The Blood Throne of Sahirra

[accuscripter]

Aeryn was not responding. She was stunned, expressionless, wordless. She was feeling just too little, the vast, blank void where two days of memory should have been was deafening. Right now, she couldn't seem to hear anything. Sakina's voice was a muffled murmur in her ears. She felt like she was submerged underwater; all sounds were distorted, thick, and distant.

Her head was spinning with an electric-shock-like sensation, the type of searing pain that happens when pressure rushes to the skull. It wasn't the familiar agony of the Blood Discipline; it was the pain of a mind being rewritten and it was painful.

Then, after a minute or so of catatonia, she suddenly came back to her surroundings. Sakina, still clinging to her, shifted her weight, and the cold metal of her saber, resting nearby, mistakenly brushed against Aeryn's hand. The physical shock was instant and jolting.

"Huh? What did you say?" Aeryn suddenly asked, coming back to harsh reality and focusing on Sakina's face.

"My Lady!" Sakina, startled, stood up. She stared at the Queen for a good ten seconds, ensuring Aeryn was truly conscious. Then, with renewed, desperate energy, she took Aeryn's hand. "My Lady! Get up! We must go back! It is dangerous to stay here! I cannot spare any more minute! As the head of your security council, I cannot allow this! I cannot, at any cost, allow any risk to your Royal Highness's health and well-being! And this journey is nothing less than disastrously dangerous!"

Aeryn was already up, pulled to her feet by Sakina's frantic grip. She was too numb to resist. She was just so surprised, why is she calling me her Royal Highness? What journey? What is dangerous? She looked around the deserted tent, then back at Sakina. Without pulling her hand away, she said, "I am not understanding, Sakina… what are you saying?"

Sakina's head started spinning. She was shocked out of her wits. She put both hands on Aeryn's shoulders, staring into the Queen's wide, confused eyes. "Your Royal Highness, do you remember why you wanted to go on this journey? Why you wanted to gather the girls?"

"What journey? What girls?" Aeryn was looking at her with a terrifyingly absent gaze.

Sakina raised her brows, a ghastly smile of disbelief stretching her lips. "Don't do this to me, My Lady! You said you wanted to go on this journey! You wanted to gather girls as your army!"

"Ah… I did. Hmm… why?"

"Why! Why?!" Sakina pointed at herself, consumed by regret that she hadn't just taken her Queen back while she was still unconscious. "You are asking me, My Lady, the reason for your own most urgent command!"

"Yes, I must have told you… didn't I?"

Sakina was silent here. She was looking at Aeryn as if she was not Aeryn, but someone else possessing her body, using her voice and her face.

"Okay, My Lady, for now, we have to go back," Sakina said, regaining control of her voice, deciding to bypass the forgotten memories for the sake of survival. "Your things are already packed, just awaiting your command."

"It's already getting dark… we can…"

"My Lady, day or night is of no importance to me! But your safety is! And my utmost duty is to take you back to the palace as soon as possible, regardless of the phases of the hours. Be it day or night."

"Hmm… I am thirsty. I want to drink some water."

Sakina started heading towards the water pitcher. "Yes, my lady, I will bring you fresh spring water."

"Not this," Aeryn said from behind her. "I want fresh water. The stream."

"Yes, my lady." Sakina was suspicious now, but a Queen's command for fresh water was a command after all. She picked up the empty pitcher and started to go out.

"Leave the saber behind," Aeryn said.

"My Lady? I need something to protect myself in this wilderness, no?" Sakina looked wary, but she placed the saber down beside the cot and gave a hasty bow. "I'll be back, My Lady, in minutes."

Sakina went out. Aeryn could hear her giving sharp commands to the remaining guards outside to triple the security perimeter and guard her tent strictly. It was obvious that Sakina was issuing orders to effectively trap her, intending to drug her and transport her back to the palace by force.

And that was exactly what Aeryn was planning to prevent.

She snatched the saber, rapidly bundled her armor and a few changes of clothes, quickly belted her fur-lined coat over her dress, and rapidly gathered a few necessities, gold, coins, a knife, a few ornaments and anything of use that came into her hand . Her eyes caught sight of the small, polished mirror; she picked it up, glancing at her reflection, her heart giving a painful lurch at the sight of the white streaks, but time was ticking to remorse the sight, so shaking her head, she just threw it into her bundle.

