Dusk of the Realm

8

"Four days," she said, disbelieving. "I asked for as much time as could be bought, and your pathetic forces give me four days?"

Hivlik, her miserable excuse for a general, was pale. "Your Highness, we have tried our best to fulfill all of your orders, but Wulf—"

"—has gotten through your defenses," she hissed, even as his expression morphed into one of shock. "Yes, Hivlik — trust me, he is coming. How long would it take him to get here from the time and place the massacre of Geldon's groups was discovered?"

Hivlik hesitated, and she slapped him for it. "You reported that your men have not found him. The traps are untouched, and yet there is no sign that they have journeyed back towards Azure. He has tricked you, and he is on his way. How long do we have?"

Hivlik cringed, her slap having produced some blood in his pallid face. "We... from their camp, it would take our units at least three days to get to base — probably more. The runner, the one who informed us of the massacre, he made it in three, but he was alone, and he was moving like hells. The Fae..."

He trailed off, and Eris hissed out a curse. She had expected more. More out of her pathetic men. More success from the traps she had laid. More effect on Wulf when she had said those things to him in the guise of his beloved princess. More time.

She had a plan. She was clever enough to come up with that even in such a short time, even under such pressure. But she needed more time to implement the rest of it. If Wulf was already on her doorstep, it could be too late.

She lifted a hand, her eyes sparking with electricity. Hivlik cried out as his feet left the safety of the floor, as he slammed into the opposite wall. Eris clenched her fingers as if she were strangling him, and his throat, in kind, showed the indents of her fingertips. She offered him a ruthless smile, and his eyes bugged out of his head.

"How long until he is here?" she repeated.

Hivlik did not hesitate this time, though she had to strain her ears to hear his words through the gasping. "I would... guess... he will be here today... Your Highness..."

"Not good enough!" she shrieked, whipping her hand through the air. Hivlik's body followed, striking the fireplace before crumpling down before the flames, blood trickling from his forehead. He gazed up at her with eyes covered in a glaze of terror.

"Yes; it's horrifying, isn't it?" she murmured, her voice suddenly coddling rather than murderous; a shift that simply seemed to scare the general more. "Magic? The fact that every Fae can do the types of things I just did to you... it isn't fair, and it isn't right. Of course they rule over the rest of us with such blatant advantages.

"But," she continued, and glided across the floor, her long, smooth white hair trailing an inch or so across the floor, as if it composed the back of her gown. "If you take those advantages away..."

She then shot out her hand, and Hivlik flinched... but then recovered as he saw what she was holding up by the collar of her expensive, yet filthy, dress.

The princess.

Eris dangled her as if she were nothing but a doll, and for all the fight the girl put up, she might as well have been. Hivlik was watching through his stupor with shock and awe fighting for dominance in his expression. Fighting each other, that was, as well as fighting the fear.

"If you take those away," she repeated, smiling at the princess' sleeping face with a sense of triumph, "they are no longer glorious. They are no longer gods."

Eris was so lost in the vision of becoming a god herself that she only realized something was amiss when Hivlik made a dreadful sound; a thick gurgle, as if...