Where The Dead Ones Go Book 3 -Emirate-

Chapter 10

"Suddenly, this feather became much harder to bear now that I learned the whole truth..."

I smiled a little at Vaski, who carefully embedded my gift to him back to his chest as he momentarily glowed with the very same light I usually did when I manifest my mother's powers.

"Bear it, you must, Vaski," I beseeched him as I bow my head to hide the tears in my eyes, "Now I know why I didn't give you anything substantial from my family's imperial regalia."

His mother smiled sadly at his son, "It's because you entrusted him with something more precious than material things you have ever owned, Your Majesty. Your very essence entrusted to a Scythian. According to our most ancient records, the Imperial Family trusts no one of their priceless keepsakes other than the Scythian Dynasty."

"Indeed, Your Highness. My father himself told me on his deathbed that if I wanted something to be protected of utmost importance, I should personally give it to a member of the ruling family of the Scythian Province and their retainers. No matter what happens, even if their very own leaders turn against our rule, they are eternally honor-bound to protect anything we deigned bestowed upon them."

To my surprise, my guardian's close friend stood up and bowed apologetically, "I have no excuse for our ancestor's treachery. They are only acting according to the best interest of the Scythian Province at the time."

"This territory has always been reliant on other provinces for its basic necessities. During my reign, this place has been forced to submission by the councilors from Auralia, Cretonia, and Pagos. If your ancestor hasn't fallen in line, this very nation would've starved to death long before Typhon ravaged it."

"Your Majesty..."

"I bear no ill will with Desiderio, Your Highness," I said, invoking the name of her and her son's direct ancestor who is the last councilor of this province during The Fall, "When I came here months before the schism happened to restart the aquifer, he told me that he is as loyal to me as he is to his people. He asked directly for permission to act against me if his own citizens' lives were weighed against mine and gave my consent wholeheartedly. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Even Vaski blinked at me before bowing solemnly like his mother, "You are every bit as magnanimous as our ancient scriptures have extolled. To even call you, my friend is something of utmost honor even more than my lineage can afford me."

"And I you, Vaski," I answered as I walked towards him and, to his surprise, touched his chest to feel my very existence deep within, "But now that we have cleared any thoughts of misgivings between our respective positions, I would like to speak to you about something of utmost importance."

The emira gave a graceful curtsy, "I would leave now if needed be, Your Majesty," as she saw that I am talking directly to her son.

But I shook my head and pointed at her throne, "There is no need, Your Highness. Please, do take a seat. I prefer it if you take this in sitting."

"That sounds ominous, Your Imperial Majesty," the sheik muttered cautiously as I nodded gravely to confirm his fears.

"It is, Vaski, but please, I am Vivet as much as I was the empress. I prefer it if you treat me as such. Really, nothing has changed. I am still Vivet Vivier, only this time, with the memories that my cousin has once yearned for himself," I implored him, and thankfully, he finally relented with the soft urgings of his mother to honor my wishes, "Now, what I am to tell you both is something I wouldn't even dare to share to my cousin."

The son of the god of the seas furrowed his brows in confusion, "Aren't you two connected mentally? All your thoughts and memories are melded as one?"

"Yes. But right now, the god of time himself has put my head and this very throne room within his own domain. That is to say that whatever happens here, all the things that will be said and done from the moment I entered this place are out of reach of my cousin and if you made an oath not to tell this to any soul aside from each other and the grand marshall then none will be the wiser. Would you enter a pact with me, Vaski? Do you trust me enough to swear an oath to the river of Styx?"

He gasped, but his mother didn't even batt an eyelash and made the oath posthaste, "I swear upon the river Styx that not a soul aside from my loyal retainer will ever hear even a whisper of what will transpire in my throne room, Vivet. I put the pride and honor of the Scythian Dynasty on the line."

"And I will swear an oath upon the river Styx as well, Vivet," Vaski said as the three of us heard the ghostly river's torrential flow made its presence as we made a solemn vow using its name that even the immortals themselves can't break, "Even from the woman I loved the most."

