The King's Possession ✔️

FOURTEEN

Word Count: 1564

I can't breathe. I don't want to breathe.

I'm waiting for something, that never comes. I at least expect my skin to start burning, and then for every molecule in my body to dissolve. Instead, nothing comes. The only change I feel is the slightest breeze, wistful and soft, as it playfully flutters along the hem of my dress. Disobeying Taius's request, my eyes open.

My knees nearly give out beneath me. In all honesty, I didn't expect it to work. No, it didn't work. He must have used magic, claiming that odd looking band around his wrist did this as to not expose himself.

I'm not sure why the discretion. I would guess a King would typically enjoy the flaunt of something as rare as magic.

"What game are you trying to play with me?" I question into the air. I'm more focused on Tai, than the world around me, as he has the audacity to act surprised.

"Game?"

"You used magic."

"Not magic. I used my thoughts," he affirms, tapping the band around his wrist. I eye it sceptically, doubting there's much to the science he preaches. Taius has been a strange, elusive man with little answers to my unasked questions. I don't want to push him, as if at any moment he could make me realise his position of power.

Finally I look up, examining the landscape.

I'm surrounded by death.

I'm in a forest, of sorts. Sun rains down in a cascade of dappled beams, touching upon the ground, which is layered is fluffy white snow. It continues to fall, achingly slowly, riding the sweet breeze that drifts through this place. The snow doesn't come from the sky, though, but from the trees, which is caked in it. Not to mention, how warm the air is, where snow should never exist.

Silence, an ethereal predator, stalks through an ancient graveyard of trees, haunting the sparse remainder of life that feed upon death. Some trees still stand tall, others weak, their foundations crumbling.

What is this place?

Glancing toward Tai, I examine his expression, which is eerily peaceful.

"Where are we?" I breathe, my voice echoing across the boughs and fluttering through the leaves, which hang limp on their stems. I kick at my feet, expecting the crunch of frost, instead finding the fluffy, airy touch of unnatural snow, and a strange, dark slate colour that is unearthed.

"Guess," he dares.

"Snow in the Jade Province?" I try warily, unconvinced that this is actually snow.

"Not quite. This place was hit by a plague a few years ago. A weapon of the war spread it, but thankfully I was able to contain it before it spread through the entire forest I rule," he tells me. I flinch, stumbling backward a few steps, as if I'm not surrounded by death with no hope is escape. "Don't worry, it's not toxic."

Looking around, I'm mortified. What I thought was snow, I realise painfully, is ash, stacked up around barren trunks, which lean and sway lazily a strangely sweet breeze. The leaves have been stained white by whatever plague ravished this land, whatever plague was meant for the war.

I shiver. This plague could have been a weapon created many years ago, but yet the thought of it being intended for soldiers like my father have my stomach turning uneasily.

"So if it's not snow, what is it?" I ask, even though I already know.

Tai shifts, his footprints leaving marks on the ground before us. "Dead matter, leaves and so forth. I could have torn it down, but I like it."