APRIL SYLKRANA IS DETERMINED TO RISE. After the devastating news of her mother, the Imperial High Queen's, death, she only has one job before she can take what is rightfully hers: kill her half-brother, June. Not only is he elusive and serious about...
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2412, Diori 15, Kindreth
April flew deep into the chaos, her limbs and wings not hers. One order rang into her mind, blaring over and over into the chambers of her head. Destroy Penleth. Take down everyone who fights against you. And no matter how much she tried, she couldn't get it out.
The past months had been a blur. Maybe she did things in her sleep, killed people she didn't mean, but she had no way of knowing. She was lucky if she retained some sort of consciousness whenever the order resounded in her soul. Most of the time, all she felt, saw, and remembered, was black. Endless, merciless, and senseless black.
Now, she needed her eyes, ears, and limbs to swing a sword, and that's what she did. The Sovereign, who had teamed with the Heiress to take down Penleth, ordered for the Virtakios' stronghold's fall, and April was there to follow, along with many others who succumbed to the same spell cast over her.
The day that potion was forced down her throat was still fresh at the back of her mind. She did her best to recall it every time her consciousness returned. It served as a reminder for her stupidity and the truth behind her actions. When she told the Sovereign she didn't want to kill June and do the Sovereign's dirty work, the Synketrian leader made sure April would never utter those words again.
Her wings started folding as she neared the fortress' battlements. From above, April saw the three rings of walls protecting what's supposed to be the inner sanctum, where the command center lay. The fight wasn't there, though. It was in the second ring, where a mass of people crowded towards a small opening. Where were they going?
Her form had little care about that. All it was concerned with was how to hit the fortress where it hurt. That's why it zipped across the sky, weaving around the aerial attacks thrown her way with a sort of expertise April could never do as her own. This couldn't be the Sovereign's power, could it?
April's hands drew the Dwarven metal sword strapped on her side, and as she hurtled past the battlements and towards the flat ground, she swung. The blade bit flesh and didn't stop until blood splattered all over her hair, skin, and skirt. At her feet, fallen forms painted the compact floor with their blood. The tapered edge of her sword flowed with the same liquid. She...
The orders gave her no time to recover. Her legs moved in their own accord, lunging forward. Her arms swung the sword over and over, cutting people down. They didn't even fight. Rather, they couldn't. They're escaping somewhere for that same reason. This wasn't right. As a daughter of the Sylkrana dynasty, or even if she wasn't, striking down the defenseless wasn't the right thing to do. No matter how twisted she was or how much blood already stained her hands, she didn't need any more.
She didn't need more.
The scream ripping out of her throat became a tinge of aggression more than defiance. That's not...
A different shriek ripped her form's attention. A pixie, judging from the pale skin and the dark hair, charged towards her. She aimed to step back, to angle her sword away. Didn't he know the fate awaiting him with that foolish move? Get away. Stay back.
