The Lights Under the Lake

Chapter 7 - Memories

KERES FELT HER BREATHS coming in short, sharp gasps. The screaming, quiet at first became louder and louder. It died down as she listened, and became a thick silence filled with the clinking of armour, and the crackle of burning wood. She spun in a circle, staring around wildly. The Tenebrian army massed around her, and she tried not to fall over.

Her vision was spinning.

The rebel army had scattered, but bodies lay strewn over the ground. She stared at them.

Had she done that?

"Where is my father?" Keres asked, trying to stop her voice from cracking. It didn't work.

There was silence.

"I need to see the King and Queen!" she said, but no one would even look at her. They all averted their eyes, muttering quietly.

There was a commotion at the back of the growing crowd. Someone pushed their way to the front. Keres recognised Ragnar. She took an unsteady step forward, and Ragnar caught her arm.

"Well, well, well little sis."

He had changed in a year. Keres tried to push his hand away, but he wrapped an arm around her waist and propped her up.

There was a cut over his eye, and his armour was dented badly. So he had been fighting.

"I didn't expect to see you here." he said, raising his good eyebrow.

"Too bad. You needed me."

"Mother and father have missed you." he offered, helping her through the crowd. They pressed on every side, staring at her. There were faint whispers, but Keres couldn't make them out. She didn't care. She was back home. She was safe.

Keres stared around the familiar palace. It looked exactly the same as she'd left it. The same arching pillars, empty hallways, the same (well similar) guards that carefully looked the other way as they passed.

"No damage here?" she asked, peering around.

"They didn't get this far. I had the whole army concentrated on the entrance to the city."

"When you realised." Keres corrected.

"Yes." conceded Ragnar, sighing exasperatedly. "I suppose so."

They made their way into the throne room. The damage that Keres had caused had been long fixed, and they'd replaced the tiles that she had cracked.

Her mother and father were crowded around the table, surrounded by a number of notable nobles that Keres vaguely recognised.

Ragnar coughed. Everyone turned to stare at them.

There was a shocked gasp.

Ragnar slid out from under Keres' arm, and stood stiffly to attention.

"Mother, father."

Keres' mother gaped, open mouthed at her.

"Mother, I--" Keres began, but Ragnar cut her off.

He turned and grinned at her.

That was when everything went wrong.

She knew that grin. He had grinned that grin every single time he had dropped her right in it. Keres' heart dropped into the soles of her shoes. He wouldn't. He couldn't do that to her.

"It was lucky that Keres turned up when she did." began Ragnar, patting her on the shoulder. "Without her magic, we would have lost for certain."

"Magic?" asked her father, and she saw a glint in his eye. "You mean, the same magic she used to attack me?"