2401 Dalfa 2, Velpa

Rhys drove the velvet curtain back with tips of his fingers, widening the slit between the fabric. The throne hall and the ongoing trial became a little bit more visible. He gritted his teeth, forcing his limbs to relax. They wouldn't condemn his sister, wouldn't they?

He widened the gap further, casting his eyes into the crowd of nobles, businessmen, and some other varichriais from other sectors gathered around a girl younger than him. His heart wrenched.

His sister, Reeca, stood in a pew, surrounded by judging eyes and harsh whispers. A fence as high as her hips enclosed the elevated dais. A little higher and it would have resembled a cage. Light from the throne hall's massive skylight windows shone on the assembly in scattered rays, thanks to the glass dividing the ceiling and the sky. It made his sister's dirty blond hair a little brighter.

"What do you plead with regarding this accusation?" Fanala Varelei, the undisputed leader of the trial said. From her place in the balcony beside the thrones reserved for the monarchs, she had never looked more menacing. Rhys had the joy of interacting with her in his days of attending trade meetings and he could say the number of minutes he spent with the stern woman was by far the most excruciating minutes of his life.

From her pew, Reeca twiddled with her fingers. "I-I'm sorry," she said, her voice coming out shaky. "I didn't kill Mom."

Rhys clenched his jaw, keeping his anger in check. It was a long time since he saw his sister before she was hauled away by the soldiers and locked in the palace dungeon. Seeing her reduced to a shaking mess for all of the court to see stirred something in him. Something which might be disastrous if he let it out.

It has been a week since the event his sister was being put to trial for now. He was there when Reeca stumbled off the tower's stairs, wailing and spouting incoherent sentences about a voice. He wasn't able to piece it together and he hasn't exactly had much time with Reeca before she got hauled away. The rain was pouring down on all of Arcole then. One look at the skylight windows told Rhys it was sunny out. As if the heavens were mocking them.

The news came two days after Reeca was contained in a separate room. The Queen was nowhere to be seen. The contactmirror in which she dove into yielded no traces as to where she might have ended up or where she was trying to go. Reeca was the only one who was able to see the whole thing unfold and she was being silenced. Something was up.

Investigations revealed that the Queen has passed, joining Pidmena in the goddess' realm. How and why the Council landed on that conclusion was still a mystery to Rhys but there's little he could do to overturn it. Like the order to have his sister thrown into the dungeon as charges of being responsible for the Queen's death were put upon her.

It was idiotic. How could a child kill her own mother? Reeca loved their mother the greatest, considering she was the only one who gave the girl any attention in this men-centered court. Their father, the King, only spoke to Reeca when he needed her to scoot out of the way. He had always favored Rhys and he didn't bother hiding it from his people.

"This child is your next ruler so treat him with reverence," the King had once said when Rhys was old enough to appear in front of important people without embarrassing himself. Rhys had never understood what the King meant at the time but, today, as he stared at how the court was treating his sister, some things became clear.

They weren't planning on acquitting Reeca. The plan was to condemn her to silence more dangerous rumors about Arcole's security and standing from spreading. For lack of people to blame, they went for the person who was a witness. Rhys wasn't a councilman—nor was he going to be after seeing all this—but he knew this trial was the most unfair one the Court has ever held.

Didn't they realize the one standing in the pew was their princess?

Reeca didn't look like it. From his place behind the thrones and with his vision limited by velvet curtains, he still could see how red and puffy her mismatched eyes were. It's like she spent the whole duration of her incarceration crying her eyes out. She must have waited for anyone to rescue her. Nobody did.

Dirt and other unknown elements smeared her cheeks and stained her baggy, knee-length tunic. Her long, blond hair was tied in haste at the base of her neck, several strands frayed or sticking out of place. She was staring with a blank expression at the balconies and at the thrones, her mouth slightly open but no words were coming out.

"You are last seen entering the Queen's tower during the second hour in the second quarter," Jandra Balran, the court's pride on handling murder cases, said, bringing Rhys's attention back to the main event of today. "Exactly twenty minutes later, you are seen stumbling out and your brother finding you. What did you say to him?"

