Twin Crowns
The night was dead silent. The crescent moon appeared almost illusional, with the heavy clouds that roamed the sky foreboding a storm. Winds brew, picking up tornados of leaves, as though something paranormal was about to occur. The only source of light that lit the path was the stream of moonlight that fell from the clouds and unobtrusive lamplight that snaked along the periphery of a casement window. The hearth of the manor where all the commotion, if ever any, took place was dimly lit. In the deepest corners of the room, shadows danced and voices were whispered. Above all, there hung a chandelier, flaming weakly and terrifyingly beautiful.
"No! She's my daughter, and I will not allow anything to happen to her!"
The little girl tugged at her mother's dress, blinking, and apparently bewildered by the adult's argument. She reached no taller than her mother's elbows, with her crimson-brown hair tied loosely to one side. Her eyes, which shone like sapphires, searched the room nervously for escape, only to have them eventually settle upon the gentleman who stood at an approximate of three metres opposite her. She frowned.
"Give her up, there's nothing we can do."
Litres of tears welled up in her mother's eyes. That man, who had spoken so fiercely, was the child's father – vulnerable to the law and a man she had lately deemed a two-faced narcissist. He was dressed in a grey suit, one that harmonised with his virile appearances more perfectly than anyone else's in the manor that night. He tossed his charm around like a benevolent man would with his money, and the high ranking he abided by didn't make him any less selfish. His beloved daughter was to be sent into exile and forever stay away from the lands of Almira, and he had not even the slightest urge to attempt the possibility of saving her. What worse could befall? Seemingly, all that mattered to her father was his pride itself. He daren't reverse the laws. Not even for his family. Albeit a child so young, she comprehended as much.
"How can someone like you possibly understand?"
He cast the child a fleeting glance and rudely raised a finger in her direction. "Then tell me, what good is a daughter who can not grow to live up to her name as heiress?" All that was left of her mother was speechlessness. She stared emotionless at her husband, with a complexion so ashen it matched almost the white of her dress. "This child, she is cursed." He whipped his head back, "I will not recognise her as my daughter."
"Then no longer shall I be your wife!"
There was no hesitation. "Fine, so be it."
. . .
Max stood only a slim silhouette against the setting sun. Daylight waned, and night came on. As time slowly dragged past, the sun neared the horizon, with a tint of orange and purple giving the sky its current beautiful merge of colours. The young lady rubbed the nape of her aching neck, tilting her head just enough to catch a glimpse of the distant skyline. Against it was a town, lying almost deserted and widespread amidst the patch of what once was dense trees that enveloped the land.
A grin touched her lips, matching well with the piercing cobalt blue eyes that were sketched onto her elfin face. As the village drew closer, the fair young lady quickened her pace, though only walking as fast as her tired feet allowed. Max indeed looked a mere teenager, but had the experience beyond any others her age. She seemed well equipped, with a quiver of pricey arrows swinging from her back, posing her the slightest of weight. Her ponytail was ensconced under a hood, as though wanting to hide gender and identity; the escaping frizzes of her hair even gleamed with sweat, only to have been recently blown dry by the evening breeze. And when the village grew a bigger speck in the distance, her grip on the dark, leather strap that ran across her torso only tightened – it was more of a sign of anticipation than it was relief.
It took Max only God knows how long to reach her destination, and was soon confronted with an obstacle. The loom of a large city gate stood directly in her path. She scanned the vicinity and carefully examined the vines that intertwined in, out and between the devil-black bars that helped it remain a facade of power. Curiosity was written all over her face; she was itching to hear her instincts out, to climb the gate and venture the world that existed on the other side.
She was deep in reflection, when the sudden approaching of soft footsteps brought her back to reality. Her ears twitched with each falling thud. And just as the man was about to round the corner, Max had already leapt and settled in the side bush. Then, she heard what sounded like bells chiming from steeples not far away. The sentry, most obviously, heard it as well. He gave an annoyed pout at that, reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bundle of keys. He walked lazily over to the gate, fitted the correct one into the lock and turned it uneasily. The gate unfastened with a clack, rustling way too quickly to life.
Max couldn't help but fall besotted at the sight. This was her chance. If she were to knock the sentry out, which she was sure she could do, it would have caused too much of a commotion. So instead, she found a rock that sat heavily in her palm and pitched it a tad to the right, making just enough impact to distract the man on guard. Max remained behind the shrubbery and continued to watch as he eventually patrolled off in the direction of the sound, truncheon and keys in hand. She smirked. And in a flash, long before the sentry could realise, Max had after years and years of stealth sneaked pass the city gates.
The path that followed ran smoothly through what seemed a forest, canopied with branches and opulent with shade. It was awfully quiet, and something that Max had gotten used to over the years. Every so often, she would even turn her head back to ensure that the sentry, or anyone else for that matter, was far from the brink of catching up with her. She couldn't help but abide by the tingling sensation of cautiousness that hitherto accompanied her so well.
