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Once again, the orange light that had turned her surroundings golden only minutes before, had disappeared. Leaving her behind, swallowed in a darkness so deep, that it made her mind play tricks on her. Lidea understood that disallowing any candles within the prison was done on purpose. Yet another way of tormenting the criminals locked within its walls. The lack of distraction created a stage to be filled by whatever demons haunted a person. If she had learned something while being here, it was that no persecutor was as efficient as your own mind. She had long before lost the ability to sleep peacefully but the silent darkness seemed to only spur on her restless thoughts.
Flashes of memories kept passing her by, showing her the many battlefields she had stood on. The pain, the blood, the anger. She saw the men that had followed her.
Men that had become her friends as they had stood at her side during all these years. All of them were dead now. Some of them died while fighting, others had been executed when the royal army had finally concurred them. Now, she was the only one left and she could still hear their screams of agony. A familiar voice rang through the screams, asking her if she thought that everything had been worth it. It had been one of the last conversations that she had with old sir Rhodry. He had looked tired and fear had been etched into the lines of his face. Lidea could still remember her own defensive response. She had told him not to talk nonsense but to focus on the fights ahead. A cruel and dishonest answer to a question that had been shared by many among them, her being one. She had started her fight out of idealism. Believing that others would soon see her cause and join her. Only fourteen, she had been too young to thoroughly understand the implications of her actions. No help would come, as it had been a fight which had been doomed from the start. Her father’s men must have known, however they still decided to follow her lead and ended up paying the ultimate price for it. If she had known what she knew now, would she have chosen to do the same? Had she not better toed the line as her mother had wanted her to. If so, then maybe all of them would have lived.
A silvery light illuminated her cell, distracting her for a just a moment and breaking her depressive line of thought. She was surprised by its strength and imagined that it had to be a full moon or a phase near to it. It must have been cloudy the previous nights as she hadn’t noticed the light before. If it was a full moon, than she had been here for at least a month. Though she had counted the days at first, she had long but stopped after she had lost any hope of escaping. She had been foolishly convinced that an opportunity would arise soon enough. That her guards would slip up as time went by and when they did, she would escape. However, the more days passed, the more she understood that there would be no openings. The guards knew full well, that if she made her escape, the king would have their heads instead. She was too important a prisoner. An aristocrat that had dared to stand up against the royal line.
A person with the status and money to threaten a king, and a suitable candidate for commoners to rally behind. He had to make an example out of her. No wonder that she had to wait so long for her execution. The king probably wanted to turn it into a spectacle, showing the whole country and especially the nobles, what happens with someone that tries to challenge him. She wondered if any had been tempted to do so. Though she doubted that many of them cared about their kings morality, many must have desired the power and money becoming of his standing. He must have looked weak, as he got eluded for years by a noblewoman, or rather a young girl lacking any military experience. Thinking about it in this way, she was surprised that he hadn’t lost his position already, but then again she supposed that the church would make sure that their puppet would stay in place.306Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEfTRkFHHXZ
306Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoDm2JNoRNN
Her attention was drawn by a soft rhythmic sound. For a moment she wondered if she was imagining it, but the sound of footsteps became clearer as whoever was walking through the dungeon drew near. She closed her eyes, trying to catch any details. Food came once a day, at a random time when there was daylight, not now. For the rest, she never heard anyone. Not even other prisoners, so she assumed that they had kept her separated in a different hallway of the dungeon. This was the first time that the daily routine had been broken. It sounded like multiple people, she thought at least three. She recognized two pair of footsteps as those of the guards, their metal boots causing a distinctive clanking on the stone floor and the bundle of keys ringing with their every step. But she also thought to hear another pair, softer but becoming clearer as they neared her door. Someone wearing leather boots perhaps. Did she have a visitor? The only ones who would even be interested in her existence, would have been her mother or sister. Both of which had looked down on her, stone-faced, while she had been dragged in front of his majesty to receive her sentence. She doubted that they would show, the king would keep eyes on them, anticipating them to try anything. For any other nobles, it would almost be a death sentence to come and find her.
