Les célébrations du vingtième anniversaire de la Bataille de l'Abîme sont finies. Nous sommes tous partis pour nos maisons. Tous d'entre nous sont secrètement satisfaits que nous pouvons finalement arrêter de le feindre
“Shiva?”
Shiva, Regent of Fire, Lord Protector of Nosgoth, turned away from the desk where he was writing his memoirs to face the newcomer.
She was standing in the middle of the chamber, in the very same pose in which she had been standing when he had first seen her–
In fact, the whole of her looked exactly like that first time: she did not have one wrinkle, one sign of aging on her face. The human regenerative powers took care of them. He recalled, with some amusement, that some humans had referred to it as ‘vampiric regeneration’ in the beginning. How he sometimes wished that it were still true!
The only mark on her skin was that which remained after the wound she had sustained before she had been Changed: the three deep gashes on her right cheek, incurred by Kain’s talons. The more religiously-minded among the people of all three races of Nosgoth had treated the disfigurement with the reverence of a holy relic, saying that it was a visible sign of Kain’s lasting legacy, the sign he had left behind before departing Nosgoth; copycat mutilations were common in certain circles. Zosha had always laughed off such theories, saying that if the people wanted a visible sign, they should look no further than to the Pillars and to their own bloods.
Over time, the human and he had become allies, friends, then, eventually, lovers; then, by mutual agreement, they had stopped being lovers–
(She had wanted the family and the children whom, obviously, he could never give her; and they had decided that getting involved in some vulgar triangle would be simply beneath them, and unfair on the man who would become her husband. He was a good person. Shiva liked him.)
–but they continued to be friends and allies. And now–
“Perun’s armies have moved,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence.
“Perun’s?” They had always assumed that it would be Eirene who would strike first–
“Yes. You know what we must do. We must find the Guardians.”
“We have always assumed that the Pillars would call to them. They always did, in the end,” he replied, thinking back to that time, millennia ago, in his previous life, when he had been a human child–
“Twenty years have passed, Shiva! The Guardians should be adult by now – but still they haven’t shown up! Not even during the celebrations–”
“I know that as well as you do, Zosha!” They had both had certain expectations regarding the celebrations. In fact, the hope that the Pillar Guardians would choose that moment to present themselves was a major factor why the two agreed to the spectacle of showing the peoples of Nosgoth that the four Regents presented a uniform front – at a time when even the unhatched Hylden knew that two of them were on the brink of war–
He stood up and walked up briskly the few steps which divided him from Zosha; and then, hugged her tightly until he felt her tense muscles relax. Much calmer now, the Regent of Air, the Lady Protectress of Nosgoth, and, the most important of all, his beloved, looked up to him and asked inquisitively, “Can we be sure that–”
“The Pillars will call the Guardians at all? We cannot. I remember nothing from my training that spoke of what would happen after the conclusion of the Binding. We all treated it as something half-mythical anyway...”
“Were it that they had never included Conflict among the Nine!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Perhaps Nosgoth would have found some peace at last–”
“Yes,” Zosha agreed; now, it seemed, it was her turn to calm him. “On the other hand, you wouldn’t have been here now, Shiva. But you are, and so is the Pillar of Conflict; and it befalls us, you and me, to find its Guardian; and the other Guardians. We have ruled for twenty years in peace; we must do all we can to preserve it before Eirene and Perun tear each other and the land into pieces again.”
He nodded; she was correct, of course. “So, where do we begin?”