25TH

Her presence here is a huge question when I remember what Ordinal Three told me back at the Citadel. She, the Fourth Legionnaire, obtained a prophecy about the hellion entity that is walking on the lands, which turned out to be my father, who was also an Ordinal. They knew one another… Is she here to prosecute him and bring him to the Ordinals? Or did they rather send her here to kill him?

My father stands frozen at the entrance's staircase, concern obvious on his face as well as dread in his eyes. But the Fourth Ordinal seems to show no malicious intent with her arrival, which I find odd. The people around are ever as astounded seeing a Legionnaire here, only little did they know that there has already been one living here with them, after all this time. Still, they greet her and offer their bows.

My father then retreats back to the soil and then imitates the rest of the people. My mother's at the hut's door already doing the same, and I can tell she shares the same fear my father is going through.

"I appreciate all of your welcomes," The sorceress begins. "You may return to your businesses. Tell your chief I'm only here for a short visit."

Everyone obeys, yet my father doesn't, and only stands straight, the same dread lingering in his eyes, hands curled into fists. The legionnaire then saunters toward her former war comrade and stops only a meter away from him to meet my mother's gaze.

"You can take me away," My father says, catching her attention back. "Just, please, don't harm my wife—"

"I'm not here for whatever you think it is," She cuts him. Her voice carries the same accent as Finnobair's. "No one else is aware of my presence here, except me."

"Then what are you here for?" His gaze is on the ground.

"I want to show you something."

"Show what?"

"I deem it necessary to be private only to you. So, I'll be asking you to come with me."

"If it'll be at your citadel in your precious city that I never had business with, then I won't go." The words may be brutally frank, but he rather sounded like he was pleading.

"No, I won't take you there."

My father still carries hesitation, even though they were former comrades for who knows how long then.

"Go," His wife encourages. "I'll be fine. I can wait here." That's enough to convince him.

"I'll wait for you outside the village," Says the Ordinal.

My father then approaches his wife, taking him back inside the hut. My feet urge me to follow. And upon entry, my feet feel the cold stone floors of a massive, circular dungeon. The pristine walls that are deprived of any window are printed with numerous figures, all relevant to Cysainte's history. Now I know where I am. Somewhere in Cysainte.

In the middle of the room, is the same Legionnaire, standing next to a thick pillar of crystal that has a deep dent filled with water, casting refractions. Ahead of her is my father, hesitant to come near the structure. But he soon gets there. I can't help but see the memory of myself being in the same situation before.

"Twenty years ago, I obtained a prophecy that was already long existing," She begins, along with her hands commanding the water from the pillar to rise in the form of a smooth sphere where I can see images that are too hard for me to see. I'm about to walk up, but my father speaks, already figuring it out.

"A second war."

"Yes. And it'll be the last that will bring our world to its end," The lady then drops the water back down. "I told the rest of us about it. And Arthur asked me what would cause it." She pauses, seemingly being held back.

"Well, what?"

She sighs. "An entity from the Otherrealm that is linked to all of its kind, and it is now being hosted by someone out there in our lands." The pause Ordinal Four makes is longer than the recent one, but she doesn't let it last any longer. "After disclosing the prophecy to them, Ordinal Three asked me to know who embodies this entity and where to find them. And I agreed. I spent most of my days sitting here exhausting all of my strength just to find this person, while the rest of us are continuously building armies to summon at the Barrier, until a few months ago, my search finally came to an end."

"So you want my help to find this person?"

My father only keeps his gaze on her expression, so parsable that it already entails the answer. "No. They've already been found."

"Okay. Then what does this have to do with me?"

She steps away from the pillar and walks to the painted walls. "Do you remember how you survived the war?" The lady Ordinal asks, facing him.

He nods, faltering lightly. "It was Finnobair. He saved my life."

"How did he do so?"

"He took me to a dungeon somewhere and removed the blight off of me with magic."

"No," She says. "He didn't. In fact, it was no blight at all. And he used no simple magic."

The former Ordinal's expression shifts. "What do you mean…?" He doesn't like where this is going now.

"It's the entity, Tenebris," She finally reveals. "It lives inside you. You're that person who possesses it."

My father turns around almost stumbling on the dungeon floors and lends out a heavy sigh as if he forgot to breathe for a moment. Confused and frustrated, he whispers, "I don't understand. How can that happen…?" I can see his fingers shaking.

"I went to see Finnobair. Talked to him about it," She explains. "What we all knew all this time is that you died in the war saving his life. That's what he told us."

If any, then Ordinal Twenty-One did stand by my father's decision to have a normal life…

All my father does is have his ears on her.

"When I told him about you possessing the entity, he confessed that he had a feeling that it was you the moment I revealed to them about it. He didn't know that it was no blight that got into your body, after all. He was so desperate to save you that he had to perform a ritual that he hadn't yet mastered at that time."