Reeca's eyes darted from the balconies to the thrones. Only one of them was occupied. "I don't remember," she said. "But there's a voice—"

"You don't remember what you said to your own brother but you remember this mysterious voice you keep bringing up," Corym Cerenuri, the stout councilman, said from his place. Rhys couldn't look past the gap he was peering out of without being noticed. Still, he could recognize that man's drawl everywhere he went. "It makes your testimony weak."

Reeca stepped forward, her bare feet scratching against the wooden floor of her pew. "I—"

"You didn't do a good job of defending yourself," Reyhana Katar, the martyr of the council, chided. Rhys balled his fist, crumpling the curtain with his fingers. She's a child like Rhys. Of course, she wouldn't know a thing about navigating trials. She could only tell her truth and, right now, her truth was being ignored. "We will take everything you have said so far and derive our conclusion about it. Once we reach it, you will have one chance to refute it. After that, we will be laying out your sentence. When the King approves, it will be enacted immediately."

Reeca hadn't even finished nodding when Alain Alfaren perked up. "The princess, having grown tired of being ignored by her parents, went to the Queen's tower during the 25th of Crescin. She is reported to have been spotted with a crude, weaved doll when she entered the tower. She came out without it after exactly twenty-five minutes."

"Upon investigation inside the topmost room in the tower, we can piece together what happened inside where the princess and the Queen were involved," Sarfir Warro, the highest authority in the dungeons and criminal management in Narfalk carried the story on. "We have seen everything in order save for the contactmirror which contained traces of the Queen's magic. Our theory was that the princess went inside the room and found the Queen to be busy. Enough evidence is seen, like the half-written paragraphs found in some of the parchments in the Queen's desk."

"When the princess asked for the Queen's time and got ignored, she threw a fit," Gan Ayas said. Rhys narrowed his eyes at the councilman. It seemed like his biceps weren't the only thing in his mind today. "This can be evidenced by the doll left by the stairs. Then, the Queen tried to placate the princess and invited her inside the room. It was raining at that time and we saw muddy footprints at least to the doorway. The Queen must have asked the princess to remove her boots upon entering."

Jandra cleared her throat. "This is where we draw much speculation. We have seen evidence of struggle and magic usage due to the sheets of parchment and objects thrown from their place in shelves, desks, and chairs. The princess must have thrown quite a huge fit. While the Queen was calming the princess down, the princess pushed the Queen backwards, causing her to stumble into the contactmirror. We don't know the exact details, but the contactmirror must have been powered up at that moment and when the Queen slammed into it, she was sucked into its influence."

"It is safe to say something went wrong inside the contactmirror's mechanisms which harmed the Queen significantly enough to...ah, kill her," Edal Araris scratched the side of his face as he spoke. "So, with all of that in place, we can only have one person to blame. The princess."

Rhys suppressed a growl and shoved it deep down his gut. An accident. They were painting it as an accident but, at the same time, a premedidated murder. There were a lot of issues with that theory. For one, Reeca was never one to throw a fit for being ignored. She's not that kind of child.

"Do you have objections?" Fanala asked, her voice cold and calculating.

Rhys willed Reeca to speak, to burst out and say it wasn't even close to the truth, but his sister just stared at the council. Seconds passed by in silence.

"Then, that's settled," Fanala continued, ignoring how Reeca widened her eyes after the proclamation. Rhys held himself back behind the curtains. She clearly had something to say! "By the Treaty of Peace between the Imperial Palace and the Crest of Narfalk, we have sovereign power in bestowing punishment for the guilty."

Edal cleared his throat, taking over his colleague. "By the law of the land, by the authority of the King of the Varichriais, the Court charges Rikavien Torlin, the princess of Narfalk, with lifetime imprisonment. She will be given a choice to serve in the Temple to lessen her sentence, but as it stands, she will spend her time in the dungeons."

No! The thought of not seeing his sibling anymore inside this cruel castle filled Rhys with inexplicable rage. Standing by in the shadows, as his tutors advised him today, wouldn't do anymore. He had to get her out of here. She couldn't waste away in a prison for something she didn't do. For what's probably an accident or something holding a deeper and grimmer secret.

"Your Majesty, do you have any objections? Corrections?" Fanala asked the King perched on the throne to Rhy's right.

