It was sad time. Not just in one place like most occurrences, but everywhere. The tear-jerking mood was thick in the air like fog after a cold rainfall. Everyone had heard the news; even peasants and children from the farthest realms knew and were in mourning. All grieved for the Family of Mohthelieum as they suffered yet again another deep blow.
The island had doubled, tripled, in population size for the funeral of the murdered Empress Anveena. The residents of her home country where she grew up, the representatives, and her closest friends (who were in the hundreds) were just some of those who came to be present before she became one with the earth.
The funeral was held on castle grounds, near the eastern shore of the endless Sea. Thousands of seats were set up, all in long, neat rows facing the closed coffin. It was gilded because of her class, wooden for her natural personality, a jewel incrusted cross upon the lid in reminder of her life duty. The most beautiful coffin for only the most beautiful of people.
The assigned seats filled with no hassle, everything ran efficiently. The Emperor's council were seated second closest to the coffin. The closest was the dead Empress' family, which consisted of three men: (all other relatives were deceased for she had lived well into her prime years. But not surpassing them.) her widowed Emperor and the motherless princes.
Most of the assembly was in white, according to old Deep Magic traditions. Ancient Magicians mourned in grey. No Dark Magicians were present. They were celebrating in black.
The sun had slowly made its way to the west as the service was beginning to reach its end. The Great Emperor had the final words, a custom that had never occurred for a millennia (for usually it was the Empress who was still alive when her husband gone to sit with the Nameless Emperor). Prince Aslan and Prince Stelan looked on at their father seeing the grave stare in his jade eyes. The Lion knew he was more than what sad could describe as an emotion. Kalecgos had lost his wife and friend of so many years, his only Empress and the only one he will ever have. Sad could not even lightly touch the surface of how his Majesty felt.
"My beloved friends," the Emperor began slowly, his solemn jade eyes running over the crowd. "There are times when words simply cannot describe the anguish, anger or joy one feels. This day, I stand before thee feeling as if this is all a nightmare, that none of this is occurring and that I will wake up and the first thing I will see is the face of my beautiful Empress." Kalecgos paused for a moment to calm himself before continuing, his listeners waiting with the utmost patience. "Yet, I find I will never wake up. I will never see Anveena again, for this nightmare has become reality. The Empress' death is not only a loss for myself or my sons. No. It is a loss for Mohthelieum, for the Realms, for every single one of thee who sits here now, who was graced with meeting Anveena and knows the touch she leaves on many persons. Empress Anveena was the most gorgeous woman I had ever met, and not simply because of her renowned beauty. She showed compassion for all, even to her enemies. She respected and loved her people, willing to make any sacrifices to keep them safe. A devoted child of the Nameless Emperor who had faith enough for every single person living in the castle. Her temper: a myth, and her siding with violence, a greater myth still. She was a mother." Kalecgos glanced towards where his sons were seated. Aslan's face was as somber and grave as the Emperor's. The water layering Stelan's eyes was ready to pour out at any moment. Lady Helen, who was sitting beside the youngest prince, comfortingly stroked his arm.
"Anveena loved our sons with a passion that could almost be as equal as Jesu's own great Mother. If you asked either of the Princes they shall tell you the same. She raised her children well, loved them unconditionally, and cared for them beyond the call of maternal instinct. Today, we mourn the death of an extraordinary woman and friend who did not deserve to die the way she had."
There was a disturbance in the crowd. Many looked at each other in question, not fully understanding what their Emperor was talking about.
"I was requested not to tell all of thee how our beloved Empress Anveena passed. However, not telling you and creating a lie to cover up the conspiracy would be a sin, an insult to her memory!" There was a sudden crash of a wave from the nearby shore. The ocean had been still all day.
The night began to play out all over again. The Lion saw her pale, beautiful face. He heard her sweet voice telling him she loved him. He felt the sticky, red blood under his paws. The Prince tensed up and hunched over, feeling his fur bristle. He was going to be sick.
