Ailyn had been perched on her mother's lap as the woman tapped the floor with her heels, combing the girl's golden hair with her fingers. The sailors on the boat were spitting at the sea as if it was their sworn enemy and yelled orders at each other, and soon the schooner was sailing on the placid water. She had turned around to stare into her mother's azure eyes through wide innocent sockets.

"Why did we leave home, mommy?" she asked curiously, glancing at the hostile strangers around her in terror.

Her mother sighed, slowly pulling her child's soft locks into a braid. "Ailyn," she muttered, forcing a smile on her face. "You were born different. You have something in you that Flouorn has not learned to appreciate yet."

"What do I have? Am I sick?" 

She shook her head. She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Magic," she whispered. "Magic can save wars and destroy nations. Magic can influence and manipulate."

Ailyn nodded reluctantly.

"But remember the strongest magic of all, the one you can't go wrong with. It's love, Ailyn. Love will always show you the way when your light might not."

She wasn't so sure love could get her out of that situation. Because no matter how much she gave to him, he still found a way to hurt her.

The pain first reached her heart. It felt like a stampede of a thousand soldiers who jostled violently against her ribcage, causing her arm to shoot up and clutch the fabric of her shirt between tight claws. An agonized moan escaped her lips. The darkness was alive, moving along her chest, seeping into her blood, tainting every inch of her body. This is it, she thought, and this time she was sure. This is the day I die. 

Her knees buckled, sending her to the soft blanket of snow. Her face was buried in the soil as she struggled to gasp in a shuddering breath, inhaling water and dirt. A cold wave of needles overwhelmed her spine, pinching her nerves, releasing another scream of misery. If her face wasn't sodden already, the stream of hot tears licking down her cheeks made up for it.

She called for the light. It never reached her. The only thing she received was another pang in her chest, another skipped beat. The more she strained to produce even the tiniest glimmer of light, the more intensely her head pounded. Myriads of dark spots obscured her vision, and Kage's stumped expression blurred out into a pale dot. Your face is the last thing I get to see. Some muscles worked together to tug the corners of her lips up. A month ago, I would have killed a man to make you look at me that way.

She forced her dry mouth open, gulping down a last dose of saliva. "Help me," she croaked, the words scraping her throat like a hundred needles.

The first sound she heard was a distant shout. Soon, a figure slid down to her level, frantically grabbing her face and shaking it left and right. A hand scurried to her throat and pressed under her chin a little too hard. Her pulse was still there, a mere quiver instead of a beat, a muffled whisper begging to faint. And it did. Until a pair of lips closed around hers, blowing a long whiff of air into her lungs.

Her eyes snapped open.

Everything was still blurry, but the tannish face above her couldn't be mistaken. His eyes were clenched shut, yet she didn't need to see those to understand the one who had helped her was Salo. Not Ela, not Nora. Not Kage. But the reserved boy who barely talked and looked at her with sincere awe. The one who had defended her in the hotel. The one who had carried her when her feet were burned. And now, the one who was saving her life. Somehow he had always been there. She was simply too caught up in her own absurd ambitions that she failed to recognize his kindness.

Nobody else moved. Kage didn't try to attack. Ela didn't try to spit out another remark. They all just stared at Salo. One, two, three breaths later, the world around Ailyn seemed to clear just a bit. She nudged his chest, and he moved away reluctantly. Although she could draw shallow breaths, the feeling of shadows lingering in her lungs still haunted her. Her limbs wouldn't move, her eyes could barely blink. She was paralyzed.

Another figure knelt down. "What have you done, Lacald? Why?"

She sighed a faint laugh. Her stomach immediately cramped at the sudden movement. "It's the least I can do after everything," she breathed through clenched teeth. "I hope you can forgive me."

Arden didn't question it, nor did he push her any further. He simply looked up, staring at Kage with a deadpan. "What did you do?" he said lowly, his tone much more threatening than his expression.

Kage didn't look away from Ailyn. His fingers were drawn together into fists and his jaw locked shut as he glanced upon the girl. It was hard for him to watch her, or at least she hoped so. Yet even while witnessing her torment, he didn't spare his caustic remarks. "Do you want a grave next to your parents'?" he queried.

Salo gripped her shoulder tighter, generating a grunt from her throat. "Do something!" he yelled, his eyes wide, his nostrils flaring.

Kage's eyebrow twitched. The princess knew he wouldn't help her, but she hoped someone else could. A healer, a medic, anyone. She would cover her ears if any of her muscles were functioning when he opened his mouth to reply. The answer wasn't hard to figure out by his unmoving frame, but she still didn't want it confirmed.

"There's nothing I can do."

