Author's note: There's quite a bastion of new characters being introduced over the next handful of chapters (I think it slows down in chapter twelve), and many of them will be showing up again... So, a lot to keep track of, but I know my readership and reviewership is an intelligent bunch, so you guys are up for the challenge, right?
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7. Secrets: Empire
Heath silently observed his daughter, leaned over the books as she was.
Leires was striking. She had inherited Heath's pale skin, which came from his own namesake father, but the black hair of her mother, Aeris, unusual even among the elves. Heath had braved controversy to take an elven wife, some years back, though it was now common.
Aeris was off, somewhere, by Maia this time, he thought. It was one of those elf things; she would always come home, but she could never sit still. His mother, Carlie, was much the same, and that's why he was High Priest now, even though her influence still surpassed his.
Leires was sometimes called "the elven princess," great-granddaughter of the last true elven princess, Shayla, for whom Heath's half-sister was named. She was sought by many, but endlessly turned away suitors, comfortably returning to her studies of… anything and everything of Mana she could get her hands on. She had that odd sort of intelligence that thought about things no one else thought about, and her studies at the University of Pedan had sharpened her mind ever further.
"Listen to this, father," she said, looking up with a cheerful, girlish smile of which he was generally the only recipient. "Dryad represents the tree, Mana, life itself; she is the place where everything is. Luna, the moon, is nothingness, the void, the place from which all begins." She shut the book and crossed her hands over it.
"Caw," spoke one of her ravens from its cage. It was her favorite bird, and a half-dozen kept her company in her study.
Leires was... controversial. A hundred years ago, there would have been an outlet for her darker leanings; she had been meant to be an enchantress, if anyone in Wendel ever was. But now, her interests were considered occult, and somewhat in disfavor. Heath knew she would never be happy in Wendel; they would never accept her as the next High Priestess. Though she was his first offspring, he was already planning for his son to take over for him. But she was still his child, and he loved her just the same. "What does it all mean, daughter?"
"Just this." She raised one finger and adopted that vaguely lecturing tone. "The tree is gone. What we have left is the emptiness, and something new is meant to come to fill its place."
Heath looked forward, interested. "And how do we do that?" he told her. "You have elven blood, the powers of Dryad should be with you, but you say it's not so. What do you want out of it?"
Leires looked out the window, west, he thought, with a faraway look. "I don't know," she replied. "But so much has changed, and I fear that the right choices won't be made to fill its place."
She fingered her book absently, and he knew she was quoting from it. "This is a book from the Beast Kingdom, father. They know Luna better than anyone." She flipped it open to a page that was so dog-eared, she barely needed to glance at it. " 'In the night, we all become different, yet the same…. To the void we return, and emerge into life once again.' There is a new beginning coming, father. Death, and life, part of the cycle, even for the Goddess herself. And I wonder what kind of beginning there will be for the new Goddess."
"That sounds like something your grandmother would say."
Leires' look became intense. "Carlie met the ancient Goddess Herself, father. She knows better than anyone what we hope and pray for. I merely choose to examine things differently."
--
Loki could only sigh as he looked out on the battlefield.
When had it come to this? In the absence of Mana, was humanity doomed to fight each other for whatever power they could? Thankfully, no one had yet found a way to use the piddling shreds of Mana that remained. He remembered Valda telling him that the occasional artifact was barely more than a memory of Mana, but if that knowledge was discovered, he didn't think that would stop many. He had lived many years, plenty of time to see the greedy side of human nature.
He wished there was someone left to turn to. His father, his mother, his sister Angela. His brother-in-law Duran, who once would have been a member of the forces that the eighty-year-old King of Forcena now looked down upon.
Most of all, he wished Kevin was still with them. The half-human Beast King had done wonders to improve Beastman-human relations; even intermarriage was not the taboo it once had been.
But that all had collapsed, in the years after the Goddess died, the hope Angela had carried fading away in the new world. As if adjusting to life without Mana was not enough, still things changed that they could not control. Navarre had found a way to balance its environment and survive the blistering heat, but Altena grew colder still, and with all the climate disruption, the shape of the land changed as well, bridges of land appearing where nothing had been before.
Carlie was living in Lumina, now; he had promised the High Priestess to protect Wendel with the ever-growing military power of his own country. Her son Heath was a good enough High Priest, but Wendel was the City of the Goddess, and it never did have a proper sort of defense. It had only survived through the old High Priest's use of Mana when the Beastmen had attacked eighty-five years ago, searching for the Mana Stone that was now shattered. They had even less security now, as the Beastmen attacked again, trying to carve new territory wherever they could.
