14 Chapter Fourteen

Regina Crystal was the one who began the story, keeping her voice as neutral as possible to avoid giving off any hints of the follow up of the story. "Our Siege may be in a bit of trouble."

"What could be that serious that we weren't even supposed to come here?" Isaac asked.

"By coming here, you are putting the young Siege's life in great danger. Much as we all know properly that the artras do not as threatening or powerful without the Siege on their side. Even so, for certain reasoned the Siege was supposed to hold out before coming to Armensia," Crystal said.

"Get to the point, please," Ciara snapped at the council.

"Alright," Harrow Gridlock began, "For generations, the Alpha and the Siege of the artras have been known to get into small arguments, fights, and small feuds, some for domination or even the most trivial of matters such as a girl, but nothing so serious really. The rivalry stretches back to a time since the first artras. It mainly comes from the fact that the Siege can go against the Alpha's commands. There have been few incidences when the Homage has disagreed with the alpha, but not as much as the Siege. Thirty years ago, the fight between the Alpha and the Siege got a little out of hand."

"A little, Harrow," Finn questioned and for the first time, the dwarf wore a very serious face. The other council members seemed to acknowledge his change in mood which only showed the artras how serious of a predicament they might have stumbled into.

"I'm sorry. It went totally out of hand," Harrow corrected himself, "Perhaps, Finn, would you like to pick up from there. Dwarves have got a knack for stories." Harrow said. Finn turned his attention on the artras.

"Absolutely," Finn said, "The Siege abandoned the Alpha's plan and decided to execute a plan of his own against Travas. This action by the Siege had nearly cost them all their lives, and yet again the Siege had saved them. He claimed he had seen a better way to defeat him, Travas that is. But the Alpha had already been holding anger from previous incidents and this seemed to push him off the edge.

He got too angry and pointed a death blade towards the Siege, the most powerful death curse known to Armensia. So powerful it takes on the shape of a dagger midflight. His reckless act almost ended the line of Sieges. We wouldn't be able to stand a chance after that. Thanks to Ellimir, may she rest in peace, for she threw herself in the way of the dagger and had it impale her instead. A noble act that cost the Siege his dragon."

At this point, the version of Kevin in the memories fainted and experienced a flashback of the day when his beloved dragon was slain by the Alpha of that generation. The pain he'd felt in his chest the other day began to return to him.

Thirty years ago (give or take)...

"Bergstrom, you almost got us all killed. What were you thinking," the alpha yelled at Bergstrom. 'Wait, Bergstrom was the Siege at that time. That would explain why he knows what the pain feels like' Kevin thought.

"I almost had him. I only needed to get a little bit closer," Bergstrom yelled back.

"Every time, Bergstrom, every time. We always talk about this same thing but you never listen. If it wasn't for Ellimir we would all be DEAD." the alpha yelled as his hand began turning black.

"Dave, calm down," one of the artras told the alpha.

"Dave what are you doing? We can fix this. We can find another way. Do not something you're going to regret," Bergstrom yelled from some distance he had given between him and Dave having backed up a number of steps.

"The mistake I've been doing is letting you tail a long messing up all of our plans," Dave said in his fit of rage.

"Dave, we'll get him next time," Bergstrom yelled, dread and despair clear in his voice. This was his friend. Despite how powerful a Siege was, he would never raise his hand against his comrade. And yet here he was, about to be murdered by the very person he would never let harm befall.

"There ....won't be a 'next time,'" Dave said, his hand trembling with dark magic as he aimed the cursed death blade at the Siege and fired.

"DAVE NOOO," The artras shouted as he let the blade fly. Bergstrom closed his eyes for a death blade that was known to follow its intended target and travel in a blink. He waited for the impact, which he indeed felt, but only that he felt it through his link with Ellimir.

Bergstrom's heart sank as realisation set in. His dragon had jumped in the way of the blade. When he opened his eyes, all he saw was his dragon laying on the ground several yards away almost motionless.

"ELLIMIR," he screamed as he ran to the dragon. The blade had impaled it in the chest when the dragon had thrust itself in front of him. "No no no ....." Bergstrom said as tears began streaming from his eyes like waterfalls with him giving no regard to where they fell, whether he was wetting his clothes or not. Trying all the healing spells he had mastered though none seemed to work.

