| Chapter Eleven | Game of Time |

"Where am I?" She asks quietly, the small elf girl.  Her eyes skim over the building in the street, brick and cobblestones.  The large hand grabs her skinny arm and pulls her out of the way as a scorpion clambered by, a troll mounted on top, hitting it with large whips.  It seemed as large as the homes around them.

  "Bal'Sol," the troll bites out, spitting onto the ground.  His face was decorated with red, dots and arrows on his face.  A true warriors paint.  He stares down at her, those green eyes he wished to crush.

  "What are you going to do to me?" She whispers, crying out as he struck her across the face.  Blood drips down from her nose and decorates her lips.  Tears flow from her eyes as she puts a hand on the welt forming where he hit her.  "I want to go home," she sobs.

  He grabs the front of her clothes, twisting them in his fist.  His beady crow eyes pierce through her waxy eyes, silencing her crying.    "You are home now, Jasper."

  The prince places a gentle hand on Adara's shoulder, luring her out of her sleep.  No sooner than they had gotten in the wooden cage, her eyes drifted to sleep, but it was not a true sleep.  Tears flowed from beneath her closed eyes, spotting her lashes, and muffled words of another time drifted from her lips.

  It was only when she began to sob, that he woke her.  Her eyes were moist with tears as she woke.  She pushes his hand off and crawls to the back of the carriage, wiping her face and staring out the back of the cart.  The prince was unsure as to what was wrong, but he thought it best not to ask.

  All that had been on their minds, was the letter.  The letter of an impeding war.  The prince's heart was filled with dread.  He had to step up and be the prince his kingdom would need.  He was not sure if they would win, but he knew he owed it to his people to try.  To be the person they need.

Adara sticks her hand out the back of the carriage, the small dragon crawls down to the top of her hand.  He basks in the dull sun.  He had not yet grown his wings, so he digs his small claws into her glove.  His eyes close in delight.  She smiles gently.  She knew what she would call him.

  "What time is it?" The prince asks quietly, his eyes stare past Adara, into the darkness.

  "It is night," Adara frowns, "We slept through night and day," she sighs. 

  The prince tugs the ends of his hair as he crawls to the end of the cart, sitting in across from Adara.  They knew they were behind schedule, several days behind schedule.  The prince glances out at the dragon, how free it looked.  They all wished they felt that way.

  The invisible timeline looms above their heads.  Leonidas knew that if he did not write to his father soon, informing him of their progress, his lord-father would take it into his own hands.  They had to reach Bal'Sol, despite it not being in the plan, the prince knew that there had to be a reason.

  "Adara," the prince says, not looking at her, but rather the empty black of the sky.  "Why are we really going to Bal'Sol?"  Despite his calm voice, she could hear the uncertainty.  "You told me in the desert that you had arrangements to make, but is that truth?" He asks.

  "I would not lie," Adara frowns, her words sharp but tired, "I know people inside Bal'Sol who can get us into Xarenth unseen," she whispers.  "I know we can not trust one another, but these people we can trust."

  "I can not trust you," The prince frowns now, "But I choose to believe you."

  "Bal'Sol is a dangerous place," Adara says, "The laws that apply in Xarenth do not apply there."  Her voice is so quiet, he can barely hear her.  "We have to lay low, we can not risk any surprises," she frowns.  They both knew what she meant.

  His outbursts.  The drinking, the gambling, the violence, the rage, the cursing, the hate.  He runs another hand through his unkempt hair.  She glances over at him, his head down, and she could see him struggling.  She does not offer any words. She still needed to see if he was future king or simple commoner. 

  "What made your king decide to make two capitals?" The prince asks.  "I have never quite heard of such a thing."

  "I suppose there is a lot that you do not know about my kingdom," she murmurs, "a human has not set foot in my kingdom in thousands of years, so I suppose things are quite different from the stories told."  Adara frowns, bringing her hand back into the carriage.  "But still, there are some things best left unsaid."

  "Hopefully we will be there in a days time," Adara sighs, leaning back, the dragon crawls back onto her shoulder and lies down.  "I fear your king will be displeased," Adara whispers.  Though the prince may be changing his mind on the agreement, the king would not.  Adara runs a hand over her neck, sure he would see that she was hung or simply beheaded.  She was glass scum, not a rich gold beauty.

  In their world, she was the dirt that others walked upon, so it does not matter if she is swept away or not.

