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Queen Rionach’s cries seeped through the cracks of old Oberon Castle. Along with the cold morning air, her screams reached Valda’s chamber. The young girl fell from her bed, scrambling, terrified. She ran to the door, her tiny ear pressed to the thick wood. There were footsteps on the other side, and she wondered if she should peek out. She wasn’t supposed to. Her mother had always told her to stay inside her chamber if she were to hear racket outside. Yet the queen never mentioned anything about what to do if she was the one making the racket. Valda pulled on the latch and opened the door. The guards on each side looked at her, surprised to see her up.

She wasn’t supposed to do that. She wasn’t supposed to leave her room, not at this time. She was supposed to wait for a chambermaid to wake her up.

But her mother needed her.

Ignoring their questioning gazes, Valda ran down the hall as fast as her short legs would allow her. The guards followed her, their armors clattering behind her. The grand chamber wasn’t far from hers, but tonight, it felt like it was. The guards that normally stood by the grand chamber were missing. A rare occurrence must’ve happened for them not to be there. As Valda pushed the door open, her confusion cleared up when she saw the chief general of the Skylian army.

Arwin turned to her, his face battered, bruised, and tired. His leather armor was torn and useless. Valda’s nose scrunched at the smell of blood; a distinctive scent she could recognize at only six years old.

“Valda…” His hoarse voice dropped to a whisper.

“Is she here?”

Valda focused her attention on her mother. The young woman sat on the edge of the bed; her face tear drenched. The young girl opened her mouth, but Arwin picked her up. The smell of blood was stronger, so Valda pushed him away.

Thankfully, her mother stood from the bed and pulled her from the general’s arms. Valda welcomed the teary kiss and wrapped her arms around her neck, hiding away from Arwin and his ravaged demeanor.

“What happened to him?” Queen Rionach asked, her hand gently stroking Valda’s back.

“You need to come to the throne room,” Arwin answered.

Rionach’s hold on Valda tightened. The young girl turned to look at her and then at Arwin, whose expression saddened as they made eye contact.

“What happened to my mate, Arwin?!”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he focused on Valda. She moved in her mother’s arms uncomfortably. Arwin had a scary face. Though many chambermaids called him handsome, she couldn’t find a fragment of beauty in his visage. The left side of his face had been marred.

“Arwin, what happened to Brontes?”

He shook his head. “I am here for you. They need you in the throne room—”

“He is dead! I felt it… The bond, I felt it break!”

Arwin nodded and attempted to grab her, but Rionach slapped his dirty hand and ran down the grand hall, running past injured soldiers and worried handmaids.

Valda clung to her mother’s neck until she stopped at the entrance of the throne room.Taking a deep breath, Rionach moved a shaky hand to push the heavy door open, her voice calling out to the king.

“Brontes?”

The king’s body lay on a large, marbled platform, surrounded by even more dead and injured men. Handle gripped in his hands; the Heaven Sword lay over his chest. Although his eyes were closed, Valda knew that his slumber wasn’t a normal one. Valda understood death. She knew that once someone died, they fell into a deep sleep, never to wake again. Her father was death-sleep, and he was battered too, like Arwin.

The general walked in, holding his injured side. His attention fell on Brontes, then to Rionach, and finally settled on Valda. His gaze softened and his jaw quivered.

Was…was he about to cry too?

Valda frowned as reality dawned on her.

Her father was dead…

Brontes Aither, King of the Sky Kingdom, lay dead before her very eyes.

“Momma?” Valda pulled on her mother’s blouse, but the young woman was barely holding on, with lost and clouded eyes. She tugged at her blouse, but her mother wasn’t there. All she saw was a husk of what she used to be.

Between the sobbing of the broken warriors around them, the general’s steady and clumsy steps filtered through Valda’s senses. She turned just in time to see him running his fingers through his silver hair, and promptly touching the scar on his face. He carefully laid his arm on Rionach to usher them out of the throne room and back to the grand chamber.

“We will make preparations for the king’s burial,” Arwin whispered once they were inside and alone.