The War Of Crowns | #ONC2023

Chapter 1

Steady hands. Control your breathing. General Hankin's voice rang in her ears as she scaled the outer wall of the throne room, her bow and quiver secured on her back. If he saw how her hands trembled while notching them in the spaces of the uneven rock, she wouldn't hear the end of his mockery.

Lei the girls are still embroidering in the sitting room if you'd like to join, he would joke every time she succumbed to her fear during difficult training sessions. He knew well enough her distaste for sitting still poking a needle through cloth while her cousins visited to share the latest gossip.

Still, she kept climbing, taking her time as she struggled to pull herself to the notch above her. Vines grew out of the rock of the western tower of Prince Dakath's castle. She did her best to stay clear of them, unsure of how easily they could snap. Her battle gear was torn from an encounter with some water creatures. The vines tore at her skin exposed from her ripped pants and she grit her teeth against the sting the salt in the air caused when it blew against her open wounds.

The eaves of the roof were so close. She took a shaky breath and glanced down, clinging to the rock wall tighter in the process. If the tide were any higher it would lash the sides of the tower she was climbing. The waves were subtle, crashing into the shore and retreating back, as if to call her to her boat and make the journey back home.

What she was doing was pure madness. The top was just a few paces away and climbing down was not an option. Exhaustion gripped her body from the time spent trapped in the confines of a small boat to get to the Land of Faeries, where the prince was hosting his annual party. She would quicker fall to a very possible death than make it back down in one piece.

Her brother's brown eyes, glassed over and wide, muttering nonsense about mushrooms when she tried to speak to him came to mind as she climbed. She bit her bottom lip at the memory of his long limbs thrown about in a wild dance and his unhinged laughter echoing through their home. The faeries had captured him, the Prince of the Northern Range, and sent him back with his mind in pieces as a message to the Queen.

Leia had been running on nothing but rage for weeks since her brother returned from the front. Yet here she was, a lone girl sneaking her way into it, and somehow, succeeding. No one had been able to make it into the much smaller island, where the three princes lived. They were only able to penetrate the borders of the much larger land where the king lived. The faeries had destroyed army after army that they sent across the sea into their mainland for the king.

Tonight she would end this. She would take the princes' lives, one by one. There would be no heir to the faerie throne.

She had questioned the returned soldiers to prepare for her journey and was pleased to see the throne room layout was just as described. It towered over smaller settlements off the coast of the island. She leaned over from the eaves to peer through an open space covered by a vined net to search for her target.

The throne room was not the bare and cold room that the broken soldiers sputtered on about. It was decorated in gold and silver with furniture artfully crafted and strategically placed around the room. She was stunned to see that the faeries were not the frozen calculated creatures that sentenced their fate to a lifetime of madness, but these creatures that glowed like sunlight nestled in their bodies. They danced and shared drinks, laughter rising into the starry night. Even the stars twinkled in time with their song. She could not deny the beauty that she laid her eyes upon.

Leia took a shaky breath. The jealousy that bit at her skin like frostbite was difficult to ignore. The last time her and her people had sung and danced like that was before the war. Then when the war started, they were ambushed during their spring festival and her people were glamoured to sing until their voices went raw and dance until their feet bled and they dropped from exhaustion, all for the faeries' entertainment. She was merely a little girl when that occurred and her family never held a festival again after that.