Heir to the Empire

29. Light the Pyre - Erdudvyl

All morning, Erdudvyl had been watching the pyre being built from her balcony. As each batch of wood and hay was being placed around the wooden scaffold, she felt more and more anxious.

Normally positioned elsewhere, the scaffold was now deliberately being erected in full view on Erdudvyl's balcony. A great sadness enveloped her knowing that this was being done to antagonise. The thought that she would be expected to watch her friend burn and melt before her eyes poured a deep pain in her heart, she was to be morally crushed, along with any plans that she had with the last remaining Aex-Igh.

As the crowds had started to gather, Erdudvyl could feel a sickness in her stomach. She didn't feel pity for these humans who had come out to watch this spectacle, she felt hate and repulsiveness towards the inferior pitiful creatures that dared to show to watch her friend die. As the feeling intensified, she remembered the person that was her friend was one of these humans, a shining beacon of her race.

Glancing in the mirror of her room, her face was pale and taut. She had spent the whole morning attempting to find a way out of her imprisonment. It had started with searching for a couple of hours for hidden doors. Finding one carefully concealed behind the bookcase, she managed to pull it open. The attempt of escape had been anticipated and the guards behind it quickly repelled her efforts.

The following attempt to climb from the balcony to the ground below was foolhardy and brash. Extremely unlike her, and terribly un-elf like. Looking down to the ground, seeing that she was at least fifty meters from the ground, her considerable fear of heights took over. Her body completely tensed and refused to move, her fingers had dug into the stone and started turning purple and then white as the blood drained from them. It wasn't until the same guards that had repelled her before, came into the room to rescue her. A few more minutes and her arms would not be able to take her weight any longer.

Her captors were her rescuers. She did not know whether to thank them or hit them.

As they eventually left her in silence, she had done neither; instead, rubbing her arms in order to regain feeling in them. The feeling returned, only to replaced with a sharp ache which was initially unbearable. It still felt better than the helplessness that weighed down her heart.

She then resorted to phasing. A skill developed by some of the most powerful knights and maidens in the race of Elves.

Phasing was the ability to traverse short distances instantly. Erdudvyl remembered a time she had watched some of these skilled knights and high maidens disappear in a blink of an eye, only to instantly reappear a few hundred metres from their original position. It was glorious, mysterious and magical.

These skilled individuals had spent hundreds of years practising to achieve this feat. It took immense dedication and patience and only a few ever achieved it.

Erdudvyl had spent a whole two hours attempting.

She was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Every time she opened her eyes, her heart sank realising that she had not moved anywhere. Each failed attempt spelt death for her friend, but she could not give up.

The crowd grew larger, the noise from the courtyard, where they congregated, grew from a murmur to a deep drone, all of them waiting and relishing the screams of some random person who they did not know or cared for. Their morbid curiosity was the only thing that had given them any reason to leave their homes on this cloudy, overcast day.

Erdudvyl closed her eyes once more, drowning out the sounds of voices and only focusing on her breathing. If she could just phase to the pyre, perhaps she could rescue Loldirr from the guards that littered the courtyard.

Opening her eyes, she realised it was a fool's errand. What would she do if the phase was successful? Her powers were substantial, but certainly not enough to rescue Loldirr and escape Lionmane with the entire city hunting for them.