Tears of Queens

12 - Leo

The next day, there was a loud knock at my bedroom door, waking me up. I groaned and reluctantly crawled out of bed, pulling on a t-shirt and going to open the door.

"Good morning! Are you ready for your training?" Kamran asked me, dressed to the nines, too happy this early in the freaking morning. I stared at him drowsily and closed the door in his face, hoping to go back to bed, but he stopped the door with his foot and pushed it open again. "You need to get ready, your Trainer is not a patient woman." he scolded me, pushing me into my closet.

I came out a few minutes later, dressed in a black muscle shirt and black basketball shorts with black Converse sneakers and a black hoodie, my chin-length hair brushed and tied up in a ponytail. I made sure I had my phone and my key before following Kamran out into the hallway, the same time Tala came out of her room wearing a white hoodie with the words "Emergence Dance Competition" on it and black bike shorts, with white platform Converse. The two of us followed the tall man down so many different hallways that all looked the same until we got to a big wooden door. Kamran pushed it open and gestured for us to go inside.

We entered the large room, not knowing what to expect. The room was essentially a large gym, with white stone floors and thinly padded walls. In the far corner sat the woman we met yesterday, Nubia, waiting impatiently. We ran over to her as she stood up.

"Finally! You've arrived!" she announced sarcastically before bowing deeply to Tala and giving me a brisk nod. "Let's begin. Do either of you know how to use a sword?"

"If you count a katana, yeah," Tala shrugged. I gaped at her. A katana? Since when?

"Good. Leo, what about you?" Nubia turned to me expectantly. I shook my head.

"Nope," I said, pursing my lips.

"Do you know how to fight at all?"

"No," I hesitated, not wanting to give the wrong impression, but also not wanting to lie. Nubia nodded slowly while walking over to a rack of weapons, perusing the variety of blades and blunt objects until finally deciding to pick up a large spear, coming back over to hand it to me.

"Give this a try. Swing it around," she instructed. I stepped backwards, so as not to hit anyone, and swung the spear around my head with both hands. "How does it feel?"

"Good. Really good," I chuckled incredulously, continuing to swing the spear back and forth, making figure-eights in the air.

"Why don't you try this, Highness," Nubia said to Tala, handing her a large, thin, wooden staff. Tala broke into a grin once she saw it, visibly excited to use it. She stood across from me and, with one hand, swung the staff in a super-fast figure-eight before grabbing it with both hands and swinging it like a baseball bat over her head and conducting a series of sharp, powerful strikes into the air. My jaw dropped and I scurried backwards at her forward strikes, holding my spear in front of me, trying to block her hits. She giggled at my feeble attempt to protect myself and I rolled my eyes at her.

"Let's not attack each other quite yet," Nubia chuckled, mostly laughing at me. She took my spear and exchanged it for a staff, almost identical to Tala's. She picked up a staff of her own and instructed me on how to hold it, then taught us – mostly me, considering Tala somehow already knew all of this – how to use it; striking, blocking, and the like.

~

Two hours later, Tala and I trudged out of the gym and found our way back to our rooms, absolutely exhausted, every muscle in my body aching. Tala did not seem similarly affected, probably because she was used to training like this, swinging all these big sticks around.

"How'd it go?" Wyatt chuckled, watching as I stumbled into his room, falling onto his couch, closely followed by Tala, who sat on the armchair next to me, her feet tucked underneath her butt.

"Mmm..." I groaned, closing my eyes as Tala and Wyatt laughed aloud.

"What did she do to him!?" Wyatt asked Tala, still laughing.

"We did bo stuff for, like, two whole hours. It was awesome!" I could hear the pure joy in Tala's voice, despite her tiredness.

"Do you want some water?" Wyatt asked me sincerely. I nodded, eyes still closed. I heard him wander the room and come back, handing me a glass of ice-cold water, which I immediately downed and placed on the table.

"Thanks," I said, closing my eyes again.

"You should take a nap. We have more to do today." Tala suggested. I nodded, standing up slowly and starting to make my way to the door when Wyatt stopped me.

"You should sleep here. So you don't have to walk so far." he offered. I gave him a sleepy smile in thanks, took my shoes off, and threw myself onto his bed, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

~

I woke up in a large, white throne room. I looked around to see Wyatt next to me, tied up and gagged with rough black ropes. Tala stood far away in front of us, facing a woman with black hair, who was on her knees. I looked down and saw I was being restrained with the same ropes as Wyatt, both of us on our knees on the floor.

"Why are you doing this?" the woman asked, and I realized Tala had a knife held to her throat.

"The rebels must die, and you must die with them," Tala said menacingly, her gold eyes – wait, gold? – flashing with anger.

"Tala no! Don't do this!" Wyatt called out to her. He had freed himself from his gag and was now struggling to free himself from the ropes around his body. I began to struggle against my restraints as well. Tala flicked her hand, and Wyatt shut up. How?

Just as Tala was about to dig the knife into the woman's flesh, a tall guy, probably a few years older than us, came bursting in.

"Tala stop!" he called out. "It's not worth it!"

Tala smiled like a psychopath and made direct eye contact with me.

"Goodbye," she said, almost whispering, still looking right at me. The man ran towards the kneeling woman, but he was too late. She collapsed onto the floor, blood spilling from her neck and rapidly pooling around her.

Tala never broke eye contact with me as she stepped over the now almost-lifeless body and approached Wyatt and I, her white leather boots now stained and leaving a trail of crimson behind her. With another flick of her wrist, our ropes started to get tighter. I could see Wyatt's mouth moving, but no sound came out. There were tears streaming down his face as he silently yelled at her.

"You know, this would've been so much easier if you had what I asked in the first place. But look where we are now," she gestured at the room around us. The pool of blood was growing, despite the man's desperate attempts to stop it from flowing, tears falling from his eyes and mixing with the thick blood.

Tala reached forward with a bloodied hand and pulled down my gag so it was sitting snug against my throat. Then, the world went red.