Chapter Four - Reasons

A dreaded feast to honor the Pirate Queen turns into a Nightmare for her and the Foncian Prince.

Chapter 4
Reasons.

    That night there was much dancing and singing, for the bards had convened in the Main Hall. There was small room, mostly because the bards preferred to be snug and close. Reine for one’ hated it and she could feel herself become slightly claustrophobic as one drunk man put his arm around her and, with a slurred voice, tried to impress her. She could see Tyria through the shifting crowd, standing to the side by herself. Caleb was enjoying the party as much as everyone else was. Based by the heavy flushed look and the way he could not stand in fear of falling flat on his face, he was beyond drunk.

    When invited to dine with Didacus Reine had expected something more formal. She had forgotten exactly what Bards thought of business. They procrastinated horribly at meetings that should be serious.

Reine did not hate them for it, it was their job to spread joy and teach but she had expected them to be aware of the dying earth, and the failure of the human heart. She knew it was not possible for them to look at anything with apparent fear, but she was not here to get drunk she was here for help and advice.

    Didacus saw the discomfort in her face and patted her hand gently. His robes were white, hiding his body from view of the crowd. She could feel his hand shake as it patted her own, and with concern in her face Reine looked up. He could feel her golden eyes scrutinize him and became slightly nervous as he looked into the eyes of something other than Reine, the orphan he had raised. Didacus reminded himself that he knew the rumors, must not let them get to his head, but he could not help but wonder. It was human error to be too curious sometimes, but the line between too much and not enough was so small that one could not simply say what was right and wrong.

    “You don’t look well,” Reine said with a glassy feel to her voice as it slid over him, comforting him and easing the burning of his skin.

    “I am not as young as I once was.” Didacus forced a smile on his lips; a smile that he felt was adequate enough for Reine. Reine saw past the falseness, a hurt look passing over her face.

“Are you going to die too?” asked something other than Reine, but it not was his child that asked it.

    The question stunned him and he ravaged his brain for an answer. Here was the little girl child that he had bounced on his knee, but there was something beneath the dimness in her eyes. He could see there was a gap between her minds, the mind of a child that never grew up and the mind of a young woman who knew so much but couldn’t remember it all. Like a father, Didacus would have done anything to keep the child alive and help her flower into a beautiful young woman, and he would have done anything now to change the past. There was nothing he could do however, except try to explain to Reine what he had seen, what he now saw.

    “Yes. Yes child, because we all die.”

    “Not all of us,” said the woman inside Reine.

    “Yes, all of us will someday disappear into the nothingness.”

    “The nothingness isn’t the same as death. When you saw me, in your vision long ago, did you see me die?”

    Didacus reached up with the hand that had patted hers as if to stroke her cheek, but he found himself locked in her gaze, a gaze that even blind he could feel. She wouldn’t let him near, not again. He could feel that what he had once done to save her, had destroyed the love she had once felt for him. His old, wrinkled, shaking hand dropped to the table.

    Reine didn’t even bother to ask how he knew where her cheek was.

    “Yes I did, I saw you in here, dying with the rest of us. It was a horrible death, a wasting sleep. Reine, child, I couldn’t let you stay here.”

    “I know that.” There was no forgiveness in her voice, and Didacus desperately searched his mind for something to say, something to bring emotion to her words of stone. “But I don’t understand it.”

    Her eyes looked once again into the crowds, and Didacus felt himself sigh in relief as the tension between them shifted to somewhere else. He didn’t have to see her as she was now, he could see her as he had seen her in dreams. The tension still existed, but it no longer weighed so heavily on his chest, crushing him.

    He wanted to comfort her, for it was obvious that she was uncomfortable. Perhaps uncomfortable was not even a good enough word to describe it. Her movements were slow as if the world were against her, which he did not believe it was. Once, as a child, when she had fallen from the weeping willow in the Inner Garden she had come to him in a similar state. Then, however, Reine had been willing to talk to him.

