| Chapter Ten | Rage of Kings |

Warmth. That was all that she could feel from beneath the duvet. That and the warm body curled beside her. As much as she wished to remain in her bed, she knew it would be frowned upon greatly. She draws back the sheets, the cold creeping into her blood.

"My lady, it is rising time," a knock sounds on her chamber door. Her servant girl, Sarella. Before Aehlsy could get out a word, the door was unlocked and pushed open, Sarella and one of her mothers servants comes inside.

"We must get you bathed and dressed, my lady," the young Sarella curtsies, she had to be younger than even Aehlsy who was a simple age of sixteen. The older woman who held a pointed nose and chin, hair pulled back into a tight braided bun decorated with black ribbons, bowed slightly. She never uttered a word. Not even to her mother.

They say that she had her tongue cut out by the glass infantry when she was a child.

"Yes madame," Aehlsy smiles, leading the two into her washroom.

Princess Aehlsy sits gently on a stool as Sarella brushes out her hair and begins pinning it up. As her maid got to work, the nameless began to draw a bath, heating water and pouring it into the basin. She grimaces as her hair is pulled tightly, catching tangles.

Her long hair sectioned into upper and lower portions. The top was braided with golden ribbons, twisted into a intricate bun. The bottom was rolled into tighter curlers. Aehlsy would rather throw her hair into a simple ponytail, but her mother would have a fit.

She felt her mood sour as she thought of her mother. In the last weeks her mother's health had been deteriorating. The royal nurse told her father that her mother had come ill with a bad heart. Bed rest and tea was what she recommended. The maids were the ones to deliver meals and drinks, but Aehlsy had since taken the responsibility so she could see her mother.

The day that Leonidas had ridden off, her mother locked herself away in her room.

She had not eaten in three days time before her father went inside and force-fed her. Aehlsy was not sure how he managed. She could not even look at her mother without getting sick herself. Oros was a kind husband, but she had heard him curse her mother to hells below.

"My lady," Sarella takes her hand and lifts her to her feet. She unbuttons the princess' nightgown, letting it fall off her shoulders and into the floor at her feet. Aehlsy glances down before stepping gently into the tub. She allows herself to submerge into the scalding water, careful not to let her hair touch.

Aehlsy did not want her brother to go to the glasslands. Not because she was afraid for his safety, but for his own good. He was a troubled man. She remembered what Adara Nightsong had said about him killing an entire village, how horrible it was. Aehlsy was the only one to know that it was not the first time he commit a heinous act. An act that her father would have executed another man for.

She found herself chewing the inside of her lip as the maids began to scrub her back. Her arms. Her legs. Her stomach. They scrubbed her skin until it was pink and raw. Tender to the touch.

A year prior to her fifteenth date of birth, she found her brother in a local tavern after she ran away from her teacher. He was drunk. Unbelievably drunk for a young boy. He could barely stand as he picked fights with the grown men. She watched a man attack him, and she had to intervene.

The memory made her shiver as the water around her grew colder.

"My dear, let us get you dried off," Sarella smiles, her right cheek dimples.  She assists her out of the chilling water, rinsing the suds from her body.  When Aehlsy was younger, she adored the fact that she had children and women doing all of the tedious things for her without her asking.  Now she thought it annoying in the least.

Aehlsy held her tongue as she is dried with a soft sheep woolen towel. Her brother was a prince, and he was harsh in the public eye, but he was just a man who wanted more than a royal life. When father told him it was indecent to be drunk, he drank so much we had to call the royal doctor.

When he was told we would never win this war, he said he would be the one to win it.

Aehlsy wished more than anything to be with her brother. She was the one to keep him centered. She thought though that she might be the one missing him more than he missed her. He kept life interesting. Now it is a dull shade of greys and blacks.

  Sarella brings forth a white gown, floor-length, silk. On the cuffs were golden flowers twisting up the sleeves like vines. On the waist were more. On the neckline were more. On the bottom was more.

