The stones of the castle hit her shield, melted, and could go no further. Orenda watched the magma melt against the outside and slide down, down, down, but it seemed as if there was an endless supply, as if it would never stop, as if she would starve here, trapped in this small bubble while the ground rocked and shook. Mary Sue and Sonny both seemed to be moving in and out of consciousness, as if they knew something terrible was happening and desperately wanted to be part of it.

Finally, there was nothing left to fall, and Orenda saw snow.

Then, the shaking stopped, and the entire world was still and silent, except for the rushing of the wind.

She pushed the shield outward until it dissipated and climbed out of the small piece of order she had created in the chaos.

Klin sat, clutching Xandra’s hand and sobbing in the wreckage.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her, over and over, “I’m sorry, I just… I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you… why you hated me… I was never… going to be… I’m not a prince… Ruvean was… why did you kill him? Why did you… I’m so sorry…”

“Klin?” Orenda asked, and he jerked his head to look at her. He was completely soaked in blood; the rinse he had done in the stream had done nothing for his appearance.

“I can’t hurt you,” he said, and Orenda looked out into the destroyed courtyard to see that the inner walls that kept the castle from the city were broken and crumbling in places. Everything was destroyed.

“No,” Orenda said.

“I’ve never met something I couldn’t kill,” Klin said.

“Neither have I,” Orenda said.

“I’m sorry I killed your daddy,” He said. “Ruvean… Ruvean is dead.”

“I don’t forgive you, Klin,” Orenda told him, “But I also… wish I cared about my father. I really do. But I can’t make myself. He was a fool. And… I think if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that sometimes things just happen.”

“I want to die,” Klin told her, “I deserve to die. Why can’t I just… Why won’t it end? Do I have to… have to keep going? Forever? With… with everything I’ve… I can’t! I can’t!”

“We have to find that stone before someone touches it,” Orenda told him, because she had no response to his wish for death, and she needed to be solution oriented.

“I broke everything,” Klin cried, “We’ll never find it! It’s a… a needle in a haystack.”

He sat there, on his knees, staring up at the storm, and Orenda realized that she didn’t feel sick at all.

“You killed her,” Klin said, as he let his eyes drop back to the corpse.

“Yes,” Orenda said.

“Right by Combat,” Klin said after a beat, “The queen is dead. Long live the queen. I know… you probably don’t want my advice… but my first action would be to execute the Emerald Knight for crimes against elvenkind. Then, I would rebuild. Then I would take that water stone,” he put a hand over the place where his heart used to be, “And the earth stone. And I would put them back into the temples where they belong. Where the Emerald Knight got them.”

“I don’t want your advice,” Orenda told him, “And that’s a bad idea. If you got in there, so could someone else. Those things need to be closely guarded. I wouldn’t let them out of my sight.”

Klin nodded.

After another long pause, he slowly pulled himself to his feet, and still staring down at the corpse he said, “She never loved me, I don’t think.”

When Orenda made no reply he said, “I hate this fucking sword.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Then put it back,” Orenda told him, “You got it out of a temple a few blocks from here. Just go down there and put it back.”

“Help!”

Orenda jumped. It had been so unexpected in the stillness. But then she heard it again.

“Help!”

“Anilla?” Orenda asked the stillness.

And then she heard another voice, unminstakably belonging to Tolith.

“Hey, honey, if my deaf ass can hear you, you’re too goddamn loud. I can almost… reach… this guy has… a ring… Boom!”

The ground opened up, and people began to crawl out of the opening Tolith had created in the carnage. There weren’t many of them, and nearly all of them were human. She wondered if the castle’s staff had, for some reason, gone seeking safety in the dungeons. Toli reached in a hand and tugged Anilla to her feet.

“Rendy!” he screamed when he saw her, and began to climb over the debris to reach her.

“Toli!” Orenda shouted and opened her arms for him to leap into.

“Who’s the bloody guy?” Toli asked with a smile from his position secure in Orenda’s arms, and Klin stared at him as if he had gone mad.

“This is Klin,” Orenda said, “He’s…” She studied Klin and made a decision she feared she would one day regret, “He’s a Chosen Child of Thesis, like me. He defeated the Emerald Knight.”

“Great!” Tolith held out his hand and Klin stared dumbly at it for a second before he spoke.

“I’m… dirty,” Klin said.

“Me, too, buddy,” Tolith took one of his hands in both of his and shook for all he was worth. “What did the Emerald Knight wind up being? We heard a lot of stories.”

“It was a cursed armor,” Orenda explained, “Being controlled by Xandra.”

“Yup,” Klin said.

“We’ve taken it. There are actually a bunch of them, that’s just the earth one. Stand back and look at this. I mean it, back up, it’s hot.”

She called up the armor, and Tolith stared, enraptured.

“Holy shit, you’re a lava monster!”

“Thank you,” Orenda said.

Tolith knelt by the corpse of his cousin and pulled the crown from her head. He stood and held it out to Orenda.

“Now take it off before you melt this,” He said, “It belongs to you.”

Anilla watched Klin pull a ring off his finger and throw it into a bag he wore on his side, but she didn’t say anything.

Orenda took the crown from Tolith and stared down at it.

“Can we get the drawbridge down?” she asked.

“Me and- sorry dude what’s your name again?” Toli asked.

“I’m… I’m Klin,” Klin said.

“Yeah, we got it,” Toli said, “Me and Klin can get it.”

“Perfect,” Orenda said, “We need to discuss the change in management with the populace. And if anyone sees a blue stone, the kind you see in the bottom of rivers, anywhere, for the love of god, don’t touch it! It’s cursed!”

“Wait a second,” Klin said, “I’m sorry, I’m… I’m stupid… I can actually… actually find it pretty easily.”

“How?” Orenda asked as Klin, obviously disgusted with himself, retraced her path through the wreckage. He was mumbling to himself again, in his thick accent, but he did eventually knock over some stones with the strength Orenda had to keep reminding herself he had, and came up with his sword.

“Because the artifact lies in the heart of the temple, and this sonofabitch has always known exactly where,” Klin said.

Don’t be so dramatic, master. The sword said, This hurts now, but I swear to you, it’s for your own good.

“Where’s the water stone?” Klin asked, and Orenda watched him walk around on the advice of his sword while Anilla smiled and Toli tried to slick his hair back, but it wouldn’t stay in place without an ear there to hold it. He was missing enough of it to heavily impact his fashion choices, Orenda thought, and yet still Xandra had recognized him. She had asked about her cousin. She had had a family.

“The queen is dead,” Toli said as Orenda watched Klin, muttering again, begging the armor to stay down as he picked up an unimpressive blue stone and stuck it into the bag on his hip. “It’s over now. The queen is dead. Long live the queen.”

Long live…

Orenda stared at the man who looked like a teenager yet who had seen centuries, and put a hand over the place her heart used to be. She could feel the stone there, and did not know how it worked, how it incorporated into her body. She could not feel her heart beating. She knew her blood flowed, but she could not feel her heart beating in her chest. She put two fingers to her neck, and felt a rushing like a river, constant, unbroken, and even.

“Lord Glenlen!” Klin called.

“My friends call me Toli,” Tolith grinned.

“Are we… are we opening the drawbridge or… can we like… stop the attacks from the sea and the shifters? Before anyone else has to die?”

“Yes,” Orenda said as she lowered Xandra’s crown onto her head. She didn’t like it, didn’t like the way it sat over her grandmother’s wedding gift, and thought that she would take it off as soon as possible.