Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Chapter 33: Epilogue

The initial glimmers of dawn began to filter through the glass.

Shifting his gaze slightly, Dale watched Charlotte, who was resting peacefully by his side, wrapped in a deep lethargy and breathing rhythmically.

In absolute silence, Dale stretched out his arm to place his palm gently on Charlotte’s subtle shoulder.

The strands of her golden hair slipped through his fingers just like grains of sand.

“You have woken up quite early, Dale.”

Upon feeling the touch, Charlotte opened her eyes and offered him an expression of deep warmth.

“Were you able to rest well?”

“To tell the truth, not entirely. I was awake all night because of you,” Dale joked.

Charlotte let out a small, mischievous laugh and raised her own hand to caress his cheek.

“I feel complete and blissful.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Besides, you haven’t forgotten our pact, have you?”

Charlotte’s expression became even more radiant as she brought the memory to mind: “We promised to give life to a boy and a girl.”

“It’s true, we agreed to it,” Dale nodded, interlacing his fingers with hers while a faint blush covered his cheeks.

“And what would happen if the next time we produce another boy?” Charlotte inquired, revealing a slight trace of unease in her tone.

“Well…” Dale fell silent, fully aware that it was a complex dilemma.

In the imposing bastion of the Saxon family, the Black and Gold Sovereign together with his consort Charlotte made an appearance, causing the immense number of aristocrats of the empire to bow their heads in submission.

After the events of the so-called “Great Purge,” no soul possessed the audacity to challenge or contradict the orders of the Black and Gold Sovereign.

It was exactly the same respect that the population manifested in times past toward the god of futility, even though the individual who now stood before them was a mere mortal and not a divine entity.

In the middle of the two royal seats was a little one.

An infant who possessed hair as dark as the shadows of midnight.

“Observe with attention, Alan,” Dale pronounced with serenity, standing right in front of him.

“This vast empire belongs to us, these men show us total fidelity and, in the future, all this territory will remain under your absolute command.”

At that moment, he shed the affectionate treatment he offered in the intimacy of the home to adopt the rigidity and majesty worthy of a monarch.

“Understood, father,” replied Alan II, performing a bow with impeccable sophistication.

The period of wild creatures and monsters had come to an end. With the goddess sunk in her lethargy, the beginning of an era was glimpsed where weapons and magical spells would no longer suffice to guarantee order.

Under the absolute command of the Black and Gold Sovereign and the woman acclaimed as the Divine Sword, no one possessed the courage to rise against them.

However, as the beasts were transformed into mere tales of the past and the true “Age of Humans” took shape, the royal seat that Alan II would receive in inheritance would display different dynamics.

He needed to be instructed properly.

His labor would not consist of exercising control through brutality and oppression as the tyrants of the past used to do, but of leading the destiny of the empire through intellect.

He had to forge the mental sharpness necessary to discover reality without having to inquire among the darkness.

It would not be a simple task. Dale himself had seen the need to consolidate his dominion over the empire by using the gifts of a monstrous creature.

In those eras, that procedure constituted the established norm. An environment governed strictly by the law of the strongest.

However, the rulers of the new time would not be those dedicated to annihilating their adversaries through the edge of swords or the use of magic. Conscious of this radical change, Dale and Charlotte dedicated themselves tirelessly to cementing a solid imperial structure for Alan.

A territory that would remain unshakable, even long after the days of glory for the couple had concluded.

As the days passed and Alan II developed, Dale and Charlotte contemplated his evolution with enormous satisfaction.

On certain occasions they reprimanded him with severity, while on many others they held him between their arms with deep tenderness, instilling in him the duties of a monarch and the immense burden that representing the crown entails.

Subsequently, when Charlotte’s silhouette changed due to the gestation of a new existence, a renewed wave of bliss settled in the family core.

Shortly after, the new members made their entry into the world.

They were twins: a boy and a little girl.

“Contemplate this, Dale.”

“A boy and a little girl.”

Charlotte sketched a smile filled with peace while the moans of the newborns resonated through the corners of the room.

Grandfather Alan together with grandmother Elena held the little babies with immense love, while Alan II contemplated his new younger siblings with joy.