The images of Twenty-One bringing my father to the pool flash in my head.

"He succeeded in saving you, yes," The sorceress adds. "But little did he know, he ended up fusing your soul with the entity, instead. So you're no longer just a human Ordinal, but also a hellion-blooded being."

My father gazes down, so much bafflement drowning his expression. "Is that why he never visited me again for the past twenty years."

"His own guilt is eating him alive until now," She answers. "He never went back to the citadel since. He still talks to us, only less often than before."

He turns, running his palms over his face, and shuts his eyes, holding back the tears. Or rather, the number of mixed emotions are the ones holding them back. But he's still rational. He knows he can't blame the man that extended his life and was ignorant of what he had done back then. Yet for what cost was all of it anyway? His life suddenly crumbles when he's already committed to a normal life with the person wants to spend it with. Although he has long let go of his identity as an Ordinal, he's still supposed to be one of those to protect the world. Or is he still now, when he's the one prophesied to doom it after all?

Suddenly, he turns to the Ordinal sorceress with eagerness. "Can you remove it? The entity. Can you remove it from me?"

"There's a counter to the ritual Finn cast on you," She answers, which gives the man hope. But it only lasts as soon as it appears when the lady continues. "But, I'm sorry, Tenebris. It's been six hundred years too late. By now the entity has fully etched itself within you."

There, he gives in, tears welling down his cheeks, and falls to his knees, shoulders dropping with his broken world weighing on him.

His thoughts shout, "I thought I could already live a happy life after the war and break this curse. But who knew that I'd be given another curse far worse than that? Was I too selfish to even ask for a simple thing?" 

The lady is only there, silent. All she can do is sympathize and rest her hand on his shoulder.

"What happens now?" He asks.

"If you return to the legion now, you won't only be maligned as the dangerous being in the prophecy, but also as a traitor to the legion when you've kept yourself hidden after all this time. Let alone that you have committed to breaking your immortality."

"Then, what do I even do at this point?"

"Go home, Tenebris." Those words of the lady baffle him. "Get to your wife."

"Why would you, out of all people, even say that when you're the first and foremost who obtained that prophecy?"

"Fate has been unkind to you, my friend. You never wanted any of it, just as how you never wanted to be an Ordinal in the first place," She reasons. "If I were you, I would've done the same. Many of us would've, including Finnobair or Arthur."

I feel my own tears on my cheeks. They cloud my eyes so much that I shut them close. I never thought that being an Ordinal, which is supposed to be the greatest blessing in the world, would rather be considered a wretched curse. And the odds couldn't be harsher by being a being of the Otherrealm, and involved in a prophecy.

Once I reopen my eyes, the scenery changes again. Now, I'm in a different place — in a room in a cabin. Certainly, not home. But I see my father, his wife in his arms like a bride rushing her to bed, not even bothering to drop the weightful-looking bags from his shoulders. That entails that they left home, yet why? Gazing at my mother in a different dress, her eyes are shut with the skin around them a little sunken, skin barely pale. But I can tell she's not completely asleep. Two ladies, obviously, aiders, follow behind him and begin taking care of her as soon as she's rested on the bed. One of them has a familiar face. It's Eleanor. I don't get the chance to parse her appearance when I notice Finnobair come from the door. It's odd seeing him in plain clothing like an Ordinary elven citizen. But I guess there's a reason why.

"Where are we, Finn?" My father asks as he stands and drops the baggage, before stomping toward him. "Why did you bring us here?"

The elf Ordinal saunters out the door, leaving my father's questions hanging, but his footsteps signify that he wants to have the conversation private. I can only follow them as they exit to the living room, then outside the cabin where his Wyrbird is already resting near a giant tree. But my own familiarity answers for my father. It's Astanor. And the house behind me is the same place that I woke up in. It looks far different from what it currently is. Time can really change things.

"Finnobair, answer me!" My father almost shouts, and that forces the elf to face him, but not completely looking directly into his eyes. "You can't just show up at my home after twenty years and make me force my wife to get up to have us come with you. She's sick."

"Arthur beaconed the entire legion to head to the citadel," He said. "He found out it's you and told us all."

"… How exactly did he find out?"

"He had suspicions before Samara even knew it," He finally spills. "He had spies to look after her."

"Where is she now?" The fear in my father's voice, I can feel in my throat as well.

The elf is silent, and can't seem to let the words escape. Yet, that silence already says too much.

"Finn…"

"She was sentenced to death…"

At the very exact second that those words left the elf's lips, my father isn't registering it yet. At least for a few seconds before he turns around, suppressing the frantic reaction. Even I, at this point, am confused.

