2209 Bleeding Heart (Part 1)

Tyris and Leegaain found a straightforward path to the Throne Room and reached it without encountering any resistance.

Once they stepped inside the great hall, they froze on the spot. Not because there was a deadly trap or ambush waiting for them. Not because the Mad King had prepared an anti-Guardian array that his daughter had further perfected.

What made pain run through every fiber of their beings and robbed their eternal bodies of any warmth they had was how familiar the Throne Room was.

Everything from the throne to the paintings had been replaced by copies that looked like the originals but were made entirely of cold, lifeless stone. Thrud sat on her seat and by her side, there was another holding a statue depicting her lost husband.

Thrud wore Arthan's Armor and held the Sword of Arthan with both hands. Its tip touched the floor as she used the priceless artifact as a support to not double over due to the unbearable pain she felt.

Her breath was labored even though she was doing nothing, steaming in the coldness of the room.

'Order and Chaos, this is identical to your house.' Leegaain said via a mind link. 'Are you sure Thrud has never been there?'

'I'm sure. Back when Arthan was chosen as King, there was no test and my life was full of color. I made my throne room that way only after Valeron's death, one hundred years after Arthan's execution. By then Thrud was already in the wind.' Tyris replied.

'Then it must be your blood running thick through her veins to have bestowed her a mind so similar to yours.' Leegaain said.

'Indeed.' Just like Leegaain, Tyris was in her human form and she could appreciate how much the Mad Queen resembled her.

Tyris' beauty and Valeron's noble countenance had found the perfect balance in Thrud like it hadn't happened for most of the First King's daughters.

Thrud's Generals couldn't help but turn their heads dumbly from one woman to another, mistaking them for sisters at best.

"Well, well, well. Look who we have here. The Guardians of the Garlen continent." Tears streamed non-stop from Thrud's eyes yet her voice was firm and clear. "Are you here to just gloat or have you come to finally put me out of my misery?"

"Neither." Leegaain raised his empty hands in a gesture of peace before joining his hands and giving her a deep bow in respect for her grieving. "I've come to give you my condolences and to renew my offer.

"Please, think about your son. Now that Jormun is dead, what do you think will happen to Valeron the Second if you lose the war?"

"What about her?" Thrud nodded at Tyris who had started crying as well.

She knew Thrud's pain better than anyone else and felt close to her despite their morals couldn't be more different.

"I've come to offer you my condolences and my compassion, child." Tyris' voice was calm and soothing despite the suffering that seeing her own reflection in Thrud inflicted upon her. "Know that you are not alone. Not now, nor ever."

The eyes of the Guardians fell on Protheus who was rocking Valeron in his arms. The Doppelganger had taken Jormun's appearance and was singing a lullaby with the voice of the Emerald Dragon.

Thrud had no intention to replace her husband nor to lie to her son. She just wanted to let Valeron smell his father's scent, see his face, and hear his voice while he was still too small to understand what had happened.

Her foolish hope was that it would allow Valeron the Second to remember about Jormun and know how much the Emerald Dragon had loved his son.

"Your condolences?" Thrud echoed, her face twisting into a grimace of unbridled fury. "You executed my father after torturing him for days and you broadcasted the whole thing throughout the Kingdom to show that not even the Royals were above the law!"

The Mad Queen glared at Tyris while the hologram of Arthan's sentence being carried out was projected by the academy's arrays. Thrud had watched it the first time when she was a teen and it had changed her life.

From that day onward, she had replayed the recording every time her determination started to falter or her rage to fade.

The Guardian remained silent since Arthan's suffering was nothing to her compared to what Valeron's death had caused her. No matter how much she empathized with Thrud, Tyris still considered Arthan the source of her misery.

"As for you, you are even worse than her!" Thrud stared at Leegaain with hate. "You left your son imprisoned inside the Golden Griffon for 500 years just to teach him a lesson. If you came and rescued him, none of this would have happened.

"Heck, even if you bothered to welcome him back once he escaped, you would have noticed the slave spell on him and stopped Jormun before he came to Jiera. If only you had a fatherly heart, Jormun would have never met me.

"The War of the Griffons would have never started, I would still be alone and miserable somewhere, but he would still be alive. This is all your fault! My fault! Our Fault!" Tears cracked her voice as the Father of all Dragons understood that the only person Thrud hated as much as him was herself.

Jormun wasn't the first child Leegaain had lost and he hadn't been neglectful in raising the Emerald Dragon, yet her words still struck him much harder than he expected. Not only because Thrud was right, but also because she wasn't shying from her responsibility.

It had been Lith's hand to have snuffed Jormun's heart but it had been Leegaain first and Thrud later to put the Emerald Dragon in the line of fire.

"All the more reason to accept my offer." Leegaain said. "You and I both have something to atone for and together-"

"And let Jormun's death be as meaningless as my father's?" Thrud cut him short. "My husband gave his life to protect my dream and our son. I'll be damned before I let him become a footnote in history as the Mad Dragon who consorted with the Mad Queen!

"This war will end only with my victory or my death. If you don't have the guts to reunite me with Jormun, I will as soon as I make sure that my son is ready to take the throne for himself.

"With the secret of the white core, Arthan, and Saefel sets, his rule will be eternal, if that's what he wants."

It was now Tyris' turn to be affected by the Mad Queen's words. Her determination to put an end to her life just to make the pain stop matched that of Valeron the First, bringing endless pain to the Guardian.

"I respect your decision." Leegaain nodded. "But what if you lose? What will be of your son, then?"

"If I fail and if you ever had a shred of love for Jormun, the only thing I ask from you is to save your grandson before something bad happens to him." Thrud replied, her voice firm and cold as the statue of her husband again.