The plan was set that night.
'I know where our people are hiding. They were all in town to far from the opening, that's why we couldn't take them out,' said Galaga.
'Then we need a way out on town,' answered Polar.
'What about a portal? I can open a portal,' I said with maybe too much confidence. I wasn't sure I could do it so easily, but I knew I could do it.
'A portal where? You can't appear in the middle of the street,' Aurora had to be part of the planning, Caelus insisted.
'The best way to open portals is when you truly know the place, is there any significant place you can think of in your Kingdom?' Caelus asked me.
'Yes, there is one place I can think of. Russell's house.'
Caelus flinched at the mention of his name, but it was the right call.
We would enter the Kingdom through a portal, a portal that I would be in charge of opening in the yellow house.
'All right, now, let's talk about teams.'
Aurora and Lewis would stay near the portal to prevent the monsters or any soldiers from crossing it, while we tried to save more people. Mandacol and Galaga would go in search of survivors, those who wanted to go to safety, our allies.
Polar and Rayn would be part of our main team, who would follow Caelus and I to find Rythel and try to negotiate a better deal with him than what Jonah had proposed. I didn't really plan to give him anything, but he didn't know that. I just had to convince him that what I said was true. And if that didn't work, I would buy the others enough time to rescue as many people as possible.
I stayed up late sharpening my new sword. I hadn't taken lessons since the fight with Caelus at Tellus, but I remembered enough.
Besides, I had my magic. I was a little afraid to use it again, because I didn't know if I could control the new shadows that would spread from me, but I had it.
Someone was at the entrance to my tent.
'Who is it?'
'It's me Gaia.'
His voice was welcoming to me, like a warm blanket on a cold, bleak day.
'Come in,' I said as I continued to sharpen my sword, trying to control my heartbeat.
Caelus entered my tent and stood for a few seconds watching me and my sword.
'New toy?'
'A gift from the Gods. One of two actually,' I replied without looking at him. It didn't seem like a good idea after saying something like that.
He took a few steps closer, making my heart race, putting my skin on alert.
'What do you want Caelus?' I questioned him before he came closer, still not looking at him.
'I just wanted to see if you're okay. Since we've been back you've had nothing but bad news.'
'I'm fine, don't worry about me.'
I didn't want to be this dry and mean to him, but I had no choice, it was the only way to hide the love I inevitably felt for him.
'Okay,' he said lowering his head.
I couldn't help but stare at him at that moment, and when he looked up suddenly, I was hooked on his blue eyes.
'I'm so proud of what you did today. You started something that can change the world as we know it. I'm proud of you.'
'Thank you, but it was the right thing to do. Even though I know they're going to struggle with the idea. I was thinking, maybe they should vote privately and we can do it every year. Well... if I make it to next year.'
'Don't say that.'
He hushed me sternly, his eyes full of fire and love.
I knew he was holding back too.
'Caelus... I can't.' I finally told him.
'Gaia,' he approached my bed so fast I had no time to react.
The sword fell on my mattress, and he sat down in front of me. He took my face in his hands and squeezed my cheeks, taking in my scent, feeling me in his touch.
'I messed everything up, but I can't help it, I can't stay away from you. I just love you, I love you so bad it hurts.'
My breathing began to hitch, his lips dangerously close to mine. I knew that just by getting a little closer, I could enjoy his lips.
He wouldn't move, he was waiting for me to decide what to do next.
And the temptation was too great.
I kissed him with an uncontrolled passion, stronger than him and me. Every time our lips touched, a small sigh left my mouth, as if I couldn't believe something felt so good.
Then, his hands left my cheeks and moved down to my waist. He slowly began to lay on top of me.
Take his shirt off.
For some reason, I pulled his shirt off.
His muscles were exposed and I could feel the heat rising from my body. I kept kissing him without considering for a minute what I was doing.
I just wanted to keep going, I wanted to keep going because it felt so right.
His hands ventured to try to remove my blouse.
And in that instant, the memory flashed in front of my eyes like a divine vision.
'You promised, you can't love him. He'll die, and he won't ever come back,' the Tree's voice said inside my head.
Fear came over me remembering what I had promised. I had agreed not to love him in order to save him.
I was going against my promise to the Gods and they were watching.
I pulled back abruptly.
Caelus remained in the same position, surprised by my reaction.
'We can't,' I said, covering my mouth.
