The Last Prophecy - Book One

CHAPTER 1 - Part 1.1 - The Beginning of the End

Song of the Chapter: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Lorde

February 19, 1650
Near Midnight
Holy Mountains, Dostiante

    The harsh winter effected the entire realm. The harshness was not even the entirety of it either. After the sudden and unexpected demise of King Jonathan, his young heir Alexander claimed the throne. In the first month of him being king, Alexander married Cecile from the house Vandelhough, one of the oldest houses, in accordance with his mother’s wishes. All these news has effected the public deeply.

    When the news of the new king’s intentions of getting married started to come out, Joelbell’s assumed he would marry one of their own. After all, Joelbell’s and Earlong’s were ally houses. Joelbell’s lost the throne to Earlong’s seven generations ago, even though for three generations there was a dark cloud over the relationship of the two houses, the later generations grew closer and they were able to put the past behind and form new bonds. But after finding out about the new king’s wife being a Vandelhough, a known enemy of the house Joelbell, Benjamin Joelbell announced that Kastelidia would not be supporting the new throne. Some houses agreed to this in spirit but did not act on it since they did not want to cross the Earlong’s.

    And now, the young king Alexander, at the this ungodly hour, was climbing the Holy Mountains. He was almost at the top. The time was nearly midnight. He was trying to get to the top for nearly two hours now. He was extremely sweaty and tired. He already payed an incredible price to enter the holy lands, on top of that the rumors about people entering this place getting cursed were bumming him out. He did not believe in curses, however, if they were true hundreds of would be chasing him down.

    The young king finally arrived at a small cave at the top. Midnight was minutes away. The king saw a baby in the cave. It was a girl. She was just lying there, without moving. Alexander could hear the screams of eagles and the flap of their wings even though they were far away somewhere in the wind.

    When the clock stroke midnight the baby started crying and a few lightnings hit. The king felt joy like no other. For many people a few lightnings wouldn’t mean anything but that was not the case for him. The king picked up the baby girl and started to climb down from the mountain. When he stopped for a bit and looked around he realized that the warm rain was melting the snow around him. End of winter. The baby was wet from the rain. She was looking at the king with her blue eyes. The king let out a laughter, making clear that he likes what’s happening, and brought his lips close to the baby’s ears. In the beginning of spring, the very first words the baby ever heard was being whispered to her ear. “We are going to do great things together, Kaelie.”

The Year 1667 (Present)

    The training hall of the royal palace wasn’t crowded. Educational training duels were performed in the sandy circled area at the center of the hall while the individual training could be done with the wood mannequins placed to the left and right side of the massive room. The men and women’s changing rooms were on the right side of the entrance and next to those were an area dedicated to weapons and armor. The walls were covered with duplicates of weapons and other war equipment used in important wars.

    In this glamorous hall, there was someone who was even more glamorous than the hall itself. Princess Kaelie, focusing her ocean blue eyes to the moves of her opponent, was doing everything in her power to fend them off. The little braids on her dark blonde hair were scattering with her every move. The golden armor she was wearing came out of the hands of the best craftmans in the realm. That’s why instead of slowing her down, the armor was designed to make the young girl faster. Her short, one handed sword was dazzling and was making a satisfying metalic sound with each move.

    Young princess was dueling a boy younger than her. Even though the boy was putting up a good fight for his age, he eventually could not keep up with the princess’s perfectly ordered moves that probably with years of experience turned into a spesific pattern and he fell down. Kaelie smiled sincerely. This was not a victory smile. On the contrary, the boy’s development was quite impressive for her. The girl gave the boy her hand to help him get up. “You need to learn how to hide your mistakes, Marvin,” she said and jumbled the boy’s messy, brown hair with her hands. “Do the training you did with me with your friends. Maybe in the future you can be a trainer too.” She smiled and winked at the little boy. Marvin shook his head with a little embarrassment and ran to his friends.

    While the girl was rubbing her hands on her forehead to get rid of the sweat, she heard a clapping noise. When she turned around she saw it was James. He was like usual. His black hair was messy and sweaty due to him doing some heavy work immediately after waking up. His clothes were recently changed and simplistic. His eyes, the same color as his hair, looked like they were searching for a place to sleep. He was James, her only friend.

    “The youngest trainer of the century, Princess Kaelie Earlong,” he applauded and bowed before her jokingly. Kaelie smiled. She knew James’s jokes, his face, hia behavior... He was the only person she memorized.

    “I don’t sleep til noon like you, James,” she mocked while walking towards him.

    James pouted a bit. It seemed hard for him to do because James couldn’t act even for a joke. He was ingenious and honestly that was probably the biggest reason Kaelie was friends with him. “You will not make me forget about that, huh?” he said and waited for Kaelie to come. Together they left the training hall and started wandering around on the palace corridor. Not because they were going somewhere, they would wander around the palace just to pass time. The palace was so much older that one could comprehend so ever since they were kids they discovered many secret places and paths. In some hiding spots couples carved their initials, in some others there were drawings and hidden items. Finding these and guessing about the people’s lives was incredibly fun. Until of course Kaelie’s father came along and out a stop to the game. Usually he would make up an excuse about a ceremony or royal business and would take his daughter with him. Kaelie hated when he was like that. Just because she was used to her father being serious and him putting royal duties above anything didn’t mean that she liked that about him.