  "Frankly, I do not care for my fathers agenda," the prince runs a hand down his face.  "I will not let him harm you, if that is your fear," he murmurs, "though you do not seem like the kind of woman to worry on frivolous things."

  "I praise myself on it," Adara smiles. 

  "As you should," the prince, Leonidas, smiles.  "My father is a man to fear," he murmurs, and Adara remembers the day they left the Keep, how his eye was swollen, from his fathers wrath.  "When this is all over, I fear it will not truly be."

  "What more could your father want?" Adara asks, "your king."

  "My king wants many things," The prince shrugs, reclining, his legs propped on the seat beside Adara.  Boxing her in.  "Some he gets and others he will never receive."

  "Like a child who follows him willingly?" Adara quips, and he smirks.

  "He had a child who followed him," the prince smiles, "but not anymore, not for a long time."  The prince gazes at Octavian, who was stretched in the floor, his feet sit on a small stool.  "He likely never will unless he finds himself a cheap whore."

  "Your Queen mother wishes to bare no more children?" Adara asks, frowning.  She thought faintly of the Queen Anevra.  It was no secret to either kingdom that the woman was unable to carry a child.  Many times she had been blessed with a babe only to lose it.  Maybe it was more a curse rather than a blessing.  She bit onto her lip.

  "My mother does as she wishes," The prince laughs, "my father treats her as the not only the Queen of his kingdom, but the goddess in his life."  Then prince rolls his eyes, tilting his head to see the sky, a hazy orange in the horizon.  "In a world of dark in my fathers life, my mother is the moon."

  "You must love them," Adara smiles.

  "As much as a son can," The prince says.  "They love each other more than they will ever love me or my sister alike."   He sighs, "what about your parents?" He asks.

  "What of them?" She asks quietly, "they are deader than the Might Conqueror King Larolin, end of story."

  "I meant their love," the prince says, "for you and for each other."

  Adara closes her eyes, and she was suddenly standing in the waist-high grasses in Juula.  Her mother beside her, pulling weeds.  Her father stood in front of her, laughing.  Laughing with her mother.  Laughing with her.  She swore she could see his eyes, and her mother's, before she opened her own.

  "They loved each other very much," Adara smiles, "they were so in love that they would break any and every law to be together," she says.  Her heart was heavy as she could imagine them now, eating pie, sitting on the steps of their home, her mother's head resting on her father's shoulder.  "I am not sure if they loved me."

  "Well I suppose not all of us are quite blessed by our god to have a happy family," the prince says.  The two glance out of the cart, the suns hazy appearance begins to rise in the sky.  It was a bright ball of reds and yellows.  It was beautiful.  The both of them thought so, but neither said a word of it. 

  A dull silence fills the carriage, only the creaking of wheels.  The bending of wood.  The panting of animals.  It was all that could be heard.

  Slowly, they all fell back to sleep.  The dragon curled on Adara's chest between her breasts.  The prince had an arm off of the bench, the other tucked on his side.  One leg bent, the other stretched out.  Octavian still laid in the floor.

  When Adara woke, she was flying.  She swore she could feel the sun kissing her lips as the wind caresses her hair.  Gentle and soft.  The clouds linger in her eyelashes, beautiful reminders of the calm before the storm.  The dreaded storm that would clip her wings and send her plummeting, hurling back to reality. 

  She jolts awake just as she hit the ground.

  The dragon stood on her stomach now.  Long, bat-like wings stretch into the air, double the size of him.  He waves his head back and forward, smoke dribbles out of his mouth as he seems to chuff.  Adara smiles, bringing a hand up, he pushes his cheek into it.  His jaw drops, his sharp needle teeth glisten in the light, those green eyes bore deep into her own.

  Adara freezes when the carriage comes to a slow stop.  She sits up, the dragon crawls onto her knee as she reaches a hand out to the prince, shaking his shoulder.  He flinches hard under her touch, his eyes snap open.  They do not even squint at the sunlight.

  "Madwave luda yun ingda madala," a thick, troll voice says from outside the cart. 

  The prince grabs Octavian's arm, luring him from sleep.  The trolls' accent was so thick that Adara was unsure as to what he said.  Octavian sits up, sitting next to the prince, eyes wide.  Octavian's hand reaches to his sword, but Adara shakes her head slowly, eyes shadowed.  Words of fright hidden behind them.