That's when everyone lost it. Ailyn knew nobody wanted to lose a member, yet she didn't expect Ela to shoot forward with flames consuming her palms. Partly, she understood her motives. The girl had believed Kage cared for Ailyn, and so did the princess. The damage he had done might have been unintentional, but there were a thousand things he could have done to save her; draw out the darkness, avert his shot, or even not to shoot at all. He chose to hurt her. He wanted to punish her. Seeing her condition, Ela probably guessed what was awaiting her was she to resist ineffectively.

Ela got nearer to Kage, but he didn't move away. When she was close enough he snatched her fists, immersing them in darkness, extinguishing the fire. With a sharp shove of his arms, Ela was stumbling back. "Do you crave the same fate, sister?"

She gritted her teeth, sending all kinds of fiery shapes at him. They either faded into the cold atmosphere or missed the man altogether. "Have you got nothing better to do than harass a few travelers? Why in the world are you here?"

"For you, fool! For you and her." As he dodged another ball of flames, Kage's hand shot out and Ela was soon lying on the soil, being dragged across the soft snow. The squirming of her foot wasn't enough to shake the shadow away, and neither were her exasperated yells. "Besides," he sighed as Ela was lifted up, her hood sliding off and her long raven hair slipping down like an onyx waterfall, "I was asked to come."

The girl's face had begun turning a scarlet shade of red as the blood flowed down to her head. "Who would ever do that?" she croaked, veins thrusting against her forehead.

"Don't be so uncertain," he huffed, dropping Ela to the ground with a dramatic thump and immediately raising an obscure wall of darkness as flares burst towards it, eating away at it slower than Ela would like. Although she had told Ailyn the two had not spent much time together, it was apparent that it only took a few unfortunate interactions for Kage to become accustomed to his sister's habits. The princess hid her face in the snow, and this time it was completely intentional. Don't tell her. Not now. Not here.

"Are you okay?" Arden hissed, jabbing her arm.

"No. We should get out of here."

"What do you mean?" Ela queried, stepping back and inhaling long whiffs of freezing air. She was gathering power. Ailyn grunted.

"You see, I received a lovely letter the other day begging for my help. How could I refuse?"

Salo stilled. He pushed Ailyn's head away from the soil, slowly, until she was facing him. His jade eyes were wide, wider than before, and the hinges of his jaw seemed to melt away as his lips parted. Is that true? his eyes asked. She couldn't lie to him. Her head dipped to the side, staring at the raging flames consuming the building behind her. The thick layer of ice was sweating, but still standing its ground.

Salo visibly nudged Arden, and Ailyn's heart broke into a frenzied gallop. He will tell him. Gods, I'm finished. Salo may have looked the other way, but Arden would never. From the countless stories he narrated to her and Ela of him gutting people like Fryan whale sharks after they snitched on him, she dared say he didn't take betrayal lightly.

"We should really go," he mumbled, though the strain was clear in his voice.

Arden shook his head, making Ailyn's hurdling heart drop to her stomach. "We should wait for Nora. Then we can leave this bastard here to freeze."

After a moment of stunned silence, Ela blinked rapidly, her eyebrows knitting into a dark line. "Please," she huffed as a blazing inferno loomed next to her, racing towards the man with a flick of her wrist. "How many more excuses will you churn out to cover your ass up? You're just bloodthirsty."

Kage's hand sliced the air, sending forward a sharp wire of darkness. It slashed the flames, embers flying out and dying as they hit the snow, and raced toward Ela, coiling around her stomach like a snake. When the man's fingers curled into a fist the shadow tightened, making Ela gasp and slump forward. "Stop fighting," he uttered, squeezing her waist a little more. She wheezed, clawing at the wire relentlessly. "Do you not want a better future? Come back and I swear, you will get the rank you deserve. You don't belong with these criminals."

Ailyn was terrified by the way Ela's limbs relaxed. She was actually considering it. The princess wanted to scream, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to beg them to take her with them or curse the man out of her mind. All she could muster was a weak shake of her head and a quivering breath in.

It was then that a window of the factory's ground floor shattered, and not because of the flames.

It was the first time since a long time that Ailyn was happy to see Nora. She twisted her head as far as her aching neck allowed her, watching as the girl tumbled out of the yawning hole framed by broken glasses. She lurched towards the team, barely stopping to catch her breath. A few bodies rolled out of the window a moment later, their uniforms burnt and drooping wistfully on their bare shoulders. Some of them collapsed on the snow, coughing out heaps of dark ashes. A few stared at the spy, limping sluggishly as they crossed the snowfield.

"What is..." Nora trailed off, looking between Ailyn's laid form and Ela, who had finally been put down. She bit her lip, but when she turned to glance at the spy, her eyes were cold.