    This conversation had lacked in love, though there was respect. There was so much respect, but other than respect there was no way Didacus could tell what she thought. He doubted her face, which he could not see with blind eyes, gave anything else away.

    There were no words that could heal the tear in her soul where her love for these people once had been. Now she stared into the crowd, recognizing faces here and there. Smiles were directed at each other among people, but there were only stares for her. It would have been different if she had stayed, but she also knew that she wouldn’t have lasted long. She wouldn’t have run away with Matt, she wouldn’t have been able to. Instead Reine would have died here, nothing but an old woman in a world that did not care. Now she had a purpose, but she did not know if her purpose was the right reason or not.

    Her hand snaked out to grab the goblet at her right. The cup found her lips, the cold metal shocking her thin mouth as the wine poured over her tongue. Usually she was not one to drink; usually she was smarter than that. Tonight was not a usual night.

    Within one cup of wine she could feel the buzz in the back of her mind, a lightheadedness that led her to drink more. After four cups she could feel her stomach teeter back and forth as she swayed with the music filling the air. Finally, after the tenth cup of wine, she fell forward onto her face, unconscious… or sleeping, whatever you chose to call her position.


    Caleb smothered a laugh, and though he wanted to poke her he let her sleep. Perhaps he could get in her good graces by making her a hang over remedy tomorrow, or he could always torture her with loud noises and cheerfulness. Both thoughts were extremely tempting.

    “She isn’t as old and scary as she seems, is she?”

    Caleb was startled out of his thoughts by the old man’s words. He looked at Didacus with confusion, wondering if the man could read thoughts instead of reading faces. The Master of Bards simply let his tired blind eyes rest on the woman out cold to his right.

    “Do you know what she is?” asked Caleb.

    “Yes, she is Reine.”

    “I asked what, not who.”

    The old man with his wrinkled face looked up slowly as if some great weight rested on his shoulders. It took everything Caleb had to not divert his own eyes from the blind ones of Didacus.

    “We are what we are, what you see before you, nothing more and nothing less Caleb, Prince of Fonce.”

    Caleb’s eyes widened and his hand moved to his side only to find his sword was not at his hip where it belonged. It was back in his room, left behind so he did not seem impolite, but now he wandered if the bards surrounding him had swords and weapons beneath their clothes with his name on their blades.

    “Rest easy Prince, if we could not trust you then Reine’s blade would be thrust through your chest and you would be one of those ghosts whispering their names in her ear.”   

    “You trust her that much?”

    “We trust her with our lives,” said a new voice at his elbow, a voice that sent shivers up his spine and warmed his body while causing goose bumps to rise on his arms. Tyria slid into an empty seat next to him without a glance towards Reine. Didacus smiled at the general direction of his daughter, while Caleb tried to figure out how a blind woman had known where they sat, and how she avoided the chaos of the dancers and musicians that were jumbled in the middle of the feasting hall.

    “How do you know you can? How do you know she isn’t wrong about me?” Caleb heard the desperation in his own voice. He wanted to trust and be trusted; he wanted to believe he wasn’t as evil as he was made out to be.

    Tyria touched his shoulder with a light hand then slid her hand up to his tight jaw, continuing up to his cheek. She gently cupped his hot face in her hand, and captivated by her movements Caleb waited for Tyria to speak.

    “You do not feel like a man of evil,” she whispered.

    “I have done horrible things,” argued Caleb with a voice as soft as hers.

    “We all have.”

    There was so much sorrow in her voice, so much sadness from memories that were figments of moments so far away, so far gone. He wanted to comfort her, but at the same time he found himself repulsed by her touch for he knew one horrible thing she had done and had seen the toll it took on Reine. Tyria let the sorrow reach her eyes as he pulled away from her, and she turned to her right to converse with the bard next to her as if she had never said a word to Caleb.

    Caleb turned back towards Didacus, anger flaring up in his swirling eyes of blue green. “She doesn’t trust you.” A curt nod was thrown at the sleeping Reine.

    “She has every right to not trust us, but she has never given us a reason to not trust her.”

