The Paladins of Naretia

by TP Keane

  Chapter 20

  "Whot do ye mean we're no' stoppin' fer lunch?"

  The gruff voice rang out in Aria's throbbing head.

  "We must wait until the mire is behind us," said a second, wearier voice. "Even now, I fear the Dark Ones are hovering nearby. There are very few places to run in this terrain that would not see us swallowed up by a gawping muddy maw."

  Aria tried to open her eyes to see who was talking, but the bright, sunbathed world she saw, spun mercilessly around her instead. It left the figures blurred and unrecognisable. With the sky underneath and a grassy bogland whirling above her head, Aria felt her stomach churn and her eyes roll back into her skull. The voices in the bright world became muffled as they argued about whether dwarfs actually needed more regular feeding then humans, the loudest of them adamant that it was true.

  As their disagreement dissolved, she was submerged into the blissful darkness once again. Unlike before, where it was unaccompanied by her consciousness, this time Aria saw images emerge in the dimness. Two figures wearing golden crowns coalesced before her. A man with curly red hair and brown eyes, drifted closer as though he glided on the air itself. Holding the crook of his arm, like she couldn't bear to let go of him, was a beautiful woman with blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and full red lips.

  Aria recognised them at once as her parents, the king and queen of Naretia. The sight of them filled her heart with a warmth that felt like a long-lost comfort. Dancing around their legs was a small boy, her seven-year old brother Pearan. His brown eyes twinkled with mischievousness, and his wild, red hair bounced like a deranged cloud as he ducked and weaved beneath the feet of their parents, laughing loudly.

  They watched Pearan's antics with adoring smiles, gesturing for Aria to join them. Aria couldn't remember the last time she saw her parent's smile, and her heart did a flip at their invitation. She tried to reach out to them, but her hands refused to obey. Straining to touch her parents, a rope snaked around her wrists and tugged her away. 'Why are my hands tied?' she thought, glancing with alarm toward her parents.

  Her mother and father, and even her brother Pearan, seemed oblivious to her plight as they each waved at her to come closer. Aria tried to call out to them, but only heard herself moan.

  "Dinnae go blaming me if the hunger overwhelms me," her mother said in a deep voice. "And fer the love of the wee man, dinnae let that dirty fud come too close tae me, or I'll skin her!"

  'What? Surely my mother would never say such a thing to me?' In that moment, a name circled at the back of her tumultuous brain, one that she loathed to hear. 'The Blood Queen.' Although she knew that the sound of it raised bile in the back of her throat, Aria couldn't remember why she detested it so much, or what it meant. Her mother, the queen, had never been anything other than a loving and kind ruler, same as her father.

  As a bright light invaded her dreams again and melted the vision of her parents, Aria realised that the owner of the loud voice came from the upside-down world. She felt herself being jostled, as if someone was carrying her and needed to redistribute her weight. Her head swayed from side to side as her carrier took long powerful strides. Her hard metal armour dug painfully into her back as he did. She reached out and grabbed onto something to hoist herself up, hampered by her bound hands. Leaning her head onto what she could only imagine was a shoulder, Aria opened her eyes for long enough to see that she had grabbed onto someone's brown tunic. Beneath that tunic was the powerful chest of a man.

  "Easy," the man's deep, cool voice whispered in her ear.

  Aria tried to look up and see who had spoken to her so softly, but she only caught a glimpse of a strong jaw and shoulder length black hair before the darkness captured her once again.

  The gloom wasn't so welcoming this time. It was laced with an ominous mist that pressed down upon her, making it difficult to breathe. From some indiscernible place within the deep recesses of the shadows, Aria heard Pearan scream in terror, and a panic rose up in her chest. She tried to run to him, but her feet wouldn't move. She tried to call out to him, but her voice was mute. Aria spun toward her parents for help, but was stymied by what she saw.

  Aria watched in horror as their throats slowly opened, cut by an invisible knife, and blood spilled down their green and gold gowns. Their eyes disappeared from their heads, leaving only hollowed sockets. Bloody tears ran down their cheeks as they reached out toward her in a desperate plea for help.

  Aria screamed as their heads toppled away from their necks and hit the floor with a sickening thump. She clutched onto a nearby green and gold banner and hid behind it. She was her fifteen-year-old self again, hiding behind a tapestry as her parents were murdered in the throne room. These images were no longer conjured daydreams, they were real, or as real as memories could get.

  'No, I will not hide, not again,' she thought.

  Her heart racing, she forced herself to emerge from her hiding place and glance tentatively to where her parents had fallen. The fiery oil lanterns of this acropolis of kings, lit the horrific scene far too brightly for her liking. It was too late, her parents were already dead, their bodies draped over one another and blood now carpeted the green marble floors. Her heart sank and a coldness cascaded from her head to her toes. Her parents had been murdered, and once again she had done nothing to save them. 'Coward!' a disgusted voice whispered in her head.

  A sound in the hollow room, let her know that she was not alone. Slowly peeling back the heavy banner from her vision, Aria was confronted by the strong, foreboding figure of a teenage boy. He stood over her decapitated parents and in his right arm he held her father's golden sword, now dripping with their blood. Large black wings extended to full width on his back, and his strong jaw muscles clenched as he breathed through gritted teeth. Her parent's splattered blood dampened his black hair and flecked across his slightly hooked nose. In his amber eyes, a malevolent fire burned within, and it sent a wave of terror through Aria.

