Third person’s POV
The blasting of the cannons, the yells and screams of bleeding hearts full of strong desire to grasp justice and stability, are all gone. The field that had once grown vast seas of dandelions now was covered in crimson blood.
Cruelty, deceit, and wondrous bloodshed. Killing and rivalry had never left the world.
His eyes were like raging seas, his every step closer and nearer to where the subject is was like thunder meeting the ground. The fire had been ignited and there was no turning back.
“We met again,” he spoke.
Amidst the dark skies with only the shine of the lone moon, there spark two of the sharpest blades throughout the entire weapons on the battlefield. The clash of rivals, of luna’s warrior and apollo’s defender.
“Shall we now end our long-time dispute, Alfarro?” proudly asked the other man wearing the golden sun crest on his chest. The emblem of Pinansey-angan.
“I would gladly hear it from you, Contejo.”
A swift move from the blue-eyed man caused another clashing of their blades. His leg quickly bent and slashed a move towards Vander’s balance. However, counting the same level they possess, the prince quickly dodged the move and leap off, trying to stab Diego from behind.
“Aha! Missed!” mocks the blue-eyed man laughing sarcastically and gashes the sword four times rapidly and with no pausing.
Causing the prince to counter defend and had no choice to step back the further his opponent’s sword challenges him.
“Don’t be so full!” replies Vander with a wide grin on his face and briskly grabbed a spear from one of the dead soldiers on the ground.
Holding both a sharp sword and a pointed spear, he boosts off his ability and retorted the attack twice powerful and posthaste. Retaliating an attack with the spear, he darted the thing directly and aimed perfectly that Diego almost hadn’t dodged.
The pike went past through his face, leaving a long cut on his cheeks just below his left eye.
His teeth gnashed and his fists balled as the sword on his hand fell off his grip. Of a sudden, the moon’s light weakens covered by the clouds. Leaving him no choice but to shift urgently, letting his wolf take control.
Filling the air, a loud growl loaded with preserved blazing antipathy and repayment for the past. Rearing at the center of the battlefield, was an ash silver wolf. Fearlessly facing his decade-long enemy, the vampire nemesis of their history.
The cold zephyr blew, and the warm breath he was hauling became visible as he steps furthermore.
Still, Vander remained standing. Bold and with no sign of fear to be reflected on his face. His eyes flashed red and the sword on his hand ignited with blue flames as the environment around them changed and perhaps it was from Vander’s ability of illusions.
“It would be nice if I were to end you here. Do you still remember where we are?” he taunts as the sound of crickets occupied.
Even if Diego won’t look around, he knew where it was. He will never forget what happened in this place. The ancient Gariliea temple.
“If I haven’t killed her here for the third time, then it has to be you this time.” Vander’s scornful grin hadn’t left his lips as he grip the weapon in his hand tighter and blazed the blue flame even more. “Welcome to death valley, Alfarro!”
The moon’s light again showed up to his brightest, synchronous to the clashing of strength and force. Invading the air, both leaped in attack and struck each other’s weaknesses… the beating and the dead one.
“So do you, Contejo,” gritted Diego and drive the venomous sword to Vander’s cold heart.
The prince’s eyes widened in shock, but his opponents’ didn’t show a single emotion of being surprised nor stunned like he knew this was going to happen. That he will also be dragged into the pits of the dead in order to end this man’s life.
The man who caused their periodic pain.
As he watched Vander slowly burn into ashes and drift onto the wind, a victory smile occupied his lips in a couple of minutes before he got away and stare at the sword already buried in his chest. So deep that it will only be a few inches close to the ground past him where he’s now lying down weak and frail.
“There’s still a thing preventing you from crossing to the afterlife,” speaks a lady in a black cloak who suddenly appeared. She stands afore with a lantern of blue flame in her hands, her hair was long and burgundy. Whilst her face was unclear of the hood and limited light surrounding her. “Tell me what is it.”
That same woman before.
The latter he realized who she really is. She’s not the moon goddess but the moon itself who holds the responsibility of taking souls to the other side.
“C-Can I be with them? Even i-if it’s just a day?” he answered hardly uttering a word but there still a sweet smile paints on his face.
This time, the mysterious lady lifted her head and directed her eyes on the sword buried deeply on his chest. Her eyes shut in suddenly and sat down on the ground, leaning on the same tree where Diego rests.
“Why don’t you tell her the truth?” the lady sighed. “Even if I let you be with them for a week, I doubt she’ll just waste those days kicking you away.”
Diego raised his head with his eyes closed, “It’s much better this way.”
“What’s better?” she laughed. “You dying while her senseless anger still attached to you?”
“I want her to live the rest of her life knowing nothing about that trade,” he chuckled.
“Are you sure?”
The man nodded with his eyes still closed. Recalling the scenario that time. The moment when she chose to lie just to save that remaining time ticking between him and her.