    Reine stirred slightly from her deep sleep, turning her face so she had her right cheek on the cool wood beneath them. Her face was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and there were quick movements beneath her eyelids to hint at an uneasy dream. One arm suddenly jerked across the table, and Caleb reached out to stop a cup of wine from falling over. Didacus placed an old hand gently on her back and slid his hand up to her hair, muttering words as he stroked her back. Reine sighed and settled into a deeper sleep.

    “You sent her away.” There was a sharp, accusing tone to his voice, and he couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly so angry. “Sorry,” he muttered after his words, though he did not mean it.

    Didacus let out a heaving sigh. Gently he rubbed his fingers into his softly closed eyes. “No, you are right. We sent her away. It was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made, however, I don’t regret it. The visions I see do not always happen, but if she had stayed here the end would have been definite and war would drive us into the nothingness from which we were born.”

    Caleb brushed his fingers against the table in an effort to clear his head, to piece together what had just been told to him. “The end, to what?”

    Didacus smiled grimly. “The end to the world.”’

    Caleb sneered. “That sounds so cheesy.”

    Didacus frowned. “You don’t believe me?”

    “Not really. Decalage has seen worst times than now. There is no more hatred in this world than there was yesterday.”

    Caleb’s voice was mocking, and now it was Didacus’s turn to be surprised at the sudden turn of tides. He had believed this boy would help them, now the boy was acting like the spoiled prince that he had been raised to be. If Didacus had known why Caleb was suddenly acting so ignorant, if Didacus had understood the fear Caleb had suddenly felt, perhaps his next words wouldn’t have been so harshly critical.

    “Reine has never been wrong before, but I believe she may be wrong about you,” said Didacus.

    There was sudden silence throughout the feasting hall, and so much tension, too much.

    Caleb stared, his eyes furiously narrowed. His hands were clenched tightly, the white suddenly surrounding his knuckles showed his rage. The sneer disappeared from his face, replaced by tight lips and tightness in his jaw.

    “You don’t know me,” said Caleb forcefully through gritted teeth.

    “Do I not? I have seen you in visions your highness. Past, present, future, I have seen all your faces. I know who you were, are, and will be.”

    “What have you seen me do?” Caleb’s voice was rising in volume, and his temper was rising to its sharp edge.

    “You killed her.”

    The entire room fell into shock.

    Caleb was the first to recover, and when he did he felt himself become so cold it was as if he were burning.

    “I would… never… harm her.” He said through lips that had to be forced open.

    “I know what I saw,” replied Didacus as if he knew everything.

    Caleb stood from his chair with a snarl. Reine did not even stir as he roughly hit the wooden table sending a cup flying and shattering on the stone ground. “When did you see this?” He was yelling now.

    “A mere few hours ago. I can see the path still, and I can see you are taking it. Nothing as changed.”

    “I don’t believe you!” Caleb’s voice echoed off the stone walls, and he turned and fled into the darkness of the night. Within a few minutes, the conversation, music, and dancing started up again as if it had never been interrupted.

   

    She felt like her head was about to explode. The pounding was like the crash of an ocean wave as it rammed into the black cliffs of the Foncian shore. It left her feeling nauseous even though her eyes were shut and she was lying down. What had happened last night to make her muscles feel like lead as she struggled to unwrap herself from the cocoon of sheets?

    A soft groan rumbled from her chest as Reine managed to fall out of the low bed and onto the cool stone floor beneath her. She grabbed the wood frame of the bed and pulled herself into a hunched over standing position.

    The room danced in her vision, causing her stomach to lurch violently. The dryness in her mouth was similar to the feeling of being lost in a desert for several days, a feeling that Reine had experienced more than enough. Reine’s tongue slid over her chapped lips, wincing as skin peeling away.

    She had no memories of last night, not after she had entered the feasting hall… and even that memory was one that left her wondering if it had all been a dream or not.

