Deliverance

by Brittany Comeaux

  Crystal stood in front of a tall mirror and hated everything she saw. There were three elderly seamstresses making the final touches on a large, intricate wedding dress. To her dismay, the collar was very low and completely exposed her shoulders and showed far too much cleavage. Her hair was pinned up and had been dried with pins overnight to add curls, and once again, her face was covered in makeup.

  She hated it. She felt like nothing more than eye candy and she knew that that was all Valamar saw her as. For the past three days, she barely slept and didn’t eat at all. She had only water that the castle servants would bring up to the room and refused to eat in the dining room where she knew Valamar would show her off as a trophy to Bogdan and the others. She knew all too well that Bogdan would laugh at the look on her face when Valamar called her a pet name, and she would give up her magic before she gave him that satisfaction.

  “Almost done, dear,” the oldest seamstress muttered.

  Crystal remained silent, as she also had been since she was first locked into her room. Her whole body was too numb for her to utter a single word.

  Ten minutes before the wedding, Crystal emerged from her fitting room into the corridor of the sixth floor, and two guards were waiting to escort her to the wedding site on the third floor. Crystal saw that the guards stared at her for some time, and even when their commander came forward, he had to bark orders at them in order to snap them both back into reality. As much as she hated the leering, Crystal no longer had the will to stare daggers at anyone.

  The two guards marched silently on either side of her, and as much as she couldn’t help but notice that something was odd about them. They were silent and continued staring at her as they walked but not in a lustful way, it seemed. However, she didn’t feel like questioning anything, so she ignored this gut feeling and continued walking.

  After finally reaching the third floor, Crystal’s heart pounded in her stomach as the two guards opened the double doors to reveal a heavily decorated room that was once where she prayed with her mother to Caris. What was once a small temple was now lined with floral decorations and rows of seats on either side of the room. Nobles of all kinds from Ordale sat waiting for the ceremony to begin, and as soon as the doors opened, they all stood up to welcome the bride.

  Crystal looked at her feet as she walked down the aisle, but she could still feel Valamar’s eyes on her. The two guards stood on either side of the door and out of the corner of her eyes, she saw them stay next to the entrance and heard them close the doors behind her. At least eight other guards were stationed on either side of the room, giving no opportunity for escape.

  Crystal finally arrived at the altar and turned to face Valamar. When she didn’t look up at him, he lifted her chin with his fingers and she jerked backward to avoid being touched. After receiving a warning glare from Valamar, however, she held her head up anyway so he wouldn’t try to touch her again. Both the bride and groom then turned to face the altar and waited for the judge to begin the ceremony.

  “Welcome, one and all. We are brought here today to join this man and this woman in the union of marriage,” began the judge.

  Crystal faded in and out for several minutes as the old judge continued to speak. She stared off into space and heard bits and pieces of what was being said, but then Valamar turned to face her, grabbed her hands, and held them up tenderly.

  “I do,” Valamar said.

  Crystal realized that the judge had asked Valamar if he would take her as his wife, and then he asked her the same thing.

  “And do you, Princess Amelia Atteberry, take Lord Victor Valamar as your lawfully wedded husband?” he asked.

  Just when Crystal sighed and readied herself to say “I do,” someone else suddenly blurted out, “She does not!”

  The entire room immediately faced the entrance, where one of the guards who escorted her to the wedding stepped forward. He removed his helmet, and Crystal’s heart sank when she saw his face.

  “Blaze?” she asked in disbelief.

  “How did you get into the castle? Guards!” Valamar yelled.

  The guard that stood behind Blaze then brought up his weapon and pointed it at the back of Blaze’s head.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Crystal.

  “I’m here to rescue you, that’s what,” replied Blaze, completely ignoring the blade pressed to the back of his head.

  “Why would you do that after what you’ve done?” she cried, “You have a lot of nerve!”

  “Please, Crystal, just come with me,” Blaze pleaded.

  “I can’t! He’ll kill the others if I do!” she cried, “Have you any idea what you’ve done? I can never trust you again!”

