Queen of Blood

By the time the sky colors began exchanging the light tones of orange for those dark purple and blue that blended into the water, Lara and Arline were already in the cave. The Red Menace had been eating around the Heir and searched for her touch as much as possible, something she did without noticing while Lara looked at her preoccupied and moving away with every breath she took.

“How can you do it? I feel nervous whenever I am next to one,” Lara confessed.

“You are afraid of dragons?” Arline couldn’t hide the tone of surprise on her voice. She just couldn’t imagine the Head of the Huntresses being scared of dragons, not when these animals were more gentle than what they painted them to be.

After some minutes of silence, two figures approached the entrance of the cave. They didn’t move and Arline instantly rose to her feet when one of the men extended its hand and it began glowing. Without a warning, a fireball blew directly towards them. Arline’s instinct was to push Lara away and stand down as she felt her heart on her mouth when the fire hit the rock.

“Your preference for survival will not help you in a fight against Pelagius,” Calix’s voice called from a distance as they approached their side and she got up.

“Are you insane?” Arline slapped her friend’s arm. “I hate your theatrics,” she looked at Merrick with flames erupting from her dark eyes.

“You wanted my lessons? This is how I teach you,” he told her “I will no longer teach you to control water. You will leave through it and allow it to give you strength.” Teach me to handle the curse and turn it into power. Arline thought he was taking it a little too literally. Merrick used the same voice to when she was just beginning to understand her power in the edge of the woods. “Water is your protector. Use it well and nothing will be able to hurt you,” he explained to her.

Right there, as Arline was still trying to process his riddle, Calix caught her arm with a strong grip that became hotter by each second that passed. It hurt her but Calix wasn’t letting Arline go despite her moving around and begging him to free her. She had to focus on the water and tried remembering the first time she had to make a connection with her element.

That memory of her first lesson sparked an idea and her heart followed. She was on her knees but tried lifting her weight up. Water surrounded her, Arline just had to concentrate hard enough for it to do as she commanded. When she did, two serpent strings of water erupted from behind her and intertwined on her arm and push away the pain, as the fire extinguished.

Her power was so strong she fell backwards. “What kind of Percy Jackson shit is this?” She thought for herself.“How the hell did I do that?” Arline asked like a child, surprised and excited from the ground.

“I love teaching you,” Merrick helped her up with a smile on his face as he looked at her surprised expression. “You remembered the first lesson,” Arline nodded, looking at her arm that began healing.

As she started to get the hang of it as the threats came from afar for her to learn contact and timing. Arline was exhausted, splashed and hungry but Merrick was still sitting in the rock and then whistled for Aska to approach.

The animal obediently followed him and with another whistle from its master, the dragon spat fire. Real dragon fire. Without a warning. Arline could just do her best to extinguish it using a barely fitting curtain of clear water.

“Please stop,” she said without air, laying on her back.

“You are done for the night, my love,” Merrick sat by her side. “It is your first time doing this. Give yourself a few more nights and you will be able to cut through flesh with water.” He caressed her cheeks and with closed eyes, she smiled for herself.It was practically the same words he had said to her after her first lesson by the lake, some moons ago.

Arline sat and hugged her knees. She was feeling the familiar tiredness that came from using her powers and yet she felt how they grew on her the more she practiced. With just the gesture of his hand, the King sent Lara and Calix away. Arline thanked them as they walked out of the cave quickly.

“I am shaking… I hate you,” she complained but he smirked. Merrick brought her frame closer to his and hugged her from behind as they watched the extensive sea in front of them. Guarded and hidden by the darkness of the cave and the strength of the dragons. Arline tried calming her breathing as much as she could, but Merrick smiling on her neck as he kissed it didn’t help her.

“What if it is not enough?” She thought out loud once she realized the butterflies in her stomach weren’t because of Merrick but because of an unsettling feeling of failure that began invading her.

“We had the same conversation before you massacred half an army above us,” Merrick reminded her and Arline got up, stumbling and angry. “You were born for it. You can’t escape your destiny, Arline,” he came to guard and comfort her.

