(A/N Yeah, so this might get kind of sad and so, even though I'm not the best at drama. I just thought I should say that. Happy Reading (it feels misplaced to say that when I just said that it was going to be sad, but I hope ya'll get the message).)

Chapter 32: Mission Impossible

So, later the same day that Cashmére had given Eridiah his mission, he was released. Very secretly. Cashmére knew her father, and knew that he never, ever would let Eridiah do what Cashmére had asked him to do. Of course, also Cashmére knew that it was Eridiah whom had killed her mother, but as long as she got her daughter back, she was happy.

Eridiah was a surpries to the rebels. They had known that he still had been alive, but they had never thought that would see him again. His appereance made some happy, some others... not so happy. If a leader of the rebels dissapeard or got arrested, or caught, the rebels waited six years before they chose a new leader. This was so that the caught/arrested/dissapeard leader could come back and reclaim his place as leader. Of course, people had been waiting for these six years to be over so that they could take the place as leader. But now Eridiah, against everyone's beliefes, had returned.

And Eridiah's return did get celebrated. Not that it wasn't anything special that they celbrated; it didn't take much to make them celebrate. Mostly because they were allowed to drink. And meanwhile the celebrations occured, Eridiah was told about what they had done these four years had been locked down in Ambrosia's dungeon. Eridiah was stunned at their lack of success. Down in the dungeous, he hadn't heard about anything the rebels had done at all, but that was just as well. All they seemed to have done was to lose. They had had one victory, and that was the kidnapping of to-be-heiress Lorea. Which was a rather great victory, Eridiah thought. It hurt him that he had to return the little treasure. Yet, he intended to keep his promise. He was also very curious to see the child. Eridiah did still had feelings for Erianna, even though she was dead and he never would see her ghost, anyways. He had seen that Cashmére were very alike Erianna, but he wondered about Lorea. What she looked like.

Later on, he took the new leader, Adauce, aside and asked him about the to-be-heiress. Adauce sighed. "I feared you would ask." he said.

"Huh?"

"She's gone." Adauce sighed. Eridiah narrowed his eyes.

"What?" he spat.

"She is gone, and miss Lynn is dead."

"When did you find out this?"

"Today." Adauce said. Eridiah sighed, and went of. That wasn't good news. Cashmére had told him that he had fifteen days on him which he had thought wouldn't be hard. He had guessed wrong. If she had been with the rebels, sure. It just would have been to grab her and ride of, but now... when noone (noone) knew where she was, it would be much harder. He would die. Before he was totally gone out of Adauce's sight, Aduace stopped him. "Why do you ask?" asked Adauce. Eridiah sighed. It didn't matter anymore, did it? He could aswell tell Adauce everything.

"I need to get her back to the Emperor." he answered. He could see Adauce narrow his eyes, bare his teeth and make himself ready to attack Eridiah at any moment.

"Why?" he hissed.

"It was the only way they'd let me free." Eridiah said, calmly.

"What do you mean?"

"The heiress came to me, and said that if I'd hand her daughter of her, she'd let me free."

"And if you wouldn't?"

"She'd have me killed." Eridiah stared straight into the eyes of Adauce. Adauce chuckled, as though he was amused of this fact.

"Now, ain't this a golden opportunity?" he said.

"What do you mean?"

"We can weaken them." with 'them', Adauce meant the Wise Seven, the Emperor and the whole empire.

"How?"

"We tell them that the girl's dead." Adauce said, then he added, with a smirk; "You killed her, of course."

"Fun." Eridiah muttered, "They'll have me killed, Adauce."

"Ah ah, don't be such a pessimist." Adauce said. "We won't let them kill you, Eridiah."

"It's such an odd idea it could work." Eridiah scratched his elbow.

"So what do you say?" Adauce asked, "Are we going to send them a message right away, or?"

"No." Eridiah answered, "We're going to have a meeting with them, and then we are going to drop it on them."

Not for the first time, Marcia wished that she could just drop everything and go to the Eastern Snowplains, just to talk to and support Joseph and Cashmére. But she couldn't. She was, after all, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice. It felt a bit lonely, after a while. She was kept busy all the time. "It goes with the teritory", she explained to Endor when they spoke. Endor was, it felt as most of the time, her only friend. Milo had stopped meeting her, for some reason she had not yet understood. But sometimes it felt nice that he had left. He had been following her like a lost puppy for a while, and it had started drive her a bit insane. In which case, she hoped that Lorea would be alright. She really did.

