Chapter 6

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Imperia sat sideways and crossed her legs on the throne with a smile. She was wearing black pants and overall looked more like a pirate than a Queen. If someone suddenly walked in, their gaze would immediately be pulled towards her golden hair that looked like it was glowing despite being darker than before. She tied her hair in a ponytail and had locks of pink hair here and there. Same colored pieces of fabric could be found hanging from her pants and puffy white shirt. At her every movement those pieces of fabric would fly around her body and make her look weightless. Despite her ragged appearance, there was no mistaking it: she was the Queen in this room. For a second even Leora felt like kneeling.

Seeing her on the throne, her people bowed down, almost touching the ground. They didn't move for so long that Leora thought time had stopped. After looking at each and every one of them, Imperia laughed:

"This place looks nice, doesn't it? Let's make it our home, shall we?"

Everyone straightened up and went back to cheering loudly. Imperia couldn't stop laughing but suddenly bit her lower lip. Seeing her do so, a rather small and quite skinny dark blond man bent towards her:

"What's wrong?"

Imperia rubbed her chin with a smile:

"Do you know what's missing? Music."

On these words, musicians walked in and seeing them, Imperia's smile widened:

"I love drums!"

All the musicians who came in had drums of different sizes and they got in place under the bandit's fury. As they started playing, Imperia jumped on her feet and started clapping on beat. Everyone had forgotten about Leora at this point and people started jumping up and down loudly. Imperia jumped off the platform and immediately ran to the middle of the dance floor. She put her hands in the air and people started dancing around her while Imperia was turning on herself. She couldn't stop laughing and seemed genuinely happy. Seeing her like that, Leora's heart squeezed. Had she ever seen Angeline smile like that?

The bandits who were holding Leora finally woke up and started dragging her out but Leora wasn't going to leave so easily. She finally woke up and escaped them before running towards Imperia. She didn't know herself what she would do when she would reach her but it didn't matter because she couldn't reach her no matter how hard she tried. Every time she took a step forward, another bandit would jump on her and Imperia didn't stop dancing one second not hearing about what was happening in the back of the room.

"Angeline! Angeline!"

Hearing her call their Queen's dead name, one of the bandits hit Leora behind the head. She got a bit stunned and needed a few seconds to get back to her body but by that time she was already out of the room.

"I just want to talk to her. Take me to your Queen. I insist.

-Our Savior is celebrating. You will see her when she wants to.

-But Angeline...

-Stop calling that name. She is Queen Imperia. She doesn't wear the name those people gave her."

Leora bit her lips. No matter how much she insisted, she got dragged to a cell and got left there without anything to eat for days. After the third day she really thought that she would die of thirst but someone finally remembered her and brought her water. Everyone who wasn't Imperia's men got dragged out of the Castle and got thrown into a cell if they resisted.

Imperia and the bandits celebrated their success for five days non stop. Wine was flowing freely and music didn't stop playing for a second. Because of the drums and of all the people in the ballroom jumping, the whole Castle was shaking above Leora's head. At the beginning she thought the place could collapse on her but it went on for so long that Leora got used to the shaking. She got so used to the noises that when it stopped, she needed a few minutes to understand what was missing.

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