Chapter Text
They arrived at the cave and, surprisingly, Audrian was still there. But he looked different.
He had a scar that covered the left side of his face and his neck. A burn wound had caused the scar.
“Did-did I do that?” Yasha shuddered causing Barclay to squeeze his hand, but no one else seemed to notice Yasha’s panic.
“Audrian, surrender now or we will be forced to take action to deal with you, permanently,” Asfour stated, but before anyone could do anything, Audrian attacked. The stone floor erupted into spikes and everything was in slow motion, but Yasha couldn’t move. And the spikes impaled Leopold and Asfour.
Viola and Hasu screamed, Cyril fell to his knees, and Udaya wailed. Audrian disappeared. Leopold and Asfour were deathly silent, dead.
Yasha stood, numb and staring at the graves of Leopold and Asfour. Viola sobbed into Cyril’s shoulder next to him. Hasu was trembling in her mother’s arms. He could hear Runa’s voice, but he couldn’t understand the words she was saying.
As they neared the Guild house, there was a group of people waiting for them. The group asked them if they were successful and wondered where Leopold and Asfour were. Udaya just said that she would answer those questions at the press conference that would be held later that afternoon.
The group protested but made no move to follow them.
“Mrs. Mayani, was your mission successful?”
The High Keeper took a deep breath, “No, we were unsuccessful. And we lost two of our members, Leopold Dumont and Gamila Asfour,”
The crowd gasped and there were cries of outrage and grief.
“Who will be the Grand Keeper now that Asfour is dead?” One person asked.
“We are unsure of who will take the position, but that will be decided later today.”
And with that, she stepped away from the podium and walked toward the meeting room where four other High Keepers awaited her.
“Where is the High Keeper of Mountains?”
“Asfour didn’t elect one, she also didn’t elect a Deputy of Administration,” Rykova informed her, and Yasha furrowed his brow, Is that even legal?
“But that isn’t important right now, we need to elect a Grand Keeper. Or the Wilderlands will fall into complete chaos,” The High Keeper of the Tundra continued.
“We need someone with experience and someone that the Wilderlands will trust,” Orla added. The High Keepers were silent as they thought of someone the Wilderlands could trust, although it couldn’t be a High Keeper with how few there were.
“What about Cyril? He does have the experience,” Udaya stated, and all eyes fell on Cyril, who was standing in the corner by Runa and the apprentices.
“The Wilderlands don’t trust him very much, especially after the “Fall of The Grand Three” article from The Keeper’s Khronicle,” Erhart mentioned.
“I don’t know ‘bout after the article, but before it, the Mountains loved ‘im, ‘specially the less funded parts. They probably trusted ‘im more than Leopold,” Cecily defended.
“He was only the Deputy of Administration at that time. Why would they trust him more than the Grand Keeper?” Erhart argued.
“Cyril regularly donated large amounts of money to charities and fundraisers to fix the parts of the Mountains that Leopold refused to even touch without a lot of pressure from the public,” She explained. The High Keepers nodded and they knew that she was right, if they elected anyone else it would cause severe backlash from the public. Cyril was their only candidate who wouldn’t upset the public and had a lot of experience.
“I suppose we have our Grand Keeper,” Orla stated, motioning for Cyril to sit down in the chair meant for the Grand Keeper.
“Now that this is out of the way, we need to discuss Audrian,” Udaya began.