"Although... I wasn't expecting for you to believe it either. Sometimes a dog does end up chasing their own tail." She smirked, slowly straightening up.
Kazimir's smile faltered, a flickering twitch of irritation crossing his brow as the poisonous purple fog swirled aggressively around his boots. "What warning?" he demanded. "You think a bluff will buy them distance?"
"I don't bluff," Aefia said softly. Her crimson eyes, dark and cold as a subterranean lake, shifted past Kazimir toward the deep treeline beyond the gate—the exact direction Cedric, Rosetta, and the Queen had vanished into. "I warned you that you will never be a step close to how I think... Since I never play a game where I don't already control the board. You thought your elite knights were lurking in those woods to ambush them?"
"Then what else?" He asked back.
"I sent some people to ambush them." She calmly stated, flipping Spectrum between her fingers. "Someone named... ######"
The entire field went dead silent. The King's eyes widened so hard, they could have fallen out of their sockets. Kazimir trembled in his place.
"You..."
"I know... At least until there." She shurgged.
With a blinding force, he suddenly came lunging forward. "You bastard! You entitled freak!"
She parried back in time. Right... I need to hold back on my own part for a long time...
Kazimir's rapier moved in a frantic, unhinged blur, the dark purple fog expanding until the air itself tasted of ozone and rot. He was no longer fencing with calculated precision; he was driving forward with the raw, hysterical force of a man whose reality had just been violently upturned.
For Aefia... This was a good turning point.
"You speak his name like you have any right melting your nose into this!" Kazimir shouted, thrusting his blade toward her throat. "You think you can play with the history of Mides?!"
Aefia parried, but the connection was sloppy. The heavy metallic CLANG rattled up her forearm, sending a dull ache through her wrist. She caught herself on her heel, her boots skidding across the slick, mud-streaked cobblestones. Her left eye narrowed, the crimson light in her gaze flickering like a candle caught in a draft.
Hold back... Damn it! It is working, she reminded herself, suppressing the instinctual surge of her powers acting up. If I obliterate him here, the King will collapse the entire array and bury the evidence under three centuries of dark magic. I need them to take the bait.
Kazimir saw her hesitation and seized it. He pivoted, sweeping his leg low to throw her off balance before bringing the pommel of his rapier down with brutal force across her left jaw.
The impact cracked through the silent clearing like a whip. Aefia was thrown sideways, her head snapping back as the copper taste of blood flooded her mouth. She stayed on her knees, her palms resting calmly on her thighs.
Yes... It worked... I just need a little more—
"Is this the great Third Aethalgard?" Kazimir panted, stepping toward her with his blade dragging along the ground, leaving a black, scorched trail in the wet grass. "A girl who bleeds just like the rest of us? You De nothing without your powers and peoples!"
Aefia forced herself to tilt her head back at him, wiping the streak of crimson from her chin with the back of her leather glove. The surrounding guards snickered.
The King stepped forward, his expression shifting from blind panic to a cold, calculating malice.
"Three hundred years," he spoke, his voice low and raspy as he stared down at her kneeling figure. "For over three centuries, the Mides bloodline has cultivated the ancient dark arts in the shadows of this mountain. Do you truly believe a child like you can erase three hundred years of foundation in a single night? Where your mother wasn't even able to graze it."
Aefia looked straight ahead. A faint, bloody smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Three hundred years..." she spat out a mouthful of blood onto the cobblestones, "...and you still haven't managed to refine the miasma enough to stop it from eating your own lungs, Your Majesty. That's not a foundation. That's an infection."
The King's face darkened instantly. "Break her legs, Kazimir."
Kazimir didn't hesitate. He lunged, kicking Aefia squarely in the ribs with his iron-reinforced boot. The sound of cracking bone echoed sharply, and Aefia let out a muffled gasp, collapsing forward until her forehead rested against the ground. Before she could recover, Kazimir stomped down on her right wrist, pinning Spectrum's hilt to the stone floor.
The agony was absolute—a corrosive, tearing sensation that felt as though liquid fire was being pumped directly into her bloodstream.
She bit her bottom lip so hard it bled, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a scream. The only thing she could do—and should do... Was tag along with them in this game. To go as they wished to move her... So she could read their moves before they read hers.