"Aslan," Zanze's concerned whisper rang in his ear. "Do you need to leave?" Her expression was almost as ill as Aslan's own. Zanze was Anveena's closest friend, surely she had to be feeling the same pain as he was.
"No," He replied, relaxing his face after the thought of Anveena's blood had disappeared. "I shall be fine." The dark woman patted the long, golden back of the Lion. He did not protest her act of comfort.
Kalecgos had explained to the crowd The Empress had been assassinated by a follower of Dark and that the eldest Prince was found huddled beside her corpse the next morning. Another horrible crash of a wave. Aslan could feel the change in mood of the crowd after hearing his father explain this. It had shifted from sorrow to spite.
''She was murdered by a cold blooded monster. We have left Dark's torments off for far too long. The serpent has hurt us for the last time! Tomorrow commences the mission to extract Dark from his quarantine, and I can assure you that he will not receive any sympathy. The moment that vermin is placed inside my castle walls he shall sleighed where he stands!" Another wave rammed into the beach, making a sound of rippling thunder, startling many who were so focused on the Emperor's speech.
Aslan's stomach began to knot up again, but not in sickness but in insult. His father had the gall to say the serpent's name out loud, the sole reason Anveena lay dead in the sealed coffin, and now, he was rallying the people? Not telling you would be an insult to her memory. The Lion repeated in his thoughts as he saw the irate faces seated around him. This is an insult to her memory! His claws unsheathed and sliced into the dirt, his temper bottled up for the sake of reverence. The Emperor concluded with some final words, the crowd responded with soft, melancholy clapping. Prince Aslan half expected a riot.
The night settled in the dwindling afternoon sky, a procession of lights started the march towards the Sea. Witnesses of the funeral were all still there, each carrying a white blossoming lily delicately in one hand and grasping a lantern in the other. Emperor Kalecgos took lead down to the shore, as any such noble a man must do. The ocean's erratic behavior from earlier had gone away and was as still as water in a goblet. The stars were dim that night due to the moon's usually bright ambience. Its light beaming on the procession like a spotlight as if watching from a distance a final farewell to the Empress Anveena.
The crowd lined along the ocean drenched sand, waiting, thinking, silent all the while. Zanze stayed on the ridge which bordered the shore from the castle grounds, standing above the crowd. She began the ceremony with a prayer.
"O'ever powerful Nameless Emperor, thou who gives us life, love and spirit, you have called one of your beloved children home with you. We pray that her soul remains in peace with you for all eternity, that she guides us just as you have, and lives within us just as you do. Tonight, we offer our final farewell into your never-ending Sea. Where the memory of her shall always be floating, to make the water sweet and guide those lost soles home to their country in the utter east. We say her name...''
The congregation answered in many different ways. Some said ''friend!'', many others ''Empress Anveena!'', two sons ''mother!'', and only one said nothing. Noiseless tears trickled from his eyes and landed on the lily in his hand, making the petals shake with every small drop that pelted down.
"And we raise her up to you, Our Great Emperor! In your name, Anema."
All responded with the same word of the Deep Magic. ''Anema. "
Thus the actual ceremony started. One by one, the crowd set a blossoming lily into the ocean. The white petals glistened under the moon's vigilant face and drifted out into the sea with silence and grace. No one spoke as this final ritual continued. It was a time of awareness, farewell, a time of reaching everlasting peace...which Mohthelieum was in desperate need of having.
The sea is filled with them. Charon murmured in his thoughts to the Lion beside him.
The hundreds of thousands of the lilies had bound together far off in the sweet water, making their own Silver Sea on the horizon from north to south, as far as any eye could see. The flowers moved with the flow of the ocean, becoming their own smooth, white waves. These lilies would eventually join the other hundreds from other Emperors' and Empress' deaths that still floated somewhere in this endless Sea.