  Without warning, he turned and looked in her direction. A wicked smile crossed his face, one that promised she would be next. Fear released her feet and she ran from the room, her heart pounding so hard against her chest that it hurt. She remembered the day her parents died, and the vow that she had made to avenge them by killing this winged monster. But seeing that dreadful moment unfold again in all its horror, froze her intensions cold with fear, and she ran.

  Each step through the limestone corridors of the palace rang out against the walls, whispering at her, telling her she had not changed, that she will always be a coward. Aria pleaded with the King's Guard who came across her path, to help her. But the suits of armour rusted in their place, cobwebs coated their helmets, and dust replaced the men inside. The sound of sparring warriors coming from the fighting arena outside, died into a nothingness until the palace was still. Even the servants began to disappear, one by one. Her only companions now were the voices of the all-powerful wizards ringing out in the empty corridors, over and over again, commanding all who could hear to abandon her.

  As the voices died into the dust laden cobwebs, Aria called out for help again, but only the lonely echoes of her own voice replied. She was alone. She stopped running, and from one of the narrow windows of the palace she saw the powerful form of the winged boy take off into the sky. The fire in her heart reignited in a furious blaze at the sight of him leaving.

  She clenched her hands until she felt her nails digging into her palms. Bolstered by the refusal to accept her failures, yet again, Aria ran faster than she had ever run before. She made her way down to the fighting arena to find a sword, or any weapon that she could lob at the disappearing figure. Instead she found Edwel, and the sight of him made her come to a screeching halt. Something about seeing him, jolted her out of the nightmare she was living. The golem was gazing lazily at the sky where the winged boy had now vanished.

  "Isn't it a lovely day?" he cooed.

  He turned toward Aria with the same stupid grin on his face that he alway
s held. His stone arms crossed in front of him, and his square head tilting to the side. His usual nauseatingly pleasant demeanour held fast as, one by one, his limbs fell away from his body, and his head came loose from his torso. The mighty golem's stone body gave way like a rockslide, and he crumpled to the floor.

  "Edwel," Aria whispered in horror.

  Edwel didn't respond, how could he now that he was a mere pile of rubble in the middle of the fighting arena? The cobbled stone beneath him grew a thick layer of moss and encroached over his remains like a wave. Edwel's heavy body parts quickly sank into the mire beneath the moss. Standing over the grave of her only friend was an old man with a pointed grey beard, purple robes, and a floppy wizard's hat that looked as though it had seen better days. The wizard held a knotted wooden staff which glowed with an intense white hue. His blue eyes twinkled consolingly in the day's harsh light, and this irked Aria.

  She remembered this old man. He was the one responsible for hiding her parent's murderer for so long, he had been the one to order her guards to abandon her, and he had been the one to kill her protector, Edwel. Aria balled her fists and charged him. She didn't care that she had no sword to slay him. If she had to, she would pummel him to death with just her knuckles. But as she reached his thin, stooped frame, he disappeared.

  Aria went careening into a heaped pile of dead ogres instead. Green limbs, some of which were covered with black metal armour, fell on top of her. Ghastly faces with black beady eyes and malformed teeth, stared blankly at her as she sunk ever-deeper into their midst. They had been her army, the only ones who helped her try to slay the winged man, and she had sacrificed them all as though they were nothing.

  Falling through the bottom of the pile of ogre bodies, Aria found herself out of the palace and standing in a grouse moor, with two dwarfs by her feet. One of the dwarfs was dead, and the other, more rotund dwarf, was weeping over his brother's fallen body. She had done this, she had been the one to fire the Etherium arrow to win a battle against the wizard. The memories of the atrocities she had committed during her quest to kill the winged boy, came flooding back to her then; the death of the dwarven king's right arm, the example she had made of the two worgen, the Mountainmen she had slaughtered in the mountaintop village of Tasadia, and the blood she had shed across Naretia. All in the name of her gentle parents.

  Aria recalled that the moniker of 'The Blood Queen' had been given to her, not her mother. It was a heavy badge to bear, but she had never felt its true weight until now. The regret and sickness in Aria's stomach only lasted a few moments as the vision of the winged boy reappeared behind the dwarfs. He was older now, closer to becoming a man, and his eyes burned with the same fire she had seen the day he killed her parents. Now, more than ever, she wanted an end to all of this. An end to all of the pain, hurt, and death that seemed to follow him.

  "Your Majesty?" the gentle voice whispered in her ear again.

  Aria opened her eyes and this time the bright world didn't spin so wildly. The bogland was beneath her, as it should be, and the sky was thankfully above her. As she groaned into the shoulder of her carrier, she noted that her hands were still bound together with rope. Her head throbbed and with each pounding came the memories of her last battle. Most prevalent was the memory of the fat dwarf charging her, wanting to kill her for slaying his brother. In a moment of panic, Aria gasped and opened her eyes wide, expecting to see the dwarf's axe coming down on top of her again. The dwarf, however, had his back to her, and was walking ahead of the old wizard.

  "Good afternoon, Your Highness," the cool, deep voice said to her. "Glad to see you have overcome Bernard's wrath so soon."

  Aria's heart sank. If the wizard and the dwarf were ahead of them, then there was only one other person who could be carrying her. The idea of him touching any part of her filled her chest with a potent mixture of rage and disgust. Slowly, she turned to look at the owner of the voice and was met by the unwelcomed sight of a pair of slated amber eyes.