A chorus of gun cocks trilled behind their heads. Ailyn's vision was obscured by the barrel of a gun looming over her forehead. I'm at gunpoint, she realized, and the weak laugh that gurgled in her throat caught her off guard. How did I end up here?

She couldn't see much, but Nora's hisses and Salo's protests as he was dragged away from the princess's sight was enough of a hint. They were being surrounded. A hand locked around Ailyn's shoulder, making an agonized grunt escape her dry mouth as she was dragged to her knees. A loud static ring invaded her ears, her heartbeat rattling against her eardrums vigorously. She tried to bring her hand up and cover her listeners, longing to escape the dull sound and the throbbing that had spread to every end of her body, but her frail wrists were halted. Her head dropped to her side. A pair of metal handcuffs had been looped around her forearms.

They were taking her with them. Of course.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Hell, she couldn't even pity herself. No good excuse to cry or run away came to mind, because she brought that to herself. She brought that to everyone. A rush of shame overwhelmed her. How could she ever think contacting Kage was a good idea? That he would hide away his ego to help her, a deserter, a traitor? He only cared about the perfect image he fought for. And now he would have it. There was no way out of this.

"The rank I deserve," Ela muttered, staring at the ground. Ailyn couldn't blame her for her choice. She would have done the same. But even she was startled in her crippled state when Ela chuckled. "A student. A meager soldier, at best." She looked up, and although Ailyn couldn't see her eyes, she was sure the girl's orbs sparkled with the usual taunt that resided in them.

"I get it now. It's not me you are afraid of," she continued, breaking the stunned silence. Her head titled back, her lips curving as she studied Arden, Nora, Salo, and finally Ailyn, her smile widening as her gaze lingered at the princess. "It's them. It's the criminals that will steal your crown."

And with a final nod, an apology dawdling in her shimmering golden eyes, she inhaled a deep breath and raised her hands. All the soldiers let go of the team, dropping Ailyn to the snow in the process, and ran towards the girl. It was in the air. Ailyn could smell danger from a mile away. But it was just a few feet away from her.

Ela swayed her hands across the freezing air with a sharp gesture. Before anyone could reach her, a grand wall of glistering ice generated in front of Ailyn's eyes, splitting the field in half. It began from the lake, drawing liquid fuel to stretch as far as her eyes could reach, over the factory, over the cabins, over the small village. The princess drew a shallow gasp. Ela's fire wasn't powerful enough, but her ice was unbeatable. It touched the clouds, a majestic barrier of smooth crystal dividing the four stunned figures from the Seyali. She couldn't see through the thick ice, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Her head dropped to the soft blanket once more as she slammed her lids shut. This is all my fault. My fault.

Nobody dared speak. Salo reluctantly beckoned to Arden as her limp arms slid over their shoulders. She couldn't walk, but her legs seemed more functional than before. Nora followed close behind, keeping her pace brisk and pushing the others to do the same. There could be more soldiers inside the building, and nobody was in a good fighting spirit.

A log found Ailyn's foot. She glanced down, only to see a discarded body almost completely buried in the snow. Bile rose to her throat. No more death. Please, just no more. But the figure groaned, turning to face the sky with blank eyes.

"Korin?" Arden shuddered. Ailyn didn't think she would ever hear him this disturbed, but that day contained too many events to surprise her. "What happened to you?"

He grunted, slipping two buttons free from his shirt. A dark circle was painted above his heart, blooming across his chest like ivy on a moldy wall. Darkness. He doesn't have long. He opened his mouth, but only managed a few quick sighs.

"What is it?" Nora pressured, kneeling down to his level. He looked at her, then at Ailyn, her golden hair freed from the tight hood.

"Your highness," he breathed, extending his hand as if he expected her to grab it. She didn't move. "You... You can heal me. Please."

His words were like bullets to her heart. She shook her head, summoning a small smile. "I can't," she whispered, her lungs burning as she spoke.

Korin's eyes closed. "You need to find her," he croaked, his breath rattling as it scratched his throat.

"Find who?" Arden queried. With Ela gone and Korin approaching his end, leads weren't easy.

His eyes snapped open as he breathed heavily. "Bela... Krastelov. Don't let the shadow prince..."

Ailyn waited for him to finish. He never did.

The name made her heart gallop, rattling her bones and halting her breath. She leaned forward, making the two men on either side yell and push her back. If her head was heavy before, now it weighed a thousand pounds, pulling her to the ground, spinning uncontrollably.

Bela Krastelov. The self-banished witch.

Kage's mother.

***

Ashushushush, don't comment on the date, please.

I decided to set the update schedule as vaguely as 'once a week'. I started moving from Sunday to Monday and to Tuesday, and now my schedule is all messed up. I'll just keep it mysterious, you know?

Thank you for reading once again! Please consider voting and commenting, it helps me a ton ♥