COF 3: The Fallen Dynasty

3 | Peltra (I)

Xanthy nodded before knitting her eyebrows at what he said. "Sorry," she rubbed the side of her nose. "Another war?"

"Yeah," June gazed at the flat, muddy road below them. "Don't you know your history?"

Xanthy rolled her eyes. Of course, June knew that she spent half of her life running around in the Disfavoreds trying to survive. There's no need to answer that question. "Yeah, what happened with the War?"

June tapped his chin. "Actually," he scratched at his palm. "Umazure has survived two wars."

Xanthy's eyes widened. Two?

"One was the Hundred Years' War," June held up two fingers. "And the other is the Human-Fairy war."

Xanthy's stomach soured. Was the island ready to survive its third? She shook her head. That's why she was here. She needed to stop anything from happening before more lives were lost. Wars should end.

She met June's dark eyes and smiled. "What happened in the Hundred Years' War?" she asked. This was, after all, the first time she heard about it.

June shrugged. "Basically, it all started when the other species began fighting each other for dominance."

"Species?" Xanthy knitted her eyebrows. "You mean there are more than just Fairies and Dwarves?"

June looked at her like she had just grown butterbread through her ears. "No," he shook his head. "We are not alone in this world. We have to share Fantasilia with the Elves, the Sirens, the Dwarves, the Shadow Races, the Giants, and of course, the Blood Beings."

Xanthy eyed a nest of birds with purple feathers and spiky, bright red tails on a nearby branch. "And these races coexisted with each other until the Hundred Years' War?" she smiled watching a mother with a crown of curly feathers twittered before shoving berries into her children's hungry beaks.

"Yeah, pretty much," June tousled his hair and flicked the reins again. "Legends has it that these species fought with so much magic that it tore the whole continent apart into smaller landmasses that we have now."

"That's crazy," Xanthy wrinkled her nose. "There's no way people can do that in a hundred years. How come we never see these creatures anymore?" Well, apart from the Dwarves whose metal still continued to haunt their island.

June swatted at the air to ward off the insects that might want to bite him. The sound of wings fluttering rang in Xanthy's ears. Xanthy rolled her eyes. Forests. "That would be because of the barriers," he said after a while to answer Xanthy's question.

Xanthy frowned. "Barriers?" Was that the thing Cyrdel was talking about in his plans in his workshop?

"Yeah. There's a huge magical barrier around Umazure and I assume all the other continents as well," June tousled his hair again to drive out the insects that might have landed on there the past few minutes. "Legends tell us that they appeared when the Hundred Years' War finished to prevent another inter-special war from happening again."

Xanthy tapped her chin. "So it's for our protection?" Why would Cyrdel want to break through it, then? It didn't make sense. "So after the war, the fairies got Umazure?"

"Yeah," June grinned.

"And after that came the Human-Fairy war?" Xanthy scratched the side of her face. Her nails came away with a thin film of gray. She frowned. She needed a bath. "Why would the fairies attack humans anyway?"

June dusted his cloak, revealing his belt where a single dagger sheathed by his left hip. Was that the one he used to cut off the ropes back when Xanthy was being purged? Maybe. "Accounts vary," June answered after a while. "Some say it's because Fairies wanted to use Cardina for expansion and the Humans refused to move. Others say that it's because humans had offended fairies just by existing," he sighed. "Of course, regardless of the motivation, Fairies attacked Cardina and the humans retaliated resulting in a war."