Word Count: 2229

The panic is unbearable.

Crawling on my hands and knees, my body is so numb I hardly notice the painful jabs of sharp rocks against my limbs, my clothing dampening as I fall against Tai's body. His limbs are weighted as I shake him, grabbing a hold of his face with both my hands to try catch a glimpse of the life he had only moments ago.

The clatter of Marek's weapons close by make me flinch, as he approaches, grabbing at Tai with the same intensity as I do. The King's usually immaculate skin is marred with dirt and grime, a sight that doesn't belong to him.

"No...No, you idiot," Marek curses frantically.

Looking up at him, I see pure, unfiltered fear spill into his usually impassive eyes as he looks over Tai, seeing the limpness, the increasing coldness. I'm unsure of whether he distraught over Tai's apparent death, or the reality that his one chance to remove his powers is gone.

"No!" I can't tell if I'm screaming, the heat of my tears leaving a burning trail down my cheeks, tasting salty on my lips. "Tai, please no...don't tell me he's dead."

The pain is so raw, so real it hurts. There is no blood, no wounds, just a perfectly still, untouched body. He shouldn't be dead, not when I spoke to him only moments ago. My mind seems suspended outside my body, looking down upon this appalling sight. The way Tai's dark curls bend so perfectly from being damp, scattered across his forehead in a haphazard fashion makes my heart ache, my throat hurting as I try not to allow my tears to best me, although it's an unreasonable attempt.

"Akara..." Marek murmurs, voice broken and weak. He pulls himself to his feet, stalking around Tai's body to bend down next to me, resting a comforting hand on my shoulder. The warmth does nothing to quell the chills, they icy pain streaking beneath my skin.

Looking up at him, I can hardly decipher his features through the blur of tears in my eyes. "I was ready to die...It was my Tani, I should have died."

"We need to get out of here," he breathes, trying to grab my hand to pull me up, but I'm so weak and distraught I don't follow suit. "We need to alert his guards so they can come collect his body."

No. That's accepting he's gone.

Ignoring Marek's persistent hands, I run my own across Tai, feeling for something, anything like a sign of life. His skin is turning cold, as I pull the sleeves of his tunic up, trying to search for a pulse. Strangely, the silver band he had only recently fixed after his father destroyed it is broken again, cracked right through to the point it's barely clinging to his skin. I tug it off, wincing as it lightly burns the surface of my skin.

Both Marek and I exchange wary glances. Regardless, I check for a pulse, to find nothing. Leaning forward, I let the curls that have come loose from their ties to fall against his face as I align my ear with his mouth. The more I search, the harder my heart plummets in my chest, unable to comprehend what is happening.

Until I feel it. The slightest exhale, and then the pull of an inhale.

"No Marek. He's still breathing, I can feel it," I exclaim, pulling back. I'm not sure what I should do, where I should touch.

"He doesn't have power, right?" Marek questions again, even though he knows Tai does no possess magic. He kneels down beside me, pulling the same move as I did to the same results. He sits up, staring at me with wild eyes. "That it should have killed him."

"No, he's not dead. We need to help him."

Jumping up, we attempt to pull Tai's lip body into a sitting position, Marek bearing most of his weight. With Tai's tall, yet slender built, it's awkward trying to get him into a semblance of a standing position, draping his arms over our shoulders. Thankfully he isn't heavy, although his feet dragging along the ground, getting caught around rocks as he walk isn't helpful.

"We need to get him somewhere warm and dry...." Marek manages in a strained voice, taking most of Tai's weight on his shoulders. We could drag him from this cave and call for support, but that could take a day to arrive, and there no telling how much longer Tai has left.

Finally, we take another path up and out of the cave, emerging out into darkness. We collapse onto the grass, laying Tai down beneath a tall tree.

Looking around, I get a strange sense of familiarity...I've been here before.

Trees grow upward through the forest; from down here looking as though they could touch the crescent shaped moon. A thin, foot-worn path weaves beneath the canopy, heading toward what sounds like a river. Narrowing my eyes, it dawns on me...I knew we were close, but I didn't anticipate ending up here.

"I know this area," I tell an exhausted, battered Marek. "It's right by my village."

Excitement, relief glitters in his eyes for only a moment, before it's replaced with a dull realisation. "Are you okay to go back?"

Breathing out deeply, my hands finds my chest, my necklace since been discarded, leaving nothing but a bare, aching space. I haven't fully confronted my feelings about my mother, not wanting to dwell on what I cannot change. Now, I will have to face her, and hope that the kindness I know she is capable of is still there, and she will help Tai.

"I have no other choice," I tell him firmly, stepping through the long, dewy grass to clasp Tai's arm. Tai will be the buffer between my mother and I, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

Right now, he is most important.

***

By the time Marek and I pull Tai's unconscious body into my village, the sun is starting to rise.

Nothing has changed here, since those months ago, when I left. I shove down those feelings of pain that accompany the nostalgia, gritting my teeth instead to concentrate on the force needed to carry Tai. His shoes scrape along the rough cobblestones, now few and far between from bad weather and poorer maintenance. Soon, they will all wake and gather here to participate in the morning pray

My throat burns. That used to be the biggest part of my life. Now it's gone...The Beast is dead.

