“Anwen?” he asked, unsure, but I smiled at him. I smiled at his beauty. He returned the gesture, though his eyes looked sad. “You need to go with Rhylan now, okay baby?”
Baby? He never called me that. I frowned, not understanding.
“No, I’ll stay with you,” I barely protested. My face felt numb, lips hardly able to pronounce the words.
He kissed my forehead eagerly, then my face, both of my cheeks, and finally, my mouth. I pressed my lips to prepare for the kiss but by the time I positioned them accordingly, ithad already ended.
“Hie vaedrum teim, fahrenor,” Ansgar said and pressed me closer to him, embracing me tightly. My hands grabbed onto his shoulders, my heart and all of my body happy to be enjoying his warmth once again. I realised I had forgotten my count so I started again, placing a hand over his chest and finding his heart beating.
Three...four...five…
Suddenly he was separating from me again, another set of arms grabbing hold on me. What? No!
“No!” I don’t know if I said the words or shouted them, but Ansgar’s trembling hands did not listen, shoving me into another set of arms, ones that clamped around me.
“No, I don’t wanna go, I’ll stay with you, please,” I cried, struggling to escape, to go back to my prince.
“I’ll see you soon, my love,” he took one of my hands in his and kissed it reverently, but by the shiver, in his voice, I knew. I knew he was lying.
“No, please,” I begged, I implored, trying to escape and go back to him, every muscle in my body begging for reconnection. Begging for him.
“Come, Anwen,” another voice, Rhylan, ordered and started dragging me away from Ansgar, even though I screamed and shouted and fought to escape. I called after my prince, over and over but only managed to make him take a step away from me.
And another.
And another, while I myself was being dragged in the opposite direction. This happened on a loop, none of them caring about my cries and supplications until Ansgar disappeared into the darkness and away from my sight.
“No, please!” I begged yet again, hauled by Rhylan’s unrelenting grip, pulling me further and further away.
“I made an oath, sprout. To take you to safety,” he tried to explain but I did not care and only fought him harder. We did this back and forth, over and over, corridor after corridor, where I tried to fight him and escape and he kept dragging me and positioning me better into his arms.
“Please,” I said it again, probably for the millionth time, after my body had probably given out because Rhylan started to carry me rather than drag my body like a sack of potatoes. A sack of potatoes that was fighting back.
“I need to keep counting.” I tried to explain, placing my hand over his chest, finding his heart. “I need to keep counting to make sure he is alive,” I said in between tears, or blood, I did not know what was dripping on my face at this point. I tapped over his chest, rhythmically, imitating a beating heart.
Rhylan’s gaze turned to me, compassionate for once. “You really love him, don’t you?” His voice sounded raspy, hurt somehow.
I nodded, unable to say it. Unable to find my words and explain how much.
Boom.
I heard a sharp noise before I started flying. Or falling. When I looked around, pieces of rock surrounded me, swishing the air around with anger. My body contorted awkwardly before being pushed away, slammed into a hard surface. My hands fell over my face and chest, a sharp pain pricking my fingers. And my back. Luckily my legs didn’t hurt. I couldn’t feel them. There was blood around. Lots of it and... Rhylan. His body had fallen too, now laying splayed on the rocky surface.
Laughter echoed through the tunnel. Vengeful and merciless, sounding psychotic and enraged. I turned my head enough to see the king stepping closer to us before everything went blurry.
By the time I woke up, hazy breaths escaped with difficulty from my chest as I struggled to regain full use of my limbs. Everything looked destroyed around me, the remains of broken columns aligned with what used to be a hallway, now covered by dust and destruction. I tilted my head to the side, trying to find Rhylan, but his screams were the only thing left of him. Coming from somewhere far and piercing through stone to reach me.
“Rhylan?” I cried, notknowing where he was or what had happened. I rose to my feet with difficulty, struggling to keep my body upright long enough to grab the remaining part of a wall and lean against it.
There he was, on the other side of the ruins, whaling in pain as his body flew across what remained of the room and splattered into the wall, forcing his body to expulse a fresh gush of blood.
“Rhylan…” I shouted, struggling to see through the darkness and flames spilling on the ground from the massive chandeliers. Or what remained of them. Someone small, crippled even, crouched low to the ground and hugged something. Someone. The queen, I realised after a few blinks. The queen’s body, now a husk with no life inside of it.
“You will pay for this!'' The king’s ire flew through the ground, forming a small earthquake as his echoes continued to spill punishment. With that, Rhylan’s body flew yet again, squashing everything in sight, the sound of cracking bones the only thing I could focus on beyond Rhylan’s screams of pain.
“Stop!” I cried out, long enough to summon the royal’s attention. As soon as those blood-red eyes shifted to me, I knew it was the worst possible decision I could have made. He grinned, suddenly forgetting his hold on the general, and started moving towards my direction with determination and all the hatred compiled within the earth.
I winced at the pain in my legs when I wanted to draw back and looked down at my ankle to realise the bone arrangement wasn’t in its rightful position.
