FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF FANTASILIA SERIES
𝘈𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘦-𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘺. 𝘈 𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯. 𝘈 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳.
Xanthiene Vivenca's life drones on in a cycle of finding her next meal, ensuring...
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A groan escaped her lips as her eyes fluttered open. Darkness swallowed everything in her sight and bit at her toes. Her neck hurt. Ugh. Where was she?
She pursed her lips and breathed once, twice. Memories that led up to here flashed back to her. Marin with a dagger to her neck. June, Reeca, Jarvik, and Nyxis being dealt with. Xanthy's surrender.
Her throat closed up. She cast her eyes around for any sign of anything. Chains clinked and bit at her wrists when she reached up to twist a lock of hair with her finger. Heartbeat pounded in her ears as she moved her feet to find them shackled to a pole, too.
How much time had passed she surrendered? Had Vikara attacked the Palace? Had her friends made it out?
Faint outlines of a chair, a desk, and drawn curtains ebbed in Xanthy's vision as her eyes adjusted. A dark robe stood beside the desk.
"Ah, I see that you are awake," the robe's feminine voice echoed along what sounded like stone walls.
Xanthy furrowed her eyebrows. Robes couldn't speak. Well, unless the Civil Knights hit her head a little too hard and she was now imagining things.
The robe chuckled. "Let me lighten things up for you, darling."
Lights flashed, burning the life out of Xanthy's eyeballs. Her arm shot up to shield her eyes, clinking the chains once more. A yelp tore out of her lips. She breathed. Silence.
Slowly, she removed her arm from her face and beheld the room with new eyes. The room's circular build distorted Xanthy's perception of what walls were supposed to look like. Her stomach churned. Circle walls. She's still in the Palace. Inside one of its numerous spired towers.
How much time did they have left? Oh, gods.
She strained her ears to catch the faintest sound of fighting outside but only the whisper of tranquil answered her. Vikara and her army weren't here yet? Perhaps, she still had time.
Natural sunlight was blocked by the velvet curtains drawn over a window large enough to fit a person. So where was the light coming from?
Someone cleared her throat, dragging Xanthy's attention past banners depicting Cardina's history as a nation. Xanthy eyes rested on a middle-aged woman dressed in a dark, tight dress, pushing away a rotting chair away from a desk cluttered with sheets of beige parchments. Were those...edicts?
Soles scratched against the stone floor as the woman approached Xanthy from where she was chained. Xanthy raised her eyes to meet the hard gaze bearing down on her. If Nyxis was female, middle-aged, and accepted the appearance of wrinkles, he might have looked like this woman.
"Who are you?" Xanthy forced her tongue to unstick from the roof of her mouth.
The woman touched the back of her elaborate updo. Were all Nobles and Royalty required to have this style? Ugh. "I am the Queen, if your little Disfavored brain the size of a cleret's still has not figured that out."
