The Princess of Light and Dark

The aftermath

ElRey

Fighting had never been my passion, I looked over my shoulder at my father, his armour sparkled with his movements, precise and lethal, a true warrior. I rely on my powers to fight, not that I am not skilled with a sword or a bow and arrow, but I do not like to kill. To take someone else’s life, to watch as the light in their eyes vanishes by your hand. It makes my stomach turn, but as my fathers often tell me, if I one day want to be by Elvira’s side as her king, I will have to stomach killing and worse, politics.

I blast my power toward a group of soldiers coming towards me and my father, they fly into the air and land on the next line of fighters behind them, I release a breath and ready my sword when I feel it, a deep thrum in my soul. It distracts me enough for a soldier to punch me square in the jaw, I stumble back as another pull hits me, making me dizzy and warm. My father shouts my name and I look around, but my vision is blurred. It lasts for a few seconds but feels like a lifetime, I jump to my feet, searching for the source of the pull, I see warriors, in blue and silver, I see my father, his sword cleaving its way through muscle and bone, I feel a shiver up my spine as chilling screams echo across the battlefield, I turn and stop. Sarnarel is flying through the air as his soldiers kneel on the floor holding their heads, screaming in agony. My uncle is on his knees, a sword piercing his shoulder, but what really makes me stop is the tall, slender woman standing between him and the enemy, her black hair is long and wild and I watch in amazement as she turns to my uncle and places her hand on his other shoulder, their bodies start to shimmer and as Sarnarel’s sword drives straight through her stomach, they both vanish.

The soldiers stand as if the pain they were experiencing seconds ago had never happened, Sarnarel looks incredulous at the spot where his sword had moments before embedded into someone’s body. The rage in his face has soften slightly, but no for long as the Blue Forest warriors gain on them, without his sword he is easily captured by Idril.

My father’s hand lands heavily on my shoulder, and I nod. We need no words, at least not right now. We watch for a few moments; the wounded being helped, and the dead being taken away. We turn our backs on the morbid scene and head towards the castle, with no idea of where that woman took our king, we need to act quick, we walk up the path towards the courtyard when Aunt Sara runs out the doors, her face is drawn and when she sees us, she turns towards us instead.

“El, Roth.” She wheezes out “Come quick, it’s the Elvira… And the king.”

**

The voices echoing down the large hall are hard to distinguish, there’s crying, screaming, angry shouting, whispers, everything.

We run into the throne room and the chaos in there is equal to the battlefield we left behind. On the floor hunched over a laying body, Tharia cries, Morgana and Blu stand in the corner with tears in their eyes as they watch their mother trying to contain Elvira, who is screaming as black tendrils of a smoke like substance leak slowly out of her body, Morwen is quietly taking care of the King’s injuries, her eyes glued to his naked torso, eager to avoid the confrontation about to explode.

Elvira sees me first and I smile at her, happy that she is ok, but that happiness dies very quickly as she soon turns those slow tendrils into misty spears, and they fly towards me. I turn and jump to avoid them piercing me, but I am not quick enough as one flies too close and cuts my thigh, I wince in pain and Elvira gasps.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you!” She shouts as she runs to me. Her hands go straight to the bleeding on my left thigh, but I grab them, her beautiful violet eyes are filled with tears as she looks at me. “I’m so angry with you for what you did. How could you do that? How could you take my choices away like that? My father is hurt because of me, hundreds of warriors dead because of me, and her…” Elvira sighs and looks at Tharia.” Dead, because of me, after everything she did for me.”

I drop her hands and cup her face and stroke her soft porcelain skin marred with angry red streaks left by her tears,

“Not because of you, because of a lunatic who thinks he owns you. Never because of you.” I whisper to her, Elvira lowers her head as more tears leave her eyes, I grab her chin to tip her face to me, and we are all startled by a powerful scream.

“Thuria!” Elvira gasps in my arms and runs to the body on the floor, that moments ago was covered by a crying Tharia, who is nowhere to be seen. Elvira kneels beside her and grabs her hand.

“You are OK Thuria, it’s me Elvira.” Thuria sits up and frantically looks around. Her eyes are as black and wild as her hair, her dress is a mess of blood and mud, she stares at each one of us, her eyes unfocused and unclear. Finally, she looks at Elvira, her eyes turn softer as her arms wrap Elvira in a hug. The chanting starts as a quiet whisper, her words mumbled and jumbled, the sounds of her panicked voice grow louder as her arms and hands grip Elvira harder, until soon she is wailing and screaming. I reach for Elvira, but my father stops me, his eyes are glued to the woman. I could feel the fear and pain radiating off of him, and suddenly I realised what Elvira said. The screaming carries on for a while, as we all stand and watch, unable to do anything, the more she screams the bigger and stronger the power emerging from them becomes, until they are enveloped in a purple dome, filled with white mist and their voices combine into one as the screams and mumbles become a coherent question; ‘Where is Tharia?’