The survivors looked at eachother. What was in the box?

The blood dripping from it was forming a little trail down the stone towards the gates beyond which everything had fallen silent.

‘They’re waiting.’ the Emperor said.

‘What’s in the box?’ said Jai.

‘It's a trap.’ Jade said flames filled her hands, ‘I’ll just burn it.’

‘But what if it isn’t? What if it's one of our friends?’

‘If your friend is in the box, then there’s already no hope for them.’

Jai walked over anyway and Jade didn’t have the strength left to tell him off. The box was rocking slightly - maybe she was wrong. Maybe there was someone stuffed in there.

Jai flipped the lid easily. Jade couldn’t see what was inside but she could see the look on Jai’s face. Mouth open, pale skin, a quivering of his lip. He reached down into the box and pulled out one of her cultivator’s heads.

‘The box is full of them.’

As he said this heads started to fall from the box onto the ground behind him. They gave a fat squishing sound as they landed. And then covered in the blood from the heads, a horde emerged from the chest.It seemed to be raising its sword in slow motion as the wind from its movement caressed the back of Jai’s neck.

Jade tried to run towards Jai, hoping to push him aside.

The sword swung and tore through Jai’s back, slicing his heart in two. His mouth fell open as his legs gave way beneath him.

Jade was there in time to catch him and hold him to her as he whispered, ‘S-s-sorry.’

The single horde soldier had moved to the gate. With a heave, it removed the bar holding the gates shut. Arrows whistled into its back and fire stung its legs.

Ironskin wrapped around Jade. She didn’t have time to pick up the beast’s sword so she leapt straight for its throat. Fists closed around the squishy part of its windpipe, squeezing harder and harder until she felt it pop underneath her grip. She kept applying pressure until her fingertips met eachother and she was able to twisted the head three times and rip it from its base.

The gate swung open and the horde poured through.

Again, Jade was hoisted off her knees and dragged backwards, this time by her father. He took her to the edge of the cliff as his personal guard fought and were slain all around him. The ching, ching, ching, of swords rattling matched the thump, thump, thump of blood running through her ears.

‘-jump!’ she only caught the end of her father’s sentence, but there was mania in his eyes.

‘I can’t. Too high. I’ll die.’

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‘Yes. That’s the point.’

Jade shook her head, ‘I’d rather fight.’

He shook his head, ‘You’re strong. But after I… after I…’

Only three members of his guard remained. The villagers were leaping from the wall, falling to their deaths with screams as they fell from the wall. Already a dozen bodies were floating on the surface.

‘What are you going to do father?’

He smiled, ‘The love spell.’

‘No, you can’t!’

‘We are going to die Jade.’

‘Okay. But if you’re going to sacrifice yourself then I will too. When you’re gone I’ll have nothing left to live for and the more of those bastards I can take out the better I’ll feel going into the next life.’

‘Take cover, my love.’ He kissed her on the forehead the same way he did when she was a sleeping child. He turned and strode towards the horde.

They ran for him, cutting through the remnants of his guards but he didn’t flinch, he turned away from them, turned to face his daughter.

Princess Jade stood right on the edge of the cliff, she’d never seen the love spell performed but, she knew its blast radius could be devastating.

Her father’s eyes looked into hers. His were shining. A bright golden light emanated from them. The atoms that made up his body vibrated faster and faster until he was a haze of blurring matter.

And then he exploded.

A wave of hot air threw Jade from the edge of the island moments before a wave of flame washed over the spot she’d been standing. Her hands wheeled. She hit the water head-first with a splash that whipped her chin into her chest.

Above the flames still hadn’t died away. The love spell was complete. Where the emperor had stood was a pair of singed footprints on the concrete and the charred shells of twenty horde.

The rest poured onto the top, their feet blistering at the heat that the stone still held.

They spread out, sniffing for any remaining life to extinguish.

But there was none. One horde marched over to the edge of the wall and peered down. All that floated on the surface of the lake were dead bodies.

****

Jade washed up on the shore and gasped at the air. Everything around her was blurry, but in the distance, black shapes ran towards her. She knew what they were. She knew what they were going to do to her. But she lay down on her side and stared at the beams of gold that were conquering the sky. She was done. There was no escape.

It was funny - there was biting pain stretched from her toes, tearing along her calves and abdomen, all the way to her head. Yet still she felt something in her right pocket - the side she was leaning on.

A little pebble dug into her side.

She ignored it for a moment, then decided what the hell, I might as well die in comfort, she reached into her pocket and found it was a sheet of scrunched-up paper - not a pebble.

The paper wasn’t soggy - it seemed unblemished by the water and the blood that had plastered everything Jade wore.

On it were Mershan’s words. Death will come.

She shook her head, somehow the prophecy had survived the water and the war, and now it had all come true. Her father was dead. The figures of the horde were almost upon her now. She could see the muscles rippling through their legs, the swords gripped tight as blood dripped from them onto the sand of the lake.

But, the paper was folded… its wrinkles caught the golden daylight arriving over her shoulder. She unfolded the rest of the strip and found a second sentence written alongside the first. Death will come. But beneath the light of the second sun, your will be done.

She looked up at the horizon where Teo Aeo’s second sun was rising.

Between her and the sun a flicker of blue light appeared, dancing across the sky until she wasn’t looking at the advancing horde she was looking at an arena and even better - an army.

She was so focused on the army and the feeling of joy it gave her that she didn’t notice the tentacle rising out of the water until it had grasped her ankle and pulled her screaming towards the lake.