Chapter 16: The truth is a bitter pill to swallow

Nate POV:

I lost my throne when I was around five-years-old. I could still remember that rainy night. Of course, it had to rain. Why shouldn't it? The weather had to fit the situation. A last nod from the universe to a child who wore the crown of his father.

A child who saw his mother suffer, then breathe her last.

It rained. The heavens poured out so much, that the harvest was bad that year. My mother got the blame for that as well. Not that I was expecting anything else by that point.

General Amalric had broad shoulders. My entire life I thought that he was an ogre, with the only difference being that his skin was creamy, and not green. Not because he had a mean streak or anything, but because he was a mountain of muscle.

When the assassins cornered us, they shook in their boots. What would bring common people to do something so full hardy as to fight against the best fighter in the world? Was it bravery, gold?

Now I knew what it was. It was desperation.

My mother's blood flows through my veins. If she had the power to melt the Heart of the World, then why couldn't I do it one day? 

It was logical for those who had already lost so much during the war to cut their losses. Maybe some of them even had children of their own. Refused to bury them one day, then fight in another war. 

As we were released from the holding cell, I just marched forward. Back then, I had no idea where I was going. My brain was full of the thoughts that everything I knew was lies. That my mother was not the misunderstood beacon of light for whom I took her.

About an hour in, I registered that I was followed. It was just a pure instinct born of a lifetime of looking over my shoulder for danger. Slowly, very slowly and with balled fists, I turned around.

There they were, my party members. Lars was leading the small group, but Mike was taking the rear. And Jean was just walking to the side, face neutral.

"Why are you all here?" It was a silly question, I knew. I should have known that they wouldn't abandon me so easily. We were in a party, had faced off against the guild master together.

"You shouldn't be alone right now," I could barely register Lars' voice. Could barely see his lips move. That spoke volumes to me.

"Was it funny?" I was bitter, a child, whose entire world was upturned. No, I just wished that I had never met Basil and Rowan. That I had never got the proof that everyone who had ever beat me up, or thrown a mean word at my head, had the right to do so.

Lars looked me in the eyes, his lower lip was now between his teeth. Becoming redder and redder. A part of me, the one which was connected to him, wanted to hug him. Just like that. To feel his warmth, to kiss him on the lips, before he bit so hard, that he started bleeding.

My pride got in the way. Funny, I had thought that my pride died the first time I felt hunger. 

Lars broke off from the group, his arms were soon around me.

"You can't take it as the complete truth," maybe he even believed in what he said. He was the honest sort. That much I knew about him.

"And why not? What reason did the guard had to lie?" I was not ready to be comforted. My illusions were now a thing of the past. That hurt more than any beating I had gone through.

"There are always more sides to a story. Maybe your mother really wanted to melt the Heart of the World, I don't know. But Basil, Rowan, and the guard didn't know your mother. How could they know her reasoning?"

Lars hugged me closer, his head under my chin. My arms moved out of their own accord. He was soft, and while most people wanted that their lovers were hard like stone, I found comfort in that softness. 

"Then... how do I find out the truth?" The hope that I could clear my mother's name had not left me completely. Still, even back then I knew that I won't find that, for which I searched for, here. No, the truth was in the Heart of the World. A mountain, ancient and monumental, which was so far away, that one needed more than a year to reach it.

Those who reached it, passed through the barriers, proved themselves to the guards, and actually had anything to search there, rarely returned to their starting point. The Heart of the World was an inhospitable place.

It demanded blood, lapped it up greedily. 

"By asking," said Lars, as he hugged me even closer. "We could go see what one can find in the library. There should be new age history accounts there. Or newspaper clippings."

Yes, written by bitter people, who wanted to bend the truth for their benefit. Still... I owed it to mom and dad, to actually find out the truth. The war had taken its toll. It was my duty to put all the restless spirits left behind in the ruin which we now called Lergo to rest.

"But first, we all should really take a shower," Jean's voice brought me out of my thoughts. Yes, Lars would come with me, but could I expect that from Mike and Jean as well? Or was it silly of me?

"Nate, I am loyal to you, you know that, right?" Mike sounded unsure. I didn't doubt his words, but it hurt that he would think I would not accept his helping hand.

"And if Basil and Rowan spoke the truth?" Could my friends, if I could dare think of them like that, be able to look me in the eyes even then?

"You are not your mother. Be she a saint or a devil, you are not her," Lars breathed in deeply, then exhaled. "And a bath would do us all good."

At that moment, I decided that come what may, I would stick to these three.