    Kaelie and James were moving forward in the corridor decorated with splendiferous carpets and lit with candels mounted to the wall with golden holders until Kaelie stopped in front of a window.

    Her eyes suddenly could see kilometers away. This sometimes happened when she focused hard on something. What she saw was a carriage with the seal of house Joelbell. The house of Christian Joelbell, her father’s very close friend. If it was a planned visit, her father would be standing on top of her and go on and on about how she should get ready. But since he didn’t do any of that, Joelbell’s was here unplanned or due to an emergency. Kaelie didn’t want to be indecent when they arrived so she had to get ready.

    “There is a carriage coming with Joelbell’s seal. I must go,” she said with a bummed tone. And she was bummed. Spending time with James was fun, hosting Joelbell’s on an official matter was boring. She would always choose the first option.

     “How do you even see that?” James asked while squinting his eyes to try and see the carriage.

    Kaelie didn’t have an answer. She could always see so far away and she no idea why. She was curious but every time she asked her father only thing she learned was not to ask about it ever again. This was the case for most things. “I don’t know, I just do I guess,” she brushed off. “Anyway, I have to go, see you afterwards?”

    “I have work to do till evening,” James sighed. Kaelie always had something going on, a royal business, a ball or some sort of education. After all she was a princess. James knew he could never compete with her.

    “I’ll find you,” the young girl rushed to her room from the closest staircase she could find. Her room was three stairs down from this floor. The carriage wasn’t too close so it gave her time to get ready and ‘look like a princess’.

    Kaelie was in her room not too long after. It wasn’t the biggest room. She didn’t spend most of her time here either. The room was completely decorated according to his father’s wishes, with the house color of Earlong’s, black and burgundy, it never really felt like it was hers. Being a princess never really felt like her either, Kaelie just wanted to be on the battle ground. This was what she was made for. Her father thought a princess should know how to defend herself and also focus on her beauty and be diplomatic. But she didn’t want to be a diplomatic leader, she wanted to lead an army. But it wasn’t possible for a princess to do that.

    After a sigh, she opened her wardrobe. She chose a burgundy dress covered with white pearls that leaves her neck and shoulders open, broadened starting from her waist and changed into it. She wasn’t quite fond of dresses like these but as a princess you couldn’t expect her to dress any other way in a formal setting. Kaelie sat down in front of the mirror wearing this dress that limited her movements, brushed her hair and gave some color to her cheeks with a blush. She indeed looked like a princess but she did not look much like herself. She could be the furthest thing from a warrior with this look. Once again, this time with a longer sigh, she got up from her seat and looked outside from the balcony in her room. Her eyes could pick out James from not that far away with the sacks he was carrying on his back. The Joelbell carriage was almost near the palace gardens entry -this was a considerably long distance since the palace was located in an almost town sized area with gardens and settlements-.

     The princess left her room to look for her father. Her being much slower than her normal walking pace made her only hate this dress more. She had two climb two flights of stairs to get her father’s business quarters.

    When she got to the staircase she saw a man who made her freeze, Moart Holaroder, walking down from the same staircase with Joseph Thonder. Moart and Joseph curtsied the princess with respect. “As usual, you’re ready well earlier than needed, my lady,” observed Moart with a melodic voice. He was wearing gray and black tones, which was normal, after all, it was the color of his family’s house, even though he was hated by his family. He had black hair, although some were whitening, he was in his mid forties and wheat-skinned. He had that satisfied look on his face showing everything was on track. The man who is the gossip and slyness machine of the palace, was in a good mood. His dark grayish eyes were calm like a stagnant sea and sharp like the tip of a sword. He continued his words while squinting his eyes. “I’d be lying if I said I’m not envious of your foresight sometimes,” he said and came a little closer to the princess. He smiled amicably with a chilling calmness in his eyes. “I wonder how you do it.”

    Kaelie toughened her posture against these sly and carefully picked words. She might have looked like just a young girl but she was a princess. She was in a higher position to even a man as dangerous as Moart. “Only being born as the king’s daughter is not enough to be a princess,” she replied with a firm and noble tone. Her look helped her answer with such a tone so she couldn’t help but be thankful to the dress. “Someone who will claim the throne one day must carry qualities necessary for it, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Holarader?”

    Moart raised his brows slightly and smiled more intensely. “Absolutely, Lady Earlong,” he said politely. Joseph seemed bothered by the tension in the air. Even though he wasn’t a brilliant man he had good memory and that was enough to make him Moart’s favorite spy. “It is an absolute pleasure to chat with you, but if you’ll allow it, Joseph and I must be on our way.”

   Kaelie turned her head slightly to the right and approved with a light nod. “The permission is yours.” She moved to the side to let them pass.

   Moart took a step and came closer to the girl. “Until next time, your majesty,” he said, this time in a less decent tone and moved his face closer to the princess’s ears. “Vi ura.”

    This whisper lasted no longer than a second but it was enough to open all of Kaelie’s senses. She didn’t know what the statement meant but she felt vulnerable. When she turned her head, Moart and Joseph was already moving down the corridor.