Chapter 232: Flamme's Aching Chest
In her room in the Duke's palace, Flamme awoke from a nightmare. It was a vision of the battle, but this time, he had not been there to save them. The barrier had shattered, and the monsters had poured in...
Her throat was dry. She quietly got up and, seeing Frieren still sound asleep in the other bed, she crept out of the room to get a drink of water.
The hallway was dark, but the moonlight streamed in through the windows. She rubbed her throbbing head and was about to go downstairs when she heard voices from the terrace. One was a cool and distant sound, but with a new and unfamiliar softness to it. It had to be Serie. And the other... was him. What are they doing out there so late?
A strange and irresistible curiosity took hold of her, and she crept down the hallway, her own footsteps a silent and ghostly thing, and she hid in the shadows of a pillar and looked.
Serie was in a simple white robe, her usual perfect posture now a little... slouched, a look of a lazy and a languid contentment on her face. And at her feet, a collection of empty wine bottles. He was standing close to her, so close, and he was saying something, his own voice a low and a gentle sound.
The air between them was the same as it had been in their own, secluded hut, an easy and a familiar intimacy, a thing she had seen a thousand times before. But tonight... something was different. A strange and an unsettling premonition, a feeling of a profound and an impending loss, now washed over her.
And then she saw it. Serie, she had stood, and she had stumbled, and he had reached out to catch her. He'll catch her, she thought. With his own power, it would be an easy thing. But his movements... they were just a fraction of a second too slow. And it was in that single, fleeting moment that her own, small and a fragile world was shattered.
They fell together, and their lips... met.
And the moonlight, it was a cruel and a terrible thing, a thing that illuminated every last, agonizing detail. Her own mind was now a blank and a terrible void, and a new and a terrible cold, a cold that was a far and a more terrible thing than the demon's own, now washed over her.
She clamped a hand over her own mouth to stifle the scream that was now rising in her throat, and she stumbled back, her own back hitting the cold stone wall, and she slid to the floor, and she hid in the shadows.
Why... why does my chest hurt so much? It was a pain so great, so terrible, that she could barely breathe. She gasped, a fish out of a water, but the air... it would not come.
She had thought... she had thought she had had a chance.
Yes. She had finally admitted it to herself. She loved him. His wisdom, his strength, his playful and a teasing smile, and his gentleness... it had all been a sweet and a terrible poison, a poison that she had willingly drunk, and she was now hopelessly and a completely in its thrall. And all her own efforts to be stronger... it was not just to meet their own expectations. It was a deeper thing, a desire to be by his side, to be a part of his own, long and a lonely life.
And she had even thought... with the elf's own, long and an emotionally-detached life... that she, with her own, human, feelings... that she might have had a chance.
But the scene before her... it had shattered her own, foolish, hopes. A thousand years... they had a thousand years between them. A span of a time so vast, so great, that she could not even comprehend it. Her own few years with him... they were a mere speck of a dust in the face of it all, a ridiculous and a self-important dream. From the very beginning, her own place in his life... it had been a fixed and an unchangeable thing.
Just a student. And nothing more.
A wave of a hot and a bitter tears now streamed down her face, and the world was now a blur.
After a long, long time, she stood and, like a ghost, she returned to her room.
The other girl, she was awake. "Flamme?" she said, her own voice a small and a quiet sound, a sound of a pure and an unadulterated concern. "Did you have a nightmare? You look... broken."
She could not find a better word for it.
"It's nothing," she said, and shook her head. "I think... I have fallen in love with someone I should not have. And now... I have to face an opponent I cannot possibly win against. The odds... they are insurmountable."
"Love? An opponent? A battle?" she asked, her own voice a pure and an unadulterated confusion. In her own, simple world, if you liked someone, you went to them. If you did not, you stayed away. And to not be able to win a battle... then you should just retreat. She could not understand the complexities of a human's heart. But she could feel it, the deep and a profound sadness that now emanated from her.
"Is your opponent... very strong?" she asked, in her own, clumsy way. "Like Lord Rhodes, and Lady Serie?" She paused. "But even they... they have things they cannot do." Even the strongest have their own weaknesses.
"Frieren, you do not understand. This is a human emotion..."
"No, I do not," she said, her own voice now a flat and a rational sound. "For an elf, these human emotions... they are difficult to comprehend. To hint, to suggest... and even to speak of it plainly... if the emotion itself is not understood... it will only ever be met with a refusal, will it not?"
Her words... they were just a simple statement of a fact. But to her, in her own, now shattered, heart... they were a new and a terrible revelation.
~~~
Get early access to 20+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
~~~
Every 150 Power Stones = 1 extra chapter