The War By Barghest

“Have you heard about the holy Empire’s underground research rumours?”

”I’m guessing they were true.”

”Mmm… They had needed new subjects to perform their experiments on. A kind of super soldier project that they were apparently working on for a long time.”

”And the kingdom had found this information how?”

”They had apparently captured the enemy commander who had tried to commit suicide. I heard that mother had played a big part in uncovering the truth with her blessing.”

Aletheia’s blessing, with its powers to determine truth, had managed to get the commander to confess. That year, it was the first time ever that the nation of Justice had gone to war. They had completely crippled the Empire’s military might. Finding out that Radisel had been the main colluding party, the King of Babel had him executed in front of the surrendered Barghest king as a message that their relationship was forever damaged. Everything was relayed to Kei just as Celena had remembered it.

”What about the captured citizens?”

”Most of them were recovered, the rest were claimed to be deceased by the Empire due to the resistance. Obviously, we never believed them, but what proof did we have? Unfortunately, the Empire’s allies soon came into the fold to try and find a peaceful resolution.”

Rotten as they may be, the Holy Empire had a number of allies they could call on to their aid. However, in that war itself, none of the empire’s allies dared challenge Babel’s military might, touted as one of the strongest in the world, and opted to look for a peaceful resolution instead. The Kingdom of Babel on the other hand, had no intention of fighting with parties who had no say or involvement in the matter, so they pulled out with the condition that Barghest had to pay reparations.

”And that is why the Lord of Rovinj was granted to my father, the Duke Lestia, who had defended the citizens and came to the city’s aid in their greatest time of need.”

”I see, you mentioned those who no longer exist… How much do you know about them?”

At his question, Celena’s eyes opened wide in shock to the realisation that she may have said too much. However, since she had already mentioned it, there was probably nothing she could do but answer his query or she would be seen as suspicious or hiding something.

”Not much… Only from what I was told by my father and old records from the empire found when we had attacked them.”

”And that was?”

”From what my father had told me, this race was called the Celestials… They were a race that had an extremely long lifespan, longer than the elves.”

”And?”

”From the records and testimonies of the soldiers we had captured from the Empire, they were a heretical race.”

At the mention of the Celestials being a heretical race, Kei’s face darkened.

“There was also something peculiar that my father had told me years ago. Records showed that the Holy Empire had sent a missive to all their temples across the land to spread the word that the Celestials were a heretical race. He couldn’t verify if this was the truth as the records seemed to be extremely old, about 2 thousand years ago.”

To that explanation, Kei was no longer listening, instead his head was faced down, as if deep in thought. His face was expressionless, was he angry? Or was he sad? These thoughts wandered Celena’s mind when she watched her savior who was in front of her. Slowly, she noticed that the room was suddenly becoming extremely cold. Ice was forming in the cup of coffee in front of her, her breath visible. However, she had no time to think about what was actually happening as the door to the cafe swung open and Kei was snapped out of his pondering look. As he did, the room temperature went back to normal. Walking through the door, a young man, probably in his early twenties, walked through with an arrogant air about him.