The Other King

Crow- Flamed Kingdom

Pylah and Devanar jump onto the wall from the broken window that covered most of the backside of the castle's room wall. Jackson jumped next and I turned towards Autumn. “Are we sure we want to take this new up? This one clearly didn’t go so well.”
Autumn only smiled at me and shook his head. “We know. But we also know you’ll lead and protect us.” He laughed and jumped. I rolled my eyes playfully and jumped too, landing and rolling so I didn’t break my legs. I stood and the wind was different from so high up. The palace looks bigger from up here and so does the kingdom itself.
“I want the beauty to show its true nasty colors. Devanar?” I asked him. But he was already running on top of the wall, with a grin plastered on his face.
“Fuck you, Darkwood!” Devanar screamed over the ledge. Angelica ran with Pylah after Devanar. I could tell he was hurting because of his mom but that’s also why his flames were burning even more brightly. The fire caught onto the top of the castle, Mykren’s roar almost made me flinch. His beasty scream echoed down into the kingdom while his blue flames caught and burned faster than Devanar’s. His wings carried him around the walls, spewing fire until he became a small dot getting to the other side.
I swallowed down the guilt and looked at Autumn. His hair whipped past his icy blue iris. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about until he looked at me with a grin. “Do I get to call you ‘your majesty’ now?” I shoved him as we bursted out laughing. He stumbled and fell on his butt. I laughed and sat next to him watching as Devanar and Mykren burn the kingdom down to ash. A shadow casted over me and I tilt my head back to see Jackson standing over us from behind. He crouches and looks at the job we had to do first.
“So this is your idea of fun.” He smiles. I laugh and Autumn places his head on my shoulder. We wait until the moons start to rise and the sun starts to set. Even from up here we could see the bright lights of flame.
“Aren’t we doing them a favor?” Pylah asked curiously.
“How come?” I asked back.
“They’re forced to evacuate. That means they secretly leave to The Other and find refuge. We did good, boys.” She laughed.
Angelica yawns and Devanar looks to Mykren who is sleeping next to us. The red scaled dragon starts to stir and Devanar helps Angelica on his back while he stretches out his wings. “He says Kedek is down there, waiting.” Devanar announces.
“How do you suppose we get down there?” Jackson asks quite fearfully. I let out a laugh and take Autumn’s hand. I take Devanar’s and he takes Pylah’s. Jackson stands there awkwardly until Autumn snatches his hand and shoves him so Jackson falls off the edge, taking us all with him. His screams are the loudest while I scream out for myself, not because I’m scared. I stop and stare at the turning night sky getting further and further away from us. I close my eyes just as I feel the cold seeping into me and my ears pop. We all fall on top of each other as I laugh. Kedek sits next to a tree and gets up to come towards us.
Mykren flys over head in circles, waiting for us to get a move on. Autumn pushes himself up from on top of me. He smirks before his form shifts. I watch with a concerned expression, I hate seeing this part. I could hear every crack of his bones from this close, as his face turns into agony before gasping and his skull takes the form of a wolf. His expression is gone but eyes dance with an amused snarl. His hands are claws on either side of me, Devanar is already on Pylah’s back and Kedek is trying to get Jackson onto his.
I shove Autumn lightly and he naps at my face, I laugh as he starts to growl playfully.
“Come on, love birds. We have to go break some shit.” Devanar shouted from where he stood. Autumn whined a bit and got off enough for me to stand. I rubbed his giant head against my back as I wiped off dirt. I turned and grabbed fistfulls of his fur so I could jump up and straddle his back.
Autumn made a weird noise before taking off. Kedek ran the fastest, taking the lead while Jackson guided him where to run. I understand now what took the others so much time to get to me with the speed of how fast Kedek and I were going. Autumn purposely jumped over fallen trees and off of standing ones trying to get me scared of falling off.
“Stop it!” I laughed and grabbed his fur once more. He let out a growl and continued running straight on. Kedek started to slow down. I looked to see Deadman forest’s tall trees standing high in the sky from the regular EndZone trees far in the distance. Kedek ran to a close tree with a boulder next to it and we all followed. Jackson slid off his back and went to a huge boulder to on while Devanar and I slid off the skullers back so they could shift. I felt the vibrational thump of when Mykren landed. Angelica slid off his back and ran to us. “What now?” I asked.
Jackson handed me the bag, “Put them all in a circle, you’re the only one with the magical power to destroy them but you have to do it all at once or we’re all dead and there’s zero hope for Arlik.”
