Artemus was moving quickly and Katie had a hard time keeping up. Katie was slightly cold with the minimal clothes that she was wearing. After another series of many hallways and staircases, Artemus busted through a door and the cold morning air hit Katie. It was still fairly dark outside.
Katie had no idea where she was. She was led down a stone walkway. When they turned a corner, Katie could see the city below. All the lights were on, giving off a beautiful display of nightlife, but the enchanting excitement fell dead to the menacing air created by Nayara’s presence.
They eventually turned another corner and the path beneath her turned to wood.
“Just through here,” said Artemus, pushing open a small gate that had a few thin vines wrapped around it.
They were in a small enclosed space. It was darker here because of the trees. Katie looked around. They were in a square yard of some sort. Only a few weeds were growing in the dirt. Katie thought it felt familiar to the training grounds but knew that this was slightly different.
“The Chancellor wants you hidden and safe until the fight is over,” Artemus said, coming to a halt. “If you see black sparks fly towards the sky, run through that other gate.” He was pointing across the enclosure. It was directly opposite to the gate they had just come through. “You’ll reach the river and will find small boats. Board them and we will set sail. I have given Tyson and Koran the same instructions.”
“Why aren’t I going with them?”
“Your safety is our highest priority, even Tyson’s,” explained Artemus. “The Chancellor is also being cautious so that Nayara can’t easily get both you and Koran.”
Katie didn’t respond. She didn’t agree with his answer but understood the thought behind it.
“Under no circumstances are you to be harmed,” Artemus said. “Do you understand that?”
Katie nodded.
“If you hear the horn sound, go through that same gate but make your way along the river. You will find a ship there. Board it as soon as you can.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be with you, just right behind,” he answered. “I’m telling you this in case something happens and I’m not there to guide you.”
Katie nodded again.
A shout broke the early morning silence. Katie jerked her head towards where the noise came from.
Katie saw Sabrina running towards her.
Tyson reached the bottom of the stairs and ran to catch up with Koran who was standing at the front doors, looking out towards the river.
“The Chancellor is still speaking with Nayara,” Koran informed Tyson.
“How is that going?”
Koran shook his head. “From what I can tell, not well at all. Nayara is threatening to burn the city to the ground and show no mercy for anyone.”
“Shit,” Tyson said quietly.
“I just don’t understand why she hasn’t ordered her attack yet. It’s almost as if she is stalling.”
They waited for several minutes. Nothing else happened. Everything was quiet. Tyson couldn’t even hear the wind, as if everyone were waiting, with bated breaths, hoping for a miracle.
Then they heard a loud bang and the sound of sizzling fire. There was a flash of orange and red. Screams erupted from the city. Another bang and fire set off. More terrified screams came from the citizens as flaming rods crashed down into the city.
“I gave you your chance,” Nayara shouted to the city, somehow magnifying her voice so she could be heard. “I have you surrounded and you will all pay the price for denying my forgiveness.”
“Watch out!” Koran yelled, pointing to the sky. Tyson looked up and saw a jet of fire soaring in their direction. Before he could move, Koran shoved Tyson out of harm’s way. The jet hit just above the palace doors, exploding chunks of stone and marble, causing it to crash down.
Tyson and Koran were blasted off their feet and landed a few yards away. They scrambled to their feet and looked around. The five men that were to protect them were gone, save for man crushed beneath a chunk of stone.
They ran back into the palace, headed for the stairs. Another bomb of fire hit the roof, causing the ceiling of the entrance hall to collapse. Tyson and Koran ran to the side, into one of the smaller rooms where they had been inspected upon arrival.
Koran could hear the ceiling continue to collapse. He grabbed a chair off to the side of the room and heaved it through the window, shattering the glass. He and Tyson hopped through it.
They landed on a small walkway between the palace and a row of green bushes. Koran led Tyson over the bushes and down towards the upper-class houses. When they landed, another jet of fire crashed near them, sending them off their feet once more.
Tyson rolled onto the ground while Koran collided back-first into a marble house. Tyson helped Koran to his feet. Koran was hurt but pulled himself together.
A soldier from Oasi’s army found them and beckoned them towards safety. Koran and Tyson made their way towards him when they saw a gray gust of wind shoot through the air. It hit the soldier. Tyson and Koran skidded to a stop as the soldier froze up almost instantly into ice and shattered into small, dust particles.
Tyson pushed Koran forward, and they ran in the opposite direction. Streams of fire flew through the sky. One hit a house and erupted it into flames. Like rain, several more jets of fire bombarded the city.