Darkness had fallen much quicker than Max had expected. It was however not before long that, after putting so much effort into stalking the forest for an exit, she came to a halt in front of a cave-like tunnel above the ground. Max crouched and ran a hand over the signpost that stood crooked to the tunnel's left, brushing off the cobwebs that clung to it like dust and traversed her eyes over the letters on the board.
"WELCOME TO THE FORREST" was what the sign read, and if anything, it didn't seem at the slightest 'welcoming'. Half of the board had already withered away, and the fading of its colour didn't make the rest of the words any easier to see in the night. It must have had been the doing of some kid, who considered it amusing, to spray paint the town's signpost in streaks of red and skull and bones. It made the town appear more of a danger zone than the typical community it really was. And without wasting further time, Max, with the quiver of arrows by her side at all times, took step into the darkness, all the while hoping for the best that her curiosity had not just led herself off track.
. . .
The night was smiling and plaguy cold, with the moon and the net of stars beaming upon the Forrest and the tavern in which Max had decided to sojourn at. Earlier in the forest, when she had made the decision to pass through the tunnel, she had indeed chosen the correct alternative. The passage had led her directly, and desirably, to town. Yet ever since her arrival, Max just couldn't quite shake off an eerie feeling that a presence was watching her…
The bartender of the tavern offered her beer, to which she only shook her head to and instead, asked for a glass of water. She seated herself in the corner of the inner room, where a boy about her age challenged an older man to a game of darts. That was the closest Max could get to 'empty'. She had initially planned to pay whoever the manager her remaining golden coins to keep her attendance that night a secret, but all that would have resulted in was suspicion, so she let the idea pass. Earlier, she had even caught sight of the 'WANTED' signs of her adhered in the many corners of town. Max had feared as much. As far as nightmares went, if there was ever to be a critical stage in her life, it would be now. She was on the verge of having her identity disclosed, with not knowing what to do next being the worst part of it all.
It's been an awful eight years since Max had run away from her home in Almira. She was, and still is, in search of someone very dear to her, yet also someone she had no idea whether alive or dead this moment. This person was once banished from the lands of her hometown, and considering all those years that have past, there was no way Max would have had the slightest idea where to search next. Though it was easy to dig and pry information about certain whereabouts from the townspeople, the only hard part would be deciding whether to believe them or not - which in this case, sticking to the latter most definitely proved safer. Max had to admit, it was a heck of a crazy world out there. But after having been prone to danger and on the run for roughly a decade, she wasn't ready to give up.
Leaving the glass of water she'd ordered for cold, she shifted her gaze to realise that two customers had already finished their game of darts. Max stood from her seat in search for the bartender behind the counter, for she needed to ask him if there were anymore rooms available that night, when a portrait of glyphs caught the corner of her eye. Although it hung undisturbed on the back wall of the room, it was as though the symbols were calling to her. In less than a moment's contemplation, Max was undoubtedly absorbed. They consisted of swirls and swift, fine curves, inking the canvas with lines of ebony. Made it look no different to calligraphy, really, yet when she swept her palm over the figures, the markings seemed to shimmer beneath her fingers. Max had been almost certain that she'd seen those symbols before, but where? It was on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn't quite grasp it.
Then suddenly, total uproar began in the adjacent room. "AIDEN!" Tables and chairs were heard slamming against the ground, with the shattering to pieces of glass bottles heard in the background. In short, a fight was stirring. Averting her attention completely away from the portrait, Max joined the crowd at the scene. In towns like the Forrest, a fight at a tavern in the dead of the night was probably no big deal. The drinkers seemed to watch the brawl with mounting amusement rather than in fear, with no sign of wanting to bring an end to it at all. And when the bigger man reached for his victim's collar, which she could not see, the crowd ignored it and continued on with their drinking and chitchat. Max pushed to the front to get a better view, only to realise that it was the same boy that she'd seen at the dartboards earlier.
"I don't have the money now. Can't you just come back to collect it when I do?"
"KID, YOU WERE MEANT TO CLEAR YOUR DEBT BY TONIGHT!"
"Gee, calm down. You're gonna explode an artery if you continue to rage like that."
Their unfriendly conversation continued at a mind-numbing pace, when the man just so happened to pull a fist out on the boy. Although the boy, presumably named 'Aiden', didn't cringe when the man had threatened him, his placid facade did nonetheless fail to conceal the tumult of his mind. And so Max grabbed her bow off her back, and drew an arrow from her quiver to the bowstring. She shifted her bow and arrow a little to the centre, as though wanting to release her grip and cleave the bigger man's head from his neck. Without her saying anything, it took the two less than a second to realise her sudden indulging into their argument.
