As Lucian and Finley's voices continued to weave their tapestry of the sea and sorrow, Lysander finally moved. He rose to his full height, his ancient armor creaking with the movement. The helm still obscured his face, but the raw fury emanating from him was palpable. The mournful echoes intensified, twisting into guttural roars of anguish and rage.
"Enough!" His voice, the first they had heard from him, was a tormented bellow, laced with centuries of grief and a simmering fury. "Do not speak of her! Do not mock my loss with your paltry imitations of the sea's lament!"
The ground around him trembled, and the petrified tree behind him cracked, shards of solidified grief falling like deadly rain. The air crackled with a potent magic, no longer just sorrowful, but violently reactive.
"We meant no disrespect," Lucian said quickly, stepping back. "We only seek the bloom… to break a curse…"
"A curse?" Lysander's rage seemed to focus on Lucian. "You speak of curses? You know nothing of true suffering! Of a love stolen, a life shattered, an eternity of grief!"
He gestured towards the unseen Cenithia at his feet, his voice dropping to a mournful whisper before rising again in fury. "This bloom… it is a cruel reminder! It awakens only under the shadow of the eclipse, the same shadow that fell upon our love! And now you dare to sing of the sea that took her from me?"
He staggered, clutching his chest, a visible tremor running through his armored form. "The song… it stirs memories… beautiful, agonizing memories…" His voice weakened, laced with pain. "It gives me strength, a flicker of what was… but it also… it also deepens the wound… reminds me of what is lost forever…"
Lysander's posture shifted, his rage warring with his sorrow. He seemed caught in a terrible paradox – the echoes of the sea, perhaps a resonance with Seraphina's essence, both empowered his grief and weakened his resolve, tearing him between the past and the present.
"Silence!" he roared again, his voice cracking. "Silence your cursed songs, or face the full weight of my despair!"
The clearing felt charged, a battleground of raw emotion and ancient magic. Lysander, fueled by centuries of grief and paradoxically weakened by their unintentional connection to his lost love, stood as a formidable and unpredictable obstacle.
Despite his rage and demand for silence, a tormented need to speak his grief seemed to overcome Lysander. He clutched his chest, his unseen face contorted in anguish, and his voice, though still rough with fury, was now laced with a heartbreaking vulnerability.
"She was a daughter of the land, with hair like spun moonlight and eyes the color of the twilight sky," he began, his voice echoing with a love that had clearly endured centuries. "I, a guardian of the wood, sworn to protect its ancient heart. Our paths intertwined like the roots of the oldest trees. We met in this very clearing, under the first kiss of the twilight, drawn to a magic that resonated between the sea that kissed our shores and the deep forest that sheltered us."
He gestured around the clearing, his movements jerky and filled with pain. "Her laughter was like the chime of the forest bells, her spirit as free as the wind that whispers through the leaves. She loved the sea, though it was not her home. She would come to the coast, and I would meet her where the forest touched the waves. We shared stories of our worlds, a forbidden love blooming in the space between."
His voice grew softer, tinged with a profound sadness. "But our joy was not meant to last. A king from a greedy land, his heart as cold as the northern ice, desired her beauty, her power. He sought to bind her to his throne, to claim the magic that flowed within her veins – the magic of the sea."
Lysander's armored fists clenched. "She refused him. Her heart belonged to the forest, to me. But his desire turned to malice, his pursuit relentless. He brought his armies to our shores, threatening to tear our worlds asunder."
His voice cracked with remembered fear. "To protect her, to save our homes, she made a sacrifice. A bargain with the depths, a power offered in exchange for her freedom from the king's grasp. She became one with the sea, her heart turned to ice against the pain of separation, her laughter silenced by the crushing weight of the deep."
The mournful echoes in the forest swelled again, mirroring Lysander's anguish. The petrified tree seemed to groan under the weight of his sorrow.
"And I…" His voice was barely a whisper, filled with self-loathing. "I was left to guard this bloom, a cruel reminder of the eclipse that marked her departure, the darkness that stole her light. My grief became my prison, my sorrow my only companion."
He finally lowered his head, his voice thick with unshed tears. "So do not speak to me of the sea with your careless songs. It took everything from me. It holds the frozen heart of my beloved, a constant, aching void in my eternal existence."
The raw pain in Lysander's story hung heavy in the clearing. The tale of his love and loss painted a tragic picture, revealing the depth of his grief and the reason for his fierce protectiveness of the Cenithia.