AURELİA: The Sealed Soul

The wind that drifted through the high, arched windows of the palace carried no coolness; it brought only the heat of a fresh loaf of bread and the throat-burning scent of dust. For weeks, the sky had been neither blue nor truly dark; it had taken on the color of an animal dying under the sun, shrouded in a hazy, feverish crimson. King Varian sat upon the massive throne inherited from his father, its back carved with intricate designs resembling dragon wings. He buried his fingers into the hard ebony wood. He was only twenty-one, but the light in his eyes was as dim and fixed as that of a commander who had survived thirty years of war. Two years ago, when his father, the Emperor, had been brought to the palace on his shield—carried upon the shoulders of soldiers who shouted in victory yet wept in mourning—Varian had realized he had to win the true war behind that glorious triumph: the war for survival. For he was not a prince born in the silk sheets of the palace, carrying pure noble blood in his veins. He was the son of a concubine, a slave who had spent her life amidst the kitchen smoke and dampness of the palace cellars. He was the cursed gift of that one night he had been summoned to his father’s bed. Throughout his childhood, he had heard the whispers of the nobles and the "bastard" taunts thrown at his back in dark corridors, feeding on nothing but hatred. Now, those same dukes, counts, and generals who once looked down on him were forced to kneel at his feet. Yet, even as they knelt, the wicked, insidious anticipation in their eyes never faded. Especially in the eyes of his cousin, Darian. "My Gracious King," stepped forward Count Lysander, one of the Council’s senior nobles. The respect in his voice was as artificial as the heavy velvet cloak draped over his shoulders. "The southern granaries are completely empty. The people are boiling the bones of dead animals in the streets. The wells have dried up; there is only mud in the riverbeds. After your father’s blessed reign, for the kingdom to suffer such wrath... it is causing some ominous whispers to spread among the people." Varian did not loosen his grip on the armrest of the throne. "Ominous whispers, Lysander? Or the whispers of the wine spilled at your palace banquets?" An icy silence descended upon the hall. His cousin Darian, standing just to the right of the throne’s steps, watched Varian with that irritating, lopsided smile on his lips. Darian was a purebred noble; his hair, his neck, his posture... he was the perfect figure the nobles longed to see on the throne. Had his father not died in war, Varian would have had to ignite a civil war to seize this seat. But now, the drought was his greatest enemy. "The people are desperate, cousin," Darian said, deliberately softening his tone as if he were an angel concerned for everyone’s well-being. "In my father’s time—the old Emperor’s time—the rains fell in their season. The land was generous. Now... the sky has turned its back on us. People are whispering that your blood is not fit for this sacred throne. You can silence them with fear, yes. But you cannot feed their bellies with fear." Varian stood up slowly. He was tall, his shoulders broad. In his black armor with the wolf pelt draped over his shoulder, he resembled a predatory wolf more than a king. As he descended the steps one by one, the spears of the guards in the hall trembled slightly. Varian stopped directly in front of Darian. The distance between them was no more than a breath. "Authority is not shared with weakness, Darian," Varian whispered. His voice echoed throughout the hall. "If the people want bread, they shall dig the earth with their own hands. If the nobles wish to hide their eyes from my throne, they would do well to keep their heads upon their shoulders. The sky will cry one day. But until that day comes, if I see a single eye in this kingdom that dares to weep, I will deliver the owner of that eye to the executioner with my own hands." Darian averted his gaze, the arrogant smile on his face fading. As Varian turned his back and walked toward the great doors, he could feel the monster within him, that inferiority complex he had nurtured since childhood. They did not love him. They never would. Then, he would not give them a king to love, but a nightmare before which they would tremble. Yet, as he walked through the palace corridors, he could not fully cast away the dark doubt gnawing at him: What if it truly is because of me? What if the Gods do not want a slave’s son upon this throne? Miles away from the somber, intrigue-filled stone walls of the capital, there lay a small fishing village washed by the salty scent of the sea. It was a forgotten corner of a kingdom writhing in the grip of drought. Even the sea had lost its former generosity; nets came up with rotting seaweed rather than fish. Yet, the dust of the land had not quite reached here with such intensity. At the edge of the path where the village ended and the jagged cliffs embraced the sea, a small girl