“Which destiny? I don’t even know if either of us survive this,” she expressed desperately for him.

“What makes you believe we will not survive?” He asked her as if she was joking with him. Merrick knew she was overthinking different tragic scenarios but Arline stayed silent. “Arline,” he insisted.

“He wants you dead.”

“Everyone does,” he said carelessly and faced her, but Arline couldn’t meet his eyes. “Look at me my love, I want to see you,” Merrick helped her round eyes meet his with the push of her chin. The King felt how his heart jumped on his chest. The war crimes I would commit just for her to look at me this way. Merrick rambled inside his head.

“Can we go?” Arline asked him under her breath. Merrick lead the way towards the exit to begin their way back.

The Dark Prince was strolling through the sand, but the Heir was walking through water. She was slowly dragging her feet on the surface of the sea due to her exhaustion when she came to a sudden stop.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” she said to Merrick, who also stopped and looked at her. The wind had changed, even the usual pine tree smell that mixed perfectly with the salt of the sea had changed. When Arline turned around to face him, her eyes were lost. “The House,” were the only words that came out of her mouth.

Merrick whistled at the horses and galloped as fast as they could, straight to the House of the Order. The night was dark, no stars adorning the sky and the entire town was in silence. It even seemed as if the taverns were closed. To Arline, it appeared that the horses couldn’t go any quicker and the feeling of distress started to settle on her stomach when she made it to the front door.

Everyone was sleeping when she crashed inside the House, and everyone continued to soundly sleep as she registered the bedrooms. Arline knew someone was missing and then she turned around to find an empty bed that belonged to Lila.

No Huntress woke up to Arline’s voice calling for the youngest of the hoard throughout the entire House, moving curtains and looking under tables, and checking every floor but Lila wasn’t anywhere in the House. Arline didn’t waste time and headed to the armory and grabbed her black steel sword.

“Where is Lara?” Merrick asked as he saw Arline come out of the door carrying her weapon.

“Lila is missing,” she said to him and instantly Lara appeared behind the shed, out of breath and just motioning Arline to follow her. Merrick left to find Aidan and Cadel as quickly as he could.

Both Huntresses entered the woods and went straight to the largest stream in the kingdom, and hid behind a rock. That was as far as Lara could reach. “My body doesn’t allow me to approach any further,” Lara’s voice was trembling with fear as she explained to Arline. Whenever the Head of the Huntresses tried moving towards Lila, her muscles clenched and yanked her back to the rock.

Arline sensed his power. How it flowed through everyone, even in the river. She was his daughter, the Heir to his throne and she couldn’t be stopped. Arline stepped away from the rock, heading straight to the current where Lila was standing still, while Lara tried stopping her.

“Lila,” Arline called her name. “Come back to me, Lila,” Arline tried to break his spell using a voice similar to the singing mermaids, but she was inexperienced in that field of magic, and was regretting herself for not learning enough about it.

“I can’t move, Arline,” the poor girl was uncontrollably sobbing, with thick tears running down her cheeks. “They don’t stop,” she added with a drowned voice.

Only when she put her full attention on what surrounded her in the forest, Arline heard the mermaids singing a terrifying melody.

He didn’t send naiads, he sent his soldiers.

He didn’t want to deliver a message, Pelagius was willing to attack part of her family to threaten her.

While she was trying to sense where the voices were coming from, Arline saw a horse the color of the bottom of the sea, with eyes filled with blood coming out from the other side of the creek. It had a determined step, slow as it approached Lila.

The horse seemed threatening as it walked almost like a predator. Arline instantly went by her side and tried moving her by force, but her muscles were so stiff it was impossible. The mermaids continued singing, increasing their tone as Lila lamented herself.

Arline unfolded her sword as she saw how the horse was entering the water, crossing the creek against its current. But the mermaids trapped her wrists with their whips built with seaweed and started pulling her aside from the kelpie’s victim.

