The Golden Year and the Sorceress

by Isabella Hardiman

  "How do you know...?" I stare at him.

  "I know everything. Like I know they are under orders to kill."

  "Whose orders?" I ask. He stares at me. How did he know so much?

  "Why would that matter?" He smirks at my curiosity or it is my new found cautiousness. He steps forward. And I step back. He was dangerous. The aura around him sent chills through my entire body.

  "No." I snap. "I am going to stop them."

  "You won't..." He clenches his fists. "You are just going to put yourself in danger and I can't help you there. I have no way of casting spells there..."

  "Firstly, I do not need anyone's help, especially not yours. I do not need to follow your orders. You are nothing to me." I watched as the flames of anger dangled in his eyes. "You expect me to just nod and say 'Of course, I will do whatever the hell you want.'

  "I am trying to save your life." He muttered.

  "Why would you want to help me?" I glare at him. He had a jaw you could break rocks on and eyes that shift from the bluest of skies, to a silver like grey to the darkest oceans.

  "If you keep risking your life like this, I am going to have to come get you..." He clenched his jaw. I simply chuckled.

  "Please, I had the bandit ruler come after me and I outwitted him. I have fought Eris. You don't scare me." There was both a mixture of anger and amusement in his eyes.

  "You don't want to test me."

  "Neither do you." I glared back.

  "You have no idea who you are dealing with..." He looks at me up and down. He was so arrogant, infuriating, and overconfident. And handsome. So bloody perfectly handsome.

  "I don't know who the hell you think you are but I am not going anywhere with you. Not now. Not ever." I say through gritted teeth.

  "We will see." Always riddles or puzzles. Why does it always have to be a mystery?

  "Who the hell are you?" I screamed, getting tired of the games.

  "I am your worst nightmare." That looks like a daydream. I cursed my own thoughts. I could not help but frown.

  "Don't get cocky." I warn.

  "You are so frustrating! IMPOSSIBLE ACTUALLY."

  "Thank you." I mock. He glares back at me. "Now, if you could just leave me alone-,"

  "You are one of 'those types of women.'" He mutters under his breath.

  "Like what 'type' of women?" I cannot hide the annoyance in my voice.

  "The time to search for adventure and even a little danger." He smirks when I do not correct him but his next words catch me off guard and I am lost for words. "You were born in a storm that's why you dance in the rain. Your soul is made of lightning. Chaos in your very bones. Your heart is an untamed tornado of emotions and passion. Uncontrollable, unpredictable and wild. Your voice is like thunder screaming 'damn the consequences.' You try to wash away every pain in this realm. You like to leave people wondering 'how could they have ever hated the rain.'" I look at him uncertain what to say. He simply smiles at me as if he knows me like the palm of his hand. I narrow my eyes at him.

  "You don't know me." I spit. He rolls his eyes.

  "Darling, turn back. It is my final warning. I am not forgiving and I don't believe in sympathy or mercy." He muttered.

  "No." I cut him off. "I thought I told you 'I don't follow orders'."

  He cursed, his eyes turning to the darkest shade of the darkest corner of the ocean. "Fine. Then do not complain when you must pay for your actions. I warned you."

  "I am trembling with fear." I mocked, each word laced with more sarcasm than the last.

  He wore an evil smirk. So gorgeous.

  "Oh, trust me. You will, my little storm. You see I don't run from the storm, I chase it."

  Those tortured eyes of his are the last thing I see before I am thrown into reality. The heat attacks every inch of my skin and I am no longer surrounded by the cold white substance or whipping wind.

  I turn to move towards the fire in the distance. There had to be more rebels. I breathe heavily, he always steals the air from my lungs. I raced as fast as my legs would carry me. I must find them. I must get answers. I had to stop any more people from getting hurt. A series of colours filled the smoky sky and another alarm followed. Run. Run. Run.

  I crossed the courtyard heading to where I saw the flashing lights. My head pounding and sweat forming on my brow. The images of the men as they were slaughtered by their own weapons -they did not stand a chance- flooded my mind.

  A cackle resonated through the entire courtyard...That's when I saw the bodies. Knights. Dead Knights. Their faces hidden by their armour but their helmets had been smashed and laid at their feet in shreds. They were lined up along the castle wall, plastered to the building in their own hardened blood, five of them. Around them bodies of soldiers and the ashes that hovered around them were all that remained from the dying fire. I felt my gut twist, Leonardo. I scanned the faces praying that I would not find those caribbean eyes.

  The eyes of the knights had turned glass like and purple veins throbbed around them.

  A hand clamps on my left shoulder. I swing around and prepare to throw the body to the ground. A shout of pain is let loose as I stare at the knight below me. The stream of curse words that come out of his mouth makes me tense. I am about to apologize when I see an annoyed Draco standing one meter away. "Don't move another muscle." He does not look like in the mood for games.

