
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It only took a few more seconds for Tristessa to realize what she had said, and her face turned bright red. She didn't even have time to internally hope that they hadn't heard what she said over the sound of the wagon and the hundreds of thunderbolts that were tearing the sky apart, but unfortunately, the laughter they let out in unison shattered her illusions.
"Really?! Oh my, who would have thought it, Severus with a human lover, and one so young!" the woman blurted, crying with laughter and having to hold on to her two friends to keep from falling due to the movement of the carriage. "Always boasting about his fight for the continuation of his species, but of course, at the end of the day, a man is a man!"
"Or maybe Tristessa is of elven descent," Xavier suggested, his cheekbones rising with laughter behind his veil.
"Now it all makes sense!" Armin exclaimed, almost hugging Urias to hold back his laughter and prevent them both from falling over. "You hit the mark with that comparison, Uri!"
"D-damn you!" Not only did Tristessa feel deeply ashamed of having messed up like that, but seeing them so pleased, enjoying the slander against the blood elf, made her patience hang by a thread. They were thrashing the honor of someone who gave his life in the blink of an eye for those he loved. It was unforgivable. "You…!"
"Oh, well, enough, enough! It's not right to make fun of someone who saved our lives." Urias gripped the two boys' shoulders, managing to make their laughter die down, and looked at Tristessa again with that dreamy expression of hers, hiding the cruelty within. "Forgive us, Tristessa. It was too funny. I'm sure the boys didn't mean to offend you either, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"I agree. What you said caught me off guard."
"See? All's well that ends well. But…"
The thaumaturge leaned forward, resting her foot on the edge of the wagon's backrest, and the mocking coldness in her gaze told Tristessa one thing: she didn't regret anything she'd said.
"Speaking ill of your lover is something I'll always do. It's what someone who tarnishes the good name of thaumaturgy deserves. Using the ultimate tool to fulfill dreams and desires in such a vulgar way, so limited in imagination or intention… I can never forgive him for something like that. Avenge his kin? Kill the Shadow Queen? Ha! That's not a wish: it's madness. He uses thaumaturgy to intensify his delusion for a doomed species, do you understand?"
Yes, of course Tristessa understood her point. But it was precisely because of that burning passion he harbored in his heart, such a noble cause, that she had fallen in love with him.
"And if you still have a problem with it..."
The crystal of Urias's staff emitted the same dark color as before. The same nonverbal spell, projecting that glyph that was about to become a projectile, floating statically in the air in front of Tristessa's face.
"...tell me, what are you going to do about it?"
Hearing that question made the girl with black hair, blown by the headwind and burdened with Discord, for the first time stop feeling the vertigo and nausea of the trip. Her entire being was focused on that thaumaturge, a person so detestable and disgusting that, next to her, Tiara Archeos was a saint.
Because at least Tiara had her family as the reason for being so cold and violent. Urias was cruel in her respect for the power to make dreams come true, also called thaumaturgy. But she clearly didn't respect the dreams of others, and that was unforgivable.
"Urias..."
But just as Tristessa was about to make another mistake—perhaps one a hundred times worse than lying about her relationship with Severus—something she hadn't expected happened.
"Listen"" said one of the veiled thaumaturges, it didn't matter who.
The sound of air raid sirens echoed inside Tristessa's mind. Those of the three thaumaturges, those of every inhabitant within Imperial territory.
That sound came accompanied by a new dimensional shift: Discord itself began to disperse, causing the blood vines and stone monoliths that dominated the Pestilent Fields to begin to disintegrate, rising like ash in the wind to make way for reality as everyone knew it.
The dead earth gave way to green grasslands and cultivated fields. The corrupted clouds disseminated, giving way to a beautiful, clear, azure sky, allowing the sun to break through the artificial darkness and fill that part of Nekrom with new light.
And in the distance, the dome of the Evil-Warding Pillar protecting Entrana transformed into hundreds of millions of motes of light that rose to the heavens and vanished. Like spirits of the dead ascending to a higher plane of existence, having fulfilled a more than noble and blessed purpose.
"…it's over." It was the first thought that crossed Tristessa's mind as she felt the rush of the evening wind against her face, pure and without a trace of Discord. The parasitic influence on her spirit, purged. Free, filled with warmth from the sun. "For now."
But fear wouldn't go away so easily. No, that wasn't possible. Not while the Shadow Queen watched Nekrom from her [Throne of Frozen Black Tears], in the [Empyrean of Dead Gods]. Unrest, her gaze fixed on Nekrom, always projecting her malice until she had nothing left but to dominate and subdue with her indestructible, dark will.
"Finally! Free from that abyss!" Xavier celebrated, slumping back in his seat, tired and ridding himself of tons of stress.
"We survived! By Kantrus, I thought we weren't going to get out of this! If Ithrendyl had shown up…!"
"Don't jinx us!"
Hearing the two boys celebrate and argue, Tristessa sighed and turned her attention back to the thaumaturge, who had never taken her eyes off her: those were the eyes of someone challenging her, wanting to provoke her into making a mistake. To screw up and ruin everything she had achieved so far.
Maybe even… Give her the excuse to blow her head off with that glyph that discreetly disappeared.
The Evil Dream had just come to an end, but Urias didn't care. Because, in that moment, and in silence, they both declared themselves mutual enemies.
Only in Nekrom could something as contradictory happen as the end of the nightmare, the awakening and the passage of light through the darkness, bringing with it the emergence of a new enmity.