Never before had the wooded mountains north of Westbridge seemed so inhospitable to Emalia as they now did. She stumbled down the mountainside, falling and sliding in the dirt and leaves, her normally pristine white robe growing dirtier with each slide. Tears marred her vision, making it nearly impossible for her to navigate her way regardless of how hard she tried. Even the calm that continued to swirl around her, weakening her with its heavy radiation, couldn't help her control the sobs that echoed off of the trunks of nearby trees.
At long last, she came to rest upon a large rock, that sat on the edge of a clearing. She was high enough on the mountainside to see Westbridge and its walls and towers, but too far to make out any individual people that might stream in or out of it. She climbed to the top of the boulder, scraping her legs and arms enough that they stained small portions of her robe crimson.
It was here that Emalia clenched her hands into tight fists, folded herself forward, and began to wail into the daybreak. Her talk with Hellstrom, ironically in the very same place they connected, stung her like a barbed dart. Everything was wrong. Everything.
Maxell was generally quiet anyway, so it honestly didn't bother Emalia that he was absolutely silent while she went on and on about her lack of knowledge of the RoK,Ao, The Apprentice and just how dangerous it seemed that no one had told her of the consequences.
About the time she was musing on how she could begin to spread the word to the realms, a cough interrupted her thoughts. Maxell seemed rather grateful as Emalia sat up and took note of Hellstrom. She could tell something was troubling him, but what, she didn't know. He requested her company in the woods, and their walk ended at the overlook.
Emalia did think it was odd that Hellstrom began by asking her how old she thought the trees were, but she didn't hesitate in her answer of hundreds of years. It was that instant moment that her life began to shift into something she didn't recognize. "I know you spoke with Grobnak recently."
The hate that Emalia saw flash into the eyes of Hellstrom took her completely off guard. "Well, I did speak to him... and he made a lot of sense."
"Snakes often do. Listening to that man's silver tongue is almost worse than had I let you read the Cyrinishad."
It had to have been a dream. Emalia's vision went hazy for a moment, hearing the Cyrinishad being compared to Grobnak as the better of two. Hellstrom went on, trying to show Emalia the beauty around them created by Ao, attempting to wrest her from her thoughts of Rebirth and into the world that sat around them. They stared into the Elven Valley. "Do you see madness down there?" "Don't you want all of them to be saved?" "I do" "Their grandchildren?" "I want them saved NOW, not at the whim of the petty Gods." "Hellstrom, don't you see? There's always going to be a thread! Even if they bring down the RoK, it's going to keep coming back." "We don't KNOW that!"
Hellstrom delved into the history of the RoK, some of which Emalia knew already from Grobnak and the tome he had given her. Hemelia, the dreaded virus, reared its head. "Grobnak is a carrier I believe to this day. It brings delusions with it, the victim hears voices."
"They are sent from the Rok. They are voices of The Apprentice." "The Jenovese built a church based on their delusions while in the grips of the virus. A virus Emalia... a church based on a virus that killed people. Good people. People I knew well. My friends, my family."
Hellstrom continued while Emalia's thoughts reeled in silence. Grobnak had warned her that this might happen, he had told her that the very people she cared the most about, may very well be the ones that would shun her for believing that destruction would bring about resurrection. "We were able to fight back the demons. Every last one was slain and they are contained now." "But why... why do it over and over again when just once and we would never have to do it again?" "At the risk of oblivion?" "You speak of chance!" "Are you willing to risk that you are wrong? It would mean our death. My death." "I am willing to die, to be reborn, to have this contained forever. Time immortal."
Emalia stood convinced, here she was, prepared to give of her very self - to sacrifice her life to spare the lives of countless others... and she couldn't convince the one person that she wanted so badly to believe in her.
"Grobnak is a murderer. A killer of the worst sort." "No. He spoke what made sense." "Not only does he belong to the church of Talos, he leads it. He leads a band of Murderous Talosians!"
Emalia paced now, tears in her eyes as small tremors began to assail her shoulders. Hellstrom continued, showing her what would have happened if she had read the Cyrinishad based on the word of a Cyrisist. Her only argument was that to not read, would have meant a lack of knowledge, and to be without understanding was bad. "I don't want to lose you to this madness, Emalia. Too many have been lost this way." "I won't be lost... I'm not lost! How can you not see that this is for the benefit of the whole realms? Never to have to do it again... and all it takes is our sacrifice." "Because, we don't know." "Aren't we, as Guardians, expected to aid the realms?" Emalia rose and turned to look at Hellstrom. Tears rolled down her face as she desperately tried to make her case.
"Emalia, this is based off of the voices heard in a diseased delirium. To
take this chance when we can destroy it instead." "Hellstrom," Emalia begged, "This makes sense. I'm not diseased. I'm not delirious..."
"But Grobnak is! I won't be involved with a group that wants to destroy everything I want to preserve." Hellstrom’s words broke into the very heart of Emalia. At that moment, at that instant, she would have given anything to have things back the way they were - but to do so would be to go back on each vow she promised to Grobnak that day. In a whisper, Hellstrom continued, "I don't want to lose you..."
There was nothing she could say, no way she could hope to counter his words. "It is my job... my duty to protect these woods and everything in them. That ends if the RoK falls." Her protests, at this point made with halfhearted conviction, meant nothing. "This fight has brought the realms together in a way that has never happened in the span of known history-except for the Jenovese."
Hellstrom mentioned the insanity of Emalia's convictions, the lunacy spouted from Grobnak's demon's tongue, only pointing to her that if she believed it, she must be the same. Though Hellstrom obviously didn't believe she was the same as the being she had spoke to in the forests, Emalia couldn't see at any rate that youth had anything to do with it. For her, she had made a good choice, one that would save the realms – but only now was she beginning to see that it might mean the end of everything she had held dear up to now. "I love you Emalia. Please, for the love of everything, do not do this thing."
It was the final, crushing blow. If only those words were spoken outside of this moment in time. The thought of it ripped her very soul from her and crushed it into fragments. "Oh Hellstrom... don't... don't say that..." "It is said Emalia. I can't nor will I take it back. You know where to find me when you've done your thinking."
Such is how Emalia found herself sliding through her tears down the side of a mountain. What might be wrong with her, that she made so many choices that caused this sort of result?
Could she truly be insane? No one knew what she had vowed...and no one would know. The image of Grobnak standing before her, the ritualistic dagger held in hand to her throat, and the words she spoke echoed over and over again – interwoven by Hellstrom's - "It would be better to push myself into this blade, than to betray my family and myself."
