The Downfall of the Kingdom

Chapter 9

Drea sat in an underground room guarded by Hersage. Veldon was not able to turn Drea over to his side. It seemed that all hope was lost. He came down again and spoke to his daughter.

"Please Drea, listen to me. After Domitates has finished with everyone in this kingdom, he will move on to all the others. Nobody will survive this creature."

Unexpectedly, Drea burst into tears. "I'm so sorry for everything that I have done, how can I make up for it?"

Veldon immediately opened the cage and allowed her daughter out. She gave a horrific smile, drew out a dagger and plunged it at her father. It hit but just missed his heart. He fell down to his knees but the king lived on. Her father's eyes stared into hers and something inside of her changed and all of the hatred that had been living inside of her had vanished. Now she really did cry but it was too late. Both she and Hersage assumed the king to be dead and so Hersage gave a cry and ran a sword through Drea Archiamedias's heart. She fell down next to her father and that was the end of Drea: daughter, royalty, expert potion maker and servant to the dark creature. Cigam rushed in at the sound of the screams and saw with horror the king and Drea. He was completely speechless and all he could do was turn around to Hersage and say, "I leave you alone for a second and this is what happens..."

"W...what do we do know?" stammered Hersage.

"Go and call Salvatora and Anne. This isn't good"

The witch looked at the king and Hersage quickly told them of what had happened.

Salvatora glared angrily at both men. "Veldon is alive you misleading fools!" She quickly drew a small vile from inside her silver cloak and poured it onto the king's wound. Now that the two men looked, they could see the rise and fall of their ruler's chest and realised, embarrassingly, that he was in fact alive.

The witch continued," He may be alive but he is greatly injured and will need time to recover... However, our little rebellious girl here was killed by you." She looked at Hersage who bowed his head. Meanwhile, Anne entered the room and fell to her knees. Cigam rushed over and quickly explained everything. The events then all happened very quickly. The witch explained that even though Drea's request was no longer valid with the dark creature that he would still attack. The king was taken to his room to be further treated, Anne went with Cigam and the witch to the royal chamber and Hersage went to ready the men of the kingdom in preparation for war.

"What now?" asked Cigam.

"There is only one hope left for us now..." replied Salvatore. " Deep within the mountain Anscancar lies a scroll with an incantation for a spell that will create a weapon. Every witch including myself helped to create it after the capture of the dark creature and before all witches were turned to being evil of heart. This weapon is lethal and deadly. Only someone of royalty can retrieve it. We did this so that it would not fall into the wrong hands. You must get this scroll Anne. It is our last chance. We cannot win in a war. Cigam will accompany you and..." Her voice was cut off by a guard dressed in blue and white armour, holding a dangerous looking spear, entering. He stated that someone by the name of Stefan requested an entrance into the castle. Salvatora quickly explained to everyone who Stefan was exactly and Anne nodded in approval, telling the guard to escort him to this room.

Stefan entered the room and the Ice Witch ran over to embrace him in a hug.

"I can't believe that you escaped! I'm so happy to see you standing here, alive. What happened?" she asked

Stefan began his lie but in such a way that what he said was in fact part truth because the witch would detect a lie." I managed to kill Zenodius. I ran into two men who stated that they were to bring me to Veldon and you. They brought me here."

What had actually happened was that while Stefan was making his way towards the castle he had seen the two men in search of him. Just before they reached the castle, he killed both. He now realised that his story actually made no sense at all for why would the guards simply disappear but he figured that no one would actually notice.

He was introduced to everyone in the room.

From the time that Anne had been attacked at the lake, all that happened was that she had become more subdued and reasonably good with her spells.

Now that this boy had arrived she felt slightly weary of him for she was the only to realize that his story made no sense but she kept this to herself for he seemed to be quite polite and she thought he must be pure of heart by how the witch had described him.

Salvatora decided that she and Stefan would come with Anne and Cigam on the journey to Anscancar. This was annoying to Stefan for he thought that it would be easier to kill the princess but he sensed power amongst those around him. He also had no idea where the king was. His eyes briefly flashed red as he conveyed a message to his master telling him that he would kill the princess shortly. It was lucky that Stefan had never heard of the scroll else the dark creature would have come personally to kill them all in a second.