Roses. How long had it been since he'd seen blue roses? Bending, Lucien Mantear brushed his calloused fingers along the petals of one of the flowers, his pale blue eyes--a few shades lighter than the flower--transfixed upon the beauty of the plant. When he had returned to Hama Valon, he had never considered what might have survived the onslaught the city suffered. What might have persevered despite the agony inflicted upon the sprawling metropolis. Tracing a thumb along a silky blue petal, he thought back to the burnt out husks littering the streets in a macabre portrait of human debris. He thought back to the wailing widows, the sobbing widowers, and the families begging for help in healing or saving loved ones long ago gone to the sheltering hand of the Creator. His head tilted, and he brushed his fingers along an entire line of flowers, swallowing back the desire to weep at the softness of their texture.
Bile rose in his throat, bile as the stench of the dead still clogging his nostrils days after the fact. Bile at the broken bodies of children, shattered by the one power and torn under the uncaring claws and talons of monstrous to'raken. His fingers shook at the memory of helplessness as he rode back into the city he now called home, daring to have been smiling not an hour before setting his eyes on the gutted vista of Hama Valon. Disgust rose within him, disgust at himself, at the arrogance he pretended to--the false pride with which he'd scorned the need to practice the weave for travelling. He had been haughty, so assured, so self-indulgent that he'd rather ride and see the countryside; rather experience his homeland and all it had to offer, than make a hasty trip back. How much could have been different? How many could he have saved? The rose felt like sandpaper with its softness, it felt like a grindstone working away at the fragile layers of his confident veneer.
You failed them, Lord Mantear. All those people dead, and how many could you have saved but for your pride? The thoughts that haunted him were not unfounded, as true and as brutally honest as the funeral dirges that could still be heard in parts of the fractured city. It's Ekaterina all over again. His jaw tightened at the memory, the shaking of his hands worsening to the point he had to clench his fingers into a fist away from the roses he was examining. Ekaterina. His love a servant of the shadow, her retainers little more than thugs with allegiance to chaos and death. He still saw her burning. He still heard her as she begged him for mercy and he burned her alive. He remembered the unwashed animal stench of the trollocs as they bellowed and ran from him; remembered the cold, hateful fury with which he struck them down--lashing out with powers he didn't understand, against foes he hated to the fibre of his being. A sharp pain brought him a respite from the memories, and he glanced down in surprise, noting the blood dripping from his wrist where it had run, sourced at the point of his palm where his nails had been driven into flesh.
Uncurling his fingers, he stared at his bloodied fingertips and the marks on the skin within his hand, noting with muted shock that he barely even felt the pain. No more than I deserve. Light, how much blood do I wear on these hands for my pride? Turning back to the roses, he reached out again without thinking, cupping a large one in his bleeding palm. The scarlet of his vitae stained the petals, dyeing them a sanguine tint. A stain, like the wounds upon Hama Valon reflected in the broken perfection of the rose. Poetic. Morbid. Guilt and rage welled inside him again, and he steadied himself with a shaking breath, eyes half-lidding as he regarded the rose intently. Love and prosperity, it was said, was what the blue rose symbolised. A love eternal and unending, vibrant and fertile--a common symbol of commitment and affection between courting sweethearts. He smiled without mirth at the thought, reaching out to lightly pluck the rose from the garden, rising to his full height to regard it, blonde-haired head tilting in interest as he rolled the flower between his fingers.
"Eternal love," he murmured, a knife lacerating his heart at the memory. Weakness. He had been weak; he had failed. He had failed to kill Ekaterina before she had murdered her 'family'. He had failed to save the children, slain before their time. Ropes from the rafters, tiny bodies swinging with the creak of aged timber, stirred by a foetid breeze. He paled as he remembered, though outwardly his expression never changed. He had mastered that first; the veneer. The outward unruffled calm that denied the chaos swirling beneath the exterior. The eyes were the tell, he was told. He had emotive eyes. A sarcastic curl of his lip showed his disparaging thought for the comment. The only expression his eyes offered was the guise of a failure play acting at success. I swore on his broken body I would become vengeance. His brother's unseeing eyes, such a more beautiful blue, the warm colour of the ocean, glassy as they regarded the uncaring sky. I will become the Light's Vengeance, for every sin committed against those that should have been most removed from the violence. Did they know? These Asha'man and Aes Sedai? Could they see the white-hot hatred that flowed through his veins thicker than blood?
Living has never been in the cards. I simply need postpone death until I give back to the shadow what it gave to me, a thousandfold. In a way he was thankful. The Dark One's agents had taught him an invaluable lesson. The rose taught him the same. To love was to die, to fold, to become little more than an agent of your own undoing. Humanity was what made channelers able to protect humanity, but his path had been pre-determined. He'd mark his cairn under a mountain of ash, and a billowing peak of blackened, burned shadowspawn husks. His legacy would be the fear he struck into the very heart of the darkness, and the friends of the dark he committed to the void. There was no justice in his future, no fair trial in the path ahead. It was a crusade; a crusade that would suffer neither detraction nor deviation. He would give everything he was; life, limb, love. Everything he was, to see that no child ever died again for his negligence. "A Rose of Mourning," he uttered in his musical baritone, smiling at the irony of it. "Love shrouded by blood. How terribly apt."