She allows her to pull the dress delicately over her hair. The strings around the top are pulled tightly like a corset. They go so tight that she feared she might not be able to breathe. The skirts bunched out after her waist was pinched so tight.

Aehlsy looked like a porcelain doll, ridiculous and jester-like.

The nameless woman stoops down and slips golden heels onto her petite feet. Sometimes Aehlsy forgot she was supposed to be a lady, a woman. She felt like a child, but she did not look like one. She never did.

Her life was about looking the best. Acting the best. Speaking the best. Doing the best. She only had time to be herself in the privacy of her chambers.

"You look beautiful," Sarella smiles, painting a golden shimmer on her eyelids. "You are your mothers daughter, fit to be a queen," she praises. The words stick to her ears like the flesh on a corpse. A queen. Aehlsy was repulsed at the thought of ever being a queen, married to a king, ruling the lands.

"Thank you madams," Princess Aehlsy smiles, watching the women curtsy. "If you would, please, tell my lord father that I will join him for breakfast after I tend to my mothers side," She murmurs as she steps back into her bedroom.

"Of course, m'lady," Sarella smiles, they curtsy again. They leave as briskly as they had came. That left her alone. But not entirely. A loud hiss sounds from behind her, loud and threatening.

Aehlsy turns around, a her face aches with a deep smile as she turns around. On top of her dresser, close to the ceiling, Lupios perched on the side. He was a saber, many times larger than an average cat. He came up above her waist, tall and threatening.

He leaps off of the top and onto her bed, tilting his curious head at her. What are you waiting for? He seemed to be asking her. She walks gently to him, her heels echo off of the walls, the simple click clack.

She sits gently on the bed, running her bare hand through the coal grey fur, lighter splotches of an eggshell color flecked on his stomach and face. His paws as large as her hands, colored black.

Aehlsy takes his head into her hands, his slitted red eyes gaze at her lazily. She rubs circles around his cheeks. A gravelly purr rumbles out of his chest. His large teeth poke out from his lips, almost like a grin. He was beautiful, but dangerous.

She smiles at that. Her lord father could give her a thousand men to protect her, but when it came down to it, nobody could protect her better than Lupios and herself. She wanted to believe that she was also beautiful and dangerous.

"Come on my love," Aehlsy smiles as she stands, watching him stretch to his feet. "Let us go see mother and get some meat in you," She grins as she flings her door open and runs down the hallway, listening to his heavy paws hit the floor behind her.

She jumps onto the staircase, grabbing up her skirts and sprinting down the stairs. Lupios leaps down the stairs, skipping steps behind her. As she hit the floor, she takes off to the royal doctors room, her mother had since been relocated due to the rate of her deterioration.

She nearly runs into the cart holding her mother's tea. Aehlsy takes it into her hands, snatching up a cup and pushing the door open, her chest heaving. Lupios darts into the room, jumping up and pushing his paws into her shoulders, knocking her against the wall.

"You got me," Aehlsy smiles before turning herself to her mother who had barely stirred.

"Good morning, my queen," Aehlsy smiles, curtsying. She watches Lupios bend down on his front legs, tilting his head to the ground. "I brought your morning tea," she murmurs as she takes a bedtable and sets it over her mother, pouring a small bit of herbal tea into the cup.

Her mother never says a word.

Aehlsy and Lupios leave the room, closing the door and listening to the knob lock in place. They walk slowly down the hall, listening to the sound of the teacup being shattered against a wall. She bites her tongue, letting her hand rest on Lupios, stroking his head as she wished her mother would do to her.

"Open the doors, please," Aehlsy glances at the guards at the main doors. Cassidy. Her heart flutters in her chest as those bright grey eyes, the color of bark on holly trees in the winter snow. The sky on a stormy day was bottled inside his eyes. It makes her heart melt into a puddle at her feet.

