Prince... No, a princess??

6. The War

Naked and ashamed, I surveyed the audience of stunned humans and tieflings. The tiefling king and queen stood in unison before murmurs could even begin to form.

The tiefling queen demanded to know the meaning of this. How dare the human kingdom dishonor the treaty so drastically by tricking their son into marrying a boy. She directed her question toward the human king and queen, but Maliss was the one who answered.

He loudly proclaimed that he knew Aadi was a boy before the marriage and still wanted to marry me. My anchor seemed to be taking back control against the waves of destruction.

The queen stated how preposterous it was that Maliss would marry a boy. She looked over to their wizard. The young female wizard tried not to make eye contact with the queen, but the queen questioned if she knew about me being a boy.

The wizard reminded the queen that the order of magic forbids her to speak of any magical performances that doesn't directly endanger their clients. Since Maliss would not be harmed by this magic, there was no reason to inform the queen.

In the queens mind this was an admittance to knowing the treachery and she called the wizard useless as she turned to address the audience and tiefling council. The prince has to marry a princess.

Maliss approached my side and placed his shirt and jacket around my waist to cover myself. Then grabbing my hand, he countered by saying let Aadi be my princess.

The queen looked menacingly at her own son and retorted that a boy cannot be a princess.

This is when the king began to speak. He wanted Maliss to marry whoever he chose, he pointed out that tieflings have always been able to choose whoever they wanted to marry, as long as it wasn't a human.

It was only the tiefling princes and princesses who had to marry someone of the opposite gender. The treaty would change the restrictions on the species specifications of marriage. The king motioned to do away with this archaic tradition and allow Maliss to marry me.

The queen put her foot down and stated that the tradition must not be broken, she was not going to let the humans get away with such trickery. This disrespect for their traditions and the treaty was a declaration of war.

Kordax smiled about the queens stance. Finally the tiefling army will be able to attack the humans and do away with their species. The tiefling council sided with the queen about enforcing the tradition and this left the king outnumbered. All seemed lost on swaying the council and the queens mind.

With this ruling however, some brave tiefling civilians spoke up on behalf of the marriage between Maliss and me. Then more tieflings joined in each with their own stance. A division began to form between the more conservative and more liberal tiefling people.

Fearing a backfire of his plan Kordax tried to direct the conflict back towards the humans, but by this point it was too late. A guard was challenged and a punch was thrown, then violence broke out as tiefling fought fellow tiefling.

The humans used this distraction as a way to slip out undetected. Soon I was the only human left to watch the fighting get worse and worse.

The queen commanded my execution and some guards came and grabbed Maliss and me. Maliss slipped out of their grip and knocked out the two soldiers holding me. But more guards pinned him to the ground. Slightly winded he managed to let out one clear word directed at me. Run...

My feet had never gone so fast before. I tried to navigate my way through this unfamiliar town. I was surprised at how quickly the fighting had spread to the entire town. The commotion allowed me to gain some distance on the guards who were following me.