'It was my fault, I went to far,' he said grabbing his shirt and putting it on again.
'No it wasn't you, it's just...'
'I'm sorry.'
'No, please, you don't understand.'
Even I didn't understand it, how could I live loving him without being able to say it or show it?
He waited expectantly for my next words, and I knew exactly what I had to do.
'Caelus, we can never do this again. This has to end.'
Because otherwise you'll die.
And I couldn't lose him again, I couldn't go through that kind of pain again. I couldn't.
'Is that what you really want?'
That question wasn't fair.
Of course not, this wasn't what I wanted. But it was what I had to do. I had to do it to keep him safe. It was the biggest sacrifice I could make.
So I had to lie, because otherwise what choice did I have?
'Yes, that is what I want.'
I could see his eyes transform. Caelus, who had avoided loving me at all costs, who had fought the idea of having a soul mate predestined for him, was now facing his worst nightmare. He loved me, but I didn't love him.
The only problem was that I did love him.
'Okay, I respect your decision, this won't happen again.'
'Caelus...'
'It's okay. Good night, see you tomorrow.'
He got out of bed and hurried out leaving me completely worn out.
My heart was killing me. I didn't know I could feel physical pain for my feelings, but that had been the proof.
How could I not love him? The Gods had destined us to be together, why would they do something like this after creating this love between us?
Nothing made sense, so I just lay down and closed my eyes, hoping that my tears would be buried behind my eyelids.
The dream repeated itself once again, only this time it felt more real than ever.
The people cheered, waiting for my signal to advance. Dragons flew overhead, men and women ready on their horses to attack.
Next to me, the green-eyed man, who smiled proudly at me, on the other side Caelus, who stared ahead without looking at me and Russell further away, on his horse giving directions to the other soldiers.
This was the war I had always predicted.
The war against Bieno, but now also against Eurus and a part of Crescendo.
I felt nothing but fear.
And then I saw him.
Jonah's face smiling, waiting for me to take the first step towards the slaughter, beasts walking around him.
'I know you can see it too,' he said and it scared me, 'I can feel you. This is the future. They will all die because of you. Or maybe not. Only you can decide that, beautiful Queen.'
I woke up breathing heavily and saw that the sun had already risen.
Without thinking about what I had dreamt, I got ready for the rescue mission. I put on a pair of brown skirt trousers, a white shirt and a brown leather coat.
With my hair braided, I was ready to face anything, or so I thought.
As I left my tent, the team was outside waiting for me.
'Did your Majesty sleep well? We thought we'd have to wake you,' Aurora said to me, proving again and again how much she liked me.
'I'm ready, let's go,' I told them without looking at Caelus.
How could I look at him after the night before?
Tryx and Mena were nearby.
I said goodbye to both of them.
'Best of luck,' my sister whispered to me.
I was going to need a lot of that. Though I really wasn't sure it existed. Could luck be real if there was already something destined for all of us?
I concentrated on what I needed to do. A portal.
I called to the breeze under my skin and begged it to help me, eyes closed.
Portal, portal, portal.
When I opened my eyes, a greyish coloured portal had opened in front of me. I had not had a problem, not a mistake. Because my new magic was even more powerful than I thought it was. Which gave me joy, but also concern.
Caelus noticed but said nothing.
'Alright, let's go,' I wanted to step forward but Caelus pulled me back with his arm.
'The Queen never goes first,' he told me and walked through the portal, followed by Polar and Rayn.
Then at last it was my turn.
I crossed the gate and we appeared inside the yellow house.
Or well, what was left of it.
It broke my heart to see the state of the beautiful house that had once been my home.
Furniture was strewn everywhere, dishes were broken, even the family portrait was torn. Everything was open and broken, everything but the door to the room I shared with the twins. Carefully, I approached it, but again someone stopped me. This time it was Rayn, who signalled silence and opened the door.
As he unlocked it, someone jumped on top of him, knocking him backwards.
'Fred!' I said cheerfully, as Rayn tried to shake him off.
'Milaia?' He answered me and got up to hug me. 'I can't believe you came back, I'm so happy to... wait here.'
He walked back into the room, and, from under the beds, opened a hatch that if it had been there before, I had never seen it.
Through it, three heads poked out.
'Your Majesty!' exclaimed Cara, emerging from the small space, helping the little twins to do the same.
The twins Aly and Annie ran to hug me.
I hugged them both and waited for Cara to join in the embrace.
