3 A Night Before

"Casam" said the voice inside the called upon's head,

"Shiva must be captured alive, she has sinned along with Miervall, we need them alive, it is your duty to ensure the completion of this important task".

Casam felt an urge to follow these instructions, it was like they were the fruit of his own will, his own decisions but in fact it was his master talking to him through his nexus, Maximilian was known as the Faithful one, because of his telepathic abilities which granted him the power to play with people's minds and plant the seed of whichever thought or will he wanted inside their heads such as demonstrated with Casam, that is the power of faith he believed.

It was night and Casam was as instructed guarding the throne's large door, right after he had that thought implanted in his head he whispered through the door "when", a few seconds after that, he thought to himself that shiva must be taken at the beginning of the war for she was not a warrior, she would surely be hiding in the headquarters of the wealdlanders who will all be busy with the battle.

Miervall is the only one that has a chance facing Lily which will inevitably exhaust him for she was not a lightweight when it came to battle, i will watch their fight carefully and whenever i deem suitable i will wound him non fatally, and capture him, we can not have him inside the castle without immobilizing him.

Once again Maximilian instilled his will inside Casam's thoughts, and he chose Casam specifically for his stealth, untraceability and loyalty, he was known as the pure knight, for his reputation was as flawless as his aiming skills, especially if we refered to throwing knives, his favourite long range murder weapon. He also uses a blade claw as his hand to hand combat weapon, which makes of him a fierce opponent to face.

He lightly tapped on the door leading to the throne with his heel in order to inform his master that his message was fully understood.

Maximilian Heard the echoing sound of the tap, then faced the throne, which was a huge seat of more than 20 meters high, made of well polished metalic alloy, with 10 dragon heads along with their long necks protruding from the rear side of the throne, and vertically encircling it, each head held a white almost translucent tiny gem in it forehead, and below the throne was what seemed to be a small entry leading to a hidden secret room inside it.

He said: "our time is close to come, and thou vainglorious one shall have all the elements needed to unseal the gates", rays of energy started flowing from inside the hidden room right after maximus finished his sentence, he then kneeled and kept praying.

"Hum hu hum humm hum" a melody Lily always sings while polishing and inspecting her combat armor, she was sitting in her bed in her own room inside the tenetika castle, her sword was gently lying beside her in the bed, she infused ever each scratch or crack in her armor which welded them anew, her touch was so gentle so swift that her armor made what seemed to be joyful giggles while being repaired by her strong nexus sparkles, now and then she moved her head throwin her majestic long golden hair behind her not to accidentally melt it as she handled the armor.

"Now the long sword" she said to herself, and carefully placed her armor on its appropriate stand. Sat on her bed again and reached to her sword, dragged it to her lap, and kept staring at the tenetika emblem on the sword's handle, she zoned off for a few seconds deeply focused on her thoughts, until she heard someone tapping on her door, "Lily, its Aether, can i enter", "please do".

Aether pushed the door, her black short hair was carefully brushed to her left side only a few blonde forelocks were hanging on her forehead, and as always a smile on her face, a cheerful glow in her eyes came greeting Lily, "i wanted to check on you, i know tomorrow will be a long day, and i just want to see you coming back triumphant".

Lily tapped with her hand palm on the bed signaling to Aether to come and sit close to her, which she happily did, she then grabbed her friend's hand put it on her lap and started looking at it "after the war ends, i will come to you my dear Aether, remove my gauntlet, and you will see that my hand after war will not be as messed up as your hand after training" she put her smooth white skinned hand alongside Aether's for her to compare, she giggled a bit and said: "i hope you will", Lily teasinly responded: "no seriously you need to take good care of your hands Aether, otherwise you will be better off training with Theon", "no way, that man is a beast, I don't want to end up smelling like one".

Lily calmly laughed and said : " indeed sister, indeed", they both kept quiet for some time as Lily kept holdin Aether's hands in her lap between hers, Aether felt a suddent warmth enveloping her hand, she looked and saw a serene light coming out of there, Lily's eyes were closed she was focused on the task on hand, the light started fading out, Aether looked at Lily opening her eyes then at her hand as Lily let go slowly of it, all her training wounds and scratches were gone, Aether's hand was as good as new.

Aether was amazed, "if it were for Theon he'd want more scratches on your hands instead of this" amusingly said Lily, Aether smiled and said :"can one develop such mastery with combat training only ?".

"Well no, the nexus is more like a universal type of energy.

You can use it for most if not all daily tasks, such as moving objects, fortifying materials, merge or unfuse entities, and as you witnessed healing.

I heard of some cultures that uses the nexus alongside other types of magic energy and objects in order to harvest knowledge and store it into phisical materials, such as books, stones and so,maybe ine day you will have the opportunity to visit such a place.

Do not mention this information here for the time being, you know magic outside the one provided to us by Maximilian is a punishable sin around tenetika" explained Lily

"I wonder why such a beautiful and useful miracle would ever be prohibited, what a shame !" Said the frustrated Aether, she was so gullible and childlike that each and every feeling she had was clearly expressed on her face and expressions, a quality that granted her the holy title of virtuous knight.

As for Lily she was as kind as her beloved friend but as sharp a mind as her holly blade, she hated war and violence, but in life one does not choose his faith same as for his inclinations, Lily was not just a warrior, nor a soldier, she was a berserker, a calm well though one, so that it granted her the holy title of merciful knight.

She said :"its not the right time to think of such, i want you first to master your nexus, and get better at fighting for its the most effective way to survive in a world like ours... Once you do, i will tell you more about the subject, can i count on you, yes ?".

"Yes Lily. I think i will go now that i feel relieved to know that you have such a mastery in life matters as in combat and magic, may fate be on your side tomorrow, rest well !" Aether slowly closed the door while leaving, although Lily prohibited her from joining the war, she was well determined to traing from dawn to dusk, exactly as her friend and tutor advised her.

She went to her room, took some clothes off, and went to bed, covered herself, closed her eyes and tried to experiment a bit with her nexus until came the sandman guiding her to sleep.