8.1
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Yazia burst through the oak doors. The throne room fell silent, save for the swish of blades being unsheathed.

Though no one stepped forward, as if realising who she was.

Great braziers attached to one side of each of the six alabaster columns illuminated the throne room with an orange glow. Intricately carved woodwork hung from the askew ceiling, and a carmine rug covered the elaborate tiles, spanning the path from the arched wooden doors leading to the dais.

Yazia strode down the aisle. Atop the dais her Father was poised uncomfortably straight. At his left side, another but much smaller throne was positioned, though it remained unoccupied.

"You cannot possibly marry her!" Yazia spat. Her footsteps ceased when she stopped in front of the dais, her hand gripping the hilt of a sword wrapped tightly around her waist.

"Oh, chams hayati, we've already been over this." Yazia's father raised his hand to dismiss the sentinel of the room. Within moments, they were alone, and she was kneeling at the steps leading up to the platform.

"I dislike her very much. She cannot be my mother, and I do not think kindly of Draven either," Yazia admitted. "They do not like it when I use my sword, and--"

The King gently hushed Yazia, and pulled her into his embrace, his large hands warm on her cheeks. "Chamsi, there is no other way. Sankori will need somebody to take care of it while I'm not here. My child, You will need somebody to take care of you. I--"

"But baba! You choose to marry a human! The very kind that is killing us."

"Azizi Yazia, when you are older, I only hope that you will come to understand this allegiance. All that our bloodline has done to survive, all that we have had to sacrifice. Chamsi, I need you to be strong."

For a brief moment, Yazia's eyes locked with the King's--his brown skin was creased, forming worrisome lines across his forehead, his elven ears drooped. So she decided that she'd forget her hatred for humans just a short while. All that mattered to her was making her Father happy.

She placed a small hand over his own, and pressed her forehead to his. "I will be strong, baba wallah," she whispered, and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, after several heartbeats passed, the distinctive hiss of an arrow streaked into the room. The King released a guttural breath in unison with the solid impact of an attacker's shaft lodged into the side of his throat.

Yazia's eyes widened as she pulled back to see the stream of crimson that seeped from the arrow, burying deeply into her father's flesh. His eyes were partially glazed over. For a few quick moments, he'd shoved Yazia away before he dropped to the ground with a thud. The King sputtered blood onto the carmine rug; he choked, he convulsed.

Then, he was completely still.

"Baba...baba." Yazia grasped onto his large hand and held it tightly to her chest as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. All that she could hear above her thudding heart was the Templar's heavy boots mingling with the ambience of the quiet palace moments before it erupted into blood curdling screams.

They had come. The monsters she had read stories about--they had come to collect her.

The footsteps behind her halted, and a steel blade could be heard as it slid from its scabbard. Yazia weeped. She feared turning around to face the man standing right behind her, but in the corner of her eyes, there were many more than just one. She was sure that one of them had killed her Father.

"Keep this one alive."

Everything around Yazia became a blur, and she was too late to react and obtain her own blade before they'd snatched it away. She felt the bloody hands of her enemies forcibly yank her away from her Father, who was bleeding a pool of blood that surrounded him. His brown eyes gazing into hers, now lifeless.

She began to pound her hands against the dark cloak of the one that was dragging her away, the blurred gold embroidery of a snake gliding up the arm of his garments, but tears obscured her vision. "No! Let me go, let me go!" she yelled, writhing in the man's grasp. But he didn't. Yazia felt defeated. They had come to collect her, and collect her they had.

Her eyes glanced back to the body of her father one last time as she was dragged from the throne room, and back through the oaken doors. When they had entered the corridors, dead bodies of her people lay scattered everywhere. One of the Templar's was busy unsheathing his sword that was lodged into the heart of a young elven maiden.

Images of who she loved most in this cruel world flashed through her mind, her father, the only one she'd told everything to, the only one she believed ever understood her--and he was gone.

I need you to be strong.

You must be strong.

Yazia quickly grew exhausted from trying to wiggle herself loose, and she could no longer hold in her desire to scream. Nobody was there to save her, nobody. Everyone in the Templar's path had been slaughtered. She let loose an anguished scream, so intense that the ground shook, and a searing beam of cold light erupted from Yazia. It echoed through each chamber wall, the palace splintered, cracks webbing across its surface as debris began to fall.

But it wasn't just Yazia who was screaming, the remaining Templar's were too, each latching onto their ears, blood dripping from their blackened eyes. Yazia looked back to the black-coat who had dropped her to the cracked ground. The blood didn't stop, clouding the man's vision, but he somehow managed to reach for her ankle, dragging Yazia back towards him.

"You don't know what you've done, child!" He spat.

