Wake of Devastation, Lost in Desperation

Eurydice pulled me through the forest, and the trees seemed to grab at us, pull us. I tried to keep my calm as we flitted through the trees, but panic was beginning to override my senses.

"Eurydice, you're bleeding," I remarked stupidly, pulling her to a stop in the middle of a large clearing that could show the sky. Half of it was a light blue, slowly fading into an orange gold color that matched neither of our moods. Mocking us, I thought as I searched for the right herbs to dress her wounds with. "I can't believe that just happened," I said slowly, picking the herbs I could find. "What do you think they were going to do with us?"

I know she was thinking something worse by far, but she said, "Probably hold us for ransom. Demand the kingdom or something like that." I just nodded.

I let myself fall into the comforting memories of yesterday, and as I wrapped Eurydice's wound I remembered my talk with Micheal.

"I'm an imbecile," he said. I made a small noise of agreement and turned away from him, afraid to let my emotions show. I needed to stay strong in order to leave. "Sayer-" he said putting his hand on my shoulder. I promptly shrugged it off. "Look, Sayer-"

"No, you look, Sir Micheal!" He flinched. "Not only did you refuse to listen to me, the king's daughter, you threatened to kill another knight!"

"Oh, so you're going to act like a princess now?! Fine, Princess, I'll treat you like one!" I thought he would leave in his anger, or hit me, which he could possibly get away with, but instead, his anger dulled and faded and he dropped to his knees. "I love you, Sayer. I couldn't live without you. You mean the world to me and watching you marry a man I grew up with would hurt me worse than death itself." I turned to him as he stood, walking slowly towards me, searching for any signs of my dagger.

I blinked back tears and fell into his chain mail covered arms. He hugged me to him and I felt my troubles, all of them, just wash away.

"You can't leave," he whispered. "How can I protect you if you're not here?"

It had been at that moment that Eurydice had entered my chambers, and I hadn't seen Micheal, or any of the knights, since he had left. This morning that absence had been accepted gratefully, but now, as I finished tending to Eurydice, I wished dearly for their presence.

I finished and we heard a bird call, and then another, and the bushes and trees on the other side of the clearing started swaying. We stared at them warily, and I let my dagger slip, unnoticeable, into my hands.

The rustling went on for what seemed like hours, and then, to my surprise and relief, Micheal ran full speed into the clearing, breathing normally.

"Micheal!" I cried, taking a step forward. Eurydice put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back, whispering, "Look at his ears," into my left ear as she pulled me behind her and put a hand on the hilt of her sword.

Micheal frowned and shook his dark hair into place, but not before I could see the oddly shaped point to his ears. "Sayer, Eurydice-" he went on and his eyes went to Eurydice, the more immediate threat. Slowly, I raised my arm and prepared to throw my dagger, my heart hammering in fear and pain.

A strong hand grabbed my throwing arm and I screamed, turning to find David. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you," he said calmly. I reached behind me, grabbed an arrow, and dug it into his side. He let go of me in shock and I grabbed my bow and another arrow, notching it quickly as the four other supposed knights stepped into the clearing.

"Sayer-" Micheal started, and I turned sharply towards him, my arrow aimed at his chest.

"Let us go," I said slowly, "And I won't shoot." Laughter split through the clearing. I noticed that none of them wore full armor, but instead wore the basic chain mail. Any knight going into the forest wears armor, accompanied or no. "Who are you?" I whispered as Eurydice moved to cover my back. David plucked the arrow out of his side and handed it, tail out, to Eurydice, who took it slowly and placed it in my quiver.

"You know me, Sayer," Micheal pleaded, a look of the same nature in his eyes. I shook my head.

"The Micheal I knew..."

"I'm that Micheal," he insisted. "We're all the same."

"Chester," Eurydice whispered, and I saw the knight out of my peripheral vision, the same pleading look in his eyes.

"No," I said firmly. "No, you're not all the same. For twelve years you've led us to believe that you're all human, and now we find out that you're elves!" With a jolt, I relaized that no one had noticed the pointy tips of Chester's, David's, and Joseph's ears. How had we missed that?

Magic. Every being has it, but elves use it best. The knights had been about fifteen or sixteen when we met them; they had plenty of time to learn how to disguise themselves.

