“You weren’t listening in earlier, were you?” I thought suspiciously.

“When you were thinking about backsides and harems?” Meri asked. “No. Of course not.”

“Treason!” I thought angrily.

“You should pay attention and get ready, don’t you think?” Meri giggled.

“Don’t think this is over,” I warned her. “If I survive this, we are having a conversation.”

“Shh!” Meri chastised. “This could be important.”

“Eliana,” Zelaeryn whispered in awe, her massive sword dipping toward the floor. “Is it really you?”

“My love,” Eliana turned, her fierce gaze softening as a smile touched her lips. “I’m so sorry for everything. Please forgive me.”

“Still the same,” the king stood and began to descend the stairs ominously, his well-worn battle armor glinting in the light of the chandeliers. “I thought you’d been destroyed in the fire at Willow March. It seems I was deceived from early on.” His fierce gaze flicked toward Alarice. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“When you lay dying on the battlefield at Winter Hollow I saved you,” Eliana’s face turned hard once more as she turned to face the king. “When the wars you insisted were just had nearly claimed you, I believed in you and brought you back. I gave you your powers because you begged me. As your life’s blood dyed the mud red you pleaded with me, and I agreed. Gods help me, I agreed.

“When your armies were nearly defeated in Karenda, I sent you my beloved Zelaeryn who rescued your troops and saved your disgusting war. And when at last you sat on the throne you’d killed thousands to achieve you turned on me. Just as you had on the Elves. You cursed your children with vampirism for what? To play them against each other whilst lording over them? To keep your heirs planning and plotting against each other for an eternity so they wouldn’t have time to plot against you?”

“You know nothing!” Ancil Rhade growled. “I built this kingdom with my own hands”

“You built nothing!” Eliana shouted back. “You’ve built nothing but despair, death and betrayal, my dearest younger brother. I will no longer remain silent. I have come to help stop you.”  

“Stop me?” Ancil scoffed. “How well do you think living on the blood of rodents and birds like a scavenger will serve you? Stop me? I have far surpassed you, Eliana. I am, however, merciful. I won’t send you to the end I’d initially planned. I will break you and make you grovel like the rat you’ve survived on all these years. And I will teach my wayward daughters an important lesson about true power.” He grinned; hate etched in the lines of his face as he raised his sword high over his head with a cry. The royal guards streamed toward us, the court wizards casting their spells to rain death on us from above.

I drew my daggers, intent on at least going down with a fight when the fiery spells of the court mages vanished with a fizzle in the air. I glanced over at Carrisyn who was staring at Eliana in rapt attention. The tall woman stood still; arms spread wide as the royal guard rushed toward her. I glanced around and noticed a shimmering dome covering us. It looked, I marveled, a bit like a soap bubble.

“She’s cast an anti-magic barrier!” Carrisyn called. “Protect her!”

Zelaeryn was already in front of her, her massive sword blazing with blue fire. With a cry of defiance the blade swept forward, a wave of devastating fire spreading out and engulfing the vanguard of the royal guards. Alarice’s bow sang as arrows began to take down any guards who escaped the initial conflagration.

A guardsman had nearly reached Eliana when my crossbow bolt found his throat and he crumpled like a rag. Drawing my daggers I waded into the fray, dodging, and weaving as blades and spears lunged and swung at me. I ducked under a swinging blade, using the tight quarters to my advantage as I spun low, slicing into the legs of the surrounding guards before bringing my daggers up under the chin of one guard while deflecting a stabbing blade from another into the belly of his companion.

It still felt rather unsporting for them all to rush in like that, I mused. In the kung fu movies they never did that. They’d all patiently wait in a semi-circle for the hero to dramatically beat the crap out of them in turn. Here they all rushed in and soon we were surrounded by a surging sea of metal and humanity. The longer blades of the guards quickly became useless as their companions pressed in close behind and around them, not allowing them to effectively use the meter long blades which seemed to be their primary weapons, so it became a scrum of daggers and fists and kicking feet. None of which fit either the Hollywood narrative or the notion the royal guards were the best of the best.

It simply made no sense for the best troops in the kingdom to put themselves at a disadvantage of this magnitude, I thought idly as Ashvallen’s immaculately tuned body and experience took control, leaving me, effectively, with nothing to occupy my mind. I simply couldn’t believe highly trained troops would allow themselves to lose the advantage of superior weaponry and training. Regardless, the vast throne room became a cacophony of the cries of battle, the screams of the wounded and, most noticeable of all, the silence of the dead.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I thought as I parried a dagger thrust, spun in a tight arc, deflecting another blade into one of the assailant’s companions and finished both off before more replaced them.

“Shouldn’t you be paying attention?” Meri asked curiously.

