19 A Death in a Garden Part 4
She doesn't even pause to admire her work. As Saer is distracted, Livia snags his brother by the arm and drags him away. He stumbles after her, looking just as stunned as Saer. His neck turning around to watch as Saer stares in slowly dawning rage at his arm laying on the ground.
Livia could have escaped by herself long ago. She would have been half-way lost in the forest by now if only she could shake the unpleasant feeling he draws up in her.
She doesn't though.
She could be a cold bitch on her best days, but even she couldn't turn away from saving someone when she knew she had the means.
This time she manages to latch open the hidden door when another devasting slash of wind hits them. Once again, he takes the brunt of the blow while she is only left with a few scrapes. This time they land even further away from the door. Livia doesn't look back, she grasps at his hand again, already starting healing spells anew as she also tries to drag him back to the door.
Saer recovered much faster than expected. She thinks grimly. This time it caught him in the shoulder, crisscrossing over the newly healed wound. Her magic responds much faster, but heavy footsteps belay how little time she has.
"You dared," Saer growls lowly, holding his right shoulder. He had already picked up his sword from the ground, and hold it with perfect ease in his left hand.
The window of escape was rapidly closing...for the both of them. In the distance, she could see soldiers pouring from the entrance of the hidden passageway.
It was now, or never.
She throws out a shield that envelops them in a clear blue, and it comes up just in time to avoid another slashing wind. This dampens her healing spell significantly, but Saer isn't letting up. He doesn't yell as he wails against her shield, but his eyes promise a slow torturous murder.
Livia almost wants to laugh, maniacally.
You were once my favorite character, she wants to tell Saer, I once thought that out of all of them,
you had a right to your anger, a valid reason to your cruelty and eventual madness.
Saer Andrew Kane was the only surviving brother of the Emperor. His mother was a concubine that quickly fell out of favor, and who later died giving birth to him. His life had only been spared because he showed little to no desire to become Emperor and soon left the Eastern Empire altogether to study in a far-off land.
The Eastern Empire was a land of corruption and greed.
Saer eventually returns and eradicates the problem, starting at the heart.
It was a noble goal.
But it just had been an excuse for senseless murder.
The other concubines were completely innocent. They had no say in their capture, they had no say to being sold off. Saer could have just let them go. Let them live. That's all most of them wanted.
And what of the Empress?
Sure, she was a conniving woman with large ambitions, but she was just a girl no older than Livia, dreaming of a life she thought was in her grasp. She didn't deserve to die.
They weren't just some people mention in passing, in the background of a story they had very little relevance on. They were people she met, talked to, and even become friends with. She knew them. All of them. And Sear killed them in cold blood. He saw them as part of the problem, and therefore, they had to be removed.
And now he was coming after his own brother, the current Emperor who was barely entering adulthood.