Meanwhile her parents were worried sick, and the rebels discussing how to say that she was dead in the worst way possible, Lorea was almost enjoying her time. Amanda had never had any children of her own, but she had taken care of quite a lot of her siblings children, and she knew that to do. And, more importantly, she really liked children. She had even made Lorea call her Mama Amanda. Putting 'Mama' or 'Papa' infront of a name in the Eastern Snowplains did not mean that the person was a parent, it was instead a title of respect. Lorea did respect Amanda, and she really liked her, too. Amanda had been nothing but nice to her. She had taken care of the wounds Lorea had, she had given her food and clothes, and all that. But Lorea still missed her mother. She missed her mother a lot. Lorea had mentioned it once, but Amanda had looked so sad so she had never repeated it. The little girl assumed that Amanda was sorry because Lorea thought that her mother was better than Amanda, but truly, it was because Amanda assumed that Lorea's parents were dead. Probably because Joseph had told her that, and Amanda had decided to whole-heartedly believe everything the man said. And to take well care of his niece.

Back at the rebels camp, Rodrian was tossing and turning in his tent. He had just been asked to become one of the rebels leader, since one place remained unfilled. But he wasn't sure if he wanted to, anymore. It felt so strange, four years ago, he could torture his own family to become leader, but now he merely wanted to. Runa, who was laying beside him, stirred. Also she felt strange. She had felt like some kind of prize to him, a way of showing that he had power. It didn't felt okay anymore. Rodrian turned his back to her. He tried to remember what it was that had made him become rebel in the first place. It wasn't that he thought what they were doing was right, nor had he wanted power at the beginning. He had wanted venegeance. Yes, vengeance. All his childhood, he had blamed the empire for tearing his family apart. His mother had never been the same to his father after that he had got fired, and accused for causing the Eastern Snow Princess to dissapear, which had caused the Emperor at the time to kill himself. This had also caused Melchior great harm; not only did he lose his job, and his home. The Princess had been a friend of his. Of course Rodrian was angry. His family had changed a whole lot, they had been forced to live in a damp place and all but... he wasn't angry at anyone anymore, he was just angry. And he knew he couldn't take it out on innocent people. But, if he'd say this to the rebels, they'd kill him. Or worse, use him and blackmail Joseph. Not that Joseph would care, of course. Rodrian had betrayed him horrably much by being a rebel, he knew that.

In the morning, Rodrian had made a decision.

The rebels had managed to arrange a meeting with the Wise Seven and the Emperor. It was with the two current leaders of the rebels, Adauce and Eridiah- they had not yet found a new fitting candidate to help them being leaders. With Adauce and Eridiah, there were five more rebels as 'support'. The meeting would accur at Lupa's Rest, a temple-looking building built over the place where it was said that the body of Lupa (and very many Emperors and Empresses) was buried.

Adauce, Eridiah and their five supporters were already there when the Seven, Tantibus and Cashmére entered the biggest room of them all, the Glass Hall. It was a beautiful room, with a big, round window in the ceiling. When the moon was full, it filled the room with a beautiful, supernatural light. The walls and the floor in the Glass Hall was made of white marble, and against the walls, there stood statues of wolves. The Wise Seven were traditionally dressed in their family-colours', Naomi and Phileus in yellow, Joseph in blue, Cashmére in red, Oberon Woodall in pink, Darius Pollock in grey, Lucian Ramasotti in green. Phileus, Naomi's brother, had been added to the Wise Seven when they had executed Errol Nolan. He was a good man and he looked very alike his sister. At most occasions, he smiled, but not that day. Tantibus entered the room lastly. Also he was dressed in his faimly-colours, red. Everyone settled down at a table in the middle of the room. Everyone was silent for a few, very uncomfortable seconds, when Tantibus at last spoke. "Eridiah Beth," he said, "You swore to my daughter to find and hand over her daughter. Tell me, have you found her." Cashmére had been forced to eventually tell both her father and Joseph about that she had released Eridiah Beth, and why she had done it. None of them had taken it very well.

"Well," Eridiah and Adauce exchanged looks. They both smiled slightly. "Actually, I did."

"Then, where is she?" Cashmére hissed. Her blue eyes stared loathingly into Eridiahs' green.

"That depends how you see it." Adauce said.

"What do you mean by that?" Naomi wondered.

"What Adauce is trying to say," Eridiah licked his lips, slightly nerveously, Cashmére thought, "We have no idea where her ghost is, but-"

"What?" Joseph yelled, "Her what?" Cashmére wasn't saying anything. She was opening and closing her mouth again and again, but she couldn't get a word out. This was a lie, it was a trick. It couldn't be true. Not her Lorea, not her little, happy girl. Lorea couldn't be actually dead.

