Chapter 5 - "A tragic story"

"Okay, I'll answer all your questions, but before that..." she placed the bottle on the table and took my face in her hands, leaving delicate kisses on my cheek, following a path that led her to touch my lips. I did not refuse those affectionate gestures, she was stronger than my will and my body always surrendered to her.

Her dark eyes fixed on mine: they were deep, filled with an emotion that I could not decipher and I could clearly see that she was hiding a thousand torments behind her irises. I grabbed her neck, bringing her closer to me and deepened her kiss, clashing our lips with more fervor; Alex sighed happily, or so it seemed to me, and after a few minutes spent touching and rubbing lips, I walked away from her.

"Who is Fiamma? "I asked again, holding her hand tightly.

"I met her by chance one day, while I was wandering in the streets of Riviera... she is a charming woman, Zey. She has two really magnetic, dark eyes, wavy hair and a personality that I just can't decipher... I don't know what happened, one moment I was looking at her and the next I found myself talking to her as if I knew her for a lifetime, in the middle of her inn. She understands me, I understand her, even if we often argue about some of my ideas..."

"I was in her inn today" I told her, forcing her to tell me about what happened in there.

"Fiamma is special Zey, you can trust her, we can trust her."

"I want to see her, I want to talk to her Alex. I only ask this" I stroked her hair that had become long over time; they were always soft, I loved putting my fingers between her locks and playing with them.

"I'll see what I can do ..." She narrowed her eyes leaving another kiss on my lips. She got up from the sofa and took my hand to follow her wherever she wanted to take me.

"Come on, we must prepare to welcome those boring lords."

"They are not lords, they are ambassadors of the southern kingdoms."

"It's the same thing" she snorted, biting her lip to hold back a grimace.

For the remaining hours of the day we devoted ourselves to imperial business and around midnight we found ourselves at the thermal baths, under a starry sky. Alex particularly loved observing the night sky, so I made sure the structure remained uncovered when the weather allowed. The witch probably would not have reached me that evening, even if she was the one who took the initiative and followed me at night: I had the idea that talking about her past would distance her from me and perhaps knowing that made me even more sensitive about what was going on between us.

Now that I knew the monsters she fought against every day, I couldn't look at her in the same way as in the past.

Alex of Clevwood had experienced a tragedy, one that is told at night to terrorize friends or force children to go to bed and not throw a tantrum. The governor of Fokranstad had gleaned information by talking with local people and villages near the destroyed one; moreover, the story of the witch's family was famous, especially because during the witch hunt she had been exploited to propagate the work of the local religious order. Father Donovan was the main architect of the deaths of all women considered witches during the hunting period, just as Alex had also stated at our meeting.

Reading the governor's report, I went through a thousand states of emotion, from anger, to resentment, to sadness and desolation. Alex had lived through hell on Earth, that was certain and even literal. The facts went back to the denunciation by the population of Clevwood, of illegal activities, or witchcraft in the common cemetery, which had been brought back with summary investigations; it was evident that they had simply been looking for a scapegoat for the bad harvest and the crisis that had been tearing down the kingdom for many years.

Unfortunately, the deep"rooted ignorance of certain populations could even lead to these horrible solutions: human sacrifices. I had read documents that dealt with religious and ancient rituals of this type, but I thought they were from past ages, primitive peoples, and I was chilled by the realization that they still existed.

Alex apparently worked at a village inn and was publicly hunted and humiliated when her family was slandered. Surely the witchcraft they actually practiced didn't hurt people, but Father Donovan had spread rumors that witches ate human beings, that they deceived, killed, manipulated just for the fun of it; they had painted them as monsters and soon a horrible belief had taken root. And this belief had been the cause of hundreds of executions. After discovering what they had done to Alex's family, I became nauseous: most of his family had been killed with swords by the soldiers who worked for Father Donovan, then they had set fire to their home, arresting the survivors only to make a public execution.

Alex had been brought to the gallows and from what the governor's notes said, it would seem that the fire that was supposed to kill her hadn't even scratched her skin. From then on she had escaped her executioners, running through the woods for a long time, before being captured again, under unknown circumstances, and being taken to Clevwood Prisons, where she had been tortured and interrogated.

Obviously at the end of the conflict, I had already given orders to hunt and execute all of Father Donovan's collaborators and anyone who had collaborated in the witch hunt of Fokranstad. Unfortunately, the man I most wanted to see dead was gone. Father Donovan was nowhere to be found and even though two years had already passed, I had not given up: I would have found him sooner or later and once captured, I would have made him go through the pains of hell, I would have taken everything from him and tear it to pieces.

I could no longer ignore Alex's state of mind, as I had the certainty after this information, that hers was a deep"rooted, toxic desire for revenge, as deep as her resentment and probably her guilt. She probably hadn't faced the death of her family and even if she did, I wasn't sure she would survive the despair and sadness. I had seen people die of heartbreak, I had met people ready to let themselves be killed by hunger, by cold, from others just to end it and not suffer for their loss.

I wouldn't have let that happen to Alex too. I would have done anything to save her: this was my certainty.