    With stumbling steps that sent her vision dancing, Reine managed to find her way to the door that led into her private garden. Moaning from the pain of the headache, Reine collapsed at the side of the small stream trickling through the serene area. A trembling hand dipped into the coolness of the mountain water and scooped the liquid into Reine’s chapped lips. She drank until she felt the dizziness fall away and the headache began to lessen, and then she scooped more water into her face. The frigidity washed away any sleepiness she felt.

    Though it had lessened in strength, the headache still pounded furiously inside of her skull. It reminded her of the fact that she could not remember.

    The pirate queen fell backwards onto the soft ground below her with a dull thump. Her golden eyes looked into the midday sky, a patch of blue visible through the heavy canopy of winter leaves. The soft rushing sound of paws running over grass alerted the woman of the intruder on her solitude.

    “Go away Kit.” Her voice came out with a slight slur, and to her it sounded similar to the morbid voice of Abrafo.

    The black and white kitten purred and rubbed her triangular head against Reine’s lead weighted frame. The long, brush like tail fluttered against Reine’s face, causing her to sneeze. She sat up and found that she couldn’t stop sneezing, so she sneezed.

And sneeze.

And sneeze.

For someone not allergic to anything, the poor girl was certainly doing a lot of sneezing. Usually only one thing ever made her sneeze… a certain-

“Hello Reine, darling,” said the young man standing in front of her. He was a man who looked so charming; it would have been easy enough to fall into his arms. Short cropped dark hair came to a widow’s peak in the center of his face, vertically. Electric green eyes stared into her golden ones. He was dressed… to further all his assets from his rippling 12 pack to his muscular arms, legs, and well… other areas. Low rise pants settled on his hips, though Reine didn’t let her eyes stray down there for long.

She didn’t feel uncomfortable in the God of Love’s presence, in fact she liked his annoying little visits, but it would take forever to get her to admit that. Actually, she would never admit that. The reason she didn’t let her eyes roam over his body for too long was because Amour wasn’t the type of man Reine could fall in love with. He was male perfection… cocky, immensely proud of himself, and stubborn. His brains were also located in his balls, though Reine did admit he had some brain, after all he could find the way to a woman’s heart within seconds of meeting her. If Reine was capable of trusting a male, she trusted Amour. Reine, however, wasn’t capable of such a thing.

At his sudden presence and after a look over to make sure he wasn’t someone who just looked like the God of Love, she scowled.

“I’m not in the mood for it Amour. Leave me alone.”

The God merely sat down on the ground next to her with a childish grin on his beautiful, for handsome was not strong enough to describe his looks, face. He stretched out beside her, his height apparent even as she lay back down so that they were side by side.

“You never are darling,” replied Amour with amusement.

Kit hissed, batting at the God of Love with her unsheathed claws. Amour moved the black and white puffball with his hands, still laying down and managing not to get torn into pieces.

“Every single time I see you I hope that you somehow did the impossible and got brains to go with your balls, you never do, and this time is no exception,” snapped Reine half-heartedly.

Amusement flooded into Amour’s face to match the hint of laughter in his eyes. His lips curled up into a smile as he shooed the kitten away.

“Someone is grouchier than normal today, aren’t they?”

Reine snarled. It was a sound that would have sent other men scurrying as it ripped through the air. Amour simply sat up and patted Reine on her head before lying back down again. Reine couldn’t help but giggle, and she felt her mood lighten as Amour poked her side.

Reine was ticklish, and Amour was a pain. He, being the pesky older brother figure he was, soon had Reine rolling around with tears in her eyes. Laughter rolled from her mouth.  She swatted at his hands, but he was far bigger and much more powerful than her, and a God. She found that with the laughter the hangover effects disappeared, but as her chest constricted from the loss of the ability to breathe her laugh turned into a snarl. Amour recognized the feral side of the pirate queen, and stopped tickling her, not wanting to give her a reason to hate him. He didn’t pull away, he wasn’t afraid of Reine, instead he merely propped himself up on his elbow. There was still amusement in his face but his eyes were serious.

“You’re upset,” said Amour softly.

