Anne Aliénor de Beaumont's Death : A Tale of Five Lies

[Rennart 60]

The Last Light of the Serpent : A Tale of Five Lies

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She entered the Black Church alone. The doors groaned shut behind her, sealing her beneath a vault so high it seemed the night sky itself had been imprisoned within the stone. Cold stars of pale light shimmered far above. Incense and old blood thickened the air. At the far end, demons stood in silent assembly. Upon a throne of black iron waited a Vampire Lord. Anne advanced and knelt, drawn by the promise of ascension.

It was a lie. A shadow unfolded behind her. Malkael barred the path of retreat. The monstrous bat-winged fiend descended in a shriek of tearing air. Anne hurled herself backward, evading once, twice, again, twisting like a serpent fleeing the crushing coils of a greater beast.

“How could you think I would ever want a being like you at my service?!” mocked the vampire named "The Farmer".

There was no escape. Talons rent her steel. Fangs pierced her flesh. She felt her body lifted, seized, one foot in one clawed hand, one leg in the other. The monster began to pull. Slowly. Deliberately. Her bones strained. Her breath failed. The vast cathedral swallowed her cry and mad laughter.

 

And as her body was stretched between infernal hands, her life unfurled before her fading sight, love, hunger for power, and lies.
 

 

 

Chapter I : Lying to the Empire

It was with the blood of her friends staining the hands of the Empire that Anne first swore her vendetta. The realm that had butchered her companions would taste ruin in return. She slew a wandering knight, cruel of soul and poisoned by vile prejudice, like so many knights, and claimed his armor as her own. Clad in stolen steel, she passed herself off as his humble squire, a shadow at the Empire’s heel.
 

Thus did Anne insinuate herself into its marrow, seeking to rot it from within. Her hatred was a beacon in the abyss. Her rage, a prayer unanswered by Heaven but heeded by Hell. And from that infernal silence came...

Malkael

a demon of corrupting guile and ruthless brutality, who whispered unto her of power… power enough to scour her enemies from the earth.

For him, she entered the holy cloisters. For years she bore the mask of a devout chevaleresse, kneeling in candlelight, murmuring pieties while treachery ripened in her breast. She drew ever nearer to the Pontiff, that the demons might one day strike him down through her subtle craft, as Malkael ordered her. She harvested souls as others gather wheat for her master. With honeyed speech and by reopening old wounds, she persuaded the desperate to barter their immortal essence for the bitter draught of vengeance, year after year.

 

 

Chapter II : Lying to Friends, to Kin, and unto Love

Yet amidst the coils of deceit, Anne found fellowship… and love.

To them she would not lie outright. Nay, she would but bend the truth, as a reed bends before the wind. For when she named herself servant of the “One True God,” she spoke no falsehood in her mind; she served indeed, though that god was Iblees, and more intimately still, Kiiztria, demoness of lies and venomous whispers.

In Redgar, the purest man of the Empire, she found love and forged a family. He knew fragments of her darkness, yet she swore she hunted only those who deserved to suffer. He fell in love with the shard of her soul she cherished most, the part that yearned for freedom, that defied tyrants and chains. Two souls opposed as light and darkness, yet drawn together by the unseen hand of fate.

With her kids, Guillaume, Mélissandre, Viperi and Lisandra, she found a noble purpose, she saught to protect them, but her dark nature made her corrupt them.

With Loricia and Cosima she found true friends.... friends she sold down to demons for more power....

To her second great love, Arthur de Marsyr, she was less merciful, using him to infiltrate Numendil and become a knight, hoping one day to bring him down with her into the darkness. Her love flowed but one way, and yet he awakened in her a dangerous longing, to be more than she was, to rise above the mire of her sins.

For a fleeting period of her wretched life, she glimpsed the woman she might have been, a knight dedicated to protecting the innocent.

But all edifices built upon falsehood must crumble. She was unmasked at last. Her perfidy laid bare before the world. Friends turned their faces; lovers recoiled; and she was cast before the Inquisition like carrion before hounds. And in that hour of abandonment, she sank deeper still into the talons of the Black Church.

 

 

Chapter III : Lying to Hell and Damnation

Anne lied to Malkael as readily as she had lied to kings and saints. She loathed the beast who had taken her eye, who had chained her with promises and torment. Yet within her coiled a darker hunger, a perverse thirst for dominion that bound her to him still.

She told herself she was the victim, never the architect, of her own damnation.

