When the echo of her last cry faded through the walls of the house plunged into the night, a brief silence reigned between the two won.
Tristessa's right hand had lost two fingers, and with each pulse of blood that didn't reach its destination, it sent a signal of imasurable agony to her head, flaying her mind and soul in equal quantity.
Tiara, on the other hand, visibly shaken by twice the energy she was using, was staring at her without even blinking.
A minute that lasted an eternity, until the pregnant woman cut the silence like a knife:
“I don't hate you, Tristessa. I hate the Discord you emanate, because that's the origin of all the evil my family suffered,” she began to answer, with absolute serenity. “I hate that you are so loved by Vel'Moran. Why, you may ask... It's because it was that god who gave the Shadow Queen the power to drive millions of innocent people mad and destroy half the continent almost five hundred years ago.”
“…!”
Tristessa stifled a sigh, as horrified as she was surprised by this enormous and tragic historical milestone for Nekrom. Millions of innocents… The light elves, who knows how many humans and other species…
“And I hate that I have more reasons to believe that you’re a spy for the Coven than a victim who, by so miracle, managed to escape their clutches.” Snapping Tristessa out of her brief train of thought, Tiara slowly walked until she stopped right next to her head. “That’s why I feel nothing doing this.”
A kick straight to her face reminded Tristessa of her position. That she shouldn’t feel sorry for a world that had already killed her three tis and was close to achieving its fourth. A world so hostile, so cruel, and about which she had received due warnings from that blood elf she rembered, but that he certainly didn’t:
“You’re not prepared.”
There was no better way to explain it, and that was considering that Tristessa hadn't seen even the tip of the iceberg of what Nekrom had to offer.
The unfair fate that had befallen her, like a divine punishnt for sins she didn't even rember, brought a smile to her face as she received kick after kick. To the face, to the chest, to the arms. Her blood-stained vision beca turbulent, and thinking clearly beca more difficult, but not enough to allow her to reason with the idea that, perhaps, it was best to give up.
Perhaps if she revealed the truth to Tiara, about her [Divinity of Death and Resurrection]... If she let go of all that weight she was carrying, it would all end.
But...
“Tiara will go insane...” she thought, unable to feel any more pain, each kick a powerful shove that made her spit and vomit blood. “She'll kill herself like that ti... Her baby... and ...”
Who did she want to lie to? Herself? Her thoughts were nothing more than selfishness fueled by the hatred she felt and refused to admit to herself for the woman who was kicking her like an animal.
There was only one real reason why she didn't dare take that step.
“...I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die... I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die...”
Tristessa repeated her wish endlessly, stemming from the traumatic terror that every Death she had encountered brought her. That was until Tiara halted her barrage of violence, leaving the girl reduced to a shrunken, blood-spattered bundle struggling to breathe.
“I will protect my family at all costs. If I have to torture a woman your age, I will,” Tiara warned her, wiping the sweat from her forehead and all the blood that stained her shoes against her prisoner's ruined and filthy clothes. “Do you have anything else to say to ? Scream all you want if you can, you won't get the chance again.”
“…run away. Run, before it's too late…” she whispered, as clearly as she could through swollen lips and ruined teeth.
“And what about you? Will you stay behind to buy us ti, like a tragic heroine?”
Tristessa was no hero and she knew it. She was never going to be one. Soone so cowardly and worthless, aspiring to sothing like that was like flying too close to the sun.
“Save ,” she begged, more tears welling up between her swollen eyes. “I don't want to die.”
Her honesty made Tiara burst out laughing.
“Oh, Tristessa… Jin told you we were banished. Don’t you understand what it ans? There’s nowhere in the Dominion where we can be safe. Outside this house, we’re rejected and forsaken. Wherever we go, people have the right to even kill us. There’s no way out for us.”
She couldn’t see her well in the state of her eyes, but as she said that, the girl sensed the regret in her words and understood that Tiara Archeos had already given up long ago.
If a woman like her —a Nekromian who knew perfectly well about the darkness that was threatening the world— had surrendered to an ominous fate… What was left for her?
“Jin cares a lot for you, you know? I’m watching this door day and night, so he doesn’t try to sneak in and give you even a little food… He’s too good for his own sake,” the woman let her know, with one foot on the stairs leading to the kitchen.
If she'd been able to see clearly and not focus her efforts on breathing, Tristessa would have seen a nostalgic smile on Tiara’s face.
“I once believed I was a good person too, but I realized that if this family had even the slightest chance of surviving, soone had to take on the role of the bad one. Soone needs to take unsavory, ruthless decisions that no one else is going to. For the man I love, for the son I lost, and for the children I’m willing to give my life for in the blink of an eye.”
With that said, that woman…that mother, left the warehouse, locking the door and not bothering to cover her prisoner's mouth or eyes. Given the condition she'd left her in, there was no need.
There was nothing Tristessa could do to change anything. Once again, her fate was sealed, and she proved Tiara completely right: there was no way out.
The dark was everything she was destined for. Waiting there, alone, for the end to co.
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