I have to admit that I was rather surprised that the primary reaction of the last chapter revolved around Dweyrn's true alliance, rather than the fact that Mercury was revealed to have been controlling Aiedail and Loivissa's actions from the very moment that she "escaped".
And with that thought, let the serial killing continue. Enjoy!
I loved you, once
Loivissa POV
"Wake up, little sister", Evandar said kindly, while he played with her locks of hair.
"I do not want to", Loivissa groaned sleepily, still not opening her eyes and thoroughly happy with using his lap as a pillow, "just a little longer".
"You are going to miss the whole day", her brother laughed and rustled her hair, "what would the others say if they found you like this?"
"They would say that I had found the right thing to do on such a beautiful spring day", she replied teasingly, but nevertheless opened her eyes.
Her brother was looking down at her and kept playing with her hair, which was sprayed all across the green grass that they were sitting on. A tree with budding leaves provided shade for the two of them, while a gentle breeze caressed their bodies.
"I had a terrible dream", she told her brother sleepily, "but now, I cannot even remember what it was even about".
"Dreams are like that", he said and kissed her forehead, "but it really is time to get up now".
"I know, I know", Loivissa grumbled and grudgingly rose from her pleasant rest.
They were in a meadow with flowers of every colour blooming all around them and the water of a lake glistening in the distance like light reflecting off of crystal. The tree that they were sitting under was a holly tree, and not that far off, there was an entire forest full of hollies and pines.
A giant castle made of stone rose up in the distance with two stone walls going out from either side of it and going farther out than Loivissa could see, though she knew that they would eventually turn around and join together to form a ring wall.
Near the main body of the giant castle, a large square-shaped marble house with a triangular-shaped roof stood. Atop the front edges of the roof, the statues of two elongated marble dragons were placed, so that their tails met at the top of the triangle and their snouts were pointing downwards towards the sides of the building.
Near the main building, there were rows and rows of trees that were carefully tended to, which Loivissa knew produced fruits of every kind imaginable, and next to the rows of trees, a kitchen garden was located.
There were also other gardens here, gardens meant only to inspire and calm those that walked within them with their serene beauty, relaxing scents and calming sounds. They were the outer gardens, which were placed right next to the lake that could be seen in the distance.
Nolondil was peaceful and quiet at this time of day, but above all else, it was a beautiful sight to behold. It was her home, but not hers alone. Many people dwelled here, people that had either tired of the outside world and longed for a place of peace that was far away from the troubles of everyday life, or simply those that wished to study at the massive library that occupied most of the main building.
The sound of a thunder of dragons directed her attention to the skies, where she counted five majestic dragons gliding down towards Evandar's and hers resting place. There was a blue one that shone like sapphires, a green one that glinted like emeralds, a golden one, a brown one and a deep royal purple one.
The green one and the blue one, whom Loivissa recognized as Fírnen and Saphira, landed on a patch of grass in front of their tree, and both of Loivissa's parents soon disembarked from their respective dragons. Her father was smiling a large playful smile and was clad as he often had been in Estildirin; in a white robe with tints of blue spread across it.
Her mother on the other hand was clad in tight-fitting black leather clothes and had her raven-coloured hair held back in a ponytail. In contrast to her father's openly playful smile, she had a smaller and fonder one, but Loivissa nevertheless associated the same warmth from that one as from her father's large playful one.
"Father, mother, I have missed the both of you", Loivissa said as she engulfed the two of them in a tight hug, which they soon replied warmly, while they in unison said, "we have missed you too, dear".
After releasing her parents from her tight embrace, Loivissa turned her head to see her brother deeply kissing his mate, Celiste with the gentle face and the long black hair. Her father cleared his throat and the two separated with a sheepish smile on both of their faces.
It was hardly the first time that the two had become so engulfed in one another that that they forgot all around them. Still, Loivissa had never seen her brother as happy as when he was with his mate, and the same counted for Celiste, who was like a sister to her.
"What does a father need to do before his only son gives him a hug?", Eragon proclaimed overdramatically, before his mate punched him playfully in the shoulder and said to her son, "take your time. Your father has forgotten how he used to be in his youth".
"Are you implying that I am old?", her father inquired with mock hurt in his voice.
"Are you saying that you no longer stiffen with astonishment when I kiss you?", her mother teased him back.