"Her ghost, Overstrand." Eridiah said coldly, "May I suggest you start listening a bit better? You could have missed something important."

Oberon had to hold Joseph back from attacking the rebels. The rest of the Seven didn't move. Could the rebles really have sunk so low that they had killed a four-yearold? It was almost unbelievable.

"You're lying." Cashmére hissed, "You haven't killed her. It's a trick."

Eridiah smiled at her. "Since when did we rebels ever lie about such things, heiress?" he said, lotsily. And with that, the rebels just dissapeard. Just like that. If wasn't real, it didn't feel like that. It was probably one of the shortest meetings the Seven ever had had. Nobody said anything, until Cashmére broke down in tears.

Ever since that day, Cashmére and Joseph were totally devasted. Of course they were; they had lost their daughter. And of course thet were going to have a funeral, even though they did not have the body. Yet Cashmére said, even though it did sound weird, that it would feel better if they actually had a body to bury. She didn't really know why. But it could possibly be that they were going to "bury" Lorea in the Tanners' FamilyDeathVault (in the Eastern Snowplains nobles were often buried familymembers in FamilyDeathVaults), just by Cashmére's mother. It felt weird not to actually have her body there.

At the day of Loreas' funeral, Marcia had came there all the way from the Castle. Both she and Trassimma. Trassimma was horrified at her granddaughters' dissapereance and death, just as everyone else was. And she really regretted not being with her granddaughter so much, but she had been horrably ill at the time her granddaughter had gotten kidnapped. So ill that Marcia actually had thought that Trassimma was going to die. But Trassimma did recover, even though she sometimes wished she hadn't. She grieved Lorea horrably much, and she knew Josephs' and Cashméres' pain. She, too had lost a child. And not only one.

Before even Rodrian, who was her oldest son, had been born, Trassimma had been in a relationship with another man, who was not Melchior. The man's name had been Jonah, and they had been an extremely happy couple. When they had been together in over a year, Trassimma had gotten pregnant. That had made the couple happier than ever. They prepared and all for the baby, and indeed; nine months later, Trassimma gave birth to a baby-girl. The family live happily in a year, until the fire happend. Trassimma was saved, but she was the only one. Her husband and daughter died in their house. Trassimma recovered under the care of a retired nurs But only physically. Mentally, she never really recovered fully, even though she got married again and had other children. Her "new" faimly had no idea about this part of her past.

White. Cashmére was entirely dressed in white, except for he belt, which was red. She only wore one piece of jewelry, wich was a tight-fitting, golden necklace with only one, big, red stone on it. Cashmére knew that Lorea had adored that piece of jewelry. She blinked away a tear: she had even planned giving it to Lorea one day. The thought that that day never would happend, hadn't ever occured to her. Her husband strode into the room. Also he was wearing white. A white tunic that reached his knees. Also he had a belt around his waist, but his was blue. White. White was the coulour of grief in the Eastern Snowplains. Grief, Cashmére thought to herself, is a too small word. The word "grief" couldn't describe her feelings. No words could. It felt as though somebody had ripped her heart out of her chest, torn it to shreds and burnt the remains. Then, somebody had taken a piece of ice and shaped it so that it had very many sharp edges, and pushed inside of her where her heart should be. Joseph embraced her, and they stood like that for a while His arms wrapped around her shoulder, whilst she was doing nothing. It felt awkward to be so close to him again. Ever since they had been told that Lorea was dead, they hadn't really touched eachother. Cashmére was afraid of having another child. She didn't want to go through a loss again. She didn't want to make it seem as though she forgot Lorea. Because she never would. Suddenly, Marcia opend the door. Her eyes were red and sullen, just as Cashméres' were. When Marcia saw Joseph and Cashmére stand there, hugging, she was just about to leave the room, but Cashmére stopped her. "Marcia." she said. She stumbled over to Marcia, and gave her a hug. Marcia started sobbing,wich caused Cashmére to cry, too. Marcia eventually pulled away, and Cashmére noted that Marcia also only wore one necklace. It was very simple: it was a circle of some kind of wood. It stood something in runes on it, but Cashmére had never been able to read runes. She assumed it was from the Land of Long Nights, and if it was... it was probably made of oak. A symbol for strength. Cashmére managed a smile. "Nice necklace." she said.

"Thanks." Marcia replied, shortly. Her voice was trembling. No body said anything, until Tantibus entered.

"It is time." he just said. He was pale, and also he was shaking. Everyone understood what it meant. It was time to go to the funeral ceremony.