"Princess," the lead officer said. "We are here to bring you back to the palace. Step away from your captor."
"My captor?" Lumi laughed. She realised that Tom already had long daggers of ice in his hands. He was prepared to fight.
"I won't go back with you," Lumi said.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Princess."
Kobuk burst through the trees in a blast of ice and frost, attacking one of the tiger's from behind. Lumi ducked out of the way as Tom jumped onto his wolf's back. One of the other soldiers sent a blast of fire towards Tom but Lumi quelled it easily and the fire disappeared into the air like it had never been there. The other offices attempted more fire attacks and Lumi quelled them again. She may not have her fire power, but she had her quelling.
But she was on the ground while the three of them were still on tigerback, and they were attempting to surround her now. Lumi had nowhere to go, with the crest of the hill behind her. She glanced back and realised just how far the drop was. If she tumbled down that hill she would surely break her neck.
"Princess, we are taking you in."
Tom riding Kobuk hit one of the tigers with a blast of winter magic that sent the tiger sprawling and the rider flying off his back, falling into a tree with a painful thud. The other two were rounding on Kobuk now, and Lumi saw her chance to escape. She bolted through the gap between the tigers and back towards the town. She ran, knowing that the two tigers were following her.
"Princess, stop!"
Lumi grit her teeth together. She realised, as the officer called out to her, how much she hated being called Princess.
It wasn't her name.
She remembered, suddenly, that Prince Raphael had always called her Princess. He had never called her Lumi, throughout their time of courtship. She couldn't remember if her name had ever come from his lips once. She wondered if maybe he thought it was respectful, to call her by her title, the same way her guards did. But to Lumi, the disrespect lay in never allowing her her own name.
"My name is Lumiko," she snapped, turning around. "Tell my brother he does not own me. I will not return to the Volcano Palace."
Tom sent a blast of deadly ice towards the two remaining tiger riders. One of them sustained a serious hit and screamed out, while his fellow officer managed to avoid it by jumping free of his tiger.
"You are my people," Lumi said. "I do not wish to hurt you. But if you do not go from this place now, I will be forced to kill you."
There must have been something in her expression, or perhaps it was just the force of Tom's power, but the two remaining tiger riders seemed to heed Lumi's statement. They took off into the air, flying back Lothways.
Lumi and Tom went back to the clearing where the third tiger was still waiting for them. It growled at them as they approached, and Lumi softened as she realised that the tiger was guarding its fallen starrling.
Lumi went to the tiger rider, a young Fire Army officer woman, who was leaning against a tree. She was gasping for breath.
Lumi crouched down besides her.
"Lumiko," the woman whispered.
Lumi could see, suddenly, that the woman had sustained such a serious injury in her fall against the tree that she would die. Her back was ruined, and she would never walk again. Never fight again. Never live again.
This was Lumi's fault.
Lumi brushed her hand across the officer's brow.
"What is your name?"
"Meiliu," the woman breathed out.
"A beautiful Liaohuan name," Lumi whispered. "Your mother chose very well. You shall return to the stars from whence you have come, and be in the peace of your ancestors. I will burn your body, and your soul as smoke shall return to the night sky. You are a starrling and you will now return home."
Meiliu let out a sobbing breath and closed her eyes.
Lumi gritted her teeth and then pressed her hand over the woman's chest. It was instinct, now, that caused her to pull at Meiliu's magic from within her heart. She quelled deeply, feeling the woman's magic pour into her own body like hot warm liquid. Every last drop of magic streamed from Meiliu's body into Lumi's, and as it did, Meiliu took her last breath and then stilled. She was already cold.
Lumi rearranged Meiliu's body into a neater position, and then she set it alight.
She hadn't had the use of her magic for days, and yet now it was as if her magic had never gone. Fire sprang out of her palms and ate eagerly at Meiliu's body. It burned hotter and brighter, burning and burning, lighting up the woods round them.
Behind Lumi, the officer's tiger let out a yowl of sadness, but it hadn't moved.
Lumi looked back, to see that Tom and Kobuk were watching her.
When the woman's body was nothing but ash and smoke, Lumi quelled the fire so that it died in the undergrowth.
"How did you do that?" Tom asked.
"Quelling," she murmured.
Lumi felt herself growing weak, and she stared at Tom with a panic, realising the gravity of what she had just done.
"I can kill with quelling," she said, horror in her voice.
There was horror in Tom's expression now, too. Suddenly his flirty grin and laughter was gone as he stared at her in shock.
Lumi felt shivery and cold now, and she desperately wanted Tom to engulf her in his arms, to tell her it was alright, that she had done the right thing, that it was the good thing. She wanted him to reassure her as he had reassured her before.
Instead, he swallowed stiffly and he said, "We should leave. We don't know if they'll return with backup."
Lumi felt tears in her eyes but she nodded. "I'll wake Doctor Hart."
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elle xx