Weeks passed. Cities flashed before her eyes.
Once, she had dreamed of visiting Asriel. Before she understood that her mother would never allow her to go to the elfin isles. Not with the fury and vengeance that rested in her soul.
The cities had once been galleries of marvel, miracles in every corner. They had been lands of wonder to her, as a child. Veron, the city of music. Celeste, the city of rivers and crystal towers. For years, she had wanted to be an elf.
Like all phases, that had passed. But still, it hurt a little, to see those places of childhood dreams crushed.
In the storybooks, the city-states were places of a thousand colours, bursting with a thousand shades of wonder. But now they were all grey.
Grey-uniformed soldiers on broken grey streets that led into grey Draining facilities. The cities of her dreams...they were gone.
It had been years since she had been a child that dreamed of such things. Years since she had been a child at all. In her twenty-four years, she had seen the pain and suffering of those under the Kallian Empire. She had murdered her brothers, and others before and after them.
And yet maybe a part of her stone-encased heart crumpled at the sight of the broken cities of Asriel. Layla, though....
With every passing day, the Elfin Queen receded deeper into herself. She and Myra were like kicked dogs. Layla whimpered and hide deeper into herself, trying to blend into the shadows. Myra roared with fury and tried to tear the offender's leg off.
If this continued much longer, both would be rendered useless. Layla by her hopelessness and Myra by blind rage and vengeance. Lysandra had little use for such broken creatures.
Oh, let Jasper's voice in her head berate her for her heartlessness. Burning suns, she had tried to blend in with the sentimental rebel group. But martyrdom and selflessness simply weren't in her blood.
People were useful, or they weren't. If they wanted to weep over that, then they could go to summer. Nala, at least, understood the sacrifices of war. If only she had been born a Crimson. What an empress she would have made, if they hadn't lost her to the whole greater good hoax.
She was distracted imagining the glory of Layla, Myra, Rose and Jasper without the goodness dysfunction when her mother told her about the attack.
"Five hundred valkyries stormed the northern diamond mines, set fire to the Warrior's Forest and freed the miners," her mother half-shrieked at her, gnashing her teeth. "The audacity of it!"
It wasn't hard to fake surprise. Nala hadn't even told her about this. She and the chancellor were going to have a nice, long talk about telling your best asset about a major sun-blasted attack.
"They-what?" Lysandra blurted. "But-but they have to be trapped. The river-the flaming wall of sun-blasted trees. We can surround them."
"It's been three weeks. The flame is still burning. The whole forest has been burning for three weeks."
"What does that even mean?" She asked, incredulous.
"Well, it means they either have wyverns-even though we supposedly eliminated them five years ago-or it means they have FireBreathers strong enough to hold an acres-long and wide wall for three weeks."
"I don't even know which one to hope for," Lysandra muttered.
Oh, she did. She hoped for both.
A sudden pause. Something snapped into focus in her mother's eyes.
"Or," she smiled. "They have MindWeavers." Lysandra's stomach sank like a stone
YOU ARE READING
Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)
Fantasy'She was a blade, forged in the flames that had burned her kingdom.' Book 2 of the Lost Continent Asriel and Miras have fallen. Their legendary armies are gone, their cities burnt to their ground, their people enslaved or murdered. The Empress now r...
