Chapter 571: Why did you help him?
Chapter 571: Why did you help him?
"Don't you feel this scene is similar?" Chiron asked Kace. His eyes stared at the scene before him with a gloomy expression.
Kace gritted his teeth when he heard that and tightened his grip on Raine's waist. The girl felt that and raised her head to see Kace's face had turned pale and rigid with bulging veins.
Only then, Hope realized that Chiron was talking to Kace.
"This also happened a long time ago, centuries ago when you killed those creatures' mates without second thought." Chiron was talking in an impassive tone. He recalled those moments in his head. "This, what happened to me, my people and those creatures when they lost their mate."
Beside Chiron, Carina intertwined their hand silently as a form of support, as she felt the same. Her mate was killed at the same time in the past. That was a devastating time for them.
"Could you imagine if the same thing happened to you, and you don't have your mate right now?" Chiron's eyes locked on the flames that engulfed those bodies, and the sound of the crying people, asking their loved one to come back.
Those people didn't know that the murderer was among them, standing, watching in silence while listening to what the centaur said.
Holding his mate close to him and thinking that he couldn't lose the essence of his existence when at the same time he killed theirs.
It was selfish of Kace to think that he could live with his mate, and didn't want any harm to befall upon her when those people were stripped from that privilege by his own hands.
The story repeated itself.
"The moon goddess bestowed this precious girl to you, cherish her." Chiron received a black stick from Leroy that he had to throw into the flame.
It was a symbol that the living had said their farewell to the dead.
However, instead of throwing that black stick, the centaur gave it to Kace beside him. "You do it."
Kace couldn't understand why Chiron wanted him to go through all of this. Watching the bodies being burned, listening to the sound of their family's cry, and now he wanted him to say farewell to the victim of his brutality?
"Stop it!" Hope swatted away Chiron's hand, which was holding the stick, away from Kace's sight, the girl glared at him. "You're making him uncomfortable."
Chiron frowned slightly, this action caught a few centaur's attention as they turned their head towards Hope.
"He doesn't deserve to be comfortable after what he had done." Chiron said in a low and forlorn voice. "At the very least, he had to feel what we feel, though what he feels now will not fix anything. The damage had been done."
Hope wanted to retort.
If this was what Chiron intended for Kace to feel, Hope regretted her decision to take Kace with her to attend this funeral. She should've been more sensitive and knew that Kace would feel this way.
They could find another way to meet with the priestess, not at times like this. Hope cursed herself for her stupidity.
"You can't…" Hope didn't have a chance to let out her protest when Kace took the stick and pushed her towards Lana beside her. "Kace, you don't have to do that." Hope hissed as she watched Kace don't listen to her, and took one step at a time to climb the stairs to go to the podium.
"Let him." Chiron said in his calm voice, but his eyes followed every move that Kace took.
"What do you want from him? What is your true intention by forcing him to do this?" Hope glared at the centaur. The solemn expression on Chiron's face made her even angrier.
Lana kept Hope closed to her, as she listened to everything that they were talking about, but her eyes fixed on Kace. The sight of his back was so lonely, as he climbed alone to the flame of those dead bodies.
Lana really wanted to go to Kace and walked beside him, at least he didn't need to walk that path alone, yet she couldn't muster the courage to do that.
Even after what Kace had done and what he had said, Lana's heart ached for him. It was so stupid of her to feel this way when the man that she loved didn't even give her a glimpse of hope.
"I am not forcing him to do anything." Chiron, finally, tilted his head to look at Hope, whose height was slightly higher than his hips. "He chose to do it."
"You don't give him a choice!" Hope tried to lower her voice and not to draw unnecessary attention towards them, but it was hard to contain her anger when all she wanted to do right now was to lash out to Chiron.
"He could reject my offer. I did not threaten him to accept all my offers." Chiron held Carina's hand tightly. "He chose to come here because he wanted to be with you, to protect you and now he chose to come to the podium because he chose to do it, for whatever reason he has."
Actually, what Chiron said was true. He didn't threaten Kace or forced him to do what he was doing now.
"Let him have some time alone with the dead. Maybe he has something to say to them for the last time, and if he is lucky, the dead could hear it in their afterlife. I think that's what he needs. Time."
It sounded ridiculous, yet Hope couldn't find a word to retort him.
Chiron shifted his gaze from Hope to Kace, whose now had reached the last stair and was about to throw the stick.
Hope followed the centaur's line of sight while listening to Chiron's calm voice. "He will never be able to protect you when he can't protect himself. He will never heal if he always refuses to see his wound and fix it."
Hope knitted her brows when she asked. "Chiron, why did you help him, when he was the one who killed your mate?"