"Great. You even hired a bowman to watch your back?"
Aiden cast the stranger whom he thought of to be male a glower. "Uh, I don't know him," was all that left his mouth, which was undeniably true. Max was after all dressed in a ragged piece of work, so the boy wasn't entirely at fault for addressing her a 'he'. After the many long years of travelling, she had too forgotten the etiquettes of a lady. The need to be graceful had never been the sort of matters to cross her mind.
"A young man like yourself wouldn't be so mean to shoot me, now would you?"
Max considered his words carefully, and decided that it wouldn't of had been wise to murder someone on the first night of her stay in town. She figured that all the man wanted was money, and thus lowered her bow. Max reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of dollar bills, folded and crunched underneath her robe in all fashions possible. At the cash, the man's eyes seemed to shine with greed.
"If I paid you these, would you leave?"
"Most definitely."
Supposing that the creditor would keep his words, Max granted the man his desire for money. "Now that's what I call a good lad," he said, with his attention to the cash that now sat so preciously upon his palms the whole sentence through.
"But before I leave though, how about showing me more of this handsome face of yours-" And so the man brought his hand to Max's hood, with fingers itching to pull it free. He failed. Max had caught sight of his dirty trick before he was able to carry it out, and ran the arrow that still rested in her grip into his flesh. The man had just earned himself a nasty scratch down his left cheekbone. With that, the man grew rather angry. But instead of taking revenge, he merely stalked out the tavern door. The boy at her side even released a sigh of relief.
Max tried to keep her identity hidden for as long as doable, but it wasn't before long that Aiden had realised that she was an Almiran girl. "Man, what's an Almiran like you doing in a place like this?" The girl remained quiet, and so he continued. "I was going to make him beg for the money." Max rolled her eyes at that. "What are you? Stupid? You could have lost your life back there."
"Hey, the worst it gets here is being thrown into the Dungeons of Abyss." But before Max was given the time to ask about the Dungeons, Aiden caught up with a question he had been wanting to ask ever since the encounter. "Oh yeah, are you new to the Forrest? I haven't seen you around here before." He stopped, and suddenly turned to stare intently at the newcomer. His eyes were teal blue. "Though you do look awfully familiar, could you possibly be-" Max held her breath, quickly interrupted him in his tracks and changed the topic. She didn't wish for their conversation to involve the 'WANTED' signs of her posted around town. "Do you by any chance know where I can stay over at for the night?"
A smile lit his face. He nodded. "I happen to know just the place."
. . .
"Tada! A room for two."
Max didn't feel comfortable at all sharing a room with a stranger, but she knew she couldn't decline. Knowing that Aiden was probably trying to return the favour, Max was going to gratefully accept it. After all, her pockets held no money and it was far too late to travel anywhere else.
"For all you know, I might be the bad guy here," Max began, in hope of limiting their friendship. But to her surprise, Aiden merely shook his head and cracked a smile. "You look nothing like one."
"Well, looks can be deceiving."
The young male reduced his eyes to slits, not wanting to accept defeat. "You're weird."
"Who told you I wasn't?"
Their awkward conversation ended the moment Max dumped her quiver and bow onto the bed aligned with the window. Aiden yawned and did the same, only on the bed to her right. As her consciousness gradually succumbed into void, Max no longer found reasons to restrain her drooping eyelids. She had already positioned herself for a good night's sleep and lapsed into the brink of dreams, when she heard a footfall on the tavern floorboards. Her ears twitched, but she ignored them, using time to search as far back into her memories as she could remember. A vague silhouette held its arms out in front of her, as though it had known that the dreamer awaited a hug, beckoning her over with a soothing voice. Its arms were decorated with the glyphs Max had seen earlier on the portrait, which for some odd reason reminded her of the 'Dungeons of Abyss' Aiden once mentioned. But before Max could give the figure vent to all her problems, it glided further and further away, until its physique faded and sound drowned into the darkest of blacks. It was a mere dream, never to come true.
Max opened her eyes, not being able to sleep at the least. She turned her head to the ceiling and found herself in another snug position, though only to be awakened once more when she realised Aiden tossing around in bed. Max tried emptying her mind of thoughts. It was of no use. So, she jumped out of bed quietly and with the same quiver of arrows that swung across her back, she set off.
Max felt her way down the darksome corridor, and shortly reached the foot of the stairwell. The counter ahead at the very least was lighted, with the tiles mantling the floor almost lucent in the sheer moonlight. Her initial intentions were to take in some fresh air, otherwise traipse around town, but unknowingly, she somehow found herself back in front of the portrait.
