NYXIS HELGASE lives under the oppressive shadow of his father, the King of Cardina, together with his brother and mother. Every day is one of deception and rivalry until he witnesses the reality of his father's rule. Now, he must deal with the truth...
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Nyxis cursed as he urged the dagrine to go faster. Xalim couldn't wait. Who knew much time she had before the King slaughters the purged people this time around?
The moment the words left Tobin's mouth, Nyxis had been on overdrive. He had managed to borrow the only dagrine in Tobin's farm, much to the shepherd's father's dismay. Nyxis promised to return it in prime condition or even replace it with a better breed. After a few minutes of pleading, he finally relented.
Nyxis had never crossed the distance between Tobin's farm and the Resthen's bakery as fast as he did. When he got there, he found the bakery ransacked and a defeated Furloth kneeling among the mess. He remembered grabbing the man by the shoulders and demanding, "What happened?" in a tone he had never used before.
The baker looked up at Nyxis with tears in his dark eyes. "They took my Xalim," he said. And that was it. That's all Nyxis needed to hear.
"Stay put," Nyxis had said to Furloth. "I will save her."
Which was a promise he wasn't even sure he would be able to fulfill.
The sun had come and gone. Nyxis passed the estate where the assessments would take place. He paid it no mind. Only Xalim's face flashed in and out of his mind. He should get to her. He has to. She didn't deserve this, out of all people.
Nyxis cursed himself again the moment he tore past the nobility region at around the last hour of the third quarter. The sky looked lonely now, with only Crozal's dominant crimson rays and Noglea's weak green light accompanying him on the road. Only one sight mattered to him—Crozal. Her appearance could only mean good fortune or bad luck. Nyxis uttered a prayer to the gods he didn't know to be there for it to mean the former.
Why hadn't he known? Xalim wasn't the type of girl to divulge her secrets to anyone she didn't trust so it was a huge blow on Nyxis's heart when he hadn't even known the biggest and the only secret that mattered. Because of that, he wasn't able to protect her. He wasn't able to do anything and might have been the cause of this horrible thing happening to her.
The moat surrounding the Palace whizzed past, the murky waters reflecting Crozal more than it did Noglea. The rancid smell of wet fur, corpses, and earth filled his nose. This was why he didn't like going out of the Palace through this. He preferred the emergency tunnels. Then again, he couldn't exactly fit a dagrine inside. So, the bridges connecting the Nobility region and the Royalty region, it was.
The walls and spries of the Palace had never felt so foreign and suffocating. The dagrine neighed in protest but Nyxis urged it to go the last mile towards the dungeon. It hadn't even fully cantered to a stop when Nyxis jumped off its back and took off running the moment he saw the shed marking the vast underground caverns composing the dungeon. Just a few distances away lie the courtyard where people would meet Pidmena.
The image of Xalim being decapitated flashed in his mind and the tea he drank in Tobin's shed threatened to spill out of his gut. He held it in. Not now. He had to save Xalim.
