Chapter three
Return
The wood was quiet- too quiet for Ariel's liking. It was the middle of the night, but the usual sounds that could be heard at night in the woods were absent. No snuffling sounds, no rattling of the trees or shrubbery, no hooting of the owls. Ariel was painfully aware of the sound of her own footsteps as she fled from the kingdom of Stormhold. After Septimus's visit, she had made the decision to go. It was just too dangerous to stay, and she could not risk it. Every step she took to leave her home behind hurt a little bit more, especially when she thought of the young king's face when he had touched her arm. But it could not be helped. The path through the woods would be too obvious and too easy to track her along, so she had decided to follow a different route, one that she had discovered as a child. She had been travelling for three hours now, and was far enough away to consider it safe to pause for a rest. Sitting down heavily on a tree stump, she looked up at the sky. It had clouded over, and the stars had become hidden. She was about to get up again when she heard a voice not far off. Terrified at first that she had been discovered and tracked down, she searched frantically for somewhere to hide. Seeing nowhere, she did the only thing that she could think of to do in a wood and climbed a tree. What unfolded below was to change the course of her path yet again.
"Are you sure he did not suspect anything my lady?" A short man in a long green overcoat hurried to keep up with a cloaked figure, that moved elegantly in front of him.
"I have told you already, Giles, he was far too absorbed in this Galahan affair. Now stop irritating me and tell me the plan so that I know you have understood. If indeed miracles are possible."
The short man stopped as the figure did and took a deep breath.
"Yes my lady. Right, we are going to the edge of the forest, where our armies are awaiting us, and… I am afraid… I may have forgotten what you said, ma'm."
The figure in the cloak turned sharply and slapped the short man, Giles, across his cheek with a cracking sound. As she did so, the hood of her cloak fell, revealing her to be nine other than Queen Aiken. She looked angry and pale in the moonlight. Ariel gasped quietly, with a sickening feeling that the beautiful Queen had dark intentions here in the woods.
"We are going to the edge of the forest, where General Fawcett awaits us, and we shall launch our attack on Stormhold, which may I add we have been planning for two years, you idiot, and finish what my mother started over a decade ago. If you have not yet understood, Giles, tell me and I shall make sure one way or another that you do." Her eyes flashed silvery grey as she hissed at him, and Ariel noticed a thin line of blood across his cheek where the Queen had struck him.
"No your majesty, I understand."
They continued in silence oblivious to Ariel's presence, and unaware that they had been overheard. Everything had become clear. The noises in the wood had stopped because the evil Queen had returned, or rather the daughter of the evil Queen that had tried to take Stormhold all those years ago, the Queen from whom even the stars hid. So that was it. Ariel's uncle had betrayed her father to help the mysterious queen to attack, to aid the fall of Stormhold and bring the two of them to power. For their cause her father had died and her mother had gone, their home destroyed, their name blackened forever. For their evil Ariel had lost everything, and now, it seemed, history would repeat itself. Aiken had called them to her kingdom to warn Septimus of the last Galahan's existence, knowing full well that Ariel was that Galahan. But she had not revealed it to him, because she needed him to employ his armies to look for her when she ran. She needed him to panic so that she could once again attack an undefended kingdom in cold blood, whilst the king searched for and murdered one of his closest friends. The last Galahan was the perfect distraction to aid the fall of Septimus and his kingdom, just as it had been all those years ago.
Ariel waited until she was sure that the Queen was gone, thinking quickly and calmly. For this her father had died, and she had lost everything. She would not let that happen again, not whilst she was the only one with the power to stop it. There was little doubt that Septimus would have figured out by now who she was, and would have a reward pending for her murder, but that did not change the fact that she could not let Stormhold fall, could not watch as her friends died trying to save it, or as her king defended it from a surprise attack which he had no chance of resisting. And so it was simple- she would go back, face him and her fate, and do what she could to save those that she loved. It worked in theory.