Max ran her fingers smoothly over the glyphs, only to watch them shine once more. Her eyes widened in disbelief, for realisation had at long last hit her like a smack to the face. Max pulled her sleeve to her elbow, only to reveal a lightly scarred limb and an almost ancient bracelet. It looped fittingly around her wrist. The outer ring was rather rugged, chipped off in a single area as if someone was so hungry to have taken a bite out of it. It looked nothing more than a trinket. That moment, she swerved her arm round to the symbols and placed her wrist upright against the cold, tavern wall. She turned the bracelet to a certain angle and matched the almost invisible inscriptions carved onto the inner ring with the markings on the portrait. Max deemed the letterings a perfect match, when a booming voice disrupted her concentration. She recognised it immediately, for it just so happened to be the bartender's.
"Hey, what are you up to at such an hour of the night? The bar's closed."
Max thought of the perfect comeback. "Uh, sorry. I must've been sleepwalking again."
"Well, then return to your room as soon as your business here is done. I don't want anyone saying they saw a thief in my tavern."
. . .
With the sun dazzling up high, despite everything that had taken place last night, it seemed as though the following day would be a beautiful one. And as a matter of fact, it was. After breakfast that morning, Aiden introduced Max to some of the most amazing venues in the Forrest. By night, the place was deserted enough to be called a ghost town, yet in bright daylight, the streets and markets teemed with crowds of people. After the many activities of that day, the two's friendship bloomed. Max avoided giving away too much information when inquired about her Almiran background and family, but had in turn nonetheless learnt more about Aiden. She realised for the first time that he was really just another lonely kid.
Subsequent to new knowledge on the whereabouts of the dungeons and a long while of indecision, Max opened her mouth to speak. "I'm gonna go check the Dungeons of Abyss out tonight-" The abrupt glare Aiden cast her made her sound as though she was crazy. "Then I'm coming with you."
"Alone."
"What? A girl like you can't go there by yourself."
"And what makes you think I'll listen?"
"Don't make me-" Aiden bit his bottom lip, for he wasn't quite sure how to continue. "You just dislike me, don't you?"
"No, I just dislike interference."
And so on the night that followed, Max prepared herself for another adventure yet to come. Aiden stayed quiet the whole evening, as though deep in contemplation. Maybe he was still mad at her for refusing his company. All that was left of the two roommates was awkward silence. But no matter the consequence, Max wasn't going to let it stop whatever she was determined to do.
When the time came, with Aiden seemingly asleep, Max sneaked out of the tavern and sought the Dungeon of Abyss's secret entrance. If she had remembered correctly, Aiden had once mentioned it being secreted amongst a glade north of town. She travelled according to his directions, and as a result, located the site successfully. The entrance itself was hidden behind a boulder; Max discovered it only after having realised the glyphs carved onto its surface.
Inside the dungeon, the air was dusty. A tract of earth wound spiral-like into the deep end of the cavern, with torches of flame illuminating the path. Cells stood empty to her right, with a stone wall of even more glyphs to her left. Now that she thought about it, the symbols seemed to populate the Forrest. Not only had it gotten her head-over-heels curious, but also a little frightened. The further Max ventured into the cave, the dimmer the flames grew. It suddenly grew chilly, with the temperature in the dungeon probably being at least ten degrees lower than the ambient one. Max too grew awfully drowsy, when she unexpectedly bumped into someone. They both screamed, and when Max realised who it was that she'd been confronted by she could only stare in skepticism. It was Aiden.
. . .
"You owe me an explanation."
Aiden was forced to account for his dishonesty in following Max, and stopped only when he caught sight of a lighted cell. At first, she had thought that the boy at her flank was lying, but it wasn't before long that she had too noticed it. They threw each other an inquisitive glance, conversing with their eyes. With every closing step Max's heart raced faster, and if it was to pulse any quicker, Aiden would most likely have had been able to hear it as well.
Eventually halting in front of the cell, Max and Aiden peered inside. They discovered a girl their age sprawled across the floor, who seemingly fainted not too long ago. Instantly, Max rushed in to assist her, leaving a puzzled Aiden behind. It was then that she too had realised the bracelet around the prisoner's wrist. Max pulled her sleeve to her elbow to reveal the bracelet once more, comparing it with the latter. It interlocked perfectly with that of the prisoner's, which explained the rugged parts on the outer ring; it wasn't caused by accidental means, but an intended form of design.
Max should've known all along. It had been this girl who called out to her in her dreams. She was the one who inscribed the glyphs all around town as clues to remind her of the sisterhood they once shared. Their twin bracelets suddenly told Max of everything. This girl once told her that she must never, for whatever reason, turn her back on life. And so, after eight long years of travelling, Max had finally found who she had set out to find.
"She's my twin sister, Mae, and the real princess of Almira."
. . .
AN : This story was pretty good. That is, until it reached three-quarter way through. I kind of rushed it a bit, and didn't get the chance to explain the conclusion in detail. Sorry people, hope you figured out how the prologue connected with Max and Mae :)