‘I see ambition fast overcoming clarity. Rest your heavy mind and allow one of real strength to weave this web. Our general seems to be weakening, just as I have thought all along,’ said Kobin, and with those words, both men fell silent, watching the general speak.
Chapter Eight
We fall.
January 15, 997 R.E.
They were gone.
Jaden stood facing the trees outside of the cave, shaking a little. There was a slight chill from a mild breeze in the mountains, cooled by the icy kiss of a light drizzle that fell in waves across the land. Water droplets trickled over and splashed onto the leaves in front of him, delicately passing down a complicated weave to meet the dark rocks far below. He watched each drop pass, unmoving, but saw none.
They were gone.
Thunder rolled out over the heavens, a deep, resonating tone far in the distance, reminding him that he was still alive, still flesh and blood. He had survived, somehow. The attack should have meant his death. He should have died then, with his people, with the ones he loved. He should not have been standing here now, alone, a failed shell of what could have been.
A tear made its way down his cheek, his mother’s face returning through memory. They had no idea of the beauty they had destroyed, the innocence they had ruined. She had been the perfect mother; kind, loving to all. She had never harmed anyone. She did not deserve such a horrific end. How could they have done this to her? How could it have happened?
The last moments before his home disappeared played out in his mind. He had failed her, just as he had failed his family and friends. They were gone … all of them. Gone.
The thought repeated over and over, as if only to entrench itself deeper within his mind each time, cutting through the last threads of his sanity and sending sharp pains slicing into his stomach and chest. Never again would he look upon their faces, hear their laughter or feel them near. Never again would he know the comfort of his mother’s smile, or the pride he felt as he helped his little brother through the pains of childhood he knew only too well. They were gone, never to return, leaving his world at an abrupt end.
He should not have survived, he cursed angrily at himself. He should have died while trying to save them.
His eyes fell, closing as he bowed to the trees, bare feet inching closer to the ledge. It should never have happened—the attack, the loss of innocent life, his survival—none of it. All should have been as it was; a peaceful village going about its days free of any troubles that may have plagued the world around it, and he still in bed, sleeping soundly before waking to the loving warmth of his mother’s and siblings’ morning greetings. He had forgotten how much he had enjoyed it, so lost had he been in the troubles of the invisible hell that had closed upon him. It pained him to think about it, how life had changed so dramatically in the space of hours. It almost seemed to taunt him, that it all could have been avoided so easily. In a few hours, they could have escaped. They would have lost their home, but they would have had each other still and found new land elsewhere, away from the wars. It could have been so different.
He winced. He knew he could not bring his home back, nor could he return his family to life. He could do nothing, nothing but take a single step forward—embracing the only justice he could bring to an otherwise senseless crime. His village was in ruin. His life had already been taken away from him. There was nothing left to lose. All would be forgotten beyond the edge before him.
One step. That’s all it would take to make the pain go away. One step and he would be reunited with his family. One step and he would never need to endure such loss again.
His left foot rose to move forward, moments of his life passing before his eyes. It would all be over soon. He would know the peace that only nothingness could bring.
He paused, holding off the dark of oblivion as a western wind caught his attention, the rain and hair brushed from his face by its gentle caress. He opened his eyes to look in the direction it had come from. It had frightened him. It didn’t feel right. There had been a voice in that breeze, calling him, asking him questions he did not understand. No words had been spoken, not a single phrase uttered, but it had called to him, somehow.
He blinked. In the gap between the trees, there was nothing, only his imagination playing tricks in the emptiness—strange silhouettes in the early light of dawn against gray clouds, no more. His left foot touched ground, what was beyond the edge suddenly forgotten.
He shook his head as he found himself trying to change the past again. It didn’t matter anymore. They were gone. All that they had built was lost, and all that they had dreamed was now an endangered memory. After him, the spirit of Callibra would be extinct. The military force had been victorious over the Callibrai, and soon they would have defeated the Daiyus family. He, too, would now perish, because of his father’s failure to bring the protection he sought.