Mother, Aslan prayed solemnly, the white sea milky in his eyes. Tell me you are somewhere safe now, far from the sin that has shadowed our once beloved and peaceful home of Mohthelieum. Tell me I have not lost you even now when you are not visibly here. Tell me there is an end to this all just beyond the horizon.
I will be watching you, always. The great cat heard the sweet voice echo softly in his ears, the voice haunting like ghost. For a moment his head rose high, his lips bent in a smile, even his tail began to twitch in joy.
Mother? Please, is there an end coming? Will the mission be successful?
He waited patiently for his Empress to respond. None came. Her voice was silenced. She was gone. The only sound now was that of the quiet crash of waves meeting the shore, just inches away from his velvet paws.
The day had finally concluded. The visitors departed, the court members had retired to their beds, and castle residents had just finished their farewells and thank yous to everyone who attending the funeral for the Empress.
Stelan and Aslan were heading to their own rooms for the night. No one accompanied them, they were alone for the first time all day. Both brothers where exhausted for the almost full hour spent hearing attendants of the funeral give their condolences and the full day dedicated to their mother's untimely passing.
''I cannot wait to hear that snake's dying cries tomorrow." Stelan said with determination, though his eyes were still wet with grief.
"That is enough of that." Aslan replied with a growl in his deep voice, recalling Kalecgos' rallying from earlier. "It is terrible enough that monster's name being mentioned today."
"Terrible?" Stelan repeated, sounding offended. "Father was promising peace, how is that terrible?"
"Promising peace by promising death!" The Lion answered in Stelan's same high-strung voice. "It was an insult to our mother to swear vengeance at the foot of her coffin!"
"You would be the one to say that." Stelan growled quietly under his breath.
The Lion halted and turned his great head to his brother. "Excuse me?" Aslan asked, the calm in his voice covering a building rage.
''This is your fault!" The younger prince cried, pointing an accusing finger at his sibling. "You could have stopped that monster!"
Stelan watched as the cat's eyes widened as he stood stiff in shock.
It was happening again. The feeling of Anveena's gaping wound against his nose and her hand pushing him away. The coldest stroke the Empress had ever given her eldest babe. "No, Aslan, this is what was meant to happen."
The Prince's amber gaze was murky with tears. "You think I killed my own mother?" he gasped, every word he said was stated with great emphasis and great pain.
"Everyone in the castle is talking about it." The younger prince responded with his arms crossed over his chest, proud to tell his brother this. ''Father told me he no longer wants you to go on the mission because of it."
Aslan remained silent. How could his own brother and father accuse him of such a heinous crime? Even to the point of denouncing his birth purpose? Did they not know that the Lion would never do such a thing to the woman who stood by his side for all his life?
"Charon is going in your place." Stelan continued.
"What are these words coming out of your mouth, brother?" the Prince asked, sounding as upset as ever. "Stop now, I beg you! Do you not know what you say?"
"I think it is you who does not know what you say!" the younger prince exclaimed. "All these years, you were always in the spotlight because you were dubbed the Second Jesu! Me? I was just the Second Jesu's sibling. No one cared about me. No one ever thought me to have as great of potential as you did. You were always better, loved greater, adored more. I deserve my chance to shine, Aslan, and I will do that tomorrow when I bring back that Belly Crawler's head to Mohthelieum instead of you."
"You do not realize what you are up against." The Lion said gently, now brushing off Stelan's accusations of murder and focusing on the boy's feeling of unimportance. "You cannot fight him alone, Stelan."
"I will, and I can. You've had far too many chances. Its my turn now, brother." with that, the boy left the beast's side, walking quickly down the hall to his quarters.
A/N: Ugh, this really should have been out earlier. Sorry, everyone. I had a HUGE research paper for English due and it took up most of my time for the past two months and half of this one. I apologize if it wasn't the chapter you expected but I REALLY have to move on with the rest of the story. Thank you for reading!