Requiem

future | 7 - stay dead

She's dead.

She had been dead for a long time now. He though he'd already burried—

"Look, I want to stay dead too." He was staring at her, as if he didn't know what to do with her. She'd never seen that helpless and frustrated expression on his face before.

"You think you're the only one pissed at this situation?" Dhalia asked, while sitting on his bed angrily. It reminded him of his life back then, if they weren't frostily ignoring each other, they were having an explosive disagreement.

But he had been wrong about her all his life. She died trying to protect both him and Nao. If only there wasn't bad blood between their families.... If only his vision wasn't clouded with spilling King Auguste's blood in his hands... and avenging Ivy....

He had failed to see the people who should have been important to him.

".....are... are you really alive?" Was it always this hard to talk to Dhalia without arguing with her?

"No I'm dead actually."

"Dhalia I—"

She was just staring at him, before she seemingly remembered something.

"Oh, right. I remembered something," She frowned. "I didn't want to be here. It's ... my  father's  inner circle..... revived me..." He flinched when he heard of the inner circle— rather King Auguste's inner circle. The most avid supporters of the wicked king. To think they would go to such lengths. "They also have Nao..."

"Nao?"

"Our son. Incase you forgot."

"I meant, they revived him as well?" He swallowed the lump on his throat. Nao, in his mind had been a boy standing at the precipice of life and death, with needles stuck in his thin arms and tears cascading down his pale cheeks. A boy that loved him and looked up to him. And also the boy he never got to know.

She nodded. "They wanted me to convince you to open the gates. So that they could grab my father." She said the last part in hate, with a click of her tongue. "But don't. We can actually get Nao now, since they won't be able to revive anyone anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"This...... I took it from one of their statues," She took out a glowing green jewel from her pocket, before dropping it in the palm of his hand. "It seems important. And it looks shiny so I took it."

The soul stone was a myth— that the heretics believed. It was also something Alceste Alarie had been looking for. It was like a key that the Gods have left, before they left Seoris, and the world altogether. It was before demons roamed the lands. As long as the stone exists as a medium between gods— then magic, even the Alarie's cursed riel exists, in simpler terms.

Then the soul stone was crushed and its fragments were scattered all over the world. It was deemed as a precious commodity, even a national treasure.

For someone in possession of this could even revive the dead if need be.

Only for a period of time, it appears. Since this was just a fragment. Legends say that the original soul stone was the same size as a human's head. And only those from the Di Carita line could touch it without being burned.

But the last of the Di Carita line had perished— King Auguste, Naoto and Dhalia.

Marco... was an illegitimate child of the queen. Although this was not a well-known fact. The powers in Seoris were greatly waning. The current Duke Alarie could not use the cursed riel. The current King Marco Di Carita could not sense the location of the fragments of the soul stone and could not summon familiars in frightening efficiency like Dhalia or King Auguste ever could.

"Are you certain of that?" He stared at the glowing stone cynically. "Then why am I not being burned?"

"I am still holding your hand that's why. If I let go you'll be surprised." She said blandly. "You know, the soul stone, or whatever. I thought it was a load of crap. They revived me using my blood." She contemplated for a moment. "It was the embalmer I guess. Since they managed to revive Nao as well."

If Dhalia was important to the inner circle— then why would they have willingly let her go?

"They separated Nao and me. If you have a map I could plot the location of their base.I escaped them then tracked you down." She ended with a sharp smile. He was reminded again that this was the woman who pretended to obey King Auguste only to stab him in the back in the end after all. "Look, I'm not stupid. There were hundreds of them beyond the border. So I need your help, is all."

"Border?"

"Near the Allarie's territory." She pointed a specific part of the map. "Around here."

"You travelled so far.... did you meet any of my knights?" If she went from the border, all the way up to the chilly North then—

"I didn't," She shook her head, before tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Good thing I bumped into you in Cartia Chapel."

He was still reeling from the events of the past two days. He can't even believe that this is real. That she is real, and right in front of him. When Dahlia, even as a ghost never visited him, even in his dreams.

Imagine his surprise when, just after he visited their graves, Dhalia suddenly appeared before him in the flesh. Now, Lacuna was a widely popular play depicting a horribly biased and historically inaccurate version of the Tragedy of Cobalt Castle. It was basically centered on the relationship of the Arseni Ducal couple and their exaggeratedly "tragic" parting. Frankly, Tristan was a speechless(not the good kind) when Marco managed to sit him into one of those plays in the capital. His relationship with Dhalia was so far off the mark he just wanted to sue them all. By the time his son died in the play, he walked out.

Now, as the real life Duke Arseni (not some starry eyed actor), naturally women came after him. And pretended to be his diseased wife.

So naturally, when a woman stopped his carriage and claimed that she was Dhalia Arseni, he wasn't very impressed.

Even just looking at her, makes his throat clog with guilt. "Dhalia, I, I'm—"

"I think we should hurry. It's a full moon tonight, right?— they might try to open the gates again." She had once again cut him off, staring out into the pink skies