  “Then trust me, Crystal,” said the guard behind Blaze, who then removed the sword from the prince’s head and removed his helmet.

  “Gavril!” Crystal cried.

  “Crystal, believe me, Blaze didn’t betray us!” Gavril pleaded, “Just ask your husband-to-be.”

  Crystal looked at Valamar, who smirked and said, “Very well, you figured it out! But that doesn’t change the fact that none of you will be leaving.” He then snapped his fingers and barked at the other guards in the room, “Arrest them!”

  However, the guards stood frozen for a good while, and eventually, they looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  “What the?” Valamar stammered.

  Suddenly, all of the guards stepped forward and held their blades out towards him instead of Blaze and Gavril, and one of them shouted, “Don’t worry Miss Crystal, the rebellion is still alive!”

  “Rebels?” Valamar frantically exclaimed. The nobles in the crowd frantically gasped and whimpered, afraid for their lives.

  “That’s right, Valamar. They all still have the will to fight and save their beloved leader. Now hand her over or ELSE,” Gavril replied, who then pointed his sword in Valamar’s direction, and Blaze did the same.

  Valamar stepped closer to Crystal and grabbed the back of her neck. “Come on then, take her if you think you can without hurting her!”

  “You coward!” Gavril bellowed.

  Crystal managed to release herself from Valamar’s grip. She then begged, “Gavril, please! Go and help the others! Don’t let them get killed!”

  “They are the ones who refused to leave until you were safe, Crystal.” Blaze replied, “We all knew the risks involved as much as they did. We all knew that this rebellion could cost us our lives.”

  “I can’t leave, Blaze! I just can’t watch them get hurt!”

  “And I can’t watch you marry another man!” Blaze blurted out.

  The room fell silent as Blaze’s last words sunk into everyone’s heads. Crystal’s heart pounded as she tried to understand if what she heard was correct. Even when Gavril and the other rebels stared at him in shock, Blaze’s eyes never left hers. He had clearly spoken before thinking, but he didn’t seem to regret it and stood his ground confidently.

  “Another . . .?” she asked in a low voice.

  Blaze sighed, lowered his sword, and took a step toward her. The room was silent enough to hear his nervous breathing, and Crystal’s heart nearly stopped when Blaze then said, “I love you, Crystal.”

  She could hear the tears in his voice, even though his face was dry. She brought her hands up to her face and covered her nose and mouth. Blaze continued to stare into her eyes as he began speaking again, “I have never felt love for anyone until I met you. You opened my eyes to the real world and gave me kindness when no one else did. You also made me realize that I was capable of feeling those things too. By the time I realized I even had a heart, it already belonged to you.”

  Tears were now soaking Crystal’s face and she watched as Gavril let out a sigh, walked forward, and placed his hand in Blaze’s shoulder in silent acceptance.

  The silence was finally broken when Valamar began laughing.

  Everyone snapped their heads in his direction, and he amusingly smirked at Blaze and said, “That was quite
. . . adorable. I honestly couldn’t do a better performance myself! Quite a tear-jerking display, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am the groom and you aren’t.” Still smirking and chuckling, Valamar then grabbed Crystal’s arm and pulled her closer to him.

  Crystal wrenched her arm out of his grip, stared him down, and said, “You can’t do any better because you can never give a woman real love. You don’t really want me as your wife, but as your trophy.”

  Crystal then landed another slap across Valamar’s face. The crowd jumped and gasped at her audacity, and Crystal walked away proudly. As Crystal walked down the steps towards Blaze and was about to say something to him, she heard Valamar angrily mutter, “I warned you not to defy me!” Suddenly, Valamar grabbed Crystal’s arm and pulled her towards him and he looked at the judge and said, “She says ‘I do!’”

  With that, he pulled Crystal towards him and planted his lips on hers again. She showed no fear this time as she punched and kicked at Valamar to get him off, but it did no good. She heard Blaze and Gavril yell and charged forward, but before they could get to her, Crystal felt her energy leaving her. A sudden blast of magic power erupted from her body and Valamar was sent flying in the air and he landed on the ground hard.

