Frosted Ranger: Time's Illusion

Chapter 7: A Dark Reunion

The room screams with laughter. Mugs slamming into mugs. Mugs slamming against tables and falling onto floors, unleashing their beverages across the floor.

Melina shakes her head. "I don't know how dad spent a good part of his life at the end of a mug of ale." She takes a sip from her own mug and it does not sit well with her. Instant face of disgust as she sits the ale down on the table in front of her.

Melina looks around the rowdy tavern and thinks of the rowdy tavern back home where all her other friends are.

She smiles thinking of home, but then she closes her eyes for a moment and the vision of her dying came flooding back to her.

She chugs the disgusting ale and sets the empty mug back down with a sour burning after taste hanging behind in her mouth.

"One of those days?" A tavern mate sits next to her. Long beard, regular clothes. A little old too. "I had my fair share many years ago."

Melina pays him no mind. She's been warned about taverns and no one just wants to talk at one without something extra afterwards.

She orders the most expensive ale on the shelf. A glass of crimson liquid is set down in front of her as Melina pulls out the payment and places it on the counter.

"You know. Being silent does no one good. Ale won't fix it either." The man takes a drink of his own stuff.

Melina grabs the glass and looks to the tavern mate. "Go away. You are not my friend, not my boyfriend, and not my family." Melina stares him down as he just smiles.

"Lady.." he reaches his hand out and places it on her shoulder. Melina instinctively twitches her fingers in her right hand and an arrow appears in her grasp.

She holds up to the man's neck. Their eyes locked on one another, the rest of the tavern paying her no attention. "My mother is The Dark Queen, so just try me again."

"Yeah right." He says with a laugh. Despite an arrow at his throat, he kept a sly smile. "The Dark Queen has children everywhere these days."

Melina bites down on her teeth and hesitates in cutting the throat of this predator. The tavern doors fly open and enter are two knights in black armor followed by another one with their armor off. A black sword in hand, long white blonde hair flowing down the armor.

The tavern falls into silence with this armored lady walking in. Melina lowers her arrow and it disappears from her hand. The tavern mate moves away from Melina.

The lady in black walks up to the counter between Melina and her problem causer. Melina takes a drink from her crimson liquid.

Melina locks eyes with the lady in black. Melina proceeds to chug the rest and surprisingly, this drink tasted very good.

"Mom." Melina says lightly with the whole tavern watching this interaction. Melissa, the lady in black, puts her sword away and turns to the tavern mate.

"Were you about to assault my daughter?" She asks. The words that came from her mouth sounded more than just words to Melina. She could feel the coldness and the despair with every word her mother speaks, but the anger was there.

"No, my qu.." without hesitation, sensing the lie a kingdom away, Melissa unleashes a bright golden blade from nowhere into the mate's chest. Singing through the flesh between his ribs. He chokes on his blood for a few seconds before falling over, the blade cutting through him as he slumps to the ground in a severed mess.

Melina stays quiet, but she knows this was wrong. She could be next if she speaks up. She wasn't trying to be in pieces anytime soon. "I could have handled that." Melina turns in her seat to face away from Melissa.

Melissa turns back to her daughter and the golden blade fades away into a hilt in her hands. "You could have. But I ended it forever. Now, why are you here?" Melissa takes the seat the deceased drunk was once on.

"Kyladir sent me." Melina doesn't look at her mother, but Melissa keeps her eyes focused. Melissa scoffs at the sound of Kyladir.

"He failed me and Carsin both. I don't know why you bother." The crowd begin to resume their activities and drinking while the other two guards finally move again to clean up the body left behind.

"He sent me here to kill you. Sitting at this bar all day, I finally understand why." Melina gets another Crimson Liquid for free. "Why's that?" Melissa asks getting a yellowish liquid instead.

"Once you die, you'll be with Carsin again. Then you can no longer be this entitled evil prick." Melina chugs away while Melissa does the same.

"When you find love like I did, and you watch that love go and die alongside people that didn't respect him. You'll understand that your heart died for nothing." Melissa wipes a tear coming from her eyes.

"Just come back to Noriel, talk with Kyladir." Melina faces her mother again and sees the tears building in her blue eyes.

"I'm done talking to him. He said he'd find Carsin's soul and bring him back, but it's been 22 years and it's way too late for redemption."

Melissa stands up and goes to walk away. "If you want to kill me, go ahead and try. You will fail and I will fight back. I can't be redeemed." Melissa passes a table and Melina shakes her head.

She stands up and pulls her bow off her back and takes aim. "Stop!" Melina shouts with her arrow ready to fire at Melissa. "What happened to my mother? The Bringer of Vengeance?"

"Do you honestly believe that I fear that arrow?" Melissa doesn't look back, she just stands there waiting for a move to be made. "She died the same night as Carsin did."

Melina fires the arrow and it shatters against the armor. Melissa laughs, but a sound of disappointment follows the laugh.

Melissa vanishes from sight and Melina lowers the bow before feeling the burning sensation in her stomach. She looks down to see the golden blade piercing through her.

"Don't worry, my daughter. I'll get the clerics." Melissa pushes Melina to the ground, she falls as the blade withdraws back into the hilt.

The crowd once again in silence as they witness their queen kill her own daughter in public. Melissa packs the hilt away. "Lesson to all here, I don't spare family, I won't spare you either."