Amaranta – Captive of Elf’s King

Ice oath

The noise, raised near the stable, forced Angus to forget about melancholia and do business. Probably the servants who came there, attacked some evil spirits. After terminating the contract with elves, all the servants of Dagda hurried to fly or wage from a no longer hospitable castle, but someone was delayed. For example, Magic drunkards occupied the wine cellar. According to Spark, it was not to get rid of them. They will disappear only when all the wine coms to end in the castle.

Ambrose also did not want to part with the elf, with whom they became friends and now they constantly trained in military art together. So one elf could be considered a defector.

"Not on time he got stuck here," somehow commented Spark, watching the strange friends: one wonderful knight and one mortal. “War comes with the kingdom of Dagda. This traitor willbe torn off from their own!”

“Better tell about it to him than me!” Angus said.

 An exquisite carriage in which Amaranta arrived, was covered with the ice. There was even snow around the roof.

Angus decided to inspect the carriage and found that the axis in one of the wheels is a flexible, constantly changing shape magic ice.

“Do not touch it!” An ice spirit immediately aroused next, barely Angus extended his hand to the sparkling axis of the wheel.

“Who are you? You did not send Dagda.”

“I have a persuasion with your wife. The ice detail of the carriage is a gift to her. Touch the gift, turn into ice yourself.”

Angus did not like such threats. He grabbed the sword.

“What do you want? Freeze the whole castle?”

“I want to freeze all Ilion, but your county is under the rule of hostile to me charms. I would not touch it if you will foget about your king and well not respond to a military call.”

“Are you kidding? How can the knight forget about the debt.”

"Some forget when the knife or magic is noted to the throat," the sharp ice finger with the size of the dagger turned out to be so long and flexible that it was easy to spoke around the throat of Angus and began to choke. Only obvious Angus turned out to be not on the teeth, because the grip quickly weakened.

“You are a strong nut. Anyway. I still planned to pick up your wife, not you.”

Ice finger released the throat of the count.

"Better pick the carriage, since you liked it so much that you hold her under your winter spells."

“Why do I need a carriage instead of a beautiful woman?”

The ice guest disappeared.

 But the ambassadors of the king just knocked into the gate. And if only ambassadors. For no reason from this, the relatives of Amaranta, who did not visite her wedding, suddenly arrived from Aluar to visit her.

And how to get out now? Do not tell them all directly that the elves dragged his wife. Maybe the ambassadors of the king of Ilior, which were notifyed with ice creatures, don’t laugh. But what can say the relatives from Aluar. Scandal can not be avoided.

It is necessary to bring a gold copy from the tower. Suddenly she can take the appearance of Amaranta again. Angus rushed to the tower, where he locked her and found that there are no more doors in the tower. The wall became smooth and thickly chosen with gold roses. Flowers rang like laughing.

“Do not be afraid! I'm with you!” Medea Shai was formed from the darkness and black cobwebs, from the corridor's abundant corners.

“And how will you help me now? Enchant the guests so that they do not think anything.”

“Dear, I can assume your wife, no worse than some kind of magic copy.”

“They are not blind? And you do not change the appearance as I noticed.”

"But looking at me, they will think that I am she. I love to invade into someone else's consciousness and poison it with black illusions.”

“Better open the door in the tower.”

“Was it really there?” Medea Shai took him under the elbow and persistently dragged into the hall for receiving guests. What strong she turned out to be! Even the knight could not resist her. Angus had to be kept behind her.

The guests have already organized a modest feast. There are dishes of grapes and a whole pork carcass grilled in oil wine on the table. King's ambassadors do not accept modestly.

Medea Shai sat at the head of the table, like the hostess. She began to flirt with the ambassadors of the king, completely ignoring the mother of Amaranta. Angus did not know where to go. Cousin of Amaranta Gloria suddenly winked to him by a black eay. Why did her skin become black? Angus agitated. And naive ambassadors of the king, who did not have time to get up due to the table, were closely clamped in their paws at once several black monsters, in which the relatives of Amaranta instantly turned.

“Who did you led to my castle?”

Medea Shai smiled innocently.

“Why did you decide that this is me?”

Only corpses remained from the ambassadors. The monsters devoured a couple servants too.

