Red's Wolves

Chapter Twenty-Five

For Palo, and them having to leave everything before for her, because of her. For having to take their life savings and pack up all they knew to stay safe in a world where she no longer wanted to do what she was forced to do. To leaving everything they had worked so hard to create behind and venture into the unknown all because she refused to be a pawn.

For Jere, and loving her so unconditionally for so long, and having been too afraid or over-cautious for not telling her sooner. For her to not seeing it or saying anything sooner, for losing time together when she was so convinced she would be alone for the rest of her life.

For her father, who she knew may have meant well at one time. She tried to convince herself he truly only wanted what was best for her and for her kingdom, and that if he had known how horrible Nicholas was from the beginning, despite the rumors, he never would have agreed to arrange their marriage in the first place. She wondered if there was some sort of grip on his mind from the beginning, where Nicholas worked himself into his mind like the worm he was, and gave her father no choice but to decide such a fate for his only child.

For her mother, who left behind a family and a people who loved her for a love all her own. She had a dream of a happy life— did she ever achieve it? Or was she scorned by the same people who were so ready to toss Alera aside? Had she truly loved them, and was it a broken heart that ended her? Was it the loss of the forest that seemed to breathe life into every member of her people? To sacrifice that for love was something Alera would never be able to truly understand, and hope she'd never have to make such a choice.

For her new family— the found family and the bloodlines she discovered waiting for her within the forest. To the people who believed in her, because they were just like her and knew there was nothing wrong with her. There never had been. To her grandfather, injured because of her, but still so ready to accept her as one of his people. Those people who allowed her to learn and to grow and to be comfortable with a power within her that she had been afraid of and wanted to hide from so many other who refused to understand who she was...

For all of them, she stood her ground, closing her eyes and summoning that power deep within her. The power that spoke to the powers of the earth and the energies of the very plants that grew up the side of the castle. The same vines that had clung to the walls by her balcony that had helped her escape the confines of her bedroom so many times. The same ones that the knew grew on the wall just outside her father's bedroom windows.

Silently, she pleaded to them for help. Begged for them to assist her in this— in saving her father and keeping her people safe from this tyranny. And almost as an afterthought, to keep her from being a part of this malicious plan the Prince desired to carry out.

"Did you really think you, and you alone, could stop me?" Nicholas sneered as his power gathered, as she tried to gather her own. "That you'd have a say in what happens when I'm holding all the cards?"

His laughed echoed throughout the dark bedroom, but Alera didn't allow his taunting words to distract her concentration. She felt sweat trickle down her spine as she gathered every last ounce of power within her to summon nature to her will.

"You were a fool to think you even had a chance—"

"No," she gasped, opening her eyes with deadly intent, wholly focused on the Prince in front of her. "The only fool in this room is you."

With a scream she lashed out, and the vines she has begged for helped whipped through the window, shattering glass and breaking wood as they crashed through the balcony. Slithering past her legs, their lethal focus trained on Nicholas.

She heard Nicholas let out a gasp of surprise, and recovered with a roar of frustration as the power he himself had been gathering was unleashed against the vines just as they were about to meet their target. Jet black tendrils collided with lush greenery in a laticework of magic. Alera had to shield her eyes from the collision, and Nicholas was waiting for the opening. As she shied away, a rogue tendril curled around her ankle, pulling and knocking her done to the ground. As her back and head collided with the wooden floor, the air escaped her lungs and stars danced behind her eyes.

The vines assault lessened with her distraction, causing the black tendrils to overtake them, but Alera could only focus on breathing, and the form of Nicholas approaching from across the room.

"Poor little princess," he sneered as she watched his black boots draw closer were each step. "Thinking her untapped, untrained powers would be a match against me."

Is that what she thought? She wasn't sure. It was taking all she had left to remain coherent, to not give into the darkness that threatened to consume her. The tendrils of ichor had crept closer with their master, and she knew with one thought he'd sent them to her, allowing them to devour her until her magic were no more.

Part of her wished for it.

It was because of her, after all, that these circumstances fell upon her father and her people. If she had been a better daughter, more malleable and compliant, there would never have been an argument, she would never have run away. Nicholas would never have had needed to use her own father as bait for her to return and fulfill the fate that was awaiting her.

But no. That's not who she was.

That's not what her mother wanted her to be.

Her mother...

The hilt of the dagger was still cold in her hand. Her grip around it tightened as she closed her eyes. Her mother believed in a better world, one that only Alera would be able to bring forth. The proof was in her palm, and she would not let anyone— not Nicholas, not a kingdom full of fearful ignorants— to take that away from her. She was a Princess... she could be a queen. But it would be of her own making, and no one else's.

Mistaking her moment of reflection as her giving up, Nicholas ceased his approach and actually laughed. "Too easy," he snarled as he extended his hand for the final blow.

But Alera was ready for him.

Gathering up her remaining energy, she let out a scream of aggression and stress and all of the pent-up energies within her and brought her mother's dagger forward. Slamming it down into the ground, not only did it sever the black tendrils en route to her, but it absorbed them, drawing the black magic in like an inescapable current.

Nicholas' unwarranted laughter stopped. "What—"

She took advantage of his moment of uncertainty to gather her feet beneath her. "I am Alera of Palazia and the forest people," she growled out, almost as primal as the wolves who obeyed her. "Daughter of Vessa and Roland. And I will never submit to you."

She stood just in time to see Nicholas' confusion melt away to a sneer of contempt. "Then I shall make you."

"You can certainly try."

She didn't wait for him to make the first move. Instead, she brought forward the dagger, pulsing with its own ethereal glow, and pointed it towards Nicholas. The gathered power did the rest.

With a glow of what Alera could only compare to sunlight, the magic from the dagger melded with the absorbed power of the black wizardry and morphed into its own brand of magic before it escaped the metallic confines of the blade and found purchase in Nicholas' unguarded and unarmored chest.

He stumbled and screamed and Alera continued with her onslaught, summoning forth the power of the natural world around her while the dagger focused on Nicholas with an agenda all its own. She could almost sense her mother standing behind her, her arms wrapping around her and holding it with her, lashing out at anyone who dared try to control her daughter as Nicholas had.

"You will never— hurt— anyone— I love— ever— again." With each word, she swung the dagger violently in front of her, slashing the air between them and driving Nicholas back towards the shattered balcony door. Nicholas stumbled and attempted to lash out with his darker power, but every time he tried, the dagger was there, ready, deflecting and absorbing it. Taking and making the dark force its own before flinging it back towards him tenfold.

Rage was the best way Alera could describe the sounds escaping Nicholas as he tried, in what appeared to be in vain, to fight back against the dagger's newly recreated power. Rage and soon, agony. Agony and despair— not out of pain, but out of failure.

Failure in the realization that his plans were no longer going to be successful. Failure in his attempts in taking over a kingdom that was never his to begin with. Failure in losing the arranged marriage he believed would benefit only himself and his own personal gain.

Failure in being a reasonable, sensible person, and having the actuality of his faults come back to him tenfold.