Kealie felt invisible her entire life until this one moment.

A moment where what felt like half of Luverie's royal Guard stormed through Natansia turning everything over, scouring for her. Not to rescue her, not to save her, but to capture her for fleeing the Castle against her mother's wishes.

If only her mother knew how bad it truly was.

She saw the men march toward her in short, measured steps. Even as they drew closer, Kealie only thought of one thing.

"You need to go," she said, turning to Nixian and holding his gaze. A gust of wind brushed the sandy locks out of his face. "There is still time for you to escape. Return to the Sea, to your people and your father."

The newfound Prince lifted a brow at her order. "Our father," he corrected. "And no."

"You need to leave before it's too late," Kealie stressed, her voice breaking at the thought.

"No."

She didn't know why but she shoved into his chest, grabbing handfuls of his shirt and glaring. "Nixian you don't know what they'll do to us, to you..."

"There are a great many things you don't know about Aelusia and its people, Kealie," Nixian began slowly, taking her wrists in either hand and removing them. He was gentle but firm. "But I hope to be the one to teach you."

Terror ripped through Kealie in a way she'd never experienced before. Imagining the torment he might endure for this reckless decision, taking him away from a country of people who surely loved him.

Nixian stood for a world she could not create. He came from a land where love knew no bounds and villagers lived in harmony.

In peace.

She felt her teeth grinding at the thought of something destroying the only hope she'd come to know.

"They found us," he whispered to her.

"Over there!" One of the men shouted, pointing straight for Kealie.

"What are you doing?" She hissed up at him. "Why are you doing this?"

Nixian didn't even flinch. "We all make choices, decisions we must live with. Mine led me to you. Yours to me," he said. "Don't back down, now."

The words rattled through her, coating her in cold shivers of electricity and light.

"Fight for what is yours," Nixian told her.

Kealie knew.

Knew that her life was her own. A treasure and a purpose, an honor worth protecting even if her family had never seen it that way.

The guard was on them now, only a few yards away now.

The orders echoing through the air cleaved Kealie's heart in two.

"Detain the girl," A deep voice shouted. "Put the Nerydian down!"

But she wasn't just a girl anymore.

A burning fire raged within Kealie. Every vein in her body pumped with violent, broken anger as she whirled to face the growing army of soldiers. Each one of them armed with static batons meant to incapacitate the average person, all the more lethal to Nerydians.

Kealie lost a scream she hadn't known was hiding within her, launching herself off the ground without warning and throwing her arms out wide.

The waves responded, launching over the rocks and crashing down over the army.

Lifting her arms to the left, Kealie funneled her strength into the ocean and it reciprocated. Roaring back to meet her energy, she threw the thickening cyclone of water through the crowd.

Men were being washed away by the dozen, until nearly fifty remained.

She charged them, throwing fist after fist into a sea of black batons and guards.

Kealie would take ten lives for every man that attempted to put Nixian down. He hadn't left when the militia came, hadn't run away as she begged.

So she would guarantee his safety the only way she knew.

She aimed to destroy them.

Drown them if she had to.

The storm clouds closed in around them, offering thunder and lighting in their wake. As if they answered to Kealie's very fingertips.

Just as she kneed a looming man in the groin and stomped down hard on his foot, a hand caught Kealie's wrist and yanked back. Her body propelled into Nixian's chest, barely dodging the strike of electricity.

"Those will kill you now too, kelp-for-brains," he hissed at her, ducking away from a timed blow and shoving space between them again.

Kealie gasped. She hadn't even realized.

"Don't be stupid," he growled, pulling two daggers from the sheathes in his back and parrying a blow.

Nixian sliced one of the batons apart, leaving nothing but broken wires and quiet static. He continued to move through the parade of men efficiently and stealthily, trained. Honed in. He didn't waste time on one person, kicking and slashing, bouncing from one sparring partner to another.

Kealie watched in both silent awe and horror as he cut down anyone who got in his way.

So she righted herself and took a deep breath.

Clearing her mind, Kealie focused on what she wished the water to do. No training, so experience, just calm communication with the waves.

"Somebody get her!" A shorter, stout man in the center yelled.

A pair of males were edging closer, attempting to block her in. One was taller and barely wielded more than a net, while the other, a bulky brute, gripped a sharp lance-like sword and pointed inward.

The point inches from her ribs.

"You're coming with us, little lady," the brute said with a wicked smile. He thrust and jabbed, attempting to knick her chest.

Kealie let out a low, deadly growl. "Should that be so, you'll only have my body."

"The Queen wants you alive," he snapped back.

She scoffed. "There's a first for everything, I suppose."

Using the words as a distraction, Kealie reached out and pulled waves down over them from both sides, blinding them so that she could huck the heavy blade into the ocean. The netting lost to the rocks.

She threw herself at these men, still only a weak girl with thin arms in a new body.

This was enough.

These men would go down with her, that was her idea of justice.

Lightning began striking the air overhead, lashing through the darkest clouds and veering straight towards her. Each string of electricity danced around the sky, arching and circling overhead. The ground quaked with thunder rolling toward her, the storm choosing its vessel.

Nixian froze, wide-eyed as he beheld what was forming around them.

"Kealie, no!" he cried out over the sea of frightened men and fighting.

She found herself looking at him and smiling. This is one thing she could do. She could protect him.

The blinding light found the ground and seared all the rocks in a ten-yard radius, the ocean humming to life as those who closed in on Kealie collapsed.

She felt weak, her knees knocking together with fatigue before she too fell.

There were ten Guards left.

Ten too many, Kealie realized.

She continued to push herself, forcing herself to climb up the rocks only to see Nixian trapped with his arms held behind him and a baton at his throat.

Kealie screamed and threw herself for him, tripping and stumbling as she tried to close the distance.

"Don't!" Nixian barked at her, swallowing roughly against the now glowing baton.

She didn't understand.

Until Kealie felt the ringing in her ears, the throbbing pain radiating down her spine as she realized she'd been clubbed in the skull.

She screamed as she went down, her eyes blurry and fading into the dark. The noise pierced the air for what felt like miles in every direction.

Nixian watched as several men seized forward to catch her before she found a new well of strength.

Kealie didn't have anything left, her body both numb and empty. The darkness creeping into her vision was a sight unfamiliar, only vaguely reminiscent of sleep.

But she saw wings and a sleek frame launch upward, a shadow of her will. A Leviathan took the first Guard into the ocean, drowning him.

Another lept out of the water and gutted a man with its talons.

The last thing Kealie saw was the puddle of blood steadily sliding over the rocks, creating a crimson waterfall just feet from where she lay.

They had lost, their miracles used.

A net was thrown, wrapping around her body, tightening against her skin.

She supposed it was supposed to burn or ache.

But she did not feel them dragging her away.

No, Kealie did not feel a thing.

Word Count: 1,425 Total Word Count: 14,275