Disclaimer: I DON'T own Cardcaptor Sakura! But I do own the story line!

Main Characters:

Aris: The witch of the castle who works directly for the queen (Sonomi)

Artemis: The twin brother of Aris, he is the healer of the castle.

Tomoyo: The princess

Sakura: The princess's best friend and second-cousin.

Eriol: The mage of the castle. He does readings of the future and is good friends with almost everyone in the castle.

Akira: The prince of a neighbouring country (Drejimn)

Syaoran: Akira's personal servant

(Chiharu, Rika, and Naoko are just friends of Tomoyo and Sakura; they don't appear that often in the story)

Okay... that's all of the characters for now! Hope nobody gets confused!

Web of Fate

Chapter Four

At last, it was finished.

Aris smirked as she raised the doll in the air, letting her completed figure touch the sun's rays. In her hand, it seemed to glow and radiate with a black aura.

"Beautiful..." she whispered, "it looks exactly like her."

And it did, each detail was tremendously close, as if the gods had crafted it with their own hands. But they didn't, it was Aris who had carved it. She couldn't help but admire her newest puppet. The honey-brown locks, the rich sparkling emerald eyes, the childish figure, it was all perfect. She set it back down onto the table, eyeing it closely as if it would jump off and run away.

Slowly, she turned her attention away, getting up from her cushioned seat and walked towards the middle of the room. Aris stretched her arms out, letting the sleeves of her gown hang loose. Suddenly the curtains closed, and the room became dark. A murky ominous glow surrounded her, showing off a small part of her power; it pulled everything in the room into a void of darkness. Aris curled her hands together, clasping them tightly against one another, and then, slowly began to pull them apart. Strand after strand of magic formed against her hands, she weaved every thread from her magic until she held a fine silky ball.

Aris then shut her eyes and turned from her current position, she pointed to the doll, willing it with her magic to come. Gradually, it lifted itself into the air and appeared in front of her. She held up the ball and began to unravel it, tying each piece of thread to the joints of the puppet, and then unto her own fingers. She opened her eyes, and grinned wickedly as her aura died away and the curtains reopened, letting natural sunlight shine through once again. Aris stood alone in the center holding up her puppet, supporting it carefully with threads. Suddenly, she began to chant...

'Dance for me my little puppet

Bow to my every command

For you are my puppet, and I am your maker

I control your every move

I control your fate'

To say that she was bored was an understatement. In fact, she was beyond what the word 'bored' could even begin to describe.

Sakura sat quietly under the umbrella, shading herself from the immense heat. Right after the recent duel between Eriol and Prince Akira, Tomoyo had pulled Sakura away from the dueling grounds to have a luncheon with three of their closest friends: Naoko Yanagisawa, Rika Sasaki, and Chiharu Mihara. She slowly hunched down on the table, softly drumming her fingers against the thick, white marble. Beside her, the princess and her ladies in waiting chatted excitedly.

Her eyes felt heavy as she stared dully at her friends, what were they gossiping about this time?

Clothes?

Food?

Jewels?

Never mind, it didn't really matter. Sakura began to drown out every sound around her, drifting off into a little imaginative world of her own as she waited for the food to arrive. A small smile tugged at the edge of her lips as her mind wandered off, escaping to a world where fields of everlasting greenery and serenity awaited her arrival. Forests of cherry blossom trees surrounded her; their flowers opened and bloomed, greeting her eyes with a symphony of shades and hues of pink. Breathtaking, that was the only word that crossed her mind as she stood there, letting the petals rain down upon her.

And then she heard it, sounds of twinkling laughter being carried in with the wind. She looked up, only to see amber eyes smiling down at her as he rested in the branches of a blossoming tree.

'Hello.' He smiled; his face was covered with a mask yet again.

She grinned back and watched him, 'I remember you,' she said, 'you asked me to dance during my masquerade...'

'My masquerade actually.' he replied lightly putting emphasize on the word 'my'. He closed his eyes and leaned contently against the tree's trunk.

'Hoe? Your masquerade? How is it your masquerade?'

'Well, I was the one who planned it from my own imagination. Therefore it's my masquerade.' he paused and thought for a moment, choosing the right words to say, 'Just as this is your forest of cherry blossoms.'

'I don't understand.'

'You'll understand in time, my little dove.'

Sakura scowled, that wasn't the answer she was expecting. What did he mean by his masquerade and her forest? It didn't make any sense. She frowned and decided to brush away the thought, there was no use getting frustrated at somebody she didn't know- but then again, why did he seem so familiar?

This had happened before, she'd seen someone that she didn't know and then thought she had met this person before. It was starting to become frustrating. Then she came up with a brilliant plan... or at least she thought it was.

'What is your name?'

'You asked me that before.'

'But you never answered me!'

'Because you just left before I could tell you.'

'Left?'

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and jumped off the tree, landing smoothly in front of her. He leaned closer until their noses almost touched. 'Yes...' he smirked, 'you left me all by myself in my own imagination. I got lonely.'

Petals of cherry blossoms cast upon them, hiding whatever they touched in spots of pink. Sakura watched; piqued with interest as the boy lifted his arm and caught a falling flower. He grinned as he reached over and effortlessly stuck the flower in her hair.