I smiled a little at him and inclined my head.

Indeed, he is a man worthy of my beloved close friend, "This will concern her as much as you will, and in time, you may be able to share everything that I will tell you to her. She may be our final light in the coming darkness. itself."

"I don't like the way you sound, Vivet..."

I closed my eyes and tried to focus my thoughts before replying to Vaski, "Like it or not, hear and bear it, you must, Vaski. Mere painfully a few months after our wedding, Typhon will surely make a move. If he sees that mortals and immortals are making preparations to face him, it is without a doubt."

"And knowing how the immortals get things together, they will be caught unawares long before they can get their acts together, is it not, Vivet?"

I looked at the emira and nodded curtly that made Vaski's eyes widened, "Mother!"

"My son, our dynastic family, is the longest-reigning government leaders since time immemorial uninterrupted. We have been dealing with immortals for eons upon eons. We and our retainers know just how the immortals do things thanks to our forefathers and foremothers who have painstakingly documented their dealings with the deities..."

"And they know that no matter how hard they try to prepare, Olympians will always be Olympians," I finished the emira's words, "They will never muster enough forces and strength to win a decisive victory in time."

Vaski angrily stepped down from the stairs leading to the throne to face me closer, "Wait, so you are telling me that all that we have been preparing for, the alliances about to be forged at your wedding celebration, will be all for naught?!"

"I never said that they will be next to useless. Just not enough for us all to secure the goal we have all been striving for, Vaski," I said patiently as he understandably didn't get what I am trying to imply all along like his mother.

"My son, you have to look beyond the mere norms of winning and losing. In this kind of battle that holds the very future of Gearth as we know it, defeat is not the end of it."

The obviously irritated and confused friend of mine turned to his mother angrily, "Aren't you two just making things overcomplicated, mother? We will lose, that's it! There's nothing beyond defeat other than utter despair."

Emira Deira glanced at me apologetically before she closed her eyes in frustration as she massaged her temples to control her temper, "If all our dynasty and its retainers have been gunning for victory all these eons, wouldn't you think we would've stayed in the middle of this desolate desert and barely cling to our lives for goodness knows how long, Vaski?"

"Mother..."

"We are staying here not because we want to win against anything, my son," she said clearly before opening her eyes as tears fell from her eyes as she finally felt the reality of what there is to come, "If I were thinking like you, I would've asked Atomo to accept Scythians to Anoixi because we will never ever secure a victory against the monsters our predecessors have been fighting since even before the empire has appeared in the annals of history and long after it has disappeared. But we are still here, staying for as long as we can. Holding out by the skin of our very teeth."

"Why?! You never explained to me why we are still staying in this demented sandpit, barely living if at all!"

The emira looked at me expectantly as I nodded and take it from here, "Because the Scythians have sworn to be the one who will open the door for the golden age that will serve as the emancipation of its people for its eons of sacrifice. You saw the key, Vaski. It is not a mere representation of the possibility of Tiera. It is the very physical key of the dawn this world desperately needs."

"And that key is already within you, my son..."

The sheik gasped when he heard what his mother said as his body glow in golden light, "What the?!"

"Now that the god of time has released the curse he has placed on Vivet, removing her very existence from history, Reginald and I has taken the liberty of opening the vaults of this palace once more, and true enough, the moment Vivet, Morris, and Kairos left for the Novus Zephyranth, all classified files our ancestors has safeguarded for eons has finally shown us its true contents. The key that we are taking care of is only half of its entirety. The other half is the very essence of the empress herself, sent to the future to prevent Typhon from destroying it even if the worst possible event happened."

Vaski blinked as he looked at his body that is still faintly glowing with my own light, "Of course, the law of time and space. One cannot exist at the same time when its future or past self is existing. Doing so will unhinge its very existence. Wait, that's it. They purposely did it! Khronos and Vivet! They have destroyed the time barrier by allowing the key to exist underneath the palace while Morris, who is carrying a part of the soul of the empress himself from the future is existing at the same time for eons. It prevented even Typhon himself from touching it and even Scythia itself. Mother!"