"I do!" Rhys threw the curtains back, startling the whole court and assembly. From the pew, he noticed Reeca's eyes widen and her lips part. "I object to this ruling and this stupid trial."

His father, the King, uncrossed his legs and turned to him from the throne. "What are you doing, son?" he said underneath his breath. His straight, blond hair resembling Reeca's was almost a direct insult in Rhys's system. "You're not supposed to be here."

Rhys bared his teeth. "I'll be where I damn well wanted to be," he said. "Let my sister go."

"I'm afraid we couldn't do that, Crown Prince," Fanala's gray gaze was leveled even from her place high up in the balcony. "We have already come up with the ruling. Only the King can retract it."

Rhys stepped forward and regarded his father. "She's your daughter," she said. "What do you think you're doing?"

The King stared him down with pale green eyes. "You've gotten some spunk in you," he said. "I'll have to trim that down after all this."

With a fluid swivel, he turned to the council. "No objections," he said. "Carry on."

Rhys called his magic to the surface. So be it. If they didn't want to let Reeca go, he would pave a way for her to escape. It's unfair. He has to help his sister get to the bottom of whatever killed their mother. His father's eyes widened from beside him as Rhys's fingers lit blue. Then, he trained them to the walls.

He had studied the throne hall's architecture ever since he was old enough to understand Keijula. He knew where to strike.

Wisps of bright blue weaving energy struck the corners of the ceiling, curling around the pillars supporting it. With a grunt, Rhys exerted his control over the pillars and crushed them from the inside. Rock cracked in a satisfying crunch. Cracks the size of his arm spread from the walls. He gave a final grunt and pulled the ceiling down.

Chaos ensued in the hall. Fairies realized what was happening and bolted towards the door, flapping their colorful wings in panic. Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them, pelting them with dust, embers of Rhys's magic, and the numerous light rods providing the illumination of the room. Rhys had always hated those. How they hurt his eyes when he read under them for too long.

The King shot off his seat and raised his hands, exerting his own weaving magic into the caving ceiling. Rhys burst forward with a strong flap of his wings. With his father preoccupied with the collapsing throne hall, he could execute the real reason for him doing that. The world blurred around him. His fingers closed around Reeca's wrist on his way.

The wind whipped around him as the air crackled with a myriad of weaving energies as the other council members supported the King in keeping the ceiling afloat. He turned to Reeca who began running after being pulled along a flying Rhys. "Fly!" he said. "Spread your wings. Let's get out of here."

Reeca's lips pursed but a familiar flash of determination sparked in her eyes. That's enough. For now.

Together, they dashed forward, gathering the momentum they needed for one last flap which would propel them towards the wide-open doors to the throne hall. Outside, the unobstructed view of the sky shone bright blue. The smell of freedom.

"Shut the doors! Don't let them escape!" the King was shouting from behind Rhys. He narrowed his eyes. He still had his sister's wrist in his fist. "Soldiers! Get them!"

Rhys eyed the balconies and the wide, tiled plain where at least a dozen varichriais with sharp weapons and years of combat experience began to close in. He snorted. They probably didn't have rocks and glass as an enemy before.

With his remaining energy, he angled his body to a spin, firing streaks of magic into the walls. Then, just like he did to the ceiling, he pulled down. The rocks grumbled and lunged towards the men. Rhys maneuvered his fingers, breaking the chunks under his influence into a thousand pieces. He sent them towards the soldiers, the council, and the King.

Rhys winked at Reeca who stared at him and at the commotion with nothing but a confused expression. The doors groaned as they began to close. Behind them, curses and grunts could be heard from the people as the rocks Rhys had enchanted slammed to them again and again. He tightened his grip around his sister's wrist. Here they go.

With a powerful flap of his wings, he burst forward, angling his form to match the gap slowly closing in on them. He gritted his teeth. Come on. Come on.

"Wherever you go," the King's shout was the last thing Rhys heard before he and Reeca shot past the slit between the large doors. "You won't be safe. I will always find you!"

Rhys scoffed. He could try. Nothing would make a difference. He and Reeca were out of there. And by the looks of it, it would stay that way for a long, long time.