Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Blood and the Ice

I hear two people talking, as I slowly open my eyes I can see the light beaming in from the windows of my bedroom. I think it's my mother conversing with one of the palace guards. I slowly sit myself up in my bed and rub the dust from my eyes. The blankets feel heavy and the sun peeking through the window feels warm on my skin.

“You’re going to be a great mage one day. Just like your father!” I turn to my right and see my mother who I thought was just outside, sitting in a chair by my bed. Her long dark hair tied tightly to one side drapes over her shoulder, the light reflecting a beautiful soft purple-ish gray off of the dark colored skin of her shoulders. She has a book in her hand but I can't make out what it is.

“Mother, I’ll be nineteen this year and you haven’t read to me since I was a little girl. Just what are you doing here?” She doesn’t even look up from her book. She just sits still as she was, her head moving back and forth as if she’s reading intently.

“Mother? What is it you’re reading?” Still no answer. Now my attention turns to the door, I can still hear people outside, but I don't feel strong enough to pull myself out of bed. Suddenly the talking outside gets louder and louder, the people are yelling, screaming. My bedroom door busts open and the windows shatter, the cold wind is blowing so powerfully my ears feel as if they’ll burst. I try to scream but nothing comes out. Everything is so bright now, the room fills with light until I feel like I’m being blinded, my body feels weightless, I reach my arm out towards my mother who’s still reading as if nothing’s happened. My body is cold, so unbearably cold now as my room fades away.

~~~

I try to open my eyes but it's too bright. I can hear chattering again, it sounds like two men, at least twenty feet in front of me. After a moment I began to open my eyes, it's still so bright, and the wind is so strong it's hard to keep them open. I can tell that my body is upright, but I’m not standing and I can’t move my arms or legs. Am I still dreaming? I see the two men now, my eyes just barely able to squint open. They are dressed very strangely, wearing big heavy coats with furry hoods over their heads. We look to be on a sea vessel, I don’t see any weapons or flags so it’s definitely not a warship, could they be smugglers? Pirates? I’ve never seen waters like these, surrounded by icebergs and the air is absolutely frigid. I try again to move, but fail. The two men take notice, they look shocked, scared even. I try to talk but it just comes out as a deep exhale, my voice won't come out.

The men hurry to grab some tools and come rushing toward me. As they get close I notice something stranger than their clothes, they aren't elves, They aren't of Talah at all. They have rounded ears like the M'alahi people, but their skin is Pale, I’ve never seen anything like it. They look panicked and they’re both crowding around me now. They’re examining me, like I’m some sort of specimen. They’re using the tools to pick at something around me, I can hear it. Ice? I think I'm encased in ice. How did this happen? Where am I? I can't remember anything.

“W- What’s,” That’s the only word that I’m able to get out to them before the ship is hit with a massive impact. The shockwave sends both men to the ground. As both of them stammer to their feet, three more men dressed the same way come through the door that leads below deck.

“Pirates!” One of them screams, they all rush to the door and head back below deck, one of the two men that were examining me before stops to look back at me, we make eye contact for a moment, and I hear the other men yelling for him to hurry. In an instant he was on the ground, an arrow pierced straight through his skull. His lifeless eyes are quickly surrounded by a pool of his own deep red blood. The others leave him and head below deck. I begin to panic, trying to move again, the air is so cold and I’m breathing so hard, my throat hurts, it’s so dry. The ship is hit with another impact. That’s when I see the pirates, they begin boarding the ship.

I feel a shock run through my body as the smell of blood reaches my nose. I look down at the Fair skinned man's blood pooling all over the ground in front of me, I can't look away from it, my heart begins racing faster. I’ve never felt anything like this before. My body wont stop shaking. Am I… Drooling? What is this feeling? The sight and scent of fresh blood… It’s driving me mad! I feel myself losing control. I can hear the ice around my body cracking as my muscles contract. One of the pirates looks at me and appears scared, he alerts the others, everything goes dark once again.

~~~

“Istris…” A familiar woman's voice calling my name.

“Istris!” I awake to a familiar scene. I’m laying in the grass beneath the large cherry tree in the palace courtyard. For about a hundred feet in any direction there are brightly coloured trees and flowers surrounded by stone brick walls overgrown with green moss and vines. My favorite place in the whole palace is this garden. Standing above me is an elf woman about my age. Her bright orange hair against her dark As'tala elf skin made her unmistakable for anyone else even in my half awake state.

“Rhea… You wanna lay here with me?” I say through a yawn.

“Do you know what time it is, Istris?” She says with her hands on her hips. Looking down at me disapprovingly.

“No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.” 

