Exquisite Pain (Garmau)

Chapter 42 Planning

Clever as the devil,

and twice as pretty.
~Unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Aphmau's POV)

I woke up in my old bed, in my favourite bed.

The sunshine danced through the glass pane, kissing the ground that had a lovely purple carpet sprawled out to keep the dirt and grass from disturbing my feet.

Slowly, I rose from my bed, clutching my head as a major headache started to drill in my mind. My vision started to cloud a little, and I knew what I had to do. As the room suddenly became darker by the second, I stumbled to my bag and searched through the viles, finding one of Hyria's potions for my darkness. I drank the proper dose and let out a slow breath as the room began to brighten with morning sun again, and the headache began to disappear.

I walked out of the hut and smiled at everyone who was also awake already.

"Morning, Aphmau," Dante smiled and nodded, "Laurance wanted to talk to you," I nodded and walked away. I got to Laurance's hut and knocked on the makeshift door. He opened and smirked.

"Glad you got my message," he gestured for me to enter and I did so. I sat at one of the small chairs and looked out the window.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Well it's about Garroth."

I stood straighter and bit my lower lip.

"What about him?"

"Well....I know that right now it's one of our top priorities to get Garroth back, but it's going to be a lot harder than we expect. He's under strict surveillance and restraint. So we can't just run in with an attack and expect to come out the victors."

"We need to get him out as soon as possible."

"And why are we in such a rush?" He asked curiously.

"Because my father is planning on attacking O'Khasis more sooner than later, and if we don't act fast, he could be killed."

Laurance's eyes widened and started to shake a little in fear. I wasn't too phased, knowing about the attack for awhile now.

"So I guess we should try and think of something fast..." He sighed, massaging his temple. I nodded once curtly and looked back out the window. Kiki was there, playing with the kids. I smiled softly.

And then I realised something.

Something I never thought about.

What about after the attack, when father was ready to come back for me. What would happen to Hyria? What would he do to get me back? He would kill everyone in the Phoenix Alliance. He would kill my family.

"We also need to move the camp. Somewhere underground."

"Underground?"

"With a lot of protection spells. Cloaking spells. Everything we can think of," I got up and started to search for paper and something to write with to start working on the spells and everything else. Laurance stood and started to worry about me.

"Aphmau, what's wrong, why do we need to protect ourselves so much?"

"We aren't safe," I repeated over and over under my breath while I searched for what I needed in a tizzy.

"Aphmau! Snap out of it! What's going on? What do you mean we aren't safe?" He shook me by my shoulders and held me in place, but that didn't stop me from shaking uncontrollably.

"My father, he will kill everyone. I have to leave, you aren't safe here as long as I'm here an-"

"Don't be ridiculous, we just got you back, we aren't gonna lose you again," he wrapped his arms around me and I began to cry a little bit. I was scared.

"You can't let any of them know about the danger we're all in," I whispered into his chest. Laurance rubbed the back of my head and didn't say anything.

After I had calmed down a little bit, he let me go and made me sit down.

"Alright, you and Vylad will work on a plan to get Garroth. I'll handle preparations to get us to safety as soon as possible. Alright? We can do this. We're the Phoenix Alliance."

"What if we die?"

"That's easy, we won't," he soothingly rubbed my arm and sent me to go find Vylad and talk to him.

Laurance had calmed me down a little, but not enough. I was still shaking and trying to steady my breathing pattern. I got to Vylad, and managed a fake smile.

"So. How are we going to get Garroth back?" I placed my hands on my hips and Vylad hugged me.

"I've yet to say how glad I am to have you back," he chuckled, "and I already have a decent plan," he held up a suit of O'Khasis armour, grinning.

"Um....what is that for?"

"You. I managed to get this out and you will wear this, escorting me through the kingdom and then we will go and visit Garroth, but no one can visit him without a guard except my mother. So you will be that guard to come with me. Now the whole getting him out of his cell is an issue that I've yet to figure out..."

"Well does his cell have a key?"

"No," he shook his head while pressing his tongue to the inside of his cheek, "since Garroth has powerful magic, the cell is locked with magic and only the person who cast it can open it."

"Who casted it?"

Vylad bit his lip.

"Zane."

I felt my heart drop and my face go pale.

"Z-Zane?"

"Yeah...I'm not sure how we're going to get him to tell me the spell to take down the barrier...."

"What if....we go through his books? There has to be a spell there that can help us, right?"

"True, but we'd have to look while he's away."

"Everyday he goes for a walk through the kingdom, and he visits guard stations for random check ups. We can look through his office while he's gone."

"How do you know that?"

"How did you not? We were both inside sources working for the rebellion, knowing those sort of things was a part of our job," I reminded him.

"Right, sometimes I forget that you were living there for a little while."

"Moron," I mumbled jokingly. Vylad playfully glared at me and then burst out into a laugh.

"We leave in a few hours, be prepared."

A/N Sometimes I write really fast, other times it takes two weeks to get around to writing. I think the new season has sprung this sudden urge to write a little more cause I've written three chapters so far today, but it could also be because I'm writing this on a Saturday where I finally didn't have to work. I love you all devils, byeeeeee.