“Stop them!”

“This is the price of the union with me!”

Angus has long been tormented suspicious that he was in vain with her confused.

“We did not conclude contracts. I want you to leave with all your mobsters!”

Medea Shai got up and flew to him, squeezing fists.

"I'll get back and help you, without my help you can not do. I helped to the king of Ilior too.”

“You made meat of his ambassadors.”

“They are too many, as well as his warriors. From the ice elves, nothing will save him. If I do not intervene. But he has already managed to put so many promises! I can even help. In this castle, the strength of the ice oath is also felt. You promised something from ice creatures.

“Not me. Amaranta.”

“It is worth for her.”

“What does it mean?”

But Medea Shai already flew to the window.”

"I can't stay longer here. The owner of the castle, who did not succumb to my charm and wanted to drive me, it is rare. Besides the orders of the owner of the fortress leave I must obey.”

She flew away. Her monsters simply disappeared. And on the table for the feast, there were b****y scraps of the Clothes of the ambassadors and their emblems. It is necessary to burn it all until someone tells to the king of Ilion that his vassal became a traitor. It is good that the ambassadors managed to report before the feast that he was waiting for the battlefield. They were eaten by monsters, but he knew that it was time to gather on the road.

She began to dream about monster very often. It stood before their bed. Mountains from paws, heads, suckling and claws rummaged like a black rock. How inappropriate it looked in luxurious chambers. His tentacles stroked her face, stretching forward like snakes.

“Who are you?” Sleepy murmured Amaranta. Dagda slept. He earlier always woke up when the danger approaches. Does this mean that there are no threats now, and the monster is only an illusion. His sparkling eyes looked at her with dozens of heads, and only two eyes seemed sighted - two red eyes in the very center. Rather three. The third was on the forehead. The largest.

“What do you want from me? From us?”

He wanted something from Dagda. She felt.

“You also want to destroy me, because I'm alien here? Not a fairy, not an elf. No one.”

It was silent. Dozens of pairs of eyes are not blinking. They glowed in the night as distant lanterns.

"If he loves you, I can love you too," the monster said.

It hung over it. He suddenly had dozens paws, like hands. Hundreds of black paws stretched to her body. Touching in a dream was almost not felt. It seemed that black claws were silent to put a lot of seals on it and could not.

“Do you want to hear about the old kingdom? And what is the love of Dagda?”

What is the old kingdom? What about which she read in the scrolls? There was nothing left of it, except for the Tuata-de-Danan and the Black Hill fragmented to the individual states.

Amaranta woke up at dawn. So dream was the night visit of the monsters or still not? She examined her body. No traces of touch remained.

Someone called her. The choir of votes told her name. Amaranta listened. She wanted to get up and go for them. She resisted not long.

She had to go into the garden.

It is so nice in the magic garden. Tere are so many miracles around. And the smell of flowers and fruits is simply marvellous. Only tiny inhabitantsof the garden were of her slightly afraid and scatter when she goes. The birds adored her. And they sang for her special trills, and sometimes songs with human voices.

Fruit similar to tangerines grew up on the living hedge of lians, among them blackberry type berries. And the leaves around them are unusual as miniature maples. She looked overgrown with hand, and discovered a copper surface in bas-reliefs. This is a door! But where does it lead? And why is so deftly disguised? It also stayed from the old kingdom, like a wall in the forest and a black hill?

Amaranta jerked for a large copper ring. The door succumbed. A dark pass opened behind it. The voices were called from it. They still told her name! Amaranta moved to sounds. I had to go as long as in the tunnel, which Spark helped at home to discover. She realized that she wandered into the dungeon. Or in the underground prison? There were grilles and cages here. And from the cage calls  a voice. Amaranta tried to see who is inside and pulled out. There was a monster with a lot of heads. The cage was clearly close to him. Or is it a dream again?

“Who are you?”

Black claws clapped the cage’ rods. It's for sure claws from her sleep! And the eyes are the same that they look at her in dreams: red and shining. They see her through.

“I sleep?”

“I definitely do not sleep! Since Dagda overwhelmed me in the battle, I did not sleep any second. Under his spells, all of us suffers insomnia.”