"Ah, Prince, there you are," a slithery voice filled the clearing, and everyone stiffened. "The queen's been looking all over for you."

Micheal looked at the others guiltily and looked at me. "I'm sorry," he mouthed as another elf walked into the clearing behind him, this one bllod-shot blue eyes and shoulder length light brown hair. Despite how menacing he seemed, he was emanating stupidity.

"Morcaus," Micheal said slowly. "What are you doing here?" The elf smiled, with that same menace and stupidity.

Henchman gone wrong, I thought.

"I'm here to escort you and your, friends," he eyed Eurydice and I hungrily," to your mother's feast."

Eurydice and I looked at each other in shock. Another blow to our trust, Micheal had a mother that was alive, and, for the most part, well.

"You called him prince," Eurydice called, ignoring the menacing looks she earned from speaking to the stranger. "Why?"

"Why?" Morcaus cackled loudly. "Because his mother is Queen Vira herself, that's why!" He laughed manically and then his whole body stiffened, and his look of menacing stupidity turned into one of complete awareness. "You and your friends are expected at the feast tonight. If you refuse to come, I will drag you there myself, and my friends will see that your friends come to a more... gruesome end." Micheal stared at us, not turning to look at the stranger.

I touched Eurydice's arm in panic. We had managed to fight off a shapeshifting elf and his human henchman, but a horde of what seemed to be vampiric elves on our own? None of us would survive.

Micheal nodded slowly and the knights fell into a protective circle around us. Eurydice glared at all of them, and only Chester was able to stop himself from shifting away, as she stepped out of the circle and reached for me.

Chester clamped his thin, elfish fingers around her wrist and yanked her back into the circle, keeping his hand on her arm. Joseph put his hand lightly, but firmly, on my shoulder, next to the opening of my quiver, and Bradley plucked my loaded bow from my fingers, and our slow procession began following the mad vampire elf to what I presumed to be our doom.

"Let me go, Chester," Eurydice growled, and the look in her eyes was enough to make even the most untamable Southern Kingdom dragon bow down in fear.

"You'll be in more danger," he replied without looking at her.

"As you must have noticed, I'm surrounded by danger, worse than in all nine kingdoms combined, made even more horrible by the fact that you're supposed to be our friends." Chester stopped and stared at Eurydice, and the rest of us, even Morcaus, stopped to stare at them.

"You think I wanted to hide it from you?" He hissed. "You think I would have kept you in the dark the rest of your life? Have you ever wondered why the King doesn't trust Micheal? Why he doesn't trust us, how he came to the decision to make us knights!?"

"Chester-" Micheal said in a warning.

"Shut the hell up Micheal! I'm tired of this. They deserve the truth." His eyes flashed to my face, then back to Eurydice. "I didn't want to keep it a secret from you; none of us did." His eyes flashed quickly to Micheal, whose eyes were dull with pain. "We had an order. We couldn't tell you. If we did, we wouldn't wake up this side of the earth." Micheal turned his face away. "It was meant to protect you, because this," he held out his arms wide, "Is the very thing that hurt you. The King doesn't trust Micheal because he's the queen's son. He knew it the first time he saw him, because there's a long history between the King and our Queen."

"Chester-!" Chester held up his hand towards Micheal and his outburst was cut short.

"He wanted us to be knights, because we would have to swear fealty to him. Should we break our word, off with our heads. He has that over us, Eurydice, and one of the things he forbade us to do was tell you what we were, or any of our ties to this forest. None of this was our choice," he said, and I was afraid he would start shaking her.

She stared at him with a kind of fear in her eyes, one I didn't recognize. It wasn't fear of Chester or anyone around us. Chester's words?

No. Look in his eyes, I thought. The emotion there. She's afraid of his love.

"Please," he pleaded. "It may seem like we've changed, but we're still the same people you met twelve years ago. We still love you." I heard the unspoken words meant to follow the sentence, and I wondered if Eurydice could hear them too.

"Ah, Micheal, my son. I could smell you a mile away." A honey smooth voice filled the trees around us, nothing like Morcaus' slithering hiss. "But why is your scent all over that girl? What did I tell you about humans?"

Micheal turned, wide eyed, to face the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life as she walked into the clearing and glared at me with menacing blood shot eyes.