This would always be my family.
'What happened?' I asked them quietly after they hugged Galaga as well.
'The monsters happened, we managed to escape the soldiers before they turned us, but Rich, he didn't want to...' Fred couldn't continue to tell me what was going on.
'It's okay,' I said taking his arm. 'You're safe now, go through the portal and I'll take care of the rest.'
'Don't you need us?' Annie asked me.
'I will always need you, but right now I want you to get to safety.'
'Will you go and find our brothers?' Aly replied.
I felt like I had ruined this family. This family that had welcomed me with open arms. I owed them, I owed it to them to save their siblings.
'Of course I will.'
After hugging me a few more times, they jumped through the portal, which would remain open at that specific spot. Aurora and Lewis, armed and unfriendly looking, stood in front of it.
I knew that neither of them liked me very much, but I needed to tell them something before I left.
'Take care of yourselves, and remember that the beasts are people trapped by the curse, not monsters themselves. So please, try not to kill them.'
'If any of those things come near me, I will crush them, is that clear, your Majesty?' Aurora answered me and I knew I wouldn't get any more than that.
I turned my eyes and walked over to the main windows.
What I saw through the streets of Crescendo was more terrible than I expected. Beasts walking and fighting each other, businesses destroyed, plants withered, energy zapped. This magical Kingdom was completely ruined.
'Well Queen, your power better work, otherwise we're in trouble, big trouble,' Rayn told me.
'If it doesn't work, run to the portal and tell Tryx to close it with her fairy dust. Don't wait for me.'
Rayn was surprised at my attitude.
'What?'
'You spent a lot of time with Caelus, because you're starting to sound like him.'
I didn't want to say anything about that, let alone see Caelus, I just concentrated on my power.
I had to find that new power the Tree had given me, and let it be born in me for the first time.
So without thinking too much, I opened the door of the Laoch's house, straight into the monster-filled street.
'Gaia, what...?'
Cure, cure, cure.
Nothing was happening.
The monsters noticed my presence.
Cure, cure, cure.
Why was nothing happening?
I felt it, I knew it was there.
Cure, cure, cure.
The beasts approached me, roaring.
'Your Majesty...' said Galaga.
I could feel everyone's concern, but there was nothing I could do.
The beasts rushed forward to attack.
Power.
And there, it exploded.
A powerful light shot straight out of my chest. A light as bright as the sun itself. Like strong bolts of lightning, it exposed the beasts, who began to writhe, after the contact.
And at that precise moment, an intense pain spread through my body. But I couldn't stop.
More came to attack, but I only let the light come out again and again. With each shot, a new stitch of pain into my every bone.
Little by little, the beasts went down writhing. Which was not a good sign. I could hardly breathe, but I hid it, it was no time to worry about me.
'That was impressive,' Rayn muttered.
'Where are the soldiers?' questioned Polar.
I thought about that too, there were only a few beasts, but where were the rest of those who opposed me? Had they all been turned into beasts?
'The hideout is near, we won't be long,' Galaga told me, ready with two axes on her back.
'Be safe,' I said and made sure to smile at her even though I was terrified.
She left, followed by Mandacol.
'We must go forward, the bird must be home. Beware of soldiers if they come out of nowhere. Come on,' said Caelus, leaping over the monsters in pain.
I did the same, even though I really didn't feel well. I was exhausted and had only used my power to appease ten beasts. What would I do with thousands of them? Would my body withstand it?
Another of the beasts leapt from one of the houses onto Caelus. His first instinct was to draw his sword but I know he remembered that these were innocent people. So I let the light come out of me again.
I exposed both of them to that light, only something went wrong.
Caelus also started to writhe in pain.
I ran to him and threw myself down next to him.
'Caelus, are you okay?' I said touching his chest.
Polar and Rayn formed a semicircle around us.
'I can't move, I can't...'
The light was bad for him, because he had shadows. I couldn't expose him to it, because I didn't know what it would cost him. And I had shadows too, maybe that's why every time I used this power it consumed me so much.
What if this power killed us?
I had to be more careful.
'Let's go, let's go,' he said, trying to get up.
Aurora heard the screams and came running towards us. As soon as I saw her, I asked her:
'Aurora, take him to the yellow house. Rayn, Polar and I will continue.'
For the first time, Aurora simply accepted. She really cared about Caelus.
'Don't even...' Caelus couldn't refuse because he couldn't say much.