[Do not despair, young Siege. I promise you, we will meet again] the dragon had barely said in his mind before it breathed its final breath. Their link faded as the dragon too vanished. The pain hit Kevin like an avalanche or rather Bergstrom.

Back to the fainted Siege Kevin.....

If it wasn't for Zaraias' enchantments, he'd probably have felt all of the pain of the memory. But now the young Siege just stood watching himself in writhing in great pain in a white bed in the infirmary of the Artarak. 'You must be strong' the words Bergstrom had told him when he teleported into his bedroom that day. How was he supposed to be strong with such pain? It was indescribable.

"Can't we just take him to Zaraias' cave?" Crystal asked.

"We could, but only a select few know where that is. And sadly none of us does. Even if we knew someone, it would be too late by the time they got here," Grimm said.

"So what, we just let him die," Kendall asked, losing his temper. This was his best friend for as long as he could remember.

"I don't know. I wasn't there when the previous Siege was saved from their fate. It was at this point that Ciara touched the Siege's head to have this memory erased. She willed herself to relieve him of the pain of the memory even though she felt it wrong to hide the truth from him.

Kevin watched as she did it with tears streaming down her cheeks. She had made a split-second decision when everyone had despaired. She had displayed true leadership even though she had not liked what she had to do. Maybe there had been another way. Kevin was glad she had stepped up.

This had been why she had been weird whenever the issue of his memories was brought up. Kevin remembered how rude he had been with them. They had endured his childish tantrums after having been through the hell of watching their friend on what could have been his death bed.

"He must never know until we find a way to save him from his fate," she said with her face wet with tears. The others nodded and their expressions held nothing but admiration for their alpha for she had just saved their comrade and possibly Armensia as a whole.

The memory dimmed. It was finally over. The reason they had erased his memory had finally been revealed and Kevin had been tended to properly.

Kevin slowly opened his eyes to see his who was still talking to Zaraias. Ciara still looked a bit nervous. Kevin now understood why she was always afraid of him finding out. He figured she felt the most guilt because she was the one who had erased his memory and had had to hide it all from him the entire time.

.........

"He's been like this for an hour, Zaraias," Isaac said breaking their silence.

"Your patience grows thin so fast young artra. Sometimes all you need to do is to wait a little while longer," Zaraias replied as he pushed Kevin's body magically with a simple gesture of his head as though he were letting a child go play with the other kids at a party.

"Are these healing waters?" Ciara asked.

"If you want them to be," Zaraias replied, "one of the gods of the past before the civilisation of Armensia even existed, used to use this pond for various rituals. It's one of the things left of their time."

Kevin's eyes fluttered open as though he had been awake the entire time. He sat up and took in the looks all his friends were giving him. All expectant waiting for him to tell them it was fine, except for Ciara who rather looked like she could trade places with an unnoticed fly on the ceiling at this specific moment. "Just so you know, I'm fine. No need to worry about me," Kevin said, breaking the awkward silence that had been filling the sacred cave.

"Pssh, we weren't worried," Kendall began fake smiling, "Right guys.... Why would we be...." he was probably going to keep it up but felt it better to give it up And spill the truth, "Alright fine. We were worried about it. And we still are, so don't be surprised when you see a human appear on your balcony just to check up on you," Kendall helped Kevin get up on his feet before they all thanked the Phoenix before heading back to Bergstrom's office the same way they had come.

"Guys, this portal has been open the entire time," Jacob pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Isaac said thoughtfully, "doesn't time stop when we go to Armensia?" He had a point, but something was still off about this. Ciara searched the entire place for signs of entry but couldn't find any. The place was exactly the way they had left it.

"Let's just go before someone actually decides to find us here," Ciara concluded. Kevin closed his portal with the wave of a hand as they all left the room. Kendall couldn't bear but notice the fact that the teacher's table was organized, unlike the way he had left it trashed when he had been looking for something fishy about Mr Bergstrom. 'Someone was here,' he thought though he kept this bit of information to himself. There was something fishy about Mr Bergstrom and he wasn't going to stop until he found out what it was.

...........