Page 44 of The Kingdom of Flames

This was Encarmine’s touch upon man. And as she watched another person pass, she knew if she chose him, his mark would be upon the Painted Realm in eternal conflict.

At night, Celestine rode alone under the moonlight. Out among the ruined castle she had nearly died at, she visited Vermilion’s suffering form. He had gone mad with the impalement that Encarmine placed upon him.

She used a rag of cool water to wet his brow and dab his wounds. Vermilion moaned in the moonlight, a creature of night.

“I thirst,” he would always say, delirious.

Celestine understood. On his cruciform visage, among the vanquished of his faltered battlefield, she cut her palm and dripped her blood into his mouth.

Why she did it, many would argue. But no one in the Red Realm would have shown the creature any kindness. Some say it was her way to keep him alive, that Celestine held her lords’ wrath in her heart.

Others say that Vermilion’s touch, his seed even, had made its way to her. That they traded blood for blood, and even then, Celestine craved it. Craved it. That that was the reason she strayed from the Red Realm.

Among many scholars, most agree that Celestine brought light wherever she went. That she felt pity for Vermilion, the fiend and creature, that her blood and the beauty of her heart stayed some of his torment. Wherever she went, light followed. They say Vermilion grew to love her from tasting the purity of her blood given not in degradation, but in mercy and kindness. Perhaps the only kindness the Scarlet Lord had ever known. Accounts differ.

What is known is that as her time within the Red Realm came to a close, Vermilion could no longed be found on his impaled banner. Some say Encarmine saw Celestine’s mercy and was moved by it. Others say he grew jealous of the kindness given to her captor and vanquished enemy and that Encarmine slew him after he had dragged him into sunlight. Others said he could never be truly killed.

Celestine rode patrol with the soldiers of Encarmine’s realm. In his keep, they made love nightly with ferocity. The people grew to love her even more, not for how she molded to their ways but for the light she brought. Even their stoic lord seemed happier, the edge of a smile on his lips.

“Must you go?” Celestine said one evening.

“War calls, I answer,” Encarmine said.

“I can come with you then? Warm your tent?”

Encarmine shook his head. “You cannot.”

Encarmine left the same evening. He always wore the three Celestine ribbons upon the pommel of his sword. One for touch, which was her first touch of mercy. One for taste, which was her first taste of victory. The final ribbon for embrace, for she had felt the embrace of both defeat and victory.

He proved a Lord of his making. For Encarmine was all things battle, all things conflict. He won, bringing glorious conquests back. He lost, dying, and sometimes not returning for long periods of time. Celestine knew what it was to be a young hopeful, an old widow, for all wives are widows of war. War takes everything and leaves little but despair and grief. Sometimes Encarmine would return from campaign, and he was changed, staring at the wall or the horizon for hours. Other times, loud noises would send him into a frenzy.

Time betrayed her. Celestine sat for months sometimes, going on patrols, teaching in the schola, staring out his castle. Waiting for him.

Her bed was cold. For she was the Final Bride, and to share a bed with the Red Lord was for it to be empty. Widows always become the wives of war.

Celestine knew if she chose Encarmine as her husband, he would reign. He would be honorable and just. Yet she would be a widow, not a wife. Her children would not come from her loins. They would be the war orphans of all worlds. Until the time of battle called to them as well.

She could not do that to her people. Many believed she could not bear the grief of seeing her lord absent in campaign or death.

Time moves strangely in these realms of Season. Celestine knew she had been here much longer than a month and somehow less. Finally, one evening, with deep tears in her eyes, she looked upon Encarmine in true love.

“I must go.”

Encarmine flinched as if impaled upon a blade. “You have chosen another?”

“I have chosen nothing, my love,” Celestine wept. “But I cannot wed you. Though I wish to. I wish it with all my heart. That which you are kills me and leaves me alive.”

Encarmine held her hands and knelt. He brought forth a ring with the same design and making as his circlet. The ring that would have been hers. He kissed her hands and raised her up. It is said they spent the last night together, a night of gentle touch. Two wounded creatures coaxing and easing and tending to one another. Some say even Encarmine wept, that he never smiled again when she left the realm and onto the next banner for the next month.

Celestine took his ring and kept it close.

The people were saddened to see her leave.

Encarmine himself rode with her to the border, face grim, heart ravaged by this more than any touch of war. Some say she finally taught him what it was to lose the most precious thing. In her leaving, he learned the full extent of himself.

The sun left his realm, in a way. At the border, Celestine looked back upon him, seeing not the terrible lord with his circlet donned, but the saddened face of the young man and warrior, watching the love of his life leave him. Into the arms of another.

They said Encarmine did not return once she left, for a long time. That warriors would see him sometimes, walking in the woods. His was always on his sword. The only tool he knew, powerless to bring him that which he wanted most. That which had condemned him to what he wanted least.

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