Nightmare Quest (Book 3)

17

Essix starts to open the door but I put a hand on her shoulder and she turns to look at me. "Let me go in first."

She nods with understanding "Go ahead."

I look at the two large doors in front of me and my first instinct is to kick them down like they do in raids, but after MUCH quick second soul searching I decided to be a civilized being and open the door like a normal individual. Which I will admit is the non fun or uncool way, but I'm not about to show how angry she makes me. I take a deep breath, open one of the doors, and walk into the room.

The room looks the exact same as it did all those years ago. The side where Madam Silverclaw sleeps still has that plush brown carpet and her bed is still covered in light purple silk sheets and a dark purple comforter. The office side still had the polished dark wood floors and the pictures of her favorite experiments on the walls. All centered around her heavy mahogany desk in the middle of the room. I stop walking when I see the picture directly beside her desk. It's a picture of me when I was little and Madam Silverclaw is smiling and holding me. I remember the day that picture was taken...

It was an unusually warm day at the top of Mount Stag. I was called from my training session to meet Madam Silverclaw in her office.  When I arrive and go into her office I find another young fox much like myself with Madam Silverclaw.

"Who is that?" I asked innocently.

"This is Thorn." Madam Silverclaw said while patting his shoulder.

Thorn doesn't say anything, he just quickly looked down when I made eye contact with him.

"So why is he here? He looks an awful lot like me. Is he my brother?!" I rambled excitedly.

Madam Silverclaw held up a hand for silence "Quiet Azula. Yes, he is your brother, he's been kept away from you to train."

"But why is he here?" I interrupted.

Madam Silverclaw glared coldly at me "He is here because today is the day I see how much you two have grown; you must fight each other and show me who is the best. Only the strongest will survive."

My heart dropped "Y-you mean I have to kill him?!"

Madam Silverclaw shrugged "Not necessarily, he may kill you first."

Then suddenly out of nowhere it's like a switch flipped and Thorn snarled and lunged towards me. I quickly jumped back just in time and his claws sliced the air in front of me. I tried to collect myself as I launched my own attack and managed to knock Thorn off balance. He recovered quickly and lunged for me again, with his bigger size there's no way I could win in a strength battle. I grabbed the dagger I hid in the waistband of my training harness; Thorn jumped into the air and landed on me. I tightened my grip on my dagger...then without thinking I plunged it deep into Thorn's chest.

Thorn let out a high pitched squeak of pain and rolled off of me. I scrambled to my feet holding the bloody dagger in front of me in case he started to attack again. He acted like he was about to get back up, but then he just collapsed and went extremely still. I inhaled sharply and froze. The dagger dropped on the floor with a loud metallic clang.

Madam Silverclaw smiled in a gruesome way and picked me up. "Azula my dear you are a splendid fighter, your studies are coming along brilliantly! I love how you played dirty, using a weapon when your opponent is unarmed, pure savagery I love it! You're going to be the perfect candidate to help me take over all of Orea!"

She took me out in the snow to get my picture taken. I will never forget the way Thorn looked when he was dead. The vacant eyes that saw nothing and the blood that went everywhere...I will never forget that I killed my older brother...

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ScarletApollo99 🕷