"I'm going to get my sword. We have to save her," He then says and proceeds to rush back into the inn but stops at the very door when the Rune Writer speaks again.

"We can't, Tenebris… She's gone… It's too late." That's how she died… The Ordinals killed her for helping my father. Yet the world didn't know.

My father screams and dents the wall with his fist. He's just there, shaking, and slowly falling to his knees. I hear him mutter repeated words. Words of blaming himself.

Finnobair is chained in the same spot, the chains of his own guilt. The guilt of him being the root of it all from the day he unknowingly turned my father into a hellion-being. I can even tell that he had no time to grieve Ordinal Four's death.

"Before I received Arthur's beacon, Samara sent one to me," He begins after a while.

The last words make my father rise immediately and face him again, his expression suggesting a question the elf can read.

"It's about your wife," He adds. "She's in danger."

"Because they already know about her, too?"

"No. She conceives a child. Your child."

The initial thought of a man who is going to have his first child should be gratitude, but not in my father's case.

"And it's consuming her. "

The next thing is that my father is rushing back into the inn. I remain still, letting the delayed realization kick into me as if I heard my own father's head and I almost stumble back. My arms are crossed, fingertips digging into my biceps. A Hellion… I then rush back inside as well, then to where my mother is.

Upon arrival, she's already awake, feeble, and confused by my father's disheartened face with tears as he firmly holds her hand. But before she could ask about it. My father's already explaining everything to her; from what Ordinal Four told him then, about what he is besides being an Ordinal, to her carrying his a hellion child, and repeatedly asking for forgiveness.

My mother's expression is blank, but it's obvious that it's the overwhelming mixed emotions caused by the words she just heard.

"Is there a cure or any magic that could fix it?" She calmly asks the elf Ordinal, who is almost in the corner of the room, his feet almost digging into the floor due to the prominent guilt he's still in.

"For the cure, I'm unsure. For a spell, no," Finnobair answers. "This is a hellion child we're speaking of. But I can't decide for you whether you keep the child until the day of your labor arrives, or you can stop it here."

This rather gives hope to my mother. "I can keep the child?"

He nods. "Samara mentioned that the child is still part human. But regardless of that, it's still dangerous to your—"

"Then, I'll keep it," She says before the elf Ordinal even finishes his sentence. "I want to keep him."

My father only gives her a questioning look. He still has his patience and lets her give the reason why.

"I never told you this, but I've been feeling him here recently," She rests her hand beneath her belly as she says. "Yes, it's a boy. I can see him in my dreams, too, in my arms." From here, right at the door, I can feel those words hugging me. "Running around at our home."

"Angelica—"

"Please, Hass. I know it sounds ridiculous. But, please. It's your child. Our child."

His conscience is under the weight of a mountain, so much guilt about putting his wife in danger. And yet there she is, so willed to the life-risking decision she has made. And that, he cannot question further.

"You said they still don't know about her, right?" He asks Finnobair, rising back to his feet, to which the elf nods. "Then we keep it that way. And while doing so, we find a cure as soon as we can."

He only says, then proceeds in my direction. I stand still, my eyes shutting on their own pretentiously expecting his warmth to embrace me. He only phases through me, feeling his figure dissolve into water droplets.

I turn to follow where he's going. Yet the moment I do, the living room is bright with the daylight from outside. No, this isn't the same place nor it is home. A hut. My mother lays on a bed. I almost gasped, my hands darting to my lips seeing her nightmarish state — pale as radish, thin as bamboo that she's only occupying a third of the single bed. Her fingers are trembling, resting on her gown belly which looks weeks away from labor. There's Eleanor, cleaning her stick legs, while there's Alek sitting on a chair next to the bed with Mikael standing behind him, having a conversation with my mother. She still keeps a smile on her face, yet it doesn't remove any of the discomforts I feel, especially knowing that it's my doing.

Behind me is the open door where I hear babbling men outside. I hear their voices originating from my father and Ordinal Twenty-One. As I get to them, I witness my father wearing a leather chest plate and chain shoulder guards, seemingly exhausted from a finished journey.

"The child continues to consume her," The elf explains. "But your wife is strong. Her will to live is unwavering and it resists the enervation the child is doing to her."

This puts a tint of optimism on my father's face. "You mean her chances of survival are high now?"

"No." He then breathes. "Quite the opposite."

That completely washes away the optimism from his face. "What do you mean?" His voice is shaking.

"If your wife continues to fight it for long, the child will not make it. Yet if she gives up now that she's only weeks away from childbirth, knowing that the child needs to keep feeding, they both won't."

My father is on his knees as misery takes over him, his hands crawling through his hair, and silent wails escape him. What is there left to do? All his hopes are fading. He can never really have the life he yearned for so long and all he can attain is this chaos.

"Did you tell her?" He sniffs.

