Chapter 33: Desolation

Nate POV:

The good thing about having a dragon, well, not having a dragon, but your future husband, current soulmate, having a dragon, is that we didn't have to walk around anymore.

Sure, Alexander tried to throw us all off to our deaths, but he was a good boy. Lars did his best to make sure that Alexander was as tame as possible, which was a lot to ask of a dragon.

Still, as I saw the volcano in the distance, and the shanty town below us, I knew that we won't have an easy time. My mother did this. I couldn't say I didn't know because Boran was still called Sybil's Vengeance by many in Lergo.

An entire country, the heart of industry and prosperity, leveled to the ground. No survivors, for my mother made sure to hunt those fortunate enough to survive their country becoming a magma hellhole.

It was not like I could say that the people of Boran deserved it. No, Boran was neutral. Well, on paper, at any rate. It sold weapons to Arkano and Naschestan. Which, and I am not quite sure, but I had the feeling that I was right, dragged the conflict for years.

I still remember the first time I spoke with my mother after she did the curse. We were at breakfast, the sun was shining outside, no cloud in sight. She buttered my toast herself, something she liked to do. Then, as I refused to eat, she smiled.

"My dearest Nate," she said, calm and collected, as if she hadn't just killed thousands of children her son's age. "You have to eat because there are children in the world who go hungry. You don't want to be mean to them, do you?"

I was so idealistic back then, that I repeated her words to my nanny. The poor woman told me the truth. What became of her was a mystery to me. Although, now that I knew more about my mother, who she was, how she really lived and fought, I could guess.

"Nate?" Lars laid a hand on my shoulder, and I looked at him.

"Yes?" It was hard for me to do anything but blink, as he wrapped his arms around me.

"It was not your fault," Lars liked to say that, every time he saw me mulling over my mother. I could understand him, really, but it was my fault.

I could put two and two together. If Boran had not been destroyed, I would surely have died. It was as simple as that.

"We must fix it," I didn't say that I must fix it myself because life had made me a realist. No, this wasteland was poisoning the northern borderlands. Before we did something about it, we could never actually make any steps forward.

"What do you mean?" He asked. Oh, how pure he was, how naive. There was no way that I could convince him to believe in himself. He had brought the guild master low; he tamed a dragon. Yet now, that I needed him, and not just him, but Jean's nature magic, Mike's strength, for I knew that the wastelands of Boran were full of golems and other horrors, he doubted.

Basil and Rowan would surely help. I had no idea how powerful Rowan was, but one didn't become an Arkano General, without being at least SS ranked.

"We could heal the sick, but they will end up sick once more," it was a simple truth, but a heartless one. I regretted the words as soon as they slipped pass my lips.

"You can't mean that, Nate! We have to try!" He protested.

"He has the right to it," Rowan's voice was grave, as only the voice of someone who had lived through the war can be. And he hadn't just lived through the war, no. He had fought in it. "The land is poisoned. Nate is Sybil's son. If there is anyone who could repair the lay lines, then it is him."

Rowan had more faith in me, than I had. Me, repairing lay lines? I had no idea what a lay line was, much less how to repair them. 

But I had to try. These people suffered because of me. My title meant nothing these days, but to me, it meant I had a duty. 

A duty to the people of Lergo, a duty to those gone before their time.

"Alex-pooh, straight ahead," I heard Lars say, and was left to my thoughts once more. There was no way to get out of this situation. 

"Nate? I can give you some tips, if you'd like," Jean said, and I turned to him. "The lay lines can be felt by those who have a connection to them."

Which sounded easy, in theory. The problem was, that I had no way of knowing how lay lines felt. Did they give off a mana hum, as many other natural phenomena did? Or could I see them? Were they even lines in the ground, or were they in the air?

"Just let your mana out," Jean continued. I did so. Since I joined up with Lars, I had been getting regular meals. My body could heal itself from the brink of starvation from just one bite. 

With all the food I had been eating, I was full of mana to the brim.

After a couple of minutes, I felt a tug. It was something I didn't expect. It felt like my mother's mana. When I was still a small child, I connected her mana with warmth.

Now it was fire and brimstone. Nothing else could explain this mana. How could I ever think that my mother had a calming type of mana? How could I ever think her kind, when her mana was a hateful wound on this land? A blight, a curse most foul.

I felt shame for ever smiling at her. I wanted to take all the loving words I had ever told her back. She didn't deserve them; I didn't deserve anything but scorn.

For she had loved me. Enough to kill off the population of an entire country. And yet, despite knowing the truth about Boran since the start, I still tried to keep her memory pristine in the face of scorn. 

What did that say about me?