Tragedy of Rain 5 Chapter 5: Rejection

The blankets slipped through her fingers as the emerald green irises glared back at her. Her heart stilled as she recognized them. The shadow, the towering void that spoke to her in her dreams had such eyes. Crimson drops of blood glistened against the lamp lights, and while it shouldn't be possible she couldn't escape its sight. She subconsciously moved backward, each numbing step matching her breathing as she slowly tried to escape the things sight.

They didn't move, how could they? But yet she couldn't escape it, those green jewels that haunted her dreams.

Noise of clattering boots rushed down the hallway, the sound of guards crying alarms accompanied them. A tall man in full military garb, his left hand clasping his hilt met her door. He took one glance at the eyes and quickly brushed them aside with his mud stained leather boot. He then looked into her room.

As the eyes were kicked aside she was able to breathe normally again. Her hands were still shaking, and she suddenly realized just how exposed she was with the guards embarrassed stare.

Rain grabbed the blanket on the floor and immediately covered herself, her skin had goosebumps.

"My apologies m'lady," The guard sounded ashamed as he finally turned away, "please stay inside, and don't open the door until we secure this wing." He then gave her a short bow and closed the door.

It was several hours before Sir Olsen opened the door. She had seen him in armor before, but never this much armor. His shoulder pauldrons and chest plate was thicker, his shin guards coated with dark red liquid.

When she told him of the eyes he merely brushed the issue aside, "whatever you saw, it's better not to remember it."

The next morning the job she had been asked to do was brought to her attention. She wanted to refuse. she practically begged to refuse.

Maxine helped her with new robes, they were less itchy but still not comfortable. She would later come to learn they were made for Maxine, tailored for a short woman which was still much better than the average elf.

"What happens after I do this?" She remembered asking Sir Olsen. He seemed remarkably relaxed given that what she was about to do could be considered treason. Was he really worried about her fate?

She suddenly remembered the voice from before, "It will all be yours," creeping in the back of her skull.

Sir Olsen's response didn't comfort her, "If there is an after...I will not only owe you an explanation, I will owe you my life." He said the words with his usual intense voice, his noble accent working hard to clearly say each word. She felt an overwhelming desire to leave, she had taken on way more than she could chew. With her feet shaking, and her face covered in the head gown, she entered a guarded door that was one of the main entrances into the red wing, the Kings own wing of the keep.

Smoke coated her lungs as she entered, the robes stinging against the sudden heat. A single bead of sweat rolled down in between her breasts, as she felt her heart race. There was no explanation for the smoke, she could smell no fire burning and no incense. The walls all had a very thin layer of a dark oily substance. She touched it with two fingers, it felt thick and sticky. Her first instinct was that it was blood, but it didn't have the usual smell of copper. Perhaps oil then?

She wiped her hands on the robes, and advanced down the corridor. The further she went the louder a sullen sound began to invigorate her ear drums. A soft sound that slowly grew, it was a string instrument that much she knew but not of what make.

Other sounds echoed the hallway, she could hear scratching noises and foot steps; once she could have sworn to hear a laugh.

"Great, I'm in a haunted dungeon. Come with me little girl, it'll be alright, just spring me from prison and cast me in the living embodiment of hell because we Knights with all our armor can't go near it," she continued to talk to herself as she walked further inside.

She was supposed to find two things, one was the obvious. Find the King, the second to retrieve his necklace if it could be found. She only knew that the necklace had some sort of talisman on it that looked like a Star. Why they wanted her to do it she had no idea.

She wore the old emerald keepsake from her mother around her neck in a bronze spun thread necklace given to her by Maxine. It was a small gesture of friendship but it was one of the only things she ever owned. Not a keepsake passed down, but something meant exclusively for her. She would treasure it always.

The air continued to grow hot, like a sauna it had no ending. She eventually couldn't take it anymore and disrobed, exposing her bare arms and a rough spun tunic. She was warned not to remove the robes, that they would protect her. But from what?

The second the air met her bare skin the heat was gone. The air was suddenly drastically cooled, and the noise she had been hearing wasn't a scratchy string instrument but something soft and clear. The scratching noises also ceased, the air smelled sweat.

She found herself moving much faster without the heavy baggage, and even noticed the walls were no longer seeping the black oily substance but seemed clean. Her hands stopped shaking and she found herself moving toward the sound of the music.

A final door barred her path, the sound coming from beyond eloquently resounding through it. She opened the door, it was unlocked and unhindered.

Inside she found a massive ballroom, bronze and gold leaf paintings decorated the walls displaying battlefields and lords of lost ages. An image of an attractive young man shaking hands with elves and being presented with gifts from the lost dwarven clans smiled at her. Another painting of a ship fighting a raging sea bearing the lost standards of house Cray from the great Alarn empires thousands of years ago stood out under a banner of stars.

One image stood out, a huge portrait of the late king Vorn. His face torn and desecrated. The flames of torches lit up the room while the ceiling was crystal and brought in the moon light. The floors were marble, and several smaller statues guarded the walls, each a kingsguard who had died in service. In the center of a room sat a lone figure, robed in blue satin while playing the tune she had been hearing. She listened to it for what seemed like hours, but couldn't possibly be that long.

When his song was finished the man held his pose, a small crackling noise barely audible following each movement as he slowly repositioned himself.