The Heir was being dragged against her will and strength through the mud as she yelled Lila’s name to the woods to try and draw the kelpie’s attention to her. “Your father has a gift for you,” one of the mermaids mockingly whispered in her ear while the other rotten soldier of the sea laughed at her desperation.

The woods went quiet before the kelpie attacked Lila. And the only thing that could be heard was her desperate screaming echoing in between the trees and the ripping of the teeth of the horse. The mermaids made the mistake of loosening the ties a little enough for Arline to stack her sword through their skulls and headed to the kelpie, slashing its head with a misty vision due to her tears.

What she saw in front of her, was a crime scene.

An act of violence towards beauty and innocence.

Lila’s body laid in the mud completely destroyed. Her skin as white and cold as snow. Those beautiful eyes the color of moss, that were once filled with life and admiration for what surrounded her, were staring at the emptiness of the woods with its light turned off.

Arline’s eyes couldn’t move away from the girl and when Lara finally approached, when her muscles allowed her to move, she let her entire weight be thrown on her knees and began crying. Silently but the tears fled just like the stream behind her.

The Heir of Depths took a look at the cut head of the kelpie laying at her feet. With a rage filled blade Arline took its eyes out. She put them on a leather bag and when she looked at her hands covered in still warm blood, Arline’s heart rate and breathing spiked. Her mind only began comprehending that Lila had been horribly killed by a creature sent by her “father”. The blame fell on her shoulders as Atlas falls on his knee when he holds the weight of the world.

Merrick, Cadel and Aidan arrived as Arline ran behind a tree to hurl her guts out. When the Dark Prince looked at the murder in front of him, he searched for Arline while Aidan helped Lara recompose. Every man there had the stomach to handle the scene, they had enough wars on their shoulders to do so. But Arline didn’t, she was frantic and livid as she yelled at Merrick.

“Do you still believe it was a good idea to have me back?” Darkness grew in her eyes as Merrick approached her slowly. “It is my fault,” she said and stepped away from him whenever he got closer.

Merrick remained silent but she tried escaping from him. “Arline,” he said when he got a hold of her frame and cupped her cheeks.

“I told you this was going to happen,” she lowered her voice at his touch, tears running down her face. “I warned you about his threats,” her voice cracked on the last word and threw herself into his chest and broke down entirely.

Neither Aidan nor Cadel could bare to look at two of the strongest women in Reiska crumble like a house of cards. Aidan helped contain Lara who had a fixated gaze on the body of Lila and tried turning her head, to look away from it. The former King stared in disbelief at the scene.

Such atrocity committed against a young girl as pure as Lila. And yet what was weird about the attack was the knowledge of Pelagius regarding the stream of water behind them. Because what fled through it was not water, it changed every night. It could be pure water one night and poison another, that’s what made it so dangerous.

“She deserves a formal burial,” Lara said after a few minutes of endless crying while she stood up, holding onto the Frontlord’s arm. Nobody refused. It was going to be there and then. Aidan walked Lara back to the House of the Huntresses, to break the news to the hoard and to prepare for the event.

“It is impossible,” Cadel mumbled to himself earning a lookof confusion from Arline. “It is impossible that he knew about the creek.”

“He feels water,” Arline said with drowned words, still held in Merrick’s arms.

“Water doesn’t flow on it,” Merrick explained. “It is a secret kept from everyone besides my Council and the Huntresses.”

Arline stood in silence in front of Lila again but Merrick made her look away. He needed her to be calm, no matter how much she wanted to destroy everything around her.

The hoard of women marched down the trail of trees until they met with the scene. All of them were crying, Margaret tried hiding her sobbing as she, Eunice and Arline took the job of arraigning Lila’s body.

Margaret sobbing broke Arline’s heart. It was unfair. And Arline wanted Pelagius dead. But she had to help her sisters in this moment of sorrow.

They put her body around silk and wools embroidered with the stars that appeared on the sky the moment she was born. Her head was adorned with the winged tiara. On her chest lay her weapons, her bow and a dagger. And around her, her sister made chamomile flowers grow, embellishing and adding a last bit of life to her.