"No," The elf answers.

"What do I do, Finn? I don't want to lose them both."

I see the elf turn his face away, restrained words seemingly hidden behind his mouth. But a part of him really wants to spit them out. "There's a spell that I found," He finally spills, drawing my father's attention again. "A sister spell of the ritual that I accidentally cast on you years ago."

"What is it…?"

"A soul transfusion ritual," The elf says then further explains. "Which can only work by obliging to its demand of a sacrifice. However, that option is available if only the child itself doesn't make it."

"What sacrifice does it exactly need?" He stands to his feet, unclear whether he's regained optimism or not. But one thing is clear; desperation.

"A person who shares the blood. In your case, it's either you or your wife. But since she still carries the child in her womb, she's no longer a part of the option."

My father's emotion doesn't shift as he looks down, letting the elf's words sink into his head, while I have already understood what he means by that. It's just my father.

I can't help but walk to him and attempt to touch him once more. I yearn to, at least, feel my real father whom I never got to meet. He just dissolves into water, along with everything else around. I'm just here, in darkness. My sobs and silent wails are the only ones I can hear. Once I think that I've seen everything that I needed to see, I find myself in the temple again, not because I have woken up from the pool. My attention is caught by a familiar woman's voice, particularly, her cries and agony that I've once heard before. It's echoing from behind and I turn to confirm it. There she is, being carried by no other than my father, accompanied by Alek and Mikael. They rush vigorously through the wide dungeons to reach the stairs on its end that lead to the pool below. Right now, I've already figured out what happened. I didn't make it…

My own feet take me there equal to their pace, and I'm just in time to see my father already stepping into the pool and placing his wife into the waters, her anguish worsening with each second passing by. My eyes come across Mikael who is scattering ingredients into the pool, while there's Ordinal Twenty-One, inscribing his runes into the atmosphere around the pool.

He beckons Alek to take his place, while Eleanor comes forth on my mother's front. The torment my mother's going through as if she's about to break leaves me stuck here on the right side of the pool. Her cheeks are almost hollow, eyes so dark almost matching her thighs that are blighted of hellion doing — of my doing. Suddenly, her cries begin to ease with her eyes to sleep. It must be the waters.

My father, suited in almost all black with two swords stored behind his back, move to near his wife's rear and closes the gap between their foreheads, hand resting on her belly.

"I'm sorry I put you all into this," He whispers to my mother. The pain in his voice is combined with something else. "I'm so sorry. But it'll soon end, I promise. If I can't have the life that I wanted for centuries, then I can at least give it to you and to our Kyvin. To our little pebble. Don't forget that I love you both."

As he slowly retreats, he turns to Alek, utter worry written over his face as if aware of what the swordsman is about to commit. "Take care of him. Guide him."

All my godfather does is stare unresponsively, but I sense words trapped behind his throat, demanding to escape.

My father is with the elf Ordinal near the dungeon's stairs. The elf then lifts the sleeve of my father's arm, and he draws a rune into his skin. I even hear it sear into his flesh. But I know it's not for protection. My father then hands something to him that I'm not able to see due to its tiny size.

Before I know it, they're treading up the stairs. My instincts kick my legs to rush up to him, to stop him, while the adrenaline in my body fires up as I suppress the unpleasant emotions. Daylight instantly meets my skin upon complete ascent to the stairs, my bare feet rather feeling grass again and my eyes catching the sight of him.

There he is on his knees, his neck, and stretched arms, and his torso shackled by the familiar chains of Ordinal Ten latching from the soil near him. There are even metal feathers stabbed all over his body. From what I can tell, he didn't even put up a fight, nor did they. He left his only weapons behind.

On his left is Ordinal Twelve, hovering her ring blade over his neck, while on his right is Ordinal Five with an aimed arrow over his head. Ahead of him are Ordinal Ten keeping her shackles firm, Thirteen with a few feather daggers left in between her fingers, and Ordinal Three, sauntering towards him with his only Immortal Armament. A polearm.

Ordinal Twenty-One is there as well, wearing a cold facade that almost fails to hide the emotions. He brought my father to them to keep his image safe from the legion, and so that the ritual succeeds.

I'm frozen here in position, just meters away from them, and watch Ordinal Three end my father's life by burying his weapon into his chest. He doesn't make any pained noise or any sort of suffering. Just him letting his last breath escape his lips, embracing his death.

I watch his body drop limp on the grass as the Ordinals retreat their weapons, Three being last. For a while there's just the breeze coming from the sunset plains, then I begin hearing the sound of child cries — my own cries — and seeing the white glittering dust shredding from his body. The subtle wind carries them to me, and they don't turn into water droplets this time, rather grazing my skin, feeling the warmth of a father who sacrificed his life for his family. For me.