The Golden Year and the Sorceress

by Isabella Hardiman

  "Draco...who are they?" Leonardo refuses to move an inch.

  "They are..." He pauses looking at me, as if I am untrustworthy. "They are rebels of witchcraft and wizardry. They are fighting back after your father sent out that law and started the executions. Well, that's what we think anyways."

  "How dangerous are they?" Leonardo looks hardened as takes in this new information.

  "They have killed more than a dozen the last time they were here."

  "The last time?" Leonardo stares at them both. "How many times?"

  "This is the third." A bell in the background sounds, it is a warning bell.

  "Why wasn't I informed?" Leonardo looked at the three of them.

  "We didn't expect them to attack so quickly and you only just got back. Besides, I can handle it. You should rest, you have not slept since you have been back...you stayed up watching her in the infirmary the entire time..." Draco explained. He did?

  "Enough. I oversee the knights. That is my job, I will defend this castle. After all that is my duty."

  "BUT SIRE..." Draco begins to argue.

  "No." Are all Leonardo replies? "Where are they?"

  "The north wing, the courtyard, the easy and lower town. Possibly the west."

  "You, send half the knights to block them from behind and the other from the front." Leonardo began barking orders. One of the blond twins rushes off. "You come with me...and Draco takes Miss Bourdet to safety." Leonardo is at the door with the other blond knight.

  "Sire I will not leave you alone to..." Draco stares at Leonardo furious.

  "Please." Leonardo looks at him with pleading eyes. "Get her to safety."

  "Leonardo, what makes you think I am not going?" I growl and I ignore Draco's shocked look. "What have you never seen a woman fight?" I glare at Draco. Draco looks like is about to make an overconfident response but Leonardo cuts it off.

  "Leila, don't start this." He looked at me with an intense gaze. "You aren't going." I simply scoff.

  "You can't stop me." I glare at him. Leonardo steps closer to me.

  "You are going with Draco and that's final." Leonardo looks at Draco.

  "Leonardo becareful." Draco warns him.

  "I always am." Leonardo says quickly and rushes off but knocks straight into a beam hanging down over the door. His forehead hits it full force and it will leave a mark. "Ow. I did not see that. Why is there even a beam there?" Idiot. Such an idiot. I am about to go after him, when Leonardo turns around to face Draco. They exchange looks and I can almost feel as if they are speaking without words. They are almost communicating with a secret language. Draco finally nods and before I know what is happening I am swung over Draco's shoulder.

  I look around to find Leonardo has disappeared down a hallway. Draco's carrying me out of the room.

  "LET ME DOWN...!" I scream. "DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!" I scream. Draco just ignores me. "You are so dead!" I scream.

  "Be quiet, they are going to find us." Draco hisses.

  "Good." I grunt. Now what? Was I really going to fight this knight? Leonardo's second in command?

  That is when I see it, his dagger in his back pocket. I reach for it and before he knows what hit him. I have his knife and I jerked my arms and grabbed hold of a beam and swung my way loose. I managed to kick Draco's face on my escape; that was just a bonus. He cups his face clearly annoyed. I can already see a red mark forming. "That's for touching me."

  I stand above him and quickly turn on my heel running along the beams above the corridor. Draco is stunned as he watches me run across the wooden beams and jump from one to one with perfect balance.

  He suddenly realises he is falling behind and gains speed. "Trust me I hadn't planned on touching you." He muttered.

  "Well, it was great getting to know you." I smirk whilst looking at the open balcony to my left. I swing my way down and off the beams. The balcony above held a mechanism that allowed fresh water to reach the top floor easily. It held a rope and at the bottom would be a bucket of some sort most likely. Before he has a chance to stop me I jump. I jump straight off the balcony and grab a hold of the rope. I swung on it like a vine, making my way down. Further and further to the ground. I could feel my flesh burning against the rope. The people below me seemed to look like an ant's tiny from way up here.

  "BY THE DEVIL!" I hear Draco swear as I hit the floor.

  I landed on my feet with perfect balance and in one brisk movement I sent his knife up to cut the rope. The rope falls to the ground with a thump. He will not be following me that way. I straighten my dress and fix my hair slightly as if nothing had happened. That is when I see the old man watching me wide eyed. It was as if he had never seen a girl outrun a knight and then swing down three floors on a rope.

  "Never underestimate a girl." I say before turning and running.

  The courtyard filled with chaos and panic. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. I feel my heart racing just like it had when I fought Eris. The sky was painted with smoke from the blazing fire. The smoke rose to the sky putting out any trace of the sun. The civilians were all fleeing into the castle walls away from the danger and I had to fight my way through the crowds to head towards it.

  "Lass! Do not go! Don't go that way!" I heard a tall ginger-haired man call and I could tell by his uniform that he was clearly a knight. He seems to be ushering people to safety and I can tell he is uncertain whether to continue what he is doing or go after me. "Ed!" I overheard somebody shout his name over the booming shouts and shrieks. I ignored him and pushed further into the crowd.

