Katryna, realising her brother’s plan, leapt into action and took off as fast as she could. Her bare feet sped her through the sandy grass towards the rocks, faster than she had ever gone before as the creek water flowed to her side.
The rocks grew larger. She was closing in.
She had to win this title!
Katryna kept her eyes on the outcrop, not looking away for anything.
Her legs ached; her feet hurt. But she willed herself forward. I’m going to win!
Within seconds, she had reached it, taking a deep breath, and cheering for herself at her victory. Willem had not yet reached the end. Katryna spun around to boast in his face.
“Fastest in the kingdom, fastest in the kingdom,” Katryna sang, spinning around in circles.
Katryna looked at the creek, awaiting her brother with an eager smile of victory spread out across her sun-kissed face.
The water in the creek continued to flow rather speedily, but she could not see Willem anywhere.
Has he not surfaced? He’s probably under the water waiting to scare me!
Katryna scanned the surface of the clear water. Every ripple and wave of the flowing water was taken in and checked, but still, Willem did not appear.
Another ten seconds passed before Katryna began to worry. Where was he?
“Willem?” Katryna shouted. She looked around, at the rocks, behind the trees around her. There weren’t many places for him to hide, but still, she could not spot him. Where had he gone?
“Willem?! Where are you?”
Katryna began to panic. She did not know what to do.
Her brain became overloaded as she checked every conceivable spot for her brother. She dove into the water, checking underneath the surface to find him.
Her heartbeat from her chest. Her breathing accelerated.
Katryna searched upstream to where Willem had jumped into the water at the start of the race. She saw nothing amongst the rocks and reeds, still nothing under the water.
As she went back to check downstream, Katryna saw it.
A half-submerged form almost hidden against the creek bank in a patch of reeds.
Katryna raced through the water, feeling every drop dragging against her body, pulling her backwards as if trying to prevent her from getting to her brother.
No, no, no.
As she got closer, she saw Willem face down and lifeless, bobbing up and down. The water around him was bright red and cloudy.
Katryna reached him, turning her brother over to see two eyes wide open and motionless. On Willem’s forehead was a huge gash, so deep she could see the white of his skull.
Blood spewed out into her arms and spread into the water.
Willem was white, his skin cold.
Katryna shrieked. She shook her brother’s lifeless body, still holding him in her arms. He was so heavy.
“Help! Somebody, please!”
Katryna shook Willem again. His arms were limp. His pupils grew wide and dark.
She smacked her brother hard in the face, trying anything to wake him up.
Katryna’s world was spinning all around her. The sound of the rushing creek transformed into agonising screams. The summer colours around her faded into black and white. Her mind went completely blank as every muscle in her body seized.
She froze.
Somebody jumped into the water next to her.
And then another.
City guards. Katryna could tell from their familiar uniforms.
They pulled the body from her arms. Katryna stood still, totally immobilised, waist-deep in the creek.
Hands pulled her from the water.
What is happening? What did I do?
Within what seemed like seconds, or hours, Katryna was back at Castle Bower, being carried in the arms of a city guardsmen.
Beside her was another guard, carrying her brother’s corpse. His skin was white like moonlight. Katryna could not take her eyes off him. Her mouth was held firmly shut.
Everything was blurry and time seemed to be both standing still yet speeding up all around her at once.
Katryna’s mother and father, Giliam and Mira, raced towards them as they entered through the gatehouse.
Katryna’s chest ached, and she vomited all over herself.
She heard screams… No, those weren’t screams.
The wails that came from her mother’s mouth were unlike anything Katryna had ever heard.
It was a primal, inhuman howl.
How could a human be capable of producing such a sound?
It was the sound of agonising grief.
Willem was dropped at their feet. Still, he did not move. The blood from his head wound had stopped pumping.
Katryna’s mother was on her knees, screaming. Her father, like her, was completely frozen stiff.
Mira shrieked as she cradled her dead son.
The world around Katryna was completely drowned out as she closed her eyes, escaping everything and heading into the darkness.
Her mother screamed as she wept. “Katryna, what have you done?!”
Chapter 13 - Candlelight
Wesley Seynard stood on the balcony to his sleeping quarters, his only company the starry night sky. He was bare-skinned, besides the pants he had on from that evening. The cool western air was like knives on his bare chest.
Wesley rested his face in his hands against the stone balustrade with decorative pillars shaped like spears, reminiscent of his House’s sigil. His head was still spinning from all the wine he’d had earlier.
The view so high up over Andervale was quite spectacular. The city sat on a giant plateau, surrounded by farmlands. As a boy, Wesley remembered being told an old legend of a subterranean titan named Stenua, trapped beneath the earth by the Moon Mother as a punishment for provoking Rea and Ixo, Eos’ two moons, to fight and destroy each other.
Stenua tried to escape his underground imprisonment, leading to plateaus and mountains to form across the land as he punched the earth from below ground. Andervale was built on one such rise.
Growing up in Chateau Cardell and overlooking the
