Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Betrayal - An Aumverse Story ❯ Revised - The Betrayal ( Chapter 1 )

Betrayal

Fires rages among the rubble of the Order’s headquarters as Jerlin searched for the one who caused it. Her fellow Adepts laid among the carnage, dead or dying by the hand of the foe she sought.

Whenever she came across a survivor, she healed them enough to keep them from perishing before others arrived, then moved on. As a First Rank Adept, it was her duty to the Order to find the powerhouse that had caused this destruction. Anyone of lower rank would fail miserably, and every other first rank was off planet, save herself and her husband Oriles, who was missing.

Though battered and her clothing torn, Jerlin went on into the inferno. She found the Academy, where young mages and Adepts studied. It too was in flames and in pieces. A young man was laid out face down, wrapped in a binding spell and still breathing just outside of the Academy. Jerlin bent down and with a word of unbinding, freed the young man. She rolled him over to check him for injuries and was surprised when she realized it was her son.

“Mattis!” she exclaimed as she confirmed that he was only unconscious. “It’s your mother! “

Her eldest child did not waken, but she could sense that he was fighting for consciousness that his body could not sustain. She breathed a sigh of relief. Making sure that he too was out of harm’s way, she continued on her search.

She was running through the central gardens when she finally found her husband. “Oriles!” she called out, running towards him. He turned and a frown briefly crossed his face, but he held out his arms and Jerlin joyfully threw herself into them. “Thank the gods you’re alive.”

“Jerlin, you’re back early from your mission…”

“They resolved the strike before I arrived. There was no need for me to stay.” She kissed him primly, “Oriles, what happened here? Did you catch the one that did all of this?”

A young delicate laugh rang out from behind Oriles. Jerlin stepped around him, gathering her power into a glowing white aura around her. “How silly,” said the young woman, dressed in silk robes that had cut outs in all the wrong places, “You were just in the blackguard’s arms.”

Jerlin laughed back, “Ha! Surely, you are a liar. Who are you, little girl?”

The woman, who seemed to be young in power as well as age, sniffed, “I am Lillum. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.”

Jerlin was about to answer “I don’t have too!” and fry the woman on the spot when she felt Oriles touch her and say the words “Suras tal Meikal.”

Pain lanched through her and she cried out as her power was drained to near fainting and her arms bound behind her by the spell. Oriles let her drop to the ground as her legs gave way. Her vision grayed and she couldn’t hear anything for a moment.

Her senses returned to normal and she could see the grass in front of her where she laid on the ground. She could hear Oriles say “Go on, Lillum, I will catch up,” and the woman huffed and flounced off. His boots came into view and he bent over to move her into a sitting position. She looked into his eyes and knew that what the Lillum woman had said was true. “Oriles! Why? Why did you do this? You killed our comrades and injured Mattis!”

Oriles sighed and caressed her cheek. Jerlin tried to move away but was held in place by the binding spell. She closed her eyes to hide the emotions she was feeling. “Jeri, I truly wished to spare you and the children of this sight around us. The Altair mission to keep you away and the Ominus Seminar to keep Mattis away. I am sorry”

She struggled to free herself, but her power remained drained away. She glared at him, tears blurring her vision, and remembered the woman Lillum. “So you betrayed the Order… have you betrayed your vows to me as well?”

He smiled and kissed her on the lips softly. Jerlin shivered as her blood ran hot. “I have never betrayed our wedding vows, beloved. I am always yours in that regard.”

Morbidly, she felt a bit better with that news, but her heart still burned in anger. “But why! Why did you betray the Order?”

Oriles looked away, a dark shadow of regret clouding his eyes. “Beloved, I don’t think I can explain it. Truly, if I were to try, do you think you could understand what drove me to this?”

Jerlin sighed and slumped against the binding spell. “No, I probably couldn’t. I don’t think that I could even with a million lifetimes.”

“Then I won’t try.” He replied.

Again, he leaned forward to kiss her and again she tried to pull away. But again, the binding held her in place and he kissed her, softly at first then with more urgency. Jerlin whimpered under the kiss, suddenly afraid of how helpless she was. She felt Oriles sigh as if disappointed and he stepped back.

They gazed at each other and Oriles finally broke his gaze by turning around. “Don’t come after me Jeri…” he said, his voice sounding funny, “If I see you again, I will be forced to kill you.”

“Oriles…”

“Goodbye, my love.”

He left, leaving her there, bound beneath the trees, surrounded by destruction.