Reine looked away, and Amour cured himself for making her withdrawal. She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. The long brunette hair framed her face in soft waves, a face filled with sudden sadness.

“I hate this place.”

There was so much loathing dripping from her voice that Amour let surprise flow onto his face. The beast had disappeared to show another side of Reine that Amour wondered if anyone had ever seen before. It was the child who never got a chance to live. He wanted to comfort her, stop the anguish filling her eyes. Only the knowledge that Reine would stop trusting him if he did kept him away.

Amour was the God of Love, though Reine said that “The God of Sex” was a far better term. Of course, he never said anything he did not mean, but he still had a new woman every few nights. He had a world of women. Even when they knew the stories, myths, and legends, they still fell for his charm, well almost all of them. Like she trusted him, he trusted her. He would even go as far as to say that he loved her like a sister.

“Then why are you here darling?”

Reine looked at him, but this time she did not snarl, and there was glassiness to her eyes that Amour found he was unable to look at. It was as if his eyes slid from hers, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t hold onto her gaze, even though she looked straight at him.

“I thought they would have changed, but they are as ignorant as ever, perhaps more. They only believe what they want to believe, and they fear what they do not understand.”

Like me…, was the message beneath those words.

“That is the nature of mortals love.”

“I don’t fear what I do not understand. I fear what I DO understand.”

Well, you aren’t just a mortal are you love, thought Amour. You were not made by my siblings or me. You walk this earth, unaware that you are the reason for all of this, these changes. You may be not the person who is behind the war, but you may be one of the fires. The question is whether you are a fire a destruction, or of cleansing.

Somehow Amour managed to hold his tongue, and even though he wanted to say the words that were trapped in his thoughts, he doubted that the young woman would understand. He simply nodded in agreement to her words, in understanding.

“What about Caleb, is he an ignorant b*****d?”

Reine stared at him blankly, and he wondered if he had gotten the man’s name wrong for there was no recognition in her dull eyes. He sighed inwardly with relief when she shook her head from side to side.

“No, Caleb is very different. I don’t know what it is about him but I don’t feel uncomfortable around him. I don’t hate him, I trust him.”

She looked away and moved one of her hands to play with the grass she was sitting on. The light danced from over the leaves hitting her hair, lighting up the streaks of sun. Amour wandered if she felt more towards the Foncian Prince than trust.

“I heard Abrafo visited you,” he said sourly, still thinking about the emotion in Reine’s voice.

The air chilled, and Amour could not help but shiver and instantly regret his words. There was cold fury in her eyes; it went so deep that Amour wondered if it ever ended at all. Amour found himself with the sudden need to protect, to erase the hatred from Reine’s eyes and let it pierce his own soul. He wanted to pound Abrafo into the dust for hurting the pirate queen, and that is what surprised him.

Amour was used to feeling nothing, he was a God after all and he wasn’t supposed to love anyone. Yes he had his flings, he was the god of sex, but he had never felt true love… or a love that didn’t have anything to do with sharing a bed.

He wanted to protect, he wanted to defend. He found that he would never be able to harm this young woman, not because he loved her as a woman, but because he loved her as a friend. It scared him, because suddenly he was not in charge of his emotions anymore… then he was. Her voice broke through his thick head.

“Restaire moir hath.”

Reine’s voice broke through the confusion of his mind, and once he composed himself he looked at her with the same sleepy eyed boredom he looked at pretty much anything.

“Rest my heart? My dear Reine, I don’t have a heart.”

“My mistake Amour, dove. So, I suppose, because you don’t have a heart, you wouldn’t find it in your heart to tell me why everyone is so... irritable these days?”

“Everyone being who?” asked Amour with a grin, for he knew perfectly well the ‘everyone’ she was talking about. He just wanted to hear her say it, because she didn’t usually ask him questions. If Reine didn’t know something, she believed no male could give her an answer.

“Everyone being… the deities.”

Amour rolled his electric green eyes. He saw Reine wanted to slap him, but because she wanted an answer she wouldn’t hit him until after he answered her question. He was going to enjoy every minute of stretching out his answer.

