Chapter 54
November 9th - Kiraul
Zaelem
“… …”
“… …”
There were muffled voices, angry and sharp. A loud bang and distressed creaks of door hinges soon followed.
“What? Who informed the King about the assassin?”
“The filthy rat did.”
“It’s him again!” The sound of a fist punching the flimsy end table rang out. “Jaelon of Yel. How dare he! The assassin would have freed our country by now. Can’t he see that our King is a tyrant?”
“Just like how everyone but the King can see that the rat is only after his money. I can’t believe even a country like Quesdeja could have bred such a foul creature.”
“There is no use in saying all this now. We need to do something soon or this King will destroy us. Our economy has been plunging for the fourth consecutive quarter now.”
“We need to protect Kiraul by ourselves, General Fly.”
“I am not a general anymore, thanks to that rat. The King had just transferred all the troops to be under his command.”
“General Fly, you will always be my general. I will never take an order from that idiotic Quesdejian. Now is the time for a revolution. We can’t afford to lose our brothers with a war.”
A long pause, and then a sigh. “But what will we fight the King with?”
“I believe I speak for the majority of my brothers when I say that the army obeys you instead of the King, General. We must act quickly, though; the rat must be preparing himself to lead the army now.”
Grythen
Chairon
I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue
I'm sorry about all things I said to you
And I know, I can’t take it back
- Sorry, Buckcherry
Chairon watched as her eyelids twitched. “Hey,” he leaned in closer, “are you, um, are you feeling better now?”
The pale girl turned towards the sound of his voice even before she opened her eyes. Her long lashes fluttered for a while before they rose, and a pair of dull green crystals flickered around under their half-opened lids before settling on his face.
He turned the corners of his mouth up slowly, unsure of how wide his smile should be. “Are you feeling better now?”
She stared at him, as though she could not recognise him.
He placed a hand over the lump in her blanket which looked like her hand. “It’s me. Chairon.”
Her eyes darted to her hand which was separated from his by the blanket, as though she could not hear him. He felt her fingers twitch a little, feeling around.
He tried again, with a bigger smile. “It’s me, Chairon. I’m Chairon. Your…” he licked his lips, “your husband, remember?”
She looked at his face again, this time with her brows knitted together, as though she could not understand him.
He swallowed. “Are you alright?”
She responded with a very slow nod, her unblinking eyes fixed on his.
Unnerved, he looked away. “I’ll… I’ll go call the doctor to check… to check if anything is wrong, I guess.”
As he stood up and turned away, cold icy fingers grabbed his wrists. He jumped.
“Don’t… go…”
He sat down immediately.
“I… I just can’t believe this,” she whispered as tears welled up in her eyes. “I thought this was a dream and I was afraid I would wake up. I was so afraid I would wake up. Can you stay here with me?”
His jaw hung loose, stunned. What?
It was his turn to stare at her. I can’t believe how foolish you are. His eyes began to glisten with moisture too. How can anyone love someone as selfish as me?
Stroking her hair, he croaked, “I… I’m sorry, Eve. I’m so, so sorry.”
Will I ever be able to redeem myself?
Kismette
Kiraul
Zaelem
“I don’t like being here, Steph. They trick people into this room and electrocute them. What if one day they decide to silence us and trick us into collecting a body here, and then electrocute us instead?”
“Then someone else will have to collect our bodies and they will run a greater risk of having this secret leaked,” his companion replied firmly. “Hold his legs up, will you?”
There was some heavy shuffling of feet. Groans ensued.
“Ugh, this is a heavy one.”
Oh no. Are they moving my body?
“Hey Caval, is it just me or is he still warm?”
“How can he still be- oh my… this is impossible.”
He heard his body land onto the ground. Ouch?
There was a long stretch of silence.
“Please don’t tell me-”
“His heart is still beating, Steph!”
“No way! What do we do now?”
Send my body home?
One of them started to pace around the room in shoes that thudded heavily on the ground. “The king wanted him dead. He needs to be dead. We’ll go according to plan-bring him to the incinerator.”
“What? We’re undertakers, Caval, not murders!”
“I’m not going to risk my life-or worse, my entire family’s life!”
“But… but…”
“You know what the king is like, Steph. We don’t have a choice. He should have been dead anyway.”
Oh shit.
Grythen
Kismette
”Um… Kismette?”