"Look at you," Kazimir sneered, leaning his full weight onto her pinned wrist, enjoying the crunch of bone beneath his boot. "The brilliant tactician. The terrifying Third Aethalgard. Reduced to squirming in the dirt like the rest of the scum you tried to save."
He raised his rapier high, the point aimed directly at her shoulder. With a sickening 'thwack', he drove the steel down, pinning her to the earth.
Aefia's eyes flared wide, her body going completely rigid as the dark magic on the blade expanded inside the wound, corrupting the tissue around her shoulder blade. Cold sweat poured down her pale face, her pitch-black hair matted with sweat and dirt against the wet stone.
"Take her sword," the King commanded coldly, stepping up beside his son. "Bind her with the suppression chains from the sub-basement. If she tries to channel even an ounce of her Guardian magic, the links will crush her spine."
Two elite knights rushed forward, heavy black iron chains rattling in their hands. They tore Spectrum from her weakened grip, binding her wrists tightly behind her back before wrapping the cold, heavy links around her arms and neck. The moment the dark iron touched her skin, it reacted with the miasma in her blood, sending violent shocks of dark magic through her nervous system.
Aefia gasped violently. Her breathing was shallow, her vision swimming in dark red hues as the physical trauma took its toll.
In the same time...
"Spectrum..."
[Master...]
"Once away... You know what to do."
[Yes... Master.]
Kazimir stood over her, breathing heavily—a triumphant, manic grin returning to his face as he wiped his rapier clean on a silk handkerchief. "It seems your grand plan ended right here, Sovereign Sofia."
Aefia slowly raised her head, her eyes dull—yet holding a quiet, terrifying stillness deep within its depths.
"I surrender," she whispered, her raspy voice barely carrying over the wind. "I... yield to the authority of the Mides Crown."
The King let out a harsh, booming laugh that echoed through the quiet forest. "Take the traitor to the deep dungeons. Strip her of her titles, lock her in the primary seal, and prepare the proclamation. Tomorrow morning, the Guardian of Death will be executed for high treason against the realm."
Aefia looked up a bit as she was stood on her feet again. "But Your Majesty..."
"Speak..."
"As a traitor, I only want one wish granted. It won't cost you much."
"What is it?"
"I want my execution date selected by Prince Kazimir's hand." She pointed out. "Since I lost a duel with him... he shall choose my punishment."
Everything froze for a second.
"Sure sure. But that is the only mercy you are getting." The King sneered.
As she was dragged away, the first light of dawn started to creep over the mountains. She squinted her eyes at it...
"The sky looks wonderful... Doesn't it?" She smiled painfully to herself.
***
The deep dungeon beneath the Mides palace smelled of damp earth, rust, and ancient, stagnant rot.
Aefia knelt on the frigid stone floor of the primary seal chamber, her knees bruised and raw against the jagged slate. Heavy, rust-crusted iron shackles bound her wrists, hoisting her arms above her head and forcing her hands to hang limply on either side of her face.
The iron links groaned under the strain, suspended from thick metal rings driven deep into the slick granite wall.
Every breath she took sent a jagged flare of agony through her shattered ribs.
Dark, purple-tinged bruises marbled the length of her arms, swirling beneath her pale skin like ink spreading under water. A jagged, crusty laceration cut across the left side of her forehead—where blood had dried into a thick, dark streak that ran down her temple and matted the silver-edged locks of her black hair.
The solid iron door at the end of the corridor shrieked open, echoing violently through the subterranean vault.
A guard stepped into the dim torchlight, carrying a chipped, rusted iron bowl. Without a word, he sneered, rearing his arm back and rudely throwing the bowl directly onto the filth-covered floor before her. The bowl shattered with a sharp, hollow clatter, scattering handfuls of black, moldy crusts and slimy, rotting vegetables into the sewage-stained puddle beside her knees.
"Eat up, Sovereign," the guard spat, wiping his slick hands on his leather tunic. "Wouldn't want the grand Third Aethalgard starving before the King gets to make an example of her."
Aefia didn't look up immediately. Her crimson eyes, clouded with physical exhaustion but burning with an icy, unbroken motive, slowly tracked the guard's boots.
According to the rules set by the chief warden, her chains were only unlocked for ten minutes each time she asked—a meager grace granted only five times a day, meant to keep her magic weak while giving her just enough movement to consume the filthy slop and prevent her from dying prematurely.