  Adara watches as a hand is pressed onto the fabric over the top of the cart.  They all seemed to hold their breaths.  She beckons them closer.

  "Lie down, gods, pretend to sleep," She whispers as she crawls into the floor.  The prince climbs down with her, wrapping an arm around her as the dragon clings to her chest.  Octavian stretches above them, squeezing his eyes closed.

  She can feel the prince's muscles tighten as the tarp is ripped in the back.  The latch undone and the back lowers.  Sunshine pours inside, spilling over them like a blanket. 

  "You must take your people back to where you came from," the voice orders, "or find a place to stay here in Ab'Du," the troll mumbles.  Adara can hear the Xaranthian accent on his tongue.  Most of them come from Xarenth to serve in Bal'Sol.

  "These people paid for passage to Bal'Sol, sir," the cart-driver says, a slight anger in his words.  "You must let us through," he protests. 

  "Our mighty Warchieftan has halted passage through Xarenth," the soldier troll grumbles.  "Some enter Bal'Sol, but none leave," the man says, gesturing to the hordes of tents set up and carriages sitting still, hundreds of people stranded.  "I understand you want in, but you must wait as other do, these are difficult times."

"We are at war?" The cart-driver troll asks, dread filling his core.  He was young and had never had the pleasure of ripening for bloodshed.  "My gods, what shame," he sighs, taking a step back from the soldier.  "When this blockade comes down, I would like to take my guests through, if you should allow for it."

  "Ab'Du is not that large, you will know, should it open," the guard nods, walking back to his post.  A large battle-axe in his arms.  It was made of wood and iron.  Ceremonial godsbeads decorate the weaponry.  He assumes his post and orders his men to keep watch.  No doubt they would be attacked soon enough should war head towards them.

  The cart is closed again with a bang.  The prince is the first to lift up, his eyes glimmer in the sun, wrath behind the beauty.  "What did they say?" The prince asks, anger laced his words, but Adara felt he would not hurt her.  Adara sits up, staring at the several makeshift huts lining the streets, in the streets, everywhere.

  "The word of war has spread and entry into Xarenth is no more," Adara whispers, wiping the stream of dripping sweat off of her nose.  "And nearly none allowed into Bal'Sol," Adara pushes her fingers into her forehead, rubbing in small circles, trying to ebb the pain away.  "We are royally screwed," she mutters.

  "God damnit," the prince tugs on the tufts of hair that sat prettily on his head.  "How are we going to get in, now?" He throws his leg out, kicking the stool and sending it hurling into one of the walls of the cart.  The dragon rears it's small head back, hissing, its wings stretch back as it bares it's shiny white teeth. 

  "When there is will, there is way," Adara smiles.  "I will get us into Bal'Sol, and I will get us into Xarenth, as I promised in the Keep before your Lord Father."

  "And how do you propose to do that?" Octavian raises a brow.

  Adara gazes down at her garbs, the blue nearly sun bleached, but a faint blue it was.  Her stomach was sunburnt, a faint tan, but her face was spotted with many freckles.  Small luck charms from her gods.  She had dirt on her legs and sand in her hair.

  "Do not fret," Adara murmurs, "That is for me to be concerned with, not you."

  The cart is turned around, slowly.  Adara thought she could feel each stone beneath the wheels.  They pull next to another carriage, not so close to the blockade of spears and spikes. 

  "My friends," the cart-driver smiles sadly as he opens the back of the vehicle, "it appears that today we will not make it to Bal'Sol."

  "It is alright good sir," Adara smiles.  Forcefully.  Painfully.  Mystically.

  "No need in calling me sir for I am no sir," the cart-driver smiles, holding a habd out to Adara and helping her from the cart.  "An inn down the ways is allowing free baths and sheets for the harsh night ahead, and I suggest that you all go."

  "Thank you," Adara murmurs, allowing him to hug her.  Her hands pressed gently on his chest.  His tusks in her hair.  "Hopefully we will make passage through tomorrow morning."  He whispers a quiet hopefully before climbing back into his carriage.  Closing it up.

  "Come," Adara waves a hand, slinging the bag onto her back, the dragon wrapped tightly around her calf.  His tail twisted around her ankle, his head focuses on where she is walking.  "There is room for a bath and linens for tonight, because it gets cold."

