𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃│✔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟒

Pandora 

♡

It went just as we predicted it.

The priests were still in the middle of their nightly prayers, kneeled over with the palm of their hands pressed against one another. Begging the stars to carry their dreams to the Heaven's Realm, for the almighty ones to hear them out. Hoping that with enough praying, the droughts in the East would cease, and crops would grow back this spring. Speaking their hearts' minds who carry the most unreachable desires, as if praying would somehow make them come true. It was an easy target for the Salavars, who, as Ezra envisioned barged through the heavy temple doors well before the night had reached its peak. People screamed, children cried and morons prayed. 

And we, well we acted as a group of clueless priests and tried to scream as fearful as others without doing too much fooling around. The aim was to get them to bring us to their camps, so unlike the poor souls who had the bad luck of being too loud for their liking, we silently let them handcuff us. I tried to mask my surprise when noticing that the cuffs weren't simple steel ones like the ones used by guards to arrest outlaws, but enchanted black metal handcuffs dipped in Silver Root - a substance attained when one cuts off the roots of a Silver Tree and grinds them with swirls of dark mana.

For ages, Silver Root has been strictly forbidden on our lands, as it's the most lethal poison for a shifter. Mere contact with skin causes irritations and suppresses our mana, disabling our shift. Just like us, people of the House of Asra avoid this potion like they would run from sunlight. T

hose of the House of Aelfdene use it as torture method to lock away the magic of their prisoners. In the early years after the downfall of the Filles Céleste, the mortal realm was in tumult for approximately a century before the immortal General Prethon Nox, head of the Lunar Celestial Army, came down to earth with his men to install prosperity once more. He's the one who set to rules for each House to keep to themselves, and helped the Originals to draw the lines of their territory. The current members of House of Eos like to believe that he came down to earth to protect them, frail mortals, from the other Houses and their 'unnatural' abilities. 

The truth, however, sets the fault on their side. For the reason why a celestial being had to decent on the mortal realm was not to make sure that peace was kept, but to ensure that peace was made. Because around the years of C.C 200 sun years after the creation of the Mortal Realm, right after the Filles Céleste fell, humans crossed the border of House Aelfdene, and made their first ever contact with magic. As a consequence came the development of a poison, made from the Silver Tree we used to honour, and the darkest of magics. They dipped their swords, shields, and even their bodies in it, and went on the bloodiest massacre written down in mortal history.

 Every wound their weapons caused hindered our strong immunity, and hence couldn't heal. Over the years, they mastered their art of killing and developed catapults launching balls of Silver Root powder, rendering our kind helpless to the vomit of silver ichor we choked on. That's why, for the first time in forever, and for the last time since, did the Heavens interfere with the Mortal world.

One race had managed to completely overpower and almost eliminate three others.

That is the true power of greed.

That is the real danger of power.

That's how we got to now, as we're being dragged in a chained line by the horsemen, my mind a complete mess. Silver Root is only legal within the human territories. It's strictly forbidden to transport the product anywhere else, so how? How in the world is it possible for mere rebels, who look like their on the brink of starvation get their hands on such lethal weapon. No businesses, even the black market, would be mad enough to risk their lives by trading such products. More importantly, why are they handling it as if it has no effect on them? It makes no sense. There are too many loose ends for any of this to make sense. I focus my vision on Adrien who's walking in front of me at steady pace.