While they ran, Tyson and Koran ducked and dodged the missiles of fire wherever they could. Tyson wasn’t sure how long the attacks would last but kept going.
They neared the river. Tyson saw three of Nayara’s ships. He and Koran didn’t know the number of men Nayara brought to fight but knew that she outnumbered them drastically.
A man jumped in front of them and attacked. Tyson was hit in the face with a fist. He was knocked to the ground but recovered quickly. It was one of Nayara’s soldiers.
He swung another punch, but Tyson dodged it. Tyson retaliated and his fist made contact with the soldier’s head. The man’s head jerked. His eyes glared at Tyson and he made to through another swing at Tyson, but Tyson was quicker and punched the soldier in the head again before kicking him hard in the chest. Nayara’s soldier fell hard onto the stone road and didn’t get back up.
Koran grabbed Tyson, and they ran. Tyson wasn’t sure how much damage he did to the man but didn’t care; he was ready for more.
They ran into another soldier of Nayara’s. Koran didn’t give the man a chance and charged at him. Koran grabbed the fighter’s neck. The soldier yelled and attempted to get Koran’s grip off of him with his own hands, but Koran held on strong.
Tyson yelled a warning to Koran. Koran spun around, the soldier still locked in by his arm and saw gray mist rushing towards him. Koran released the man and shoved the guard away from him. The man stumbled directly into the mist and turned into small ice-shards of dust.
Koran and Tyson nodded to each other and continued to run through the city. They hadn’t seen their signals in the sky yet but knew that their best shot was getting to one of the safe boats.
Many citizens were running. Mothers were grabbing their children while the men attempted to hold off their enemies and keep their families safe.
Tyson wanted to help but knew better. He and Koran weren’t supposed to be there. Plus, he couldn’t leave Katie, not now when he knew she would need him most. And when he needed her most.
They shoved past some citizens who were trying to make their way to the palace, despite it gradually crumbling to the cannonballs. Tyson tried not to watch as innocent people were hit by fire or attacked by Nayara’s army. Each death added fuel to a rage that burned inside him. He couldn’t continue to run if there was a chance that he could help them. Koran must have picked up on his thoughts because he grabbed Tyson’s arm firmly and led him through narrow streets.
He saw a mother shield her two young sons from the gray clouds and crumble to ice dust. One of the sons screamed while the other spun around, only to be hit by another
gray cloud of mist. The young boy was too small to shield his brother from the mist and the three of them were soon only particles of dust.
Tyson yelled and moved towards what had once been the family. Koran weakly tried to stop Tyson, but he too was upset and they both kneeled down in front of the pile of ash.
“It’s done,” said Koran. “We have to keep going.”
Tyson jerked his head away from it and stood back up. He and Koran journeyed through the burning city, twice narrowly avoiding being turned into dust themselves.
If he could, Tyson wanted to avenge those who just died at Nayara’s hand.
They reached the river and hid behind a few rather large and disproportionate boulders. Queen Nayara was in sight. She and the Chancellor were fighting. Nayara relentlessly attacked Chancellor Levi, sending a cloud of gray and jets of fire towards him. Levi blocked it with invisible shields of air while sending out attacks of his own.
Nayara kept dodging the strong gusts of wind and whips of water that attacked from the river while her attacks could never quite reach the Chancellor. Mountains of stone rose from the ground, but Nayara crushed them with a blue whip of glowing energy.
She flung and flicked Levi’s bolts of lightning away and redirected them towards the city. Anger flooded through Levi and he summoned a thick blast of lightning from the sky. It hit Nayara, and she cried out in those few seconds the electricity engulfed her.
For a moment, it looked as if the Chancellor had overpowered her.
The Queen screamed again. The lightning petered out, then exploded in a wave that electrified the air. She sent the lightning into the ground, which then rose up in waves and headed towards the city. Levi’s eyes widened in shock before he was lifted off his feet and tumbled onto the broken ground.
Nayara’s eyes were drawn with hate. She yelled again and sent out a whip of fire from her hand. Before the Chancellor had time to react, it wrapped around his wrist. She created another whip, and it wrapped around his other wrist. It burned his skin as fire would but didn’t physically destroy it. His hands just turned dark gray.
Levi tried to move his hands but couldn’t. The fire had destroyed the nerves in his hands, yet still left them intact and they continued to burn, roasting them.
The Chancellor looked up. Nayara was ambling towards him, the two jets of fire at her command like whips. She lifted Levi into the air. He didn’t move this time, knowing he couldn’t, and that there was no escape. He glared down at her while she walked towards him with a smirk on her face.