Marek almost collapses onto his knees as we struggle up the short steps and onto my families front porch. I'm not far off, my body waving with exhaustion, head still aching from Tai pushed me away, sending my head into a nearby rock.

It takes all of my last energy to pull my arm back to knock on the door.

My mother opens the door.

She looks first at me, drenched in hunting attire that swallows my figure, making me look younger, despite the darkness of the fabric. Then she looks at Marek, whose face is littered with dry blood, dirt and sweat. He too wears his hunting clothing, hood pulled up over his head, the marking of a Summoner so painfully prominent, I know my mother's attention finds that first. Then, Tai, in our arms, head hanging down limply. He's almost completely untouched.

"We need your help," I gasp out, voice hoarse from the brittle air, having not spoken since we left the cave out of fear I would collapse.

The shock, confusion and disgust bleeds together on my mothers face. "Akara...What's going on?"

"This is King Tai. He is a very powerful, influential King who desperately needs your help. He's dying," I tell her. She knows who he is...she met him, but I had to remind her. Here, he doesn't look like a King, without his sumptuous attire and lavish rings.

"I'm not opening my doors to any of you," she claims, clutching the door as she takes a shuddering step backward.

"Please, you don't understand. Tai will die if we don't get him help, which will mean serious trouble for you," I tell her firmly, trying to fight off the tears that threaten to rise with her presence. Now is not the time to mourn my past relationship with her. Now is the time to save the King's life, or risk all of our heads...and my heart.

"Miranda. Let him in."

The blood in my body instantly warms at the sound of that familiar voice. From behind my mother, my father appears, looking exactly how I remember him. Like me, he has the light hair, which on him, is far too long now. I got most of my features from him, a Golden Province born, and it's evident in our slender face shape, our thin noses and full mouths.

Father doesn't need to take much more than a glance at Tai to realise action needs to occur quickly. "He needs medical attention right now. You, just down that street to the left, there is a right turn. The second house of the right with the yellow door is the medic. I imagine they can't do much, but we need anything right now."

Marek, understanding how important this order is, nods, letting my father take his place in balancing Tai. The hunter casts me one last glance, to ensure I will be fine, before running off as per my father's instruction.

"Thank you, Dad," I manage, as we pull Tai inside, not stopping until we lay him in my old bed.

The moment I stand up straight, I feel the full force of exhaustion upon me. Marek and I just carried Tai for miles through dense bush, although it's not the physical pain that bears it's on me, but the emotional. I witnessed him die...or whatever it was that occurred. Now there may be a chance that he will survive.

Father reads me expression, pulling a chair from the corner of the room, letting me collapse upon it.

"Are you going to explain how you and King Taius came to be in my home?" he questions, folding his arms over his chest. Looking behind him, I note my mother is nowhere to be seen.

Sighing, I look at Tai, unsure of where to start, on what to say. So much has changed since the day I left. How can I explain Marek, even? My father is more understanding than my mother, and would accept me, regardless of the decision I make, yet it's hard to justify to him my relationship with these two men, killing the Beast and coming back here. The words are too hard to find.

"It's a long story. I think we should make sure Tai survives first," I note. Father must have heard about him from the war, which I get the impression Tai has men involved in, even if he hasn't shared it with me himself.

Staring at his peaceful body, the way his hair pools down over his eyes, lips slightly parted, I wonder what else he hides from me, since it's not often he indulges me with his past history, or current political standings.

I examine my father's solemn expression as he talks. "You killed the Beast, didn't you."

"We had to. Too many people have died," I say. To him, none of my words should make sense...here, it's impossible to find and share information about the Beast that isn't positive. Being that he isn't as avid as a believer as my mother, and a foreigner, I doubt he knows much at all.

"I always knew you were smart, and so did your mother. I suppose that's why she was so nervous about sending you away, to complete your preaching," he tells me calmly.

Well, perhaps being that he is a foreigner, he has heard all the rumours, since he doesn't seem bothered by the revelation. Does my mother know, though? There's no way she knows and hasn't spoken to others in the village, or have at least tried to avoid it.

"You could say I've been enlightened," I murmur. Don't tell him about the cave, not yet.

We both look back at Tai at the same time. It's clear he wants to ask more, especially about the elusive Summoner who appeared at the door with us, but he has the mind to keep it to himself, knowing I'm exhausted. Right now, all I want to do is shower this off of me, and sit by Tai until we understand a way to save him.

My father sits on the bed beside Tai, facing me. "Now tell me, how did you come to meet a King?"

🤍••🤍

If you guys want to read ahead, you can read more of KING'S POSSESSION on Radish! It's chapters ahead of Wattpad (:

🥥••🥥

I'm officially rewriting Alpha Jasper's story now on Radish! It will be following the same storyline with the same characters, but with revised scenes and some new ones!

I love Jasper's story so much that I wanted to go back and rewrite it. I hope you guys will enjoy it, you can find it now on Radish (:

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~Midika 💜🐼