The Chronicles of Onyx: Book 2

Chapter Four

Young rays of morning sun bathed them both as they made their way to the Orcs camp. They followed closed behind Dezenym and his pack. They swiftly navigated under the cover of the frozen forest, determined to make the first mark. To bring the fight to the enemy rather than sit and await for its appending arrival.

Rok plowed through the snow, with a sturdy figure cutting a path alongside him. Oldrin. Whom whistling a dwarven tune under his breath as he marched.

Yet, Rok remained silent. Consumed by the desire to be at Onyx's side, to shield her from any possible dangers that lurked nearby. However, the cruel irony was that he needed to engage in this war to ensure her safety, to protect her from the looming threat of the Queen. The battlefield demanded his attention.

So he had agreed with Dezenym's decision to hide her. To conceal her away from the battle. No matter the cost.

-ooooo-

Jade took small anxious steeps behind the strong strides of Rok. The world around him seemed to enclose into him, suffocating him in fear. Doubt gnawed at his resolve, perhaps he was not ready for war yet. Was he? Had he prepared himself to fight? To take lives? Regardless of whom they belonged to he did not feel worthy to have such authority as to take another's life.

He was just a thief, and he had known nothing more than that life. And now he was faced with war. Fighting for his own life now. Like a warrior.

"It is me or them, right?"

-ooooo-

Green eyes feel upon a golden crown, laced with gems that shone like the sun's rays upon shimmering water. Around it even more jewels and gold that laid carefully in the Queens grand treasury. Each piece placed with deliberate care and caution. Even the crown itself, set upon a chiseled face of a marble statue. One that mimicked the Queens features.

As a boy Jade grew up hearing such tells of the countless riches the Queen beheld in her castle. And how no one would ever dare to steal from her. His father would often fill his head with these stories, taunting him with tales of treasure he could never lay his eyes on. Or so he thought.

Yet now here he was with his father. With the whole world at his fingertips. Anything he could ever possibly want, he could now have. Well, almost.

"Father should we leave some?" Jade asked as he traced the crown's shape with his skinny fingers.

"No son" his father scoffed as he stuffed a fistful of golden coins in a canvas sack.

"What thief leaves riches behind?" he asked rhetorically, showing a row of crocked, stained teeth as he smiled.

Jade sighed and turned his attention back to the crown, his green eyes glazing over as he became lost in his own thoughts.

John wasn't his real father, nor was he elven. He was just a mortal, a man left to survive on his own with only his knowledge and the tattered rags on his back. Whom just so happened to come across on orphaned baby. Left behind on the side of a town street, by he assumed, his birth mother.

So John had taken it upon himself to raise Jade himself. Teaching him how to survive, how to pick pocket. How to steal without getting noticed or caught. But even his father didn't seem ready for stealing from the Queen herself.

Yet, here they were, death almost curtain.

"Father, I think we should go" Jade spoke up, turning to John with fear and worry evident in his wide green eyes.

"Not yet boy" John hissed.

"Just fill your sack, then we can leave" His father said as he threw his, now full, sack over his shoulder.

"Fine" Jade mumbled beneath his breath as he took the crown and dropped it into his own sack.

For a moment Jade's hand hovered above another gem, hesitating before grabbing it and tossing in in the sack with the crown. He glanced up only to see with father looting, driven by greed. His eyes were fixed on the precious items before him, oblivious to the danger that lurked nearby.

Jade reluctantly continued, stuffing his sack with stolen riches. However as the moments passed, the air in the room became tense, the weight of their deeds pressing down on him. The once-glistening jewels now felt like heavy burdens, haunting his conscience.

Suddenly, a distant sound echoed through the grand halls–the unmistakable clink of armor and the shuffle of boots. Panic seized Jade by the throat, and he froze, exchanging fearful glances with his father.

The room illuminated with torchlight, revealing armored Orcs closing in on them.

In the chaos that ensued, John made a desperate dash for freedom. Leaving Jade to fend for himself. However, the Orcs were quicker, and as Jade watched in horror, the clash of steel and a cry of pain echoed through the treasury.

His father fell, the weight of the stolen treasures only quickened his fall upon the stone floor. A pool of crimson blood spreading beneath him. With the glint of steel protruded from his chest.

Jade, froze, paralyzed by fear, watched as his father was slaughtered before him. And he did nothing to stop it.

How could he?