Cherche's stomach was in nasty knots as Queen Cordelia led her down the dungeon.
She was absolutely sure that if she was either going to be killed or tortured – and she didn't know which was worse, feeling the Thorn Queen would make sure either fate was as painful and unbearably agonizing as possible. Sweat was raining down her cheeks as she braced herself for what Queen Cordelia would do to her.
But then they passed by the torture chambers, where she could hear the screams again – just as bloodcurdling as before. She gulped – know she definitely felt she was going to die.
They passed by the room where she and General Sully had delivered Tiki to Queen Cordelia – and the woman was chained up alongside her fellow manakete Nowi. The two both coughed weakly but roughly – while Queen Cordelia looked at them without a hint of compassion.
"Now, Cherche, since you helped bring Tiki to me, I will give you this one warning," She said before turning to the door that stood before them. Queen Cordelia opened the door and waved for Cherche to come closer, which she very nervously did.
The Thorn Queen reached out her arm and grabbed something from the room as Cherche continued to sweat. After about a minute, Queen Cordelia turned her head back to Cherche with what appeared to be ashes her palm.
"Erm..." Cherche spewed anxiously, clueless as to where this was going.
"These are the ashes of a soldier, a servant, a slave….or anyone that just thought they could rub me off the wrong way," the Queen said in a cold voice.
Cherche's eyes widened. "W-what, my Queen?"
"I keep the ashes of everyone I've ever killed personally. I'm beginning to lose count, but it's somewhere in the hundreds," she replied, and Cherche was only more stunned at the Queen's words.
"You know, I remember the first slaves I ever killed. It was after my parents died and I ascended the throne. The timing was convenient – it was only days after I became Queen that we had one of our regular slave massacres. My parents always had the guards kill them off, but me…I wanted to kill them myself. I've been studying magic ever since I was a young girl, and I wanted to test out my abilities. And the massacre was quite the success, I should say. I had never felt so satisfied in my life."
Cherche was in complete shock. She knew the Queen was far from a good woman, but this revelation left her only shaking more. Queen Cordelia looked at the ashes for a moment before returning her eyes to Cherche. "And I remember the look on one girl's face. She was broken…crying….she was screaming, begging for her parents to be spared. I did not give a single damn about her pleas. I carried out the execution."
Cherche nervously rubbed her shoulder as Queen Cordelia seemed to sink into her thoughts for a moment before snapping back into reality. "I did get a little off-topic, but sometimes I like to reminiscence about the past. And you know, I remember the last soldier I killed. Lieutenant Miriel. Now, she was a lot like you, actually. But then she decided to bark at me and call me a monster. I remember her screams as I engulfed her in fire for that."
Cherche let out a deep breath, still trying to wrap her mind around all of this. She was glad she wasn't being tortured, but this all felt extremely unnerving. She felt that she had to resist the urge to so much as back away, for she dreaded wherever this could be going.
Queen Cordelia placed the ashes back into the room before walking towards Cherche menacingly and leaning down, her face inches away from the knight's.
"As I said, this is your one chance. Now, I want to hear you pledge your loyalty to the Archanean Empire. Now."
Cherche gulped. "I…I…" she saw Queen Cordelia shoot that death glare towards her, and the knight cleared her throat. "I am indeed loyal to the Archanean Empire, my Queen. I deeply apologize for my remark. My faith is in you as my Queen, and I am fully committed to bringing down the Insurrection and ensuring the glory of our Empire."
Queen Cordelia let out a smirk. "Good."
She condescendingly patted Cherche's head. Cherche wanted to sigh in relief, for she didn't mean any of that.
"U-understood, my Queen!" Cherche said hastily before the two went to exit the dungeon. Tiki tried to make an effort to break free, and Queen Cordelia furiously stormed to her to try and beat her – but she couldn't. She needed the little green haired manakete to be as strong as possible for her plans. So she took her anger out on Nowi and decked her a few times while Cherche looked away.
Queen Cordelia angrily walked away, and Cherche hastily followed – not saying a word so as to not cause any more trouble.
After getting overwhelming cheers from the remaining villagers for killing Henry, the trio of Stahl, Gaius, and Sumia left and made their way up north, to find the Insurrection or a town that sympathized with them strongly.
As they rode on their horses – the villagers had given Stahl and Gaius a new one as a thank you gift – Sumia looked behind Stahl and Gaius, and for the time since they had first met this new Sumia, a smile appeared on her face. It was a small smile, but it was better than nothing.