“I’m sure you can tell it’s late evening. You missed another meeting! Your mother is starting to worry about you, Istris.” She says with a sigh, Rhea’s been my closest friend for as long as I can remember, her father is the head of the royal guard, and my family has always had strong ties with the royal family. She's half a year older than me so she takes it upon herself to act like the responsible one sometimes. Even though we both know I do better in our classes.

“Come on Rhea, you know those meetings are just formality, I know my mother is marrying the emperor but it's not like he needs me to be there, besides I can just read the debriefing documents like I always do. You do have them don’t you” Rhea looks at me and gives a small smile, she gives up on trying to scold me as she knows full well that I never attend these kinds of meetings. Rhea reaches out and pulls me up to stand, then hands me the documents.

“Walk with me?” I ask.

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“Of course, Princess, I would be delighted to escort you as you read.” Rhea says jokingly as she gives a fake curtsy.

“Oh my! You must be the prettiest guard they’ve ever sent!” I joke back, fanning my face with my hand. We both chuckle a bit and head off.

Another familiar scene, Rhea and I walk together along the palace walls towards my quarters, I’m glazing over the debriefing documents and Rhea’s talking about things that happened to her today. Sometimes her days aren’t very interesting but I always make sure to try and catch the parts that seem important to her and give her some indication that I’m listening. The sun was almost fully set and the night was as beautiful as any other on Talah. We walked together under the moonlight, and I felt the stress of endless politics fade away. In the calming melancholy of that short lived moment, I felt happy. That happiness didn’t last though, as that night was when my entire world came to an end.

As usual my attention began to focus on what I was reading. I wasn't focused on my surroundings, though I noticed that Rhea hadn't said anything for longer than usual. When I looked away from my documents Rhea had vanished. When I turned around I spotted a hook tied to a rope dangling down the side of the palace wall-- It all happened so fast, I stood there panicking for only a moment before a tall figure grabbed me from behind covering my mouth with a cloth soaked in some elixir and suddenly I could not think or even keep my eyes open. All I could think about in the moments before I faded away was what had happened to Rhea.

Although I hadn't seen my kidnappers it was not hard to figure out who they were and why they took me. They’re M'ahali rebels, M'ahali are one of the two native people of Talah. There's us, the As'tala elves, though we’re fewer in numbers, the  Empire has ruled over Talah for five hundred years. There are multiple royal families among us. I was born into a family of nobles, politics is the only thing I ever knew, if I wasn't studying magic, I was learning about war. The M'ahali are dark skinned like the As'tala, but they aren't elves which means their lifespans are much shorter, which hindered them in ever having power in this land. Since the As'tala empire was forged, some M'ahali always try to challenge us. Though I don't believe that the empire is completely just in their cause, the M'ahali who have chosen rebellion are vicious and unruly and from what I’ve seen they are basically an organized band of barbarians.

I woke up in the back of  a tarped carriage, my arms and legs were bound in rope. I still felt dizzy from whatever they drugged me with. I should be careful. It’s unlikely that they’ll hurt me since their reason for taking me must be for ransom since I’m soon to be the emperor's daughter. That means that they don't have use for Rhea, since she’s the daughter of a military official it's unlikely that they even know who she is, if they haven't killed her already, then I should stay quiet and do as they say if I want them to keep her alive. I also don't know how many of them there are so a fight is best avoided. These barbarians won't stand a chance, the guards have probably already noticed my absence and sent out a search party. I could hear the waves to the right of the road, if we’re near the beach then we can't be heading for any of the large cities, it’s possible they plan to take me to a ship to hold me until they make a deal. A smart plan as the empire is unlikely to use force if there's a chance the ship will sink and drown me. I lay in the back of the carriage for maybe an hour until suddenly we came to a stop. I hear one of the men say they see something in the road ahead. There’s no way for me to see what was going on but what I heard next terrified me to my very core. The men began to sound more and more panicked. For just a moment I thought that my rescue had arrived, but instead came a threat much greater than the men who kidnapped me.

“Vampires!” one of the rebels yelled, his scream was of pure terror, followed by the screams of his death. Vampires? That can't be right. My mother told me stories about vampires when I was young, but I never believed that they were real, these men, had they encountered them before? Their reactions indicated that they had. Something about this doesn't add up. There wasn't time to think, I could hear struggles outside and before I knew it the carriage was blown apart by a magefire explosion. My whole body is flung into the grass. Around me was a small wooded area, on the other side of the road we were on is the beach. I was disoriented and dizzy, all around me pieces of the wooden carriage lit by the blue magefire. Dust and debris in the air, all I see are the silhouettes of my kidnappers being slaughtered by what I couldn't believe were real Vampires… They moved faster than anything I had ever seen, slicing off limbs before the rebels could even attack. The sheer terror had me paralized, I hadn't even noticed that my binds had come loose from the explosion. I had to do something. I had to move, run, something… I couldn’t move, then I heard a woman’s scream.