  Crystal had collapsed after the blast and was too lightheaded to get up. She felt two sets of hands hold her up. When she managed to get her eyes open, she saw Valamar trying to get up, but then Blaze marched over to him and kicked him in the jaw. The groom flew backwards again and was knocked out cold.

  Gavril then attempted to pull Crystal to her feet as the wedding guests flew out of the room in a panic. Blaze came to her aid as well.

  “Crystal, can you stand on your own?” Gavril asked, but before she could answer him, Blaze placed one arm under her knee and the other under her back and lifted her up.

  “I’ve got her,” Blaze said.

  “Now, let’s get out of here before Bogdan comes searching for us,” Gavril said.

  The three of them managed to sneak away from the ceremony room before the guards came running to investigate the noise of the blast. Once they discovered Valamar knocked out and badly bruised on the floor, Bogdan was alerted at the castle gates and he announced an immediate manhunt for Blaze.

  Still in their guard uniforms, the rebels lured away real guards so that Gavril, Blaze, and Crystal could sneak by.

  Blaze continued to carry Crystal the whole way. His arms barely wrapped around the billowing dress, but he was too determined to carry her to safety to care.

  “What happened to you two after we were captured?” Crystal hazily asked.

  Not wanting to tell her about the fight between himself and Gavril, Blaze said, “We managed to get away and we were separated, but we ran into each other here in the castle.”

  “Crystal, I hate to ask this, but did Valamar . . .” Gavril muttered, trailing off at the end.

  Even though he didn’t finish his sentence, Crystal understood what he was asking. “No, Gavril. He kissed me once before the wedding but he didn’t do anything else. He said he wanted to leave that for tonight.”

  “Good. I was sick with worry about that the whole way here. I’m glad to know you weren’t harmed and I won’t have to chop off Valamar’s member and feed it to a pack of dogs,” Gavril said with a relieved sigh.

  “Judging by the size of his mansion, those poor dogs would probably go hungry,” Blaze muttered scornfully.

  Gavril couldn’t help but laugh at Blaze’s remark while Crystal merely rolled her eyes in amusement.

  By the time they arrived on the ground floor, thankfully, Crystal regained enough strength to walk again, and they safely arrived at the storage room where the secret door lay. The three of them snuck inside while two other disguised rebels pretended to be canvasing the corridor outside.

  “How ironic to be escaping through here again,” Crystal muttered.

  “Isn’t it funny how fate works out sometimes?” Gavril replied, “By the way, Crystal, I have your belongings here.” Gavril then handed Crystal a bag. She peeked inside and saw her robe and the rest of her clothes as well as her blade and her necklace.

  “Thank you, but why are you giving me this now?” Crystal said.

  “Because this is where I let you two go,” replied Gavril.

  “What?” Crystal exclaimed.

  “You aren’t coming with us?” Blaze asked.

  “I’m afraid not. There is something I need to take care of,” Gavril replied ruefully.

  “But, Gavril . . .” Crystal whispered.

  “Listen,” Gavril said, placing his hands on her shoulders, “I’ve done all I can to protect you: I’ve trained you well, I’ve defended you in battle, and you have become someone to be proud of. I cannot teach you anymore; you must finish this journey on your own.”

  Crystal bowed her head and embraced Gavril. The former general embraced her in return and muttered, “You have to be strong. You’re a big girl now.”

  Crystal pulled away and asked, “What are you going to do?”

  “I will make sure that our friends are not harmed. I also have the men I led in here to lead out of the castle safely. Their lives are in my hands, so I cannot let them down,” Gavril assured. He then turned to Blaze and said, “I know I do not have to ask you to protect her with your life.”

  “No.” Blaze replied, “I swear that I will keep her safe.”

  “Good. By the way, where are your clothes?” Gavril asked.

  Blaze responded by turning around, reaching into a large pot, and pulled out a bag with his sword sticking out and replied, “I put them in here after leaving the dungeon.”

