The Queen's Coffin

As the battered casket was being lifted from its position, Jasmine's eyes gushed with the intensity of the emotions that flooded over her.

She was sad for the girl who had been, and for the girl who she was now, and she was sad for the Queen, Dai Tien Ha who had died in this lifetime to protect her.

As she cried, Blake's presence held her from behind, lending solid support. For a moment, she clung onto him, overwhelmed with grief of so much loss and death.

Blake held her up with his own powers, tapping into his red energy. He allowed her to grieve for her aunt in whatever way she could, for as long as she needed to.

His arms continued to wrap around her as he gathered her into the core of his being, drawing upon the strength of love to keep her upright.

Blake didn't care. He'd killed so many people and ghouls in the past few weeks that he had such a huge store of red energy, it didn't matter the tiny amount he expended to take care of Jasmine.

There was also another consideration.

While hate and anger took a lot of energy and effort to build up enough power to move things, love and compassion took hardly any energy at all to generate powerful forces that he could utilize.

It was a feeling that was so mighty and yet used up so little of his energy, Blake felt almost revitalized each time he used it. It was almost as if the more love he filled himself with, the more powerful he became.

While Blake was trying to console Jasmine, the rest of the men were trying to get the lid off the casket.

They were seriously struggling.

It was stuck to the casket from the centuries of being in the ground and no amount of pressure could pry it loose.

"Stand back." Anh Hai announced to the rest of the men as he gave a calculating look at the casket.

With a strong whack, Anh Hai struck the pick ax into the side of the lid, splintering a corner. From that point, it was just a matter of prying it open with a crow bar.

The lid thudded as it flew back from its resting position, letting out an ancient funky smell that was eye-watering in its intensity.

Not wanting to miss seeing the remains, Jasmine wiped her tears away and got a good hard look at what was left at the bottom of the casket.

Staring up at her was a skeleton of a small-framed female, complete with the familiar ghastly grin of the dead. The figure was placed in a supine position with her arms over her chest cavity in the shape of a cross.

Her once-resplendent clothing had rotted away to rags of an undetermined color and clung to her bony body in tattered shreds. There was nothing left that could attest to the wealth or status of its wearer.

The only thing that had preserved quite well was her hair. It was, strangely enough, very similar to Jasmine's own hair in length, color, and texture.

The long raven black strands covering her scalp, flowed down to her chest area hinted at its once-beautiful state. It was held in place by a thick band of heavy solid gold worthy of a Queen's ransom.

The tiara was inlaid with large gemstones of rubies, topaz, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, aquamarines, and citrines encircling the entire band.

On her hands were gemstones embedded onto gold bangles and rings, now loose around the skeletal bones of her fingers and wrists. The jewelry, though grimy from the ravages of time and rotted flesh, still retained their enduring beauty and value.

Suddenly, all the centuries rolled back into a single moment, when she finally realized that her life had a meaning beyond that which was obvious.

Life was not something that one guarded with zealous fever, trying to preserve for all eternity some old bones of dubious worth, or even a handful of pebbles that happened to have arbitrary value among the living.

For her life to have meaning, she had to go beyond herself and grow into the kind of human who would, even after death, elicit the kind of response from another human, just as what Aunt Dai Tien Ha had done for her.

In this context then, Jasmine's sacrifice was not the tragedy that it had seemed to be. Had she not done what she did, her sister the Queen would have never been reborn, fated to join the monastery and grow into the higher being that she had finally transformed into.

In giving her life for the Queen, she had effectively given Tien Ha the means to escape samsara via enlightenment.

She was still pondering over this when Anh Hai's pick ax struck the second coffin lid. This was the king's coffin. The body within was his.

For a moment, Anh Hai stood back, his chest heaving with heavy breathing. His men had begun the process of moving the second casket into a more accessible area so the lid could be removed.

"Would you like to open the casket yourself?" One of the men asked, seeing Anh Hai standing there, unmoving.

For a moment, he did not respond. His eyes were haunted, as he relived his last moments all those centuries ago.

Jasmine looked at him, fully understanding what he was going through. The only difference was that she had Blake to hold onto and grieve. She was openly crying and no one thought any worse of her.

This man had no one to hold onto. He didn't even have the luxury of showing his grief because his men were all around him and he was Anh Hai, the Master Overlord.

For that moment, her heart went out to him.

Anh Hai stood staring at the casket, his body frozen as if unwilling to expose his ancient self to himself. He took a deep breath and held up a hand to the black-clad man.

Raising his pick ax, he launched himself at the lid, slamming the tip onto the side in the same manner he had done with Jasmine's coffin.

The lid splintered open, exposing a darkness within.

With care, he began picking the pieces of wood and throwing them to one side.

In minutes, the lid had been thrown back, exposing for the first time in centuries, the remains of a man who had once ruled the entire area.

Anh Hai stood transfixed, looking into the long-dead face of the man he had once been.