Ryla awakes in a place she doesn't recognize. Before her was a palace one that doesn't exist in her realm. She sees a gate appear before her, her longing to stay in this place of complete bliss is strong but a quiet voice whispers in her mind.
"Don't Astra this is not where you belong go through the gate"
At the sound of the voice she finds great comfort in she reaches out and touches it. Slowly the gate creaks open it's like she is in a trance she takes one step forward and pain shoots through her body her wounds are present her old battered body is returned to her. She realizes she didn't feel pain on the other side of the gate she fights her urge to cross back over the threshold.
"Of course," she laughs "I'll never belong in a painless place" She lets out a scream even though she knows,she has always known, no one will ever hear her. Only the everlasting darkness ever heard her yet this place has none. Her emotions break through sporadically, a curse she has learned to live with
In a place between life and death a mother sobs despairing over what has happened to her baby. She cries out begging someone to help her child. Everyday for the last nineteen years she has cried out for help to come for her precious child. Her cries have always been answered with silence until now.
After some time Ryla rises up she swallows a scream as she stands hearing the quiet whistle of the wind knowing someone is behind her. She turns quickly and comes face to face with a being she has only heard of in folk tales. A man with long red hair and sea blue eyes that hold a red crest she recognizes but cannot place.
"Why are you here Ryla"
She does not know how he knows her name but she ponders his question an unimaginable peace floods through her body as she knows exactly what she must do. A peace that was never hers.
"I have come here to offer myself as a sacrifice for the god's to help save my kingdom" slowly this man approaches her and reaches into her chest with a gasp her eyes close
As he searches her soul an image flashes before him a queen that was so very powerful one that has been presumed dead for many years a power stronger than he has ever known shoves him out he knows in that very moment she was never meant to come before him as a sacrifice but as a Queen someone messed with fate and she was made to pay for it. He withdraws his hand and her eyes open and a gasp shakes his chest. Golden eyes of legend that have been declared for centuries.
"I refuse" Her eyes widen surprise overwhelms her, this offer was something she had not predicted.
"No you have to accept it please I beg you god of anger please" she falls to her knees a Queen bowing before her subject and something hits this god he knows exactly who this young girl is. No Queen in history has bared such wounds except for his Queen. No Queen could have survived such pain he knows she is dead but her name slips past his lips.
"Amaris Alexandria Odessa" she looks up and smiles at him sadly
"Your not the first one to mistake me for a mother I never knew" his eyes start to water because the plan Amaris gave her life for utterly failed she didn't even get to spend more than a day with her child.
"My name is Ikari and I served your mother and grandmother" an old type of magic wraps around her as her eyes turn golden a bond she never felt worthy to recognize, her hair once as pale as the moon changes, a color that never belonged to her. Replacing that moon colored hair is darkness, hair as dark as the midnight sky, it was almost too much. Gazing down at a puddle she sees what Ikari is trying to show her who she could be, a Queen with dark hair a fiery golden gaze and ...wings so brilliant her knees begin to tremble.A shudder runs through her body as tears run down her cheeks, confusion fills her, she isn't sad?
Those wings were a sight she had not seen in years. The last piece of her heritage. Her gaze hardens as her belief is not shaken the girl of hope and the girl of dreams has long since been burnt to ash. His magic undoes an old spell used to hide her true self. Permanently. All consuming pain floods through as she realizes finally coming to terms with what just happened.
She has yet to recognize her Majesty and her right to the throne.
She believes the thought is laughable, her the peasant, the beaten and adopted daughter of Das and Portia heir to Odessa's throne. The hunting life suits her better but how does she tell this god that stands before her that, how can she deny this god of the hope he rightfully deserves. Hope is the heartbeat of a fragile heart, only the weak hope, this god could survive a little heartbreak.
"My name is Ryla I am no Queen I am the second in command of the Knights of Odessa and my vows are unbreakable, Odessa is the kingdom I have sworn to protect no matter who the ruler is" Hypocrisy is what Ikari thinks, he finds it ironic that gazing at him is a Queen she could be described as nothing less, her wings that are brilliant fierce and beautiful scream Elven Royalty her Golden eyes a throne of their own, her hair a color only the fae can possess a stolen piece of the midnight sky. And yet she denies the truth her soul is fighting for, A betrayal to the Elven people who wait for her to come home.
