Chaos Lives in Everything - 17. Chapter 17

Candestine inhaled sharply, breathing in the smell of rot and degradation. She thought, I am in the dungeons of the underworld awaiting the eternal tortures of the Ferry Man as punishment for my sins.
She was lying flat on her back, staring into darkness. But it wasn't completely dark. Somewhere a fire was burning, casting dancing shadows on the ceilings and walls. Her hands were pressed on the ground. She waved it in front of her face experimentally, making sure that she was still made of flesh. Her hand was covered in blood and dust. My blood, she realized. And then, My brother tried to kill me.
Candestine looked down, expecting to see the wound where her younger brother had run the sword through her. But instead of a gaping wound there was only a thin scar four and half inches long. She blinked, confused. She should be dead. How was it not so? When Skold struck it was to kill.
She sat up. One of her hands knocked something over onto the ground, startling her. It was a little pot made of clay. There were several clay pots around her. And there were candles, the wax warm and dripping. She could smell incense, perfumes, the herbal smell of medicines. She looked around. She was still in the asylum.
"You did not die, although you probably should have you stupid girl," a woman's voice said from the shadows. She stepped into the weak candlelight, her hair the color of red flame. She regarded Candestine with bemusement. Her pupils were catlike slits. "You most certainly deserve to."
Candestine stared in shock and fear. A seer. A seer had come to her. For what she could only imagine.
"What did you do to me?" she asked.
"I healed you," said the seer. "Naturally you would have healed on your own but with a wound so close to the heart as that it would have taken several days. And I cannot wait several days. I need you now. You are very lucky to be alive."
"Skold tried to kill me."
"He did not."
"What do you know of it?" Candestine snapped, her fear forgotten.
The seer's face rippled. She smiled showing rows of razor sharp teeth. A long, forked, serpentine tongue fluttered from in between her lips. A second ago her teeth had been white and pristine and very straight. "I would be careful Candestine, daughter of Kane. I will do what your brother could not. I will rip your heart out and feast on it for I have not yet eaten today."
Candestine instantly grew quiet. She knew that this was no idle threat.
"I know everything that I need to know," the seer said. "Skold spared you when he could have killed you. You know this, you saw it. The hesitation in his eyes, the fact that you are still alive. The blade missed your heart by the fraction of an inch."
Candestine shook her head. "No."
"You hate him so much that you are willing to overlook what you know to be true?"
"I do not want to hear your false lies, seer. Kill me now if you must or go away."
"Ignorance and hate walk hand and hand," said the seer. She paced back and forth, moving from one end of the room to the next. "Your heart is full of poison. Your brother is not as cold and heartless as you think he is. But he is in jeopardy. I have seen the future, two futures. One is very different from the other and both are on the horizon. But one future will only come true. Your brother will either save our kind or destroy us once and for all."
"What madness do you speak of?
"It is not madness it is the truth."
Candestine laughed. "Because seers are known for speaking the truth?"
"It is a lie only as long as you choose it to be so. As long as you keep your heart and your mind closed you are even more lost than Skold."
Candestine leaned back until her back pressed up against a wall. "What do you want from me?"
"A chain of events have been set in motion," the seer replied. "Whoever caused the troll attack is just a small pawn sea of other pawns. This is just the beginning. You saw with your own eyes what Paladin's war did to the world. What is coming is much worse."
The elf could no longer ignore what the seer was saying. The dread that was slowly creeping through her was true enough. "You have seen all of this?"
"I have not seen everything. Most things are very unclear. I have only seen the end." The seer's eyes turned pleading. "I beg you: look past your rage and resentments. Stand by your brother. Fight with him. Fight for him. Do what you must to make it so."
Candestine felt warm tears trickle down her cheek. She wiped them away with a bloody knuckle. She was full of conflicted emotion. She wanted to believe that Skold had not had the heart to end her life. She wished that she could love him as she once had before their father had mutilated him. Skold had not always been so cold, so heartless. There had been a time when they had laughed together, played together. There had been a time when he smiled. "I will try." She nodded, more to herself than to the seer. "I will try."
The seer nodded back at her. "See that it is done." Then she stepped back into the shadows and disappeared into a flash of purple light.

 

Candestine walked stolidly through a city that was completely alien to her. She barely noticed the people around her, hurrying past her to get into their cars, seeking refuge from the cold. She did not care where she was going, where she ended up. Her legs would take her wherever they decided to go. What would be would be. Her head ached, filled to the brim with thoughts that she could not shake off.
Now I am nothing, she thought. Now I have nowhere to go.
The king had exiled her over the phone. There had been no hearing before the council, no chance at redemption.
She had called him from a pay phone to explain, but there was no reason to be seen. Not by the king.
"He butchered your team and almost killed you and you want to take his side all because of the predictions of a seer," Yaldon spat in disgust, making the phone crackle with static. "I gave you an order and that order was to kill him no matter what the cost is. And that includes your personal, misguided feelings."
Feeling sick, Candestine had clutched the phone so tight that she could feel it straining within her grip. She could not believe what was happening, what she was hearing, what she was about to say. "I must do what needs to be done. I will not kill him, your grace. I will not."
"You dare disobey me?"
"Yes, I dare." She could feel herself growing angry. "For centuries my family has stood by your side, serving your every whim. My father Kane died fighting for you and my brother was exiled for doing what you could not. So I will do this one thing for me. I will not kill my own blood!"
The king's voice simmered with rage. "Then you will join Skold in exile for disobeying your king. Do not bother coming out to Berlin. I will have your head if you do." Click.
Just like that it was over.
Just like that Candestine had thrown away the last bit of family honor that remained.
Now standing in the middle of an alley now she leaned against a wall. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pound the wall with her fist until it gave way and turned into rubble. She wanted to be angry at someone but she did not know who to be angry at. She could not be angry at Skold, Skold who had shown her mercy at the last second. She could not be angry with Yaldon, who had been driven mad from the Black Death.
The only person that she could think of to be mad at was the perpatrator behind all of this, a shadow puppet master pulling the strings. The pawn within the sea of pawns. Candestine silently made a vow. She would go to her brother and ask for his forgiveness-if he had the ability to give it. She would help him catch the person that was trying to start a war.
She would have her vengeance.