— ★ A SUPPLEMENTARY TALE : leif & seliph
for : @lightinheritor
❝ soldiers, at rest! the order has come from lord seliph. we are to stay here for the night, but be on alert. i will need volunteers for first watch . . . ❞
the voice ringing out over the halls brings audible relief to the amassed soldiers, many of them weary and wounded from the long campaign from meace west to castle luthecia, where they have now made their temporary base. the first half of what had been a daunting series of battles in thracia has come to a close, and many would argue that they had put the worst behind them. meace, kapathogia, and luthecia are all in their possession, travant has been slain, and the famous shield of thracia and his adopted son are now sworn fighters in the service of the liberation army.
all that remains are the castles in thracia’s heartland, and the biggest threats are gone — save prince areone and what certainly awaits them in his hand: the gungnir. && further, though the thought weighs on few other minds besides his own, what will become of thracia’s princess?
❝ my lord, will you allow me to change your bandages? ❞
the young cleric pulls him from his thoughts, and he looks up to her from his place on the bed, bare from the waist up save for a thick swath of cloth around his middle. bruises and cuts litter his arms and torso, and the cotton about his right side is already pink again. he glances down at it, where travant’s lance had pierced through leather and flesh, gouging deep, nearly incapacitating him.
he remembers the spark of triumph in the man’s eyes when he thought he’d gotten the best of him. his fingers tighten in his sheets. he’s dead. he’d severed the tyrant’s head with his own light brand, as he’d been dreaming of doing for sixteen years. it’s over. ❝ yes. thank you. ❞ as he shifts to allow her to unwind the cloth from him with precise care, his mind back goes to what travant had left behind.
you’re saying the person i believe to be my father is my true father’s murderer? what nonsense.
i . . . i want so badly to say you’re lying . . . but i can’t!
she had told him to wait, left him standing there on the battlefield while she flew back to thracia to confront travant about the truth. but then the king had sprung a surprise attack on meace, and leif had had to break from seliph’s main force to lead men to meace’s defense. he had been so focused on avenging his father’s death that he hadn’t had time to wonder whether altena had been able to learn the truth at all.
she’d looked just like he’d always imagined — fierce and proud, as one bearing noba’s lineage. hair, eyes, a face like his, like the portrait of his father. their father. and if that wasn’t telling enough, she’d held the gae bolg itself in her hands. his sister. but would she believe him? or would she be waiting with prince areone in thracia, ready to cut him down?
the thought makes him so restless that he itches to move, to find answers, even just talk to someone. but all he can do is wait. he’d just ridden back from meace to rejoin seliph and the others, and his injury is still healing. his expression flinches as the cleric applies a disinfecting poultice to the angry-looking wound. he hates waiting.
