Ahe'ey

The One Left Standing

THE ONE LEFT STANDING

Viviane waited as her sister, Luna, caressed the golden hair of her six-year-old son. Bastian was sleeping soundly as his mother kissed his forehead. The two Ange’el women walked together to one of the external pavilions that surrounded the Sacred House.

“I think my Bas will leave Ange’el to become a Ma’asai. He spent the entire day planting melons and squash at the farms. I struggled to clean the clay stuck under his fingernails,” Luna said.

“He has a deep connection with nature. Your child is too wild to care about the mysteries, knowledge and crystals of the Sacred House. He will thrive at the farms.”

“I can’t bear to part with him. He’ll have to stay with me for a few more years.”

Viviane thought of her own son, Gabriel. She was reassured that, from a very early age, he’d chosen to follow her path. He was destined to become a powerful Ange’el, possibly the most powerful of all Ange’el. His blood was pure, and so was his soul. He was gentle and kind hearted and needed her protection and guidance. She was grateful that he’d stay at the Sacred House with her.

They approached Luna’s husband, Lucas, who sat outside on the ground in front of the pyre of fire that burned in observance of the summer solstice. The sisters didn’t interrupt his meditation; they sat beside him, attempting to connect with the elders that no longer roamed the Earth.

With her eyes closed, Viviane asked her foremothers for the most precious gift—another child; a pure-blooded descendant of the royal bloodline. A sibling to her son. Another boy to help safeguard and propagate the powerful genes that Viviane and her sisters—Gráinne and Luna—had inherited from their ancestors. At the age of seventy-eight, she was still young, and she hoped to bear two more royal children.

Deep into her prayer, her mind wandered into the realm of those who no longer had a physical body and, in that state, she didn’t see the danger that lurked a few metres away. The largest of the Hu’urei kicked Lucas in the head twice before the Ange’el had a chance to open his eyes.

“Sathian! What are you doing?” Viviane cried as she opened her eyes to recognise the perfect features and poise of her royal kinsman. In his eyes, she saw only madness. Sathian held Luna from behind in a tight embrace. He immobilised her arms, and almost choked her. The man lay her down on the ground by her neck and signalled to another man, who pulled his pants down and spread her legs apart. Viviane wrestled with Sathian’s arm, hopelessly attempting to release her sister. He turned to face her, and she looked into his eyes, pleading for mercy.

For one moment, she saw his emerald eyes glimmer with the tears he held back, but a second later, his gaze was dry, cold and empty. He pushed her, and she fell backwards on the ground.

Luna wailed, realising her impending sentence. Viviane felt hopeless; she looked at the unconscious body of Lucas in despair. Inside her head, she could hear her other sister screaming. Gráinne, she thought, feeling her sister’s agony. Luna kicked the man that approached her in the groin and used a branch from the pyre of fire to stab Sathian in the left eye. Sathian screamed in anger and pain as he placed his hand over the hole that was once his eye.

Viviane gasped. She had the power of foresight, and she saw what was coming. Her world collapsed in front of her eyes and she was helpless. There was nothing she can do. Furious and out of control, Sathian grabbed Luna’s tunic with one single hand and threw her on top of the bonfire. Luna screamed in pain as the fire devoured her skin.

“Pull her out!” he ordered as he attempted to recover from her attack, wiping the remains of his eye from his face.

“It’s too late.” The Hu’urei tried to pull Luna’s body from the fire, but her dancing body of pain and despair was now fully consumed by flames. Luna’s screams were deafening. Her song of torment and doom came to an abrupt end when Sathian pushed his sword through her heart.

Viviane lay on the ground, crying uncontrollably. She watched the men turn to her. The fear, the shock, and the smell of her sister’s scorched body made her vomit. In her mind’s eye, she could feel Sathian’s feelings—his rage, his madness, his pain, his regret. She denied him compassion. Viviane, the purest of the Ange’el, refused to respond to his twisted torment. In all her despair, she became defiant. She knew what others didn’t; she could feel the battle that raged inside him. She looked into his deformed face and quietly waited for her demise. With her mind’s eye, she spoke to her son, who slept peacefully in his room at the Sacred House: “Gabriel, find your cousins and run. Run my dear. Run. I love you.”

One of the men grabbed her long raven-coloured hair, pulling her towards him.

“Don’t touch her,” Sathian said.

“But—”

Sathian pushed his sword into the man’s heart before he could finish his sentence. He kneeled beside Viviane, grazed his fingers along the contour of her face, kissed her lips and said, “You hold everything I love and lost. I leave all my treasures in your hands, Ange’el.” He got up abruptly and walked away, followed by the rest of his men.

Viviane stood there, paralysed with fear, weeping, her head sunk into her knees. His words echoed in her mind. She couldn’t make sense of them. Like her, Sathian was a royal Ange’el, he was born to bring light to the world—to heal, teach, and nurture. Yet, today, he was the hand of darkness, death and destruction. “Gabriel, run. Run, my love.” She fainted.