own blood. I owned every soul whose essence was symbolised as a silver leaf on that tree. A soul that became infected, turning back to its original state of a mindless, bloodthirsty being. This was as the infection grew up its roots, like veins pumping deadly blood back to the heart. Soon it would reach me, its source of new life and that would be the end of my people.
But of course, I knew this already, even without seeing the tree and without once more finding myself in the Temple in which my vessel took its last breath as a mortal man. Our memories merging from beginning to end and finally a rebirth that I now knew Amelia had witnessed as if she had been there herself.
This was why she now believed that she had the power to stop what I had started decades ago. A chain of events that at the time was necessary in preventing the end of all life, not just that of my own and those connected to it. A cruel twist of fate that now brought us to a new threat and one that I had no intention of letting Amelia become entangled with, just like her mother had the first time. Now all I had to do was convince her of that fact before I had no choice but to imprison my Chosen One in the depths of Castle Blutfelsen. But then again, she would no doubt find a way out of Blood Rock, for she had seemingly made a skill out of getting herself both into trouble and out of it again. However, this time her guilt was once again evident as she hung her head and confessed,
“I am so sorry, Lucius, I hope one day you will forgive me.”
One day perhaps but today…fuck no! Which was precisely why I let loose a string of lies, just by the Gods be damned praying that they were strong enough to stick and stop her in the midst of this insanity,
“NO! No…no I will not! Do you hear me, Amelia! If you do this, I will never fucking forgive you!” I watched as the entirety of her body tensed as if my words had the power to freeze every cell within the vessel of my troublesome mortal angel. This was when I knew my words had at the very least some power left and as I opened my mouth to say more, she got there first, dousing that hope in ice.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she looked up at the tree and it was like receiving a double edged blade in my gut as it also sounded like a premature apology for what she could sense as being her failure. Gods, but why did she feel so responsible for my kind? Was it because of her mother? Had discovering the truth from the Keepers of what really happened that day now managed to warp her good sense of preservation…if she ever had any to begin with!
Fuck, but if she actually did the insane thing and walked through that portal then I would be fucking beyond furious with her! Something that was looking more likely by the second as I followed her gaze and saw that now she was looking directly at what was easily seen as the most important soul to me on there…
The crimson rose of my Chosen One.
The soul I had stolen that day and had bloomed into a beautiful flower, doing so even when I had denied the existence of what it had truly meant to me, for I had known better the moment it had happened. I had known what fate had in store for me and despite being determined to run from it, I knew that one day the inevitable would catch up with me. Because to deny what she meant to me was not only to deny my own heart, but to deny the other part of my soul she had unknowingly infused herself with that day. And now she wanted to tear that side of herself from me, for how could she ever hope to survive Hell alone?
I held my breath, as for a single moment she seemed unsure, a hesitation I was desperate to see grow but then in the next heartbeat that damn flicker of hope was ripped from me when a single leaf fell and fluttered to ash. This becoming the only reminder she needed to solidify what she believed was her mission, hardening her