She quickly packed the things in her cloak. Hearing hurried footsteps approaching her tent, she instantly slipped herself through a loose base opening of the tent canvas, at the back, that she had been eyeing for a while now and started to run in one direction, away from the camp.

Earlier, she could hear the sudden panic erupting in the campsite, Sakina screaming her name, shouting orders here and there, but instead of stopping, Aeryn just closed her eyes and kept running until she could hear the commotion no more.

She ran, unsure how long or how far. She was simply putting distance between herself and the confinement she feared. She had slowed down, her physical weakness from the two-day coma catching up, when she heard the unmistakable sound of horses closing in behind her. This new threat jolted her, making her race faster. Her mind, though blank of the past two days, raced with instinct. Who might it be? Sakina and the guards? Only Sakina? But there is more than 1 horse! Guards? Sakina with a Guard?

Her energy ran thin, and her desperate flight finally ceased as a cold, electric shock of pure realization, a solid, immutable truth, cut through the immediate terror and the persistent fog of her amnesia. The primal instinct of a fugitive was instantly overridden by the memory of absolute power.

I am the Queen! I am the inheritor of the Trinity! I am the strongest person in the realm!

She stopped with a sudden jerk, pivoting to face the direction of the horses, raising her hands.

The horses stood still instantly, their riders checking their reins at her abrupt halt.

"Who is it? Come out!" Aeryn roared, the sound strong and commanding, entirely worthy of the Queen she was.

She leveled the borrowed saber, gripping it tight. "I COMMAND IT! PRESENT YOURSELF!"

"…Your Majesty…" a scared, hesitant voice said from the dark of the forest, as the figure came near her slowly, holding the reins of two horses.

"You?" Aeryn whispered, recognizing the voice, surprised, her hands still up.

"Why are you here?"

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[accuscripter]

"Your Grace…" The voice trembled, hesitant and small in the overwhelming dark of the forest.

"I asked why are you here!" Aeryn shrieked like a hen protecting her eggs. Her hand snapped up, the air ready to bind and the blood ready to follow. This time, the threat was not feigned; the primal fear of being recaptured fueled her power.

The voice trembled harder, and the person stopped dead. Then, the figure dropped instantly to its knees. "Your Grace, calm down! I am not here to snitch up on you! I wish to follow you!"

"You are not with them?" Aeryn asked.

"No, no, no, My Lady," the person scrambled up, frantic to bridge the distance. "I am not with them! At all! I swear! I am loyal only to you!"

"Then you were following me?" Aeryn moved forward, the saber held defensively. The girl, in a sudden fright, moved back.

"Yes! No, no, no, no, no!" The girl dropped to her knees, raising her hands defensively. "My Lady, I was following you, but I was not following you because someone made me follow you, I was following you because I wanted to follow you! and me following you has nothing to do with anyone who is following you!!!"

"what the heck am i even saying!", girl thought out loud while hitting her forehead.

"WHAT?" Aeryn's powerful command was barely audible, drowned out by the girl's chaotic stream of words.

"No, no, no, My Lady, you don't understand… no, no, no, please, please spare me, spare me, I cannot have another demonstration," she pleaded, hugging her arms tightly. "Your Highness, I was scared the heck out of my wits just now. I thought I'd messed it up! The last time…" She broke off, whispering to herself, "And here I thought I am not afraid of anything. Seems I haven't seen the world yet."

"What are you mumbling in your mouth?" Aeryn was irritated by the confusion.

"Huh? Ahh…" The girl got up and started to come closer, close enough that Aeryn's hand twitched, ready to attack. A small, scared squeak escaped her lips, "Ehhhhh!", and she shivered. Then, moving aside and putting her hand tentatively on Aeryn's arm, she gently but firmly lowered it down.

"Your Highness! I swear on my honor, blood, and life that I am not with anyone and I am here on my own accord!" She finished this declaration, snapping to attention and beaming with genuine, if slightly manic, pride.

"Why?" Aeryn asked, utterly expressionlessly, the chaos in her mind matching the chaos of the girl.

"Why? Hmm… because I like you!"

Aeryn looked at her, moved back a step, and another silent What? formed on her pale lips, her hands raising again in alarm.

"No, no, no, My Lady, not like that! Ai, yahh! Nooo, nooo, noooo! I am straight! Well, not straight! Like, I don't look straight, I look pretty round, a circle, but like, in the theoretical meaning, straight. Like, not a line, but straight!" She gestured wildly, trying to explain her sexuality using geometry.