Intrigued she stood up, stretching her stiff limbs and wondering how long she had sat in the same position when she heard the lock at her door being opened.
“Time for confessions!”
The harsh voice of one of the guards almost scared her after being in complete silence for so long. The door swung open with such force that it hit the wall and she could see the two guards now. Both with a weapon in hand and their helmet closed, not giving her a chance to see their faces. It was to keep her from getting familiar with them, she guessed. Though she doubted that they would have given her any leeway anyway. Her eyes then fell on the man clothed in the drab brown colored robe so distinctive for priests of the pleberien faith. Annoyance filled her at the thought that she would have to spend her last precious hours talking to a deceitful charlatan of the church. She wanted to refuse but to her own surprise, she didn’t. If he was here to hear her confession, than she would die the next day. Equal parts relief and desperation whirled through her body. Relief that the wait would finally be over and desperation as it was now definitive. She would die tomorrow. Even though she hated the church and all it stood for, she couldn’t deny that she at least wanted to talk to someone for one last time. Even if it was with a brainwashed idiot.
One of the guards neared her and she automatically stepped back, leaning against the wall once more. The guard wanted to say something but a hand on his armbrace stopped him.
“No need to shackle her, dear sir. She won’t harm me.”
Something about the priests voice sounded odd to her, it was rough. More rough than she would expect of a priest, more like the voice of someone who is used to shout a lot. Like a sailor or knight. Almost as soon as the thought had formed, she dismissed it. She recognized that her desperation was making her grasp for straws.
Trying to find anything that would mean that she would survive. The man had a distinctive voice which could mean something, but probably was just a peculiarity.
“Your excellence, I cannot leave her unbound. It is for your protection. If we do not, than I insist that my colleague and I stay here while you talk with her.”
“I see. Though I do not like it, I do want her last confessions to be done properly under the eyes of God. I will let you bind her.”
“Thank you for your understanding, your excellence.”
Though the idea to be treated like a common criminal that would attack an innocent man, disturbed her, she understood that this was the normal procedure and held still while offering her hands to be shackled. There was no point to resist. His partner had his sword ready while guarding the door. Even if she miraculously escaped the two man in front of her in her weakened state, she wouldn’t get past the other guard.
“She is awfully quiet, maybe one of the rats has gotten to her tongue. I doubt she has anything useful to tell god anyway.”
The two guards laughed but the third man just dutifully bowed his head.
“Only god will be able to tell. Even if she does not confess anything, I and God with me, will keep her company for this short time.”
Lidea was almost touched by the idea that the priest would stay by her side to just offer her some condolence even though her stance on the church was well known.
Maybe she had become too judgmental. Even if she disliked the religion, it did not mean that all people who followed it were awful. She should have known better.
“My apologies, your excellence. We shall leave you for the confession. Please knock on the door whenever you are ready, we will not be far away.”
The guard looked her way and she could almost feel the warning glare, although she couldn’t see it through the visor of his helmet.
“Do not make us come here unnecessarily, treat his excellence with the honor that he deserves.”
Lidea nodded silently but the guard didn’t wait for her reply and left her cell, locking the door behind him. She listened carefully while the footsteps distanced themselves, noting how far away the guards went. Not that far it seemed, as she heard them stop after a couple of minutes. Her eyes returned to the figure in front of her. He seemed to be in his early thirties, with unremarkable brown hair that almost perfectly matched the robe. The robe was held together with a rope tied into two distinctive knots. She tried racking her brain what ranking of priest that made him, but her classes had been so long ago that she could not remember it. She did not expect him to stand very high, he was too young and they wouldn’t expose a man of high standing to a dangerous situation like the confession of a criminal. She did find his figure peculiar. The man was tall and seemed to have broad shoulders, as if he was used to hard labor. Again, a testament to her idea that he might have been a knight or sailor. However, his pudgy belly proved that he had been in the clergy for a while.
“Did you complete your inspection of me? You seem to be quiet a wary person.”
