I think I am surprising myself with how fast I am putting out these chapters. I have not been this fast in a year or so. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
The King and Queen of Crimea and Phoenicis were seated upon their thrones like a battle couple of old lore. Replete in their war panoply, my heart both swelled with pride and trembled with awe at the sight of both Elincia and Tibarn.
Despite no formal war or other military action taken place since my fall, Elincia wore a formal battle plate, festooned with many laurels and awards. A pair of powerful enchanted gauntlets clothed her hands as she held her sword Amiti point down in front of her. I felt a cold sweat run down my neck. It was a blade that would only be used in battle or execution. She had not done the latter, but it appeared I might be the first. Her hair was green as the North Sea, and she looked sternly at myself and the others gathered in her midst.
Tibarn looked even less welcoming, the King of the Hawks was not one known for forgiveness when he was accosted or shamed. He was the supreme commander of the army, and I feared my command would provoke his hand. His coal black hair was tied back with a bandana, though I could see his brow twitch with impatience at me. The look in his golden eyes was what upset me the most. They looked at me like a predator would to a prey it would soon devour.
"Knight Commander. Come forward." Elincia's voice was solemn and filled with command, betraying little emotion as she called me by my formal title. She never did that, at least not alone. It was always Knight Commander Geoffrey of Delbray when in the company of others. I could tell that she was upset with me, and my fate would not be kind if I was judged incompetent.
I began my slow walk which echoed down the great stone walk way, the distance seeming as if I was walking the final mile to the headsman's axe. Oscar and Kieran had come as far as the great bronze doors. There I had bid them to stay, despite their offers to the contrary. I did not want them caught up in any of this. Any judgement against the actions of Volus were mine to bear alone.
As I walked I passed under looming archways where Crimea's greatest heroes were personified in the form of great unmoving statues. I saw Helvetius, Galatian, Titus, and Ike who seemed to be judging me with the weight of their eternal stares. Each one of them appeared to be the block of marble that held up the ceiling just as they had held up our nation. I would not be found wanting under their gaze.
The huge archways had shadows crawl within their lofty vaults, though my eyes strayed for but a moment, I quickly forced them back to the situation at hand. I was soon aware that I was not under the gaze of the royals but those of Renning, and his entire cohort of the honor guard. They were covered in sapphire plate and cloth, armed with elegant blades and powerful crossbows.
I focused my gaze on the fair queen, her amber eyes held a pang of sorrow for me, though wheater that was because of our former relationship or the sadness that I was once a great general who had learned a lesson in humbleness by a creature without fear I could not tell.
Where had we gone wrong? We were childhood friends, she and I. I was her knight from boyhood who became a man and protected her more times than there were stars in the night sky. I had made plans a year after the final war to make my feelings known to her upon the balcony with the winter aurora dancing through the night sky. The night of the dancing lights, I made my way to her chambers only to see her embracing the Hawk King's wings. I cried in frustration, the first time since childhood could I remember those wet lines down my face. But I could never forget the way the lights seemed to encircle her head like a halo.
As I continued my walk forward I saw a trick of the light that seemed to be exactly like the halo I saw on her head. I continued with only the briefest break in stride. As I got closer I noticed that what I thought to be a trick of the light was an actual glow. No, wait a mark.
It was viridian green, and I was too late to realize what it meant.
"Get down!" Renning reacted first to my warning. He placed his armored bulk between me, as I ran down the walkway, and Elincia who was at the other end. He thought I had lost all sense and was prepared to violently knock some back into me. I had drawn my sword, igniting the blade with the azure light of its power.
That prompted the honor guard to draw their loaded crossbows and take aim at me. I pointed up in the shadow filled rafters, to stop my comrades from executing me on the spot. "Up there!" Renning saw it too, crouched like an iron gargoyle, the darkness as its cloak. A single eye betrayed its position, but we would be far too late to prevent it achieving its goal. In truth, the glow was that of a targeting optic, and Elincia was in the crosshairs.