“Why should we trust you?” I asked. “How do I know this won’t just kill us and you get a full meal when we’re done?”
He sighed and nodded as if realizing what I’m saying is reasonable. He pulled up his sleeve, showing a marking on his upper forearm. The fist holding the diamond eye that matched the object’s and Krowel’s. “This symbol is supposed to replicate the gods holding humanity. I’m not sure but all of the protectors have one. This shows proof of my loyalty.”
“How do I know you won’t kill the rest of us and only keep Crow alive because he helped you?” Autumn said.
“My loyalty to him also means whoever he wants me to be loyal to. He’s the most powerful in all of Edova, second to my master Arlik, I should be more untrustful as to if you’ll be the ones to kill me. Though you could’ve already, I fear you’re only keeping me alive to help with destroying them before killing me and keeping the tool for yourself. If it’s powerful enough to save a king in danger and are named the objects of the gods, I’d be a fool to not think twice about you killing me when you get the chance of not using me anymore.” He speaks with his eyes on edge, he looks ready to run even though he could kill us all with his mouth and eat our flesh for dinner. Plus he can’t die when we can, well if I throw his head into fire. I spare a glance at Devanar, I doubt he knows he’s a weapon.
“You have my word, we won’t kill you. Even after we destroy the objects, we already agreed as a group we would follow through with this adventure. Plus, if we wanted power then we could’ve done that easily with having the objects in one piece, we wouldn’t have agreed on destroying them. I don’t break promises when I rarely make them, like I said: you have my word.” I reach out a hand and he nods, taking it. We shake for a second before I take the objects and do what he said to I place them all in a circle.
“What should I do?” I asked Jackson. He only shrugged. I shouldn’t have asked, he’s just a protector not much of a teacher on how to destroy them. I take a deep breath, I have to destroy them all at once he said. “Stand back guys.” I put my hands back to the others. I locked eyes with Autumn and he looked nervous as if he was giving this a second thought. I tried to tell him silently that everything would be okay.
I looked away and focused on the objects. I looked down and took a deep breath. I’ve never used my magic to attack something. Black mist started to flow out of the palms, the tickling feeling ressled throughout my arms, filling me with power. I guided the mist to thicken and split it into five trails each hand, flowing to each object. Every inch it flowed closer the more electric I felt. My arms were the first to burn before the power flew all over me.
I extended my arms and slightly bent my fingers, the magic started to flow and thicken so much I heard gasps behind me. They can see it from how strong magic is, it’s not mist anymore but more of solid twisted vines. In an instant each vine-like structure covered each object at the same time. I started to shudder from the impact, my breathing was caught and my mouth opened as I struggled to breath. The energy started to pull but I needed to dig deeper, get to the core of the objects and take it.
I pushed and pushed but it started taking damage on my body. Burn marks appeared on my arms from where my shirt pulled up, I swear in the corner of my eyes I saw steam. I heard yelling of my name, Autumn’s voice but all my focus was to push all my power into the things I’m trying to destroy.
A second my body fell to my knees. I screamed with the final push and pull of the energy and my dark magic. A gust of wind erupted and I nearly fell backward. The dirt swelled up into a mini hurricane from where the objects once stood. Black dirt took their places as they were burned and crumbled into nothing but air. I felt my head bang against the floor and my body shook uncontrollably, my eyes unfocused and blurred, melting into the seizure as a bright flash of white appeared in the center of the ten burn marks. That flash was the break of my consciousness causing me to black out.
When I finally gained consciousness again, a burning sensation led me to look right under my ribs on my right side. A mark appeared newly fresh with the symbol of the fist holding a diamond. My eyes peeled away from it when the others started waking. They must’ve blacked out as well. The winds caused them to push back about ten to twenty feet. I almost ran to Autumn to see if he was okay but there was a new being in our small party. A man stood, naked, in the center of the burn marks. Clear mist circled around him. He looked a bit older than me, about Devanar’s age. His hair was to his shoulders, raven black and wavy with curls matching the thin thickened hair growing at his chin and stach. His skin was pale as ever, showing the black blood underneath. His body was muscular and built, his eyes pierced through mine when we locked eyes. I knew what he was instantly.
“Who are you?” I asked, getting up onto my feet.
“I am Colest and you will help me find my son.” His powerful voice sent waves of electricity down my spine. His voice rattled and vibrated against my feet. The objects of the gods summoned one itself, this is a lot more deep than I ever imagined.