"Leave the kingdom before sunrise, or you'll die by my hand."
Those were the first words Nyxelene said to her daughter in years.
It wasn't as if Rya had been waiting for a loving reunion. No, that time had long since passed, if there ever was such a time. Nothing was left to say between a mother who hated her daughter, and a daughter who had learned to hate in return. Now, Rya ran through the shadowy woods with nothing but the night to keep her company.
She didn't know where she was going—only that she had to keep moving. The queen never gave empty threats. If she said she would kill Rya, she meant it.
She heard shouts and noise behind her, sharp and getting closer in the distance. The soldiers of Runevale were closing in fast. Sadly, she couldn't run any faster; two whole days of nothing but running and hiding through these endless woods had drained almost every drop of energy from her body. Whatever edible fruit she came across she had swallowed down, sour or not, and kept moving without rest.
This was a struggle for survival on both sides. The soldiers could not return to the capital without killing her. The thought of walking back into the palace, standing in front of Nyxelene, and telling her they had failed to kill the princess was more terrifying than any public execution the kingdom could dream up. No one wanted to be in the same room as someone who could stop your heart with a glance whenever she pleased.
So they hunted Rya to save their own lives.
Rya fled to save hers.
Neither side could afford to lose this game.
Rya twisted her head to look back, straining to see through the gloom, but dusk had fallen. The moon hung low and pale, its rays barely piercing the dense canopy the trees had woven overhead. Visibility was almost nothing; everything more than a few paces away melted into the shadows.
Because she was looking back, she never saw the thick, gnarled root jutting up from the earth like a trap. Her boot caught it hard. She pitched forward, arms too slow to break her fall. Her face scraped rough bark, lower lip splitting open with a wet burst of pain. Blood poured hot and into her mouth.
She spat out the red, pushed up on trembling arms, legs shaking beneath her. And then she realised the forest had gone strangely quiet. The crashing, the shouts, everything had stopped.
"Did they give up to make camp for the night?" Rya whispered through harsh, ragged breaths that burned her throat. She glanced back again, eyes wide and stinging with sweat and blood.
"If they did, then I mustn't waste this chance. I have to put as much distance between us as I possibly can. I can't throw away the second chance Michael bought me." She wiped the blood oozing from her lower lip with the back of her dirty hand, smearing it across her cheek, and forced herself upright. She started stumbling forward again no longer running, just refusing to stay still.
The forest finally, mercifully, gave way to a wide open field bathed in cold moonlight. She slipped behind the biggest tree she could find and pressed her back against the trunk, peeking out with one eye.
"What in the world…?"
The words slipped out barely louder than the wind.
Before her, the entire field had become a battlefield.
A single man dressed in a plain black uniform moved across the grass, sprinting straight toward an oncoming wave of soldiers clad in heavy brown and silver armor. What struck her hardest was how completely exposed he was: no helmet, no chest plate, no greaves, no armor at all. Just soft black fabric clinging to a lean frame.
The first of the brown-armored soldiers charged with a bellow that shook the night.
"Die, you bastard king! I'll carve that crown off your skull!"
A dozen more roared right behind him, in their hands were axes, spears, massive warhammers, wicked curved blades and more. They looked unstoppable, armored from head to toe in thick plate.
But it didn't matter.
Bodies in brown and silver already lay scattered everywhere across the grass, some still twitching, telling the whole story of whose favor the night belonged to.
The red soldiers standing calm behind the man in black held their ground with nothing more than a sword in one hand and a simple round shield in the other. Compared to the enemy they looked almost naked, underdressed and underarmed. Yet they moved with terrifying purpose, reacting fast, striking faster, cutting men in full plate down like wheat.
And then there was the man in black himself.
He carried only a longsword. Nothing else. No shield. No second blade. Just that single length of steel.
Rya couldn't take her eyes off him.
There was no doubt left in her mind.
This was not a battle.
It was a massacre.
And the man in black was its conductor.
She sank into a low crouch, she no longer had the strength to stand. She stretched her neck just enough to keep watching over the lip of the grass.
One of the biggest brown-cloaked soldiers broke from the line with a roar that rattled her bones. "For the fallen, you monster!"
He swung a massive double-headed axe from the right in a blur meant to cleave the man in black clean in two from shoulder to hip.
But the man in black didn't even flinch. In one smooth, lazy motion he tossed his longsword into his left hand and spun inside the arc. Steel met steel with a scream of metal. The deflection was so powerful that the soldier in brown staggered backward, his footing lost.
Before the soldier could even register what had happened, the man in black stepped in close and thrust the longsword straight through the tiny gap beneath the breastplate. The blade punched through mail and flesh and heart and spine, bursting out the soldier's back in a wet spray of blood that painted the grass black under the moon.
"Curse… you…" the dying giant gurgled, blood bubbling from his lips, eyes already glazing. Then his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground, armor clanging one final time like a death knell.
Rya's hand flew to her own bleeding lip, fingers coming away slick and red. She had never seen a battle so one-sided.
