16. Conquer your place
«It's her.» many people started whispering the same thing.
«Shall we go?» the girls approached the little Lynn.
Again, she thought, setting the full bucket down. She would have to go back to the valley to fill it for the third time.
«Destiny must really hate you. Your mother hasn't even seen your face that she's gone. »
Yes, you don't have to tell me again, I know.
Lynn ignored their insults and their punches.
Lynn didn't care about physical or psychological injuries.
They wanted to feel better about themselves, she knew it and after all, she deserved it.
She grew up without parents, with a deceased father and mother who disappeared on the day of her birth, taken from Deorum, stolen by her daughter.
It was her destiny, I couldn't do anything about it.
I don't care.
She didn't care about anything.
She was born who already had no one.
A peasant couple had badly raised her as a slave until they died, when she was only six.
Those years were filled with pain, fatigue, beatings and the need for love.
But Lynn was fine.
She was always remembered as the daughter of the woman chosen by Deorum.
Having been born in a small and insignificant village, where being chosen for Deorum seemed necessary to have royal blood, no one would ever forget.
Not even Lynn, of course.
She had never forgotten about her mother.
After all, it was the gossip of the whole village. The girl whose mother was chosen for Deorum at her own birth.
Again and again.
Lynn had blamed herself, believing she deserved this deep loneliness.
Then she realized that the only reason it ended up like this was simply Deorum.
Fate.
The gods.
She would do anything to get into Deorum.
Everything to have a destiny.
Lynn trained for years and years.
When she showed her talents to the Court of the Emerged, she was immediately adopted by one of the wealthiest families in the entire water kingdom.
She just wanted to be better.
Like her mother.
She wanted to have a destiny too and abandon that wreck of the world in which she had left her.
Eventually hers had become a challenge against the mother she had never known.
She didn't quite know why, she had simply become so greedy for power, that she didn't express any other emotion or feeling.
She became a model cadet, studied, trained, gained prestige and popularity.
She wanted Deorum and what was the best way to be recognized as deserving by the gods, if not to be better?
Her mother could have carried her with herself. The gods could have taken Lynn too.
That place was perhaps not her mother's, but hers.
Her place was in Deorum and that day, when she was chosen to enter, all this seemed crystal clear to her.
It was the motto of the kingdom of water.
"Conquer your place".
Lynn would have done it, at any cost.
She deserved Deorum.
Her, not her mother.
Maybe the gods were wrong the first time, but not the second.
She had proved her worth.
That was her fate.
Lynn had never been so happy.
Everything I went through and struggled with was worth it!
That's why, when a girl with white hair and three leaves of fate appeared out of nowhere, blessed by fate itself, Lynn couldn't help but hate her.
What had she done to enter Deorum?
How had she conquered the whole pit of fate?
Had she faced her pain? Had she trained like her? Had her place been stolen before her eyes?
She didn't deserve anything.
Nothing.
It was the main threat between her and her place.
She had to eliminate it.
Lynn hated that blissful innocence she emanated. She was bad too. She was hiding something too, she was sure of it.
She wanted to destroy it and now she had the power to do it.
Nobody, nobody would get in the way between her and the achievement of Deorum.
-
«Ha! You've learned a new trick, I see.» Name ignored Lynn's words, making sure Fera was safe, suddenly confident, stood still, ready to face the girl in front of her.
In truth, she was afraid. And very scared.
She didn't know what moved her forward, but she did it anyway.
Fera was already reciting a spell she didn't understand.
Kein was gone, so now and in that moment, she had to take the reins of the situation.
She had to survive.
She didn't quite understand how the staff worked, but she felt good as if something was constantly being sucked out of her body and deposited in the staff, automatically.
Her strange, unknown and bizarre white magic.
Not even she knew what that magic could do, what it could build or destroy.
For now, she protected herself, and Fera, from two more waves of water.
But protecting herself was useless.
Name was getting tired and Lynn just had to pick it up from the ground to launch a new attack.
But she too seemed exhausted.
Attack after attack, Name only thought one thing.
Protect us.
Protect us.
And her magic seemed to obey.
Lynn, on the other hand, dropped the number of arrows with each attack, in fact, the arrows had become some kind of deformed water spheres.
«Name! Go right!» At Fera's words, she did what she asked.
Fera stood up, with the book floating by her side, looking angry.
«Stop, now! I'm soaked!»
Fera, with a wave of her hand, allowed all the branches of the surrounding bushes to flood the wet ground.
Roots covered the fountain and within seconds, the water was almost completely sucked out.
«Done.» she looked exhausted.
Name had noticed that Fera manipulated old roots better than new ones.
These looked very ancient.
Lynn turned.
«How much...»
She walked over to the fountain, touching the roots that had covered the water.
«...stupid are you?!» at her cry, she bursted in a laughter and a second later, water emerged from every crevice.
«Did you really think the water wouldn't come out of the cracks?» Fera didn't answer, Lynn collected the water in two balls on either side.
They weren't big, Fera's roots had sucked up more than half of the water present and to make them drink so much, now Fera was exhausted, lying on the ground.
«Let's finish it here.» Lynn didn't prepare another attack, however, but took something in her hand.
A knife.
