Chapter 6 - Death’s mother

“Where…?”

Alice looked confused at the light blue landscape. In front of her, thousands of bubbles of many sizes floated around. She tried to walk and realized the soft ground below her feet was formed by a translucent material that also looked like, bubble.

First, she moved cautiously but soon realized the ground was resistant enough to support her, so she ran. Alice felt happy and free, she played with the bubbles, pushing them against one another, jumping on top of them, until she stopped at the border of the bubble ground.

Bellow it, Alice saw a vast world, full of bubbles and wonders. She looked back and saw the bubbles she used to play with still kicking the ground, they felt like old friends. She felt an urge of holding onto them, they were important. But then, she turned towards the vast bubble world, practically begging to be explored, she thought about the countless opportunities that laid ahead, how many more bubbles she could meet down there?

The strong nostalgic feeling and the excitement of the new tore her apart. She looked back and saw an Alice dancing among the bubbles, the girl seemed foolish but happy. Above the vast bubble world, she saw another Alice floating inside a bubble, excitedly going through experiences, learning, this woman looked more mature but she didn’t smile that often.

.........

Alice woke up, the bitter taste of the lively dream still lingered in her mouth. She looked outside the window tracing the beautiful blue waterways that striped the Water Capital before meeting the sea and saw many ships heading towards the ocean. She couldn’t help but wonder how far could they take her?

.........

The Hydra stepped forward and poured dozens of black crystals on top of an ice table located a few meters from the Duchess. When the last crystal drop from its water body, it moved back to stand quietly behind its Master.

The Lords standing closer to the table, stepped back displaying different degrees of discomfort. Reaper couldn’t take his eyes out of the crystal pile, their obsidian color attract him deeply, he heard a voice, deep within:

‘Dewch… Marwolaeth…’

Everyone stared at Reaper, it was obvious that the crystals were meant for him.

“Take it…”

Reaper bowed awkwardly and moved forward to take the death crystals, thankfully, an attendant offered a cloth bag. It wouldn’t be very pleasant to move inside the Palace carrying the ominous crystals.

“Two days ago, I sent Hydra through the Kingdom rivers to collect the crystals and help Anglo tie all loose ends. Surprisingly, someone on pair with it interfered with the operation and tried to take the crystals. Of course, my most loyal and competent servant still brought the crystals back. Unfortunately, Anglo died...”

The sight of his mother patting the being that looked like a wicked girl made Reaper shiver. He couldn’t accept that it was actually a spell, cast by the Duchess.

Technically, the Hydra wasn’t a spell, but a Water Servant created by a powerful Evoker spell, powered by a high quality (HQ) water crystal and baring an artificial soul, formed by water intent. However, it also represented the Water Duchess power, proving she achieved the pinnacle of her elemental level. The spell could only be cast by the strongest Evokers, and not all of the previous Water Lords or Water Duchesses could claim to be capable of casting it.

“Now, our plan didn’t leave any chance for failure, we even paid high level assassins to wait for the group in Sound City to prevent others from being suspicious. If the group arrived at the water bank outside the Tribal Lands, where Hydra was waiting, our success was guaranteed. Even if someone discovered Anglo’s identity as a Knight and Hydra’s presence, they wouldn’t be able to fight with it. Unless the other party was one of the other Elemental Lords…”

Silence filled the room, nobody dared to look at the Duchess or even around, this type of environment was capable of drawing out any guilt conscience and who among them could swear to not have anything to feel guilty about? But Reaper couldn’t resist glancing at his mother. The surprise almost made him chock, he was expecting to see the scaring neutral expression or even anger, but she was smiling. The Duchess was toying with them, this was her play and she would taste revenge before it ended.

“I don’t mind the plots and scheming against your fellow water Houses and against myself, I even welcome it, it keeps me from getting rusted in this throne, but colluding with the other Elemental Houses is something that not even the earth Mages would forgive… When you joined hands with them, you went not only against me but against all the water Mages and you shall now be judged…”

The cold traveled through the ground and walls, sealing all the exits, everyone stepped back and an attendant even screamed. Reaper felt the intense cold and reached for the death crystals without thinking, the connection with the element strengthened inside him making his vitality drop, but once he pushed through it, the pain from the cold start to lessen.

Aside from the attendants, who had to move away from the Duchess and the hybrid Mages who had to reach for their elements for protection, nobody else felt uncomfortable with the cold, they were water Mages after all.

“Lord Watlein, did you think that your treachery would escape my eyes?”

“Preposterous! This is an offense to House of Deep Waters… Your Grace, you can’t speak this lightly…”

“Oh, not at all, I’m not going against you House, just against you! In fact, you heir already agreed to take your place… Your name is probably already out of their water tree, they wouldn’t want a traitor’s name to stain their ancient history…”

Watlein stared back at his son, but he only looked down, confirming the Duchess’s statement.