”Zae! I… I’m sorry. I’m not strong enough.”
”It’s not your fault,” he answered tenderly, albeit a little edgily. “What time is it now?”
”It’s almost seven. Seven a.m.”
”Seven?”
Kismette began to knead her back. ”Yea… why?”
”I…”
She froze. Something must be wrong. ”What happened? You would want to know if something happened to me too, so do me the same favour.”
”I have been sent to the waste incinerator and the fire comes every morning at eight.”
She jumped out of her armchair, as if the solution was within her reach. ”I am going to save you, Zae. I will save you.”
He smiled. ”You never lose faith, do you?”
”Never; not when it concerns you,” she replied resolutely. They both knew she couldn’t heal scars; she would not be able to piece his ashes back.
”Please wait for me. Please.”
”I will,” came his reply. ”I always will.”
*****
Jeremy tried to stifle his yawn. Despite the air of anxiety, his bag of old bones was not holding up as well as the younger ones. “Where are we going to get so much energy from all of a sudden?”
Kismette looked up from her third bottle of goo. Liquid food digests fast, but they did not contain enough energy. Still, it was better than nothing.
Deinja snapped his fingers. “Witches! They can transfer energy bundles to her.”
Jeremy’s face lit up, and then creased into a frown again. “Morgon left Grythen for a holiday a week ago. The other two are living in the countryside and would not be able to arrive before the fire starts in fifteen minutes. We’re only left with Trista. One energy bundle is definitely not enough.” He dialled for the green star holder anyway.
Kismette immediately opened her fourth bottle despite feeling a little nauseous. Jeremy came to her side and rubbed her back gently, hoping to ease the passage of food down her system. “Energy doesn’t come from food straightaway, child. Your body needs a little bit of time.”
Regardless, she took in a deep breath and gulped the liquid down. Don’t ask me to give up, Jeremy. You know I won’t. I can’t. She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent tears from falling.
Her mentor sighed. “I know.”
All of a sudden, Deinja slapped the floor and cackled in joy. Both of them turned to stare. “Violet star holders!”
Jeremy’s mouth opened into an ‘O’ as his eyes widened. He nodded excitedly at Deinja and began
to chuckle too. “Yes! Yes! And the green one can bridge them! I’ll call her over now.”
Kismette burped and her food almost came all the way up. She swallowed as hard as she could, pushing her bile down, before opening her mouth again. “Huh?”
“Violet-the opposite end of the visible radiation spectrum from red!” Deinja laughed, as though he had expected Kismette to understand such an explanation.
“And?”
“Violet star holders amass energy by destroying cells while red ones like you give energy to heal cells. They can gather the energy you need and green star holders-witches-can transfer it to you, and then you can send it out to Master Dragonoir!”
Kiraul
Zaelem
The cackling of flames soon reached his ears. It was perhaps a good thing he did not regain his sense of touch.
”Kismette?”
”Yes?”
“I love you. I don’t know why I never told you that before.”
She seemed to be grinning. ”You know I love you too,” she replied softly. ”Help is on the way now, so don’t worry. We’ll see each other again soon.”
Could the heart in an undead man ache too?
“No matter what happens, I want you to remember that you have brought me more joy than I could ever have imagined. I have been happy-very, very happy.”
Happy enough to die, I guess.
Grythen
Ning:I am still alive! Without a working playing (lol oxymoron?) computer, that is. :(
The true story is that I finished this chapter ahead of time and unplugged all the wires from my PC with hopes of getting it fixed asap by a friend, but he turned out to be too busy and I'll have to wait until this Friday to send it over. (I can no longer boot it up now.) And then I contemplated for the longest time ever whether I should post this chapter without knowing when the next chapter will come, because this certainly isn't a good place to stop for a hiatus. But then I felt bad for this sudden disappearance, so I decided to take a chance and post this and then hope that the playing computer gets fixed fast, haha. (My laptop, the non-playing machine (hence the computer is a "playing computer") has been sent to the service centre two weeks ago and is still not back yet. I'm using the lousy home computer now which is a pain, argh.)
So, um, I guess I won't hanging around much, especially since school has started. And I got a part-time job. (At a bakery. Which is not related to my field of studies but makes me so excited, hehe. :P)
Also, the *cough*detailed map that Zee mentioned the last chapter wasn't very detailed, was it? XD
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