V. Men of the East

War surrounds her nation, but Arianna is safe. Her father intends to keep that peace at whatever cost. Men from the east arrive in armor that Diana describe.

It was hot - far too hot to sleep. Arianna murmured and considered waking to lift the blankets from her exhausted bones, but she did not want to move from the coziness of her sleep. She had not slept in a bed in far too long. Her mind scratched and pulled until she was near the darkness of sleep. Then, just as she neared her peace, Diana pulled the blankets from their warm bodies and released a cool breeze.

“Arianna,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“I sensed him. I felt him tonight in my dreams.”

“Sensed who?” Arianna pushed herself up and saw the wideness in her friend’s eyes. They were bright and glittered with the moonlight like a child looking at a fresh sweetcake. “Who did you sense?”

“My love,” Diana breathed. She hugged her hands over her knees and sighed. “I sense my lover. I saw him, just as he would appear, and I heard his voice.”

Arianna hugged her pillow to her chest. “Your lover?”

“Yes,” Diana said with her bursting smile. “We have loved each other for a very long time - hundreds, thousands of years. We have fought together and died for each other many times. I can finally sense him.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Arianna cheered. She folded Diana’s hands in her own. “You should tell this to Mother and Father. They will want to know, too.”

When the three returned home, the feast of Lady Freya had already begun, and their news fell on drunken, merry ears. The King did not care about the strange altars that could not be destroyed or the strange vibes they emitted. The Queen worried about the wolves in the forest, but Captain Steele insisted that they could be killed by his men. The King sent archaeologists from the Temple of Lyros to investigate the temples and soldiers to aid them, and then he insisted that the girls join in the celebrations lest the farmers suffer drought.

When the feast was over and the Council reconvened, more unfortunate news fell on weary ears. The Temples of Za had been all but entirely annihilated in the east, and Elysia’s temples were falling in quick succession afterward. Pilgrims flooded the cities to find refuge and were finding themselves homeless, without food, and attacked by the frightened citizens. The heads of the temples vowed to accommodate more of the visitors, but the King became more and more uneasy.

“We will need an especially good harvest this year,” he said at last.

“I believe the harvest will be quite bountiful,” Diana said lowly.

Arianna could not tolerate the onslaught of sorrow and misfortune. As Joy spoke of more pilgrims losing loved ones, family homes, their clothes on their back, and dignity, the princess stood and lifted her head. The room was quiet.

“Lady Diana’s lover is coming,” she declared.

Orik stood on his shaking legs and pushed himself straight against his chair. His milky eyes fell on the Diana, but she would not meet his stare. Instead, her cheeks had become flushed, and she twitched under the scrutiny.

“The second great soul is here in our world?” Orik asked.

“He is,” Diana said. 

She flicked her wrist and raised her fingers near the center of the Council’s table, and from the center dais, fire appeared. Its intensity blinded most of the priests and priestesses, but once Diana added air and earth to the flames, it became a stone statue. 

They were silent. It was only the second time Diana had performed magic before them, and she had done this so casually. In the center stood a stone statue of a knight in dragon armor, his long sword at his side, his knee raised slightly in his march, and his eyes dark. The violent spikes of his gauntlets were decorated with runes and gems; his tall helmet wrapped his head in the shape of the dragon’s skull. His every limb was plated and armored. Diana flicked her wrist to melt the stone until it blackened, and the statue became disturbingly human. The knight’s high cheek bones, his sharp jaw, and his tired eyes became permanent. Even the details of his knuckles became finer until every scratch and scrape was visible.

“A Dragon Knight?” Joy stuttered. “He will come to us as an enemy?”

“No,” Diana said quickly. “He will be our ally.”

“What is his name? When will he be here?”

Arianna felt the air around her friend stir in strange ways. She didn’t know. There had been so few things that Diana didn’t know, and in the midst of the Council meeting, she didn’t know much of anything. She looked to the King, and he nodded.

“Tell us what we need to know, Diana, and we will leave this fine creation near the gates to let our friend know he is welcome here,” the King said.

