The Truth

---Katherine---

"Pathetic." Lord Victor sniffed disdainfully. He saw Aaron shakingly reach out for the hilt of Retribution that was only a few inches away and kicked the sword out of reach, before grounding the heel of his boot into the back of Aaron's outstretched hand. Aaron let out a pained shout. My sword stopped several feet in front of me.

Augustus's cloak, which Aaron always wore, was stained with blood. It crumpled to one side, exposing his other side and his back. I watched in despair as Lord Victor produced a dagger from his sleeves, bent down, and stabbed it between Aaron's lower ribs. Aaron screamed in agony. Lord Victor pulled out the dagger and stabbed Aaron a second time. Blood gushed out from the wound and dyed Aaron's entire side red.

"Stop it! You'll kill him!" I cried out in anguish. I couldn't even crawl to where they were; I could only drag myself a couple of inches along the ground before the pain became too overwhelming. Aaron, curled on his side, looked towards me. Our gazes met, and I saw my anguish and hopelessness reflected in his expression. Seeing Aaron's broken figure and the despair and agony in his eyes made a fresh batch of tears roll down my face, mixing with the blood and dust as they splattered to the ground.

"'Stop'? Why should I stop? Why should I care if he lived or died?" Lord Victor scoffed as he left the dagger plunged into Aaron's side and straightened to look down at me. "Would you like to make Aaron feel less alone by sharing his pain?"

I ignored him. Aaron and I were only about two or three meters away from each other, but it felt like opposite sides of the world. I shakily stretched out my arm towards Aaron, and he did the same towards me. At this moment, when it felt like we would die at any instant and our quest had come to its tragic ending, I wanted to feel Aaron's comforting presence, even if it was just holding his hand as Lord Victor killed us.

"Kath…" Aaron's voice was barely above a hoarse whisper. No matter how we stretched, our fingers would never touch. We were so close, yet so far.

Lord Victor looked down and stepped in between us. "What a touching moment. I might even shed a tear if I cared about you two, but I don't." He kicked Aaron again, inducing Aaron to spit out another mouthful of blood. "Indigo was right: your greatest weakness is that you cannot stand to see your friends get hurt. What a stupid hero trait."

"At least I have friends," Aaron muttered, earning him another sharp kick.

"What do you want from us? What do you stand to gain by torturing us?" My throat was hoarse from screaming. "Why don't you just kill us, like you've been trying to all along? Kill the rest of the Rosewood Seven, and you win. Isn't that what you want?"

Lord Victor cast a glance at me. "Yes, but what fun is that? I am the evil lord; the cruel, merciless dictator. Aren't I supposed to torture you?" He sighed, as if to say 'I wish there was another way'. "That's what everyone made me out to be. I'm simply fulfilling their expectations."

"That's because you are evil and cruel and merciless," I retorted. I dragged myself forward by another inch. "There wouldn't be a prophecy if you didn't exist, and the Elders wouldn't have sent us on this quest."

"Prophecy? Elders?" Lord Victor laughed as if he heard the funniest joke in the world. "Dear children, I feel so bad for you all. You have been lied to and used, yet you are still plowing ahead blindly. Did you really think the Elders are righteous and heroic and just? Did you really think you were the only batch of kids they sent on this hopeless quest?"

The last question rang around the room. The implications sunk into my brain, and I looked up at Lord Victor in confusion. "Do you mean…there are other chosen ones? But the prophecy said there were only seven, and the Elders—"

"My dear Katherine," Lord Victor cut off my words gently. He walked over and crouched so that he was at eye level with me. "Not everyone is who they seem, the Elders included. It was cruel of them to make you fight me—you never would have won. But it's not your fault. It's the Elders' fault for sending children to fight a battle that should be theirs."

I have never seen Lord Victor so calm and so sincere. His gaze was soft, and his voice was gentle. His words were soothing, and they made me want to stop fighting, go to sleep, and never wake up again. I shook myself out of my trance. "You're lying. You just want us to give in. The Elders would never—"

"The Elders would never what? Hide the truth from you? Lie to you? Use you?" Lord Victor stood up in an angry huff and paced away. "You are putting them on pedestals. You don't even know what they have done. Once upon a time, a group of kids like you believed in the Elders. Do you want to know what happened to them?" Lord Victor whirled around, his black cape swishing around his ankles. His eyes blazed.

"They died. Every single one of them."

I wasn't sure what to make of this. On one hand, this was Lord Victor speaking. He was cunning and sly, and it could easily be another one of his lies. What's more, he was attacking the Rosewood Elders, the fifteen people held in the highest regards and utmost respect by all because of their wisdom and contributions to society.

However, the thing that made me hesitate was that Lord Victor didn't seem to be lying. His voice was too full of anger, his eyes a little too red, and his gaze a little too unfocused, like he was looking at me but not seeing me because he was reliving memories. The genuine hatred and fury on his face was too hard to fake. Who were the kids Lord Victor was talking about, and what happened?

Aaron met my gaze across the ground. 'Keep him talking.' Lie or no lie, the longer we keep Lord Victor distracted, the longer we had to recuperate, and the more likely we could counterattack and catch him off guard. I inconspicuously pulled myself forward by another half an inch. "Who were they? What did the Elders have to do in their deaths?" I asked. "And how do you know this?"

Lord Victor looked down at Aaron and me for a long time, his face a swirl of emotions—pity, condescension, anger, and something else I couldn't quite read. Both of us were wounded and in no condition to fight, covered from head to toe in blood and grime. We lied on the floor, too far to help each other, yet still pitifully reaching out for the other. We didn't even have our weapons. There was no doubt regarding who had the upper hand. If Lord Victor wanted to kill us right now, there would be nothing Aaron or I could do to avoid our fate.

We knew this, and so did Lord Victor. We posed no risk to him. He moved his gaze away from us and looked into the distance. "How many years has it been?" He murmured to himself. "It's been so long…"

The corner of his lips turned up in a small, sad smile. In that moment, Lord Victor looked a lot older, as if he had gone through all of life's vicissitudes and tragedies. He looked…human.

Then the moment was over, and the sharp glint in his eyes returned. "Since you are both about to die anyway, I guess there is no harm in telling you the truth. At least you will die enlightened, knowing who really sent you to your deaths.

"Aaron, you are not the only one with friends. Once upon a time, I, too, had a group of friends to call my own. I, too, thought I would return home a hero and live out the rest of my days happily with them. But none of that happened, because the Elders killed my friends."

Lord Victor turned back to look at us once more. I met his hardened gaze, curious despite my better knowledge. Aaron looked expectantly up at Lord Victor as well. Were Lord Victor's friends just as evil as he was? Were they a squad of evil lords? How did the Elders kill them?

Then Lord Victor spoke the words that upended everything I thought I knew about the prophecy and the world around me:

"I was once a member of the Rosewood Seven too, you know."