From deep inside the brown ranks, another soldier started yelling, voice high and shaking with fear and fury at the same time.
"Everyone, go in at once! All together, damn it! Don't believe those groundless rumors! No matter how powerful he may be, he's still flesh! We hit him all at once and he bleeds like anybody else!"
The words barely left his mouth when a young man in red stepped out from behind the man in black. His eyes were burning, focused, almost hungry. He gave the man in black one short, respectful nod.
"Your Majesty," he said, voice firm and clear. "I'll take the left flank."
Then the two of them moved together. Like they had fought side by side since the day they were born. They tore into what was left of the brown-cloaked army the same way a wolf pack tears into a wounded stag: fast, clean, no mercy, no wasted motion.
One of the brown soldiers leapt high into the air, screaming the whole way. He brought a butcher's sword down with everything he had, aiming to split the red soldier's skull straight down the middle.
The red soldier didn't even look worried.
He took one smooth step to the side. Then another. Then his sword swang up faster than Rya's eyes could follow. The blade buried itself halfway through the big man's neck. Blood sprayed out in a thick, hot fountain. The body hit the ground like a sack of stones, head hanging by only a strip of meat.
The red soldier didn't blink. Didn't smile. Just flicked the blood off his blade and kept moving.
More brown-cloaks rushed them in one last desperate wave, screaming, swinging, dying. The man in black moved between them like a shadow that had learned how to kill. Parry, spin and cut. Every single swing of his longsword ended another life. Every step he took brought him closer to the end of the fight.
Soon only about fifty of the enemy were still standing. Their eyes were huge, white all around, darting everywhere for an escape that didn't exist.
"What kingdom are these people even from?" Rya thought, staring hard at the man in black. "One of the Three Great Kingdoms? They look so strong." Rya said, even though she had never seen a battle or the armors any of the Three Great Kingdoms wore. She barely attended important meeting, so how could she know.
Then the shout came, cracked and broken.
"Curse it all—retreat! Run! Every man for himself!"
It was their leader. He didn't wait to see if anyone followed orders. He just turned and ran, shoving his own men aside as he bolted for the far trees.
The man in black didn't chase. He just stood there in the middle of the field, calm as a graveyard. He looked at the young red soldier beside him and rested one hand on the man's shoulder.
"If even one of them escapes tonight," he said, voice so low it barely carried, "you might as well keep running with them."
The young soldier went stiff as a board as cold shivers ran through him. He swallowed once, hard, and dropped his eyes.
"Yes, Your Majesty,"
He spun on his heel and roared at the red soldiers waiting at the rear.
"After them! Not a single one gets away—move, move, now!"
The whole red line surged forward like a crimson flood. They crashed loose. They chased the runners down without mercy.
Screams rose again. Men begged. Men stumbled. Men died. Some got swords in the back. Some got shields smashed into their faces until helmets caved in. Some just fell to their knees and waited for the end. None of them made it more than thirty steps.
The man in black stood perfectly still the whole time, watching with those cold, distant eyes. Just him being there felt like the night itself was scared to move wrong.
And then it was over. The brown-cloaked army wasn't beaten. It was gone.
The battlefield finally went quiet except for the soft whistle of wind through the tall grass.
The red soldiers lost it. They started cheering loud enough to wake the dead. Swords stabbed up at the night sky. Men shouted themselves hoarse. Some grabbed each other in rough hugs. Some laughed until they cried. Some just dropped to their knees and thanked whatever gods they believed in.
The young red soldier walked up to the man in black. His boots made wet sounds in the mud. He wiped sweat and blood off his face with the back of his hand and grinned, tired but proud.
"We took care of every last one, Your Majesty," he said, letting out a long breath like the weight of the world had just rolled off his shoulders.
The man in black didn't smile. He didn't even look at red soldier right away. He just stared out across the field, eyes narrow, like he was listening to something far away.
"No," he said. One word. Flat ans cold.
The cheering stopped dead.
Smiles froze on faces. Laughter died in throats. The whole field went so quiet Rya could hear her own heartbeat.
"But… we killed them all," one soldier muttered, confused.
"I swept the whole field twice," another said. "There's nobody left breathing."
The young red soldier frowned, looking from the bodies to the man in black. "What do you mean, Your Majesty?"
The man in black turned his head until his eyes locked straight on the tree line.
Straight on the exact spot where Rya was crouched behind the oak.
"There's still one left," he said, voice quiet but heavy enough to crush stone.
Harion followed his gaze. So did every red soldier on the field.
Rya felt her heart drop so fast it hurt. Like someone had reached inside her chest and yanked it straight down into her stomach.
She was the one left.
To My Future Readers,
They say to write the story that burns in your soul, the one you can't not tell.
Eclipse of Twilight is that story for me.
I am so excited—and a little nervous—to finally share Rya and Nyxelene's world with you. This story is my heart, and I can't wait to hear what you think.
Welcome, and thank you for giving this a chance.