  Adara could remember when she was younger.  Her father would tell her how men were cast out and froze on their porches in less than five minutes in the Xaranthian cold at night.  She despised cold, but she knew the men could handle it.  They came from mountains in the north where it was born cold.  She was sure they were born naked and cast into the freeze to get used to it. 

  "I must send a crow to my father," The prince orders.  "He must know we are going to fall behind."

  Adara snatches his upper-arm, her own straining her own.  "If you want us all to die, you will send that bird," Adara hisses between clenched teeth.  "They will shoot it from the sky and are likely to do the same to us," Adara glares at him, lowering them back down and letting go of his arm.

  "You make a point," he grits his teeth and clenches his jaw.  His fist curls and uncurls.  She had angered him.  He was doing his best not to hit her, and it scared him.  She watches his face run white, as though someone slit his throat and let the blood drain from his veins. 

  Octavian sees.  He takes his arm.  Gently.  Leading him behind Adara.  Octavian could not begin to understand the prince, but they were as close as a knight and prince could be.  He had to try.  He had to be the prince's sword sometimes, and he did not mind. 

  They walk to a large wooden inn, beautiful stained glass of blues and reds and yellows were the windows.  Large sheets strung up over the stairs, held up with long wooden poles.  Adara walks slowly up the stairs, they creak beneath her toes as she pushes open the small door.

  Inside was filled with candle-light.  Hundreds mounted to the walls, on tables, next to chairs, on large metal chandeliers in the ceiling.  A band of goblins stood at the far end, surrounded by tables of people feasting, beating on their drums and chanting the gods' songs.  A small tank sat behind the innkeepers' counter, scorpions inside, crawling over each other, snapping at the glass.

  "You must be another sorry group fleeing to Bal'Sol," a hearty voice chimes from the other room.  Adara walks forward slowly, an orc boy stood before her, a smile on that lime green face, his braids covering his eyes.  "We have a woman's pot and men's pot, and several blankets, I am afraid the rooms are all taken."

  "Thank you," Adara smiles, patting him gently on the shoulder.  "You have done well over what you should."

  She glances at the prince and Leonidas as they walk back towards the mens' room.  The prince meets her eyes.  They were going somewhere they had not done before.  Letting, the Might King Oros, King of the Mountains of Sojarth, Peacetime Ruler, Orc-slayer, King of all Kings, down.  They had not yet gone past a point where they could not be forgiven.  They prayed to their gods that they did not.

  Adara walks gently to the womans' side, happy to find that none were around.  She closes the small curtain, the smaller tub sat in the floor filled half-way with ice-cold water.  Dipping a hand in, she savors it. 

  The dragon crawls off of her leg, scampering to the wall.  He climbs it, digging his claws gently into the wood as he hangs in the ceiling, his tail hanging down as his winds slowly extend.  He glides across the room onto a small table.

  Her bag is slung to the floor and she takes her clothes off one by one until she is bare.  She steps into the chilling waters, sending a shiver down her spine as she sinks deeper into it. 

  Nearly as soon as she sat, the water turned a murky brown.  She took a small loofah and scrubbed the muck from her legs, arms and face.  She used a small shampoo and conditioner and let her hair soak in it, staring out the window at the lowering sun.  It's bright drifting off the world. 

  I will regret what I am to do.  She thought it slowly.  She thought it painfully.  She had no other choice.  If she was going to keep the prince, Octavian, and her alive, she had no other choice.  She sinks under the water, holding her breath as she combs her fingers through her hair.  

  She climbs out, the water dripping off of her like the Goddess Ashanli.  Adara remembered when she was younger, her father would tell her the stories of his gods, the old gods.  He would sit with her in the tall grasses, on a bright cerulean blanket, his leather-bound book in front of him, filled with the words of the gods.  And he taught them all to her, every other day.  Until she was gone.

  "Ma'am," the innkeepers shadow is on the sheet between them.  "If you do not mind, I am here to change the water."

  "Of course," Adara murmurs, grabbing a cream colored towel.  She wraps herself in it as he opens the curtains. 

  He glances over at her, "I have never quite seen a woman with such red hair," he says.  She glances back towards him, smiling.  It was as fake as fake could be.  "I met a troll with dyed hair once, is yours dyed?"

  "No sir," she murmurs, "it is as red as my mother and her mother before me, or so I have heard."