Diana nodded and clasped her shaking hands to her waist. “He is Sir Matthew, a swordsman born to Lady Elysia. He is my lover and our ally. I think he will be as powerful as I am, but I do not know if he has retained his memories as I have.” She looked to the statue and sighed. “The temples along the mountains have formed a barrier between Matthew and me. Whatever is in their altars will keep me from reaching beyond and finding him.”

“It’s Elysia’s sword! The Dragon Rose!” Sid yelled. The high priest of Za stood and rounded the table to better view the statue. “Lord Orik, you know the story! The goddess Elysia’s sword was broken by the dragon god’s teeth. If you look at Sir Matthew’s sword, you can clearly see how it resembles the tapestries!”

“Silence yourself,” Orik snapped. “Such a sword does not exist. Lady Elysia defeated the dragon god with fire magic - not a sword. That was how she ascended and became the Goddess of Fire. Tales of her sword are just stories for foolish boys.”

Sid’s shoulders slumped, and the wide curiosity in his eyes became defeat. Arianna frowned and offered him a weak grin, and he smiled.

“If that is all,” the King said, “I believe we have heard enough. We shall care for our strangers and attend to the dangers coming from our neighbor’s lands as they come.”

The Council slowly stood and left through the opened doors. Each member stopped to awe at the Dragon Knight in stone, touching his smooth hands and staring into his dark eyes. Joy whispered loudly about the intensity of Lady Diana’s powers, which had grown exponentially since she’d last heard. Sid was quiet, but he lingered the longest before the statue and the sword. Arianna ached to read his mind, but Diana’s warm thoughts were too powerful, and she could not reach into Sid’s knowledge of the sword or the barrier in the mountains.

As days passed, Diana became happier. She blushed and smiled and hid her flushed face behind a silk fan. She spoke of her lover and the great adventures they had enjoyed together. Oftentimes they’d rode across beautiful plains and mountains together, eating delicious meals at inns and hiding from their friends along lakes. They rescued children and fought mountain trolls together. Long ago, they even fought a dragon. As days became weeks and months, she spoke of their simpler lives as farmers and traveling merchants that met by chance. They always found each other, though, no matter how dark their lives had become. The two were destined lovers with centuries of memories between them.

Instead of foolish adventures, Diana insisted that the princess stay safe within the castle and study. She eavesdropped on messenger boys for word of soldiers from the east to no avail, and she wandered out to question scouts. Arianna’s happiness for her dear friend became frustration and sorrow, and as one dreamy night became a year, she pulled her friend from the castle for a long ride.

“He’ll come,” Diana declared with a wide smile. “I know he’s coming.”

“I know,” Arianna said. “Until Sir Matthew the Great and Handsome does arrive, I think we should enjoy our youth a little longer. Do you agree, you love-sick bird?”

Diana laughed and threw a gust into her friend’s hair, and they laughed together. Arianna threw her own gust up Diana’s skirt and elicited a shocked yelp. She threw water droplets and gusted air from the muddy shores to the princess. Their mild magic fight died as their laughter sucked their focus apart, and for the first time in a long while, they were silly girls again.

As the princess’s birthdays passed, the suitors became more dire. Arianna did not have to marry for power if she would carry the crown. However, frightened dukes, princes, chieftans and barons came seeking alliances with Lohren against the powerful enemy in the east. The King ejected each from his court. His daughter, his people, and the tired refugees in his cities would refuse the bloodshed for as long as he could breathe.

The prince grew older and handsomer as well. He chased after his sister and stole her old dolls to play with, and she smiled and let him take whatever he wanted from her old chests. Diana told him stories of huge snakes and spiders to scare him, but the prince was fearless and swore to defeat any monster that would threaten the kingdom. He joined the guardsmen in the early mornings to practice shooting his bow, and to the surprise of many, he was almost good at it.

When the princess neared her seventeenth birthday, she had grown almost entirely into her womanly form. Diana remained in her shadow, grown and beautiful, the moon to the kingdom’s shining sun. Scribes carried letters across the land to invite the usual lords and ladies to the winter ball. The city glowed with ribbons and stands in preparation. A wave of peace rolled across the nation with the first of winter’s flurries.