“Diego, you have to know something,” Dieviry Edith called his attention when he was about to leave the conference room.
Everything was a problem at that time. The people revolting, shortage of battle gears due to the current blast of war in the frontier, and most critically… His mate. Adira’s life was again at pit of fire, starting from the moment she alleged war against the most significant person from her past.
Diego stopped and get back to his chair, his eyes unhesitatingly gazed straightly at his sister. “What is it?”
“S-She… Adira is expecting. And it’s yours undeniably.”
Hearing that, his entire world seems to have stopped. Series of unimaginable joy invaded his entire system that he quickly stood up and reached for the door’s knob. However, he then stopped the second his sister again spoke.
“Her child… is of a werewolf descent getting only a quarter of a vampire’s. The Contejo family has always been searching for hybrids, believing it will give them a stronger and greater power. Thus it is what I believe is the main reason for them clasping hard on the Senate’s control.” Edith lifted her head and struck an anxious look at his brother. “I’m afraid this is what they’re planning from the beginning. Letting you and Adira conceive a child.”
Edith’s face turned down and emotionless. “And I hate to say this but I had a vision.” From her eyes, a tear escaped as she uttered the words already formulated on her head. “And my brother was there. Bleeding to death. I prayed a couple of times, wishing it was only a dream but it appeared to me again the fifth time from the moment I discovered your child.”
Diego’s head gradually bent, his gaze falling down the cold ground as a bitter smile formed on his lips. “Then perhaps the time remaining was already counted. Does it mean… there’s only a little time left for us?”
Evoking what really is the condition he had agreed with the Moon. That it was not only her memories to be erased, but also losing some of his years in return for bringing her back to life. And it was a bitter sweet demand.
Out of a sudden, a warm hand wrapped around his. And a crying sound filled the empty room. “I want to hate her. I want to blame her. I witnessed how you endured those pains just because of this. Just because of loving someone… whom I don’t know if it’s love in the wrong time. Or, it’s a love for the wrong person.”
“Neither of the two, I don’t regret anything.”
*****
“Abort the child.”
Those three words emanated out of his mouth, keeping the pain and anger towards himself. Repeatedly cursing for his own words in his head, words he really didn’t mean.
A strain of disbelief and shock flashed across Adira’s eyes which tripled the daggers throbbing his heart at the moment. He wanted to back out, he wanted to give up… but he knew he couldn’t. That if he won’t drive her away, there’s a possibility that she would again end up at the same fate.
Losing her life at an unreasonable cost.
She looked down and found the tiny baby bump unconcealed. The concealing fluid earlier was only an imitation of the real one. “I don’t care if you have no plans accepting him. Neither will I ask you another ‘why’,” Adira resisted.
He wanted to answer her. And tell how happy he is seeing there was an angel conceived out of their love. But if he does, he might again lose her… them.
So the answers he wanted to say stayed only inside his head.
‘I do have plans accepting him. There’s a lot… if only—’
Adira forcibly removed his hands off and again met his eyes full of disgust and hatred, “My child will be out of your reach if that’s what you want. For if you fear the Senate and the Council destroying Abberant just because of your own blood running within my child, I’ll be glad to say you don’t have to worry. Because I will have all the consequences bound to his existence.”
‘I do not fear neither of the two. It was you that I fear.’
“You don’t understand me, I see,” he uttered, shaking his head sideways. “You may have recalled the past, Larina. But not my side.”
“I am not her, Alfarro. Her pathetic weakness and uselessness are out of what I am now.”
The distance between them decreased that his hands were now on my shoulders. “You can never deny who you are. You can never deny that same mistake we’re again committing—”
She gnashed my teeth and grabbed his hand pushing him away from her. “Your mistake, Alfarro. It was your mistake.”
‘Was it a mistake trading my extra years for you to live?’
“You did not fight back. Am I right? And that is the mistake of the past that I see. Yet, that is fine with me even if it feels like it’s half unfair on my side.”
‘For now, it is. But I hope you could understand soon, Darling.’
“Now that I am able to fight for what we have. Given that we could now defend ourselves… It seems that you still want to do the same mistake of running away.”
‘I will defend you until the end. I’ll settle the score before I go.’
She stretched out her arms to his neck and gently dragged him closer. “If you don’t want to fight for me, then maybe it is the time for you to let me go. I myself will save my life from this repeated fate. And if I survived, do me a favor… do not ever show yourself again.”
“I will,” Diego answered, cupping his mate’s face with his hands. “I will let you go. Only if you promised me not to lead an army against them.”
‘Because it is my obligation to do so.’
“Why?”
And he responded with the thing he loved to do before departing. Before leaving him… completely. His lips claimed hers as he closed his eyes and then spoke words from his heart. “Because you are a walking gameplay, Adira. Giving me two choices and now three.”