Aeryn was staring at her, her head tilted, her blank expression eloquently conveying: "What the heck! What is this dumb fool?"

She let out a ragged sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Your Highness, I mean I like you like I like you, like an ideal! Yes, yes, yesss, yesss! I want to be your army, your apprentice, your follower, your protector, anything like that!"

Aeryn was still gazing at her confusedly, like staring at a person whose nose was misplaced on their head. Then, the sheer absurdity of the girl's confession, her over-the-top dramatics, and her frenetic energy finally pierced through the fog of Aeryn's daze. She started laughing, a deep, cleansing sound that turned hysterical, forcing her to wipe tears of amusement from her eyes.

The girl watched, utterly confused, then started laughing as well. Her laughter quickly spiraled into a jarring, maniacal attack of giggles, so violent and out of control that Aeryn stopped laughing immediately and started staring at her again with concern. After a full minute of laughing all alone, the girl realized the sudden, profound silence and came to an abrupt, breathless halt.

"Ha ha ha haaaaaa…" she finally managed, then clasped her hands in front of her like a small child guilty of a bad deed.

Aeryn smiled, the simple act of genuine amusement feeling alien and wonderful. "So, let me get this clear."

"So you were following me." Here, the girl moved her hands in a big 'no,' her face tense with worry over causing another misunderstanding.

"But not on anyone's command. You want to stay by my side. Is that right?"

"Yes, My Lady!" The girl thumped her chest like a proud warrior.

"You want me to take you, right?" The girl was nodding like a ravenous child. "Hmmmm, I seee…"

"Yesss… yes, yess, yes," the girl was saying under her breath, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"No, I won't take you." Aeryn turned and started walking in the direction she was headed.

The girl's happy face instantly crumpled, turning sour and sad, and her hand slipped from her chest. She immediately ran back. Aeryn heard this and thought, "Humph… and she liked me enough to follow me! Liars."

Then, she heard the horse hooves behind. She looked back and saw that the girl was not running back to the camp, but was coming after her, pulling the two horses.

A little flicker of unexpected warmth bloomed in Aeryn's chest. She cleared her throat and stopped, asking the girl, "Why are you still following me?"

The girl smiled sheepishly. "Please, Your Highness, I know you are angry with me… and you told me to never bend the rules for anyone, not even you, but only for myself. But My Lady, I want to be with you, I want to learn from you, I just want to stay with you!"

Aeryn suddenly understood. The girl's intense loyalty and willingness to fight for her, even at the cost of expulsion, resonated deeply. Aeryn remembered Sakina's report: one of the Cinder Fire Hegamony girls had taken a stance in her favor but had assaulted others, due to which Aeryn had been forced to expel her.

"What's the probability that you won't lash out at my people again?" Aeryn asked, her voice turning serious.

"I swear I will not do anything to hurt them, or you!"

"You were expelled because of this reason! It's an issue of control, Rissa!" Aeryn said, using the girl's name for the first time.

Here, the girl let go of the horses and linked her arm with Aeryn's. "Your Highness, I will learn that as well! Please allow me to go with you! Pleaseeee…" She looked at Aeryn with big, googly eyes, and Aeryn suddenly got a memory flash, not the missing two days, but a previous interaction, where she was scolding this very girl, yet was smitten by her sweet, innocent looks and fierce loyalty.

She unlinked their arms and turned again to walk.

"Your High…nesss…" the girl said silently, her voice shivering, and she was about to cry when Aeryn called her from the front, in a strong, clear voice, "Rissa, hold the horses! We don't have time to waste!"

Rissa, the Cinder Fire Hegamony girl, jumped with happiness, a sound of pure relief and triumph escaping her. "Comingggggg!" She took the reins again and ran to catch up to Aeryn, leading the two dark horses.

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[accuscripter]

Sakina was a storm contained within the small clearing. She was hurrying here and there, her dark armor clanking with her frantic movements, looking under each rock and in every shadowed nook of the campsite to find any trace of her Queen.

She spun and strode back inside Aeryn's tent, tossing things, pillows, unused scrolls, a spare blanket, as if the Queen would pop out from underneath them. Failing that, she let out a strangled cry and violently called the inner circle of guards inside.

