With the speed of a cat, while the splinters were still hanging midair, Hawthorne spun his body around and swept his foot towards his opponents head. The attack was so quick that Aeron wasn't hurt; it actually pushed the assassin a foot and a half into the air.
Aeron was curious, why had that not hurt?
That was Hawthorne's intention. Swiftly, Hawthorne rolled forward and halfway through, slid straight, so that he slid under Aeron and stopped facing the rising assassin's back.
Hawthorne cocked both arms back and double punched upwards into Aeron's back. Air whooshed from the swordsman's lungs as he was pushed even higher into the air. The impact from the attack gave Hawthorne a couple feet between him and Aeron.
Hawthorne looked to his right and saw the lip of the meeting table, just an arm's length away now. "This is going to hurt you, just as much as it is going to hurt me." Hawthorne promised Aeron with a forewarned wince.
Hawthorne quickly performed a handspring to his feet and, crouched just under Aeron with his legs coiled underneath him. Hawthorne exploded from the ground towards Aeron's rising form. He grabbed the assassin around the waist, twisted midair, and arched the two of them towards the wall, easily angling Aeron head first towards the raised lip of the dance floor.
Aeron collided with the raised floor, and his head plowed through the woodwork with a painful cracking and crunching sound as the wood shattered under the enormous pressure from the attack.
Hawthorne let go and managed to aim himself towards the level below. He landed with ease and rolled to his feet. Then, Hawthorne looked back at the assassin and a look of brief sadness flashed across his face.
Aeron's body hung vertical for the briefest moment, suspended in an ephemeral moment in time, then he collapsed, head still firmly stuck into the ground. The rest of him hit the ground in an uncomfortable position, but Aeron was still breathing.
"That had to hurt," Hawthorne said to himself. He looked down at one of his hands and noticed one of his nails bleeding. "Dammit! I broke a nail!" He exclaimed in frustration. Aeron slashed at his arm while he was distracted. The assassin cursed at him and fought back. Together they tousled still more, but the meeting hall had been crowded with other fighters on all sides and it soon became hard for them to move much at all, let alone fight. The table was now splintered and what was left of it had mostly been reduced to ashes, and they had to move whenever the crowd moved to making way for the stomping of the giants. It soon became clear they would both have to give up on their fight there.
Hawthorne looked up at the prince, and looked above him to see that the rest of the Blue Crows at least had finally come down from the second story to fight with their prince. Not only had fighting become difficult, but now it had become a losing battle. As a daemon, his transportation spells were very limited compared to a dragon's ability to float in and out of existence at any spot they liked, but there was still at least one realm he'd always have the power to return to in an emergency. Aeron saw his shadow flames start to envelop him to take him away. He stood up from his fighting stance now, while he still had a chance, and asked the man, "Why did you do it? You have been loyal to my father for centuries. You helped him gain the throne. You helped raise me. Why did you betray us in this way?"
The retreating daemon shook his head at him. "I have been, and will always be, loyal to the throne. I've always been loyal to you, my prince," he said. He was now completely insubstantial, and his voice was starting to grow faint. "I will not stand by and support that impostor after all this time though. I regret that you were involved in any of this. I will always be loyally yours even if you no longer trust me with this," he said. The last of his shadow faded out of sight.
The forces of the crown were slowly succeeding in pushing the invaders outside of the palace. Those who were still straggling inside the halls and chamber itself were shoved into the transportation room, where a portal destination was set as one of the previous monarch's strongholds to be imprisoned and dealt with in the future. Richard came down to meet with his brother, a palace physician left behind to tend to the king and put him in the untouched medical wing. They both looked on as the palace guard dealt with the invasion. Richard stepped closer to his brother. "All of this, it was just so unexpected," he whispered.
Aeron looked at him. "Really? It has been brought to my attention that you, dear brother, were the force behind these attacks," he said.
Richard's eyes widened. "Me!" He turned his head to look away. "I suppose it doesn't help matters any, but I swear Aeron, I had no idea. We had meetings and we talked together, but no one ever mentioned regicide was part of the plan. I just wanted to gain power, maybe annoy you a little or a lot if that happened. I never meant for either of you to be killed," he said.
Aeron just sighed. "You put your strength behind rebels who hated dragons. What made you think that they only hated some of us, that they wanted to be nice and kind to the people you wanted them to be kind to? You're too young and delusional to be playing these games of court intrigue yet, brother mine."
The younger dragon bristled at the description but he knew