On the morning of Arianna’s birthday, she woke from a frightening dream, but she could only remember black clouds. Diana was nowhere to be seen. She rubbed her aching head. The sun was bright and high in the sky behind thin grey clouds. Over the painted screen was a mass of satin and velvet - her dress for her birthday ball. Arianna pressed herself from the feathers of her bed and leaned against the arch of the window, searching for her dream she had forgotten.

“Princess,” called Diana from the door, “do you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Arianna said softly. She looked over Diana’s plain riding gown and saw the bright dust of the fields along her hem. “Where have you been?”

Diana shook her head. “I can feel something powerful in the city. Someone is here.”

“Could it be your Matthew?”

Diana’s tight frown barely moved. She stepped toward the window and gazed at the streets brimming with people. Women wore their hair in beautiful braids while men walked about in their best suits and pants. Banners, tapestries, and ribbons flowed in the winter gales. Songs of praise to the gods had already begun in the temples and flowed into the decorated streets.

“Truly everyone has come to celebrate,” Diana mused. Arianna followed her gaze to a trio of farm hands with their chestnut horses laughing near the castle gate. “They’ve brought their animals to the city for the festival.”

“How else will they have their mule races and sheep-shearing contests?” Arianna chuckled.

“You’re right.” Diana smiled. “How would they?” Then she turned for the door.

“Where are you going? Are you going to mope about all day?”

“I’m going to find out where this power is stemming from.”

“Alone!” Arianna cried. She ran past her gloomy friend and slammed shut the door. “I just need a moment to change. Stand in your window and frown, you lovesick puppy.”

Diana smiled again, and Arianna hugged her for a breath of a moment. She dressed quickly in a plain straw-colored gown and leather boots. They walked quickly through the busy castle and avoided the center wing entirely, for it was filled with fragile instruments, bickering decorators, cooks, brew masters, masons, and according to the guardsmen, a confused bull.

The girls ducked into the dreary garden and walked through its evergreen brush and barren trees. The gardeners hung colored lanterns from the branches among satin ribbons to give the grounds color, but the smell of autumn’s dead leaves lingered. Several messengers wished the princess a happy birthday as they met, and Arianna smiled.

The streets were just as busy, for everyone in the land had come to celebrate. A band of merchants from the far south sold fireworks. One pepper-haired man demonstrated the fire sticks in the street, lighting it with sizzling oranges and yellows as a crowd awed. A troupe from the north showed their strange pink ducks and cows with spots shaped as runes. Acrobats jumped about on narrow sticks while men juggled knives. Every store front was alight with games and conversation. Inns and taverns burst with travelers, both sleepy and curious, dancing in their rooms or shouting from windows. Everyone was smiling and laughing. As people noticed their princess, they stopped, shouted, cheered, and wished her a happy birthday.

As they approached the east gate to the main living quarters, Arianna also felt the uneasiness in the air. The joy of the people smothered much of the evil vibe, but with every step, she could feel its immensity. She could hear the songs become quieter and the celebrations grow more distant. Then she heard the fuss and quarrels. In the distance, a line of city guards, dressed in aqua-blue tabbards over chainmail, with their spears pointed at something beyond their view. 

Diana pulled at the princess’s sleeve and pointed at a tall tavern’s outside balcony. They slowly pressed through the crowd of sleepy townsfolks in different bedtime attire and filth from their previous nights. A maiden lifted her broom to salute the princess as the pair hurried up the narrow stairs to the upper floors. An enamored couple blocked the balcony for a moment but moved to their room after a quick glare.

From the balcony, Arianna could see beyond the line of guards and the ivy-laden gate. She gasped and leaned closer, for she could not believe her eyes - Dragon Knights. They looked like the statue with their massive black plated armor, full of razor sharp pieces, their tall horns, the deadly gauntlets. In their center stood a blond-haired man in red and gold robes. There were two dozen at least standing before the city guard.

“Could it be your prophesy?” Arianna whispered.

“I don’t think so,” Diana murmured. Her eyes narrowed as she looked over the guard. “I do not like that man in the center. He has a wretched aura, and I can hear his disgusting thoughts from this distance. Matthew would never tolerate this man’s presence.”

A wave of cold fear shot through Arianna’s chest and spine. “Then are they here to . . .? Like the other kingdoms?”