“Rhea!” I yell as I struggle to stand. My leg… I think it's broken. I grab a sharp shard of the carriage wood and limp into the woods toward her voice.

“Rhea!” I try to get a response, I hear her scream again, it's definitely Rhea. I keep moving, leaning up against a tree every now and then to keep balance. I see someone in the darkness ahead of me, I struggle to get closer. It’s one of the vampires… It's walking towards Rhea whose back is pressed against a tree. I acted on pure instinct at that moment, hoping to run in front of Rhea, but my leg was more injured than I thought. I collapsed to my knees and dropped the wooden shard and in that instant all I could do was watch. there weren't any more screams, just the rustling of a vampire's swift movements, then… Rhea’s head rolling toward me from the darkness.

My whole body was shaking, I couldn't breathe. The only thing I could do was let out a visceral shriek, I screamed so hard I could taste the blood in my mouth. Only a few seconds later the vampire lept towards me. I grabbed its wrists as it pinned me to the ground, pushing it back with all the rest of my strength, tears streaming down my face, the vampire was too strong. It was able to sink its teeth into my left shoulder, I could feel it draining my body, at that moment, I had nearly resigned myself to death. In fact, I should have died, but there was something screaming out to me, calling me. I slowly reached my right hand down to the shard I had dropped, and in one swift movement, I plunged it through the vampire's neck. It’s blood splattered on my face and chest and its bite released as it went limp. I push it off my body.

I stand there in utter shock and terror, I had seen dead bodies before, but staring up at me now was my best friends head, her eyes still open, the look of fear just before her death still lingers on her face. Tears are uncontrollably pouring down my face as I collapse to my knees and cradle her lifeless head to my chest. I didn’t know what else to do but scream-- Scream and cry until I could taste only the blood in my mouth. Rhea was the only person I had ever loved, and now she was gone. I, sitting alone in the shallow of the forest, was lost. It felt as though my heart had been ripped from my chest and even though I was still bleeding from where the vampire bit me, I felt nothing. I was empty, alone, lost, and scared. It felt as though my life had ended right there, as I’ve devolved from my horrid shrieks, to just the gentle sobbing of a broken soul.

I hear something behind me but nothing matters to me now, I feel so weak and worthless. Even if a vampire were to come up and kill me now, I would simply do nothing about it.

An armored As'tala elf comes out from the trees, one of the royal guard. He grabs me by the arm and assists me in standing up, Rhea’s head falls from my arms back onto the grass. I could tell he was saying something to me, but everything was quiet. My eyes looked ahead but I saw nothing but the image of Rhea’s head. The next few moments were the same, walking propped against the guards shoulders it felt as though I was underwater, cut off from all reality.

 In my haze I heard glimpses of the guard explaining that the vampires all fled when the army arrived, and that they had captured most of the surviving rebels. I couldn't bring myself to say a word…

As we approached the road where we saw what had to be a whole battalion, about a hundred royal guards. Some thirty guards had the last M’ahali rebel cornered with his back against the base of a tall tree, the guards had seemingly been taking extra precautions to secure him so that he wouldn't kill himself to avoid being interrogated. Others were blocking off the road, creating a magic barrier to secure the area and some were inspecting the exploded caravans, leaving the dead rebels but concealing and collecting any vampires that littered the ground. 

Then, my head turned back to the lone rebel as I heard the chanting of an incantation, one that I recognized. Before I could react the air began to freeze, a cold, forceful wind blowing in a vortex around the rebel. That was a Master class ice spell. I had no idea M’ahali could even cast such high level spells, I don't think anyone there could have expected that. My heart dropped, as the haze from before was forcibly ripped away now that I knew what was about to happen.

“Run!” I shouted at the top of my lungs with my already worn throat. I pushed the guard that had helped me out of the forest back and could only take a single step forward before my broken leg buckled and I collapsed to the ground. It was too late, I had no time to cast a counterspell. The spell erupted. Nobody had the time to react before the explosion. The guards closest to the rebel were vaporized instantly. We were the farthest, standing maybe sixty feet away with our backs to the ocean, the barrier surrounding the scene filled with the blue haze and shattered, allowing the spell to erupt towards us. All the some hundred guards were likely dead but the guard who found me jumped in front of my body, the last guard of the battalion, doing his duty to protect the soon-to-be princess. I hadn’t even known his name. It was all so fast, only a couple seconds. There was so much blood and no screams. Just a silent slaughter, then, darkness.

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