'Looks good.' He commented with amusement.

Sakura grinned; she liked his attitude, so care-free and comfortable. But for some reason, it all seemed – flawed. Perhaps there was something deep down in his heart that he was hiding, keeping it locked away from the people around him. Like a secret he wished not to be shared.

Sakura felt a wave of sympathy. Your eyes were supposed to be the 'window' of your soul, but his - his eyes had a barrier over them, the only thing she saw was emptiness, nothing.

She felt something poking at her head. The boy laughed, 'Hey, are you still here?' He turned around and looked up into the sky, squinting his eyes together slowly to stare at it, 'You better get ready, it's coming for you.'

'Coming for me? What is?'

'Your consciousness.' He whispered.

Suddenly, she felt her body being jerked off the ground as a voice filled her mind. 'Wake up Sakura...' it sighed softly. She could feel herself being pulled away, flying backwards through the trees and into the clouds, being dragged off by an unknown force. The wind picked up speed as the sky darkened. Leaves began to swirl and circled her body in bands of green and pink. The last thing she saw before she opened her eyes again was the boy waving goodbye.

"Sakura-chan... Sakura-chan..."

Someone was shaking her repeatedly, trying to wake her up from her little dream.

"Mmmmm..." Sakura groaned, "I was having a nice dream... please, let me just rest for a little bit more..."

Gentle giggles surrounded her, their crisp sound ringing in her ears. "Sakura-chan, the food is here, you're blocking the table!"

Her head shot up from her position, and her whole body straightened, she was sitting stiff in her spot. "Hoeee...."

Chiharu grinned and patted her on the back, "How was your nap?"

Sakura flushed, "Good..."

"Don't be embarrassed Sakura-chan," Naoko smiled, "you probably had too much excitement in one day! Tomoyo told us all about it!"

"Sh-she did?" Sakura stuttered

"Yes," said Rika, "Is your back better now? You didn't sprain anything when you fell did you?"

"She's alright," Tomoyo laughed, "Sakura-chan came back smiling after she changed! And then she even sat through an entire sword-fight!" The princess gave her a proud look.

"Speaking of the fight," Chiharu thought, "who won?"

"Suzuhara-ouji did." Tomoyo looked disappointed. "But I must admit, he was very skilled in his arts."

"Did they use swords?" Naoko asked, "I heard he was trained well with that weapon."

Tomoyo nodded, "At first they did, but then in the middle of the fight, Akira threw his sword away and challenged Hiiragizawa-san to battle with magic."

Sakura leaned in closer to hear what Tomoyo was saying. She hadn't been paying attention to the second half of the duel, and was quite eager to learn how someone as gifted in magic as Eriol lost to a foreign noble.

Flashback

"Magic." Akira announced proudly. "That will be our next weapon."

"Magic?"

"Yes mage, this will definitely be entertaining."

Eriol smirked, "Did you not forget that this is where I specialize in training?"

"I too have been trained before," he grinned wickedly, "do not underestimate me." His aura began to rise and flare, shadows of crimson red began to appear. "Do you like the colour of my aura?" He called out, "Red, for the colour of blood."

Eriol glared at him, "What a conceited fool." He muttered darkly. His own dark-blue aura began to rise about him; he would show the prince that he was not at all weak.

Akira sneered at the mage as he raised his hand and called for his magic, reaching deep inside of his aura, he began to pull a strand of it away, bringing it up into the air to show his newly formed whip. He brought it down harshly towards to ground to show off his power. The pavement cracked and crumpled under his magic.

Eriol cringed in annoyance, the prince obviously loved to show-off. He raced towards the prince making the first move of the renewed battle. Suddenly Eriol began to multiply, surrounding his opponent from every direction, with illusions of himself. Akira raised his whip and sliced threw each illusion. Every time he cut one in half, its image wavered and then multiplied by two.

Eriol laughed, "I will not be defeated so easily." He opened his palm and created a ball of wind, it flew out of his grasp and fired at the prince. Akira stumbled backwards in shock. Instantly copies of Eriol attacked him, using the elements with steady control.

Akira growled as he ducked and rolled away from an attack. His eyes burned with hatred and he raised his whip and brought it down with such force that the ground began to shake. Eriol almost felt like laughing, what a waste of energy.

The prince began pulling at his magic furiously until his power was just a mere ball of colourless light. He stared hatefully at his enemy and smirked. Akira closed his eyes and quietly, began to invade the minds and auras of the people around him, stealing away immense portions of their power. Onlookers with magic began to grow weak and tired.

Eriol gasped, he felt what the prince was doing, and forcefully shoved Akira's mind away from his own. He stumbled back and started to breathe hard, it was too late, he was already tired. Eriol stared at the air surrounding Akira, it reflected with colours other than red and blue. Hues of green, pink and violet mixed in with his own shades of red.

Akira cackled, "Look mage! It seems that now, I too, can increase the number of my forces!"

Weapons of every shape and size suddenly appeared around him. Akira scanned the dueling grounds as if he were choosing a victim for each of his weapons. One by one, he destroyed the illusions, and Eriol's copies gradually began to disappear. The mage looked towards him with an expression of pain and exhaustion.