"I must say, I severely underestimated you two," she said in a content voice while Stahl and Gaius listened on. "You helped bring down the largest plantation on the continent and you killed history's most feared anarchist. The Insurrection will benefit greatly from having you two on its side."
Stahl let out a smile of his own. "This may not be our world, but we refuse to stand by while innocents are oppressed and massacred."
Sumia let out an 'hmm' and turned back around to face the path before her. Stahl and Gaius could both tell that she truly wanted to get to the Insurrection already so they could help her achieve her one goal.
Gaius opened his mouth to say something, but a distant roar cut them off. The three paused for a moment as Sumia looked left and right, looking nervous. Then the roar came again, and Sumia grimaced.
"Firewalker."
That was all Stahl and Gaius needed to know. The whipped the reigns on their horses, and they began to run faster and faster.
But it was all for naught. As their horses continued to sprint forward, a gigantic brown bear emitting red fire stormed towards Sumia's horse and slashed at it with enough force to knock Sumia down, causing Stahl and Gaius to abruptly stop their horse in its track.
The bear clawed the horse several times before it bit into the equine's neck and snapped it. Sumia began to crawl away, only for the bear noticed her and let out a bloodcurdling roar. Red fire erupted from the bear as it furiously charged towards Sumia, only for Stahl and Gaius to stab at it with their lances.
The bear growled – it was more annoyed than angry – and turned to Stahl and Gaius' direction, getting up on its hind legs and let out another horrible roar.
"Oh, hell," Gaius said in a terrified voice, noting how the bear had to be standing at least 15 feet tall.
Stahl gulped himself. "Big bear. Big, big bear!"
The bear charged towards them while the surviving horse neighed in terror and ran off, to the prince and thief's frustration. Stahl and Gaius both managed to dodge the bear, with Stahl managed to impale it in the heart again.
The bear was still standing, though, much to the two's frustration. Sumia got ready to stab the bear from behind, but not before it clawed Stahl in the face with enough force to send him flying towards a nearby tree. Sumia was able to stab the bear in the heart while Gaius stabbed it in the chest. The bear only roared, and Gaius and Sumia both stabbed it one more time each, with Gaius stabbing it in the heart this time.
The roar that followed was much weaker this time. Gaius took advantage this and stabbed the bear in the heart two more times. That seemed to be all the bear could take, for it collapsed to the ground, dead.
Stahl got up, moaning loudly, and Gaius helped him up while Sumia quickly followed.
When Stahl got up, Gaius immediately noticed the nasty claw marks on Stahl's face. "Damn, Munches…that's gotta hurt…."
Stahl moaned loudly as he felt his head. The claw marks stung like a thousand bees.
Sumia let out another 'hmm'. "Unfortunately, those won't be going away. Scars left by firewalkers never do."
Stahl's mouth went agape. "Are you…are you serious?! These will never, ever go away?! What the fu -"
Then Sumia covered Stahl's mouth, and looked up in the air. "The Archanean Empire!" she whispered, and Stahl and Gaius took the memo and tried to find somewhere to find. Even though the trees of this world were decayed and seemingly lifeless, they were still large enough for the trio to find some to hide behind.
Stahl wanted to peak his head through to see where the soldiers were, but the wounds the bear left would make it quite painful. But Gaius was able to do so, and he found about a dozen or so soldiers, with Kellam riding in a carriage alongside one of the soldiers. "If only we had some damn horses." He whispered to himself. Stahl let out a quite sigh, thinking the exact same thing.
"There's been no sign of them, Kellam," one of the soldiers complained.
"The soldiers who fled the village said they saw Sumia and her associates there just before Henry showed up. They most likely did come this way, so we're going to keep looking!" Kellam replied in an agitated voice.
The soldier looked at Kellam in confusion. "Hmm? Oh yeah, Kellam's here."
To that, Kellam let out a sigh of deep exasperation.
The soldiers marched along, and the three tried to stay as quiet as possible. For Stahl, this was complicated when a bee began buzzing along. It looked like an ordinary bee, as no red fire was emitting from its body – but it couldn't have come at a worse time. Stahl didn't know what to do – he wanted to avoid the bee, but he didn't want to make any sounds. The bee landed on his hand, and he was about to flicker it, but he didn't want to anger the bee. Not at this moment.
