Chapter 79

𝕾𝖔𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖔 𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖓 𝖙𝖔: 𝕿𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝕷𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖇𝖞 𝕿𝖆𝖞𝖑𝖔𝖗 𝕾𝖜𝖎𝖋𝖙

***

His grip on my shoulders started to tighten and yet his eyes kept on searching my soul, as if there was anything left to be intact. His eyes which felt as if the color of the abyss started to penetrate, started to engulf me in that dark hue.

But then, with the parting of his mouth, and the way his eyebrows became flattened, he closed those magical orbs for a moment before finally landing on mine with accompanied warm air.

"Did you know about the legend of the blue rose? Why it was only called for the Clamorians?"

I nod, while my eyes begin to thin, I could feel as if my mouth took its gap but then in the end, it only accumulated some air not to mention the shivers from that grip he had been giving me.

"I know," barely managed to say like a whisper that turned to burnt ashes by the flames above.

I could see how he forced his eyes close before finally exuding some air once more. But this time, it was different since the warmth that he had been giving my shoulders finally embraced the coldness.

With his hands one on his waist and the other on his forehead. Then his sight descended on the Verfeil and how he was lying as if he was in a deep slumber in the majestic bed that Oratio had laid him.

"Our household Doctor named Doctor Brian told me about the legend and it was all about a young man meeting one of the daughters of the Clamorian household," I said without batting an eye and his eyes had now been shifted to mine.

I saw him nod but when he walked a few steps away from me to where there was a vase, he plucked the flower from it and laid his back on the table leaning to it.

His eyes were now on the flower with both of his hands circulating it. As if it was a gem that he had been keeping alive and yet he had already plucked it out.

"I see," he said but then he paused like the flower captured all of his attention and yet, he knew that by the moment he looked into my eyes, his hands already squeezed the flower, and the petals from it had fallen to the ground.

It was enough to see how crumpled they were as if they were abandoned by the same master that made them grow and it made me unknowingly clench my hands as if I were that flower in this second life.

"What do you mean by squeezing that flower, Oratio? Do you have something to say to me? If you do then don't even try to pull out life from nature itself," I said but he only laughed and shook his head.

The laughter seemed at first but it was as if it became deep and embedded with this mysterious fog.

"I guess you should just know it by words them because illustrating to you might never work"

"Illustrating? What did you even illustrate with me when all you have was a broken flower in your hands?"

"Don't you see, Vestia? I still have one petal left to be thrown in the ground"

"But that doesn't justify why you would hurt a thing you considered caring about"

"Exactly, and that's the point I wanted to make you realize"

"Oh please Oratio, I'm not here to tell tales or to even listen or observe what you've been doing when my friend is already unconscious and barely breathing a second ago..."

I saw him sigh and his time, he held the flower with one petal dearly in his hands.

"I guess I should have told you in the first place," he paused and he walked towards me with that flower only to halt a step away and leaned closer to my face.

"The Clamorians had long been erased from history and no one knows where the last descendant is," by those words he said, I knew that my eyes could never go wider than before and I felt as if my mouth shivered when it parted like that one where I saw Verfeil almost having difficulty breathing.

"But then, how come that there were still blue roses out there and...."

"It's because those were the last remaining roses of farewell from the owner, the one who created the medicine"

"You said that Helden was the first witch and healer to have both healing powers and magic spells, but then if his apprentice was the root cause of it, how did the man from that legend appear?"

"Oh, the one that your doctor might have said that fell in love with the human lady that was lost in the middle of the blue roses?"

"You knew?"

"Who wouldn't when that legend was already known widely because of the miraculous use of the blue rose?"

"Then why are you telling me this? What's the purpose why you're still insisting on something when it was already there and proven?"

"Proven?" He asked but he only sighed in the end followed by the shaking of his shoulders and a second later he was already laughing.

"What's so funny about, Oratio?"

"Everything about that legend, Vestia," he said while putting his other hand to his forehead and shaking his head once more.