The air between them opened, and Diana unleashed her own cold fears to her dear friend. These Dragon Knights were not friends of the kingdom. The man at their center was a malevolent conqueror, and though the city guard was already suspicious of him, he was an arrogant, powerful man whose air was polluted with perfumes from around his conquered world. Arianna’s legs were numb, but her friend pulled her through the tavern and back to the joyous city.

“We should tell Mother and Father,” Arianna said.

“We should tell Orik,” Diana said firmly. “But it would change nothing. Come, Princess. There is something we can do right now.”

They rounded a corner to the heart of the market square. The four-tiered fountain had been dyed lavender and sprinkled with jasmine blossoms. Children rolled hoops and danced with satin streams behind them while musicians set their stands in the city corners. A man in his middle years sold wooden bracelets between a baker and a shoemaker’s stores, and Diana bought from him a sapphire-studded bracelet. She slid it onto Arianna’s numb arm with a weak grin, and before the princess could say a word, she pulled her to the raised tiles where women in bright, loose garments twirled.

“We shall dance away our worries,” Diana cheered.

“Dance?” Arianna gasped. She could not speak in her horror, so she shot her mind’s thoughts as hard into her friend’s skull as she could manage; “Dragon Knights intend to take over our castle, and you want to dance!”

Diana smiled, and for the first time in a very long time, her midnight eyes were wide and dark. She extended her alabaster arm in invitation to her friend, two fingers flicked skyward, and stepped back into the arena of dancers. Arianna scowled and remained near the fiddlers with her arms crossed. How could such a wise, grand soul be so foolish? Children laughed and joined in the dance, tossing the princess’s skirt as they passed her, unaware of her position.

Diana turned and extended her arms, palm up, and closed her eyes. Her hips spun in one-three-five-six time while her arms spun in one-two with the music. She stepped in a broken diamond, and the children joined in her strange dance with their toys and a barking dog. The chorus came, and Diana straightened her palms.

“That’s not dancing,” Arianna accused silently. Her stomach sank to the marble at her feet. “You must be terrified of these men if you would do this.”

The air smelled different. The pine-laden breeze from the east was gone and was replaced with the sweet remains of the harvest from the fields. The fires flickered in their gilded lanterns. The water in the market well splashed against its stone walls, but not one happy citizen or watchful guard noticed the massive power. 

Arianna hugged her stomach and watched as the dancers spun and stepped. Then, with a deep breath, she stepped into the arena, grasped Diana’s wrist, and joined her in the hypnotic dance. They had danced like this long ago when the harvest was weak. They forced the skies to crack open and for the ground to release its lingering seeds. It had exhausted them both, but feeding a country filled with refugees had not been a light task. Why did a group of knights in fancy armor warrant such a conjuring of power? She bit back the bile in her belly and let the power flow out from within her and into the currents in the air.

Time moved differently from within the current of power. Arianna had closed her eyes to help her focus her energy, to move it willfully outward. When her concentration withered with a rumble of her stomach, she opened her eyes to a much more crowded market square. She collided with Diana, and the two blushed at the staring, cheering crowd. Everyone had begun dancing, singing, and playing all sorts of instruments for the festival without their noticing. The princess bowed lowly to her people and followed Diana back to the castle. The Dragon Knights were nowhere in their sight.

After their midday feast and baths, Arianna faced her mother and handmaidens. Her mother carried a mass of bright yellow over her arm and lifted it high into the air. It was her birthday gown, a flowery thing with bell sleeves and peonies made from pink and lavender silk. Its lace collar was dusted with ruby powder, and the whole mass smelled of vanilla. She could hear Diana’s silent laughter from beyond the screen. After a long hour of lacing and final stitching, the princess was dressed. She wore a crown of her golden hair beneath her tiara and her wooden bracelet under her bell sleeve. Her mother laced a string of emeralds around her neck and smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

“You look magnificent, my beautiful star,” her mother whispered. “Happy birthday.”

Arianna smiled back to her mother’s reflection. It would only be for a night, and then she could run away from the dress and ride through the fields in whatever she wanted. She turned to Diana in her plain blue gown and sighed with envy.