  "Damn it, Draco!" Curses the red headed Knight from the floor. I recognized him from the courtyard before. "You could have said she was not going to come easily..."

  "Calm down, Ed." Draco instructs. I outstretch my hand to help Ed up but he just looks at me suspiciously.

  "I don't bite." I roll my eyes.

  "I doubt it." Ed mutters. Draco glares at me.

  "You are insane. Scratch that you are further than insane and you are going to get yourself killed. Hell scratch that! You are going to get us all killed!"

  "I have been around. I can protect myself. Despite what you think..."

  "Well, Leonardo didn't seem to think that." Draco's comment agonizes me.

  "That's because he's---," I was lost for words. "What can I say? He's in denial. Besides, you took longer than I expected to find me. So I guess...if i was defenceless you would have been able to keep track of me."

  Draco gave me a hateful look. "Trust me babysitting would have been easier if I had---,"

  "First of all I don't need babysitting. Secondly, you couldn't keep track of me even in your dreams." I snapped. Draco holds his belly and begins to laugh.

  "I am the second head knight after Leonardo himself," He chuckles. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. It is amusing. Well, it would have been if we were not standing in the middle of a danger zone and you weren't so naive to believe you could come here on your own and not get killed. So yes dear, you clearly need a babysitter."

  "You're just an arrogant, pig-headed knight like the rest of them." He nodded to that, a look of irritation flashed in and out of his eyes.

  "And proud to be!" He snarls. "Watch your tongue servant." Draco warned all amusement fading away.

  "I will certainly not." I grit through my teeth. "You believe that because you're a knight that you can just boss me around."

  "That's because I can." He snaps. "And you only speak to me like that because your Leonardo's..." He stops himself when he notices Ed eavesdropping. "Friend."

  "I hate to interrupt but do you like my art?" Giggled a shadow in the smoke and out stepped a red-haired woman. She wore pigtails covered in toxic wines. Her smile was wide and face was serene but covered in blotches of blood. She suddenly snapped at me and I felt oxygen rush into my lungs at once as I took a huge gulp of air.

  That is when Ed and Draco truly took in their surroundings. I watched as they stared at the bodies. Ed and Draco may have seen dead bodies just like I had but this was different, this was a torturous death, one of magic but dark magic. Forbidden magic. Draco looked furious and Ed looked vengeful.

  "It's beaut
iful isn't it? There's something about destruction, pain and suffering that's absolutely mesmerizing...Don't you agree?"

  Ed was about to step forward but I stopped him. She stood alone. There was something wrong. The others were powerful and they had been in a group. Where was her group? I feared she was so powerful, she did not need one.

  "What do we have here?" She turns to look at Ed. "Angry are we. Vengeful. Their screams were absolutely entertaining." Draco was shaking with anger. They wanted to kill her. Hell, I wanted to make her suffer and I did not even know the victims. But she was pushing their buttons and mine. She wanted us to attack out of anger and aggression, blinded and easy targets.

  I was not going to let that happen. She would pay. But no one standing here was going to die today.

  "Well, don't just stand there? Get me pretty boy." She tested Draco.

  "Don't." I whispered.

  "What?!" Draco looked at me with wholehearted anger.

  "She's playing on your emotions."

  "I don't care." He whispers back.

  "Do. Otherwise you're a dead man." I whisper back.

  "I am waiting..." She teased. She was absolutely insane but that is what makes her dangerous.

  "Look at the mark," I gasp.

  "What mark?" Draco looks at me annoyed.

  "The one on her bare heel..." I explain. How could he not see it, the dark ink could be spotted from a mile away. The dark lords brand mark. She was a soldier of his.

  "There's nothing there!" He stares at me confused. How could he not see it? Was he blind? Magic. The mark was cloaked.

  "Oh look we have a visitor." She cackles like the insane person she is. What is she talking about? I turn to look at the blue-eyed boy that was hidden behind me but it is too late, she is cast a transportation spell and now she is tied with magical vines beside her.

  What was he doing here? I feel myself panic. The small eyed boy that I had saved before obviously never left. He had followed me into the madness. This was all my fault. My stomach squirms and nerves consume me. Children were my weak spot. Children were innocent.

  "Let the boy go." Ed warns. The boy looked at me, his eyes filled with fear, it was like watching an angel in distress and it shattered my heart.

  "Hmmm...let me think about that....no. N.O." She cackled.

  "You will let him go." Draco ordered.

  "I don't think so..." She smirked evilly. She is a twisted piece of mayhem. Who knew what she was capable of... I took a step forward this time and when Draco tried to stop me, he was thrown backwards and rolled to the cement floor. Ed immediately charged but received the same message.

  "Well come on Darling, come and get me."

  She had no idea who she was dealing with. An inner fire burned and threatened to consume me. I could feel my anger take over. I cast the same spell as I had with the other rebels, stopping her magic and she smirked at me.