"Don't talk as if the legend is funny because it is not, do you even believe in it to have said some words?"

"What if I don't little pupil, will you rebut everything I've said and eventually seek some truth for me?"

"What are you insisting, Oratio?" I can't express how much I'm frustrated right now as both of my hands were already red from the endless clenching I was doing.

"The blue rose, where the man gave the Clamorians the right to use it, was because the lady gave birth to the descendant of the young man," when he said those words, my mouth parted once more but this time, I felt that my throat went dry.

"And the legend that everyone knew wasn't the whole truth in itself, Vestia. Before you delve into something that matters, you have to know and ascertain first the facts and not base it on what you've just heard"

"But no one can know the truth as it was already a very long time ago, Oratio"

"Don't you think I've lived that shorty enough?" Then my eyes widened once more

"What do you know? Perhaps, did you meet that person?"

"If you only knew what it feels like to lose a friend, like him..."

"So you two were friends?"

"A long time ago, I had three friends, one who went to the wrong empire, the second who lost his memories and now I'm the only one remaining with the memories that became ashes of the past"

"You're quite dramatic right now Oratio," then I looked at him with narrowed eyes once more

I heard him laugh and as if the flower from his hands regained their strength, the petals that once on the ground became intact on the flower within his hands

"I thought you couldn't heal with your magic, Oratio?"

"Yes I couldn't little lady"

"Then how did you——"

"Managed to put them together? I've just reversed my magic cast upon it earlier just to make you see the point but it seemed that it was indeed futile"

"..."

"Going back to the legend now," he paused and walked back to where the vase was and put the flower in there.

"But that doesn't mean that it wouldn't wither," when he said those words I tried to reason what he meant but then I knew that the time of the flower would still keep on moving forward, so he didn't cast anything to freeze it's time.

"The man that was said to have fallen in love with the lost lady, in reality, doesn't know who he was. He was roaming around, with a power he didn't know where he had. Then one fine morning, a lady came to his land and that's the start of their blossoming love..."

"Before he even met the lady I, and Hill, had already met him, but it was after he had been experimented on by the other kingdom..." he paused once more but this time, he wasn't looking at the flower anymore instead, he had been looking at Verfeil who seemed to be in a deep slumber.

"Just like this young boy, I found Yves, in a deep slumber within a ruined and abandoned experimentation, and it was alchemy after the people's memories were erased, there were a few people who had memories of seeing magic within their eyes that practiced alchemy because they weren't and couldn't have any magic," he then walked to where I was from his previous position before going back to the vase and putting the flower there.

He began to lean like a few seconds ago as his eyes looked into mine and I could see my reflection within his soul, it was clear but it was surrounded by mists.

"But you know what Vestia? Yves was the one who had inherited Helden's healing power but it was limited to the blue roses he could create. He was one of the few successful experimentations from the alchemists, but he got abandoned in the end"

"Why?"

"Why you asked? Simple, because they thought he died already. It had been a decade that he was in a deep slumber until we found him by that time, he had been awakened and as we continued to wander in the distant land, he found himself someone to call home"

"Is that the lady he fell in love with?"

"No, at first it was a land full of roses, and so we stayed a long time there, and after a few decades, there he found the lady he fell in love with, lost in that little forest he created"

"Then what happened why you were abandoned by them?"

"Did I say I was abandoned?"

I shook my head, but instead, heard him laugh instead.

"I was the one who abandoned them, the young man named Yves came to the neighboring empire because of a condition to keep the Clamorians safe, in exchange he was used as an experiment once more. Hill, the only friend I managed to have before Yves, lost his memories through my hands, and in the end, I couldn't save them"

"Why did you abandon them in the end?"

***

"You have to find the last remaining descendant of the Clamorians given that I've already taught you everything, because right now the only descendant might be in danger of facing the same fate his ancestor had"

"Why can't you save him instead if you knew he was a man?"

"I made a promise to a friend, that I will protect his descendants but I can't save them forever"

"Why?"