The music had already started from within the heart of the castle. The girls followed an ensemble of handmaidens and the Queen to the ballroom. The golden-haired Prince Cyril, four years old and more loving than a puppy, joined his sister. Arianna took his little hand and walked beside him into the quieted ballroom. The people let free a grand cheer for their princess, and the violins started. Nobles in velvet suits cheered to the royal family with their goblets high in the air and drank. The floor opened, and the King stepped forward to speak of his wise, beloved daughter.

“Who are all of these people?” Prince Cyril asked too loudly.

Arianna laughed and whispered into his ear, “They are our people. They are drunk and happy tonight.”

“Is Momma going to make me dance?”

“You bet she is,” Arianna warned and tickled her brother.

The King turned to her, and the princess quickly stood straight with a polite smile over her laughs. “The princess is old enough to choose her first dance,” he said. “Let us celebrate this night, both a night for our kingdom and for the blessings of the gods this winter!”

The people cheered, and the King stepped aside to yield the ballroom to his daughter. Arianna patted her brother’s head and looked to Diana very briefly. Her friend’s eyes were wide and unfocused. She shivered. The unmarried noblemen stepped forward into the ring of the audience, some handsome, some tall, and some very plain. Lord Green’s son wore a suit of gold and a pile of golden necklaces that was particularly distracting. Arianna smiled to the whole of the ball and opened her arms.

“I will want to dance with the handsomest, kindest man here,” she said sweetly. “One who can dance well and with good conversation. And so I have decided . . .” She turned to Cyril and smiled. Her brother laughed and ran to her side, and she hugged him. “My decision is made.”

Several of the suitors smiled while most frowned or outright scowled. Several of the women and gentlemen laughed. The King sighed loudly, but the Queen laughed the loudest. Arianna hugged her brother and pulled him closer to the center of the ballroom floor just as the harp’s slowest notes began.

“I must beg to differ, Princess,” came a firm voice. Its accent was sharper, definitely from the north-eastern lands. Arianna turned to a gold-haired man and recognized him as the one among the Dragon Knights in red and gold robes.

“I have made my decision,” Arianna cheered.

Diana stepped between the man and the princess with her arms outstretched. Arianna’s breath caught. Her joke left her stomach feeling like she’d eaten stone, and her brother’s face began to twist with confusion and a fit.

“You will dance with me, Princess. I must insist,” he said, “for I am the Prince of Rosewall.” The clicks of boots on marble sounded from the throne dais. Arianna looked over her shoulder and watched as her father neared the tip of the long red runner. She frowned. “Your Majesty will agree.”

“You are Princess Erlid of Rosewall?” the King asked.

The blond man took to his knee and lowered his head, but his green eyes were dark and focused. The Dragon Knights joined him, cleaving through the crowd of nobles, drawing audible gasps and whispers. “I am. I was uninvited to your ball, Your Majesty, but for understandable reasons. It is difficult to send a messenger through the haunted mountains anymore.”

“Rosewall is not at war?” the King asked.

Erlid stood and shook his smirking head. “We are at peace, my lord. We are a powerful nation. Our earth is filled with gold, and our fields are always fertile. Lord Dragoth does not touch my beautiful kingdom.”

“For a price,” Diana challenged. “You give him a sacrifice, and he agrees to only send his knights to watch your palace.”

The foreign prince leered at her, but his smirk was untouched. “We hardly notice. It is a peaceful land in times of conflict. My palace is in need of a queen, and having seen the beauty of the Sun Princess, I must insist upon her first dance.”

The King lifted a hand against the whispers of the people. “Arianna, please reconsider. I must insist you consider Lord Erlid’s wish,” he said meekly.

Her shaking legs petrified, and Arianna looked at the smirking, frightening man before her. He proffered his ringed hand with a weak bow, whispering, “Come, Princess. Let us dance.”

“If you touch her, I will kill you,” Diana warned. She raised her hand as well, but with her fore and middle fingers raised to cast her most dangerous spells.

The people gasped and stepped back. Sid and Joy began to pray from the back of the crowds, and several wormed their ways into the corridors in an escape. The air was still and silent. Cyril pulled at Arianna’s skirt, but she could not feel it in her terror.

“Diana!” the King commanded. His face was flushed and his throat bloated with blood. “Beg his mercy and leave! You are not welcome!”

