Chapter Text
Running. Running away from everything she loved as the arrows fell to the ground. Quartia couldnt look back. Wouldn't. She couldn't handle another look at those monsters. Her wandering gaze locking with those dead eyes..
I should have known, she told herself. I should have known not to trust one of them. The Dreids had already tricked the rest of the kingdom of Sivhek. What was she supposed to do?
Quartia knew she had to hide. There were too many of them, and she could hear them gaining on her. They had brought her children into it, the monsters. She couldnt control her anger and Henfrey ended up in jail. He covered for her, saving her ass while she did her undercover studies of the Dreids. She thought if she could understand them and maybe even befriend one, then she could find a partner for her travels. That person would have been Ponsii, a little Dreid she'd met upon her return to Sivhek on her last undercover mission. Though now she'd pick Henfrey, as Ponsii had told the leader of the rogue Dreids that she'd stolen the sword. Five years of apprenticeship gone up into the wind, lost in an angry storm of sudden emotion. Ponsii was like a daughter to her, so she couldnt be mad. She was merely hurt. Disappointed. Ponsii wasn't blood, but Quartia raised her. How could Ponsii do this to her? Turn her in to the monsters that killed her family. Quartia would never understand, though Ponsii would have told her. She wouldn't turn her in unless she knew Quartia would be able to run, right?
Quartia would never understand. Ponsii wouldn't be able to tell her. The dead can't speak.
She took the time to climb a tree once she heard the footsteps getting farther behind her. She didn't move. Didn't breathe. She didn't move a muscle until she was sure she was safe. She didn't know what to do. She was in the middle of the woods with an arrow in her shoulder and the most important sword in the world. Wait what? She didn't feel it until she saw it. She ripped it out and immediately regretted it as she saw a flower of blood bloom on her shirt. It wasnt all that painful, it just felt tingly. It was throbbing without pain. Was it pulsating?
She suddenly felt tired, so she used the remainder of her energy to climbed down the tree.
She didn't want to be assumed missing. If she was found, everyone in Sivhek would know. She collapsed against the tree but quickly fixed herself into a sitting position.
Quartia knew this was the end. Her end. Despite her years of adventuring, she'd never prepared. She had always used stealth to get by, so she never bothered to give survival skills a single thought. That's what Henfrey was for. He protected, fought, and healed. How did she end up in this conundrum? She was laughing in the dining hall of the castle with him and their children just this morning. And what of Ponsii? Was she a spy? Plain crazy? Was she tortured into releasing information?
Bad thoughts weren't what she needed right now. She didnt want to die stupid and confused, but here she was: Dying, stupid, and absolutely clueless. What if she wasnt found though? She hadn't thought about that possibility, not that she had much time to think of it anyway.
Quartia's eyes started to feel heavy. What would Henfrey think if she wasnt found? Would he think she ran away from her crown? Tell the kids that she must've became a gypsy? She would haunt him, no doubt.
Then she felt it: The moment when the pulsating turned to throbbing. She screamed as her body came out of shock, and the adrenaline wore off. The Drieds had done this. Poor Ponsii, her second mother gone. What would become of her other kids though? She knew Henfrey would raise them well, but her sobbing was more for them than the physical pain she felt.
As she thought of it, where had the rogue Dreids gone? Had they not wanted to be seen? How had she missed this in her research? It was painfully obvious to her now. They were going to start a war.
She laid back against the tree and saw a rugged figure running towards her in broken chains. Henfrey. His voice was muffled and his face blurred. He was frantically wrapping her wound now. She started to close her eyes as her last words escaped her lips, "Keep the dragon safe".
And her world collapsed in on itself.