A long, slender crossbow unlike any design I had ever seen slid into its hands. I watched as it shouldered the weapon and a malachite colored bolt was exposed and was aimed at Elincia. Reality slowed, as if the assassin was chronologically a few seconds ahead of us in a different river of time.
The bolt was expelled from the crossbow. There was no recoil, just the bolt released from the weapon like a breath to a living creature. I followed the bolt in my peripheral vision while I channeled my fury into the Tempest Dao. A ball of blue lighting formed at the tip of my blade, where it grew to the size of a medium fruit and I flicked the blade to send the arcane attack at the monster as the honor guard began to unload their first volley of crossbow bolts. It was an unusual attack, and was often frowned upon by conventional fighters, but I was far from conventional.
Elincia let out a mixture of a scream and a grunt, like someone had knocked the wind out of her brutally followed by a choking sound. She had risen when she heard my warning and was struck by the bolt. She collapsed back into the throne but sprawled forward and rolled down the steps threat led to her throne. Tibarn lunged at her like a wounded beast as the royal guard obliterated the lofty space above us with explosive quarrels. This was the Hall of Tellius, and we had wrecked it like a band of careless thieves.
Time resumed and there was no remain of the assassin. The Flayed Ones faded out of existence when they were destroyed or else they would have begun to self-heal. Only we had not destroyed this assassin, not even close.
The honor guard formed around the sprawled Elincia like a cocoon of steel. Blood tricked forth from her mouth in a frothy mixture as the missile had ruptured her gorget. Poison, the coward tipped the bolt with a powerful toxin. Bloody tears fell from her eyes as they began to cloud over with a milky whiteness. Tibarn was seething with rage and grief, his howl was shattering at the sight of his 'little rabbit', my beloved queen at the mercy of fate. She began to convulse and soon she fell still. Her breast still rose and fell, but it was faint and weak.
I wanted to stoop down and to embrace her, to offer up my own life in the place of her own. She was my queen, my liege, and my blessed friend. But I could not. I was forced to only watch as Tibarn enveloped her in his brown hawk wings. They had enough to worry about, I would only serve as a distraction to them right now.
With the immediate danger passed, Renning and the honor guard would take care of the fallen queen. "Stay with the king and queen," I told Renning as I started off in a loping run towards the bronze doors, the marble heroes above urging each of my footfalls. Each step was punctured by a glance upwards, into the shadowy heights that hid killers of queens and monsters of blackest hearts.
I burst through the massive doors and saw that Oscar and Kieran had their weapons in hand, clearly they had heard the sounds of battle from inside the bastion. "What has happened?" They asked before they broke out into a run to keep pace with me. My sword was held thightly in my grip as I continued my trek down the hall.
"The enemy is inside the Castle of Melior. A Flayed One has just tried to assassinate Queen Elincia."
"Blood of Antila, is she?" Oscar did not want to finish the thought, but I knew what he was going to ask. As he kept step, I spared him a glance.
"She lives. She will live." Oscar would chastise himself later, right now we had bigger concerns. I needed answers, and I thought I would know how to find them.
I reached into a leather pouch attached to my belt and pulled forth a rune carved crystal. I was about to message Bastian but the chime of warning bells told me I was too late. As if in response to the fear in the air, the torches and candles that aligned the wall had begun to flicker almost in time with the bells, which casted the floor a sickly monochrome.
My crystal glowed and slowed my stride to receive it. "Lord Renning."
"Geoffrey. We are heading to the hospital, Tibarn is with us as well. Mist awaits us there. Elincia lives though it appears vulnerary can only reduce the effects."
"And where is the alert coming from?"
"The royal armory, east wing." The reply almost caused me to drop the crystal.
All my fears suddenly crystallized. The memory of the Flayed One 'corpses' returned, those that were too badly damaged to self-repair but unable to phase out. Only they weren't damaged. It was a ruse and in our ignorance we had invited them into our bastion, our home. I wanted to strike something in anger, but I bit back my outrage and replied Renning.
"Keep with them. Oscar, Kieran and I are on our way there now." I cut the link between us and we continued with an even greater sense of purpose in our stride. The Lord of the Castle had his niece to be concerned about. I would find answers soon enough.