Diana ignored her king and held her hand forward against the arrogant prince before her. “This man and his pestilent knights are not welcome,” she muttered. “It will please me to rid them from this earth.”

“How dare you!” Erlid sneered. He stood with his shoulders tense. His lips turned to bare his pearly teeth. “Your Majesty, have this crazed wench removed! Is this how guests are welcomed to your court?”

“That is enough,” came a rasping voice. Orik raised a hand as he walked into the fray, his thick cane pushing nobles aside as he walked. His bushy eyebrows had become one knitted brow over his elder years. “Lady Diana is right, Your Majesty. This man is not welcome. He brings Dragon Knights to our court to threaten your people.”

As the people turned to the King, Diana and Erlid continued their hard stares. Arianna was frozen. She could feel the inferno of hatred that threatened to swallow the world if left to burn for any longer. Then she felt the air break, and Orik fell to the earth, coughing blood and black bile. A woman fell as well, grasping at her bleeding neck, and a man screamed and fell in his seared suit. The people screamed, but before any more could fall, Diana waved her arm and ended the assault.

“Orik!” Arianna cried. She reached to the elder priest, but the man shook his head and waved his hand. “He’s dying!”

“Run, Arianna!” Diana cried.

“Not so fast,” Erlid hissed. “I have had enough of this game. I should destroy your puny castle and its primitive, disgusting festival, but well! It is the princess’s birthday, and that would be rude! So I will grant you a choice! Give me your foolish princess as penance for the witch’s insolence, or give me the witch. Give me neither, and I will destroy your kingdom this very night.” He flicked his wrist, and the torches raged until they consumed every ribbon and tapestry in the ballroom. As people tried to escape into the castle, he slammed the doors with the flick of another wrist. “Choose now, King. I am an impatient man.”

“He’s strong,” Arianna whimpered silently, but Diana’s thoughts were as still as her statuesque form. The prince hugged her leg and sniffled. “You can kill him, can’t you? He has already hurt so many people.”

“You will not lay a hand on the princess,” Diana muttered. “You will not leave this kingdom alive.”

“Enough,” the King said. “Diana, go with this man. Prince, take her and do not ever return to Lohren.”

“Father!” Arianna cried.

The Queen grabbed for her husband’s arm, but he threw her aside and stepped forward. “Go! Now!”

Diana finally turned to the King with wide eyes and a bloodless face. She lowered her hands. “Your Majesty!” she cried. “He does not-”

“Silence,” he snapped. “You have said before that you would die for Arianna. Now you will uphold your word - for her and for Lohren.”

The Knights stepped forward with manacles in their black gloves. Diana turned to them with horror in her eyes. Her thoughts were no longer guarded. She had been betrayed. Arianna screamed and stepped forward, but her father pulled her back to the dais with the prince in tow. Diana followed the Knights dressed in horror, just as the King had ordered, through the crowd of fleeing men and women of the castle. 

Then there was silence. The fires quelled. Orik breathed even breaths, and the anguished guests began to stand and flee. Guardsmen opened the doors to give them passage to the inner walls, but the evil had already left. Their auras moved fast across the outer gate.

“You b*****d!” Arianna screamed. She fought her father’s grip and clawed long red streaks into his shoulder. “How could you! I hate you!”

“Take her to her room,” the King ordered. He shoved her to Captain Steele and her mother. “Send a cleric for Orik and the others.”

Arianna screamed again as Captain Steel lifted her over his armored shoulder. Her mother and Cyril were silent and shivered. They were wrong. They were horrible. Arianna kicked at the walls and pulled down every tapestry in an attempt to stop them and save Diana. Why hadn’t she just destroyed the prince and his men? Was her father a traitor as well? She howled and broke a window, galging her fist with shards of thin glass. By the time they reached her bedchamber, her voice was hoarse, and she could only sob furiously.

Sid watched from the battlement watch glass as the Dragon Knights left the castle. They marched down the road and through the gate, past the fleeing crowd and confused animals. The air was stale and dry. He climbed down the tower and ran to follow the Dragon Knights. When he nearly caught up, he hid among the stalls and piles of food in the fields. The ensemble of knights, prince, and lady were silent. He kept to the brush and roosted on a precipice overlooking the farmlands. It was strange. The priest could not wrap his head around what might have happened.