  I fought the current. I refused to give in even as the hot sweaty bodies began reading and digging into mine. "Move!" A large man attempted to shove me but I refused. I divided my way around them. I worked hard to make my way through the crowd.

  "Get out of my way!" I bark as I make my way through the crowd. The chaos was set across the backdrop of a smoke filled orange sky. I tried not to cringe as people elbowed me and stepped on my feet carelessly. It was like a herd of buffalos fleeing from a pack of lions.

  "THE REBELS!" A plump woman screams.

  "RUN!" somebody else's shouts. "Hide." Eventually I make my way through the crowd. I know that the knight Draco will be right on my heels. So I must keep moving.

  I raced across the empty courtyard heading straight for the place everyone had been fleeing. The northern part of the castle. I dived into the side corner to avoid being seen. Something twitch in my arm as I sense the power in my heart. Something was here. Something powerful. Something of dark magic. It was like I could feel the weight of the magic hover in the fresh dew filled air and cold lifeless after taste.

  I overheard a cackle from a voice behind the wall. "SO WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?" The voice of a young witch cackled. I overheard a shriek of a young child and I couldn't help myself. I turned the corner. Stupid, Leila.

  A group of three individuals stood there and the mist appeared to have fled in their presence. I stared at them all harshly and then my eyes landed on a small boy. He looks no older than five years old. He has these spectacular blue eyes and his eyes are filled with so much sadness that it breaks my heart. "WHO IS THIS?" A tall man asked. He had no hair on his head, just scars. Scars that were deep to the core. Scars that ran deep into his flesh. It almost appeared as if he had been wiped over a hundred times on the back of his neck and head. His face however had aged harshly and it matched his cruel feeling. Simply looking at him forced images of pain into your mind on how he had become so deformed.

  "IT'S A GIRL..." Said another, throwing slippery lips. I could feel how greasy he was from his appearance. Shivers travelled up my spine as my eyes landed on his teeth. The yellow stained teeth were rotten. They were sharpened down to a narrow point but that was not the worst part. The teeth had been filed down to form narrow blades. They were deformed and triangular, like fangs.

  "Of course, it's a girl Slime!" The other roared. The boy looked as if he were about to burst into tears but I held his steady gaze trying to reassure that ev
erything would be okay.

  "An ugly girl." The witch that held the boy pointed out and I watched as his nails dug into the boy's flesh and he wriggled trying to break free. "Stay still you rotten child!" She glared down at the small boy. He cried out in pain as her nails drew blood.

  "Don't hurt him." I narrowed my eyes.

  "Oh yeah, who is going to make me?" She tested. "MORTAL SCUM. FILTH BIRTH!"

  "Filth-Birth?" I stared at her confused.

  "She's a dense dun. Isn't she?" The tallest laughed. I stared at them. They were not from here obviously. Draco had said that the rebels were from Rumore, but these rebels were not. Their expressions were foreign.

  "Why are you here? What do you want?" I stared at them and a sneaky smile crept across their lips. They chuckled sinisterly.

  "That's none of your concern, filth birth." The shortest replied.

  "Let the boy go." I repeated, losing my patience. I wanted to take them all out. Magical or not. I could take them but then I could not show my powers. I could not show my roots. It would be risking people seeing me and I would lose my head. Rumore was still a place with no acceptance for magic.

  "Say that again and I swear-"

  "Let him go." I repeated. I do not know why I said it...I was not sure what I was trying to do...I did. I was trying to antagonise her.

  "You're dead." She spat. She let him go and the boy looked at me scared stiff and when I gave the little boy a nod, he raced back from where I had come.

  "Crazy, don't take too long...we have a job to do." Slime reminded her.

  I could not show my magic but that did not mean I couldn't make this a fair fight, with a click of a finger I imagined an orb around the four of us. An orb that stopped the use of powers. I felt it, I smelt the magic burst through my fingertips invisible to the untrained eye...I could picture the invisible curtain that floated around us. I took a deep breath and then she came for me. I watched as she attempted to cast a spell but nothing happened. Slime looked at me suspiciously and taken back. "Crazy she's-" But before he could finish, she released a wip from her side and hurtled to me but I took her by surprise and slid, taking out her legs. She rolled to the ground all too easily. Next up was the shorter man that smelled of oil and grease.

  I could already hear the fury coming from Crazy's body. Slime took out two daggers and slung them at me but they missed me by millimeters. I had to swing my body into a one of a kind somersaults to avoid being hit. "I NEVER MISS." Slime mutters through gritted teeth that were so pressured together that blood was set loose from his crushed gums and dripped through his sharpened teeth.

  "Better start practising then." I smile. Whilst driving my balled fist up into his jaw, knocking him out cold with one swift blow. "Right, let's end this shouldn't we...pretty thing?" Says the largest as he moves his way towards me. He towers above me and stares down at me with an evil smirk. I take out the double-sided handcrafted blade which I keep hidden in my shoe. I then use it to drive it into his left leg's joint.

  "Didn't you know that pretty things can be deadly?" I say whilst digging the blade in deeper and then removing the second blade from my other shoe and digging it into his other joint. He wailed in pain. "Pretty things are normally the deadliest."

