Chapter 13: Next Steps

  Altaya

  “Eltainius’s hairy butt. Look at this!!” Altaya’s head whipped around as a burly form blurred past her. She could barely make out Aramin’s form as he crashed through the under brush. They had all made an important discovery once they had begun their trek back to the Capitol. It wasn’t just their speed that had been enhanced.

  Nearly everything about them had been changed. Their speed, strength, even durability was almost superhuman. They had found the last one out when the minute they began to run with Aramin setting the pace the world seemed to slow. It was a windy night, so the first thing they noticed was the lack of noise from the air around them.

  In surprise Aramin had tripped on a root and gone hurtling into a tree. Which he promptly smashed through. Despite how contentious she found the man she had rushed to his side along with everyone else. Only to find him sitting in a pile of wooden splinters without a mark on him.

  After that they had begun trying to learn how to run again. Altaya felt ridiculous, she was hoping from one foot to the other trying to carefully add just enough pressure to run forward without blasting her self from her feet. She felt like a toddler learning to walk again.

  Unsurprisingly it was Julien who made the adjustment the quickest. He zipped past her dodging around a small sapling before continuing. As he passed she caught a glimpse of a gleeful smile on his face. Despite the circumstances she found that she shared his joy. It was all exciting. She was worried about what was done to her sure but her mind already swirled with ideas for how she could improve her swordsmanship.

  She sighed looked back at the mountain. She longed for her sword but weather it had been lost or destroyed she didn’t know. They hadn’t risked going back to the top of the mountain for fear it would swallow them up again.

  She pushed off the soft forest dirt, her new legs flexed and she shot forward. It was faster than she had ever moved before in her life. In a blur she was thirty feet from where she had begun. She dug her heels in stopping herself in a shower of dirt.

  “I think I got the hang of it,” Katrina said as she skidded to a stop next to her. Dirt and tiny rocks it her brown robes with a muffled thump. She looked up to see the wide grin on Katrina’s pinched face. Despite it being nearly pitch black she had zero trouble seeing her friends face. It was almost as bright as if the sun was still up, or maybe a full moon. Still being able to see in pure dark like this was something she couldn’t have ever imagined being able to do.

  Katrina’s eyes glowed red gold, it reminded her of a sunset. There was just too much information and changes that had taken place. She didn’t have any of the answers but she didn’t need them. She could fight, that was good enough for her. But what do the others think about this?

  Altaya gave Katrina a wide grin. “This is kinda exciting,” and she didn’t even have to fake her excitement. Being able to move so fast was exhilarating. If she could’ve moved that fast when she was facing that gods cursed elf maybe she wouldn’t have lost.

  “Alright,” a familiar voice said from behind her. She jumped a little when she saw how close Julien was to her, she hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “I think we’ve got a basic understanding, we need to get back to the wall of the capitol. It would be bad if they have already announced our deaths.”

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  Altaya understood her friend’s reasoning but she doubted it was going to be that easy to enter the city. She did however agree that they needed to get to the palace. She could only imagine what her father would do if he thought the elves had killed her.

  Her father would definitely march up and take the Elven Emissary by force. She hoped the King would help her father keep his head. The more she thought about the situation the more anxious she was to get to the palace. Her father was the Marshal General, a master swordsman that could fight more than six men at a time. His skill was legendary.

  Her eyes met Julien’s and she could see her worry reflected there. he kept shifting his stance, his eyes kept shifting to the south where she knew the walls of Ilasium stood. When no one objected he turned and took off into the forest blurring in and out of focus even to her new eyes. She followed after him, hoping they wouldn’t return to a city in an uproar.

  ————————————

  Melvarion’s eyes shot open. He went from a pleasant dream to wide awake very quickly. After a moment of disorientation he realized why. His eyes zeroed in on the long silver spear that was currently drawing blood from his neck.

  He gathered his mana and opened his mouth. These humans dared to… pain exploded from the side of his head and the hold he had on his man’s dissipated. Before he could recover something soft was stuffed in his mouth and he was dragged unceremoniously from his bed. He tried to fight, tried to demand what these animals thought they were doing. But the fog that had fallen over his mind didn’t seem to want to clear.

  A sour smelling… something was thrust under his nose and a breeze from no where parted the fog holding his brain still. The world around him resolved and he realized he was in a dark room of stone and steel. There was only three people in the room with him. Two were liveried guards in blue and gold, their chair plate armor gleaming and some long hafted weapon held tightly in their grips. It looked like a mixture of an axe and spear. What did humans call them? Oh right halberds. The third man had close cut brown hair and deep brown eyes. He had the beginnings of age showing on his face with long lines tracing the edges of his cheeks and chin. He wore a rich green and gold doublet and black pants but at his side was a thin sword with an elegantly twisted cross guard that hung down over the handle. It was to protect the owner hand if Melvarion had to guess.

  But even in his groggy state Melvarion could feel the anger running off the man. But he cared for none of it. His heart caught fire with the pure rage he was feeling. How dare these lesser beings put their hands on him.

  The after a second thought he pushed his emotions down. There was something going on, something serious. His eyes flicked to the two guards that flanked the door, then back to the angry eyes of the man. He tried to moved his hands but realized they were tightly bound to the arms of the chair he was sitting in. His legs were in a similar predicament with thick rope binding those as well. He was almost certain if he could talk he could make short work of his bindings. But it would be better first to find out why exactly this was happening. Had Iltar succeeded? If that was the case why would they do all this? Was the king driven mad from grief?

  The brown haired man gestured and one of the guards stepped forward and removed the piece of blue cloth that had been stuffed into his mouth. He opened his mouth to speak but instantly found the gleaming tips of two halberds placed against his neck. If he even twitched wrong he had no doubt that would be the end of him. The brown haired man stepped forward.

  “If we even hear the hints of a song coming from you Mynar here will cut out your vocal cords, understood?” The man’s voice was deep and resonate like a tolling bell. Melvarion could only nod slightly and one of the halberds was taken away. The other one, Mynar he presumed moved not an inch.

  “I demand to know the meaning of this,” Melvarion began maintaining at least semblance of his calm even though he didn’t feel it. The man scoffed his eyes rolling in his head in a weird manner. But one he thought conveyed annoyance for some reason.

  “I think introductions are in order before we begin the process of lying to one another,” the man said. Then he swept into a deep clearly formal bow.

  “My name is Peter of House Sherman. And tonight you are going to tell me why the elves thought it would be a good idea to kill my little girl!!!” The last word was said with a thunderous boom that echoed off the chamber around them. The man’s head snapped up and his gaze seemed to burn a hole right through him. And Melvarion knew, he knew that he wouldn’t be allowed outside that room for a very long time.