Chapter Text
Chapter One
In the castle, past the milling guests, up the winding stairwell, through the halls and into the southernmost tower, the guest of honor prepared herself for the ceremony. A girl of a modest 250 years, Isis Fairblood was ready to give her pledge and be welcomed into the ranks of the warriors. As the only child of King Osiris, the rite had garnered a crowd.
Not atypically of her people, she had pale skin and large dragon-like wings emerging from her back. Tucking her wings close to her body, she pulled her brush through her long, silken black hair. It felt strange to have her hair down, usually she had it twisted into a overly-complicated style that took hours to create. Instead, she would be accepting the warrior’s oath with as little adornments as possible.
Dropping the hairbrush on the dresser, she moved to stand in front of her full-length mirror. She looked on her reflection with a critical eye, removing any hint of emotion from her face. She had already changed into the ceremonial garb and now she was just waiting for the ceremony to begin. If she weren’t a princess, she might be pacing in impatient anticipation.
Lifting her hand, she slid her fingers lightly across the small shoulderplates she wore. They were black, like the rest of her outfit, and accentuated by silver to match her eyes. The lightweight material of the ensemble was made for appearances and wouldn’t be fit to protect her in an actual emergency. Of course, nothing of the sort would be happening today. But when would she get her first assignment? Not soon enough. Everything would changed and she was ready for it.
No more balls and state functions where all they talked about were trivial things, who was marrying who and the like. They always bored Isis to tears. Now, it was all steel and leather armor in her future. Her mother despaired of her. Isis never dressed ‘lady-like’ unless she was forced into dresses. And her hobbies included fighting and Earth; not the topics of polite conversation.
Moving away from the mirror, she settled herself at her desk. In the drawer to her right, in the corner, underneath the papers she kept stuffed there, she pulled out a palm-sized crystal. It was dark, absorbing the light from the room, and old. She pushed aside the guilt with practiced ease as she gently placed the crystal in front of her.
Earth, while not expressly forbidden, was still a taboo subject. People didn’t talk about it. They pretended like it didn’t exist. But she knew that before she had even been born, Earth had once been the home of her people. But then her father had found a new world that didn’t put such a strain on their bodies and led them to it. People had cut all ties with Earth, but she liked to look on and watch the humans.
They were so curious. Smart, resourceful. Paradoxically resistant to change, but reliant on it. Whereas her people were both resistant and independent of it. Therein lie the reason it took 200 years before she had finally convinced her parents to allow her to take the warrior’s oath.
She had always wanted to take the warrior’s oath. When she had been a child and she had first proposed the notion, her father had laughed and ruffled her hair. "We would be glad to have you," he had said and she remembered his crimson eyes crinkling at the corner with mirth. Over time, when he realized this was a serious dream that she would do anything to see realized, he had been tougher on her.
The warrior's oath was a serious commitment and he wanted to make sure she and everyone else knew that when she accepted the oath, it was because she was fully capable of doing it and not just because she was the king’s daughter.
She had had to prove that she could hold her own in any fight and she had. Time and time again, but they continued to deny her. It was the king who administered the oath and if her father refused to allow her to take the warrior's oath, she was stuck on the training grounds. It was only after she had shown her skill, defeating ten of the best warriors in a combat back to back with no rest in between, that Osiris had conceded the point. She was ready.
She knew he only refused so long because he was worried about her and not because she was a poor candidate for becoming a warrior. She was his only daughter, the heir to the throne, and he loved her. But she had to do this.
She knew her mother didn't approve either, but she kept her comments mostly to herself and only tried to convince Isis whenever she thought she saw a chink in her armor. Although Freya didn’t fight herself, she had perhaps given Isis her most valuable fighting skill. She was patient and wise and knew when and where to pick her battles. Isis was more impatient than Freya, but occasionally she was able to refrain from rash decisions by thinking of her mother's kind violet eyes.
She was going to be a warrior. She was almost giddy, though she didn’t let more than a smile grace her face. It slipped from her face when the door opened and her mother strode in. She was wearing a dark gown that swept across the ground as she practically glided across the room. A belt studded with amethyst crystals was cinched around her waist to accentuate her trim build. She kept her purple dragon wings tucked tightly against her back, as was proper for a queen.