But in time she perceived the truth, neither demons nor darkened priests would grant her heart’s desire. The Empire yet stood, untouched, whilst Hell busied itself preying upon lesser realms, Dwarves, Cerulia, Lotharia.
 

Gods, Aenguls, Daemons, Emperors, Kings… she judged them all alike. Tyrants, every one.

If the creed of the Black Church held aught of value, it was this, Might is right. And so she sought ever greater strength, believing she must rival the gods themselves if she would unmake their chains and free the mortal throng.
 

Alone and accursed, she fought in strange defense of the very mortals who despised her. When knights assailed the Black Church, she allowed some to flee unseen, sneaking them out in coffins. Even dwarves, whom she fed upon to sustain her cursed existence, she aided in secret escape. These acts of mercy were small candles in a howling gale.
 

Yet the world would not believe a vampire’s repentance.
 

Chapter IV : Lying to Redemption

The shadow thickened upon Anne’s soul. The people did not rise. The Empire endured. Her loves were lost; her friendships, ashes. The magics she wielded gnawed at her reason and dragged her ever closer to the abyss.
 

And yet, within that abyss flickered a final light. Another Knight, whom she loved in trembling silence, offered her a door unbarred, leave the Church, forsake the lies, and live as a woman unburdened beside him. She promised him she would depart the church forever.
 

But her quiet mercies had not gone unnoticed. The malefic eyes of the Church turned toward her. Her careful lattice of lies collapsed like a house of cards scattered by a storm.

When her final summons came, she stood at a crossroads. For once, she might have chosen truth. She might have kept her word.

But the promise of greater power gleamed before her like a forbidden star. She would seize it, just once more. With such strength, she told herself, she could ensure her safety in the life she meant to begin.

She crossed the great doors of the Black Church one final time.They closed behind her with the solemn toll of a funeral bell. 

They would never open again for her.

 

Chapter V : The Greatest Lie: Lying to Herself

In the end, the grandest deception Anne Aliénor de Beaumont ever wrought, her masterpiece of illusion, her most exquisite tapestry of falsehood, was the lie she told her own heart.

She had claimed her crimes were for friends, for love, for family. Yet in the silent chambers of her soul, she knew the truth.

She loved the power. She loved the ruin she wrought.

The light of the sun pierced the Black Church in a final golden spear as the great doors thundered shut. Her thoughts turned to Redgar, the love of her life, and to the bitter knowledge that her soul would never join his where he dwelt in peace.

Hell would claim her.

She closed her eyes and surrendered to the encroaching dark as the vampire called “The Farmer” tore her asunder. Her body was dragged into the deepest vaults of the Church, her blood tracing a final, crimson script upon the stone.

 

Thus perished the Serpent that dreamed of being a free bird, slithering away from the last true Light in her life, would she die an finally rest, or would she arise as something even worst?
 

 

In the case she would die, Anne Aliénor de Beaumont had prepared letters for those important in her life :
 

To Redgar in Heaven :
 

Spoiler

Mon first love, had I not pursued evil, I could have helped us build a life and perhaps saved you. We could have fought the empire the right way. Now I only hope that you have found peace in heaven.
You will see it from heaven, but tears flow from my only eye upon this letter; the regrets and sins are too heavy for my soul to allow it to rise and join you there.
You were the true light of my life.

To Arthur Marsyr :
 

Spoiler

Arthur, all that I had to tell you, I have already written in many letters. I knew my love for you was a folly. You inspired me to be better despite living in darkness.
I only hope that one day you will find the strength to fight the Empire. They are a plague upon this world, and too many innocents die at their hands.
I know that in time the true Knights of Numendil will rise against them, for of all the knights I have ever fought, yours truly were the only ones who deserved to be called "honorable" and "good."

To Guillaume : 
 

Spoiler

Mon son, I am at fault for your damnation. Our relationship was not always simple, but I loved you… deeply. I beg you, turn away from my path. Your pursuit of a simpler life truly was the proof that you were better than me. Je love you forever

To Heimweh :
 

Spoiler

I have always seen you as my own blood. The first time you hugged me, you made my world brighter, like the sun.
I must unfortunately depart from this life. I will not be able to protect you from where I am going. Do what you can to remain the worthy heir of the names Kildraken and De Beaumont.

To Mellisandre : 
 

Spoiler

My selfishness destroyed our family. Truth be told, I am so proud that you managed to remain strong despite the absence of a mother in your life. You are among those I have wronged the most through my desire for power.
You are the most beautiful thing that ever came into my life. Shine, my love, and may the memory of me wither away, so that you may not suffer pain for my death.
I wish I could have hugged you one last time, though.

