Twisted is the crown

Lahle III

MY STEPS ECHO AGAINST THE TIGHT stairwell of the booth tower as I race down it, heart pounding. I can already hear the chaos outside from here. The screaming and pounding of distant explosions gives me enough adrenaline to run out the booth tower.

I hold the rusted gold handles of the tower and slam them open, only to be greeted by horrific pandemonium.

Explosions rock the ground beneath our feet as innocent people run for their lives. In the distance, I hear what sounds like metal shackles. The dance of a thousand marching soldiers.

I haven’t even had the time to mourn Deyko.

Not even a second later Doregan and the rest of the elders are out of the booth tower and beside me, watching the madness as it unfolds. The sky is blotted with grey from ash and smoke.

“Where is Quillion?” I say, even though I know nobody can hear me over the screaming and explosions. I turn to Doregan. “We have to get out of here.”

“Its too late.” Dreldric Mirgodya of the tamer tribe says. “We have to assume that the gates around the tournament fields and the palace are being guarded by enemy soldiers.”

Elder Syveron slams her staff onto the ground. “This is Queen Mitaldra’s answer.

We fight.”

Although it hurts me to do so, I nod. Too much is happening at once. “Elder Syveron is right. We must fight for Gaia.”

Doregan purses her lips, but the eyes of the old crone light up at the idea of fighting. Meanwhile, Queen Mitaldra’s army heads closer to the gates of the tournament fields.

“We have to gather the knights and guards available.” Elder Yaov says. “There are barracks not too far from here. Our warriors would have gotten the distress signal.”

“We must hold the fort until they get here.” Dreldric says, his voice grim. “Fight with everything we have.”

I think of Aaliyah still inside the palace, and silently hope she’s hidden herself somewhere safe and not come out looking for me. That little bugger—has a knack for doing what she isn’t meant to.

“Lahle,” Doregan grabs my wrist. “Find Quillion and Ahelo. Reconvene at the palace.”

I furrow my brows. I cant be useless and idle while everywhere is in ruins. As much as I wish I could turn a blind eye to this, I am the princess.

“I want to fight, Doregan.” I say. “I have to fight.”

“No.” She scolds. “Us elders will battle. You are the monarchy. We cannot let anything happen to you and Quillion.”

I nod reluctantly as a group of guards flanks me. Within their hold is Quillion, shaking and afraid. Impulsively, I throw myself into his arms. He survived.

Another ball of searing flame smashes against the ground and I nearly loose my footing. Only a few more minutes before Mitaldra’s army comes breaking down our gates.

“Where in the palace are we to stay?” I ask Doregan, scanning her eyes. She holds me close, whispering into my ears. “An old bunker under the palace. So old even the guards do not know it exists.”

The guards pull both Quillion and I away from Doregan before I can even get another word out. Through the ash clouds, screaming people and explosions, they find Ahelo and lead us into a gold carriage. It begins its ride to the palace with speed. The ground under the twisting wheels of the carriage tremble as we ride. From here I see one of the great turrets of the palace engulfed in flame. Thick smoke from it shades the night sky in a toxic grey-black.

“This is bullshit.” Ahelo grunts. “We should be outside fighting. Not inside some perfect underground bunker.”

“And just allow Mitaldra to kill us?” Quillion asks. “What is best for Gaia is that we survive!”

“A king is a servant of his people, not the other way around!”

A sound of distant whizzing breaks the two from their argument. I pull back the blinds and peer out the window. A comet of fire blazes towards us.

“Explosive!” I scream, ordering the coachman to stop as I barrel out of the vehicle. Quillion stares confused as Ahelo gets out of the carriage with me.

I punch my first forward and water escapes my skin in droplets, forming into a large stream. Ahelo does same and our water streams clash together, forming a shield around us and the carriage.

The shield still isn’t strong enough as even from where I stand I feel the searing heat of the large explosive. Finally, Quillion leaves the car of the carriage and joins his tiding with ours. The three of us move in unison and I watch as the water turns solid, from a rushing wave to a rigid wall of steaming ice.

I dig my feet into the dirt, muscles straining as the ball of hot metal slams onto our ice shield. The ice stops flame from exploding but the impact still pushes all three of us to our backs. A single c***k forms on the shield, but the ground still shakes below us.

Ahelo is the first to laugh. I look up at him, clutching my sides in pain. He falls flat onto his back, staring at the tip of the ice shield, laughing his heart out.

“Was that funny to you?”

“Wha—no. Definitely not. This was horrendous. Never again.”

Quillion stumbles as he stands, resting on the side of the carriage. He calls out to the coachman, who confirms he’s ok. We cant just be here, waiting inside an ice shield while our people suffer.

“Screw this.” I say, standing and using my magic to melt the ice back to regular water, then letting it fall to the ground. My heart is pounding, my veins soaring with adrenaline as I step forward. “I’m fighting with my people.”

“But Lahle—”

“For Gaia!” I scream as I charge forward, letting energy rush through my body and form in my hands. A blade made of ice. The blade takes form, starting as water then hardening into ice. Once it has hardened, I grip it tightly.

Around the tournament field, the stone walls are blown down one by one. Vahaltmirian soldiers pour into the fields in groves, carrying weapons ranging from regular blades to scythes and arrows.

There are only about one hundred knights in the tournament fields. Puny compared to the maybe five hundred men Mitaldra brought, but enough to hold the ground until our legion arrives.

I turn back, waiting for Quillion to follow me and fight, but he doesn’t. Ahelo rushes to my side, holding his sword up, but Quillion sighs as he boards the carriage again and rides towards the palace. A little bit of my heart breaks, but I must focus on the fight at hand.

“Quillion isn’t coming?” Ahelo whispers to me.