“You... Rainna you’re crazy. I was just trying to prevent the boy’s advancement… He’s a risk for all of us, there’s a reason why death magic is prohibit…”

“Since you don’t deny it, let’s move on to the punishment…”

“Don’t you dare! I’m still the House’s Head, you can’t interfere with our affairs…”

The water Mage turned to the other Lords pretending to plead for their help, but he was using the chance to get a HQ water crystal from inside of his robe. Although it was forbidden to enter the throne room with HQ crystals, many Lords would smuggle them inside their garments, they had to be prepared for anything.

After touching the crystal, he extracted a dense amount of water energy and reached for the water intent inside of his soul domain. Within his soul, seconds stretched into minutes, he urged the giant carp that represented his water intent to swim into the water body he was constructing. At this moment, Watlein’s worse enemy was time, so he chose to drain all spare water in his body to form a base water body and try to complete it with air humidity. In less than 10 seconds, he blended the water from his body, the crystal energy and the air humidity, while pushing his water intent into it.

The Water Servant assumed the image of the Giant Carp before moving towards the Duchess. All the Lords stared at the scene in disbelief, to summon a Water Servant this fast was a feat that only the strongest Evokers could do. However, the Water Duchess online smiled and didn’t even blinked at the fast-approaching Carp. Before Reaper could recover from the unexpected spell, the wicked girl jumped forward transforming into a sea dragon and clashed with the Carp.

The pale-looking Watlein could only clench his teeth before starting to cast another spell. Unfortunately, he couldn’t spare water and energy in his first spell because the enemy’s Water Servant was already summoned, he only prayed to the Origin that his hastily created Carp could maintain the Hydra occupied long enough. Extracting another good amount of energy from the crystal, he drained humidity from the surrounding air and formed a water veil around himself.

Surprisingly, instead of attacking Rainna, the water Mage launched a wave of high-pressure water towards Reaper while using the rest of the water to Water Travel at high speed towards the door. The high-pressure water formed Water Blades before colliding with an Ice Shield that appeared from the floor in front of Reaper. Even so, one of the blades passed the shield and cut Reaper’s shoulder while throwing him against the ice walls.

The blood painted the crystal floor, he tried to stand up, pain and confusion made his sight spin until he looked at the bleeding shoulder. The adrenaline took over and he ran towards a scared attendant pressing against the bleeding cut.

Before dashing towards his last chance of escaping, Watlein bet the Duchess would try to save the death Mage instead of chasing after him. The only idea that came into his mind was to flee with all hasty, once he got to a window he could jump in the waterfall and follow the water through the canals before swimming into the sea. He would waste his HQ water crystal but it was possible to escape alive.

To escape from the Duchess’s cold grasp, he could only push water below his feet and use Water Travel to slide fast through the ice floor. The spell would require submerging into water but he could only adapt it to serve his current needs, fortunately, it worked perfectly with the ice floor. However, before he got to the iced sealed door, the Hydra emerged and threw him back with a Water Jet.

He tried to smooth the fall by forming a Water Pillow but the water around him refused to comply. The water Mage crashed on the ice floor and continued to slide towards Reaper. If it wasn’t for one bleeding and the other nearing death, they would laugh at the ironic situation. But before they collided, four ice shards pierced Watlein’s members pinning him to the floor and making him scream in pain.

Reaper could only swallow dry before looking scared at his mother, he had lost too much blood, even with the adrenaline rush he was starting to feel weak.

“Oh dear, your cut is quite severe… If you keep bleeding, you might not resist…”

Although the Duchess was his mother, she spoke as if she didn’t care at all, but Reaper couldn’t mind it right now, the dreadful death feelings started to boil inside him. If the cause was his fast-dropping health or the hurt man in front of him, he couldn’t say.

“Son, you know what to do… Go ahead…”

Reaper looked resentfully at her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t deny her words, the urge to kill the Mage grew rampant inside of him.

“You can’t do this! I demand a trial, a fair trial… Please, you can’t allow her to do this! Tomorrow she might do it to one of you…”

“Fair trial? So be it… I, the 32nd Water Duchess of the Serion Kingdom, Warden of Water Region, Spokeswoman of the water Mages, in the name of the four founding Houses I declare you guilty of the crime of treason and sentence you to death!”

Before he could object, a big ice shard carved his chest. The surge of death energy pulled Reaper into the ground, one of his hands touching the Mage’s head. The energy started to invade him, his eyes turned black as he trembled, tears flowed across his pained face.

Reaper used all his remaining will to push through the sorrow and silently repeat the words:

‘Amsugno, egni marwolaeth…’

“Does anyone object to my verdict?”

“…”