sat. Her name was Elin. Since birth, Elin was a child who listened to the world not with words, but with her eyes and her heart. The words that fell from her lips were so few that the villagers thought she was mute. But no, Elin could speak; she simply believed that words were insufficient to describe the sorrowful state of the world. She was twelve. Her hair had turned blonde from the sea salt, and her skin had browned under the sun. But her eyes... her eyes were the color of the deep, clear, pristine water for which the drying kingdom longed. Her mother had faded away before Elin even knew how to walk. Her father, since that stormy night he returned from the sea, had been bedridden with a relentless wheezing in his chest. He was a frail, old man. Elin was his hands, his feet, and his only support in the world. "Elin..." called old Martha from the neighboring hut. The woman’s voice cracked like a well dried by thirst. "Are you feeding that wounded bird again, my beautiful girl? We don't have enough bread for ourselves, yet you are giving away your share of the flour soup to feed that creature." Elin turned to the woman. She did not answer, but a smile so warm, so selfless appeared on her face that for a moment, the cranky, old woman within Martha softened. Between Elin’s small hands sat a seagull with a broken wing. The girl had crushed a few grains of wheat she had gathered from the corner of the granary that morning, moistened them with water, and was gently touching them to the bird’s beak. Her own belly rumbled with hunger; she had chewed on nothing but a piece of dry bread since last night. But feeling the timid heartbeat of the bird against her fingertips was more important than her own hunger. When the bird took the last grain from Elin’s palms and flapped its wings lightly, Elin lifted it toward the sky. The seagull took off with a limp motion, circled in the gray sky that longed for blue, and vanished. Elin watched the bird, clasping her hands together in front of her. She was an elegant wildflower that had bloomed in the middle of a selfish world. Whenever someone’s well dried up in the village, Elin would carry water from the mountain spring miles away with her small bucket, leaving it secretly in front of their door. Whenever a child fell with fever, she would sit on the threshold of that hut until morning, placing healing seaweed she gathered from the sea on the child’s forehead. No one said "thank you," for she would come like a shadow and go like a shadow. The people saw her purity, but amidst their worldly troubles, they did not know the value of it. She was simply there. Silent, clean, and sinless. As Elin picked up the empty pitcher and walked toward the seaside, a strange unease filled her. The wind was blowing differently than usual. It was as if the sea were whispering news of a storm approaching from afar. But this was not a rainstorm. This was that dark storm of destiny, feeding on human flesh and bone. In the deepest, sunless lower levels of the palace, High Priest Malakai’s room was heavy with the weight of thousand-year-old scrolls and the scent of incense. Malakai was the spiritual guardian of the kingdom; the lines on his face were deep, like a map of the dark history he had read. His eyes burned with the fire of fanatic faith. On the table before him lay an ancient book, its leather peeling, its edges adorned with gold leaf. On the pages were primitive drawings of the sky cracking open and blood gushing from the earth to feed the rivers. "It is a punishment," Malakai murmured, looking at the other priests in the room. "The Gods do not remain silent while an illegitimate bloodline defiles the throne. King Varian is a cocky boy. He thinks he can bring everything to its knees with his power, but he cannot shackle the sky." One of the priests leaned forward in fear. "What shall we do, Holy Father? The people are on the verge of revolt. If this drought continues for a few more months, they will tear down the palace gates." Malakai placed his finger upon a passage in the book. "The solution is here. In the forgotten ritual. 'When the earth goes silent, when the sky turns blind; the Gods shall only soften with the blood of the purest, the stainless. A life of an innocent shall wash away the sins of the whole kingdom.'" The priests looked at one another. The terror appearing on their faces grew in the flickering shadows of the candle flame. "A sacrifice? But Father... this ritual was last performed three hundred years ago. To take the life of a child... The King will never allow it." "The King," Malakai said with a cruel smile on his lips, "would set the entire kingdom on fire if he had to, just to protect his throne. He is not as strong as he appears. His legitimacy is shaky. If we instill in the people that this sacrifice will save the kingdom, Varian will be forced to accept it. He will either accept it or lose his throne." Malakai stood in the center of the room, his eyes reflecting the dark ambition of a man who played with the fate of kingdoms.