"Mother," she said, shoving the crystal back into the drawer. When she got up, she nudged the drawer closed with a twitch of her hip. "What are you doing here?" she asked, walking toward her. "Is father ready for me in the great hall?"
"No," Freya said. Her voice was light and delicate, though it was like a feather pillow with a dagger hidden inside. She could fight if she wanted to, but her weapons were her words. "Not yet."Freya dropped her hands onto Isis's shoulders and squeezed gently. "I came to speak to you. I know that I have not always been fully supportive of this," she mouth puckered at the word, "decision."
Gentle pressure forced Isis to sit on the settee behind her and Freya took a seat on her right. "I don't understand this. I still don't, even though I've been trying. When your father made that announcement, I was shocked to say the least. But, I realized that you may have picked up on my distaste for you taking the warrior's oath and I want you to know. I am proud of you."
Isis's eyes prickled and she looked down at their clasped hands. Her mother's hands were even paler than her own. "Thank you. Hearing that, it, it makes me happy." She looked into Freya's eyes. "I feared that I had disappointed you."
Freya wrapped her arms around her and pulled her into a hug. "Never."
The doubts that plagued her, driven by her mother, eased slightly with her words. Freya had always said being a warrior was not a befitting pastime for a princess. She could not comprehend that being a warrior was not a pastime for Isis. It was a lifestyle that she planned on fully embracing and to have her mother here with her before her initiation was important.
Freya smiled tightly and got to her feet. She looked into Isis's face, searching for hesitation or a shift in her determination. "There's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise?" she asked. Isis shook her head firmly and she nodded, closing her eyes and sighing. "Then yes, I am proud of you. If this is what you want?" She peeked at her and Isis nodded once again. "If this is what you want, then this is what I want."
She took a deep breath and looked like she was fortifying herself. Before she could say anything else, there was a knock at the door. She gathered her dress around her and headed for the door. She opened it and exchanged words with the person on the other side. Finally, she turned back to Isis. "Well, I suppose this is my cue to leave. I'll see you in a little bit." Isis waved to her mother as Freya glided through to the door. She left the door open as she left and Tau entered. Isis smiled when she saw him.
Tau was dark and handsome in a brooding kind of way. He had dark, thin eyebrows that seemed perpetually lowered over his eyes when he was happy, sad or smugly self-satisfied. His eyes were just as dark as the rest of them, giving the appearance of being black when they were actually just a dark brown. His wings were black and the underside was a sharp red in contrast.
He was always wearing dark colors and dressed more like a prince than Isis did like a princess. That was why her mother liked him so much. That and she didn't know he shared her fascination with Earth.
She’d known him for over a century. His father had been one of the king's most trusted generals and had been killed fifty years earlier. One of the creatures bound to the dungeons had been set free and it had killed his father as he defended the castle.
He shut the door behind himself and she wrapped her arms around him in an impromptu hug. Allowing her mask to slip just a little, she said, "I'm so glad you're here."
"This is unexpected," he said in his deep voice, though he returned her embrace. "What's this for? Are you getting cold feet?"
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Definitely not.” He made a dubious sound and dropped heavily onto the settee, his dark wings stretching out lazily behind him. She settled her hands on her hips. “What?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I wasn’t so sure you would go through with this.” She pressed her lips together and kept the pain from her face. Tau had become a warrior not long before his father's death and had helped her train over the years as she struggled to get her father's approval. Hadn’t he believed in her?
Something must have showed on her face. “I’m just saying, this is a choice and I wasn’t sure which one you were going to choose. When you accept the oath, there's no going back. You'll never have the life you imagined. No princess has ever accepted the warrior's oath. It's an anomaly. You're giving up on everything."
“The warrior's way is my way,” she said firmly. “I'm going to take the oath tonight."
“Okay, wonderful.” He made a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s goodbye to all your silly frippery. No more dresses and galas. It's just the important stuff from now on. Maybe it’s not what I expected, but I do think it's fortunate that you've decided to give up on the princess-thing."
Angrily, she whirled around to face him. "I haven't given up on the whole 'princess-thing,'" she said in a tightly controlled voice. "I am King Osiris's daughter. No matter what I do I will always be Princess Isis. And one day I will be queen. Remember that."
Something flickered across his face and he lifted his hands in supplication. "Of course, Isis. I didn't mean to insult you. I just meant that as a warrior you can do more for our people than as a princess."