Not that she didn't expect her to be armed, but Name was frightened by that blade and the look in her eyes right now.
«I'll tell you what ...» she began to approach her, Name had started shaking.
«I hate, I hate people chosen by destiny, like you... Like me.» with a rush, Lynn lunged at her, knife drawn.
«Name!» Fera got up and pushed Name on the side, making her fall to the ground.
The knife ended up hurting Fera in the stomach.
The blood began to flow and Fera fell to her knees, holding her stomach.
Lynn looked startled, it was her intent to stab Name, but not Fera.
«Fera!» Name came over and pressed the wound.
She couldn't see anymore.
She remembered the dream she had, with Fera falling down.
Her eyes were full of tears, but sadness wasn't the only thing she felt right now.
She was angry.
Lynn clearly had an advantage over them, in the degree of magic.
Why also use a weapon? Why hurt Fera?!
Lynn shuddered back.
Name had to take matters into her own hands, and this time she would end it.
She clasped her staff, placing herself in front of Fera. She had no idea how magic worked in general, though less her own.
But she obeyed her, lightly.
For the first time, she had to protect, but to do so she had to attack.
Lynn picked up the water in front of her again, looking in shock, but she hadn't stopped the offensive.
Name bit her lip and stood up.
Both girls were about to attack, Lynn knew what she was doing, Name didn't, but she tried anyway.
Please help me. She prayed to his magic, then chose to be more violent.
Attack her!
She felt a slight vibration and when Lynn extended her hand, so did Name.
Too late.
A beam of white light shot out of her staff, but Lynn had already thrown both spheres of water at her.
It's over.
I have already lost.
Her magic, however, crossed as if nothing were there, both spheres that, upon contact, disappeared in the snowy light.
The beam ended up hitting Lynn, petrified, who flew against the roots of Fera, who in the last instant, trapped her, squeezing her.
Name was out of breath, she hadn't realized how hard it was to emit a little magic.
Fera was lying on the ground.
«Wow. It's… It was…» She couldn't finish the sentence, but gave her a thumbs up, which Name didn't return.
«Fera!»
«Everything is alright.» she reassured her, Fera began to recite a spell, which gradually began to stopped the blood from coming out.
It took her a few leaves and a bandage made from her shirt, but the wound didn't look as bad as it used to be.
«That was great but…» Fera looked at the fuss that Name raised, where Lynn looked unconscious.
What have I done?
Having made sure that Fera was okay, the girl could not, in fact, not run to Lynn, to check that she was okay.
I don't know what happened.
Lynn's water has disappeared into thin air, in contact with her magic.
She didn't know if she had been too strong, she had no idea how to control herself.
«A-Are you okay?»
Lynn was sitting on the ground, her back against the roots and her face on the ground.
«What ... is that magic?»
Lynn had an indecipherable face. It was a mixture of anger, anguish and terror.
She smiled frightfully.
«It's ... nothing normal!» she jumped up, her eyes were wide open, and she didn't seem to be feeling very well.
«I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't…» Name didn't know what to say, or what to do.
«Sorry?» her smile disappeared.
«Did you say ... sorry?»
That said, Lynn threw a nice punch in the face, Name lost his balance and fell.
«Name!» Fera croaked from the ground, she seemed too exhausted even to get up.
Name had no idea how to defend herself.
Her previous anger had already disappeared.
Name simply got punched.
«Sorry? Sorry did you say?! For what? Why? Because you're better than me?! I'm better than you! I!» she shouted a lot of such things, but Name did nothing but curl up.
The staff had dropped and she doubted that she could, tired as she was, fortify a fist with her magic, as she had done with Aldien, at that moment.
Finally, after a few minutes, Lynn stopped.
Name opened her eyes, amazed to see the girl crying above her.
«It's not your apology I want.» in a broken tone, Lynn burst into liberating tears, sobbing and naming her mother.
«Why why...»
Name remembered when she had burst into tears on the lake, at that moment Dia had stayed there with her.
So, though full of aches all over her body, though still worried about Fera and annoyed by her behavior, she got up to hug her.
Lynn didn't react at first, then suddently stood up and walked away.
«I-»
«I'm sorry.» Lynn leaned down, looking like she was still crying.
Name didn't reply this time, but got up and went to check on Fera.
She was scared.
The more she went on, the more she realized how much Deorum entered people's heads and changed them drastically.
It broke them into a thousand pieces and if someone tried to fix them, that person came out built in a completely different way.
Fera had warned her from the start.
This is not such a beautiful world.
She was right, this world was evil, fate itself, which seemed to have chosen her, was unbearable.
None of this ... is right.
«Fera, can you get up?» they had to find Kein, as soon as possible, so that all three of them could come out, even with only one knob, and have Fera treated better.
«Mh-mh.» she leaned badly against her, opened her eyes, but when she did, she stared at something behind Name.
She was staring at something terrified.
«I'm sorry.» Name spun around.
Lynn, behind her, was holding the knife again.
Her face seemed deformed into a smile, still covered in tears.
«I'm sorry, but I'm doing it to conquer my place in Deorum.»
Name didn't have time to react, that the ceiling, or the blue sky, in a moment broke into a thousand pieces and collapsed on their heads.