Akira sneered and wasted no time to seize the moment; he charged at Eriol from behind and knocked him over effortlessly.

"Surely," Akira mocked, "that the kingdom's most well-known mage is more of a challenge than a mere rag doll! You fall so easily! Pity - I was hoping to test my skills on someone more worthy."

With a simple turn of his wrist, he wrapped his whip around Eriol's arms and pulled him into the air.

The prince smirked, "I win."

End

Sighs filled the air.

Tomoyo giggled lightly, "It wasn't that bad, Hiiragizawa-san did try his best after all."

"You know," Naoko thought, "Suzuhara-ouji and his family came to this kingdom to sign a treaty right? Tomoyo-chan?"

"I heard that they expected to be paid back in return for peace afterwards." Rika said.

"Hai, they came here with an agreement with our kingdom – sort of an 'exchange'." Tomoyo stated, "Demo, okaa-sama has not yet told me what the exchange exactly is."

Chiharu sighed, "Then how would anybody know what to give them if nobody knows what it is?"

Tomoyo grinned, "Remember that tonight, we will be hosting a banquet in favour of Suzuhara-ouji and his family. Then, after okaa-sama announces that the treaty is signed, the Drejimn kingdom will announce their price."

Sakura slightly scowled, peace shouldn't come with a price. Peace should have been earned or given freely - not bought.

'But there's going to be a huge banquet tonight.' She thought, and looked down at her dress, she chuckled, 'Perhaps that's the reason Tomoyo-chan made this dress for me.'

The next hour flew by quickly, the subject of the conversation changed rapidly from one thing to another. Sakura rolled her eyes in confusion, what were they talking about now??? About 2 seconds ago it was about some sort of foreign fashion – no wait, wasn't it good luck charms?! Or was it about the banquet.... Inwardly she pounded on her head with her fists as she desperately tried to concentrate on the conversation. It seemed that everyone but her understood where this long exchange of words was going.

Slowly, a faint buzzing noise appeared. It made its way into her ears, softly crawling into her mind. It rang out without any hesitation.

"Tomoyo-chan," Sakura whispered in a low voice, so only the princess could hear, "can you hear that?"

"Hear what Sakura-chan?"

"The buzzing noise... it won't stop..."

Tomoyo almost looked alarmed at her best friend. She didn't hear anything. Could it be that Sakura was hallucinating?

Sakura was in a daze, her eyes were glazed over and half shut as she looked forward with a lost expression. She could hear it still, growing louder and louder with each passing moment. A voice erupted from within the continuous drone, it was sharp and clear.

'Its as if its calling for me,' she thought, 'such a haunting and sad sound ...its voice, its drawing me too it...'

'Dance for me my little puppet

Bow to my every command

For I am your maker, and you are my puppet

I control your every move, I control your fate.'

The voice slowly died away, it shrank back into the buzzing sounds, mixing in with it, and eventually was drowned out by the drone. Suddenly Sakura's eyes grew wide as her pupils shrunk with fear. She forced down a shuddered gasp. The blood drained from her face.

Her skin was crawling – it felt as if her entire body was covered in spiders, each creature taking a step at a time as they wrapped her within their sticky webs with their pointed furry legs. She gripped her chair's edge until her knuckles turned white, her body prickled and a nauseating feeling washed over her.

Tomoyo gasped horrified. Sakura tensed and pressed her arms tightly against her side. She looked in pain. But as soon as it came, the feeling disappeared and dissolved away. Sakura breathed out loudly and relaxed, closing her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered opened after a few moments, and for a second, she looked confused.

"Are you all right Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo cried out, "You... just now...what happened to you..."

Sakura stared at Tomoyo numbly, not daring to say a single word.

Tomoyo's lips curved downward as she frowned, "You're not feeling well, are you, Sakura-chan?"

Rika turned her head to look at the princess, cutting off the conversation, "Is there something wrong?" she asked. Chiharu and Naoko stopped talking, they too looked over. Silence came over the table.

Sakura raised her fingers to touch her forehead, "I feel dizzy, that's all."

Tomoyo stood up, gently lifting Sakura to her feet, "Let's go inside, you need some rest." Sakura sighed and made no comment as Tomoyo led her away. The princess turned back to their three friends, "We will see you all at the banquet tonight." She called.

Nodding, the three girls got up and curtsied to the princess, as they too, left the table, walking in the opposite direction.

......................................
Author's notes: ohohoho, what is Aris gonna do??? yes yes, my fic is slightly cliché... but please bear with me! the main plot will come in... 3 chapters?!? so yes.....

Wolf Jade - lol, i don't like Akira either!!!

sweet-little-girl - yes, sakura does have magic.... but it doesn't really show right now, so don't worry, it's coming!

damson rhee - thanks for the suggestion! hmm.... although there's not much description in this chapter about Akira, maybe i'll try to include more in my next chapters...

lilsaki - the romance is coming soon!! hehe... but first they have to actually meet.....

ss-cherryblossom - hehe, i'm sorry, i'm so slow at updating.... but here's the next chapter! hope you like it!