The Eternal Queen

Chapter 2: Ardele

The sound of swords clashing warms my heart. Dropping my items on the ground of the humongous arena, I get ready to spar with my comrades. King Maximus of Arcana has his mercenaries spar at least once a week, and that day is usually when he sends us out on missions as well. He comes in a bit later after our warm ups with one another.

The king has about twelve mercenaries of all kinds of species, and I am lucky enough to be the only witch on the institute. There are two flexible mercenaries that the king rarely calls in, and if he does, bad news have seriously gone down. Glancing around the arena, some are already fighting in pairs, while others are still chatting by the entry corner where I was at. Lexie, a pixie, is in her more humanoid form and she smiles over at me.

"Ardele! Do you want to spare with me?"

I give her a small smile, "Sure."

We walk out to the left side of the area, and I hold up my sword, letting her know to give me a second. Settling the weight comfortably in my hand, I glance at her before unsheathing it. The smell of metal is nostalgic and brings some of my best and worse memories. Lexie takes her fighting stance, and we tensely look at each other. When we spare, it is encouraging as it is dangerous. Injuries are bound to happen, but penalties are a consequence to recklessness if somebody kills or critically harm someone.

The sound of my quiet breathing and the wind rustling makes my ears twitch. Lexie suddenly jumps and boosts into the air, raining shiny powder and comes swirling down in a drilling affect from above. Breaking material around me, I create an x-motion with my arms, creating a barrier around me. Her sword is aimed to slice through the center of the barrier, but I jump out at the last moment, meeting her sword with mine head on.

Her moment of surprise is enough for me to bind a mirror spell. The spell is draining, and I feel a bead of sweat run down the side of my forehead. She screams when the blade of my sword slashes her arm, blood starting to pour out.

Lexie throws a dagger at me, supposedly trying to take me by surprise from the bottom, but I shift over a few degrees to hit the heel of the dagger, causing it fly towards her. Lexie narrowly misses the flying dagger, catching the side of the blade on her other arm.

"Son of a-"

I jump on a piece of floating debris, and she drags her blade languidly to attempt to dodge the boulder hurdling in her direction. The mass of earth hits Lexie square on and she tumbles down to the ground. She groans under the boulder and shoves it off her, and she is breathing hard. Bruises cover her, and I leap to the ground. I shift my left foot, and as I am about to charge, the shrill sound of whistle jolts us out of our bloodlust.

Clearing my head, I briefly look around for the reason of disturbance, meeting the eyes of the king. I drop to a knee, bowing my head. The moment Lexie spots my stance, she immediately kneels.

"Mercenaries."

King Maximus summons us all to stand.

"As you all have known, there has been a breach of loyalty by Sir Malcom the other day. I have decided to create a new form of punishment for any deception and disgraceful behavior. You have taken a pledge of loyalty to have come as far as you have today. I expect you to follow through with the vows you have taken since that day. Any of you who decides to stray from those vows will be tortured, publicly shamed and executed."

One of the younger mercenaries, Holden, whistles. Honestly, I would have too, but I keep quiet. The king was gracious with our mistakes, but it seems that we have been undisciplined for too long. The other day, Malcom, an ogre mercenary had killed an innocent out of rage. A vow we took was not to kill innocents. Normally, King Maximus would have let that slide if it were an accident, or an uncontrollable situation, but Malcolm slaughtered a family of nobles. Not a good look for Maximus' mercenaries.

All of the mercenaries nod, and I do as well. King Maximus glances over at me, and I see the doubt brimming in his eyes. Almost daring me to be next blemish on his reputation. I keep my face expressionless even though I am irritated inside. The prejudices of witches are not the best, but it sucks to see that even King Maximus does not even trust me.

I come back home later than usual from a task I was selected for. It was a dire task, but a needed one. Mercenaries technically fulfill any of King Maximus' messy work, and I do it spectacularly. I push open then door to my tiny cottage on the outskirts of the kingdom, and I see that my place has been drenched in blood. All my items are out of place, dishes on the floor, couch torn apart. I see red, and anger blazes up deep in my bones. 

The blood-stained comforter is jarring, and hesitatingly pull it off the bed. I jerk back so hard I lose my footing, landing hard on the ground. What in the world? A person is lying face down on the bed. Flipping the body over, I examine the distorted features of a human. The flesh has been savagely ripped off, and his organs are spilling out of places in such a gruesome way, I start to feel lightheaded. It looked like a wolf has taken a liking to his body and obliterated it with their fangs.

Sirens and bells go off in the distance, the loud, harsh noises pulling me out of my trance. What am I going to do? I am so dead. There is no one out on the streets at this time for any witnesses, and I will get convicted for a murder I had never committed. And it is a godforsaken human! The human riots in Clairemont are already destructive and they are going to get ten times worse if a witch killed their kind. I feel my skin crawl when I sense a carriage coming down the street. My heart starts to beat erratically. Someone is trying frame me. I look up at the ceiling for help that is not there. The king is going to be furious. And I bet that he has been waiting for this moment for ages.

Frantically looking around, I grab the backpack closest to be on the shelf, so forcefully the whole thing came tumbling down with a loud crash. Crap, crap, crap. Barging into my closet, I cringe at the torn fabrics, but I snatch some clothing that were still functional, shoving it into my bag. Snatching light weight shoes, and other small necessities from the washroom, I ran down the stairs, practically jumping down. In the kitchen, I grab food that would last long on the road and carbs that would be able to keep me full for a long time. Tying my tangled hair up into a chignon, I pull up my hood, swinging my pack over my shoulder.

The sound of a carriage and horses crunching on the gravel yanks me out of my thoughts, and I turn away to slip out the back door. I need to move. Now. The mirror in the hallway catches my eye, and the girl looking back makes me weary. I am exhausted to the bone, and I have not gotten to sleep over twenty-four hours and eat in eight. How will I even make it to another kingdom? I can barely keep my eyes open.

I am going to be wanted here. I have no doubt about that. King Maximus and his troops are going to chase me down until they get my head served on a silver platter. I cannot let that happen. I will not give him and the citizens here the satisfaction.