Chapter 105 - The Farm in Irttat

 

Chapter 105: Tower of Crows 13

Tatiana took a step back.

Violet's reflection rippled across the surface of the black lake, wavering with the faint movement of the water.

The lake was perfectly still. Aside from its unnatural color, there was nothing outwardly unusual about it.

Violet carefully tucked the hunting knife away, crouched beside the shore, and dipped a single finger into the lake.

In an instant, a searing pain shot through her fingertip.

She winced and withdrew her hand. The tip of her finger had been stripped down to bare white bone, gleaming faintly beneath the pale moonlight.

Violet stared at the exposed bone. She made no attempt to heal it. Instead, she drew a slow, steady breath and pressed her lips tightly together.

Beside her, Delphine could no longer remain hidden. She materialized at once: "That lake...!"

Violet's expression went entirely cold. She turned to Tatiana: "Is she in that lake?"

Two gazes like sword-points pinned Tatiana where she stood. Blind as she was, she seemed to feel them anyway.

She bit her lip, her mouth trembling as though to say something.

In the end, she remained silent. Instead, she stepped backward and slowly raised both arms.

Dense black death energy condensed around her, growing heavier until it was almost tangible.

"I have no defense left to offer. If it has come to this... then let us see whom Gaia chooses to favor." She forced the words from her throat.

Violet strode forward, sword in hand: "I'm asking whether she's in that lake!"

Several thorny vines suddenly shot through the air, lunging toward her limbs, nearly wrapping around them.

A second longsword appeared in Violet's free hand. The twin blades crossed in a brilliant flash, slicing apart the vines attacking from the front. At the same moment, she twisted aside to evade another strike from behind and swept her sword through the air. Where the dark green blade-light touched the iron-black thorns, they instantly withered and collapsed.

The air gradually filled with a thick, rising mist. The surrounding trees disappeared into darkness, the high moon was obscured, and everything sank into a murky, swamp-like dimness.

Delphine was no life-form herself, and the death-energy could do nothing to her. But she also had no power against this kind of force, and could only watch Violet helplessly: "Careful!"

Hearing Delphine's voice, Tatiana seemed to think of something, and gave a cold laugh: "So even the former king keeps company with death-spirits? Then what gives you the right to condemn me here?"

Violet shrugged off her cloak and threw it into the air. Delphine caught it and folded it into her space.

Her injured finger healed at a visible speed. Then she gripped the long sword again: "She is not a death-spirit."

***

Tatiana held Danice in her arms and boarded the Fool's Ship, drifting steadily east.

The other passengers occasionally dug out precious dried rations and gnawed on them in the boat. She alone carried nothing, only holding Danice and curling into a corner of the small boat.

Her physical constitution was, after all, different. She could go without food indefinitely. Only that, going too long without eating risked arousing suspicion among the other passengers, so she occasionally asked someone who looked kind enough for scraps of dry bread.

Drifting in a half-waking state on the water, they turned into the Gloire River basin three days in, and it seemed as though all she could hear was the endless sound of water on every side.

Seven days later, the Fool's Ship reached the end of its journey.

The royal capital of Kenting. Viktori.

A city of victory, cradled by the River of Glory.

The other passengers lingered outside the city walls, desperately searching for any way to enter the capital or settle in the nearby villages. But Tatiana slipped quietly away with Danice in her arms.

In a royal capital filled with nobles, anyone of status would recognize at a glance that something about her appearance was wrong. She would be exposed immediately. 

At this moment, there was only one thing on her mind — Go home.

Back to the Esti mountain range. Recover her strength, restore her sight. Then return to Soris and take her revenge.

Blind Tatiana traveled south until she blundered into the forest now beneath her feet.

The leaves had already begun to turn yellow. The sun was low. The evening frost had not yet come, and the forest was wrapped in a thin evening mist; the four-o'clock flowers looked somewhat dim in color.

Lucita followed behind her, watching this familiar forest, and finally understood something of what fate lay ahead for her.

She reached out to catch the sleeve of Tatiana's coat. Her hand passed through a blur of mist.

The light was fading. The road was nearing its end.

How long they walked she couldn't say, but at some point the sound of a night owl drifted to her ears.

Tatiana held Danice, the night dew soaking through to her trouser legs. She had no shoes; the thorns carved bloody lines across her feet and calves, mixing with the cold dew.

She walked slower and slower, and finally stopped, feeling at the cuts on her shins, pressing her fingers together in bewilderment.

Something was wrong.

She was an elf. A wound this minor should have healed almost immediately. How had there been no sign of improvement, so many cuts still open on her skin?

Puzzled, she tried to draw upon her life force to heal the wounds on her legs and feet. But something stopped her. She could not even complete the first step of drawing vitality from the surrounding air.

A chill ran down Tatiana's spine.

She drew a breath and tried to sense the life force in the air around her.

The tendril of life reached out from beneath her feet — and immediately there was a severe drain, and it folded back at the midpoint.

Then her chest seized, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The moment that bright red blood touched the air, it seemed to undergo severe corrosion — making a hissing sound, billowing a dark smoke — and then it dissolved directly into the air, leaving nothing behind.