  I turn away from him but before I have a chance to take in my surroundings. Crazy is throwing herself into me at full force and we both fall to the floor, I cringe as my wounds open and are further worsened.

  "You absolute traitor!" Crazy sits on top of me and aims her blade but I manage to kick her from behind. Knocking the blade to the floor.

  "Traitor?" I gasp, whipping the blood from my jaw. "You're the one trying to attack the king-..."

  "I know you are a witch!" She screeches. "I could sense your powers, even though you cloke them well. How can you sit and watch the executions?"

  "The king-..."

  "The king, you actually call him that, he is a murderer. A murdering non-magical mortal...filth blood!"

  "He is your king..." I correct her. She simply laughs but really cackles. She crouches and holds her stomach. She is a complete nut-job.

  "My king?" She laughs. "I am not from this god forsaken place." She stares at me. "I am from the land of the devil himself..."

  I feel my whole world shake as the words escape my lips. "The dark lord?" Crazy simply laughs.

  "Possibly." She smirks. "He would punish me dearly for revealing that secret but thankfully you will not live to tell anybody. The dead keep the best secrets." She prepares to slide her blade into me and I cannot escape it. It brushes the top of my collarbone and she gives me this corrupted, insane smile. I watch as she takes the blade ready to dig it into my chest but everything stops.

  "Don't." Says an old woman behind Crazy. Crazy freezes in her steps. "Let her go."

  "What? What do you mean 'let her go?'" Crazy says, throwing her dried lips, every word dripping with poison.

  "If you kill her, the master will have your head on a spike."

  "What does he care?" Crazy glares at me.

  "He wants her alive, for now." The words make my entire body tremble. He wants me alive. Who? Why?

  "Why who is she?" Crazy gives me a murderous look.

  "She is the reason we are here..."

  Crazy gives the old mysterious woman the same look that I do. Complete and utter confusion. A horn sounded and I can see knights headed this way.

  "Let's scream!" moans Slime.

  "What about her?" Crazy screams with venom.

  "Let her be for now." The old woman ordered.

  "But-..." Slime and the old woman were ignoring Crazys objections and were chanting a spell.

  "CRAZY WE NEED TO GO!" Barked the largest.

  "REBELS THIS WAY!" Ten guards charged towards them.

  "STOP!" I screamed but it was too late. The old woman turned to face them and with a click of her fingers, their own weapons came to life and slaughtered them. Their own swords float and drive them into their master's heart. Screams echoed, I flinched at the sight and closed my eyes. Crazy smirked as she listened to their screams, it was music to her ears. An anger filled me and I began to charge forward but I was not fast enough to reach them. I watched as they all gave me hateful looks, except for the old woman who saved my life.

  She said before disappearing into the unknown, "we shall see eachother again, Chosen one, soon. He is waiting for you and praying he never finds you because if he does, you shall know fear like never before."

  Chapter Thirty-six- My storm

  There are times in life when everything seems to blur into one. It was the clouds of ash and smoke filling my lungs but I could no longer see clearly. I close my eyes and try to bring myself back to reality but instead I see him.

  That is when I feel the world shift. My vision blurred. Not again. I tried to fight the call but an unbearable pain filled my chest. I closed my eyes and tried to hold back my whimper. "Don't fight it." His husky voice ordered. I tried to ignore him but the connection was too strong.

  "Next time, don't fight my spell. I can sense what it does to you..." The figure stood in front of me. I felt the cold wrap around my skin and shivered from the cold. He watched me with empty eyes, he almost appeared to be studying me. I looked frantically around me. I watched the sky, the dark grey clouds were hanging heavy in the air, foreboding and gloomy in the distance. I seemed to be in a forest of some sort and there was white substance that covered the leaves, I had never seen before. It was cold to the touch. How peculiar?

  "I will do as I wish," I snapped. "Besides maybe you can stop calling for me..." He just stared at me. I looked away from his intense eyes. I must break the connection, but how?

  "That's not going to happen." His eyes turned dark and the word that came next sent shivers down my spine. "Never." He was so certain of his words. Why?

  I looked at him with anger. "Just leave me alone." I complain. "I am not amused by you ambushing my thoughts, spying on me...you're a stranger." Despite his youthfulness, he was q
uite massive. The muscles in his arms were bulging.

  "Yes, I am a stranger." He muttered. "But not for long..." What did he mean by that?

  "Oh, we will not be meeting anytime soon." I add. "Never." I said imitating his annoying voice. He looks unamused.

  "And why is that?" He said fury evident in his eyes. There are so many reasons I do not know which to say first.

  "Let me think you are an insane lunatic that haunts my thoughts...You have an obvious behavioural disorder. Besides if we do meet, I will take great pleasure in kicking your ass." I glare at him. He simply chuckles.

  "We will see about that..." He looks at me amused and I have no idea why. "Now, I don't have much time...I have people to kill and lives to destroy, so I will keep this short." My whole body freezes and stiffens at his last words. "Turn around and don't get involved with those 'rebels.'" Too late.