“What are you talking about? The only thing different about the actions of my brothers and sisters is that they are losing their touch in creating  havoc and all the other things sad children like them do.”

Reine laughed, it was a sound that Amour found to be rather relaxing. She was doing it more and more often around him, though he wasn’t sure if there would be anything to laugh about soon. Like her he felt the sadness of the Earth as it wept beneath their feet. He could feel the corruption that reached far beyond time and place. What was once was now gone, and no one knew what was going to be.

Once she stopped laughing Amour grinned like a silly young child, sparking a smile on Reine’s exotically built face. Her high cheekbones were accented by the grin, and he could see the young woman beneath her face, though that young woman was fading. Amour didn’t want her to fade; he liked this facet of Reine, relaxed around it. Around her, he didn’t have to be a God.

Reine found herself in a similar position. She didn’t trust men; her whole past gave her reason for it. Amour wasn’t just a man though, he was like a brother. She had known him as long as she had known Eris, and her meetings with him had always been a time where she could drop that cold-hearted personality of the pirate queen and become the young woman she was and wanted to be. He was like an older brother, but there was no dismissing the fact he was a God. There was no doubt he was far more powerful than she was. Yet… Amour treated her like she was his equal.

She didn’t love him, truly love him, she couldn’t… but she liked him.

“You know what I am talking about, and you know why.”

“Finally sweetheart, you caught me. We’re irritated, yes. There is nothing, however, that I can tell you other than that.”

“Why? Because I’m a mortal.”

Amour stood up, shaking his head side to side while chuckling. The wind rustled his corset like shirt. Those electric green eyes blazed, not with laughter, but power. Reine merely looked back into them, her golden eyes matching his green eye’s dance. It was he who looked away, back into the room from which Reine had woken a half an hour ago.

“No, because you wouldn’t believe me.”

He disappeared.

Reine scowled.

The wind laughed, and she felt it dance around her cheek before phantom arms encircled her in a hug and phantom lips planted a kiss on her forehead. The words that the breeze whispered in her ear left her stunned, as well as the fact that the God had done any of that unnecessary stuff in the first place.

Ren. In the Authinia, Ren meant you.

“Liar,” muttered Reine under her breath. He was just trying to annoy her, again.

Far away, Amour chuckled as he flew over the land of Decalage, the wind rushing around him. Gods could not lie, at least not a God like him.


“Reine?”

Caleb stood in the doorway of her room. He could feel her presence, he knew that somewhere either within these rooms or out back, through that door and in that garden, she was wandering. He would have gone into that garden, except whenever he tried to move from his position into her room his chest constricted and he couldn’t draw in a breath. The fact that the black and white kitten seemed to grow whenever he attempted to enter only enhanced the fact that he wasn’t welcomed into her rooms.

He had never fallen asleep after last night. There had been too much on his mind, and he had been full of doubt in himself. Caleb would never harm Reine; he didn’t want to live a life of destruction any more. If the bard had seen it however, then it must be true. Wasn’t the old bard supposed to be the most powerful seer in all of Decalage?

Now Caleb stood in Reine’s doorway, debating with himself. This afternoon he had came here to tell the pirate queen that he didn’t believe it was safe if he traveled with her. This morning he had made up his mind, but now as he stood here… feeling her presence, he wondered if he could live with the fact he had left her without protection.

She doesn’t need your protection boy, said part of him.

You have to make sure she doesn’t die, said the other part.

He didn’t know which way to go, he was torn and standing at the entrance to the one person’s room that wouldn’t help him, but at the same time maybe she could. He had known her for barely a day, and he felt as if he had known her his whole life. Half of his life, however, had been a lie.

This left him in a state that he didn’t know what was real and what was false.

“Caleb?”

Caleb turned to her. She saw the anguish in his eyes, the paleness to his face and the river he was trying to cross over with two planks of wood. She saw it all and she opened her arms. He stumbled into them. He opened his heart to her. She understood him, and she forgave him. Now he needed to forgive himself.