"Of course, my lady," Cassidy and the other older man bows, opening the barred doors.  She would never be allowed to be with him, let alone speak to him.  When they were younger her father had him beat with a switch for kissing her on the cheek.  She thought she might love him, but her mother swore to her it was a simple crush. She could not help but like him, he was attractive and smarter than a normal guard.

He was also her private swordsman.

They spent a lot of time together when they were younger, but since her father anointed him as a royal protector, they spend more time together. He is constantly by her side. Both in the public and private eye. In the privacy of her chambers, they read together. In the openness of the markets, they shop together. To her, he does more than protect her.

  "Come, Lupios," She smiles, glancing again at Cassidy.  "Cassidy, would you mind escorting me to the prince's abode?" She grins at him, watching him glance at the other guard who stood emotionless. 

  "Of course, my lady," he places a hand on his stomach, giving a curt bow before walking towards her.  "Close the doors," he shouts, watching the large prison-like doors close. 

  They walk in silence, Lupios between Cassidy and the princess. 

  "I do not know how anyone would fathom living here, in the Keep," Aehlsy murmurs, walking down a gravely road past several of the huts that men of the Keep sleep inside.  "The whole place is creepy apart from our rooms."

  A silence fills the space between them. 

  "You know it is alright to speak to me," Aehlsy whispers, walking into the grass.  She lifts her skirts up as they walk past the stables full of snow white horses.  "You never have to ask to speak, and nothing you say will slip through my lips to another."

  "Princess-" he begins, but she cuts him off.

  "Aehlsy is my name," she rolls her eyes.  Her patience, she thought, was running thin. "My name is Aehlsy, not princess, and not lady, simply Aehlsy."

  "Aehlsy, you cannot continue to give myself special treatment," Cassidy frowns, standing a foot taller than her.  He was only a year her senior, yet she felt there was a millennium between them.  "I would not assume that my king would approve?" He frowns.

  The princess laughs.  A mocking laugh, but tears brim her eyes painfully.  Rather than look at Cassidy, she looks out across the field where a few does graze. 

  "Special treatment is what you call it, but I call it being a friend," she frowns, blinking the teats from her eyes.  "I also do not care for what my king would say, he has nothing to do with my friendships, he barely has anything to do with my life."

  "I am sorry," Cassidy murmurs gently, closer now.  His fingertips of his golden armor touch her own.  She bites her tongue as she slips her hand into his.  Lupios pushes his head up, bumping their hands.

  "Do not apologize to me, I know you are in an awkward position," she sighs.  A guard was loved by a princess.  She thought it would be fine to marry him one day.  She wanted it more than anything.  She was not sure she loved her parents as much as she loved him.

  "I can make it a little less awkward?" He asks quietly, pulling her gently behind a wall of blueberry bushes.  She smiles at him as he plucks a berry and takes it into his mouth.  "It is a secretive life you do not deserve," he murmurs.  She cuts him off with a brief kiss on his sweet tasting lips.

  "If I was normal, we could be together all of the time," Aehlsy whispers, dragging herself away from him.  "One day, maybe we could be more?" She frowns, but she knows the answer.  He doesn't have to say it, because they both knew the god forsaken answer.

Spare the sadness, move into pridefulness.

They walk swiftly through a forested area. A tall house stood before them. It had foggy windows, covered by murky brown, thick curtains. The outside was covered in ivy and moss. The outside looked horrid, but the inside was beautiful in its own way, so her prince brother said.

Next to the front door was a large keg filled with deer flesh. She could smell it from where she stood. It smelt of blood and raw meat. Her first instinct was to gag, but she fought through it. She watches Cassidy wrinkle his nose in an odd way, but she pretends she did not see it.

  Aehlsy lifts the lid off of the barrel.  She usually had a servant do this, but she was informed that it was getting more difficult.  Dipping her hand into the bucket she fishes out a large piece and flings it onto the ground.  Lupios runs to it, his eyes wild as he digs into it.