"The only unbreakable thing this world has to offer is your soul, tell me Knight who do you serve?" These words were used to draw a fire from her
Those words pointedly used to draw the stubbornness that runs in her blood and the fire in her veins erupts, his bate works as her eyes spark, oh how the life of a knight bore her, royalty is born but a Queen is forged, she was meant to rule.
"I serve no one" an answer to a question asked by destiny, "who could enslave the stars, not even the gods" the truth she had hid from the fire that she had put out ,the fire that called to her sang its own melody deep within her bones.
"Tell me child of the Stars, if you come face to face with your mother, what would you do?"
"I would forgive her, let her see what her mistake has done and forgive, that is not my hell to endure and it isn't hers either, I can feel her connection within me she has spent the last nineteen years witnessing my rage and no longer will I blame anyone but the fates"
"Where do you plan to go knight?"
" I will travel I will find the boy with crimson eyes, I will cash in debts and I will find a way to win this kingdom back, whether I am meant to rule this kingdom or not I will win it back my name is Ryla and this will be my final act as Ryla, Leader of the Odessian Squadron"
Ikari stares at this girl, a girl who has spent every moment of her life so far denying her true nature, it was beaten out of her. He has been free from the moment Amaris gave birth to this hellfire of a girl now a woman and he will only bow when a true Queen has come to claim him but what's another journey?
"I'll accompany you on this journey Ryla I'm a god so very bored of this rutting palace"
Ikari reaches softly meeting her hard golden eyes and touches her cheeks and brings their foreheads together
"Thera god of healing bless me o saint" his green eyes glow bright
"Child who are you"
"My name is Ryla former Knight third in command to Edward Odessa"
"Girl answer me clearly who ARE you"
"I am Ryla member of the tribe and heir to Nova with lineage linked to Amaris, and am declared heiress to the Elven empire"
"Girl I am Thera servant of your mother and now your eternal servant till death do we part from the first words that you spoke to me I can sense your lineage and see your past, Ikari God of anger has called onto me to help you and so I will"
Warmth floods through Astra's body and slowly her wounds patch and her bruises disappear, "Oh my" she whispers as the gash in her stomach slowly knits back together
"Tell Ikari he owes me no debt as he has led me to my new master speak the words to bind our souls and when you call for me I will appear" the clear command in this god's voice thrills the young Knight, she doesn't know the perfect words but as long as the meaning is clear it really doesn't matter.
"Thera god of healing, like calls to like, bound by eternal soul may we never part till death unravels us" Thera through Ikaris body draws his knife and slides it across Ryla's wrist looking into her eyes Thera drinks from her blood, binding through soul and blood and then she's gone and a small twisting tattoo permanently imprinted upon her skin slithers from her wrist to circle her heart, a beautiful swirling pattern.
"What has Thera done?" Ikari holding a horrified look on his face an imprint imitating a blood promise swirls down her arm peeking out from underneath her dark clothing
"We are now bonded by blood and by soul she told me to tell you 'tell Ikari he owes me no debt as he has led me to my new master"
Ikari drops to his knees Thera is the one god no one has ever been able to tame, what she saw through this young girl must have shaken her, not even her mother could get Thera to bind to her. Thera's brass nature stems from the fact that while life can be saved it also can be lost, it comes hand in hand with death, her brass almost unforgiving personality shows the true nature of healing.
"I will leave once I have recovered if that's okay with you Ikari"
"This way Ryla" Ikari begins the road towards this magnificent castle slowly so Ryla can keep up and slowly Ryla limps towards the castle while her wounds are healed her body aches with soreness, and pain blinds her, a castle very much like the one in front of her flashes through her mind a compass to lead her to a destination unknown
As the light of the morning breaks through the castle window Ryla gazes out the window her body is trained to wake before dawn and not even this realm could shake the foundations she has built her life upon, the knighthood training that she lives by. Briskly standing she makes her way to the door pulling it open she steps foot into the grand palace hallways searching for Ikari. Rounding the corner Ryla finds herself in front of double doors slowly she pushes them open finding herself in the Palace garden, a garden full of dead flowers that had not been touched in years, maybe even centuries and in this place she finds Ikari kneeling mournfully before the one living flower in this graveyard.
"It's time Ikari" a light flashes and suddenly trees surround Ryla she is finally back in the realm of the living.