“I’m sorry, Ashelia...”
His silver hair waned as the color faded, falling into a shining grey. His eyes became hazy and glassy, staring at nowhere, never again.
Ashelia’s body stiffened as her whole self declined to nothing but disbelief.
“Aeson!” she cried, her voice tearing through the endless screams of pain and terror of the night occurring outside the castle walls. She shook him in her harms, his body lolling to the side, lifeless and deserted from spirit.
A loud bang came through from the outside as the attack continued. A hard shudder came across the ground, the earth shaking as if trembling from fear. A lamp rocked back on a table, then fell against a curtain, setting it into a beautiful, bright, blaze of fire.
“Prince Aeson! Princess Ashelia!” came a man’s cry from outside the chamber doors, the panic and severity of everything reaching through to Ashelia’s ears as he banged as hard as he could on the locked metal doors.
Ashelia looked from the door, to the fire, and then to her dead older brother, her mind spinning from thoughts yet seemed to be completely blank to herself.
“Prince, Princess!” the man called again. “There’s light coming from in there! Is there a fire? Come out so I can lead you to safety!”
Ashelia looked at her brother one more time, trying to memorize his features, knowing she will never see him again. The memories, she knew, would have to be buried in the back of her mind forever.
“Your Highnesses!” the man called again, now trying to break the door down.
Ashelia quickly closed her eyes in prayer.
Oh my dear brother, may you be in a better place now.
She set him down slowly, closing his eyes for his rest and throwing a sheet over his body, taking the ring on the chain from his neck, and resting it onto her own neck. She ran over to the dresser, quickly changing into her brother’s clothing and robe, all the while wrapping some bandage around her chest. She reached into a drawer, trying desperately to ignore the banging on the door, the screams from outside, the crackling of the fire quickly spreading around her, and the hard, painful pulsing inside her head and heart.
She drew out the sharp knife inside and held her long silver hair up.
In a flash, she struck with her knife, her silver hair falling to the ground. She scavenged through another of her drawers and pulled out a silk ribbon, embedded with the blue and gold embroidery of their family. She drew her now shoulder length silver hair up under, and tied her hair at the nape of her neck, like what her brother had always done. She combed her part differently, causing some of her shorter layers to fall to her eyes for bangs.
She looked into the mirror.
She looked exactly like Aeson.
“Your Highnesses!” called more voices from the other side of the door. More soldiers had come to take them from safety.
A loud crackling, shrieking sound emerged, and Ashelia looked up to see one of the large pillars had set to fire, and it started to fall to the ground.
At that same moment, the men had broken through the door, and they scattered into the chamber.
A large middle-aged man scanned the room, coming in first, and sprinted towards Ashelia.
“Prince Aeson!” he called, his expression hard and serious. “The castle is under attack. Where is the Princess?”
A wave of unbearable sorrow flashed through Ashelia, but she forced herself into a calmer manner. She looked over to the bed, now set to fire, the body beneath the sheets burning into a bright, multicolored blaze.
The men in the room’s eyes widened as they stared at the burning flames, eating at the dead body.
“Died from the sickness,” Ashelia said, dropping her voice into a lower, deeper, strained voice. “She is now dead, Tyrus.”
The large middle-aged man looked from her brother to her, and then a hard determined expression came over him. “Men!” he called, the other soldiers coming to attention. “Make sure Prince Aeson gets to safety. Now!”
Everything became a blur to Ashelia after that. She remembered Tyrus and his men leading her out of the burning castle. Her mind had been blank yet full of panic the whole way. The things she witnessed that night were beyond imaginable. The castle for which her father had placed them for protection had been under attack, along with the peaceful village surrounding it.
They had gotten on horses, and hidden themselves in dark robes, running out of the land of Adora. Ashelia saw fire rising out into the night sky, piercing screams coming out from every corner of the village. She saw soldiers running to the battles, and interfering enemies who had managed to sneak around and into the village. Swords had met, and blood had spew.
And of course, there was the witness of her own dearly beloved brother.
“Prince,” Tyrus said as they rid out into the country. He had seen the hesitation in her eyes, the uncertainty to leave. “You are a son to the Serennio line. You are Aeson De Sancto Serennio. You cannot die.”
“It is not like I am the heir,” said Ashelia, her heart tightening inside her chest. “It doesn’t matter to father, right? That is the reason he sent my twin sister and I to this place. He wanted our sickness away from the real royal blood convenient for him.”
The horses went into a quicker pace as they reached an empty field, dark and seemingly endless except for the faint light of the fire that was slowly disappearing behind them.
“Do not speak of King Ezio like that,” Tyrus scolded.
“He is my father,” she pointed out.
“All the more so.”
“My blood died in there!” Ashelia exclaimed, almost forgetting to deepen her voice, even with the emotion.
Silence droned on between them, and it became clear that the other soldiers had backed a few feet away for their privacy. They had run into a thick forest now, making it harder for the enemy to find them.
“When we get to your home of Marcel,” he said quietly. “We will hold a proper departing ceremony for her.”
“Home,” Ashelia repeated to herself, bitterness threatening in every edge. “Yeah, right.”
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