CH.157

Enzo’s tone was now laced with something she couldn’t quite place.

"He was an honest, noble soul who had fallen in love for the first time in his long, long existence as an immortal being. He was willing to make the woman who had so thoroughly captured his heart his absolute equal by bestowing her with that sacred piece of himself. But what he didn't realize..."

The older man's expression changed to one with some deeply buried anguish.

"What he didn't know was that the girl's heart never truly belonged to him. That those in higher status, for all their outward gratitude and reverence, never saw him as anything more than a sacrifice - a powerful entity the heavens had sent to help cleanse their lands of the scourge that plagued it. A means to an end, nothing more. And on top of that..." His jaw clenched hard enough that the tendons stood out in stark relief along his neck and temples. "The woman had already pledged herself to the future leader of the village, having vowed to rule at his