Yes, he would die--but not before he took every servant of the shadow he could find to the grave with him.
Bile rose in his throat, bile as the stench of the dead still clogging his nostrils days after the fact. Bile at the broken bodies of children, shattered by the one power and torn under the uncaring claws and talons of monstrous to'raken. His fingers shook at the memory of helplessness as he rode back into the city he now called home, daring to have been smiling not an hour before setting his eyes on the gutted vista of Hama Valon. Disgust rose within him, disgust at himself, at the arrogance he pretended to--the false pride with which he'd scorned the need to practice the weave for travelling. He had been haughty, so assured, so self-indulgent that he'd rather ride and see the countryside; rather experience his homeland and all it had to offer, than make a hasty trip back. How much could have been different? How many could he have saved? The rose felt like sandpaper with its softness, it felt like a grindstone working away at the fragile layers of his confident veneer.
You failed them, Lord Mantear. All those people dead, and how many could you have saved but for your pride? The thoughts that haunted him were not unfounded, as true and as brutally honest as the funeral dirges that could still be heard in parts of the fractured city. It's Ekaterina all over again. His jaw tightened at the memory, the shaking of his hands worsening to the point he had to clench his fingers into a fist away from the roses he was examining. Ekaterina. His love a servant of the shadow, her retainers little more than thugs with allegiance to chaos and death. He still saw her burning. He still heard her as she begged him for mercy and he burned her alive. He remembered the unwashed animal stench of the trollocs as they bellowed and ran from him; remembered the cold, hateful fury with which he struck them down--lashing out with powers he didn't understand, against foes he hated to the fibre of his being. A sharp pain brought him a respite from the memories, and he glanced down in surprise, noting the blood dripping from his wrist where it had run, sourced at the point of his palm where his nails had been driven into flesh.
Uncurling his fingers, he stared at his bloodied fingertips and the marks on the skin within his hand, noting with muted shock that he barely even felt the pain. No more than I deserve. Light, how much blood do I wear on these hands for my pride? Turning back to the roses, he reached out again without thinking, cupping a large one in his bleeding palm. The scarlet of his vitae stained the petals, dyeing them a sanguine tint. A stain, like the wounds upon Hama Valon reflected in the broken perfection of the rose. Poetic. Morbid. Guilt and rage welled inside him again, and he steadied himself with a shaking breath, eyes half-lidding as he regarded the rose intently. Love and prosperity, it was said, was what the blue rose symbolised. A love eternal and unending, vibrant and fertile--a common symbol of commitment and affection between courting sweethearts. He smiled without mirth at the thought, reaching out to lightly pluck the rose from the garden, rising to his full height to regard it, blonde-haired head tilting in interest as he rolled the flower between his fingers.
"Eternal love," he murmured, a knife lacerating his heart at the memory. Weakness. He had been weak; he had failed. He had failed to kill Ekaterina before she had murdered her 'family'. He had failed to save the children, slain before their time. Ropes from the rafters, tiny bodies swinging with the creak of aged timber, stirred by a foetid breeze. He paled as he remembered, though outwardly his expression never changed. He had mastered that first; the veneer. The outward unruffled calm that denied the chaos swirling beneath the exterior. The eyes were the tell, he was told. He had emotive eyes. A sarcastic curl of his lip showed his disparaging thought for the comment. The only expression his eyes offered was the guise of a failure play acting at success. I swore on his broken body I would become vengeance. His brother's unseeing eyes, such a more beautiful blue, the warm colour of the ocean, glassy as they regarded the uncaring sky. I will become the Light's Vengeance, for every sin committed against those that should have been most removed from the violence. Did they know? These Asha'man and Aes Sedai? Could they see the white-hot hatred that flowed through his veins thicker than blood?
Living has never been in the cards. I simply need postpone death until I give back to the shadow what it gave to me, a thousandfold. In a way he was thankful. The Dark One's agents had taught him an invaluable lesson. The rose taught him the same. To love was to die, to fold, to become little more than an agent of your own undoing. Humanity was what made channelers able to protect humanity, but his path had been pre-determined. He'd mark his cairn under a mountain of ash, and a billowing peak of blackened, burned shadowspawn husks. His legacy would be the fear he struck into the very heart of the darkness, and the friends of the dark he committed to the void. There was no justice in his future, no fair trial in the path ahead. It was a crusade; a crusade that would suffer neither detraction nor deviation. He would give everything he was; life, limb, love. Everything he was, to see that no child ever died again for his negligence. "A Rose of Mourning," he uttered in his musical baritone, smiling at the irony of it. "Love shrouded by blood. How terribly apt."
Yes, he would die--but not before he took every servant of the shadow he could find to the grave with him.