The sound of guns.
The sound of pain.
The lick of flames charring flesh.
As every last one of us is killed…
"Your Majesty, it is crucial we flee now!" Flee? But where is safe now?
"Orha, my place is here, with my people. I do not intend to abandon them!"
"You are being irrational! It is only death that awaits you here,"
"If it is death, then I will gladly accept it,"
Fire is spat onto the land like acid vomit, consuming the living, snuffing out lives as if they are no more than particles of dust. Why? The question has plagued my mind for so long now…for so long.
Why is war the answer?
There was a time I believed it. I believed fighting and slaughter would end our unrest. But what came of it? This…All the Yason wiped out, the land destroyed by a single streak of madness. The madness that resided in one human. Now, it is not only salvation for the Yason that I seek, it is for all of Efferia. Yason or human, we are all now prisoners.
Prisoners to a terrible fate.
"You must not do this, Your Majesty!"
"It is my fault we are in this mess, it was my selfishness that caused it. At least give me the opportunity to atone!"
"Death is atonement for you?"
"I…could not stand here and watch my people die when I have helped put them in this situation. The least I can do is stand by them now!"
"You never knew this was going to happen. It isn't you're fault,"
"Someone has to take the blame,"
"But it isn't anyone's fault! How could we have predicted this outcome? How could anyone?"
You say to me there must be another way. Can you not accept the future? Can you not accept our fate? The hallway is dark as I stride down it, the flickering of fire bleaching the darkness around me. You follow close in pursuit, never once straying from my side. Once filled with soldiers perfecting skills, the training grounds and gardens are now empty memories where the odd broken sword and shattered helmets lie. Trees are skeletons of their pasts, burnt and charred to the root. I stand on the steps to the castle, looking across my realm. What was once my realm…
"You are still unhappy about the human, are you not?" I turn and stare at him in the eyes, unblinking.
"It is a sorrow that grips me like iron bars around my heart, and those bars will never loosen. Do not ask foolish questions,"
"I am sorry, Your Majesty,"
I remember the look on his face. I remember the way I reacted. Everything you have ever strived for comes crashing down, shattering like a million grains of sand, so fragmented you will never be able to rebuild it. And I have to live with this broken heart, it is my burden and my burden alone. Why didn't I see the obvious? It was another story, it was another time. I met him as a child…in Fuget…I never told him how I felt. My feelings have always tried to elude me, to challenge me, that is why I distance myself from them. But…that time I could not succeed, I was defeated. Defeated by a young and beautiful human. A human who showed me kindness, who showed me what it was like to be loved, to be cared for. And what is more precious than that feeling?
"There is another way…" I turn and see my sister has approached. She clings to a small bag as if her life resides in it. I can see the fear in her dark eyes.
"There is no other way, my sister…"
"There may be. The three of us have the power to initiate it,"
"To initiate what, Lady Serina?"
"I found this book…It was written by father,"
"Father! But before he died he burned all his belongings,"
"No…Not all. He gave me this journal. Before I thought it was just deluded scribbling, but the current events have proved to change my mind,"
"Let me see,"
"Perhaps he wrote it knowing this time would come…"
I read the pages. They are worn, stained and the ink has run in some places, tracing patterns on the page. But the message is clear, the instructions are there. And somehow it all fits in place. Could he have known? Why did he give this journal to Serina and not I? I feel angry yet I know there may be a prick of hope in this never ending blackness.
"What do we have to lose?" My sister says. I give the journal over to you to read. I see you come to the same conclusions as I.
"She is right, Your Majesty…"
The decision is made. If it can save Efferia then I will do it and I will bare whatever consequences follow. But my mind tells me, as I walk across the cracked stones of our courtyard, that it may all be just a story. A fairytale to tell two young girls before they drifted into sleep. And maybe that is the trajectory we are on now, a sleep we will never awaken, perhaps the story is to save us. I look to the sky and I remember you, Father.
The sound of fighting still goes on, never ending, like a jammed record. The sky is red like blood, the blood of thousands killed. Bodies everywhere, pandemonium in abundance, all illuminated by the glow of the crimson moon…
Sorry for this chapter being kinda small, there wasn't much else i could put in it. But anyways, thank you for the reviews :) And keep telling me what you think, the good, the bad and the ugly!