Elder Lady Sillavana began to paint a picture for Liesa. “It was a time way back when elves and humans actually coexisted with each other. Hundreds, even thousands of years ago,” she said, “Both elf and mankind had their differences, but neither squabbled as badly as they do today. The lands were lush and fertile; the air smelled clean, not reeking of death; and the seas did not have corpses strewn floating along the surface left to rot and spoil the waters and ocean life. Iagellon was a peaceful continent where elves, humans, and dwarves thrived and more often than not strived, but they did it together.”
Liesa could not believe what she was hearing. All Liesa had known her whole life was war and how to always be extra wary of her surroundings and the people around her. To think of when there was no such fighting, Liesa had figured it was long before even Respen was born, being the elderly elf that he was. And Sillavana explained all this as though she had lived through such an era of harmony and prosperity herself.
“But nothing that good lasts forever. Not even for a little while,” she continued, “All because of what happened that night…that cursed ritual.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liesa asked.
“I tried so very hard to keep this from you, seeing as you’re the first and only one to be immune in centuries. I didn’t want you to know. I was ashamed of it. But I guess there’s no point in hiding anymore,” Sillavana said.
“Wait, do you hear this voice, then?” Liesa wasn’t sure if she was going to like the answer, but she had to ask anyway. “A voice telling you to kill all humans? Because I’ve never heard of such a thing until today. Please, tell me the truth.”
Sillavana breathed a sigh of regret. “You see, the voice you speak of, there was a time when it did not exist. It started about thirteen thousand years ago with an elven prince who lost his parents to human mercenaries. That prince grew up to become a vicious tyrant with a deep hatred for all humankind. You’d think that time heals all wounds, but I guess he didn’t believe in that philosophy,” she took another breath as though her lungs were running out of oxygen, “Because he soon gathered seven wicked sorceresses from across elven territory and ordered them to cast a spell on all other elves in order to make them think the same way he did about humans. That they are merciless and cruel and need to die. This spell was then passed down from parent to child, grandchild, even great-grandchild of each elf in the continent. That is why the elves declared war on the humans.”
Liesa was baffled. “Oh come on, that’s stupid. There’s no way that could happen.”
“My dear, haven’t you felt it too?” Sillavana grabbed Liesa’s hands in hers and lifted them to her chest. “An aura that doesn’t belong to others but rather one in particular with a strong resentment towards something too large for them to face alone?”
Liesa remembered how she’d sensed the immense bloodlust from the platoon of winter elf soldiers. Their colors were all wrong—black, red and purple—as though they were not in control of their own ideals. “You mean…the aura controls them?” she asked.
“The spell was a small brainwashing, but elves still have some extent of free will. It mainly comes out strongest whenever an elf is near a human.” Sillavana explained.
“Okay, okay, but if all that is true, how do you know about it? And, more importantly, are you effected by it as well?” Liesa demanded to know.
Sillavana replied, “Because I was one of the sorceresses who cast the spell. But I left that life a long time ago in order to raise my son. And for you, as well. I have learned to resist the urge, but I am uncertain about whatever happened to the other six.”
Liesa still wasn’t convinced of all this. “Well, it’s just so much to swallow. Pretty unbelievable, if you ask me. Do you have any proof to back any of this up?”
“I do, unfortunately,” Sillavana reached her left hand into her shirt through the head hole, while still holding Liesa’s hands in her right hand, and pulled out an amulet that was hung on a golden necklace chain around her neck.
As soon as it was out in the open, Liesa could feel an immense amount of magical power flowing within the amulet. Sillavana removed the necklace from around her neck and plopped it into Liesa’s hands. The sheer force of it being in her hand was overwhelming with pure hatred and malice. All the feelings mustered and collected from one’s negative emotions and propelled into a wavelength that spread across the landscape. Liesa felt all the anger within it. All the frustration. The sadness. The madness. And, of course, the insatiable murderous intent. It came in not just one voice but many, some speaking in unison while others were out of sync.
“Why did they have to die?!”
“I will never forgive you!”