'I'll be right back, let's go.'
Rayn and Polar followed behind me, and we continued trotting towards the Comrades' house.
For some reason, there were no beasts or soldiers there.
But that wasn't the weirdest thing.
The door was open.
Carefully I entered the old Comrades barracks.
We walked a few paces, the sound of our boots being the most echoing thing in the place.
The air was thick, a foreboding of something bad lurking in there.
Polar, turn on the light,' Rayn whispered.
From Polar's hand, a flare of fire illuminated what remained dark.
What we saw left us frozen in our tracks.
Bodies.
Lots of them. People from my Kingdom, dead.
And soldiers, pointing directly at us.
'Gaia, it's so nice to see you again.'
His voice filled me with anger.
'Jonah, you damn...' I muttered and saw him coming from the back of that horrible place.
The table and chairs intact.
'Oh, come on, sit down sweetheart.'
He took a seat in one of the chairs at the big table, and pointed to the one directly opposite me.
I watched the soldiers keeping their arrows and swords aimed at us. Polar was blazing fire in his hands, Rayn with his sword poised ready.
'Oh, don't worry about them, after all, they are from your Kingdom. But, considering what they did to each other...'
He wanted to play? He had no idea how good I had become at this game.
So I took a seat, Polar and Rayn standing on either side of my shoulders.
'Being Queen really suits you Gaia, we're equals now. Congratulations boys, you have a beautiful Queen,' he said to the soldiers who did not seem thrilled by the news.
Ignoring the last part of his comment, I replied:
'We will never be equal.'
'You tell yourself that to convince yourself? Come on Gaia, you know very well it's not true. After all, a prophecy binds us together.'
I smiled inwardly knowing that I would never be bound to that arrogant prince.
'What is it you want to achieve Prince Jonah?' I got straight to the point.
His wicked grin made me realise he liked my attitude.
'I am King...King Jonah. And I'm achieving everything I want. Turning everyone into obedient beasts... conquering Crescendo. My father tried to do it for twenty years, it took me a few months. And now I have only one thing left that I want.'
'You, Gaia, he wants you. That's why you are still alive,' I finally saw him after all this.
Rythel stepped out of the darkness, holding in his hands a rope that was tied around the neck of one of the beasts.
The soldiers made way for him, lowering their heads. They really saw him as their Ruler.
The beast was out of control.
But I could see its eyes.
I would always recognise those grey eyes.
'Russell.'
'Yes Gaia, this is your beloved, I think you can understand that I had to let him follow the natural process to which he had been called.'
'Damn you,' I muttered and the shadows began to thump inside me.
The soldiers reinforced their defences, only causing Rythel to smile.
Jonah's eyes lit up.
'There it is, that power I could feel. Two days ago the dome self-destructed because a shadow energy emerged somewhere in this world. I could feel it on my skin. It was you. You are like me.'
Embarrassed that this was true, I couldn't bring myself to look at Rayn and Polar's faces.
'So, what I want is easy. Marry me, and I'll set your beast free.'
'I thought you'd never want to marry me. Was the little prince wrong?'
'I am not a prince, I'm a King, and the situation changed. You changed. I want to conquer all the Kingdoms and, with your power, we would be invincible. And then we will have that child, and no one will ever dare to go against us. All the world to us Gaia. We will destroy it all, we will make them pay.'
Those words the shadows had whispered to me.
That was what I had wished for.
'I will never do that.'
Rythel's hands transformed to bird hands, elongated nails, one of them positioning itself on the neck of what was left of Russell.
'No!'
'Either you do this, or your beloved dies,' Rythel said.
'How could you do this to us Rythel?' I tried to speak to him. 'We trusted you. You were our friend. You can still come back, you can still get what you want without anyone suffering.'
'You never thought that maybe I wanted them to suffer? Years in the shadows of a useless King, of old advisors who only wanted peace and peace. Power only comes with wars and that's what I'll achieve. That is what I will accomplish. You won't be able to rescue anyone, because no one wants to be rescued. Don't you see? You are not wanted here. I am the Ruler now, this men are here because they believe in me, because they know I can do a better job than a stupid woman like you. So why don't you do us the favour of doing what you were born to do and marry your King?'
'Long live the Ruler,' said one of the soldiers.
Hearing the same chant echoed throughout, I knew there was no turning back.
I would never convince them, any of them.
This was no longer a rescue.
This was a war.