  Lupios glances around dangerously, as though they were being watched.  Aehlsy brushes it off.  There were plenty of people and animals around the Keep's walls.  She walks a few steps her hand touches the doorknob that seemed a few palm sizes too big. She turns it quickly and jumps back, a large beast rushes forward. It was giant. It was beautiful.

Nacajii. A large wolf, monstrously large. She is taller than her own height. Nacajii and Lupios were gifts from an ancient man from the kingdom of glass, said to be one of the previous kings. They were peacemakers. It was said they slumbered for thousands of years until the true peacemakers were born, then they woke to guide.

"Come here, lovely," Aehlsy reaches into the bucket and digs out larger portions, holding them up to her when the best growls. She snaps at the princess' hand. Aehlsy takes a step back, dropping the mean, eyes wide. Nacajii was peaceful and kind. She would never attack her, not her or anyone else.

Aehlsy listens to a faint crack behind her, quiet enough to ignore. She does not. Nacajii leaps into the woods where the sound originated, snarling and growling. There was a muffled groan before silence. The large white creature returned, fur as red as her eyes. In her mouth was a body. A body unlike one Aehlsy had ever seen.

It was green. Blood covered it, but she could tell it was green. Green like the trees around them. Large tusks poke from the creatures skin, twisted and covered in blood. On the thing, was drawings and colors unlike any she had seen before. Nacajii throws it down and tilts her heavy head back, ears flattens. She screams a howl that seemed to shake the ground beneath her feet.

Aehlsy looks up to see another green creature moving in the woods, beady crow eyes staring at her. A hand grabs her own: Cassidy. He pulls her towards him as an arrow flies through the air, striking a tree, a black liquid dripping off of it. She did not have time to look before he drug her away, running as fast as they could.

Her skirts get caught on everything possible, but they run fast. They ignore the creatures around them as they run. She nearly fell, but he caught her and pulled her along. Lupios follows close behind, staying on her heels.

The only way that creatures could have made it inside, is if they killed the guards at the outer walls. Another arrow flies, bouncing off of Cassidy's armor, his teeth grit tight. He removes his helmet and shoves it onto her own, urging her to run faster in front of him, a hand on her back as his other hand reaches for a sword.

"Open the gate!" Cassidy shouts, a guard was leaning against the wall lazily.

Aehlsy gasps as a large wooden axe is hurled into a tree where she stood. It was larger than her torso, and it splintered the tree to bits. She bites her tongue as they run, breaking into a field next to the castle.

"Open the gate!" Aehlsy orders, and the mans' eyes snap open, glancing at them curiously. The man on top of the castle, armed with a simple bow gazes down, bow raised and an arrow nocked in place. She could not do anything but scream as an arrow soars above, piercing through his arm.

The force sends him tumbling over the railing, plummeting to the ground. He lands on his left side, his head smacks into the ground with a loud crack. She watches as the skin around the arrow turns a deep black, spreading in skinny spider-like webs across his skin.

Cassidy takes her arm hastily, gently, pulling her forewords. He shoves her inside, fast enough for her to miss the guard savagely ripped apart.

"Upstairs, go" Cassidy shouts, pushing her lower back to the stairs. "You, man," Cassidy grabs a servant boy, "sound the alarm, we are under attack." The boy, eyes wide, bolts behind them into the servants quarters. "Go, Aehlsy, now," he shouts above the loud pounding of fists and weapons on the large doors.

She runs up the stairs, Lupios beside her, his ears flattened. Her skirts trip her and she hits the floor, crawling up the stairs, gripping the wood with her nails as she forces herself up. As she hits the top, several crowds of maids and servants rush down the stairs, towards death. Sarella spots her.

"My lady," she shouts when a loud boom shakes the walls.

Aehlsy spins around, loud screams and light fills the room at the base of the stairs. Her eyes widen as people barge back upstairs. A larger man, the royal doctor, smacks into Aehlsy. She is knocked to the floor, feet smack into her, on top of her, pushing her down.

She could not cry out. It felt like a vortex, all of the air sucked out of her lungs.

