Sundown

debt repaid

She ran with all that she had. Her feet ached and the soles were cut in numerous places at this point but she knew she could not stop. Stopping meant defeat. Stopping meant death.

More than a dozen men had followed her through the alley and into the kitchen and she cursed herself infinitely for showing them inside the castle. Timothee and the other men had fought just to keep this from happening and her stupid lack of vigilance had made all that crumble to dust.

She took a detour to lead them down a path far away from Pauline's chamber and she threw a burning torch at them as she got her hands on one while running through a corridor. That slowed them down a little but not enough.

She was running out of breath and she knew she could not run for long. Suddenly she saw a grand chandelier when she turned a corner into another hallway and as she ran past it, she turned around and threw a dart from her pocket just in time to cut the chandelier's attachments from the roof.

The big ornate thing fell upon the foe like murderous rain, its glass shattering and piercing their skins and armors. The candles that had fallen off of it, lit the carpet below on fire and the men charred to death. Saoirse ran with the remnants of the air in her lungs, hardly able to breathe anymore. The smoke did not exactly help her case but at least she was not being followed now.

She slowed down when she was out of the carpeted corridors and sat in a dark corner to catch her breath. She had never run so much and when she looked down at her feet, she found that she had broken a nail and her toe was bleeding a bit because of it.

She could hear yells and cries all around and with every breath she took, someone breathed their last. Why did they love war so much? Was death such an appealing thing or widowed women and orphaned children?

She got up slowly and keeping strictly to the shadows this time, checking every once in a while whether she was being followed, she made her way to Pauline's chamber. Her heartbeat had somewhat slowed down but fear gripped every bit of her like never before.

Hardly had she reached the tower where the princess dwelled when she heard a familiar piercing cry from somewhere near.

King Marc.

Saoirse followed the sound and she found herself in a lobby nearby, its walls covered with frescos of all the ancestors and gods that the Royal family held in esteem and in the middle, lay the old man, trying his best to fend off two enemies at once. His neck had a deep gash from which blood flowed out profusely and he could hardly lift his shield.

Saoirse rushed to his aid and as she got near them, she thrust the point of her sword in the back of one of the attackers. His raucous cry resounded in the night air that smelled of blood and death and all things terrible. Before the other man could register what had happened, Saoirse drew her sword out from the limp body of the dead man. She met the opponent blow for blow but her tired body knew it could not take it up for much long.

His blade skimmed past the skin of her arm, cutting it superficially in the process. She grunted in pain but kept up her swift defences. All of a sudden, she tripped over a broken piece of furniture lying about and fell to the ground. She watched in horror as the other man hovered above her, his sword pointed at her.

As he rose it to bring it down upon her, she closed her eyes, not wishing to see her end. She waited for the blade to meet her skin, for the blinding, agonising pain to consume her being and for death, but it never came.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the man falling to the floor in front of her and in his place, stood Timothee, his sword crimson and dripping with fresh blood. His helm and visor were off and he breathed heavily.

"Debt repaid." He said and extended his hand for her to take.

She gritted her teeth and instead of accepting his help she got up on her own and ran to Timothee's father as he lay, his skin pale from all the blood he had lost. Timothee had followed after her and his eyes widened as he realised that the man he had mistaken for just another soldier was his father.

"GODS NO!" He yelled as he sat down on the floor and put his father's head in his lap, his hands roaming the old man's body, ripping off pieces of clothing to put on his wounds to stop the bleeding but he knew well enough that it would be no good. He had lost too much blood for any of this to work.

Timothee touched his forehead to his father's as his tears fell on the old man's skin.

"Tim... Timmy." His father managed to croak out as he put a bloodied hand on his son's cheek, stroking it with so much love as only a dying man could put in a single touch.

"I'm here. I'm right here. I won't let anything happen to you. Saoirse please, please, please call a nurse. I know we can save him." He pleaded with her, looking up into her eyes, his hair falling into his own teary and swollen ones.

She had never seen a creature more broken but she couldn't move. She knew that he would die before she could get back with a nurse.

"No stop there. I-I need to tell you something. Both of you." He said and before he could say anything else, the old man puked out a bowlful of blood all over his son's lap.

Timothee only smoothed out his father's hair from his face and held it in his shaking hands.

"We are listening," He said desperately and Saoirse knelt down beside him, watching as the light slowly began fading out of the old man's eyes.

"What is it?" Timothee asked again, shaking his body which was growing limper by the second.

Marc simply held up his finger and pointing it at Saoirse, he whispered,

"Heir of Elliot."

And as his hand fell down, the last of the light in his wrinkled eyes went out.

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a/n

OH MY GOD I DO NOT LIKE KILLING ANY CHARACTERS but this had to be done. This was heavy and I was shaking as I wrote this. I hope you guys are liking it though and that I was able to do justice to the intensity that writing this required. Do not forget to vote and comment!

Love,

Smriti x