The six foot tall man shuddered in her arms, though not at her touch. Though an odd picture, it seemed like they fit together, the woman standing at only five feet four inches. Reine managed to support him through her room, and out into the garden behind her, where she had come from. She half dragged, half carried him, to the spring before settling down on the ground.

She held onto the sobbing man, and he held onto Reine as if she was the only thing keeping him sane. If Reine had known she was indeed one of the things keeping him from going mad, she would have brushed it aside as folly and retreated away from him. The trust that he was nothing more than a companion only deepened as he sobbed into her shirt.

After a few minutes Caleb fell silent. His damp dead lay against Reine’s beating heart, calming his withering mind. She had no idea what had led to the grown man sobbing in her lap, but she intended to find out.

Her hand stroked his sweat soaked back. Standing in her doorway, he had appeared to be another of her ghosts. Dark circles that looked more like bruises had surrounded his green-blue eyes, though his eyes had been so dark that she had fought to recognize him from his eye color. He had been slouched over as if he could no longer stand up on his own, gripping the door frame with trembling hands. As white as snow, he had come to her. For a healer? No, she could tell by his eyes that this was a sickness of the heart.

His shuddering stopped, and when she bent to look into his eyes she found that they were closed. His breathing was even, his face less ghastly. Caleb would heal, but Reine still intended to find out who had done this to him, or what.

With expertise Reine slid his head from her lap onto the ground beneath them where minutes before Reine and Amour had sat. With a dancer’s grace she unfolded her legs and stood up, the greenery rustling with her movements. A breeze stirred the leaves of the tree, the willow’s heavy covering danced, sliding around Reine. Suddenly the breeze stopped, the air deadened and next to her Caleb shivered suddenly on the ground as a blast of cold swept through the garden. There was darkness in her eyes, anger and hate. The pounding in her head grew, and it was the pain of the headache that kept her from murdering the next person she saw.

“Kit, watch over him.”

The black and white cat meowed and sat in the doorway leading to the queen’s garden.

Reine didn’t even bother to change from her clothes that she had worn last night, didn’t bother to slip on her boots. She just threw on her belt with the twin rapiers in their normal leather sheathes and slid out of her room like a snake.

There were people out in the main garden, but the rest were in class or teaching class. No one she recognized was wandering through the cultivated area, and for that she was thankful. If she had seen someone she recognized, someone who had hurt her those many years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to keep her temper leashed.

The bards walking among the beautiful central garden did not seem to recognize her, none the less they jumped out of her way when a blast of that coldness that was drifting away from her reached them. Reine did not know that she was causing them to move, she did not know of the storm draped around her in coldness. It left a layer of frost over what dew remained in the afternoon and even those who had jumped out of her way could not stop shivering uncontrollably until she was yards away.

Reine was not expecting to ball someone over; most were smart enough to get out of her way. The pirate queen looked into the person’s face to give them a verbal bashing and blind eyes met golden eyes. Long fingered held Reine’s shoulders, as if fighting to keep her still She pushed them away and took a step backwards to put space between her and the fair headed Tyria.

“Get out of my way,” Reine said without emotion in her voice.

“No,” whispered Tyria, turning her head from side to side as she felt the presence of the shadows strengthen, seemingly coming to life around her. She could not seem them, could not fight them, and she was considering warning Reine until she pieced the puzzle together. Reine was controlling the shadows. Reine, a woman with not a speck of magic was doing something that only the goddess of chaos could do.

That coldness was not power, it was nothingness as it gripped at everything in her path. Yet, it did not destroy as the power of Eris did; instead, it seemed to sing to her calling to something within her that had lain dormant for so long. The other people, did they feel that thrum in their bones and hear their heart leap in an answer? Unknown to Tyria they did not, but it was not unknown to Reine.

“W-what are you?” stammered Tyria, grabbing hold on a stake pierced into the ground. She jerked her hand away as the wood burned and the earth screamed.