"Swazi kasha, anda nado, owaka ra a Juula," a loud, foreign voice croaks out. Sarella grabs her arms and drags her away from the trampling crowd. As she stood, a maid reached the top step, arms reaching out for her, to be pulled from safety. Then in the blink of her eye, a large glistening axe was speared through her stomach.

The weapon is yanked free from her and her body is shoved down, blood spraying across the walls and Aehlsy. Her white dress was covered in a glistening crimson. She gazes at the large creature in front of her.  Justice will be served for what my brother did.  She backs away slowly.

  She wished more than anything to speak to them.  To understand them as she understood Adara.  To beg for forgiveness.  To beg forgiveness for her brothers sins.  She did not have time for that. 

  Sarella' screams fill the air as she pulls Aehlsy.

  They run down the hall, reaching her chambers.  Sarella pulls the door open and shoves the princess inside.  Aehlsy watches as a spear laced in black goo pierces through her chest.  She screams as the girl stumbles forewords. 

  Aehlsy lets her hit the floor, pushing the door closed with Lupios inside, locking it.  She drops to her knees, pulling Sarella to her side, grasping the spear tightly.  The wood in her hands was cold, freezing.  Lifting it out of the girl, she notices no cries, no tears, no movements. 

  She was already dead, and there was nothing that she could do.  Her ill mother could be dead lying in a bed of her own blood.  Her father could have been cut down where he stood, his armor doing nothing to protect him.  Cassidy.  Her heart aches as she sobs, constricting and not letting loose.

She would lose it all without her parents, but without Cassidy. She was not sure she could bare a life without him. Her eyes drift back to Sarella. Her sobs choked her, filling the air around her. There was a loud bang on the door. She jumps violently.

  "Go away!" She cries, running a hand through Sarella's hair.  She had the bad habit of watching those she loved dying in front of her.  Grabbing Sarella's arms, she drags her back into her closet.  Closing the small door, she listens to her bedroom door crack as they assault it.

  "If they want to kill our men, we will kill their men and women," a gruff voice slithers to her ears.  Aehlsy's back stiffens as she grips Sarella's wrist, her other hand fumbling in her robes.  Lupios was perched beside her, body low to the ground, blood covered his neck.  She prayed it was not his. 

  Her hand slips around a small signet ring.  She fits
it over her slender finger and feels along the wall until she finds a small metal covering.  Pushing her hand into it, she listens to the people ransack her room.  A small click sounds as the lock turns.  She holds her breath until she thinks she might faint.  Pushing the door open she shuffles onto her hands and knees. 

  Just when she goes to grab Sarella, the closet opens and Lupios hits the door hard, closing it with a click of the lock. Aehlsy can't help but scream, banging her fist on the door. Sarella was there when she could not tell her mother of a crush. She listened to her qualms and sorrows, unlike her mother who so wrongfully despised her.

"Don't you dare touch her!" She screams, hitting the door with her hands until she can no longer feel them, slick with blood. "By my god I will make all of you pay," she hisses.

She crawls out of the small tunnel, her heart heavy and her chest heaving.

"Why would you do that?" Her shoulders shake as she forcefully smiles at Lupios. "Why?" She grimaces as she takes a step back when a loud boom sounds. "Why?"

Turning around she grabs a small roll of paper, a quill in her other. Tears trickle down her cheeks as she scribbles a few writings before turning towards a large cage in the corner of the room. Her personal ravens. She took one gently and tied the scroll gently to his leg.

"Take it to my prince, Leonidas, as fast as you can," she watches a drop of blood fall onto the paper. It was not her own.  Her eyes sting as she opens a barred window, letting the bird gracefully soar through the air above the bloodshed below.  She does not dare look.

  She gasps as the door creaks, the assault on the other side more than it can take.  She was in her safe room, only she knew it would not be safe for long.  No room was impenetrable.  She knew it.  They would know it too.  She would be ready for when they came.  She knew it.