“You’re not going to win the war,” Levi said. Blood spilled out from one of his nostrils. His skin looked wrinkled and old. The Chancellor was dying rapidly.
Nayara ignored him and exhaled a silver cloud. Steadily, it approached the Chancellor, and he was soon amid it. His body hardened and cracked until he looked made up of old stone. Though frozen, the Chancellor’s power could be felt radiating from him. Nayara did not worry; she knew she already won.
Nayara released her whips of fire. Like a scene in slow motion, Chancellor Levi fell thirty feet to the ground, his body hard as rock and dark as night. He hit the stone streets like a boulder in a rockslide. Though his body didn’t shatter into pieces, the Chancellor moved no more.
Katie screamed as her necklace burned cold against her chest. At that moment it felt like fire. The pain shocked her. She whipped her hand up to feel it, but the sensation was gone. She knew what happened. She didn’t need to see the once gray star now black to know that the Chancellor was dead.
Without wanting to, Katie looked anyway. The sight of it made the loss more real, and emptiness flooded through her.
23
The Banishment
Katie screamed as Sabrina lunged at her, but before she could react, Artemus jumped in the way and deflected Sabrina’s attack with a dark wooden staff. Artemus spun the staff around and hit Sabrina in her chin.
As Sabrina’s head whipped back, Artemus was punched in his side. Katie yelled as the new attacker hit Artemus in the head, knocking him to the ground. The attacker had come out of nowhere and taken them by surprise.
Katie’s eyes widened when the man turned his attention to her. Before he rushed at her, Sabrina recovered and made to lunge at Katie herself.
Katie threw her hands in front of her to protect herself, but Sabrina was smarter than that and hit Katie in the chest. Katie cried out in pain.
Artemus picked himself up and put himself between Katie and Sabrina. The soldier stood next to Sabrina, waiting for an order.
“Run,” said Artemus.
“Where?” asked Katie, disoriented.
Sabrina didn’t give Artemus a chance to answer and leaped at him. Artemus shouted for Katie to run again while blocking another blow from Sabrina.
Katie ran towards the gate. At first, she wasn’t sure if she was headed the right way, but she didn’t recognize where she was and so figured she chose correctly. She didn’t look back while she ran, a lesson she felt she had well learned.
She could hear pounding footsteps chasing her. Katie ran faster.
Katie was headed towards the main part of the city. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw the fires and chaos that had erupted. Nearly half the city had already been destroyed.
Something hit Katie in the head and she toppled over. She somersaulted into a grass bed and hastily tried to get up.
Before she could make it onto both feet, Katie was kicked in her side. She was tossed around and fell back into the grass, doubling over in pain.
“Get up, Katie,” taunted Sabrina. “You’re it.”
Katie managed to look up at Sabrina. Her blonde hair was muddy with sweat and her face was hard set in loathing. Anger seared through her and Katie aimed a kick at Sabrina’s ankles. Though it was slow and poorly executed, Sabrina was caught by surprise and fell to the floor. Katie took her chance to scramble to her feet and ran.
Unfortunately, Sabrina was faster and within seconds was on Katie’s heels again. Katie ran as fast as she could. Something else hit her head but Katie kept her balance this time.
Katie leaped over large chunks of boulders that had collapsed from one of the buildings. She nearly lost her footing when she landed but managed to keep at a quick pace. Sabrina lunged over the rocks as well, though she flew through the air precisely and lightly touched on the ground with her feet and kept chasing after Katie.
While she ran, dashing between houses and trees, Katie splashed into several puddles of mud and struck back the water towards Sabrina. Along with dodging the jets of fire that flew towards her, Katie had hoped that something would hit Sabrina, but Sabrina was too good for that.
Katie turned a corner and before she could skid to a stop, she physically ran into three of Nayara’s soldiers. Katie shrieked as she felt her weight slam into their muscled bodies. The soldiers threw Katie back to the ground. Katie tried scrambling up while the soldiers drew nearer.
“Leave her, she’s mine!” commanded Sabrina. The soldiers looked up and stopped dead, almost petrified at the sight of Sabrina. She glared at them. Though inaudible, Katie was sure the soldiers were saying words of obedience as they walked away.
Katie felt Sabrina’s foot slam into her cheek and she hit the ground, face first. Sabrina placed her foot against Katie’s face, pinning her between her foot and the ground. Katie knew that this was it. Sabrina had won.
Blindly and as a last resort, Katie threw her hands into the air quite suddenly, willing for something to happen. She heard Sabrina’s screams and felt the pressure of her foot disappear before looking up to see.
Palatinii Cycle Page 27
