Night settled over the grand capitol of Eternos, a castle city nearing its restoration after centuries of abandonment. A grand celebration had been held just weeks prior, after the king and his queen had been gifted an heir to the House of Randor. And it was this night, as the royal couple set their infant to sleep, that fireworks erupted in the sky.
Some districts of the capitol still held celebrations, and deep into the night continued cheers, revelry, and good spirits. For not only had the royal pair been blessed with their newborn child, but the night also marked the anniversary of Randor's rise to the throne, the defeat and banishment of the traitor Keldor, and the coming of peace to the Light Hemisphere.
But before the sun would rise, the night would give no comfort and peace.
Parts of the city were still darkened and in ruin after the centuries of abandonment prior to Randor's ascension to the throne and his decision to restore the ancient capitol. Even with the careful and meticulous planning by the architects, it had still taken nearly five years to reach the point they had accomplished so far. During the day, work was done by masons and mages to restore and refurbish the crumbling ruins into a modern city of tradition, magic, and the future in sight.
But in the night, it was a haven for those who dare not expose themselves to the eyes of the world. Their last sanctums left since Keldor's defeat, and a place they could work foul corruptions in the dark names of things better left forgotten.
And it was on this night, one that celebrated a monumental victory for those who opposed evil, that the darkest of acts would be wrought.
From the shadows of the ruin districts, several groups of black cloaked figures scurried in the night. Their movements betrayed a carefully planned path, avoiding the few night patrols in the ruins and taking lesser traveled paths in the city toward the high dome of Eternos Palace. Some would venture away into the city, eventually causing commotion and drawing the attentions of the city guards. Others began to make sure routes out of the city were clear.
And then there were those that made their way toward the palace itself, careful to not draw attention to themselves. And they were frightening successful in that, save, perhaps, for the shadowed figure who also waited just outside the palace walls, a cloak of deep purple wrapped around their body.
The figure followed in their own course, clinging to shadows and darkened alleys as they would trail the robed group before breaking off as they entered the palace grounds. As they patiently waited, bells would ring in the city, causing a commotion while groups of guards from the palace hurried to assist those in the city. As soon as their course was clear, the group split up, now searching for their goals.
The king was busy in the west wing of the dome shaped palace, leaving him at the opposite side of the grounds from where the intruders were scurrying toward. One member broke away, making sure they gave any remaining guards ample distraction before setting up to keep an advanced watch. It gave the remaining three clear path to the north wing, where the royal chambers and various bedrooms resided.
A pause as they reached their destination. No guards, oddly, outside the royal couple's bedroom doors. Fortune this night was upon them. One of the intruders motioned for the others to wait before they slipped carefully through the doors, eyes vary as she slowly closed the chamber behind her, silent as possible when crossing the spacious bed chamber. The king and queen's bed lay at one end, curtains drawn and, presumably, shading the queen as she slept. At the other end was a large bassinet, covered partially by a concave hood.
The intruder slowly stepped up to and looked at the bassinet and it's sleeping inhabitants; two tiny babies, blond wisps of hair at the crowns of their heads, and almost entirely identical. The only thing separating them were the small strange markings that had been clearly hand stitched into their attire. It wasn't proper writing, as it looked nothing like the ancient and long used glyphs of Eternian written language, but in any other context...the placement may have been...names.
But there was only supposed to be one child. The royals had parented twins?
"Step away from my children." A high pitch sound along with a metallic click echoed in the chamber as the cloaked woman realized, too late perhaps, that she had walked into a trap. "Hands up where I can see them and get on the floor, face and palms against the back of your head."
Was that the queen? She spoke like a hardened soldier, not a dainty noble. The king really did stick to his kind, even in his romantic choices. Begrudging respect, however, did not entice the intruder to cooperate as she reached quickly into her robes, only to let out a painfully brief screech as a resounding crack of thunder split the air, and a bright blue burst of light split first her breastbone, then her head. A clatter as the knife fell from her lifeless hand, and her still hot corpse toppled to the floor.
The doors were flung open within minutes, preceded, fortunately, by the angry and panicked voices of Randor and the palace guards. "Marlena, we heard what sounded like thunder!"
"Just some idiot who thought a queen mother was going to be a push over," came the almost playful retort while the red haired woman looked up from the crib side as she tried to calm the now crying infants, her firearm at the bedside table, and she breathed with relief. "There was just the one, but we may have others sneaking around as well."
"Are the children safe?"
A nod as one infant fell back to sleep, leaving her to sigh and pick the still crying baby up and gently lay the newborn over her shoulder. A few pats to the baby's back still were not enough, leading the queen to sigh and give a nod to one of the guards that had accompanied Randor. "Please keep watch while I take Adam to get a back-to-bed snack from the pantries. Randor, I expect that you're planning to lead a charge around the palace for any more of these would be kidnappers. Just try and keep the noise down, don't gut too many of them before I can speak with the idiots."
And with that, a quick recovery of her firearm into her free hand and shifting her grip to better carry the weeks-old infant, Flight Captain Marlena Glenn, pilot, soldier, queen by marriage, and highly irritated new mother, carried on out of the royal bed chambers with baby crying and left Randor with half a dozen men staring between him and her departing form in shock and amazement.