“They are all going to pay!”
“How could they have done this?!”
“Please don’t leave me!”
“Mommy! Daddy!”
“I won’t rest until they are all wiped out!”
“Kill them…kill them…KILL THEM ALL!”
It became too much for Liesa to bear and she dropped the amulet on the floor. She stood up from her seat and stared down at the amulet in shock. “Oh, good lord…” was all Liesa could say for a long while.
Sillavana, now with a patched up finger, leaned forward and picked up the amulet before saying, “This is merely one among seven amulets of its own kind that were used in that ritual. They are the tipping point of this whole war’s beginning.” Then she stood up from her chair and tried to reach one hand out to Liesa, but Liesa stepped back. This happened again and again before Sillavana tried to reassure the cursed winter elf girl that she shouldn’t fear her.
“How am I supposed to not be afraid of you after you’ve been lying to me my whole life?!” Liesa cried. “And it’s not just me: you’ve been lying to all of elfkind!”
“Believe me, I wished I could’ve hid all this from you…” Sillavana pleaded.
“Well maybe instead of hiding all this, you could swallow your pride and admit the truth to everyone so they can stop this war?!”
“It’s not that simple, my dear!”
“Don’t touch me! Stop calling me that! You don’t have the right to talk to me anymore; don’t even be near me anymore!”
Liesa then stormed off making a B-line for the hallway to check on the human knight still in her bedroom. Sillavana didn’t follow her, devastated and guilty by her own past actions and how they were effecting her present.
When Liesa reentered her room, she found the human knight fast asleep again in her bed, having eaten every last crumb of food he’d been given on the tray that was now licked clean. He was snoring peacefully, and Liesa figured he must’ve been just as exhausted for wandering the snowy woods for only the Gods know how long.
Still, she was in a rage and struggled to contain herself from throwing things around. She had to let out her anger and frustration somehow, so she impulsively kicked the wall to her right. It turned out to be a mistake as a searing pain emerged in her toes where she’d kicked the wall, and she began hopping around while clutching her foot until she lost balance and fell sideways into the opposite wall. She leaned her back against this wall and slid downward until her bottom hit the floor, and then she just sat there.
She sat and was thinking of how to process this new information. What she should do next. Where to go from here. She hugged her knees and buried her face in her lap.
This was the only home she’d ever known. Leaving didn’t feel right, especially since she hadn’t repaid her life debt to Sillavana and Respen for taking her in and saving her from an early death.
They’re too old and frail for me to just up and leave them, Liesa thought inside her mind. There’d be no one to help them the way I do. Not to mention, if I did leave, I’d be truly alone.
Being alone terrified her more than anything. Her spine shuddered and her whole body trembled at the thought of it. It made her recall memories of torment and abandonment from when she was a little girl, around three or four years old, and still with her birth family.
Due to her curse of Death’s Kiss, they treated her like a monster that needed to be chained up and locked away—and that was exactly what they did. Locked in a closet, heavy metal chains around her neck and ankles, getting only one moldy bread roll or scraps of leftovers every other day or so (not that she could ever keep track of time in that dark small space). With only her thoughts to keep her company, she begged to know why her own family didn’t love her.
This lasted months before she was finally found—half-starved and acutely sensitive to the light—by Sillavana who welcomed her with open arms and ended her suffering at the hands of her parents and older siblings.
Liesa owed them her entire life, this much she knew. She was most likely not going to outlive them anyway. She remembered how she fell asleep in Sillavana’s arms as the elderly woman elf carried her out of the house, out of town, and into the snowy woods that had become her one true home. The cold nipped at her skin as she was wearing nothing but rags for clothes, and her tiny body at the time shivered uncontrollably. But Sillavana held her close, her body warmth eventually spreading to Liesa’s core, even as the flurries began to fall. It was the first time in her life she had known what genuine kindness was.
Sometime while thinking of all this, Liesa’s eyelids were feeling heavy and drooped closed. She didn’t even realize she was dreaming of her own memories, some of them longing to be forgotten.
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and then Add to home screen.