Everyone was silent and only the stream could be heard behind them. Aidan stepped at the feet of Lila’s body and waited a few seconds. Then slowly her body began glowing with fire until it was completely consuming itself under the flames. The burnt chamomile helped their minds to ease but the surprise, specially for those who had never seen these funerals, was when sprouts of white lilacs blossomed magically from the ground and the remanent ashes of her body ascended towards the sky. Joining with the mountains.

The entire crew made their way back in silence, leaving the valley behind. Right in front of the door of the House of the Huntresses, Aidan came to a stop when he saw Arline about to get inside.

“You stay on the castle,” he said “It is not safe.”

“I am not leaving them.”

“Right now, Merrick is the only one able to protect you,” Aidan said and looked at Lara to convince her. She just needed one look on Arline for her to obey her.

“Who betrayed our trust?” Merrick inquired sitting on the round table of the Council Room in the castle. Everyone stayed silent because no one in the room was responsible for what had happened tonight. But Arline’s head was back by the stream and went through Cadel’s words over and over again.

“Who were Larsin’s allies when he tried taking the throne?” The Heir asked a question very odd for everyone present.

“Minor tribes with very dangerous people,” Cadel mentioned.

“What are the chances of the Prince of Blue Waters making an alliance with him?”

“Larsin wouldn’t-” Merrick stopped himself and understood her idea.

Larsin was part of the Royal Family, therefore he knew about the existence of the stream and how to get through. Then he had allied with Alaric Basset, who wanted Pelagius’ power and to have that he needed Arline out of the equation. So it was a giver that most likely Alaric had sold that information to Pelagius, to attack Arline in exchange of a chance for him to fight for the powers of Depths.

“Move forward the execution,” Arline demanded Merrick. “I kill him and buy myself time to attack Pelagius.”

“I can’t do it,” Merrick said and Arline’s expression dropped and her eyes hardened. “If the Council even suspects we are doing that, they will attack my people for disobeying, and no amount of my power could save them.”

“Our people.” Arline thought for herself. “I belong to this place as much as you.”

“Is only two weeks away,” Cadel mentioned with sadness on his eyes as he looked at his hands. “Secure the borders with the hounds and the mountains with Aska and Vatra,” he recommended, something Merrick trusted entirely and was already doing. “Arline, give me the treasure from the kelpie,” Cadel extended his hand and required the eyeballs of the demon horse.

The kelpie’s eyes could be used in a ritual to become a shapeshifter. A sort of evil magic that had been prohibited by the High Council because it turned against the laws of nature. Arline knew that, she took them out for that purpose. But when Cadel eyes met hers, she gave them away easily.

Without even stopping to look at the eyes, he threw the leather bag on the fire. Then he approached her and grabbed Arline’s face with his big, rough hands, gently caressing her soft skin still wet from her tears. “None of this was your fault, dear,” Arline broke on his arms and the former King hugged her and comforted her heavy soul.

Nothing about that night was easy. Bathing made her skin itch. Trying to sleep was impossible. And when she managed a few minutes of rest, a nightmare made its presence clear.

The sun was just minutes away from appearing in the horizon and Arline hadn’t been able to shut her mind off to conceal her dream. The window frame was wide enough for her to hug her knees and wait for the light of day to appear.

“Come back to bed please,” Merrick called from the sheets but Arline didn’t move a muscle and stared at the mountains.

“I can’t sleep,” she replied slowly.

“Be my my side and I will not let anything torment your rest,” she let out an audible sigh and headed towards him, who embraced her and calmed her heart. “Nothing happens to you if you are with me, Arline.”

“How?” She asked as her eyelids began weighting down.

“I won’t let anything hurt you,” he whispered gently as he pulled her closer to him and she snuggled on his chest. Before he could finish that sentence she had already fallen asleep.

His relief was noticeable when he began getting ready in silence whilst looking at her and she continued wrapped around in the blankets of his bed, safe and sound under his protection.