“This is far enough,” Diana declared. Her voice carried over the barren hills as though she stood right beside him. Such was the air, so still and thick.

“Oh no, witch. You will answer to Lord Dragoth himself for your insolence,” the prince said.

Diana was still, and the knights could not move her. “You have killed for much less. I can smell it on you. Why do you really need me?”

The prince laughed and raised a hand to the sky, summoning a bright red light in his hand. With a loud crack, Diana shattered the manacles and raised her own hand. The sky opened, and wide blades of lightning crashed into every knight. Their armor became black. Their screams were deafened in the rumble of thunder. Elrid’s red light was gone, but he was untouched by lightning. Diana stepped back from the black statues and raised both hands.

“You filthy, ignorant, disgusting sow!” Elrid screamed. He stepped forward, and the earth beneath him crumbled. He waved a hand and cast fire at Diana, but she cast it off easily with wind. “Do you know who I am!?”

She raised her hands and summoned earth around the screaming man, silencing his curses and spells for a moment. Sid crouched. He could feel the earth moving, but not between the sorcerers. The world groaned and quaked beneath him until he could not distinguish the blurs of the woods from the blurs of the night sky in the horizon. Sid knelt and vomited, but in the shaking of the earth, he bit his tongue and cringed.

He had to escape this battle field. The priest turned on his knees toward the castle, but he saw naught but clay for hundreds of feet above him. Above the tallest trees and hills, the castle had been raised onto a fresh mountain of earth. Then Sid heard loud crashing and booming, and water surrounded the mountain, swallowing every feeble tree around it. He turned toward the safety of his precipice, but in the distance, he saw lightning crash into the earth around him. The horizon was swallowed not by shadow, but from the earth. To his horror, he saw that more mountains had formed in the distance.

Diana had begun to move her arms and twirl. With every turn, lightning crashed into the earth, and mountains formed in their wake. The massive mounds swallowed the night sky and then each other, becoming a black crown around all the land that Sid could see. He shivered and vomited again, muttering, “By Za’s holiest graces!”

The pillars of earth between Elrid and Diana crumbled, revealing the seething prince in a burst of fiery light. Diana paused her dance and raised her hands to match his anger.

“Your king will never touch our sacred lands,” Diana said between laughs. She raised a hand, and the air opened. “Your knights are defeated. Your war machine is trapped behind the mountains. And you, foolish prince, are all alone.”

“Die!” The prince cast a second inferno at Diana, but she cast it off with a burst of water. “Your magic is not infinite, witch! I will kill you tonight!”

Sid crawled down the precipice toward the castle. He did not want to die tonight, not by fire or lightning, not when the power of the gods was at work. He waded into the rushing river as it began to calm, swam through the debris of felled trees and wagons, and took shelter against the fresh mountain. He could see the flashes of lightning and fire between the two from the distance, and even across the river, he felt the heat and pain.

Arianna’s hands were too numb to pound on her door any longer, and her voice was too hoarse to scream. Her mother had abandoned her. She could hear her crying brother. Her father had yet to come near her since exiling her best friend. She nursed her bleeding hand and stood beside her window, wishing she could speak to Diana just one more time.

She remembered her bracelet as the blood returned to her arm, and she hugged her wrist to her chest. Her family had betrayed them. Her best friend was taken by that murderous fiend, and her final look had been one of terror and betrayal. Arianna knelt and wept. It was wrong.

“Princess,” came Diana’s voice.

“Diana!” Arianna cried.

“I am sorry, Arianna. I am so very sorry.” The princess could feel pain rent her flesh through the silent words between them. Her heart gushed with terror. “Arianna, I will protect you as best I can for now. Matthew will come. He will save you.”

“I don’t want to be protected!” Arianna screamed. “I want my best friend back! I want you to come home!” She stood and screamed with her hoarse voice, but the air was gone. When she tried to walk toward the door, her feet were frozen. Lavender glass surrounded her slippers and skirt, rising from the stone floor as a crystal. “Diana!”

Author's Note

Circa 2016