  "This is going to be so much fun and I have been meaning to cut someone's head off..."

  That is when I hear 'his' voice in my mind and I wonder if he had been watching me this entire time. "See, you should have listened to me sweetheart." So damn overconfident.

  Chapter Thirty-seven- Let me go

  Theo had always said to me 'Life is nothing more than a lie. And death is the horrible truth that we choose to ignore until we are face to face with it.' I never quite captured the gravity of his words until now.

  I felt myself floating into an ocean of memories and I almost did not focus. I felt Theo's voice in the back of my mind, the feeling of Leonardo's familiar lips against mine and the intense look of the dark mysterious boy with the dragon tattoo glaring into my very soul. And all the sudden I forget all my words. The thing about death is that you never know what is coming. And that is what makes life so unpredictable...I suppose it is what makes life so beautiful, the fragile state of mortals, make everything so much more precious because you know any moment could be your last.

  I take in the psycho rebel that stands in front of me.

  She was insanity from her bones to her wild mane of hair. She was as twisted as anyone can go. Like a rubber band wound so tight; it would eventually snap. She was the sort of being which would giggle at a funeral or smile at an execution. She was what you would call 'madness. Pure wholehearted madness.'

  "I am going to enjoy this," she smirked. "You know I used to be like you." She said with disgust in her voice, her comment directed at me.

  "I doubt that." I answered her. She looked like she was born insane. The look in her eyes was deep with layers and layers of insanity. One after another. She never took her twisted look off me.

  "Oh yes, innocent and fragile." She smirked at me. And then hurtled one of blades which missed me by centimeters. I managed to grab hold of the handle of the blade as it was slung backwards.

  "I am not fragile." I whisper through gritted teeth. I held the blade in between my palms. The metal was made of a substance I had never seen before. A type of elf silver?

  "You can't even convince yourself. So how do you expect to convince me?" She mocked. I swung the blade but she managed to avoid it hitting its main target. She did not make any comment but I could tell she was stunned by my skill. I managed to clip just a part of her cheek and she wiped away the drop of blood as if it were left over food.

  "Why on earth would I try to convince you? I know you the truth and I don't need to prove anything." I shrugged. "If you do not believe me, that's your problem. Not mine." She seemed to smirk at my confidence.

  She gave me a bored look and a yawn. "Well, enough chit chat, let's dance," she laughed.

  "Let's go," I beckoned her. My heart was racing. How did I come to this? "Come and get me."

  The next thing I knew she threw five daggers towards my body and I threw my body into a backwards somersault to avoid them. When she missed all three, her face scrunched in frustration and her eyes narrowed. I watched as grains of sand were thrown through the air as the blades kissed the ground, elegantly destroying everything in its path.

  "Not bad." She said just before biting one of her blades but let us make this a little harder. She swung a hula-hoop shape blade and this time it did hit me and shriek escaped my lips as I felt the last one scrape my hip. The burning sensation that filled my side was like someone had set fire to my inner hip bones, the pain running deep into my core.

  "Alright, darling?" She asked sweetly. "It's just a small cut, we still have lots to do." She tormented me. I could not help but look back at all the guards that she had left practically skinned alive.

  Now that I was weakened I could feel the barriers fall. And she felt it too. "Now that's better. Knives are so medieval, I mean it is something my father would use to torture people who double crossed him." Great the crazy came from a family of crazies. What a surprise. Pure, whole-hearted sarcasm.

  "I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." I mutter under my breath.

  "Ready for round two? Or do you need a minute?" She smirked.

  "Me? I have never been better." I lie. The truth was that my body was beginning to feel pain but not a small irritating pain but a whole throbbing pain. The kind of pain that makes your world spin and makes your body tremble. On the outside I was as strong as a brick but on the inside I was crumbling.

  She grinned at me flashing all her teeth and when she threw the following spell at me. Nothing happened. I did not feel anything. All I saw was the blinding lights zooming to me and I was too late to react. I prepared for the worst but it never came.

  Instead she was thrown backwards and it was not me casting the magic. She looked like she was about to explode. What was it with the rebels? With their sadistic and cruel behaviors. They appeared to have been born sick.

  I looked for where the magic was coming from but I found nothing. No one. No source. Not one shadow. The little boy stood trembling but he somehow found the courage to run to me.

  His eyes were wet with tears. His body shaking and his hands wrapped themse
lves around my leg. "She-she...is she dead?" He breathed heavily.

  "No. She will be up soon, I need you to hide." I whispered to him a hushed tone.

  "I don't-I can't." He was shivering and clinging to me and his eyes widened as he took in my appearance. And as his small frail hands began to be covered in drops of blood. "You are hurt. You need to go, I can fight for you." He said his eyes were so certain. He was so small, young, and naive.

  Children were the innocent souls. The victims in the games of adults that they could not hope to understand. Stuck in the crossfire like pawns. And just like cattle brought up to the slaughter.