The Chronicles of Guertanna: The Sword of Light and Shadow

Chapter XIII

The sun was setting, the sky painted in wonderful orange colors. Rinna walked through the front yard of the Academy; she didn't know when she will see it again. She recorded in her memory the usual walks she had to her school, and the usual people surrounding her when she arrived. She looked to one of the sides and remembered the first encounter with Kenor after six months of absence. That's when the rumors of light and shadow began again, that's when the students started looking her up as a hero.

But the truth is that she didn't feel like a hero, she felt like a normal person doing something that normal people will do to help. She didn't want to feel special. She never wanted to be treated as a special person. Kenor, in the other hand, seemed that he did everything to fight and be somehow special. Someone who works at Downtown with maybe some miserable life will totally want that attention. Was that the reason for Kenor's violence?

Trey and Leyla followed Rinna to the car waiting for her outside the school. Ms. Dragonia, or may she say, Alice, was waiting with a warm smile in her face. Another man went out of the car and took Rinna's last suitcase, which contained just her school-related objects. Once the suitcase was in the car, Alice looked to her, "Are you ready?" she asked, her voice as sweet and soft as ever, it made Rinna feel like having a mother.

Rinna looked back to her both friends, waiting for a last goodbye. "Can I just say bye to my friends?" She asked.

Alice nodded and entered to the car, Rinna turned around to her friends, her face down, trying to not make eye contact, "Well, I guess this is a farewell..."

Leyla shook her head, when Rinna looked at her she stared at the tears hanging in her eyes, "No, Rin," She said, her voice surprisingly calm, that kind of voice you listen in your mind when you are doing bad things, "we will see each other again. No matter what happens." She hugged her, filled her body with that special friend that meant everything. She hugged to her role model.

They broke apart and Rinna looked to Trey. This time he was just smiling, just giving her the comfort she needed. They hugged; again she felt his arms around, wrapping up her small body in his big arms. "Be careful," He whispered at her ear, she felt those words as a warm breeze.

They broke apart, and Rinna looked into his mahogany eyes, for one last long time. "I will," she said and faked a smile.

She was about to turn around and leave, she was about to finally let go of her friends to move on into her new stage. But, he held her hand again, and pulled it to him. There was time for nothing else, but to feel her lips pressed on his, filling her heart with devotion. They lips separated in a few seconds, but the warmth of having his lips once will stay in her forever. She could still feel the sweet embrace and she bit her lower lip automatically.

"I needed to do it," He said, looking at her for one last time, "before anything happens."

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The trip was followed in silence, with the landscape of the huge city as her only distraction. She finally got to see the outside farms that her brother always talked about. She saw some animals as horses and cows, a current chicken running too. But her mind was so much farer than the farms, farer than the Palace, farer that the ruins of Guertanna. Her mind was still somewhere in the sky, waiting for the moment to react in reality and realize that she wasn't going to the Palace for a quick touristic visit. She was trying to ignore the fact that the Empress was sick, and if she called her it meant that something serious was going to happen.

"There it is," Alice pointed up to a hill, with a huge construction on top of it.

It was the Royal Palace, the one that Rinna only saw in her history books, as a legendary construction, still unchanged since remote times. She saw the features of the towers, of the small rocky windows and the huge block walls. There were two huge block-made walls joined by a pair of black heavy metal gates. Six guards were outside of it, guarding the gates and stopped the car to get the permission from the driver.