The Secrets of Lore Seymour

74. Paladin VS Warlords

I'm back at the farm, stuck in a nightmare I've had a thousand times. Standing in the field, I watch in terror as vampires rip my family to shreds. But this time, I'm not alone.

"So this is where the sob story begins," Roemithia says, circling me like a lioness stalking her prey. A long nail runs across my shoulders. The touch feels real. I can even feel the grass brushing against my legs and the cold wind. But I'm incapable of moving.

"Stop with the mind games," I spit, glaring at the woman who continues to watch the horror. I hear my family screaming, refusing to look. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing sorrow, hatred, and fear on my face.

"I've lived this many times already. Your tricks don't bother me," I say.

"They don't?" Her smile twists into a terror I've never imagined one to show. "You shouldn't lie, Seren. It doesn't suit you."

The vision of my family vanishes in wisps of black smoke. I'm falling through nothing, an endless abyss where the wind whistles painfully in my ears. Then that darkness explodes into light and I'm standing on solid ground.

We reappear on the training grounds of Trinia. The world seems so big. I realize that's because it is. I'm somehow my younger self, barely thirteen and standing against a boy twice my size. My gaze drifts to Roemithia's smirk behind the boy, and thus, I miss the fist he sends my way. One hit to my jaw and I'm spitting blood. Pain ripples through me, the familiar pain of training where every part of me aches. I knew I wasn't healing properly, that I was pushing myself. As a kid, I didn't care. I yearned to impress them. To earn my place.

I hit the ground hard, tasting my own blood. Paladin Nallin storms over.

"Get up, Seren!" She demands, grasping me by the arm. I barely manage to stand. My swollen eyes take in her lumbering form that always frightened me. It's like I'm really here, that it's not just a memory. I feel the pain and the terror and the desperation. I want to cry out. I want to scream.

"On the battlefield, there is always a chance that you will face someone bigger than you. You have to prepare for it. Are you going to give up?" Nallin growls.

I whimper, feeling tears in my eyes. I try to push them back because I'm not that kid anymore. The emotions swirl within me though, stronger than I've ever felt. It isn't that Roemithia's making me relive these memories. It's as if she's really taken me back in time. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so scared.

"Are you crying?" She hisses. "Are you a coward, Seren?"

"N-No," I croak.

"Then get up. Get back in there!" She shoves me towards the brute of a boy. Another hit and another and another. Each hurts more than the last. I hear Roemithia's laughter surrounding us. I catch a glimpse of her slim figure as she watches me stumble and fall, eventually laying there in my own blood.

"The greater good," she sings. I hear her steps growing closer. "That's what you people like to say, isn't it?"

Roemithia's golden eyes block out the sun when she leans over me. Her red hair tickles my cheeks, the color resembles my own blood that I taste on my tongue.

"You're so scared, aren't you?" She asks. "So terrified that you went through all this for nothing."

"Shut up." I wheeze.

"But that's not all that frightens you, is it?" She laughs, enjoying this. "You're scared to see yourself for what you really are."

"And what's that?"

The vision fades again. Black smoke engulfs me. I'm too tired to even attempt struggling against the darkness.

Then I reappear on the sidelines of a battle. I recognize it immediately. An uprising within the bordering cities to the capital where vampires and dhampir gathered. Flames roar in the background, overtaking the city. A younger version of me stands among the rubble, swathed in golden ethereal light as if he were an angel, though he's certainly anything but. Blood soaks his axe, stains his robes, and drips from his face where a wicked smile rests on his lips. One I can't believe I ever made, especially as he slices clean through a vampire's neck.