Eragon seemed to take it as an invitation and immediately moved in for a kiss, and though her mother seemed surprised and hesitant at first, she soon melded into it, and the two of them quickly forgot about their spectators.
"Have you ever wondered why we do not have a younger sibling?", her brother whispered as he nudged her in the side.
"I thought it was because mother had him neutered after they got me?", she replied jokingly, though there might have been some truth to it.
The comment caused a series of laughter to echo out from the three of them, which soon broke her parents out from their own little world. Their faces were flushed, but while her father looked down into the ground with a stupid grin spread on his face, her mother looked away from their group to hide her expression, though it did nothing to hide the blush in her cheeks.
"Why is everyone laughing?", came a childish voice from behind the deep royal purple dragon.
A young girl of no more than 10 years of age soon appeared from behind said dragon. She had long golden wavy hair, a slightly hawkish looking face with high cheekbones, pointed ears that her hair flowed behind and down her shoulders, and slanted emerald eyes that always seemed to have a glint of mischief in them.
She was dressed like Arya, in black leather clothes, though she also had a small grey cloak around her shoulders that was fastened by a silver dragon. Cradled in her little arms was a silvery dragon hatchling that was no larger than a cat, and which looked at them all curiously.
"Look mother, I made her hatch", the little girl, whom Loivissa instinctively knew was called Elsa, yelled excitedly to her as she sprinted in her direction.
Before Loivissa had any time to react, Elsa enveloped her in fierce hug, with the little dragon chirping in between them, and it did not take long for Loivissa to respond to the familiar embrace of her daughter.
"I told you that it would all work out, sweetie", Loivissa cooed happily, "there was absolutely no need to be worried that no one would choose you".
"I have never seen a hatching quite like that", Eragon admitted with a chuckle, "she took one look around the entire room and marched directly up to the egg of that one, where she sat down and waited for it to hatch. Even after I told her that it would not happen right away and that she should see some of the others, she adamantly stayed where she was, and not late after, the egg had hatched".
"I knew that it had to be this one or no one", Elsa said excitedly and bounced up and down with the little hatchling.
"Such stubbornness must be carried in the blood", Eragon chuckled.
"Aye, and it is not the only thing that is in it", Evandar said, "I have never before had a student that took so well to learning new languages and was quite as clever with numbers and tricks as this little one".
"You cannot prove that any of that was my doing", Elsa sing-songed innocently, "because I have a dragon, I have a dragon, I have a dragon".
"Do not look at me. I was an angel compared to her when we were little", Loivissa said with her hands up in a gesture of innocence.
"I already know where it comes from", Evandar said and cast a look of mock accusation towards the grassy meadow leading down to Nolondil's main building.
When Loivissa turned her attention to follow his, she saw the figure of a man walking up towards their gathering, but it looked like he was fighting for each step that he took, like a terrible storm was blowing him back. He was too far away to see any distinguishing features, and for some reason, his face and clothes seemed to blur with the surrounding meadow. Somehow, she knew that he was not supposed to be here, but had still somehow forced his way into this world.
"You are not supposed to be here either", the voice of her brother said, and when Loivissa looked back, all of them, including her young daughter, had gathered away from her and were slowly drifting farther away.
It was then that she realized that it was not they that was drifting away, but her, and though she tried to force her way back towards them, an invisible force drove her back relentlessly.
"No, I want to stay here! With you!", she shouted at her family.
"You do not belong here", her father's voice said sadly, as he moved to rest his hands on the shoulders of her daughter with the little silver dragon cradled in her arms.
She did not want to give up, she could not, but the force was unyielding and no matter how much she tried, she could come no closer to the family atop the grassy hill with the newly blooming holly tree.
Loivissa awoke with a start in a dark and cramped room that smelled of urine, sweat and something that she did not care to describe. She sat up from what the innkeeper had called a bed and moved her hand to her rapidly beating heart.
It was a dream. Just a dream, she reassured herself, though it did nothing to calm her heart.
She had had dreams before, but none of them had ever been like this one. In her previous dreams, she had always been aware that she had been dreaming…and she had never before wished so much that she could return to the bliss of believing the lie to be true.
For a little while, it had let her believe that everyone and everything that she had ever lost, had somehow come back to her, and that she lived a happy carefree existence in Nolondil with her brother, her child and all the others that she loved.