"Yes, I have to say this. As much as I wanted to put the praise on our emirate's existence because of our people's innate martial capabilities and endurance, it is only a mere part of it. The real reason for our continued existence is because of the very key itself preventing monsters from overwhelming us so long as we stay here and consciously defend our nation unyieldingly," the emira said before looking at me with tears still in her eyes, "And now that your memories have returned, so does the natural form of the key. Your very essence. You are our key to the brand new dawn, Vivet."

I nodded and smiled despite myself, "Indeed I am. Or that's what I want Typhon to think."

"Vivet?"

"Yes, Vaski. The destruction-incarnate itself know that as long as I exist, the empire, its waning existence tied to my very life as transcendent it is, and the world as we know it, will continue to defy his absolute powers over the catastrophe itself so long as I still carry on what semblance the golden age he failed to thoroughly destroy eons upon eons ago," I explain carefully as I tapped on the memories and information Meta kindly supplied in my thoughts, "That is the reason why he tried in vain to attack with millions of monster swarms your emirate. To destroy the key or what he knows as my very core that symbolizes the pact that Zeus himself made with my predecessors before the dawn of the Golden Age."

The emira nodded and looked at me favorably, "Indeed. Ceremonial figurehead the Vieta Dynasty itself, even our dynasty holds more political power than the Imperial, we all know the reason why they are the leader of the Plurinational Alliance Xenocracy Empire is that the very existence of Tiera is hinged on their bloodline."

"And you made a pact with the god of time to travel here in our time to deny Typhon of the victory he is aiming for in the past," Vaski said quietly, to which I responded with a curt nod, "So that was the true reason why mortals and immortals weren't wiped out back then. Why we, Scythians, were leading a hard life here and continued to do so even with better options before us."

I looked at the emira, who seemed to know already what my endgame is, "And you plan to use yourself as a decoy, isn't that right, Vivet?"

"Exactly, Your Highness. But make no mistake, Typhon will inflict as much damage as possible and kill as many lives as he can the moment he regained his corporeal form. However, his endgame is to completely and utterly destroy and wipe me from the face of existence, and with my destruction, the very foundations of the world mortals and immortals have been built with it. Or so he will think..."

We both looked at Vaski, who finally realized what is in store for me in the near future and began to cry silently in grief, "You didn't expect to survive, don't you, Vivet?"

"Survive is a strong word, Vaski," I said plainly that made him blink at me innocently, "The Vivet that you are seeing right now before your eyes are nothing more than a dream of the god of time using what was left of my soul, together with my loyal comrades who paid the ultimate sacrifice, given physical form by borrowed time and materialized in this era. As far as I and the Imperial Armada Forces inside me are concerned, we were already dead when we entered the pact with Khronos. No mere mortals nor immortals can survive being transported to the future as-is and existing as-is. My "death" and subsequent cessation of existence in the hands of Typhon will be nothing but a pyrrhic victory for him. I already transferred my essence to the feather; you are so carefully harboring in that heart of yours."

"No, Vivet! This is too much for me! Please, please, no more..."

I shook my head and grabbed his shoulders as I shake them angrily, "Silence, Vaski! This is only the mere half of what I will entrust to you to carry on for me!"

"Why me?! Why not Morris?! He is closer to you, a demiurge of death himself! He is more qualified to do this than me!"

I cried when I heard my cousin's name as I shook my head sadly, "You know full well just how long he has to suffer just to get at this very moment in time. I wouldn't burden him any longer than I already have as I entrusted to him half of the key for eons."

"Vivet..."

"As to why you? Well, let's just say that I learned to trust and believe in you fully the moment my closest friend did so a while back..."

"Gala..."

"Yes, Vaski. She will be the one to..."