It took almost a minute following that for the king of Eternos to come to his senses and direct his escorts to follow him while the one that Marlena had specifically spoken to took position at the chamber doors. "I'll send help to remove the body," the king stated to the remaining guard as he and his escorts readied to leave. "Other than the Queen, no one else is to be allowed in these chambers until I return."
"Understood, sire."
The doors were shut behind them as Randor and his escorts hurried to sweep the rest of the palace. The lone guard patiently stood their place, then slowly set their pike aside against the wall. A hand came up to carefully remove their helmet, revealing a woman with white streaked brown hair and sickly green veins crossing under her pale skin. Cautiously, she stepped over to the bassinet, peering in at the sleeping infant as the woman carefully removed the heavy armor she wore and set it aside. After that, it was just a matter of reaching in and delicately taking the infant into her arms.
It was only by the time Queen Marlena returned that she realized they had been deceived, and her daughter was missing without even a cry to signal something had been wrong.
The main streets were already on high alert due to the disruptions caused by the groups of men and women whom had all coordinated their actions to draw attentions from the palace. Even though all the guard of Eternos were now searching anywhere they could, it was something to be said for the preparations of this organization that one woman was able to use all the chaos to cover herself and escape from the royal quarter. Once she had made her way into the lower districts of the city, she hurried to the arranged rendezvous, but found none of her peers waiting for her.
"The guards couldn't have found everyone," she whispered as she could feel the baby start to stir. One cry would be all it took to alert the guards where they were, and this would be all for nothing. The timing of their task had been meticulously planned for this night ever since the birth of the king's child. Well, children, as the woman and her cohort had learned. Twins, not just one heir born. Why, though, had the royals kept that news hidden?
After keeping herself hidden for another ten minutes, listening to the sounds of the searches going on, the woman finally broke from hiding and made her way for the planned departure route through the areas of the city still being restored. No sign of pursuit, but none of her co-conspirators either as she kept in he shadows. The infant was starting to wiggle in her arms under the cloak, worrying the woman that the baby would alert the city before they could escape.
Something was in her path ahead. The woman hesitated, then sighed as she realized it was not a guard or even the king. "The way is rife in chaos," she uttered; the test and welcome between their fellows.
"Havoc is merely the path we walk to glory." A tap against the stone road echoed as the figure closed the distance between them. Details were more visible now; a purple cloak wrapped around their exceedingly tall frame, while a staff was in one hand, striking the ground as they walked. Once the figure came to a halt, they reached out a hand, blue skin visible in the low light. "You have quite well, my dear. I can handle matters from this point."
The voice was not familiar, a high pitched crack that sounded almost inhuman, yet they knew the words of familiarity in the order. It meant they should have been trustworthy. And yet...
"Send a squad down into the narrows of the reconstruction, we haven't checked there yet!"
The city guard was closing. She had no time to delay, and she felt the infant waking up, making tiny sounds that could soon explode into screams for their parent. Despite this seemingly friendly figure, something didn't sit right about trusting them.
And then the choice wasn't hers anymore as she felt a stabbing pain through her stomach, and a hand shot out quickly to claim the woken infant before they were dropped. "You can rest in the knowledge that someone far more experienced in these matters will handle this...lamb."
The purple cloak twisted and furled as the figure turned, revealing, for perhaps a barest moment, what looked like a bleached skull under that hood instead of a face. The woman gasped as she collapsed to her knees, blood escaping from the ragged hole in her abdomen while she clutched ineffectually at the wound. She could hear boots hitting stone and voices approaching. The city guards, though they might not realize she was whom they were looking for, were still bound to take her back to the palace. She would be given to the healers, they'd assume she had seen something. She could still serve her masters in the outer Void.
The city was now some few kilametrons in the distance on the peninsula, and as the cloaked figure brought the unusually large panther he rode to a halt so he could look back, red flickering points made themselves visible where eyes would have been. "Let them search," came the inhuman voice as the figure looked at the infant in the crook of his left arm. The infiltrator from whom he had taken the infant had been considerate enough to bundle the child tightly to keep them comfortable. How thoughtful the woman had been despite whatever nefarious purpose for which the baby had been abducted for.
Yet, he had his own agenda, a different plan. He knew who this child was, and the irony of what he was going to do with them made the figure chuckle to himself. "Sweet little baby...they would have likely ended your life in some ridiculous sacrifice to their impotent and imprisoned masters..." A soft cackle escaped from under the shadowed hood as the figure turned his attentions away from the city and to a spot that lay within distance of walking. "As punishing as it would be to that fool, Randor...an also useless gesture that serves no one once all is done."
And then, as the moons would align with each other, it was then that ethereal threads made themselves visible, wafting in and out of phase with the plane upon which Eternia lay. The figure raised his staff, channeling strands of electric blue energy through the shaft and into the mounted ram's head. Those same crackling lengths of blue would reach out, touching the threads and slowly forcing a distortion to take shape.
"This, I think shall be far crueler than just some ritualized waste to a 'god' that isn't even listening..."