What happens when a child of life, at her most vulnerable, strays into the place where death and decay hold absolute sway?

Lucita watched as black mist began to coil upward from beneath Tatiana's feet, while every ounce of life force in her body was nearly wrung dry. She could only endure, helpless, as the death-energy eroded her.

Tatiana set Danice down and collapsed to her knees, releasing a low, agonized cry.

Lucita stood quietly nearby, watching as Tatiana broke out in a cold sweat across her entire body under the force of excruciating pain, until at last the death-energy — growing stronger with every minute of night — closed completely around her, and she trembled in small, desperate spasms.

Lucita had long since understood: this was something that had already happened. Not the present, not the future. It could not be changed.

Night had long fallen. The sun was gone. Moonlight poured down cool and clear, moving through the suffering of the world.

This was the world of Death. A realm fundamentally opposed to the elves. It had been formed from the accumulated bodies of the destitute who had gone unburied, the sick who had been abandoned, the dead who had been swept from the streets.

By the time the sun rose again tomorrow, there would be one more elf's body here.

Or perhaps this body, forged entirely of life-force, would not even manage to leave behind a corpse under the corrosion of death-energy.

But Tatiana would not die. Not only would she not die, she would gain these powers.

Lucita's black-and-white eyes watched in silence.

The night grew deeper and deeper. The black mist grew thinner and thinner.

When the night finally withdrew and the first light of dawn slanted through the mist-filled forest, the last tendril of black mist dispersed.

Tatiana's brow was tightly furrowed. She moved her fingers.

The morning light illuminated her face.

Even one night was enough. Her body had been corroded into a state of advanced decay. Wrinkles covered her forehead and the corners of her eyes; age spots were stamped across her loose skin like scars.

But —

She pushed herself to her feet. A mass of black mist appeared in her palm.

The oppressive weight of death moved through the veins of the soil, reaching out to every part of the forest, and the leaves began to fall in great drifts, withering all at once. Within moments, Detice Forest had become a barren stretch of bare, dead trees.

For years afterward, the overnight withering of the forest in that single season remained a tale passed between the surrounding villages and towns. But the location was remote and few had witnessed it, and with each retelling fewer people believed it.

She had survived. To contain death-energy within a body built for life had cost her far too much, but she had survived.

From this day on, she would be severed from the power of life.

That also meant that her eyes, her ear, every internal wound and external wound, old and new… none of them could ever regenerate to their original state, the way an elf's should.

Worse still, the power of death would continue, slowly and imperceptibly, to erode her body. Only ever making her condition worse.

Tatiana picked Danice back up and walked, step by step, deeper into the forest.

Lucita watched her retreating figure.

In the silence and gathering darkness, whether Tatiana herself or Lucita watching as an observer, both understood one truth: The homeland Tatiana had dreamed of day and night...

She would never return to it.

***

Violet was still pressing forward through the rain of thorns: "It seems getting anything out of you isn't going to be easy." 

Tatiana felt the force of Violet bearing down on her, and clenched her jaw.

The days of grappling with the wolf pack seemed like another life. Her body was frail now, broken by age, unable even to lift a sword. Close combat had become what she feared most. 

Of course, though she couldn't understand why this last king showed not the least sign of being eroded by the thick death-energy around her — remaining calm and composed, as though entirely untouched — this was still her territory. She still held the absolute advantage of home ground.

She said in a low voice: "I don't know how you've survived, or for how long… but the life you've held onto at such cost... Do you really intend to bury it here? I gave you a chance to leave!"

Yes, she had tried to show her the door three, four times now. It was Violet who had refused to go, who had insisted on probing her secrets, insisting on tracking down that half-blood.

As though trying to convince herself, Tatiana steadied her nerves, and suddenly let out a sharp, piercing whistle. The eerie note echoed through the night.

Violet looked up. A flock of bone-crows came rushing through the air, blood-red eyes blazing, diving straight for her.

She frowned: "Undead..." Then swept a glance at Tatiana.

An elf who could not only command death-energy but also control the undead. If she said this aloud to anyone, they would laugh at her for telling a preposterous story.

She raised her hand. With a great crashing sound, a massive curtain of dark-green water conjured itself from the air and poured down over the flying undead creatures.

The water was filled with flickering points of starlight, like the river of stars from the very origin of life. The instant it touched the bone-crows, the death-energy within them dissipated. The scattered bones gave off dark smoke and clattered to the ground, one by one.

At the same moment, Violet's sword point was already at Tatiana's throat.

Her voice carried restrained fury: "I wonder whether you think I'd dare kill you."

Feeling the cold, razor-sharp edge of the blade against her skin, Tatiana went momentarily blank.

She hadn't felt the touch of a sharp blade in a very long time.

She said, with something like deflation: "What do you want to know?"

Violet tightened her grip on the hilt and closed her eyes for a moment: "I'm asking you where she is. The owner of this knife by the lake — where is she right now?"

Tatiana's voice came out hoarse: "In this lake."

The sword in Violet's hand gave a violent tremor. A thin line of blood appeared across Tatiana's neck.

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