Chapter 82-The dark forest (6)

Chapter 82: 82-The dark forest (6)

Maisa was breaking down in panic. The trees around her seemed to be closing in on her.

The boy didn’t seem particularly bothered by her panic. He watched Maisa sit on the fallen log for a while, her fingers still wrapped around the metal rod she had used to bring down the panther, before finally lowering himself onto a stone a few feet away.

The forest had gone strangely quiet again. The creature was gone, but Maisa couldn’t shake the feeling that the darkness itself was watching them.

Every tree seemed to lean inward, their strong branches knitting together overhead and blocking whatever little moonlight managed to reach the forest floor.

The green leaf remained between her teeth, bitter and sharp against her tongue, and she had to resist the urge to spit it out. She glanced at the boy beside her. "You never told me your name," she changed the subject to distract her mind.

He looked at her for a moment before answering. "Nersus," he answered.

"Just Nersus?"

A faint, humourless smile touched his mouth. "You don’t need my family name. There isn’t anyone left outside this place who cares about it," he let out.

Something about the way he said it made Maisa look at him more carefully. There was no arrogance in his voice despite the fact that he was a black blood, no pride in his bloodline, no attempt to remind her that he was stronger than she was.

There was simply exhaustion. The kind that didn’t come from physical wounds but emotional exhaustion. And she could understand. She had just gotten there, and she was already tired.

"What did you do to end up here?" Maisa asked quietly.

She was curious about the current company she was keeping. Knowing the boy would help her determine if he was a friend of foe.

After being betrayed and tricked, she refused to let blind faith lead her path. She was determined to never give anyone a chance to treat her like a rug again.

Nersus looked away, and for several seconds, he said nothing. His past was way too bitter for him to put to words, and additionally, he and Maisa didn’t know each other well enough for him to be opening his soul to her.

He looked down, and he could almost see the blood of his fallen and their screams. The anger buried deep in his heart started to surface, and for a moment, the murderous urge from back then grew deeper. Then he sighed and composed himself.

"All you need to know is that killed to avenge my brothers... I killed hunters and traitors, nothing more."

Maisa felt her blood run cold when she heard him talk about hunters. At this point, it was becoming an expected scenario to hear about vampire hatred for hunters, but it didn’t make it hurt less.

"A redblood," he said. "She betrayed my friends and I to hunters. I hate hunters."

Maisa’s heart sank. He had put two identities in his hatred that she identified as. She was both a hunter and a redblood.

He noticed her reaction and gave a quiet laugh without humour. "Don’t worry. I don’t hate you because you’re redblood."

"That sounds like something someone who hates redbloods would say," she tried to play off her feelings, but her stomach still twisted uncomfortably.

"I suppose it does."

His gaze dropped to the ground. He could see the village he massacred and the way the people he killed screamed in terror before they met their end. But the scene immediately shifted to the bloody wedding church with black blood filling the floors as his comrades took their last breath.

"There was a redblood girl who became close to one of my friends. They fell in love... his family hated the relationship. They thought she was beneath him, and they refused to accept her into their family." His jaw tightened as he remembered the past. As he spoke, the scene played out in his head. "Instead of giving up, she convinced him to leave with her."

"Where to?" Maisa asked. She wanted to know if I was possible for a low class to have a happy ending with a high-born. However, judging by the tone he was using, she had a bad feeling that the tale had a horrible ending.

"The human side of the world. You know..."

Maisa’s expression changed. Nothing good could come out of vampires leaving their own territory to enter the human territory, especially with all hunters around.

Nersus continued. "She told him they could marry there. Start over somewhere nobody cared about bloodlines," he shook his head, eyes heavy with feelings. "My friend believed her. He trusted her enough to abandon everything he knew." His voice became quieter. "A group of us went with them. We thought we were helping our friend begin a new life."

Maisa already knew the ending wouldn’t be good. Love stories always ended in tragedy when it included lovers eloping in search of a better ending.

"It was a trap," Nersus said, the words fell heavily between them. "The girl had been working with hunters. They were waiting for us there, and we were oblivious to their plans.

Maisa’s fingers tightened around the rod. She knew hunters were fond of using underhanded methods to lure vampires out so as to kill them. The more the kill count, the greater the reputation a hunter gained.

Nersus stared into the darkness. His eyes turned crimson as though he was looking at that redblood and the set of hunters that led the hunt against him and his friends.

"All of my friends died," he spoke and didn’t describe how they were killed. He didn’t need to. The grief in his voice filled in enough of the silence. "I escaped," he continued. "I spent weeks looking for the girl. Eventually, I found the village she came from."

Maisa’s stomach tightened. Without Nersus continuing the story, she could already picture the scene in front of her.

"You killed them?"

Nersus nodded. There was anger in his eyes, mixed with pain and a bit of pride. He was sad that he lost so many friends but glad that each and every single one of them had been avenged.

"All of them?" She asked for the villagers, not the traitor.

Although the redblood had come from that village and had arguably earned his hatred for betraying him and his friends, Maisa couldn’t bring himself to believe that every person there deserved the same fate.

Whatever the redblood had done was her responsibility. The other villagers were innocent, and they shouldn’t have been punished for her actions.

Maisa’s expression hardened as the thought settled heavily in her mind. She looked at him, her voice low but edged with disbelief. "Did you kill all the villagers?"

"Yes," Nersus confessed.

There was no pride in his voice, but neither was there regret. He said it with a chilling calmness, as though he were recounting something that had already been decided long ago. If he were given the chance to return to that moment, he knew he would make the same choice again without hesitation.

"Not a single soul was left alive after I was done!"