15

A beast in white armor that devoured small cities in a single night once every hundred years. This creature was said to be shaped like an elf, and wear armor of elven design, but it never spoke, and only a rare few would survive the disappearing that this creature brought with it. The ones that survived were not the ones that fought. It was not the ones that fled either. Only the ones that hid, and managed to remain hidden survived.

Some were said to be so terrified by what they saw that they rarely if ever spoke of it again. Elves had a three hundred year lifespan so it was well within the realm of possibility that an elf could use their own lifespans against them. Such spells were forbidden for a reason though. They were said to erode the sanity of whoever they were used on. Some would say that it was because you used a spell that wasn't meant to be used.

Others would claim that it was the souls you took trying to destroy you for taking their lives. All I knew is that this woman didn't care about the lives of her own people let alone others. She sacrifice them all for one step ahead. She'd meticulously cultivated her power for centuries, and while she didn't posses all the elements like Wyatt did, she did posses enough power to force the elements into submission. Maybe that was why she'd been given the planet.

The only way to take the planet away from her would be to pry it from her cold dead fingers. Fear seeped into my bones. I hadn't felt such primal fear since I'd been separated from my mother. My muscles tensed involuntarily, and every instinct said I should take a step back. The problem was that I couldn't back up.

I was chained to the roof. Hanging there with my arms above my head was painful, but that primal fear made me try to jerk back anyway. Something truthfully terrifying was standing before me, and there was nowhere I could go to get away from this creature. I wondered what could make someone this twisted. Maybe it was the power.

Maybe it was the years. She'd been alive a lot longer then she should have been. All the negative effects of those spells couldn't be a lie. Maybe some of them were bullshit, but not all of them could be. I wondered what Wyatt had seen when he looked at her.

His eyes were far superior to my own. Add on the fact that he openly admitted to having multiple different kinds of vision. Including something as odd as being able to see emotions. What did he see when he looked at her? I really wanted to know.

The chains on my wrists suddenly went slack, and I fell to the ground like a wet noodle. I hadn't been on my feet since they put me in here. I hadn't gotten a single morsel of food, and I'd barely been given enough water to survive. It really was no surprise that I had no strength. The guards she brought with her drug us both off the ground.

Rinsing the dried blood off our bodies with cold water. That chill drew a pained cry from my mother, but I was in better shape then her so I managed to grit my teeth, and keep my cry of pain silent. They brought us up to our full height, but our feet were mostly dragged along the ground. Something about the guards eyes disturbed me. I'd only caught a glimpse of one of them, but his eyes looked hollow.

I tried to study them carefully. They all appeared to be the same. Not just similar like brothers. Everything was exactly the same. Their stride was even exactly the same.

That bothered me more then I cared to admit. Although their stride being exactly the same actually allowed me to avoid a lot of nasty bumps. They didn't jostle me as much as two separate people might. It didn't made it any less creepy. We were thrown onto the ground outside of the throne room.

I ignored the pain that shot from my bound wrists, and my knees. I moved over to my mother, and tried to help her best I could. My hands weren't bound behind my back, but they were still bound so I wasn't able to do much more then raise her head. She was still breathing, and on the edge of losing consciousness, but she was still with me. I wanted to hug her close to me, but if I did that right now I would only hurt her more then she'd already been hurt.

There was murder in my eyes, but that murder didn't reach the surface. I knew it was better to conceal my feelings on this matter. Especially with that monster around. I glanced up at the queen. She'd started some speech about how slaves were supposed to stay below elves.

I wasn't listening to any of it. All I wanted to do was speak with my mother. My vision was blurry, and I was pretty sure that the vast majority of my wounds had been reopened in the walk up here. I couldn't ignore when the queen gripped, and ripped off my ear. Not yanked me around by my ear.

Ripped my ear off. My body was yanked along with. I found myself thrown to the ground a few feet from my mother. Shock, and pain reverberated from my entire head to the rest of my body. I didn't know what to do.

I wasn't daring enough to move after I'd fallen. I didn't want to anger the monster that was standing over me could bring down on me if I did anything she didn't like. I just laid there exactly like the weak half dead creature I was. That was the first time I'd had a chance to check my magical senses. That thinning connection to Wyatt was still there.