CHAPTER 479: DESOLATE (1)

In an unknown place in the fae-land....

"Exile him...exile him! Exile him!"

The words kept ringing in his ears like an earworm.

’Get out of my head!’ He wanted to shout out, but the words were stuck in his throat, and he could barely make any sound out in that moment. In the span of a few hours, his already sickly face had turned ghastly.

Sunken cheeks and hollow eyes etched with defeat, Syla sat slouched in a then creaking wheelchair, hands trembling as he attempted to wheel himself forward over the uneven, dust-choked ground.

There was no one to help him now ... no guards to carry him or help ease the movement of his permanent transport, no advisors whispering clever lies, no soft hands of a wife nor innocent giggles of a child to soothe him.

All the splendour that he had fought for so much in his life, even at the cost of his legs and power, had evaporated like a cruel illusion. He still had on his fine, expensive clothes, but of what use would that do for him in a place that was begging for more than aesthetics?

The very air around him seemed to mock his fall from grace. Banishment? Him? Of all people? When had the ground shifted so deeply beneath his feet? When had he become so low that even the mercy of a cell had denied him?

In such a desolate place, Syla would have even preferred the comfort of a cell and dungeon... because then, he would have been largely shielded from the elements, and he would have been routinely fed as well.

’Why did they have to send him to that place of all places?’ He wondered,

A land so desolate, it defied basic Fae understanding. It was as though nature had abandoned it entirely, forgotten by sun, moon, and stars alike. No birds dared to fly overhead ....

At least, none that he had seen, since he had been dumped there through a portal, no insects stirred in the cracks of the broken earth. The wind howled loudly, but strangely, it lacked the normalcy of anything that Syla had ever encountered in his long life... not even when he had hunted for that ferocious beast before his unfortunate coronation attempt.

The air around carried no scent, no sound - only emptiness. He was so not used to this and did not want to continue experiencing that.

The ground was dry, but not the kind of dry that crumbled. Not entirely, this land was cracked in jagged, scabbed lines that stretched toward infinity. It was like an old wound that never healed entirely.

Trees, if one could call them that, stood like blackened husks. They were as lifeless as could be described, seemingly by an external power, making Syla dread whatever had done that. Their twisted limbs reaching skyward in eternal agony, like a silent scream, just without the sounds.

Another bizarre thing was that there was no horizon, only a blur of ash-coloured mist that refused to part, hanging low and thick as if the land itself were in distress as well as it’s few occupants, which was just him and his two companions.

They were just companions at this moment. It seemed as though the word ’family’ had ceased to exist between them; even Ash, his favourite wife, and Simon, his also favourite son, those two he had once called his constants, had turned their backs without hesitation.

However, this was not entirely true as when one looked at the other two, they looked to be fighting bigger inner demons than Syla, himself. They were just not in the right frame of mind to be worrying about the man, who had been their backbone and support.

They had cast him into Acherra-Môr—the Wound Between Realms. He was neither in the human realm, nor the Fae-realm, nor any other. Syla had only read about this land, yet no one had ever imagined they would be sent there. Like all the other Faes, Syla questioned whether any of them paid attention to survival tactics... that is, if there were any.

Most of them might have thought it a myth... but clearly, it wasn’t.

One thing was for certain: this was not a place meant for life. It was a land beyond despair, where even the concept of hope felt foreign. It was a place where silence screamed louder than any sentence ever could.

And there he was. Once a prince. Once, a man who thought himself untouchable.

Syla was Alone. He was sure that he was pretty much forgotten as well. He was basically undone.

Again, he tried to cry out. At first, his voice came as a whisper, cracking.... "Please..." It echoed back, not as a plea but as mockery. Anyone hearing this would have stumbled in surprise, for Syla had never used that word in his life.

Syla had never apologized and he had been trained to keep his pride. It was funny that only a few hours in the ’Wound’ had already bent him that much. He was tired, sleepy, hungry, thirsty and so many other sensations that were creating havoc on his insides.

"Please... please... please..."

Each repetition sounded more distorted, more like a sneer, than a pitiful call.... It was as if his body could not even bring itself to beg.....

Who would have thought that it would take so little to break this man?

Syla could feel himself sinking into the claws of drowsiness. He never could control this state. But then, could he afford to do so and let go, in a place that was brewing with danger everywhere?

He reached into his heart, into the threads of the link he once shared with his wife and son, clawing through that space fabric, searching for them like a drowning man reaching for air.

Nothing.

He knew that they were not far from him, but the gloomy land and its scattered things made it difficult for him to see them clearly.

Then he heard her... She was weeping. Syla knew Ash enough to know that those tormented cries had nothing to do with him.

"Ash! Pl-"

The words never came out as Syla finally succumbed to his fatigue, despite the cold and other unfavourable sensations. He slumped in his chair and lost consciousness.....

If there was one rule to be adhered to in this wound, it was never to sleep, nor lose consciousness!

Vines started creeping slowly towards the sleeping form, as shadows started to loom over him. From the corner of her eyes, Ash saw this, but she did not even bat an eye.

Among the Fae, there were tales whispered behind cupped hands. Ash had not been interested in learning much, so she had only heard of this. They spoke of this mystical realm not found on any map. They talked of a land that as in neither realm, a land born of sorrow and ruled by memory. It did not kill. No. That would be too kind. It preserved.

Preserved the regret. The loss. The guilt. It carved the soul into thin ribbons of shame and wove it into the mist so the condemned could never outrun what they had done... or what they had become.

To be banished there, was a punishment worse than death. It was just an eternal reckoning in a realm that reflected your fall from grace, over and over again. This realm never forgot.... And she knew it was right, because with every turn of her head, she heard a whisper in her ear.... A whisper from Roman, whom she knew very well, that he was dead!

It was both psychological and physical for her. Thorns erupted from the ground for each step she took as if awakened by the scent of betrayal. They coiled around her ankles, climbed her calves, twisted around her hips like serpents with vendettas, tearing through silk and skin alike.

Ash screamed. A guttural, wretched sound, not of pain alone, but of hatred. She cursed the name of her son, Simon, with every breath.

"You selfish wretch! May your soul rot in the filth you’ve led me to! I bore you! I raised you! And this, this, is what you gift me in return? Why couldn’t you bear the punishment? Why did you do this to your mother? Why transfer it?!"

The thorny vines tightened in response, dragging her to her knees. Blood ran freely down her limbs, feeding the very ground that now held her captive.

Ash truly felt like she was alone.

’Roman, I’m sorry!’

Yet she could not bring herself to say this; she could only think it in bitterness!

For worse still, Ash knew what she had done and also knew that she deserved it. And as she was dragged forward, one thorn at a time, her sobs turned to laughter. Mad, broken laughter that echoed into the void, a lullaby for the damned.

Ash was lost in her own pain, her own regret.

Syla, oblivious to what was going on around him and his impending doom, smiled in his unconscious state. It was more like a sneer, for in his mind, he was having a verbal exchange with his brother. He had escaped to a point in his mind where he was king and ruled overall.

"I will forever rule over you, Roman! You will never have the chance!"

But then he also found himself sliding off the throne and holding Roman by his garment,

"Please, brother, help me! I’ll give you anything! Take the throne and take me out of there!"

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