They consolidated themselves as a family core filled with joy, without distinctions from any other home.

As Alan and his younger siblings added years, the weight of time continued to accumulate inexorably.

It was precisely in that era when Dale’s mother, Elena, fell victim to a physical ailment.

She never belonged to the warrior or powerful lineages of the past; she was simply an ordinary woman, of vulnerable and delicate constitution.

The attributes of her youth had vanished under the passage of the years, however, she conserved her essence as an affectionate mother and grandmother filled with sanity, who always offered gestures of sweetness.

Assuming with fortitude the inevitable outcome that destiny had in store for her.

“Elena.”

“Don’t worry, don’t torment yourself.”

Alan of Saxon pronounced her name with evident unease, intuiting the closeness of the end.

The cycles of birth and death, added to the torment that the definitive departure provokes.

Despite everything, Elena showed a grimace of joy.

“I keep the memory of the instant in which you declared your feelings for the first time alive.”

“……”

Elena remembered that occasion in which panic invaded her and she broke into tears upon hearing the marriage proposal of the Duke of Saxony, that fearsome and respected Black Duke.

“Despite the terror I felt, I perceived something extremely familiar and tender in your way of remaining standing, completely disoriented about how to react.”

Dale felt unable to glimpse the exact meaning of what his mother had captured at that time.

“When the veteran leaders of the Black Tower appeared at our wedding wearing white tunics, I truly believed I would let out an uncontrollable laugh.”

“I must admit that for me it also resulted in a quite uncomfortable situation.”

He himself had been in charge of ordering that the sorcerers of the Black Tower abandon their habitual dark vestments to wear the color white. Despite the extravagance of the order, none of them had the audacity to rebel before the Black Duke, their maximum authority.

And for the Black Duke to resort to such decorative extremes, it remained in evidence the immense value and affection that Elena possessed before his eyes.

Even if all those circumstances had been coldly calculated by the blue curtain from the beginning.

Elena, under the state in which she found herself currently, lacked those specific memories.

“Panic dominated me. I wondered constantly if I would manage to find bliss by the side of this individual or if it resulted sensible to deposit my trust in the fearsome ‘Black Duke’ of whom the people murmured so much.”

“……”

“However, when the birth of Dale occurred, the memory of the immense joy that we experienced remains totally clear in my mind.”

Elena returned to smile.

“And it occurred exactly in the same way when Lise arrived in the world.”

Remaining to one side of Dale, Lise tightened her lower lip keeping total hermetism.

“It generates an enormous gratitude in me to have had you as my life companion throughout this journey.”

“The feeling is fully mutual.”

Manifested Elena, earning a nodding with the head by Alan, while she brought to her mind the image of that “Black Duke” that she met in her years of youth.

Sheltered by the affection of her most beloved beings, her son, her daughter and the offspring of these, Elena reflected peace on her face.

“Mom…”

Lise attempted to articulate a phrase, but opted to bite her lip to contain herself.

Around Elena were individuals who since quite some time ago had broken the barriers between existence and death, mocking the laws that govern nature itself. In the same way in which Lise had executed it in her own past, prolonging the days of Elena did not represent a labor of great difficulty.

However, they opted to discard that alternative. They really did not wish to force things.

This process constituted the biological course that they had to assimilate with maturity, marking in equal way the definitive conclusion for the era of the beasts and monsters.

Alan interlaced his fingers with those of Elena in a quiet manner.

Alan, in absolute silence, replicated the gesture holding the hand of Elena.

“Dale and Lise. My adored offspring.”

Even finding herself at the limit of her strength, Elena invoked with tenderness the names of her beloved son and her dear daughter. Dale saw himself unable to emit a single word.

“It overwhelms me an immense happiness for having shared my existence with each one of you.”

Dale and Lise joined their hands in a silent manner to those of Elena.

Their extremities positioned themselves right on top of those of their progenitor, Alan.

“I beg you not to permit that sadness dominates you after my departure.”

Expressed Elena.

“Each time that your minds bring me back, remembering that I enjoyed an existence filled with so much fullness, my only desire is that you show a smile.”

After pronouncing those thoughts, Elena showed one last gesture of joy.