I answer with a simple nod. Now is not the time to focus on Quillion.

Her army stands at attention, waiting. A silence falls over the field, and it gives me a moment to notice all the dead bodies strewn around. Innocent people. Parents, children. Burnt and charred. If my heart wasn’t broken before, it definitely is now. I turn to the army of the tyrant.

“Where is your leader?!” I scream, my voice hoarse and throaty. My words echo around the battlefield. “Was she too weak to see destruction with her own eyes?! Where is she?!”

Ahelo grabs my palm, trying to still me. Strangely, his touch calms me down, but a fire still rages in my heart.

The sea of Mitaldra’s soldiers part and the witch herself walks through. She wears flamboyant gold armour that clanks and echoes with every step she takes. Her face is mostly hidden under her helmet, but even from here I can see the blankness in her eyes. The woman that killed my father.

“Mitaldra—”

Ahelo holds me back, stopping me from charging at her. I fight against him for a few seconds but eventually give up. I fight not to cry. Mitaldra starts to speak, and when she does, I hear death in her voice.

“No more had to die than the ones that perished at the sinking of Oryon’s palace.” Her voice booms, and she takes a step forward. “The monarchy have refused to stay dead, and I will make sure they do not escape here with their lives.” She raises her sword into the air of dust and smoking ash. The clouds above are blackened and cast a dark shadow unto us below.

“At this time tomorrow, I will sit on Gaia’s throne.”

In the mad queen’s voice there is no remorse or sympathy. No emotion. Just stone cold iciness. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was in a trance.

“Charge!” I scream, and the two armies including Ahelo and I race forward, weapons ready and teeth grit. The ground shakes with the dance of a thousand running feet.

We clash with a deafening scrape as weapons collide with both sword and skin. Already, blood lines the ground we run. Even though I thrust my ice sword through bellies and necks, spilling blood, my eyes are set on Mitaldra. She fights with a speed like I’ve never seen before, her veins glowing a bright green as energy from the ether rushes through them.

Ahelo fights by my side, and as she said, I spot Doregan in the brawl as well, fighting with both her fists and a sharpened iron glaive. She is old, so she doesn’t have the agility needed to use her tiding to fight. She notices me staring at her, but her attention is taken up by a soldier who runs up at her.

My sword clashes with the scythe of one of Mitaldra’s soldiers with a heavy clank. He reels back from the blow, striking again. I’m not prepared as his scythe digs into my shoulder. Blood explodes from the wound as he plunges the blade of the weapon deeper into my bone. I fall to my knees.

I try to calm down and push past the pain, striking his legs. He is pulled out from under and falls onto his back. As quick as a bloodbird I am back on my feet, pushing through the searing of torn flesh. Calling on my energy, I create a thick sphere of water and push it onto him. The sphere circles his face, choking him. His attempts to stand are futile, and to finish the job I sink my sword into his throat.

The sight of his bleeding corpse makes me recoil, but it had to be done. Gaia comes first now. Not me, and certainly not enemy soldiers. Father would have died protecting his kingdom if he had the chance, and I would do same as well.

Thick smoke rises in the air from the fire around the field. Beyond the smoke and ash, the high up booth tower I sat in leans forward as it falls.

“Get away from there!” My voice ripples across the field, and luckily our soldiers move out of the way of the burning building as it slams onto the grass, its gargantuan weight reflecting through the trembles echoing across the dirt.

The battle is halted for a second when a loud siren wails through the battlefield and across the black sky. Its so loud that birds close by fly away in groves. I look back at the water tribe palace, the source of the siren. There’s no doubt in my mind that Quillion pulled the alarm, but why?

A corpse falls in front of me as the inky clouds are burst through by a stream of fire. The flame is so hot that it blurs my vision of the field around it. People are charred and ignited, burning and smoking from the inside out. All of them that I can make out are our soldiers.

No. We’re losing too many people.

“Lahle!” Ahelo rushes to my side, panting. There is a scar across his arm and his shirt is blotted with blood.

“Ahelo, you’re hurt—”

“Lets not focus on me.” His words come in laboured gasps. With a weathered finger he points up at the clouds. “There’s something up there.” I follow his finger, and at that moment the sky explodes.

Three red breasted Fikawa swoop down from the sky, big and mighty, roaring and burning everything in their path. If there was chaos before, now its anarchy.

Ahelo grabs my arm. “We have to retreat. They have Fikawa. We’re barely scraping past sixty men.”

I gulp as two of the Fikawa land on the ground. The earth shakes, and the third one perches itself atop the bleachers, burning everything on the ground from above. From this angle I can see that they are being ridden by Mitaldra’s soldiers.

“We’ve already lost.” I whisper to myself. Ahelo holds me close and I scream out unto the field, “Fall back! Fall back!”

Ahelo’s words come after mine. “Retreat now!”

The biggest Fikawa roars into the sky, its slit tongue l*****g over teeth sharper and longer than my sword. Our soldiers heed our words, retreating back to the palace. They’re definitely going to follow us there, but its a start.

Doregan grabs Ahelo’s hand. “We must leave now.”

“Where are the other elders?” I ask, but she shakes her head. “Syveron, Yaov and Aiylan are on their way to the palace. Dreldric has fallen.”

When two more Fikawa fly in from the skies, we take it as our cue to leave. Our feet pound against the dirt as we race towards the palace, and strangely enough Mitaldra’s men don’t follow us.

“Why isn’t she attacking?” I ask Doregan as we run. The old woman groans, looking back at the fields. “I don’t know.”

In the few days I’ve known Doregan I’ve noticed that the rarely ever doesn’t know anything. She’s a wise woman, old beyond her years, and her not knowing Mitaldra’s plan speaks ill of what is to come.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong.