The Winged Ones

Chapter Eight

            “You,” Lana screamed as she snapped her fingers, a fury of diamonds revealing several throwing daggers.

            “Well, well,” Annika said as she raised her blade to swing at Rohan. “The long lost prince has returned has he?” She swung. “And he’s gotten his wings as well, how nice!”

            Rohan raised his blade and met Annika’s as he ignored her comment. Annika overpowered Rohan swiftly, pushing him to the ground and stabbing downward. “Not talkative, are we?” she asked as Rohan rolled out of the way. Lana threw her daggers, one of them hitting Rohan in the leg, sticking there. He screamed in pain, having never felt pain to that extreme before.

“Hmmm,” Lana said, smirking, “I like that sound. Can you make him do it again, Annika?” Annika swung her blade down again, just missing Rohan as he rolled out of the way again. He needed to get off the ground, but was at a loss as how to do that.

            Lana snapped her fingers, disappearing in a sea of diamonds. Rohan looked around wildly, knowing that she could reappear anywhere. “I see that the coward has gone,” Annika snarled as she swung her blade again. The blade narrowly missed Rohan’s right wing; he felt the wind from the blade against the fur. He flapped his wings once, twice, three times and jumped off the ground. Annika swung her blade around, trying to hit him as he dodged left and right, all the weight off of his injured leg. He was surprised that with all the screaming and cursing Annika did; nobody came to see what was going on.

            Annika swung wide at him, giving him the opportunity to jump out of the way and get behind her. He swung his blade, hitting her back. The blood started pouring out and Annika coughed, blood splattering over the floor. She fell over, her body still and growing cold. She was dead.

            Barks sounded once again through the hall and Rohan knew that he needed to follow the sound, but he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, shocked at what he had just done. He had never killed before, but the Forgotten in Pasazh i ndaluar were nothing. He had seen the hunters out in the woods just beyond Alpa Village. He has seen the blood and gore of them, so killing the Forgotten wasn’t anything he had seen before. But, he had never seen somebody kill a person, let alone do it himself. What had he just done? Did this mean he was a monster, no better than Annika herself? Oh god, he didn’t know who he was anymore! What had he done? The barks were heard again, but he didn’t move from where he stood. It wasn’t until the barks were in his ear, loud and strong, that he moved.

            He looked down at Hali, who was looking up at him with his head tilted to the side. “What's wrong?” she asked.

            Rohan looked down at Annika’s body, still and cold with glassy eyes staring at nothing. “I just killed somebody,” he whispered.

            Hali looked down at the body of the demon before looking back up at him. “Yes,” she said. “You did.”

            “Does that make me a monster?” he asked, wide eyed with a pale face.

            “That depends on how you look at it,” Hali replied. “She wouldn’t have thought twice about killing you even if she didn’t need to in order to reach her goal. That makes her a monster. But you, on the other hand, are freaking out that you killed her, even though she wouldn’t have thought twice about killing you. So, from my point of logic, no, you're not a monster, but a very courageous boy who did something you never thought of doing before so that others wouldn’t have to be haunted by it.”

Rohan looked over at Hali. “You think so?”

            Hali nodded before urging him to start walking from where she had come from. “Yes, now let’s go. I saw Regan heading into the throne room not too long ago, and she told me to come find you. It seems like you didn’t get far before meeting the Ruthless Demon Sisters and managed to kill one. By the way, what happened to the other?”

            “Oh, her?” Rohan asked as he followed Hali to a set of stairs with a blue carpet along the stairs and golden railings. “Well, she kind of chickened out some time before I killed Annika.”

            “Really?” Hali asked, surprised. “Lana chickened out before Annika? That’s something new!” And so the small talk continued as they made their way to the second floor and down the hall to the throne room. They met no one on the way, but neither could figure out whether it was a good or bad thing.

            The throne room was behind a pair of doors that were blue with golden lining around the edges. They opened with a loud creak and inside was a huge room with windows along the walls. There was a deep blue carpet leading up to two large thrones of gold. One was slightly larger than the other, but Rohan figured that the larger of the two was for the king while the other was for the queen. The floor on which the thrones stood was elevated a bit, making people who wished to get up there to climb about ten steps of tiled white floor. Above the thrones on the wall behind them was a picture, a symbol. Two white wings were spread out fully while on a blue backdrop with a gold line surrounding the blue.

            “That is the symbol of Aleta,” Hali explained when she saw his interest in the symbol.

            “Wow,” he said, lost in thought.

            “So what happened here?” Hali asked, making Rohan lose interest in the symbol and look over at Regan, who happened to be leaning on the back of the larger throne.

            “Simple,” Regan replied. “He was a poor fighter and when Lana showed up, she teleported him and herself out of here.”

            “So that’s where she went!” Rohan cried.

            Regan nodded. “But we don’t have to worry about . . . what's his name? . . . Lucas, his injuries are too great for him to survive.”

            “Annika is dead as well,” Hali informed Regan. “Rohan killed her.”

            “Really,” Regan said, looking over at Rohan with a smirk on her face. “I'm impressed.”

            “Why thank you,” he said, “but you really should have more faith in me.”

            “Hmm,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Maybe I should.”