“What am I?,” her voice came out in a caressing purred that Tyria found herself answering with a whimper as it stroked her mind, then pulled away. “I am nothing.” She turned her back on Tyria, turned her back on them all, and walked into the room that belonged to the Head Master.

Didacus was standing out his window with his head bowed in thought… or sadness, Reine did not know. Quite frankly, she didn’t care either. The only man did not look up when she entered the room, he did not look at her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; he knew perfect well whose cold power gripped at his mind threatening to shred him apart, it was the fact that he couldn’t. He knew that even though he was blind if he turned his eyes towards her face, a face that he wished he could seen in more than visions, the huntress would tear her prey apart.

“What did you tell him Didacus? What lies did you pour in his ears to send him so deep into a rotting pit? I trust him, and I thought I could learn to trust you again… but there is a first time for everything. What did you tell him?”

He words were not spoken in the voice of a young woman, they were the words of a queen who had just found out that she had been betrayed by people she thought would help her, it was the voice of darkness and it was littered with hate and anger. It was the voice of a demon, a voice that seemed to peel apart Didacus’s skin. The words left him shaking.

“I saw him kill you,” he reached for words to explain his actions, but something was blocking him from his thoughts and memories.

“You saw him kill me,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question, instead it sounded like an accusation that caused Didacus to wince openly.

“Reine,” he whispered with a voice even lighter, and far less harsh, than the pirate queen’s. The old blind bard stretched out a hand as if searching for her. “Please, let me explain.”

“Get away from me,” she said with a deep growl. “Goodbye Didacus, I don’t believe we will ever see each other again.”

“Reine, please-“

She looked into his blind eyes. Even though he could not see the pure hatred in her golden eyes it was as if something leapt into his mind, stunning him into oblivion. He felt detached, as if he were not really here, staring at a girl who had grown from a child to a monster in the blink of an eye. What words wished to come forth from his mouth were stuck behind his fear.

Reine turned to go, her feet stepping lightly on the floor beneath her. Barefoot, it took all of his sense of hearing to listen to the barest of whispers. He wondered if she knew the stir in the Earth she caused, knew of the pain that he felt. If she knew, she did not care.

“W-wait,” he forced into a stutter.

“I’m done waiting.” Reine’s words were like a knife cutting into his heart. It reminded Didacus of all those times that the pirate queen had been told to wait. What hold he had on her, what sway he had, was gone with those words.

Reine looked out of the door, her back to Didacus. He let his mind scrape the bottom of the very deep hole he had dug himself into. He needed something, anything, to stop her from ruining his plans and doing whatever she thought was best. He pictured her as he had seen her in visions, and for a moment his blindness cleared.

“You’re-“

He was cut off by Reine’s sharp tongue. “Insane? Maybe.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head as if clearing himself of the haziness that had dropped over him, a haziness mirrored in her eyes. He was also shaking himself free of the imprint her image had left on his mind. “You’re-“ Didacus felt a hand closing around his throat, but it was not Reine’s hand. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, and then when his thoughts drifted away from Reine the hand loosened its hold. He knew better than to speak what he had meant to say, and simply looked in her general direction in sadness.

“What am I?” Reine spoke with iciness to her voice that caused the old Master Bard to shudder.

When he didn’t answer she walked out on him, walked out on the world.

The Earth cried in sorrow as yet another of its children fought with its daughter. Hope dimmed in the eyes of the sun and the wind drew a shuddering breath before continuing on its path. There were other children, other paths, but all were worse that the one before.

Reine reached her room within minutes, her mind caught up in cold fury. Caleb was awake, gathering his things together. He looked up at her, recognized the mask of a killer, and simply nodded to her. Though the Prince looked the worse for wear, he no longer looked as if he was going to tear himself apart.

“Are we leaving?”

His voice cracked slightly on the last word, leaving a path to his fear.

Reine simply nodded and began to gather her possessions, of which there was not many. They were riding out of the bard school within minutes. Behind her, the tune that mourned the dead drifted through the evergreen branches.