“All of you?” It meant, probably, all dozens of his heads.

“All who are over on a black hill.”

“And who is over?”

“All his loved ones.”

“He could not destroy his loved ones.”

“He could! And you could save the world from him, if you come into a bedroom with a dagger and cut his throat. Only his beloved is capable of killing him, so he always avoided falling in love, struggled all beautiful women and fairies. His love gives you a terrible power over him. Use it, until he ceases to love you. And then you will be in the next cage from me.”

"There is no neighboring cage," Amaranta looked around. Behind is only a smooth wall. “You alone take all the cages what is there.”

"A new cage will appear for you, barely you become unnecessary," the voice has become admonish. He penetrated the soul.

“Did you come to me in dreams? What for?”

"Only you can release me if you kill Dagda. While he is alive, his spells do not give me to go out.”

Amaranta frowned. One of the monsters was sitting in a cage. Dagda did not kill him or could not kill? He has dozens of heads, and they all incite Amaranta to kill Dagdu:

“He is an evil!

“He holds you as the hostage!”

“He does not let you go back to people, but you are born among people! There is your place.”

And only one head stated:

“Do not listen! He loves you! He always dreamed of finding his half. And we all envied him, because we can not.”

"Take," one of the thousand clawed hands extended her a dagger with a knob of a similar key. "You can kill him and free yourself."

Amaranta pulled away from the rod. She did not take the key. All hundreds of heads were disappointed.

“Do you know where you're standing now?”

“In the dungeon.”

“Top of us is the burial mound.”

Probably the monster meant that black hill.

“So this is the grave?”

“This is the Great Battle Memorial and everyone who was defeated. Even their ashes are in captivity at your kidnapper.

This ash could develop in the face and attack. She dreamed. The dreams were partially true.

“Why did you fight?”

“ Greed and power. We will never think about the sublime creatures that for their ambitions they are ready to jump each other, not to mention the territories.”

About territorial disputes he mentioned very by the way. It seems that the elves and fairies were intimidated by people just because they configured their homes and staged arable land on the edge of the Tuatu de Danan lands.

“They took away a small piece, and then wanted to take everything,” loved to repeat Ivein.

“Release me!” The monster insisted, but Amaranta already remembered how she let to go the monstrous birds. If you free this monster, it will also throw on the first, who will turn. And only she is next.

Picking up the train, she quickly rushed away. The monster has a lot of votes. From his singing the mind clouded. She wanted to go back. Amaranta closed her ears. The path before exiting the tunnel seemed inconclusive long.

The scandal with Dagda was not avoiding. She was no longer intended to be silent about her dreams, nevertheless about the prisoner whom she saw.

"You didn't kill him, although you won, and he wants to kill you for it," Amaranta almost sobbed.

“Do not listen to him. Do not talk to him. He is very cunning. You need to forget about it, and he will not be able to do anything.

“You did not have enough strength to kill him?”

- I did not have enough self-control. It was not always like that. Maybe you will understand if you see.”

“I will not return to his imprisonment.”

“I propose to go to the ruins of the old kingdom.”

The old kingdom was the destroyed fortress of the old rulers. It remained only in the abandoned corner of the current kingdom of elves.

Wonderful ruins, looked like a rug of stones from afar. It was worth getting into them, as they appealed to a labyrinth with a lot of arches.

“Look in the arches!” said Dagda. “And you will find out more than you can read in the scrolls from the manuscript tower.”

The arches reproduced the past, showing it, as if the vision. Among them, it was possible to get lost, as in a mirror labyrinth, because in each arca is visible according to the new fragment of the past. You can step into the arch and go there. For centuries ago. Amaranta stepped down and found herself in the old battle. Dagda won against the monster with great difficulty and cut off his many heads. His heads flew from Dagda's sword one after another. All field was in the blood. But the blood was poisonous. Dagda did not give her to watch, dragging her back for the Arch frame. She would not get out herself.

“What's wrong? You won! Why were you not able to kill him? After all, you knew that in the century all his heads would grow back, if not to destroy it completely? It was possible to burn the remains. Why did you give him a chance?”

She felt Dagda sighed heavily.

“It was my friend.”

She did not expect such an answer.