But then the bee flew around and landed right onto his scars.
Overwhelming pain suddenly shot up Stahl's face. No one would want a bee on their new scars even if it was at the hand of an ordinary animal – or even from just a sword or a lance – but firewalker scars were evidently far, far worse. Stahl got caught up by his pain and yelled out loudly in pain – and almost as soon as he yelled, he realized what he had done.
Gaius and Sumia looked at Stahl in complete shock as they wondered just what the hell was going on with him – but they couldn't keep their attention of him for very long, for the soldiers were now alerted to their presence.
"That must be them!" Kellam yelled out in a commanding voice, and the soldiers gripped their lances. "Seize them, but remember – the Queen wants them alive!"
The soldiers began to charge at the three. While Stahl held his own head in pain, Gaius and Sumia gripped their lances and began to charge right back. And since they now knew the soldiers had standing orders to not kill any of them, they felt they might just have a chance against them.
Three of the soldiers charged towards Gaius, and got out their baton sticks to try and knock him out. One of them aimed for his head, but he was able to dodge the baton stick and slash at the solider until he knocked some of his armor off, to which Gaius impaled him in the chest. One of the other soldiers smacked him right in the face with a baton stick, but it wasn't enough to knock him out, and Gaius did the same technique with him.
Sumia took a look up and saw where the bee had come from as she saw a beehive high in the branches. She wondered why bees were in this part of the forest, but that didn't matter at the moment. She briefly remembered the story of how her counterpart threw a beehive at Gaius before smirking, aiming, and throwing the lance towards the beehive. The hive fell down, and the bees came swarming towards the soldiers, who all began to panic.
Two of the panicked soldiers ran in Sumia's direction, and she seized the opportunity and slashed them both to death. Kellam merely stood there and shot a death glare at the scene before him. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." He grumbled before turning his attention to Stahl, who had just mustered up the energy and strength to get into the fight.
One of the soldiers was getting stung by the bees, and Stahl waited for the bees to move on to someone else before fighting the soldier and stabbing him to death with his lance. Even though Gaius managed to do the same to another soldier, Kellam's attention was on Stahl.
"I'll give you all this. You're quite capable." Kellam said with a smirk on his face as he got out his lance. "But no one escapes the grip of the Archanean Empire."
It hurt Stahl that he would have to fight a close friend – even if it wasn't the exact same person, like with Donnel – but he had to accept the nature of this world. He gritted his teeth and charged towards Kellam, and the two locked lances.
Stahl was distracted, however. The pain from the scars was almost unbearable – and it was so even before the bee landed on them. Stahl let out a groan, and Kellam saw his advantage and knocked Stahl's lances out of his hands. He smacked Stahl in the face with his lance, knocking him out.
He turned to see that the battle was going in his favor – Sumia's stunt with the beehive only delayed the inevitable, and she watched as Gaius was knocked out by the combined efforts of two soldiers. She was only able to kill one more soldier before another smacked her down to the ground with a baton stick.
The five soldiers stood there with Kellam, looking at the unconscious trio. "This should get us on the Queen's good side," one of the soldiers pointed out as another nodded in agreement.
But Kellam only grinned to the soldier. "No…this should get me on the Queen's good side."
All of the soldiers looked at Kellam in confusion, and were stunned when Kellam slashed one of them to death. "What are you doing?!" one of the soldiers yelled out in anger before charging at Kellam. Kellam saw that the soldier was near a tree and struck at him with lance. The soldier's head bashed into the tree, and she succumbed to blunt force trauma.
The other three soldiers ganged up on Kellam, but he was not in the least undeterred. He pulled the same trick with the trees on another soldier, and he quickly fell dead to the ground. Kellam was able to slash one of the other soldiers to death, and he knocked the last one to the ground and pointed his lance towards his throat.
"You are a fool, Kellam!" the soldier yelled out in a mixture of fear and anger. "The Queen would've noticed you whether we lived or not!"
"No…" Kellam growled. "Her attention would be diverted to all of you, and I'd fade into the background. That won't ever happen again after this."
The soldier tried to get up, but Kellam simply kicked him back to the ground. Kellam then bashed the soldier to death with his lance.
He looked at the trio's unconscious bodies, and he grinned. He wanted to take a moment to enjoy himself, and how he would finally get noticed by his comrades and by Queen Cordelia herself. Once he had his moment, he put all three of them in the carriage and rode off – towards Millennium Court.