|[ THE FAERI'S KEEPER ]|

Chapter 33: Prophecy Unravelled

He couldn't believe his eyes. How had this happened? How had everything gone so terribly wrong? Around him his men fell like trees, their armour clanking heavily against the dry earth wet with blood. Overhead clouds rolled across the dark sky and rain began to pour, making the ground even muddier. Lance was in the distance, a flicker of white in the ocean of darkness, his spear whittling through the air faster than they eye could track; Merrick was nowhere to be seen.

Carrion birds shrieked overhead, jubilant for the feast that awaited them. Soldin could be seen astride his grey war-horse, sweeping aside Cedric's men with sweeping strokes of his magnificent blade. Everywhere Cedric looked he could see faces... faces of his people, of his knights... of his father, all looking at him with disgust – with disappointment.

It's your entire fault, they seemed to be saying, you are a terrible king.

"I thought I was going to be the father of a fine king," his father said sadly, "Of a fine ruler. But I see I was wrong. You will never amount to anything. You are no son of mine."

The figures around him seemed to all be moving incredibly fast, and yet at the same times seemed to be standing motionless. A wave of dizziness blasted over Cedric.

"You have killed my husband!" a woman's voice shrieked at him, "You and your blasted war! How dare you think you can rule us! We despise you! You will never be the king your father was!" Cedric turned and began running as their voices chased after him, buzzing angrily like wasps.

"Failure!"

"Fool!"

"You are no king!"

"Not my son..."

"No!" Cedric screamed, clapping his hands over his head, falling to his knees. Blood soaked through his pants from the rivers of scarlet tracking across the mud, "No! I'm trying! I'm sorry!" he looked up to see the scene had changed to a dark room lit only by torches Soldin stood across the room from him, his armour streaked with gore and mud. His chestnut hair was slick with sweat and his face had a large scrape on the cheek, but he was still an image of power.

"You must have known you would never win this war..." Soldin said with a smile, "You might as well surrender. If you do maybe you won't lose everything you love."

"I will never surrender to you, Soldin!" Cedric snapped, spitting out the last word as if it was something disgusting he had eaten.

"The thing is, I don't really care if you do or not," Soldin laughed, "But thank you for making things more fun." He ran at Cedric, sword raised and Cedric instinctively raised his own sword to deflect the blow.

Suddenly invisible bonds grabbed at his wrists, snapping his limbs out straight and making him go motionless.

Cedric watched in horror as Soldin reached him and with a quick efficient movement pinned him to the wall behind him, like on might pin an insect to a board. Pain exploded in his chest as the cold blade ran straight through him, bone, muscle and skin. He screamed in agony, fingers clawing at the hilt of the sword, trying to pry it from his body. Soldin was smiling cruelly, inspecting his gauntleted hand.

"You won't die until I pull that sword out of you." he said with a smirk. Cedric tried to speak but his voice choked in pain – his mind was on fire, his thoughts being burnt away before they could form properly. He was going to die... actually die.

It had never come into his mind before that he would die this way. It had never seemed likely – he had held a mindset that it would never happen to him.