And that was why he had brought the forces of Forcena. When had his country become the protector of the world? That part was fine, actually – it was the duty of the Forcenan Knights to protect - but it also meant the Forcenan influence was spreading. Was the country ready for the role it was being given?
Especially considering the terms of today's surrender. The Beast Kingdom, barely a hundred years old, would be aligned with Forcena as a protectorate; but that was all fancy language for what he knew would happen. Forcena was taking it over, enveloping it into the fold; it might take time to truly assimilate it, but the independence of Ferolia was over.
He pulled on the rest of his ceremonial armor, and reluctantly made his way to the courtyard outside the Temple of Light, his joints aching with the pains of age.
The Wendelic were already there, and their elven allies. The elves had intermarried with the Altenans as his mother's country suffered; but they were part of this new world too, and now they came south to mix with the other nations of the world as well. Pessimistically, he wondered if Diorre, too, would probably be another territory of Forcena when all was said and done.
Heath was there, of course, and his wife and daughter. Leires wore pure white, a contrast to her raven-black hair that blended into her pale skin, as if the eyes of half the crowd were not drawn to her beauty already.
The defeated Beast King, Kevin's grandson, was still defiant. In human form, he was in fact, a nice-looking man, Loki thought objectively. Finely muscled, not too stocky as many of the Beastmen were, and features that combined the strong chin and red-gold hair of the Beastmen with softer eyes and nose showing his human roots. Loki approached him slowly, but before he could get a word out of his mouth, he was greeted with anger.
"How do I know you will honor our agreement?" Yurian snarled.
Loki was a little taken aback. "The same way all agreements are honored. Gifts, titles, perhaps a marriage to seal the deal..."
"Marriage." Yurian contemplated that, wolfish temper settling down. "A beautiful wife for me? You have someone in mind?"
"Well... not yet," Loki replied, apologetically. "But I'm sure there are a number of suitable ladies I could arrange for you to meet."
"I'm sure there are," the Beast King mused. "How about... that one?"
Loki followed where he pointed, and groaned. Yurian pointed... straight at Leires.
The black-haired dark priestess was icier than any Altenan woman ever had been. His sister Angela included. Men had been trying to get her attention for years, to no avail. Leires, for her part, barely raised an eyebrow to acknowledge the gesture, her expression shadowed and unreadable as always, in that way that only seemed to make her more beautiful.
"Leires?" Loki asked, wondering what Heath thought of all this. "She is the only daughter of Wendel's High Priest. Perhaps this is not the best match?"
"Silence, Forcenan. I will ask her myself." Yurian strode over to the expressionless Leires, then, much to Loki's surprise, fell to one knee. "Wendelic princess, I ask you to become my queen."
The raven-haired lady took the proffered hand. "I accept," she replied nonchalantly, as if this was a question she answered every day. Murmurs spread through the crowd. "And from now on, you may address me by name. I am Leires."
Yurian grabbed her to kiss her roughly. And she didn't fight him at all. He let her go, and her cool demeanor did not break even at that.
Loki wandered over to finally meet Heath's eyes, a pang of guilt for what he had wrought. He was the King; everything that concerned Forcena was his responsibility.
Heath, however, seemed rather nonplussed. "Well," the High Priest greeted him. "I suppose my daughter is getting married. We should be celebrating."
"Yes," Loki replied, the thoughts milling through his head. One more nail pinning the country to Forcena.
Forcena was becoming an Empire, Loki thought. It had never been his dream, yet it made itself a reality. Forcena, with all its mining and weapons, thriving as the other kingdoms started to fade.
He felt a twinge of pain. Was this the new world Angela and her companions had fought for? How far had they really come? When the goddess had died, what else had died with her?
"Your Majesty!" cried one of Loki's soldiers.
His heart hurt. Mana. The Goddess. So much this world had once had, to leave it at peace. Or was that just his impression? Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that if the Goddess would return, maybe everything would be right again. But that would be no time soon.
"Quick! Get help!" The cry was distant to him.
The Goddess. His heart pained with the thought. His knees grew weak under him. Valda had told him even as a little boy, that someday she would return. When she returned, would anyone remember? What would the world be that she would wake up to? Hands were grabbing him, helping him onto a litter, but all he could feel was the hurt in his heart.
One can only hope that she will save us all, he thought, and that was the last thought before his heart gave out.
