Tainted - III

"Eleven times?" repeated Ul-Sasan laughing in disbelief. "This just keeps getting better and better!"

Everyone merely looked on. They've had an absolute feast of shock for one night. What's another?

"This would be my twelfth," Isetzar said as he steadied Nuriya. "Easy now…"

"Eleven times, huh? So…educated guess…you can't be younger than about…one thousand years? Did I hit the target?"

Isetzar laughed. "Another excellent guess, Gramps!

Solahi wasn't as amused. "Setzya? You're not just cursed. You're damned!"

"How…are you able to live like this?" Arbaz added.

"I admit…It gets weird and confusing." Isetzar began. "Having memories from eleven different lives…I don't know if I'm me, or someone else, or I just have someone else's memories inside me. And I didn't start out this way: the memories came in as I got older," Isetzar shrugged. "Bah! I've gotten used to it. Doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?" Ul-Sasan returned. "Your soul is absolutely filthy! All the sins of your past? All those people you left behind…" Ul-Sasan looked at Nuriya. "All those attachments…and based on the gruesome nature of the magic you just showed us, I'm sure more than your fair share of spilled blood? All of it? You are still accountable to by the gods! Each new incarnation is more unclean than the last. How have you not gone mad?!"

"--Is it really so bad?" asked Nuriya, still leaning against her brother's frame. "When Setzya told me he was getting 'visions' from people he didn't know–I remember him looking so…lost...so vulnerable."

"Niya, you don't have to–"

Nuriya stopped her brother and shook her head to face her grandfather."Setzya is Setzya…Harqa or not, he never asked to be born that way! Why not just help him if he's as burdened as you say he is? Who said such a state had to be cursed? Why can't it just be a different kind of magic?"

"And? What about you?" Ul-Sasan answered. "What are we to do about you, child? What are we to do with the knowledge that your stars foresee that you are going to be the ruin of the world?"

"I-I wouldn't…!"

"No, you don't understand how divination works. Why seers dedicate their whole lives to being able to do one magical task and one alone. They see everything about you when doing a reading."

"I…"

"Destroyer of the Ursan Empire and mother to a gallery of monsters destined to ruin the four corners of the world! How is such a fate ever in your cards, Niya?! How is such a thing in your realm of possibilities? Sweet child? What broken, twisted part of you could not even The Wheel get rid of?" Ul-Sasan ranted now. "It means something inside you, something about your nature, something you might not even be aware of now that compels you to follow that particular path. And? Based on the fact that you have a bloody harqa protecting you? Well, the fear…is not unwarranted."

Ul-Sasan then wore a dark smile. "Also…I had no idea you two were this close."

"!"

"!"

"!!!!!!!"

There was a thundering crash and quake to be heard outside the hall. The floors rumbled and the walls shook from the sound.

"Took them long enough…" Isetzar remarked.

"What's happening?!" Arbaz asked. "I feel dizzy."

"That? Would be Prince Valri. He's now bombaring this place with spiritbane bolts."

"How? Why would he?" Ul-Sasan asked.

"Simple: I left him a note. And my friends told him where to strike. The important thing? Grandfather? Is whomever is ultimately inhabiting this body of mine? We all want the same thing. We all have that much in common at least."

"And what do you want now?"

"To leave. With Nuriya."

Ul-Sasan pulled out his hunting horn as the world around them shook.

"You know we can't let you do that…"

"I know you can't…" Isetzar said plainly as he positioned Nuriya safely to better raise his greataxe.

"Even if it kills us," added his aunt Solahi, "You know we have to put a stop to you."

"You won't…And I don't want to kill any of you."

"You think the crown-prince will change my judgment? I would kill Valri and accept my execution before I allow that accursed vision to come true!"

"Take it from someone who has met a lot of different mages over the centuries…The stars aren't absolute. They're good, but not everything. Case in point: our fallen sister. The true 'Nuriya'. Her stars didn't save her now, did they?"

"Damn you, Setzya! Why even bother to tell us then?" Ul-Sasan asked. "Why not use that axe of yours to get rid of us all tonight? You could, right? You've killed people before! Why, not even I'm confident enough to face a mage-warrior a fraction of my age using a magic I can't even understand."

"What was even the point of this horrid dialogue?" Baratzar added.

"Because, believe it or not? I liked being me," said Isetzar. "I liked being born here. I liked you all…I thought you all deserved some kind of an explanation."

Nuriya whispered something in Isetzar's ear.

"Goodbye, everyone…It was nice to have been part of this family," he said.

Nuriya used what was left of her strength to clap her hands.

And all the spirits surrounding the radius of Sasan Manor fled under the light of the moon.

All the members of House Sasan were stunned and knocked out.

Grandfather included.

"This ought to buy us time, then…" Nuriya remarked.

"It will," Isetzar let his axe break down into a fine red mist and he used both his arms to gently carry Nuriya out of the hall.

He was to bring her to Valri's ship.

Neither he nor Nuriya said a single word to each other on the walk there.

Nuriya, still disturbed and horrified by the revelations she heard, needed time to process everything inside her mind. Her heart heavy and storming.

Still, at this moment? She found one twisted source of peace.

As Setzya carried her, she occasionally looked up to stare at his dark, strong visage–now bathed in the light of the moon.

And immediately? Her heart began to beat more intensely.

Oh, how she hated this…

She recalled what her grandfather said earlier.

And? To her shame? She is forced to agree.

Something inside her must, indeed, be broken.