To "Viperi" : 
 

Spoiler

Je loved you the very day je adopted you, and despite the fact you ran back to your ''true'' familly, je hope you will forever remember moi as the mom who loved you, truthfully. Je am glad you are having a good life, live it well, and perhaps, even as je rot in hell, your happiness will bring moi comfort.

To Loricia :

Spoiler

I am afraid as I descend into hell. I have damned myself. I loved you as a friend, yet betrayed you many times. Do not forgive me, for I deserve damnation.

To Pixtus :
 

Spoiler

Je saved your *ss and you never wrote back you ungratfull b*stard ! Kick the empire's *ss in this war.

 

 

Edited February 19 by Rennart
formating

[The Vulgate Cycle 577]

"Evil unto they who think evil. Let justice be done, even though the world may perish." 

 

Those were the absolute words of the warlord Uthyr Arthmailien, as he watched his son practice the sword amongst the trees of the Aran-în-Eryn, in the shadow of the hillfort of his people. The words played across the mind of his son, now in his 80s and the veteran of four wars, and soon, a fifth. From warlord's son to knight and ranger, Arthur, Knight, Ranger, Lord, Legend Carver, had always sought to see the best in people. To be a knight, was to walk with Aeradar. To be a Numenedain, was to seek redemption in the lost. Anne de Beaumont was most certainly lost, and she had betrayed his efforts to elevate her beyond the limitations imposed upon her, to bring her community where she had none before, to show her grace and to give her a chance in the sun. And although he had been embarrassed and humiliated for that consideration, he did not regret it.

 

"Challenge your beliefs, explore, put strain upon them, so they may come back stronger."

 

A past mentor had once bid him, before she herself passed into darkness and was never seen again. Arthur had followed that advice despite her fall from grace, resisting jaded temptation to throw his hands up and walk away from those who had been lost. He resisted in the face of every betrayal, again and again and again, because he refused to allow himself to believe the effort was not worthwhile, even in failure. So, as he read Anne's final letter, he prayed that just as Harren was blinded so that he could see again, so too did Anne finally find the grace of Aeradar before the end. That, even if she was taken by the maw, cast forever into hell and forever denied the paradise of the skies, that she had found it in herself to be more than the fell temptations that had ruled her.

 

That in her final moments, she had been good. 

[ChainedDragons 1374]

Heimweh knew not the fate that befell her adopted mother. But if she did she would surely weep. All the wildling was capable of now was sniffing the letter and knowing it's scent.

Mother.

[BonesOfTheEarth 2252]

The body was prepared. Stored carefully far away from prying eyes. The Chimera watched her die.

 

And soon, their deal would reach fruition.

[Casualty 77]

 

Drenched in cold sweat, sitting upon the stool next to her bed, does Mélissandre take laboured flat breaths, her head hung, even perched upon a hand on her knees.

 

Another terror tore her from the sweet promise of rest, circles beneath her eyes deepened further, not a night that went without interruption, yet this night seemed more accursed. Not the promise of spring, the thought of companion nor ale alleviate the exhaustion that clung to her. 

 

Three letters upon her desk, a father, a sister, a brother,
yet the beating of ravens wings deep within the night come whispering promises,
more parchment for the growing collection. 

 

She rose, she would again, every morning with the sun, every night with horrors…

 

… there was a letter to embrace.

[Karina 1881]

No great news was cast towards the one who had mentored Anne. Who had seen the depth of her ambitions from the time they were little more then a bard. It was only a tepid, continual silence. Sylvara would come to wonder, what had become of her student?

Had it been an end at an inquisitors blade? All that was certain; was that she was not the first who died, under the 'thills care. Nor, would they be the last. The cost of progress.

[LoxyTheReindeer 356]

Evangeline had only known Anne once, a one-night friendship, a dance in the old world.
Just that one night, that one dance. That was all their relationship had ever been.
 

And yet, she received a letter, a simple request. An admission that she would likely be dead by the time the letter was received, and the begging that she might be prayed for.

So alone that night, by the roaring fire, with letter in hand, did Evangeline pray. For whatever meager relief she may be offered, if her soul could be saved. For a just, quick death. And as she remembered that dance, a prayer for peace in the afterlife.

 

"Rest easy, Anne... Even if you do not deserve it... I hope you find peace."