Shadow's Curse

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They took her. That's the last thing that burns in my mind, at least the most important thing that can come to mind. Everyone knew her, she was a sacred gem to the royals, her name was Tori LightningFlame. A dutchess soon to be married to Prince Spectre. That's how we all knew her, not how she used to roam through the walls of the city without permission (although I'm sure I only remember that), not how she would dance around the ballroom in her father's shoes with her friends until dawn. Everyone simply thought of her as a kind and generous person who would someday be our queen.

But one day, Spectre thought differently, all I saw was when she was binded and screaming for help on the back of a horse driven carriage, guards yelling at her to quiet down or she would be burned. There was much talk arising in the lands after that day, some say she was taken and burned to her death miserably, others who speak the truth in our quaint town say she was taken away and cursed upon, making her a monster and could only thrive in her own world. Then we only believed that she was out of our lives and it was against the written laws to speak of her unless given permission. Even today, no one has spoken of her to me. And no one ever will. Possibly.

When I was younger I heard most of the talk about Tori and Spectre being a stable boy, but it wasn't enough for me, I wanted a better job, I wanted to hear more about them, I wanted to be important there. So everyday for the past five years I've begged. And begged. And begged my father to let me at least attempt to become a squire. Ever since my tenth birthday I had hoped and wished for the day he would finally accept my plead. Every beck and call of mine was given in every form possible. Until one day he finally agreed. The day of my fifteenth birthday. It was an extraordinary day, one I could never forget.

The next four years were full of head-to-head combat and outrageous adventures with the highest ranking knights. Classing myself higher and higher, I was now the most trusted squire to roam the lands, so that's what the crown prince told me. As of now, at least. He earlier this year assigned me to an assignment to watch the sacred possession of our kingdom. The syrum. As I was lead to the top of my social ranking they told me of what really happened to Tori. As the head guard told me that he had to hold Tori and bind her because Spectre caught her and another one of his own guards together in the halls of honor, Tylon the head guard, said the other guard was taken to the center of the courtyard in the castle and burned to death. Putting the story aside, I have to watch the syrum for a total of 8 months. The assignment start in September, so a couple days from now. But the agreement is if I pass the assignment without letting the "monster" getting ahold of it, so Spectre says, I am promoted to head guard of the kingdom.

So now here I am laying in a bed of folded over blankets, my head stuffed under three eagle feather filled pillows and worrying about how my death would play out. On one hand, I could survive and be promoted, on the other I could be the one reason our kingdom falls apart my death being as brutal and tortuous as possible, and never able to complete the goals that I set for myself. Although those thoughts play in the background I think to myself what Tori actually looked like before, her large striking blue eyes, her luscious long caramel brown hair strung perfectly, except for one strand in the under layer in the side on her right, that was a stripe of electric blue, which she never spoke of. To everyone it was just natural and we went along with it, no one spoke of how she had flames erupting from her palms when she was angered, because no one except Spectre and I knew. Spectre once said something when I was around them with Tori in the stables as no one else was there and she got frustrated. The air filling with negativity, I could see it in her eye, the striking fire as her lungs filled with flames, pouring from her veins the running of shocks of electricity waves, the electric blue color of murderous flames erupted from the palms of her hands, crackling and flying everywhere, she probably couldn't feel the words rolling off her tongue as she stormed out of the stables with her horse and Spectre flooding out after her. Where as other times they would only talk her being the perfect new ruler for our kingdom, she'd always seem to look like he had bubble prancing in her mind, a smile across her face as she somehow seemed to forget that she was a monster on the inside because of how she was created with her powers. It's as if there was a never a dull moment when she was around, how they always said how her daily days were like upbeat parties compared to us lower and middle classed people. But they never knew what I knew. I saw both sides, yet I could only speak of the bright things of her. She was not a monster to me, but a well feared person, as if she and Spectre had swapped that day. But they hadn't. She concealed herself well until that day. I was the only one who saw that, and after Spectre came back to me and told me with the most serious face that if I ever told anyone what happened, I would be hung and clubbed to death. So ever since that day, he and I had always either been constant friends or enemies, luckily we were mostly on the kind side.