  She watches him dump the water out of the window, pulling the glass back into place and locking it.  He sets the tub back before lifting a large bucket and dumping fresh water into the wooden tub.  He takes the pale back into his hands, staring at Adara for a moment before smiling and leaving.  Pulling the curtains closed.
 
  Adara sighs, rubbing her skin dry.  Like how she would do the floors in her Juula home.  Wash them down with soapy water and scrub them till they dried.  "Let us clean this mess," Adara remembers Octavian saying it as they took M'Agda's head off, cleaning the floors.

  She bit her lip as she stared at her clothes. 
She shook the sand out of them.  She slips her arms into the top, and he steps into the pants.  Adara took her dagger into her hand, pressing it gently to her lips as she gave it a gentle kiss, tucking it away in her bag.  She had nothing to protect her now.

  She was as the prince had intended now.

  Holding an arm out, the dragon glides from the wall to her hand.  He climbs up her body and wraps around her neck.  She brings a hand up, rubbing his tail with the fingertip on her pointer finger.  She pulls the curtain back and slings her bag onto her back.  Adara walks back into the main room, quietly. 
 
  "Adara," the prince's voice calls to yer.  She turns to the side to see the boys.  In their arms were stacks of sheets.  Water.  Timber-wood.  "We found a space nearby to set up camp, Octavian has begun setting a flame," The prince smiles a genuine smile.  He was pleased that they had one success.

  I will have us one more tonight.

  She follows him out the door.  She does not see how a shadow man in the corner watches her leave.  They walk slowly together, she takes the sheets from him, carrying them.  She smiles as she sees Octavian sitting by a small orange flame.  It reminded her of a phoenix rising from the ashes.

  "Wow," Octavian murmurs as Adara and the prince come closer.  "Your hair is quite long," Octavian smiles as Adara sets the sheets on her lap as she sits by the fire.  The dragon crawls from her neck and leaps into the flames, curling into a small ball as the waves of heat roll over him. 

  "Listen," The prince says as he sits down, taking a sheet and pulling it over his shoulders, wrapping himself in it as the rest of them do.  "I have been thinking about our fate," he murmurs.

  "And your decision?" Adara asks quietly, her hair falls over her shoulder and touches the grass beneath her.  His next words decide what she does tonight.  She will either go to sleep and wake rested, or she will do what she fears she must.

  "I have decided to be the man my father wishes I would be," the prince says, "I am the prince of gold after all, it is about damn time I act like it."  He gazes into the fire.  He looked as he did when he took her from Juula.  Determined.  She feared she would not get much sleep tonight.

  "We will find a way into Bal'Sol and we will make it to Xarenth and we will kill your king," the prince smiles.  It was the first time he seemed truly happy with a choice.  She closes her eyes gently, she could remember being stuck in the tree with him.  How he protected her.  Cared for her.  That man was going to disappear if he followed his father.

  She knew it.  She felt it in her stomach.

  "What have you named that beast?" The prince smiles, raising a brow as he stares at the dragon.  Adara smiles back.

  "Exriam," she murmurs, "after one of the bravest people I have ever come to know."  She lies gently on the ground, her face far away from the fire, closing her eyes.  Her back warmed by the gentle hands of the flame. 

  She laid there for what felt like hours, until she was sure they slept.  The men had huddled close to one another for warmth, but Adara knew she could not as goosebumps rose on her arms.  Standing slowly, Exriam peeks an eye open, staring at her.  She would be back, he knew it.  He closes his eyes.

  Adara walks slowly through the town, everyone asleep.  She passes carts and tents alike until she comes to the barricade.  The troll from before, who stopped them, leans against the walls, eyes closed.

  "Hello sir," Adara murmurs as she takes a gentle step forward in the dark, a small candle sat on a table.  She could clearly see the mans' face. 

  "If you want through the gate, it will not open, not even for you," he grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. 

  Adara frowns, taking smaller steps towards him.  An invisible hand wraps around her throat as she walks to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.  She finds her voice that abandoned her, "not even for me?" She asks quietly, staring up at him.  "Why not?" She smiles.

  The man grabs her shirt and lifts it off of her body.  Her hair falls over her shoulders, blocking his view.  She raises a brow at him as he had suddenly gone silent.  She bit her lip.  They had to get to Bal'Sol.  It is for the best, she thought as the man grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into the dark.  She would not be getting much sleep tonight.