Dark Queen: The Cybelline Prophecies

Chapter 35

He stopped himself and shook his head, "He said that it'll be better if we didn't go there." The other man was about the reply when a streak of wind blew past him. When the dust cleared, he saw a small figure on a large horse, streaking past the caravan and disappearing into the horizon.

"Ere, what's the hurry?" One of the merchants frowned.

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A trip that would have taken ten days, Cybelline did in five. And when she arrived at the village, all that greeted her was...destruction. The ground was cracked and blackened. The beautiful rows of little cottages were no more. The rolling hills of wheat and their farms had all turned into fragile dust.

Cybelline frowned and forged past the the piles of rocks and the little marketplace. Here was the remnants of the apple cart, the cobbler's stand, the little stumps where the ladies sat and gossiped. Now there was only black piles and bits of burnt bone. It seemed as if they didn't know what was coming, that it had happened in a flash. They didn't have a chance to run.

She walked passed it all. Too often in her life had she seen horrors that were beyond comprehension, too often she had to force the nausea away until it was second nature. Everywhere she walked, shadows of villagers seemed to greet her, fading before her eyes as she passed. She saw a heap of metal and wood that was Yoni's ox cart, the one that had brought her into the village. Beside it was bits of bone fragments, human and animal. Yoni.

Cybelline knelt down grabbed a few handfuls of dirt to cover it. Standing up, she looked towards the direction that was Ithos and Myrai's house. If anything had happened to them... she forced down the murderous rage, focusing on the task at hand.

Going up the little path, she forced herself to not look at the burnt houses or think about the people she knew, who could never come out of those homes again.

She turned the corner of the hill and stopped. Ithos's house stood, and unlike everything else, looked unharmed. The vegetable patch, the fence, everything looked vibrant, alive, and normal. She felt a small twinge of hope.

Cybelline barreled into the house and saw no one.

"Ithos?" She called out as, "Myrai?" Where were they? Had they run for the hills with the children? She searched every inch of the house, there was not a soul.

Meow. The family cat ran over and purred at her feet. Cybelline looked down, "Where are they?"

The cat looked at her for a moment, turned and headed towards the kitchen pantry. Cybelline followed, there, the cat nuzzled on a few jars of spices in the back of the pantry. Cybelline cleared all the other jars away and found that the ones the cat had selected had very small, distinctive fingerprints.

Cybelline placed her hand on the jar and turned.

There was a click and a trap door that hadn't been there before sprung open. Cybelline walked over and looked down.

Three large pairs of eyes stared back at her. Isthan, Berin and Ceric looked up at her, the sudden light causing them to squint.

Once they saw who it was, Ceric yelped with joy and scrambled out of the tiny cellar.

"You came!" He said, "You came back!" He hugged her tightly, the other two join suit, hurtling themselves onto her. Cybelline patted the tiny figures and ruffled their hair, pretending not to notice the wet spots their tears left on her tunic.

"What happened. Where are the others?"

"We were in the house, when he came." Berin, "That big man, Jinon told us that we needed to go. But Myrai had taken Ryion and Miri up to the mountains to gather mushrooms. Ithos was hunting. There was a huge boom and the ground shook." Ceric shuddered at the thought.

Berin placed a hand on his brother's shoulder,"Jinon told us to go hide, and to not come out until someone came for us. He threw some kind stone that made this flash around the house, then he left. Not soon after...the sky itself seemed to turn to fire. We ran for this place that Myrai had shown us a long time ago."

Cybelline nodded, "Do you remember which way Ithos and Myrai went?" The boys nodded. She looked at them and out towards the direction of the village ruins. If Ithos, Myrai, and Jinon had escaped successfully, then they would have come back for the boys. Something must have happened.

"Grab your things, quickly. We're leaving." Cybelline said.

"Where?" Ceric asked, his eyes bright. Cybelline looked to the mountains, "We're going to find the rest of our family."

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Author's Note: Thank you everyone who's been reading Dark Queen. Also, I love reading every comment, you guys are the best!