Karolina sighed softly, her eyes slightly narrowed as they moved over the piece of parchment that was laying on her lap, these were the moments on which she wished she was just a normal girl, not the Queen of a country being torn apart by wars.
"My Queen, it might not be too late yet, we could still-." The messenger was quickly silenced as the Queen raised her hand, the Queen leaned back in her throne and turned her blue eyes towards the messenger.
"There is no time left if we want to save what is left of this country we have to take action now" Karolina spoke with a soft tone, she seemed to be in deep thoughts as her mind went over each possible scenario in regards to the war.
The entire situation had been chaotic from the start, her father used to be the king of these lands, a grand kingdom which was known as Ascya, he was a great king, he was the kind of king people were proud to follow no matter the situation.
After being cursed by an evil sorcerer, the king's health had declined rapidly till his heart eventually stopped beating.
With his final words, he did the unimaginable, he decided that the kingdom he had ruled for so long, would no longer thrive under a new ruler thus he decided to separate it into numerous zones.
Each zone would be ruled by one of his children, turning the once great kingdom as Ascya into four small regions, ruled by two kings and two Queens.
In the first years went well, economies flourished and each of these smaller kingdoms developed in such a way they could support each other's shortcomings, but with that came the first cracks in the mutually beneficial relationship.
Where Karolina her kingdom focused on culture and entertainment, her brothers focussed on economy and military, especially the second one became a problem.
They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, sadly those words were never more true than in their current situation.
Once the brothers found out they could easily take care of the Queens, the war began and the entire country fell into chaos.
Danique her kingdom was first to fall, the war sweeping over it like a plague, leaving nothing standing, the city would be rebuilt to fit the ideals of the two kings.
It had pained Karolina greatly to see these friendly sibling rivalry turn out to a blood-filled war, one that laid claim to countless of lives.
Karolina rose from the throne and strode down the flight of stairs that made it lead to the rest of the room, to the confusion of her guards and the messenger.
"My Queen?" The messenger spoke on a soft tone as the Queen passed him, he quickly turned to follow her. "What are you planning to do, we don't have the manpower to take down one of them..let alone both of them.." The messenger asked with a worried tone.
"Except for the fact that we do have the manpower, we just never realized it" Karolina spoke in a soft tone and showed the male a small smile as they made their down another stairway.
"Do you really think I never saw this coming..ofcourse this was a smoldering flame waiting to erupt in a large fire, I took the needed steps to prepare ourselves for this unavoidable war."
She pushed open a large set of doors which led into the underground barracks, her eyes shifted towards the messenger and her lips formed a slight smirk.
"We might not win the war, but neither am I going to give up on our people without a fight, as much as it pains my heart to take up arms against my brothers, they forced my hand and my hand carries a lance"
It didn't take long before Karolina found herself surrounded by an army that seemed to rise from the ground.
Her part of the kingdom was built around one of the many Lifetrees that were scattered around the world, from its roots life was granted to all sorts of creatures.
"My brothers think they can just run over our lands as they please..they will burn down this gorgeous tree to make a statement, we can't let that happen" Karolina spoke with a stern tone as she pointed at the roots of the Lifetree.
There seemed to be no reaction from the creatures, of course not, they were mindless beings, they chose no side, they just lived their own lives without any care for the things happening around them, but right now it was the only thing she had, yet she had hoped for a little more cooperation.
"We will protect it with our lives, we will protect the people with our lives!" She spoke out as she grabbed a weapon from the nearest weapon rack.
The silence in the barracks suddenly got interrupted as the entire structure started to shake, the strength of the rumbling was enough to cause some of the creatures to topple over, be it that their legs were too long and just snapped or just for the fact they were too unsteady to stand on their own.
The ground beneath Karolina her floor slowly started to crack open and a large red blade emerged from it, followed by a pair of demonic wings that had hands on the ends.
"Hello, sister" A sinister voice spoke as a demonic entity crawled from the ground, spreading its wings with such force sending everything around it away.
"Time to take down the last reminder of our father's failures..he was weak and so are you" The demon spoke as his blade spat out large flames towards the tree.
The lifetree immediately caught ablaze and the demon laughed, that was until the creatures started to arm themselves and walk to him.
"We will not go down..and if we do..we will take you with us.." Karolina spoke in a soft tone and smirked.