  “Good,” Gavril replied. He then looked at Crystal’s worried face and assured, “It will be all right, Crystal. Go become a holy mage so you can end this once and for all.”

  After Crystal nodded and hugged him again, Gavril smiled at her and left the room, but wondering what he planned to do next worried her, because his smile said “I will see you again,” but his eyes seemed tell them, “Goodbye.”

  CHAPTER 18

  As soon as Crystal stepped off of the ladder that led into the escape tunnel, she immediately threw her arms around Blaze and cried, “I am so sorry I didn’t believe you!”

  Blaze lightly kissed her forehead and whispered, “Listen, we can talk later. Let’s get out of here before the guards catch us!”

  “Okay,” Crystal replied while Blaze led her forward into the tunnel. They ran through the dark for what felt like an eternity, holding each other’s hands the entire time. Blaze’s guard armor clanked together with each movement and Crystal desperately tried to hold the bottom of her large dress high enough so that she wouldn’t trip. She felt her hair coming loose from its style and by the time she saw the ladder, her tresses had fallen around her shoulders in long, curly strands.

  Once they reached the other end of the tunnel, Blaze turned to Crystal and said quietly, “I’ll go up first and make sure it’s clear.” After Crystal nodded, he turned to the ladder and climbed it. At the top, he waited a few seconds, listening for any voices outside. When he concluded that no one was waiting outside, he creaked the door open and looked out. He then lifted the door all the way and emerged from the tunnel.

  Crystal climbed up the ladder and grabbed Blaze’s outstretched hands when she got to the top. When she emerged from the dark tunnel, the late afternoon sunlight nearly blinded her, but the warmth reminded her that she was free from Valamar, and so she welcomed it.

  “This way,” Blaze said after Crystal’s eyes adjusted to the light. He then led her about a mile southeast of Cartigo, where a horse and bag of supplies awaited next to a small pond.

  As soon as they stopped, Crystal threw her arms around Blaze again and kissed him. He immediately responded by wrapping his arms around her tightly and kissing her back with everything he had, and before he could maintain his balance, Blaze fell onto his back and Crystal fell on top of him.

  Crystal then laughed and mutter
ed, “I told you I would remember.”

  Blaze let out a little laugh and replied, “Glad I gave you the heads up, then.”

  There was then a brief silence followed by Crystal asking, “Did you mean what you said at the castle?”

  “Every word of it,” Blaze replied with no hesitation.

  Crystal kissed him again, and then replied, “Tell it to me again.”

  Blaze looked into her eyes and said, “I love you.”

  Crystal smiled and responded, “I love you too.”

  Without warning, Blaze rolled Crystal onto her back, landed on top of her, and gave her the most intense kiss that she ever thought she would feel. Her face flushed as Blaze’s hand began lightly grazing from her hip and up the side of her body. He then gently ran his fingers along the side of her face as he removed his lips from hers and kissed her neck. She felt heart racing and goose bumps forming on her skin and she tried not to let her breath quicken out of control as she felt Blaze’s unmentionable press against her leg through their clothing.

  “I promised myself that I would protect you, so even though I don’t want to stop, we need to start moving so we can get out of harm’s way,” Blaze whispered onto her neck. He then stood up and helped her do the same.

  “But where are we supposed to go? Gavril mentioned something about learning holy magic, but he left before I could ask him what to do,” Crystal replied.

  “Thaddeus said that his brother appeared to him in a dream and told him that you needed to go to some place called the Lost Realm to learn it,” Blaze said.

  “The Lost Realm?” Crystal asked in surprise.

  “Yes; Thaddeus said his brother was there and that he also took the last shard to the realm with him when he died,” Blaze replied.

  Crystal’s face hardened. She turned around and looked at her feet, and said, “It’s . . . real,”

  Blaze picked up the bag with Crystal’s belongings, held it out to her, and said, “Here, you can explain it to me while you get changed.” When Crystal turned around and gave him a dirty look, he added while rolling his eyes, “I won’t watch, of course.”