Alan of Saxon returned an identical smile to her.

Holding the fortitude until the last breath.

And when Alan ended up breaking and crying with the desperation of an infant sheltered on the chest of his wife, Elena was no longer conscious to witness it.

The years continued their course.

Under the effects of the passage of time, the instant approached in which the individual who at one time positioned himself at the summit of the Black Tower and was feared under the pseudonym of the “Black Duke” had to undertake his own withdrawal.

His definitive outcome did not take place on the mattress of a room.

No, behaving like a structure of stone that refused to suffer the wear by the batterings of the storms, the impact and the energy of that man never diminished.

He represented the maximum authority inside the Black Tower, a colossal creature of the ancient times that possessed the faculty of controlling the end of life itself, consolidating himself as one of the pillars of said beings.

In this way, the man assimilated internally and without complaints that his cycle had concluded.

“… Father.”

His descendant called him using his name, provoking that Alan sketched a grimace of irony.

“Our days of glory have expired, and it has arrived the moment in which I must undertake my march.”

“Does an imperious need exist that you depart?”

Questioned Dale. His progenitor limited himself to smiling with certain sarcasm before the questioning formulated.

“You will understand the reasons behind this in the future.”

Upon finishing speaking, the individual stood up. A series of feathers belonging to a raven began to float in the environment until descending in his proximities.

“Duke of Saxony!”

Right at his side, Sir Helmut Blackbear in company of the Night Raven Knights aligned themselves adopting a posture of absolute firmness, replicating the scene of the childhood years of Dale, rendering honors before the Black Duke who ruled the bastion.

“Sir Helmut. And distinguished warriors of the Saxon dynasty.”

The Black Duke addressed them drawing a smile on his face.

“I do not dispose of the words sufficient to transmit the immense gratitude that I feel for all the efforts and losses that you have confronted for the well-being of our Saxon dynasty.”

“……”

“I have an account impossible to settle with you, who have guarded an unbreakable loyalty toward my person despite my multiple slips and questionable decisions.”

“That distances itself completely from reality, Your Excellency!”

Sir Helmut Blackbear let himself fall upon his knees, with a tone of voice deeply moved.

At the highest point of the Black Tower was located the Black Duke, a character whose authority resulted in unquestionable.

Behind his back emerged the winged extremities of a raven, a mythological being that exercised an absolute control over death, forcing even the most influential personalities of the extinct empire to bend before his figure.

Thanks to the influence and protection of this man, Dale possessed the capacity to exist in the way in which he did in the present.

During his stage of youth, when Dale did not represent more than a cluster of naivety and lack of skill, this individual sheltered him and offered him the support necessary so that he could materialize his yearnings.

“Father…”

Dale attempted to articulate a discourse, but opted to keep silence immediately.

“I give you my thanks.”

Dale inclined his head in signal of respect, an action that Lise imitated at the instant.

Those who have the duty to march and those who carry with the responsibility of remaining.

Even if they managed to wake up from a lethargy of eternal character, absolutely nothing would suffer an alteration.

For a brief instant, crossed through his mind the yearning to adjudicate the role of divinity of this land to modify the destiny completely.

Interrupt the dream of the female deity, implore the intervention of the ancient mother of darkness, suppress the totality of this suffering and misfortune, and recreate in his thoughts an environment of “happiness without waking” in company of his sister Lise.

However, the events would not take that course under any circumstance.

“Dale, my respectable and pride son.”

“Father, no, listen to me…”

Before the declarations emitted by his progenitor, Dale saw himself reduced to the most absolute mutism, maintaining the gaze fixed on the floor.

“Stand up and raise your gaze.”

Despite the circumstances, the Black Duke, Alan, manifested a gesture of joy. He understood to the perfection the suffering that overwhelmed Dale, in the same way that he understood the sorrows of his daughter Lise, proceeding to grant his blessing to his direct heirs and to the grandchildren.

In simultaneous manner, the plumage of the raven covered completely the silhouette of the man.

As they wrapped him, the winged extremities disintegrated into small dark fragments that began to disperse through the currents of air.

And in the middle of that dance of dark feathers that rose, the presence of the man vanished completely, without leaving any trace.