One Drop Essense of Gods

1. The Secret World.

Three weeks earlier. North side of the Black Desert.

Puffs of sands moving fast, following the merchant carriage that was moving fast on that scorching hot day, trying to catch the pace of the clouds which were their only shades. But then, they were slowed down by a sight of a body behind the mirage.

“What’s the matter?” Asked Misha.

“Look.” Shadi pointed his eyes down the dunes.

“What, a lost merchant? No carriages, no goods… Perhaps he was being robbed?”

“Who would want to rob people in this kind of place? They’d be already dead even before they realized.”

Shadi rushed there, to the body, which was actually a young woman with pale-golden long hair―and still alive. Anyone in this whole world knows this pale-golden hair colour belongs to the Elean royalty, and there are only two of them left. The king and his dear little sister, princess Yvanna, who was supposed to be locked in the tower of Qian.

“Heavens! We are almost a mile away from there. How could she even manage to run through this length? It’s a miracle that she still alive―and in the Black Desert?’

Shadi hurriedly searched his water flask and made the princess drink, yet she didn’t react at all. So there, he just carried her with him, and went fast back to Elea.

***

Three weeks ago, when Yvanna first opened her eyes after the accident, another sequences of event appearing in her mind―a memory belongs to someone else of a burning city, thrilling experience of escaping on a freezing night, and a prayer that chills the bones.

            …O’ mother of the lights, please take this anxious soul as the offering for the help I have seek. A soul to occupy this unstained vessel…

            Princess Yvanna, she seemed like a candle being put out when cold desert night winds swept through her calm face. Her eyes then slowly dimmed, and it finally lost its lights as her soul taken away.

            As she saw the princess died, Yvanna found herself awake in the desert, and in somebody else’s body.

            The mighty Black Desert, who in the world doesn’t know the deadliest place on Atherre―even Yvanna knows it since its existence has always been part of her knowledge. But, the desert, and the princess who also named Yvanna was supposed to only exist in her dream. So she wondered, how could it come real?

 “… Well, it’s not that it came real, my lady. It was you, who wakes up in the wrong place.”

His name is Isse.  A wandering soul―or so she thought. She first met him in a dream, a long-long time ago, and he has been her imaginary friend since then. But their only encounter were supposed to only when she went to Atherre in her dream, so how could he appear in her mind while she was wide awake?

Isse told her that this is the world where he exists. “It was your soul who came crossing. I’ve told you, this world is never seemed like how you imagined.”

Yvanna doesn’t want to believe it. But she swears, she could and able to differentiate which is dream, and which is reality since she’s been doing it a million times. In a dream, only her soul wandering, and a soul doesn’t have a heartbeat as the heart beating is a mechanism of a body. But she is a living being here, and her heartbeat is the solid proof.

Human brain is amazing. She thought, for a human to create such realistic form of every each of its details in the back of the mind is substantial. She used to believe that Isse was just one of her imaginary friends who told her many nonsenses about her upside-down world, while Atherre was a world she created along the way. But she was wrong.

In the princess’ memories, Yvanna saw it herself that the accident wasn’t really an accident, and the fact that she and the princess shared the same name was actually written.

It was frightening to admit it, and yet there are things beyond rationality which its existence can only be reached by acceptance. After all, she found this world, and here she is trying hard to go back to the world where she belongs. 

“Ah, seriously!” Yvanna dragged herself up, and sit―frowning at herself, while remembering how much Moren lectured her back then.

Dream might not simply a playground, he said. But she thought, how could she possibly be harmed, and what could be happening in a dream she controlled it herself? Even if something really goes wrong, she could’ve always got herself awake anytime, then everything will be over.

That was how she quit the unwanted encounters in a dream every time she had it, or lost control. Though it seems, she never noticed that it never worked whenever she got herself in Atherre.

Just what is it? Dreams, sometimes it was blurry, sometimes it was clear. Sometimes, when it’s too vivid, she can touch it, breathed it scents, and feel its heat or cold. She can control it, and even created it; the places, the people or the situations―

She can create everything on the go, or turned it back to its original shape again in just within a beat of the heart. But why can’t she do that again? She wonders. It’s like, somehow, the ability was gone without trace ever since she was awake here.

“Can’t I at least see how the world’s been going on back there?”

Isse slipped through her sights, moving back and forth aimlessly as if seeking for attention. “Funny, isn’t it? My lady used to come here through a dream, and yet she couldn’t do the same here.”

“Why is that?”

“A vessel meant to be ceased when its soul was taken. Isn’t that obvious? This precious decaying body almost has no life forces left.”

“Decaying??”

“Oh, hasn’t it been starting yet?”

Yvanna frantically checking on her hands as the image came to her mind―run fast to the mirror. Thankfully, there is no sign of it. Isse then laughs in her mind, seeing how Yvanna taking his joke too seriously.

“This world… you should’ve never been here, my lady. At the very first place, you weren’t meant to find it.”

Yvanna found it annoying that, in fact, Isse has also told her that a long time ago. “But was it my fault then? I don’t even know how I found this world!” Sigh.

Maybe this is what Moren called by the unknown possibility, she thought―and these also maybe be the unknown danger he was talking about. But again, who in the world knows what exactly the unknown itself?

***

“Oh, milady. You are awake!”

A young maiden rushing in with a bowl of medicine in her hand―Yvanna didn’t even notice the door opened. Her name is Layla. Princess Yvanna’s lady-in-waiting, one of a few people who is grieving for the princess’ death.

