Lohengrin was sent home after what happened in the temple.
There he understood the consequences of everything that happened. His mother, locked in a room crying all day long. She only stopped crying to start beating herself and muttering "I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid...".
Day after day, meanwhile, her father did absolutely nothing, just sat in silence.
Crying, screaming and a voice singing softly, like a cry, like someone being slowly killed. All this created a melody that tortured Lohengrin day and night.
Until one day his mother began to vomit, constantly. Lohengrin worriedly went after his mother, opened her bedroom door and saw her lying on the bed covered in vomit, dirty. She grabbed Lohengrin's face and started screaming at him: "I'm afraid! I am afraid! Stay with me! I don't want to lose you like your brother!"
Lohengrin agreed, and lay down beside his mother on the floor, but after a few minutes his mother's heart stopped.
He was not the only one whose life was turned upside down. Triskel lost his sister and his parents gave in to madness, his father hanged himself. Triskel told Lohengrin how he could still hear the noise his neck made, it haunted him every night.
As for Minales and Marion, they were never heard from again since the day of the attack.
The bodies of the deceased are given to the temples as offerings to the gods, once they are delivered no one ever sees them again, and on the day that Lohengrin and Triskel's relatives were taken, they both made a promise, to kill not only the ones who did that, but every single elf that exists on the other side.
The next morning, several priests showed up at Lohengrin's family home. He went outside to greet them and found that Triskel was with them. They offered him the opportunity to avenge his family, receiving all the teachings necessary to fulfil the promise he and Triskel had made.
Lohengrin accepted and left his father and his home. They were installed in the upper chambers of the temple school, even above the senior students, even though all those rooms were already empty.
"Focus your hatred and turn it into your weapon". Lohengrin was the only one who had not been instructed in the use of weapons, only in the use of his own hands, something he had to use every day in training with his companion, who had been taught to use daggers and other skills to hunt in silence.
After several months of training, the priests called them to the top of the temple, to the highest tower.
"Do you see that horizon? Do you see that light? It was taken from us. That is why we must get it back. Lohengrin, Triskel. Do you swear total allegiance to the temple?" They both nodded in agreement. One of the priests approached them and drew a sword with a gem-studded hilt and a heart on the handle.
Without a word he thrust it into Triskel's heart and then into Lohengrin's heart. Neither of them felt any pain, nor did they wince, emotions were something they had long since forgotten.
"With this you will be marked forever, you are our weapons against Thrudd".
They were taken to a dome where there was a gigantic door, which they had never seen before. "The light that was taken from us, our creator does not provide us with it, he abandoned us hundreds of years ago, so we must acquire it by our own means to survive..."
They opened the door and what they could see were capsules glowing with a strong clear blue light. Lohengrin approached one of them and could see the figure of someone inside. It was a female, with a tube inserted through her mouth that reached up to the ceiling, and her belly had been removed, in its place was a transparent capsule with what appeared to be a gemstone inside floating between her entrails.
Her teeth were black and her face was marked by the typical bandages they put on apprentice priestesses.
In another capsule was a figure, this time without some limbs and the same tube to the ceiling. In the centre of the room was a table full of utensils that looked like they were made for cutting up animals.
"It's been a while since you've seen them, hasn't it? It's Minales and Marion. They, like you, are also fulfilling their mission." Lohengrin thought they had died on the day of the attack and were keeping their corpses there for some reason.
"Let us begin then."
Suddenly a gust of wind blew into the room despite the closed door and no windows. Lights began to descend through the tubes connected to the 2 females and their bodies began to move as if in a macabre dance, the image of seeing Marion with no legs and only one arm flailing was disturbing.
Minales' belly began to glow brighter and the light descended into channels that led to the table in the centre.
"Triskel you first," said the eldest of the priests.
Triskel lay down on the table. "Marion is the best hunter, her aim was second to none, now yours will be too." They tied Triskel to the table and began to cut off his right arm. It was the first time Lohengrin had heard Triskel scream and cry.
Lohengrin couldn't hold his gaze and looked towards the capsule where Minales was. All of Minales' body went completely rigid and began to pound on the crystal.
"Is she alive?" Lohengrin asked. "She is fulfilling her mission," replied the priest who had grabbed him by the shoulders.
Lohengrin's mind was filled with doubts.
They opened the capsule where Marion was and proceeded now to cut off her arm. The moment the blade met her skin Marion's body shuddered and she seemed to want to scream if only the tube that had been shoved down her mouth had not damaged her throat.
They began to put Triskel's arm back together, applying ointment and stitching it together in a very thorough manner. Once finished, the arm, completely purple and deformed, began to take its proper shape for Triskel.
Lohengrin was terrified and his body would tremble were it not for his grip.
"What is wrong with you Lohengrin, don't you want to know what your gift is?"