"Unlock them," Aefia murmured, her voice dry as parchment—yet completely devoid of pleading. Rather... She still sounded like royalty to anyone who came to visit.
The guard scoffed, producing a heavy brass key from his belt with a slow, deliberate rattle. "You have ten minutes. Make it quick, girl."
The heavy shackles fell away with a sharp 'clang', and Aefia's arms dropped like lead. Her shoulders popping painfully as she collapsed forward on her palms. Her fingers twitched, dark purple bruises throbbing violently under the sudden rush of blood flow. She didn't touch the rotting food.
Instead, she sat back on her heels. Slowly flexing her healed knuckles, while mentally counting the seconds down as the surpressed magic inside her throbbed in rhythm with her pulse.
In the initial days of her imprisonment, the quiet of her cell was routinely shattered by interrogators. High ministers, dark-magic scholars, and Kazimir's personal lieutenants would parade down the damp corridor, leaning against the iron bars to throw insult after insult at her.
"Look at the Imperial Crown Princess," a senior minister had mocked on her fourth night—slamming a heavy leather ledger against the bars. "The proud sister of the Prince Lewis... sitting in the damp filth of the very kingdom she swore to dismantle! You thought you were playing a grand game of chess on our borders. Yet here you sit, bound like a common beast in a cage you cannot break."
Aefia had merely tilted her head, wiping a bead of blood from her eyebrow with her bruised arm, letting out a short, quiet scoff that echoed mockingly through the vault. Her crimson eyes glowing in rage, which actually had a ripple of shiver go down his spine. Though he didn't admit it.
"You laugh?" the minister had snarled, his face twisting with frustruation. "You are a prisoner! Your title is meaningless here! You cannot guarantee you will ever leave this room alive—let alone destroy Mides!"
Aefia had raised her right eyebrow—a razor-thin, bloodied smile touching her lips. "And you... can't guarantee I won't."
The response had cost her dearly. Infuriated by her unyielding arrogance, the minister had signaled the guards to grab her matted hair, violently banging her head back against the solid stone wall until her vision spun into dark crimson sparks and she slumped unconscious onto the slate.
Although... A few seconds after they left... The wound closed on its own.
The cruelty did not stop at just physical violence. A week into her confinement, Kazimir himself had visited her cell accompanied by two laughing guards.
Seeing the simple, elegant silver engagement ring still resting on her finger... Kazimir had ordered the guards to pin her down. They had callously pried the ring from her hand, laughing as they bragged aloud about selling the precious artifact to a black-market fence in the lower city just to fund their late-night gambling and drinking debts.
Aefia had watched them leave in silence—recording every face, every name, and every word—into the ironclad ledger of her memory.
Time lost all meaning in the dark beneath the palace. Day bled into night, marked only by the damp chill that seeped deeper into her bones and the dull, rhythmic dripping of groundwater from the arched ceiling.
***
One month later.
The door to a specific prison swung open, less harsher then normal. Though the sound of it groaning explained just how well the situation was.
This time, it was not just a lone guard carrying rotting slop.
A full contingent of six iron-clad royal guards marched down the corridor, their heavy boots thundering against the damp stone. Behind them walked the Chief Executioner, wearing a thick leather apron stained with decades of dark blood, holding a long, parchment scroll bearing the royal seal of Mides.
"Time's up, Sovereign Sofia," the Chief Executioner announced, his voice hollow and cold as a tomb. He unrolled the parchment, the crimson wax seal cracking loudly in the silent vault.
"By order of His Majesty, the King of Mides, and Crown Prince Kazimir... your trial period is concluded. The public execution for high treason, Imperial espionage, and the attempted destruction of the realm is set for dawn tomorrow."
The guards stepped forward, their heavy iron pikes raised as two wardens unlocked her overhead chains one last time.
The bruises on her arms had faded into ugly, yellowish-green stains. But the cold stiffness in her joints had settled deep into her frame. Her dark hair hung in tangled, silver-tipped matted sheets around her shoulders, and her uniform was torn and stained with dirt and dried blood.
Aefia did not resist as they dragged her to her feet. Her legs trembled weakly beneath her under the sudden weight, but she forced her spine to straighten, her dark silver-edged hair falling back to reveal her face.
Surprisingly enough... Her face showed that she was otherwise... Fully healthy.