“Not long ago, in the kingdom of Orpheus…” the girl began in a sweet and gentle voice. “ There was a powerful Queen who had a very handsome husband whom she loves so true…”as she speaks, her mind drifted to the scene of the past.
“Lira! Stop it. You’ve won, it’s enough.” Al shouted against the swirling wind of power surrounding the Queen. He ignores the throbbing pain of his head injury even as thick red blood soaked his auburn gold hair down to his left cheek smearing his knight mark scarlet.
The Queen only a few meters from him and floating three feet above ground only smiled and then shook her head in a disagreed response. He forced himself to take a step forward despite the strong wind trying to blow him away. “This, the source of all our suffering… I have decided to destroy it no matter what.” She told him, her eyes only on him. She raised the glowing crystal stone above her head and began calling upon every inch of her strength into her staff. The stone called the Royal Rights elevated from her hand and glowed in an amethyst light.
The wind and waves of energy emitting from the Queen grew stronger. Not from afar, the Queen’s little sister, Neruha was being protected by the dark knight. The princess wrapped around the dark knight cried and shouted for her sister helplessly. She felt tightness in her stomach like the one she felt when Leilira jumped out the window of the castle to attend a picnic their father forbid her to go to when they were little children. Ruha collapsed then into blackness... “Lira!!! Don’t do it… I beg you!” she desperately pleaded in a whisper until she fell unconscious.
For the last time, the Queen glanced at her dear sister and nodded at the dark knight. The knight bowed his head understanding her request. He had always known what the Queen needs, what she wants and what she will do before she says it. Now the Queen wishes for him to take Neruha away to safety, her eyes beseeched him to leave her in this last battle. Since they were children, he had always been there and though he never admitted it, the King’s suspicion of him was not wrong. He did desire the queen and loves her more than she thought he would. To Lira, he will only be her little friend, a person who would understand her peculiar ways and agree with every decision she makes… But to him she’s more than a queen, to him she is his everything. With a hard heart, the knight Zarkin obeyed and lifted Neruha away, swearing to protect the princess with his life till the end.
When she faced her enemy once more, tears streamed from her silvery green eyes. Alfonse felt a hurting stiffness in his chest. It was something more painful than any of his injuries. His body trembled in fear, something that he had never experienced before. Alfonse knew he doesn’t fear any kind of death… so why? Why does he feel such tremor watching his Queen cast a spell that will probably finish him? Then it struck him, the realization that the Queen wasn’t going to kill him. His thought raced faster and faster by seconds. The Queen, his Lira, his beloved wife is in grave danger. He knew it, he felt it within his bones, he knew that the Queen was planning to destroy the Royal Rights. But that would mean her death and she knew it too but never had it passed his thought that she would dare endanger her own life just to stop his schemes.
To him, his Lira is sweet, gentle, and loving. Though his greed controls his every whim and his ambitions were great enough to engulf him, Leilira was his only light and joy. She was the only good he knew he had in life, to lose her would be the end of his purpose. Without thinking any further, Alfonse made a choice he never anticipated he would do.
“ No… Leilira!” He screamed and with all the magic left in his body, he blasted the Royal Rights stone away from the Queen’s range.
“Al!” She gasped in surprise. “What are you doing!?” She exclaimed “You’re weaker than I, stop now or you’ll be killed by the stone faster than it can kill me!”