The man sat down on the dirty floor and she was again surprised. Most priests she had seen, would never have deemed to sit on a prison floor. She clumsily followed his example, trying not to lose her balance while getting her stiff limbs to move.
“So was the guard right when he said that you had lost your tongue, miss?”
Lidea frowned and tried to say something but had to scrape her throat before any sound would come: “Those damn bastards learned quickly to not get close to me.”
One of the priests eyebrows raised and she could see the corner of his mouth twitch.
“You shouldn’t swear miss, that is improper for a young lady like you, and the rats are also children of God. Just like all living things.”
She snorted and could swear that she saw amusement twinkle in his brown eyes. Though on a second look. They didn’t seem to really be brown, maybe more of a dark orange. She didn’t think that she ever had seen eyes that color before.
“Even if you are right, it still doesn’t mean that I should like the bloody things. And I don’t think that I will lose my cursing habit right before I die, do you?”
She noticed how his amusement turned into somberness while he nodded shortly.
“My apologies, I am here to hear your confession. Would there be anything that you want to tell god before you are brought to death?”
Lidea stayed quiet for a moment. Trying to string her thoughts together. She didn’t necessarily want to offend the man but probably couldn’t prevent that without being dishonest. Finally she shook her head.
“I never believed in the pleberien god. I won’t change my mind, now that I am on death’s door.”
The priest raised his eyebrows again, clearly hearing her hatred for his religion in the tone of her voice. She couldn’t help it, the mere thought of the church and their preaching’s made her blood boil. Even more than the king, it was the religion that had thrown their once prosperous country into despair. Through their lies they made their followers give them everything they had. But even worse, they had single handedly destroyed all magic in the country. Lynoës had once been a modern nation with high standing academies but after the church had deemed all those practices as ‘against the will of god’. Anyone accused of practicing magic had been hunted down and executed. Although Lidea might have been too young to remember the time without the religion, she did still remember going to a hospital once, where healers used both magic and technology, to save people’s lives. Many of these healers had later been brought to justice by the King. Condemned for blasphemy. It was a memory that had always stood out to her, for how unjust the teachings could be.
“Do you not believe that God will save you if you redeem yourself, miss?”
It only took a moment before Lidea failed to keep her composure. She soon busted out in laughter but her laughter stopped as soon as it had come.
“No one can save me now Priest, especially not that imaginary being that your kind worships.”
She expected him to find offense at her words but he merely nodded thoughtfully.
“I see that the rumors are true. People say that you were born fearless. You led a group of men to their death, trying to defy not only your king but also the one true faith of this country. Yet, you seem to not have any guilt over this. Most men in your position would be on their knees, atoning for their sins. Hoping that either king or god would give them merci. Tell me miss, are you just stubborn or foolish.”
Once again the faces of her comrades appeared in her mind. Asking her repeatedly if it all had been worth it. She had felt regret during the first couple weeks of her imprisonment, wrought with guilt over their death. But as time passed by, her tears had dried up and her guilt turned to a deep simmering anger. Anger at the world around her. Her family that had abandoned her and her father, the nobles that had been all too willing to turn a blind eye to what had been going on in the country, the church and even the citizens who had given power to such a corrupted institution.
Though also that didn’t last, as soon all emotions dulled and left her with strange sort of clarity. No she did not regret her actions, only the outcome.
“Maybe I am both. I fought for what was right. For this country and all of its citizens.
This includes those that are born of magic, and those who want to dedicate their life to understanding and developing our world. These people are as inherently bad, as any of us. I regret, the lives that were lost but I couldn’t just close my eyes to the injustice of it all. You should ask yourself how so many other people can.”
Lidea stared into the strangers eyes. Daring him to try and convince her otherwise, meanwhile wondering why she had ever thought that she would prefer this priest’s company over her own. Her eyes shifted to the door. Suddenly feeling exhausted and wanting nothing more than for this conversation to end.
“Those are pretty words, but I can’t help but ask myself if they are your own. Your father was also a foolish man, wasn’t he? I heard he got hanged for it.”
Fury boiled under her skin and she stood up faster than she should have been able to in her state. Her hand caught air as she grasped at her hip for her absent sword.