Although she knew the princess isn’t really the princess, she still treated Yvanna very kindly. For her, the living presence of the princess is a kindness the gods has shown her.

It was such a heat-breaking confession, and yet Yvanna knows it well how dear this Layla to the princess, because this body has always reacting fondly at any time Lyala is around, no matter how wary her heart and mind is.

“Here, milady, your morning medicine.”

Yvanna stares, a little annoyed. “Even though I have just awoken from sleeping the whole night?”

“Because this body still needed it. Preserving strength is a way to make this body recovered faster, since this body’s base were severely damaged.”

“We’ve heard it, Master Isaac said moving one’s soul requires a huge amount of life forces and mana. But one must be able to see it first before they can do anything with it. You know I can’t.”

Layla seemed not believe it still, surely because these eyes―the princess’ odd eyes were aglow―and it happened several times already. “Milady will see it after regaining some life forces and mana. That’s why you need much rest, milady. So you may start cultivating again soon.”

Yvanna frowned, while Isse is giggling annoyingly in her mind. The body base, mana and life forces, such a thing Yvanna doesn’t even know what it was. Sigh. “This play pretend… how much longer do we need to do this?”

“Just until tomorrow.”

‘Tomorrow, wouldn’t it be too late? Who knows, this body will lose its nerve system if I took it until tomorrow??’

Layla was hesitating, but then she tells Yvanna for the last attempt to make her believe that she didn’t meant to harm her.

 “I am indeed worried. What would happen if you are unable to cultivate, milady? It frightened me to see those eyes closed, and find it never opened again. Your base were damaged. Didn’t you feel exhausted all the times?”

“Wasn’t it because I’ve been consuming this?” Yvanna sneered.

“It is because this body almost has no life force. Please, milady, just until tomorrow. His highness has given the order to give her highness this medication because he was wary of what she would do. But, whatever his purposes on doing this to you as well, I meant only to preserve your strengths, because you will be needing it milady.

The order was given to me, but I can assure you it won’t be harming this body because I have been the one who made it. His majesty has come back. I am carrying the order to inform that he would like to have breakfast with you, milady.”

“…H-he did?”

Layla nodded. “We may be able to deceive Master Isaac, or Master Lance, but not his highness. That’s why… please drink this empty, just until tomorrow. I promise.”

“You kept telling me this and that, persuading me to do things. If you aren’t planning something bad to me, you wouldn’t mind telling me, right?”

Layla obviously hesitating, and it took her sometimes to gather all of her courage. “Last year, I went to accompanying her highness to meet his majesty the emperor. But I do not know what they were discussing, because I was told to wait outside. Not long after, his highness king Elion found out, then accused her highness was plotting something against him.

I know nothing about it, because her highness never speak a thing, and I have never dare to ask that her condition were worsened since the day we went back from the trip. But, in the morning before she was brought to Qian, I saw her eyes. They were as if telling that it was a long-awaited day.

I wasn’t really sure myself, but I’m afraid his majesty also aware of this. Milady, actually… you cannot do this alone―sending back your own soul, what I meant. Because the art of summoning soul was very ancient.

As far as I knew, there are only three people know how. One of them is her highness the princess, the other is the great emperor of Aletyre, and the last is his shadow guardian. However, every magic has its own pattern. Unless her highness send you back, you can only seek for their help.”

“But how?”

“Aeltyre… go to Aeltyre milady, where both his majesty the emperor and his guardian are. But, you may find it difficult though, and it frustrated me that I cannot be very much help in this. However, it is about time for the banquet to be held. We might be able to seize the chance.”

“Do you think he will let me go?”

“Yes. If you wouldn’t mind acting much.”

‘Acting much?’ Yvanna frowned. Princess Yvanna was convicted by her own brother, because she refused to marry the emperor. But Yvanna has the princess’ memories. Although many of them are still scattered somewhere, she still can tell that the fact was twisted.

Qian was one of Elea military base, and the tower where the princess being locked was heavily guarded, and sealed with magic the princess cast herself. Of course, she could always break it. But for sorcerers, breaking their own dead knot means also putting their lives to an end―and that was what she did.

Her brother was trying to use the princess by forcing her to marry the emperor, but she hates him―too much that she wanted him dead, and yet she was escaping to Aeltyre in the end, as if she was seeking a help from the emperor.

However confusing that all, if it added by the fact that she has been forced to drink the so-called medicine which actually a sedative for almost the whole time is enough for Yvanna to see, that she shouldn’t be here, in this palace.

“You… are you saying that I should become the princess’s replacement, and marry the emperor?”

Layla nodded slightly. “Until recently, I still want you to be around. But that wasn’t right. People died in the end. For me to be able to serve the princess for one last time should be enough.

Those eyes have been looking very sad. I knew milady don’t want to be here as well, and I realized, rather than keeping you alive for much longer, it is better to see this body have a proper burial. And for that… you must go back, so this body will die in peace. But before that, this body needs its strength. Because it will be long and tiring. So, please, just until tomorrow.” Layla thrusts the bowl.

Although Yvanna can see it clearly now what Layla is thinking, something inside her feel uneasy. ‘Is this really the right thing to do?’ Yvanna speaks in her mind.

‘That was such a grand idea. Drink it, my lady. Just until tomorrow, but no more.’

Half-heartedly, Yvanna takes the bowl and drink the medicine. But, if only she could see how Isse making that sly smiles.