It was a foolish dream, she decided. Nothing could bring back the dead, and she knew that she could never have children of her own, and I called it Nolondil. I have not called it that since I came back. It is Dras Draumr now, and not even mine to boot, so I would have no reason to call it that or even be there. And then there was the girl…foolish dream.
She quickly vanquished all thoughts of the dream and got out of bed, only to discover a glean of sweat covering her from head to toe. Looking around in the cheap room, she found nothing of use to dry herself other than the blanket that she had slept under, and that would not exactly have been her first choice.
Still, it was not like she could get any worse after sleeping under it, so she quickly used it to wipe the sweat off of her, before throwing it into a corner with a grimace. After she had gotten dressed in the clothes that she had also worn when she had discovered the massacre of Aiedail, which were quite well worn out, she opened the window and found that the sun had not even risen yet.
Figures, she cursed and closed the window again, before she moved to unhinge the wooden beam at the door and make her way down the hall.
It was still far too early to begin, but she could not stand being in the room for any longer. Its reek and the memories of the dream made her stomach uneasy and her head swim with thoughts that had no place in it right now.
It was no problem for her to check out at any time that she liked, as this inn was used to people entering and leaving at all times of the day without any warning. It also did not ask for names when you paid for your room, which you always did in advance, and that particularly detail was why Loivissa had chosen it.
Since Aiedail's decimation a month ago, she had been steadily making her way to Ilirea. She had been too cautious to even meet other people on the road at first, but after she had made her way to a small village south-east of Ilirea, she had finally decided that she had to know what had happened since she had last had contact with civilization.
Apparently, not that much had actually happened. Mercury had made an announcement that he was leaving Alagaësia and that Albion's new archduchess would be his aide de camp, Ilumëo of House Uluth, but he had not made a single mentioning of Aiedail's destruction or her own survival of the massacre.
They had all been swept under the ruck yet again. Those that had known of them would have realized that there could only be one explanation for their sudden silence, which coincided with his plans of departure. They would likely cower and abandon any hope of ever achieving a victory against Mercury.
Loivissa was not like them. She had a goal to accomplish, and before this day was over, either she or Mercury would be dead, though she supposed that it was not at all unlikely that if she succeeded in killing him, she would die soon after.
Dying would probably not be that bad. Perhaps she would even be welcomed back into the company of her brother, her parents…and her daughter.
No, I cannot think of…that, Loivissa chided and lightly slapped herself to properly wake her up, I need something to eat.
The streets of Ilirea were still quite empty when compared to how they were during the day, but there were still solitary figures moving past her every now and then.
A cabbage-dealer with a wagon full of cabbages on his way to the market, two young giggling serving girls with baskets filled with laundry, an old man with a cane followed by four young men carrying crates, a young salesclerk dragging a cart full of freshly baked bread and tarts. They were all ordinary people.
Loivissa flagged down the one with the cart filled with bread and bought some freshly baked Safrin from him. Upon taking the first bite, she remembered a time when she and Vanir had eaten two Safrins in these very streets…right before Mercury had exterminated the eldunarya.
The memory of that, coupled with the memory of Vanir's death, made the taste of the pastry, which she had once liked so much, turn to ash in her mouth, but she continued chewing anyway. She would need her strength for what was to come, and could therefore not allow the memory of a friend long since dead to hinder her in any way.
Once again, her thoughts turned to how sweet it might be to join the others under the holly tree, but as soon as she realized where her treacherous thoughts had led her, she forced them away and focused on something mundane, like checking that the sword in the heavily worn leather sheath at her side really was the dauthdaert that would end Mercury's life.
The trick did not last for long, so in an effort to both distract her mind and pass time, she continued to walk the streets of Ilirea with no real purpose behind where her feet took her. As she walked, the sun slowly began to rise and the streets began to grow more and more crowded for every passing moment.
No one paid any heed to her, but she was able to listen in on many conversations thought private. Most of them were as mundane as the people that they belonged to, but occasionally, she would hear snippets of conversations that interested her, and when she did, she would follow the speaker until her curiosity was satisfied, or until the speaker started noticing her presence.
One such conversation that she listened in on was about how the friend of one of the two conversationalists, who apparently worked with supplying seasoned, pickled and other long-lasting foods for the ships that left Teirm, had told his friend that Mercury's flagship, The Mirage, had ordered no new food supplies for its impending voyage.