“Being a princess is not all frivolity. My mother is very involved with that type of the thing but as a Queen she does a lot for the people. It doesn't have to just be frippery. Maybe I should have listened to my mother more, growing up. Perhaps, all this time, I've just been doing the 'princess-thing' wrong. Maybe that's what she's been trying to tell me all this time."
She looked up when Tau got to his feet. He approached her and dropped his hands to her shoulders, smoothing his thumbs across her neck. "Isis. This is important. Are you getting cold feet? Because taking the warrior's oath with half a heart will get you killed."
"No." She shook her head vehemently. "No. I am not having second thoughts. Trust me. It's just with my mother having just been in here, I've been thinking about where she was coming from. I don't think I gave her a fair chance growing up, but I do think that even if I had, I still would have chosen the warrior's path. This is where I belong. This is my duty. I think I could do the most good as a warrior."
He smiled and gently squeezed her shoulders. "Good. Good. The ceremony is about to start. Shall we go?"
She nodded and, together, they left the room.
*
"I present my daughter, the Princess Isis Fairblood, into the ranks of warriors." King Osiris was resplendent in his gold trimmed ceremonial armor. His dark hair was slick back against his head his dark red wings were spread out behind him.
Seeing him standing there, in all his kingly glory, reiterated for Isis what this oath meant. This wasn't her father asking her if she was going to be committed to helping the people. This was the king demanding her blood oath to helping the people. "Isis Fairblood, do you accept this responsibility and all that entails."
"I do, Your Majesty," she said, keeping her head bowed.
"Do you swear to uphold the laws of this nation and this crown?"
"I do, Your Majesty."
"Do you swear to put the needs of those under your protection above your own?"
"I do, Your Majesty." Hearing the oath, in this setting, relaxed Isis for some reasons. She had thought it would be a big commitment and that she would have to meditate on the questions in order to be able to answer truly.
But now, hearing her father reciting the warrior's oath, it put everything in perspective. It was like taking an oath to be a princess, except with an added element. She'd been doing this all her life and now it was in an official capacity. She could answer every question with "I do, Your Majesty," knowing she could and would uphold the warrior's oath.
Finally, the oath came to a close and Osiris asked the last question. "I do, Your Majesty," Isis answered. The dagger swiped across her hand in one quick motion and blood welled up from the wound. It trickled over her pale hand and splattered on the ground, binding her essence to her word.
"Then rise, Warrior Fairblood . Rise and take your place amongst the warriors."
She got to her feet and went to stand next to Tau. She stared straight ahead, ignoring the crowd that had packed into the Great Hall and assembled in the balconies. She stared as her father finished his speech.
"My people, look at your warriors. They will protect you with every breath they breathe to the last drop of lifeblood in them. These are your warriors." He lifted his hand a cheer spread through the crowd. She let the sound wash over her.
Isis wasn't sure how long the cheers continued. But then they grew distant, faded, and she was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread. The air went sharp and bright and she had to lift her hands to her eyes to shield herself from it. Distantly, she heard the cheers turn to screams.
Abruptly, the translucent quality of her sight was the least of her problems. The ground began to quake, shuddering with the same apprehension she felt. Her hands flailed out, crashing into Tau as they both struggled to stay on their feet. The floor cracked and shattered like glass; fractures rent the ground in two. Bending her legs underneath her, she launched herself upward to escape the buckling floor.
With the structural integrity compromised, giant slabs of rock fell from the ceiling and Isis had to twist and turn in the air to avoid them. She swooped toward the balconies, keeping her eyes peeled for something out of the ordinary, well, out of the ordinary excluding the earthquake. One thing she was certain of, the earthquake was not natural. On some plane, there had been a disturbance. Something so profound, it manifested physically and made her vision go fuzzy.
She landed unsteadily on the gilded railing and took deep breaths to get herself under control. The flap of wings was the only warning she got before Tau dropped down beside her. His hand on her shoulder was warm. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Pinching her lips together, she stiffened her spine and made herself look okay, even if she wasn't quite feeling it. "This earthquake isn't a natural shifting of the land. Something else has happened. Something beyond our realm." His gaze grew grim and he nodded.
"Any idea what?"
"Not yet. I'll have to discuss it with my father."
“Let’s get these people out of here first,” he said. She nodded her agreement around a tight smile.