A sickly feeling washed over her, sending cold chills to shoot down her spine. Ice formed between the cracks. He was right, what had she done? Too weak to fight back, she lay there in a daze, drenched in the blood of the black-coat, and maybe even her own.

The black-coat grabbed her waist, and tried to pull Yazia over his shoulder; but a large chunk of rock came down and sent their bodies slamming onto the tile floor. A silver ring rolled on the blood-stained floor next to Yazia, an obsidian black jewel with a golden snake engraved around the ring faced her. She reached to grab it, but all the air had escaped Yazia's lungs, and she gasped for breath, trying to gather her thoughts. But then her eyes fluttered closed, she gave in to the darkness, and everything vanished into black mist.

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"Chams hayati." Yazia reminisced over the words that softly lifted from her tongue. Sun of my life.

It had been many years since she'd last heard it; her father often called her it since she was a young child because he claimed she was the sunshine of his life, so he had always been the moonlight of hers. Yazia would do anything to hear his voice one last time, to make everything better again.

A knock sounded and Yazia, although interrupted from her solemn thoughts, turned from the vanity she was sitting at, and glanced in the direction of the oaken door. She stared at it for just a moment, then turned back to face the mirror, her brown eyes sunken with redness emerging around them, ears drooped.

Yazia squeezed her eyelids shut, and washed away the tears that stained her cheeks with the back of her hand. She fought hard to compose herself, and straightened on the cushion. She let out a deep breath, "Come in."

In the reflective surface of the mirror, Yazia noticed a young maiden slip through the cracks of the door, holding a jet black box of considerable size. With that, she instantly knew it was a token from the King of Abingor.

"My lady, I hope you are well this morning. The King has instructed me to give you this," the servant said, and rested the box atop of the silken sapphirine sheets of the bed. "Is there anything else you'd like to accompany you as you get ready? I can send for some ladies to help bathe you."

Yazia shook her head. "No thank you, go..." Her voice was soft, but it still cracked and caught in her throat as she spoke. She hoped it wasn't obvious that she had been crying. After all, Yazia did not need a maiden to voluntarily involve herself in her initiative.

The maidservant gave a swift curtsy and walked out of the room, closing the door tight behind her. When she was alone, Yazia shot up from the vanity and walked over to the bed, where the box rested. The black box was simple, wrapped in a sheet of cloth and adorned with satin ribbon. Placing a hand underneath it, Yazia undid the knot and let the folds of the cloth covering it fall open, taking the lid off the case.

She lifted the piece of material up from the box. The soft fabric of the robe unfolded, loose sleeves billowed with her movement as the garment barely reached the floor, falling at her ankles. The embroidered abaya shimmered in the sunlight peeking through the azure curtains of the chamber.

But that wasn't all that she noticed inside the box. Another box rested in the corner, much like the one she had previously gifted him at the dais. She threw the abaya aside and opened the second case in a haste. Inside, the two ornate blades of steel, each in serpentine shape shone in the light.

If this was a game to the King--if this was one of his ways to keep her as a possession at court, and to bejewel her in all of the luxury an average lady would desire, then he was mistaken. Yazia would not have it. She would not wear his gift, for he had chosen to give back the very one she gave him.

Perhaps he had been threatened after all.

Then she wondered...Yazia took the blades carefully out of its narrow case, and unfolded the ribbon underneath. There, a silver ring rested with an obsidian jewel wrapped in a snake's body. Anger boiled within her, and she quickly folded the ribbon back over the ring. If the King had taken a closer inspection of her gift, and if he did indeed initiate the attack on her father's death, then he would know who the owner of this ring was. Who the man that haunted her dreams day and night was. The King, she was certain, was the black-coat.

And she would do whatever it takes to kill the black-coat.

But there was only one thing that concerned her plan of vengeance, and that was her own attacker. She had no idea where to begin--who they were. Why would they venture out into poisoning her with Silverine? Whoever they were, they wanted her gone. She was a threat to somebody out there, and Yazia was almost certain she was not safe at court. That somebody knew exactly who she was, and planned to finish the job they'd helped to start all those years ago in eliminating the bloodline of Paskovka.

All that our bloodline has done to survive, all that we have had to sacrifice.

She'd need to find out who her own attacker was, and eliminate them too, before they striked her. Losing had never been an option before, and it couldn't happen now, not if she wanted to survive. There was no more room for hesitation.

Yazia decided not to wear the abaya she had been gifted. Instead, she wore one of the pale turquoise robes in Darla's trunk that had travelled with her thanks to the kindness of Aeneas. Though every time she thought about it, tingles swept up her spine at the feeling of wearing a dead woman's clothes.

She'd wondered what actually happened to Darla, but Yazia couldn't focus on that now. Not when she had two people to kill, and whoever else got in her way.

For now, she would trust nobody.

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