She didn't know what to do, she didn't want him to stop.

"Rain," his voice was a rasp and echoed in the room. The air seemed disturbed at the sudden sound, "I'm so glad you finally came, I've been playing for so long hoping to reach you."

"You know my name....your majesty?" Rain didn't know whether to bow or curtsy. Or if that was necessary at all. she only assumed him to be the king.

"We all know your name, your true name, does that surprise you?" He answered not turning around.

Rain didn't know what he meant by that. She felt dizzy, the smell in the air pungent and delightful. She suddenly found herself wanting to stay forever. To listen to the tune and dance in the hall. To drink fine liquor and feast until she was too full. She wanted to see lines of people come to see her, to dance with her, to be hers.....she could have it all. The whole kingdom, the whole world. The guards who made her grovel at their feet, she could make eunuchs and forced to serve her, the man who took her mother and forced himself on her...she could find him?

The world could be hers, a million eyes to witness a new empire with her name carved in history.

Why would she want these things? She began to wonder. And suddenly she felt the ring around her neck burn. She clasped it with her hand, and suddenly realized alongside the walls, in the darkness there were eyes looking at her. Tens, hundreds, more? All of them focused on her, calling to her!

"What in the everchosens name is this? Who are you?" The curtain in front of her eyes parted for an instant. Just one solid instant, but would reveal not a man playing an instrument, but a creature brushing bone against sinew. The harp like instrument had chords of crimson coated strings, and a human figure fused to its base. The king was deceased, his body desecrated and fused to bronze metal with sinew chords used as daggers into his back. The creature looked toward her. It's eyeless face smiled.

Like a wind it came at her, not to harm her but embrace her. Almost like he, or it was trying to welcome her.

Rain screamed and fell, her hands clasping on a small dagger offered to her for protection. She pulled it from its scabbard and thrusted it as hard as she could upward.

The creature let it tear into him. It didn't scream or beg or cry. It still smiled.

"Oh Rain, can't you see that we're only here for you? There's no need for attacking us?" He held his arms wide, the dagger still in his chest.

Rain dived forward not meeting his gaze, he let her rush by him. She was going to get the hell out of here. Damn all of this, she thought to herself. Her panicked mind only paused long enough to look at the profane human instrument, the Kings necklace still there.

Could she grab it? She looked at the creature that suddenly appeared more human than before, but wrong in every normal sense. He remained unmoved and looked at her not in anger. The eyes in the edges of the room continued to observe her.

"Please don't leave us, we've been waiting so long." She wasn't going to stick around any longer, she couldn't. She rushed away nearly tearing the door off its handles as she opened it. Running down the hallway back the way she came she stopped only to throw up. The oil was everywhere, like rot. New smells and colors danced in the air, making things disorienting, and the sound of the music began again.

She became too weak to run and she slowed to a walk. Then her legs gave out from under her and she crawled. Panic took over all reasoning, as she feared she would be lost forever slowly crawling.

By some miracle, her hands found the door she believed was her entrance. She banged against it again and again until finally opening. The bright like piercing from it told her it was daylight. She thrashed with renewed vigor at the hands that dragged her through the doorway back to safety.

She uttered only nonsense as reason had dissolved. A tall man pulling her from the door and sealing it from behind .

She faded to blackness amid sounds of cursing and confusion.

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Some time later

When she awoke there were three things wrong. The first was the cold irons on her legs and hand keeping her chained to a wood bed. The second thing was a series of tattoos on her right arm, along with the alarming realization that her skin tone was a few shades darker than before. The last thing was she was no longer in the castle or monastery, she was chained back in the jailhouse from before.

She struggled pulling the chains, her arms stronger than they were before somehow. Her hair was also longer, at shoulder length. Some of her hair had grown white!

"What the hell has happened to me!" She demanded with her dry throat. She looked at the bars and found no one on the other side.

She wanted to scream but found her throat to coarse to make anything more than barely audible sounds.

Eventually a knight entered, a tall slender woman followed by Sir Olsen.

He looked at her with a new face, an alarming face.

There was a long pause Rain couldn't speak, tears poured down her face.

"I told you I owed you an explanation, should you survive..." he refused to look her in the eye, "but it appears I have nothing to explain." He then walked out of the room.

Rain couldn't believe what just happened, she tried to speak but couldn't find the words. Olsen had betrayed her?

Now it was the other Knights turn to speak, "you should have never left this cell, that mistake is corrected now." She spoke with a commanders voice, "you are found guilty of leaving the alienage without permission, thievery of the kings property, breaking into the holy monastery, and finally discourse with a vampire." Each word felt like a dagger against her.

"Those marks on your arm, your skin change, even your hair is all the evidence we need. You were absent for days! Days!" She elaborated, "you disregarded clear instructions, and failed to even accomplish your task...all you did was prove a waste of time and resources...and now your too dangerous to remain."

She looked at her in the eyes for a moment, "your punishment is death, however you can thank your previous advocate for that to be alleviated to banishment."

Rain tried to sit upward to at least show some sign of protest. She tried again to say something, anything only to cough in haggard pain. She failed to keep herself from crying.

"You will be sold to the conclave markets, I'm told you will probably be traded to the markets in kholon, but scepter hoping you will end up even further south. Regardless you will never see us again." She then marched out of the room. The sentence awaiting to be carried out.

Chapter end