It was strange because Mercury had already declared that he would be leaving Alagaësia shortly, and other wares were apparently being brought aboard The Mirage after it had been taken out of the drydock, where it had been stored and since repainted in.
He might be using it as a decoy, Loivissa surmised while she continued to listen in on the conversation, but then what is his real goal, and where is he going?
Those were questions that Loivissa did not know how to answer, and she had no way to find out, as even if she had had a way of getting in contact with Ilumëo without being spotted, she would not dare to risk it when both of them knew that by eliminating Loivissa, Ilumëo would be in the clear for everything that she had done until now.
In the end though, the answers to what he was planning and where he was going would not matter after today, so Loivissa pushed her musings on the topic aside and abandoned following the two. By then, the sun had almost risen to midday, which meant that she still had to pass some time before she could begin.
If what she had learned of his schedule still held true, then he would be at meetings for some time yet, and when she exited the tunnel, she wanted to be sure that he was in his office, as the chance of being discovered before she got a chance to kill him rose exponentially the longer she remained within the castle walls.
And so, she once again returned to mindlessly wandering the streets of Ilirea, until she realized that her feet had brought her to the neighbourhood, where she had had the first of her meetings with Ilumëo that night three years ago.
It had been shortly after the extermination, Loivissa remembered, and Aiedail had just taken its first step into the mentality that it would later incorporate, where the goal justified the means. As she recalled it, the elven rebellion had been on its last breath as well at the time.
Dweyrn, the treacherous backstabbing dwarven rider, had been the one that had gathered the information that had allowed Loivissa to meet with Ilumëo. Without that meeting, the dauthdaert would never have come into their possession and Mercury's plans for it would have gone through without a hitch.
When did you turn on us, Dweyrn, and why?, Loivissa mused, as she had so many times this last month, what did he tell you to make you switch sides? What promises did he give?
No matter how many times she asked these questions, the answers would always elude her. Loivissa simply could not fathom when and why one of her own would turn on the people that she had stood shoulder to shoulder with for years, not to mention the centuries spent serving the dragon rider order.
If given the choice, Loivissa would have hunted down Dweyrn and Augms first, before then going after Mercury, but according to what snippets of information that she had been able to gather, the two had left Alagaësia weeks ago, so she would have to settle for Mercury.
Speaking of which, the hour had finally begun to near when she could spring her plan into action with some certainty that he was in his office, and so, she began to venture towards the south-western part of Ilirea, where the abandoned house was located.
She had scouted the house yesterday and had not been able to find any traces of magical enchantments or wards around the place, which corresponded with Mercury wanting to hide its existence from as many as possible, and when she had entered it, there had been no soldiers guarding it.
Even so, Loivissa could still feel a trickle of sweat trickle down her brow as she opened the door to the abandoned house from a side-alley where no one was watching. Her trepidation proved unfounded, as the house was as abandoned as it had been when she had left it the day before.
Still, it never hurt to be careful, so she drew the dauthdaert that was her namesake, which was alright in here, as there was no one to see its unnatural bluish glow, before she moved towards where she knew the secret trapdoor was located.
She had to push past a broken bookcase that had fallen, or been placed, in such a way that it blocked the immediate access to the hallway with the trapdoor. When she had come here yesterday, the trapdoor had been carefully concealed under a pile of useless rubbish, which not even the homeless would want to take, and she had had to dig it free.
This time however, the trapdoor was only covered by a light superficial layer that Loivissa had left to avoid it being discovered, and to check whether anyone had come through the tunnel since yesterday. The light layer of rubbish was quickly shoved aside and Loivissa began her descent down the ladder below the trapdoor until she reached the bottom.
Yesterday, she had done nothing more than check that the trapdoor actually led downwards, so this was her first time actually seeing the tunnel that would get her past all of Mercury's various security measures.
The tunnel's walls were made of dirt that looked like it had not been touched for half a millennia, and though the glow from her namesake would have been enough to light her way, as Loivissa would not dare to use any of her own magic, even warding magic, while entering the castle, she found that it would not be necessary, because the entire expanse of the tunnel was lit by a reddish glow that stemmed from the dwarven lanterns.
All of it confirmed to Loivissa that the tunnel was actually from before the invasion, like Ilumëo had said, and not something that had been excavated later on by the Alliance under Mercury's orders.
I, Evandar and so many other dragon riders have walked the hallways above for centuries without any clue about the tunnel underneath our feet, Loivissa mused as she continued down the tunnel, who knows how many other tunnels there might be that no one knows about anymore?