"General!" they said in unison, five soldiers, each trained in one of the four disciplines of elemental control and one non-elementalist, snapping to attention.

"I want all of you to right now look everywhere!" Sakina screamed, pointing toward the dark wilderness. "I don't care how, but do whatever you need to find her! We need to find her as soon as possible! Bring her back alive and unharmed!"

Zephyr, the young guard able to control air, stepped forward, his eyes wide with legal alarm. "Madam! You said 'do whatever'! That is contrasting against the royal command! We are not allowed to use our specialized power without explicit permission from Her Highness, not even for search operations!"

"I said do WHATEVER to find the QUEEN!" Sakina roared, the sound cutting through the tent canvas. The ground beneath Petra, the guard able to geomance, cracked under the force of Sakina's rage. She didn't have the luxury of political protocol; she only had duty.

The guards hesitated, their training warring with the General's scream.

"Move!" Sakina commanded.

All of them started to move out of the tent when she stopped them, her voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. "If I hear that the Queen's disappearance is creating news, I will kill you all with my bare hands! I remember all of you! Know that!"

Sakina then split the small force, assigning the non-elementalist and two others to pack up the site and follow later. She directed the others to fan out and check all perimeter directions immediately, as they did not know which way the Queen had fled. She, however, took the remaining guards specializing in elemental control, Petra (terramancer), Zephyr (aerokinetic), and Maris (hydromancer), and started immediately toward the rear of her camp. She had a sharp hunch that since her eyes had been locked on the tent's front opening, the Queen, being the Queen, must have, somehow taken the less obvious exit through the back of the canvas.

Despite Sakina's fury, the guards cautiously began their search using only conventional means, looking for simple clues like broken branches and scuff marks, fearful of violating the Queen's standing orders. They followed the faint trail with a grim professionalism that seemed agonizingly slow to their General.

Sakina was herself a master of earth control, a veteran terramancer whose strength lay in discipline, not raw youthful power. Yet now, fueled by terror and adrenaline, she was using her elemental power far beyond her natural limit, ignoring all protocol. She picked up huge stones, tore through fallen trees, and pushed aside mounds of earth that were coming in between them and the Queen's faint trail.

"Hold, General!" Petra, younger and far stronger, called out, spotting the tremors in Sakina's hands. "Let me clear the path. We save our energy for the capture."

"Silence! She will be freezing, alone! Move!"

Zephyr, skilled in aerokinesis, used his element to scout the dark canopy, generating silent, swift gusts that pushed leaves and branches out of the way for Sakina, trying to conserve her strength.

"I can't find any trace of her in the air," Zephyr muttered to Maris as they sprinted through the undergrowth.

Maris, running alongside, pointed her hand toward a damp, mossy bank. A thin sheet of ice instantly formed, revealing the slight depression of a fresh footprint beneath the frozen surface. "She's running. She's not using a horse yet. And she's moving fast, judging by the length of the stride."

"She should have collapsed an hour ago," Zephyr wheezed. "Why would she run from us? Sakina is her greatest protector."

"I don't know, who knows what happens behind the closed curtains…" Maris replied, twisting her wrist to melt the ice, leaving no trace for anyone else to follow. "But the General gave an order. We follow. And we pray we find her before anything bad happens to her or her…" she said while looking at Sakina.

Sakina pushed them all relentlessly. Her armor was scraping against the trees, and she was breathing in shallow, painful gasps. She was old, and using her elemental power to this degree was taking a brutal toll on her travel-stricken health. She started feeling dizzy, the world tilting with every rock she shattered. The first rays of the dawn began to break through the forest canopy, casting long, pale shadows that only highlighted the sheer distance they still had to cover. Her vision narrowed, but the fear of failing her Queen was a sharper pain than any physical exhaustion. She used the last reserves of her terramncy control skills to launch herself forward, a last desperate effort to close the gap.

They found the first signs of Aeryn's escape at a small, dried-up gully where the trail abruptly shifted. Two sets of horse tracks, not one, but two, led away from the faint trail of footmarks.

Sakina stumbled, recognizing the change in the sign. The Queen was no longer alone, and she was mounted. The danger had just become exponentially worse. She dropped to her knees, from exhaustion, clutching a piece of jagged rock to steady herself.

"She has company," Sakina ground out, her voice ragged. "Someone helped her. Find them. Find them now, before they get too far ahead!"

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