“Don’t you dare speak bad about my father and don’t you dare question my own damn words!”
The priest hadn’t tried to move, sitting at the same spot as if she hadn’t wanted to kill him. Staring into her eyes, he seemed to be searching for something. Lidea was hit with the odd feeling that she was being toyed with. Now that he had dropped the flowery speech, she was convinced that her first instinct had been right. This man wasn’t who he said he was. Before either of them could respond, footsteps rapidly approached the door.
“Your excellence is everything alright?”
The priest, or person pretending to be a priest, threw her an annoyed glare before answering the guard in a nonchalant way.
“Everything is alright, talking to god brings out many emotions.”
Lidea’s eyes narrowed at the man as he could barely hide the mocking tone in his words. Clearly he was no man of faith. Her eyes flitted to the door, praying that the guard hadn’t picked up on his ridicule. Now that he turned out to be more than what he appeared to be, she wasn’t as ready to see him leave yet.
“Your excellence, I implore you to tell us if she is acting up. I admire your loyalty to your duty, but she is a heretic and doesn’t deserve your time.”
The bundle of keys rang as the guard attempted to open the door.
“Everything is fine, guard. Go back to your post, I will call when the confession is over.”
The noise at the door halted, the guardsman as surprised at the sudden strength in the strangers voice, as her. A shiver ran through her body and a strange tension seemed to fill the air. It seemed to keep on building until it was broken by the guards apologetic mumbling.
“Of course your excellency.. my apologies your excellency, I meant no disrespect..”
“I understand, go now.”
Seeing him at that moment, she could not understand how anyone had believed him to be a man of the church. His demeanor reminding her of the more seasoned soldiers that had accompanied her to battle. The guard seemed to have finally understood the message as he hurried back to where he came from.
“Now, I was told you were a smart woman, so sit down and lower your voice. Unless you want those annoying flies to come back and interrupt our lovely conversation.”
“You act as if you weren’t the one to provoke me.”
She couldn’t help the retort as she lowered herself to the ground once again. The corners of his mouth twitched and she could see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. His enjoyment only fueled her annoyance at his demeanor.
“I did, but I hadn’t expected you to start such a commotion. Though I am happy to see, that you aren’t as devoid of feelings as the rumors would let you believe.”
Lidea decided to let the comment slide, not wanting to waste time on bickering any more than they already had. No matter how she wrecked her brain, she couldn’t see how anyone could gain from a meeting with her.
“Why are you here?”
“Interesting, you don’t want to know who I am first?”
She looked at him once again analyzing the clues she had gathered so far.
“Presumably a soldier. You seem to have an accent, so I can deduct that you might be a spy working for foreign interests. Although, I don’t see any potential invaders in our neighboring countries at the moment. I didn’t ask, because I assumed you wouldn’t tell me anyway. Would you?”
“Interesting theory, and no I wouldn’t.”
Irritation made her want to hit him in the head and she breathed in slowly to keep her calm.
“Then let’s go back to my original question. Why are you here? You have been carefully listening to all the stories about me, therefore I assume your interest lies with me.”
Finally his smug expression turned serious as he seemed to consider something before answering her.
“Information.”
The answer didn’t surprise Lidea. It was the only thing that she had come up with as well. However, it still didn’t stop her from being surprised at his stupidity.
“What information do you think to gain from someone who spend her whole teenage years on the battlefield and is now on death’s row? You can’t possibly think that I’m in touch with the happenings at court.”
“I am not interested in what happens in the palace. If I was, I would have some spies pose as servants, a far easier feat than infiltrating a prison.”
“Do you want to know about how to fight against the kings army? If you hadn’t noticed, I lost.”
“Did you?”
“Would I be here, if I hadn’t?”
“There is more than one way to win or lose a fight. You might have lost physically, but your message didn’t go unheard. The king must have been in quite a predicament. Needing to execute you as to not look weak, while knowing that your death would lance you into martyrdom.”
“I think you might be mistaken. As you said yourself, most just see me and my actions as foolish.”
