A Court Of Moondust And Shadows (Azrielxoc)

Tarquin

'Do you think he will agree?'

Rayna didn't dare to look at Killian as she waited for his answer. She took a deep breath, hand resting on her sword as the two Captains moved around the deck.

  The air around them wasn't the normal hopeful, confident mood. It was as if they could all feel it, what was coming. The pain, bloodshed everyone fought so hard to escape from. Today they would know for sure.

It was that day that the Mortal Queens were going to the Archeron mansion. Rayna missed the sisters, but she stopped visiting for almost two weeks now, just to make sure her scent was gone.

'I've know Tarquin since I was five, before he was High Lord. I understand your doubts

since you have yet to meet him, but he is a good male, he will understand.' Killian tried to reassure her.

Rayna shook her head.

'Understand and help are two different things, besides he has his own people to think about. What we are going to ask him to do is...'

Killian sighed, worry written all over his face. Looking at him now, Rayna couldn't help but notice he looked like shit. With the stress of the past week he forgot to shave, no time to bathe either and the purple circles around his eyes...though she realized she couldn't have looked much different.

'We need him to say yes, it's a safety net for our people.' Killian finished just as the ship came to a stop.

Rayna climbed down the ship first, sword in hand. She didn't like the way he spoke, as if the Mortal Queen have already said no, as if they were already at war not preparing for the possibility of one. She knew she was being foolish, stupid for holding on to that tiny thread of hope that maybe the Queens would help, maybe they would take a stand for once.

'We get everyone on the ship and leave, quite and fast.' Killians order brought her back from her thoughts.

For the last week they had been moving the villages filled with their people closer to the docks, to exit routes, so they could get them out fast when necessary. Something in Rayna shattered every time she had to look them in the eyes and say she lied, everything might not get better, they might have to reface the horrors they struggled to leave behind. Of course she had used sweeter words to say it, but the realization and fear in peoples' eyes...

'Something's wrong.' Axel, an archer, spoke up.

Rayna felt it too, the hairs rose on her arms. It was too quite, death like quite. As soon as they reached the village she understood why.

Her crew gasped, taking in the high number of bodies on the ground, nobody had been speared. Right next to her laid a little boy, couldn't have been older than ten, his limbs had been taken out entierly and placed next to his mother whose body wasn't that far away. Even covered in dark red, on the top of his head blonde hair could be seen. Rayna froze in place, she couldn't look away.

Killian and the crew moved around the village, searching for any survivors. She still didn't move, not even when she could hear the sound of horses approaching or her pretend husband speak to someone with heave summer court accents.

Her eyes stayed on the little boy for he was no longer faceless. Luke appeared before her, in the same pool of blood, the same unjustice. She didn't save him either. Sea like blue eyes were starring up at her, with so much trust she didn't deserve. She had been truly foolish and selfish. Too much time spent with the Archeron sisters and singing songs on the deck of a ship, all this hidding from herself and her power, all this time trying to be a mortal, weak, sensible and acting like a teenage girl with a crush around one of the most dangerous males in the world. A weak human girl full of feelings was not why she had been locked up since birth, it was not why she had been trained as a weapon, why these people chose to follow her...a weak pathetic human girl couldn't help them. But she was not that, as much as she was trying to be. It was just a lie, another mask, one she wished was true but couldn't never be.