She found the subject oddly amusing, because it indicated to her that even when the relationship between the Empire and the dragon rider order had been at its best, the Empire had still not trusted the dragon riders enough to not have a secret escape route ready.
The dirt tunnel seemed to go on forever, and though the rational part of Loivissa's mind told her that it had to go all the way from the house and up to Ilirea Castle, she still believed that she had to have crossed that distance already.
At one point, the dirt walls changed into walls cut from solid rock until finally, the tunnel began to ascend heavily upwards. Not late after that, the walls of the tunnel transformed from the rock walls to walls made from carved stone.
It did not take long after that before Loivissa finally reached a dead end with a lever at one side, which would open the hidden door. Before she did though, Loivissa listened through the stone wall to check whether there were any guards on the other side.
Any guards on her way would increase the risk of her not getting to Mercury in time, as although she believed herself to be able to best almost any regular guardsmen in combat, the noise from the fight would surely attract unwanted attention.
After listening for what seemed like five whole minutes without hearing as much as a cough, Loivissa pulled the lever and slipped through the hidden door, which hardly made any sound at all, to discover that the hallway was indeed as empty as she had expected it to be.
His office is to the right after exiting the tunnel, Loivissa remembered and started moving down the hallway, while keeping the drawn dauthdaert hidden in the folds of her cloak. When she would eventually be stopped by his guards and asked to justify why she was here and who she was, she would be able to surprise them and hopefully eliminate them without much fuss.
Strangely though, she encountered no guards on her way, and what was even stranger was that there were no guards stationed outside of his office as well. It made Loivissa entirely uncomfortable that she had not had any obstacles on her path so far, which was an absurd notion in and of itself.
Perhaps he is still in a meeting. If so, then I will have to wait in his office for him to return, Loivissa hoped that that was the case, because if the reason for the absence of his guards was that he had already left for Teirm, then she was not sure how she would take it.
It got even stranger when she found the door to his office to be unlocked, which it should not have been if ANYONE was still using this room as their office. Perhaps a maid was in the midst of cleaning it? Yes, that could be it. It had to be it.
Loivissa positioned the blue blade of her namesake so that it no longer was hidden in the folds of her cloak, but rather was ready to strike at any moment, before she with trembling fingers pushed the heavy wooden door open with one big shove.
The first thing that she saw upon entering the room was Mercury standing in front of a desk with his arms leisurely placed on the surface of the desk behind him, while he was facing towards the door that Loivissa had just shoved open.
He was clad in a pair of black leather pants that matched the black doublet that had his insignia, with its many rings and dots, sewn into the fabric on both of his shoulders. His left index finger held his signet ring, while the right ring finger held a ring that reminded Loivissa eerily much of the one on her right ring finger, except that hers was made of lapis lazuli and his looked to have been made from a ruby-like material.
There were no other people in the office than the two of them, and all in all, it looked to be stripped of everything that could have identified its owner.
"Hello Loivissa, I have been waiting for - ugh", was all Mercury managed to say with a lazy smile planted on his face, before Loivissa had crossed the room and stabbed him with her namesake directly where his heart should have been, if he had ever had one.
Mercury elicited a scream that could have shattered stone, before his body, to Loivissa's horror, seemed to start disintegrating before her very eyes. Matter seemed to rip off from the edges of his being, before it simply disappeared into thin air and his major blood vessels seemed to blacken in a slowly spreading pattern.
Despite all of this happening to him, Mercury still somehow managed to push himself not back and out of the blade, but forward and further down it. Loivissa was too petrified by shock and fear to do anything but remain standing where she was, as she watched the…being…before her slide closer and closer towards her, while his extremities were ripping themselves apart.
Not even when he reached all the way down to the crossguard of the dauthdaert, practically right in front of her, did she move a single muscle. Upon not being able to slide any further down the blade, Mercury reached forward with his right hand and grabbed the back of Loivissa's head, before he bent forward and stole a soft and tender kiss from her lips.
She was too confused to do anything to stop him, and became even more confused when he ended it and bent further forwards, so that his mouth was next to her ear.
"Thank you", he whispered, before what remained of his body exploded into a million pieces that all disintegrated immediately upon leaving his body.
And then he was gone.
...Well, I did note in the first story that I was fond of killing my main characters...