What is Engraved in Her Soul
Let us take a little detour. A short detour where we go back in time to tell a story that has been forgotten. It’s a small story about love that wasn’t returned and a person whose grief ate away at her soul.
“No…”
She felt like her legs were going to give out. Ruby Etoile Redmoon fell to the ground when she heard the bad news, which took all of her strength away.
She finally found where her one and only love was after a long search. But the harvest was bitter.
In its cruel sense of humour, fate had dealt her a bad hand. Vanos was in the Sealence Forest when the fight with the Lulu tribe from far away broke out.
And he died there.
Even though he had been hit by many arrows and their shafts stuck out of his back in a horrible way, he carried the bodies of two fallen soldiers out of the forest with him as his troops fled, but he fell at the gate of their camp and didn’t get back up.
Ruby saw a picture of his face in her mind, but it was fuzzy and hard to make out. She thought that his soft features would be bruised and bloody. She had loved him since she was a child.
He is gone. He really is gone. Dead. He won’t be back. Not again, ever.
This truth started to sink in slowly.
And it went in like a rock, like an arrowhead, with the weight of a black hole, lodging into her core.
“But… How did this happen? Why did all of this have to happen?”
Lulu’s home was in the forest. They knew it inside an out.
Why did the troops go into a battlefield that was so disadvantageous? And, what’s more important, what started the fight in the first place? Why were they fighting against the people there?
“We were told that Viscount Berman caused it to start. But I’ve heard that the Viscount followed orders from higher up.”
“Higher up?… How high up?”
The man, who said he was the only one left from his hundred-person squad, shrugged and said, “The princess. Mia Luna Tearmoon, Her Highness. She wanted wood from that forest.”
“…Her Highness?”
“Yes.
“I think she wanted some kind of fancy chest or box with decorations, and she wanted it to be made out of those trees,” the man said.
“The Lulus tried to stop us, so our team went in to get rid of them. At least, that’s what I heard.”
His words slid into her ears so easily, it was almost like they were made just for her.
“That’s…it? All this… for a little trinket?”
A moment’s emptiness.
Then, anger.
Tendrils of anger grew out of her heart and wrapped around her mind and body, controlling her.
The seasons changed, and years went by. The empire was hit by the great famine. People in Tearmoon were dying of hunger and were very angry. The seeds of revolution grew in this rich soil.
That’s when she showed up. Mia Luna Tearmoon, the imperial princess, and one of her subordinates went to the House of Redmoon to ask them to send out their private army.
The petition was a request for military help, but it was more important as a message to the people.
To make the revolutionary army less determined, the Emperor and his nobles had to put on a public show of unity. This showed both friends and enemies that the Emperor and his nobles were a single unit, loyal to the empire and to each other.
There is still time… We still have time to stop this from getting out of hand…
They might. She knew for sure.
But she went to see her father anyway…
“I don’t think now is the right time to do anything.”
And she did everything she could to persuade him not to join the fight. She used every military theory she could find and every rhetorical trick she could think of to stop him from joining the fight.
She was successful, which helped the revolutionary army grow and helped them in a roundabout way.
In the end, the capital of the empire fell, and the flames of the revolution burned proudly over its ruined remains.
Fire, though, wasn’t known for being calm. It spread through the empire, killing not only the emperor’s family but also all the powerful nobles. Soon, the fire spread to all of Tearmoon.
Even though the Redmoons’ elite private army was well-trained and strong, it was not enough to stop the hot tide on its own. Without communication with the main imperial army, both groups were on their own and easy targets for the enemy.
The Redmoons fought hard because they were ready to fight until the end. Even though they tried hard, they couldn’t stop the momentum of the revolutionary army.
As their numbers dropped, her father took charge and rode out to war on horseback. He was soon joined on the battlefield by her younger brothers, who put on armour and helms.
None returned.
Ruby stood on the balcony and looked out over the sea of fire and ash that had been the heart of the Redmoon domain. She could see the enemy army’s front line marching toward her.
Her lips trembled.
“Is this what I wanted?” she asked in a low voice.
“What…did I want?”
Lunatear had already fallen.
The army of the empire was no longer able to put up any kind of organised resistance, so each noble was on his own. So, they shut down roads and tightened the borders, and they only used the soldiers they had to defend themselves. No effort was made to get everyone on the same page.
After all, the most powerful military group, the Redmoons, didn’t seem to care about anyone else but themselves. They didn’t spare a single man for the rest of the empire. In that case, they had every right to take care of themselves in the same way.
All of it could be traced back to Ruby, who told her father that Mia’s request for help should be turned down. Those words had changed everything.
Everything had worked out exactly as planned.
Princess Mia, who had almost certainly ordered Vanos’s death, was caught and killed by the revolutionary army. It was finished. She had her vengeance. Balance restored.
She had won. Victory was hers. And yet…
“This is not what I expected…”
She could only hear echoes in her heart now. She was empty inside. Horribly and unbearably empty.
She told her father to keep his troops back. That was the end. There’s no more.
She was furious but couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t attack the imperial family directly, and she couldn’t even lead troops to kill the princess as revenge. The only thing she could do was stay in her domain and wait.
So she had to wait. She decided not to fight. The person for whom she swore to fight for was already gone. Nothing more could be gained. No one to look out for. No more reason to fight.
The sound was like thunder. The sound was the front door of the manor being broken into. They would soon come to get her.
Ruby drew her sword. It shined in the red light of the fire. She held it up, and the smooth blade showed the skin on her neck.
“I’ve been taught to fight since the day I was born. Trained with the sword, in how to lead, and in how to ride. Melted, forged, and sharpened. And I will die in the sheath in the end. Without even a chance to be drawn, fight, or risk my life for something I care about…”
She was happy.
It was a small, worn-out smile.
“If life is nothing but a cruel joke, what else is there to do but laugh?”
She drew her sword again. Not out, but across.
As she fell to the ground, blood pooling under her, she saw a reflection of the empty, empty sky in her eyes. The world got darker, but her sadness got worse. Ruby’s life ended in this all-consuming, meaningless blackness.
…Leaving behind a heart filled with sorrow. A soul that would always be grieving because she couldn’t fight for the person she loved.
