Page 82 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

He face-planted, eating dirt. I shoved his head into a pile of manure, leaning down to whisper, “That unicorn was my best friend and a creature with feelings, emotions, hopes, and dreams just like the rest of us. She knew sacrifice. She knew love. What do you know of these?”

I rose, spitting on the ground beside him.

I reached for my blade.

A hand touched my arm. I whirled around, my dagger at the throat of the person before they blinked. I met eyes of pure red.

“If you need to kill, I am your dagger,” he said, those blood-red eyes searching my face. “But do not bloody your pure soul with an execution. Do not become the monster you defeated.”

I slowly lowered my blade. “I already am,” I said.

I turned to face my Reds. “This ends today. The killing, the murders, the pain. We are no longer assassins of magic, but protectors of life itself.”

Elder Timone was the first to step up to me. He took a knee before me. “May matriarch vivunt longum et bene,”he said, striking his hand against his chest.

Mom and Dad were next, along with the other elders. Head Enforcer Markus made my grandma get down on her knees before me. “May matriarch vivunt longum et bene,”they said, excluding my grandma, of course, who said nothing.

Then the fully-fledged Reds in their hoods bent a knee in four rows of ten with the trainees behind them. “May matriarch vivunt longum et bene.”

At last the people themselves, those of the entire village, bowed before me.

“May matriarch vivunt longum et bene.”

“May the matriarch live long and prosper,” Shen said, getting down on a knee beside me.

“Rise,” I said. “We were lied to by our leaders. By those we trusted.” I waved Elder Pulma up. He still held the book in his hands, clutching it to his chest. “Elder Pulma, would you please?”

He nodded, slowly opening the page.

It was in the language of old, but for the sake of the children, he translated it.

“Thus is the honor and the living might of the force known as the Red Knights of the order of Spero, spurned to form by the death of the great Nymph Queen Eledira, who gave her life so we humans could escape the Dark Mage Jilhishad. In and by her honor, we are to defendthe weak, mend the broken, mourn with the mourning, and uphold the defenseless. We are an order deigned by Source and honored by the One True King to stand against the evils of this world in all its forms, from the darkest mage to the vilest human. For the Gift does not define good nor evil. It is what one chooses to become that defines the soul. Thus we choose our banner:

“Power ab intus, tutela omnium.

Choices sunt potentiae quaeramus.

Damnum potestate sui exitium honoris.

Honor sui, honor arbitrium, honor Vita Fons, honor Auctorem, honor Vita.

Tutela omnium, fides tribui, vita magicis.”

Elder Pulma cleared his throat, then spoke the Banner of the Reds in common.

“Power from within, protection for all.

Choices are the power we seek.

The loss of this power is the destruction of honor.

Honor self, honor choice, honor Source, honor Creator, honor life.

Protection over all, loyalty to tribe, life to magic.”

How far we have fallen from what we were supposed to be. I hung my head, wondering what we could ever do to make up for the evil we had wrought upon the face of this earth.

“You will condemn us all,” Grandma said, her voice trembling, her eyes pale with rage and fear. Never had I seen my grandma so small. She was still kneeling, watching with horror as the scene unfolded before her.

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