Chapter 435: Forgiveness
The Elder looked down at her. "What should have happened before you played with fate. Everyone who is supposed to die until you interfere with their fate will eventually perish, and one who shouldn’t have existed would never come to be."
Belle’s heart sank into her stomach, a sudden realization dawning on her, turning her blood to cold ice. She began to shake her head. "My son... you can’t. He’s innocent, and my husband, don’t take them away. They don’t deserve it."
"Then tell me, do all these people deserve it?" The Elder raised his hand, and a screen-like vision appeared in front of Belle’s eyes. One by one, she witnessed the death of people who had died in Rohan’s hands in the past, so many of them that bile rose in her throat from the gruesome way they had all died and the look of pure satisfaction and pleasure in the dark eyes of her husband as he took their life.
"All these people wouldn’t have died if you had crossed his soul that day and not returned him. Demons were cheaters of death, but he was only half, and without a heart, he should have died. But you changed the course of his fate and yours. You went as far as to marry him and create a child with a reaper’s blood in him and a demon. The boy can be a monster if given the right to become one because he cannot die with the blood of a reaper."
As much as he couldn’t die, he could be perished and wiped off existence if the root of his existence was no more.
"Look at the monster you let loose," he referred to Rohan’s vision. "He killed too many who shouldn’t have died had he died that day."
Belle stared at the vision, the gruesome sight swirling before her eyes, but what struck her into shock was how even while watching it and seeing how innocent people died brutally in his hands, it didn’t make her feel any less for Rohan or love him any less than she did a minute ago.
Her husband was a changed man because of her. Her husband was not the same as the person she was watching, and even if he was, she... still wanted him. Others might see him as heartless for how he had killed before, but she saw him as a lonely, abandoned man, wanting to love and be loved, wanting to have his own family and feel he belonged and was wanted. Someone with the kindest heart if given a place to let it show.
But with what she had done and what his change of fate had brought, there would hardly be forgiveness.
Belle’s eyes stung, and she turned to the Elder. "Forgiveness. Give me a chance to rectify my mistakes. I will do right by you this time, but please don’t take my son and my husband." She pleaded, her forehead pressing against the floor in front of the Elder.
"Then shall I take you instead, Astral?" the Elder asked.
Belle froze. Taking her away from them would be like giving Rohan back the will to become the man she had just seen in that vision. Belle’s throat felt like a huge piece of bread had gotten stuck there, and no matter what she did, it refused to go down. She saw Rohan telling her how much he loved her, how much he couldn’t be without her.
Rohan tearing up and telling her how he felt like he didn’t deserve her and their son, telling her she was the best thing that ever happened to his life. Rohan wanting to be loved. Rohan having fears of losing her.
She saw herself promising never to leave him.
She saw him smiling, kissing her, laughing with her. Her throat choked with unbearable emotions too heavy for her.
If she were to be taken from his life, she would be killing him, and a dead man alive would never be there for another person. Her son would grow up neglected and bitter. Wasn’t that worse than leaving them alive?
How had she ended up in this mess? Belle groaned inwardly, wishing she could sob and cry, wishing she could turn back the hands of time and avoid the near-death experience at that accident that cracked her illusion, or even any attempt to send Isabelle away.
I can’t be taken away from them. They can’t be taken away from me. There is no other way around it; it would lead to the same outcome. We belong together.
"Please... give me another chance to prove myself and fix the mistake I have made, but please leave my life and let me remain in this form. I will make everything right... I swear. If I don’t, you can do to me as you please," she begged, her shoulders shaking from the desperate sobs tearing from her heart.
Belle knew the Elders might be strict, but when it came down to forgiveness, they always granted a chance, with a harder task that, once failed, would guarantee no other way out. From the memories she had regained, Belle knew she had a way to fix things and make them right, but if the Elders didn’t agree, this would be her end.
"You want to fix what you have ruined?" the Elder asked. "You want to be granted forgiveness?"
Belle nodded, her fingers fisting from her nervousness.
"Let me show you what you have to do to have that wish granted. Let’s see if you are still willing, Astral." The Elder moved his head again.
"Rohan Dagon has killed and changed many humans’ destinies because you gave his soul a pass. And as much as he has killed, he has unintentionally prevented the deaths of others who shouldn’t have lived until this moment. Look through their identities. If you can bring back every one of their souls on time without missing a single one of them, then the life you have shall be yours. And if you can take the soul of every other person whose life shouldn’t have been because of the changes, I will forgive your mistakes."
Belle raised her head to look through the list of identities. The names listed numbered over a hundred, and every one of them had their age written beside it and where they lived, with a clear map that led there.
"They are this many because some of those who should have died went on to have children they shouldn’t have, and anyone who cheats death can’t get away with it. All the offsprings they had should be taken," the Elder said, while Belle’s eyes kept moving down the list until they stopped at one in particular. Her breath hitched in her lungs as her heart gave a hard thud.
"Why is he there? Christian Hathaway?" Belle asked, recognizing the name immediately. Rav. She had known his real name when Evenly had come to announce that she had finally agreed to marry him.
’It won’t be so bad to be called Mrs. Hathaway,’ Evenly had told her, and Belle, who until then didn’t know it was Rav, had asked, ’That’s his name?’
’Yes, Christian Hathaway. He has a fine name.’
Now she would have thought it was another Christian, but right beside his name was his age and everything about him that pointed directly to Rav, even the map of where he lived.
"Why him? How did Rohan mess with his fate?" Belle asked, knowing she could never take Rav’s life. No, she wouldn’t. She would take anyone’s life but his...