“Nah, if I try to do anything I’ll just fuck it up,” I mentally waved away her concerns. “Doesn’t this seem odd to you?”

“Your strange ability to disconnect yourself in rather dire times?”

“Huh? No. That’s just me. I mean this whole attacking like a bunch of farmers trying to beat down a bear or something.”

“Well, I have to admit, I have no idea how humans fight in this day and age, but it does seem peculiar. I know my royal guard would never have allowed themselves to be drawn into a scrum like this,” Meri admitted.

“You’re right,” my body contorted itself to avoid two daggers, and counterattacked viciously. “Something is definitely not as it seems.”

It looked very much like we would carry the day against the royal guard when a cry from Carrisyn drew my attention to the entrance of the throne room. Several columns of troops with heavy shields and spears streamed through the door behind us. We were soon pressed in and surrounded on all sides as this new bath of soldiers rushed into the fray, Carrisyn, Sascha and Lysabel turned to face this new onslaught, leaving Zelaeryn to keep point and protect Eliana while Sayuri and I covered her flanks. Alarice stood in the center of our little circle and fired death from her singing bow.

The new group of soldiers caused the battle which had been winding down slightly to flare brilliantly once more. Soon enough explosions of magic erupted behind us from Carrisyn while Sascha had given up all pretense of playing the dutiful healer and was using her vampiric abilities to tear into guardsmen with her incredible strength and speed, Lysabel adroitly covering their flanks. While we were holding our own for the moment, it was painfully obvious we had no hope of winning. There were simply too many and we were too few.

“It’s not time, yet” Meri muttered quietly in my head. “If we give ourselves away too quickly it’ll make you a bigger target but I’m not seeing much of an option.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“You seem skilled at keeping your own ego and limitations disconnected from what is going on around you,” Meri sounded rather like she was giving me something of a back-handed compliment, but I couldn’t argue with her. “Let yourself go. We will turn the tide together.”

“Ah, ok,” I muttered to myself. “Do what you do.”

Emerald fire flared in my eyes as Meri’s power coursed through me. I blinked out of existence for a moment, leaving a rather surprised guardsman thrusting his dagger into the belly of his companion suddenly standing in the way given my recent disappearance, and reappeared several meters above the fray. I threw my head back and felt power course through me, branching out in green lightning which ripped through the pressing soldiers, the shining metal of their breastplates and gauntlets and cuisses acting as amplifying agents, each jump to the next warrior more devastatingly powerful than the one before.

Before the soldiers could react, I vanished once more, hovering near the tall, vaulted ceiling of the building before gathering myself and rushing toward the ground, my fists sheathed in flame. I struck the floor with enough impact to shatter the stone and tile and send shockwaves in all direction, toppling the columns of troops rushing into the room from the double doors.

Without pausing I vanished once more, reappearing back where, despite their surprise, the flank I’d been guarding, began to collapse in on Zelaeryn and Eliana. Fire wreathed my daggers and the chains holding them as I spun and whirled, a kaleidoscope of death erupting around me as I cut the soldiers down like wheat before a scythe. I could feel it. The tide was turning.

Suddenly a blinding flash of pain ripped through my chest and my magic sputtered. A second jolt of agony tore through my belly which staggered me and a third and fourth, one in my shoulder and another in my thigh caused me to stumble and drop to my knees with an anguished scream. My eyes quickly found Carrisyn as she sagged to the floor, surrounded suddenly by hooded figured, their daggers dripping with her blood as they closed in on her.

“We’re linked through magic. The pain I would normally feel you receive,” Carrisyn’s voice came to my thoughts all at once. I had completely forgotten about that. I tried to raise myself, but the damage was too severe. The fire in my eyes sputtered as I could no longer keep hold of my magic through the blinding pain.

Alarice quickly cut down the Inquisitors who had surrounded Carrisyn with her bow, but we were being quickly over run, now. Zelaeryn appeared at my side, beating back the soldiers who’d rushed in to finish me off and Sayuri had edged back closer to Eliana to try to hold the line, but I knew we were doomed. As Zelaeryn pulled me to my feet I saw the bubble covering us shudder and pop.

“No!” Zelaeryn cried in grief. My eyes immediately flew to Eliana. She stood tall amidst the sea of soldiers, staring defiantly at Ancil Rhade standing before her, the majority of her brother’s sword had emerged from her back and blood had stained her dress. She swayed as Ancil pulled the blade from her body before crumbling to her knees. Zelaeryn rushed toward her, sweeping soldiers aside in anger and desperation.

“Maybe I don’t need to break you,” Ancil declared with a ruthless grin. “It seems you’re already broken, sister dear.” Ancil’s blade swung up, hovering for a long moment before sweeping down. I couldn’t look and turned away in horror as Eliana’s headless body pitched onto its side on the bloody ground.