“Certainly, almost all do. But then again, being noble isn’t a smart way to live, but it is inspirational. I wouldn’t be surprised if most nobles agreed with many of the things you said and feel like cowards for not acting like you. For citizens, you are a symbol of how nobility should behave. It would have been so easy for you to just live your life in luxury but instead you decided to fight. Many might not agree with you, but everyone can agree that you are honest and admirable.”
Lidea had stilled, not knowing how to react to his words. She had never cared for others opinions much, she had just been too occupied with keeping herself and her men alive. Even if she had decided not to regret her actions, she found condolence in the idea that they hadn’t been pointless. Maybe their actions would inspire changes after her death.
“Besides, you might have lost but that you held out as long as you did was a miracle all in itself.”
“It was mostly my fathers army, not me. I was just a child, but they kept me alive.”
“Maybe at first. Although they must have seen something in you, to even try and protect you. Most soldiers wouldn’t have gone against a royal order to protect a child that made an unwise decision. That is, unless they felt that that child was right and deserved their protection. The day that they swore loyalty to your cause, was the day they decided to fight a futile battle just because it was the right thing to do. I wonder what it was that you did to inspire them.”
Tears pooled in the corner of her eyes while she tried to keep it together, not wanting to show this stranger her weakness. She knew what had inspired them, as it was what had inspired herself. Her father had been a great man, loyal, strong and fierce.
He had climbed up the ladder of the nobility based on raw talent. Born as a poor barons son, he should have lived an invisible existence. This changed when he was send to the royal army, as was custom for all nobility in Lynoës. He was more talented than his peers and soon was offered a position in the crown prince’s personal guard. The men had grown close to each other and when the crown prince ascended the throne, her father had been considered his closest friend.
She had admired him, had wanted to be like him. To the point that she even picked up sword fighting, although it wasn’t a skill for ladies to learn. To her mother’s begrudgement, her father had not only allowed it but chosen to teach her personally.
It was hard for her to remember the man he was. Every time, she tried, her thoughts would go back to that last moment that they had shared. She had stood all alone between commoners on the Great Market. Her mother and sister refusing to come, as they had already distanced themselves from him and had sworn off his actions.
Basically stating, that her father was nothing more than a traitor, a criminal. She had watched how he was dragged onto a wooden platform raised above the crowd. He had looked malnourished and had been covered in wounds, but still he had managed to held his head high. Their eyes had met when the noose was placed around his neck. His gaze had filled with horror and even without words, she knew that he wanted her to go away but she had stood her ground. Even as young as she was, she wanted him to not be alone. To know that at least someone stood by him until the very last moment. She watched how he was hanged, as a petty thief, a nobody. Her body had been filled with loss and anger, and she had stood there long after the crowd had dissipated, watching his lifeless body. It had been Rhodry and his son Gideon, who had come to get her.
“You must have loved your father a lot.”
She looked up at the stranger. Clearly he had understood, even if she hadn’t said her words out loud. Pushing her memories away, she rasped her throat before regrouping herself.
“Enough of this. Be direct, what information do you need of me.”
“You have already given me the answers I needed. Lady Lidea, I am sorry for what has happened to you. If it can give you some solace, I do not believe that your ladyship was wrong.”
The change to a more formal speech, tuned her in that he had decided their talk to be over. Although his actions still mystified her, she found herself to be too exhausted to try and pry more information from him. For whatever reason he had wanted to talk to her, it would be of little concern soon anyway.
“Thank you, for your company and good luck to whatever you have planned to do.”306Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO8DOsjj3tK
As he stood up and patted off the filth from his robe, he glanced back at her.
“You were good company to me as well. Try to sleep the remaining hours and eat well. You will need it. Don’t forget, God will save the innocents.”
Her eyebrows furrowed but before she could respond, he had knocked on the door and she could hear the guards approach. He beamed her a last grin before leaving her once again on her own. She stared at the door for a long time, trying to suppress the little bit of hope that he had kindled in her mind. She couldn’t imagine how he would get her out of this situation, but if an opportunity would arise, then she would be ready.
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