V+O; in the Alternate Universe **Completed**

Chapter 4

A shiver rolled through King Locen, the chill bit at him as he sat on this throne. He had stopped drumming his gold ring clad fingers on the chair's arm. "Old magic," he spoke under his breath, one eye wide in astonishment the other squinted in scrutiny. He'd never felt it before, but he knew exactly what it was, every hair on his body stood on end like he had just been electrocuted.

Again he began to drum, the noise was like a shoed horse cantering along the pavement, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"What is it, my liege?" One of his pointed ear maidens asked, her eyes smoke filled white. The cloudy orbs darted toward the sound's point of origin, wildly, and unseeing. Her hair was gone, shaved maybe; a shadow of her beauty still lay hidden behind the mess of scars that was now her face.

The King couldn't explain, it was like trying to describe a colour he had never seen, or a taste he had never tasted.

"You felt it too," said a woman who had just strode into the room wearing an extravagant red dress, the exact colour of blood.

Then it was like there was an eruption from beneath the floor; the noise was traveling through feet of grey and white stone. They could hear the prisoners clear as day in the dungeons deep below, there were shouts, joyous shouts. And he knew then that anyone with any kind of magic of their own, had felt what he just had.

"Silence them." Said the woman in the red dress harshly to the blinded maiden. "Threaten to kill them all if you must. This noise is forbidden. I will not have it." This bug would need to be crushed eventually; the one with this power would need to be put down, the woman thought, but all in good time.

Maybe it was a one-time thing, the King mused, but he thought back to yesterday. It had been years since he had heard her name... Orailia. No. It was undeniable now, she had returned. His youngest daughter had returned, and he would be forced to obliterate the threat she posed.