Page 7 of Legacy of the Heirs (The Lost Kingdom Saga #2)

Elisara

W ater and blood trailed down the wet brick walls of the hallway.

Elisara rubbed the back of her head to ease the throbbing and narrowed her eyes, adjusting her vision in the darkness.

With no clue as to her whereabouts, she trailed her fingers along the wet stone, yet felt no liquid on her hands.

She felt nothing. Dripping echoed from where a puddle formed at her feet, mirroring her reflection.

Elisara’s black locks draped against the golden chains that supported her silk red dress.

Red.

Something tugged at her memory as Elisara stumbled forward, her bare feet splashing through the puddle and distorting her image. While she appeared mostly the same, there was no mistaking her glowing white eyes that cast a faint light in the darkness.

Elisara stumbled backward into metal bars, yet the expectant sting of cold metal did not follow.

She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes. Moonlight filtered through a small hole at the top of the wall, illuminating the dark, damp hallway.

There was something oddly familiar about her surroundings.

Cautiously, she leaned forward to peer into the moonlit puddle, where her white eyes still glowed. Footsteps sounded in the distance.

Elisara slid with her back along the bars, feeling her way to the dark corner below the hole in the wall.

The footsteps were heavy yet slow, as though the owner did not wish to alert anyone to their arrival.

She pressed against the brick wall, concealed by the shadows.

Metal bars glinted to her right, yet she remained focused on the dark hallway, holding her breath while waiting for whoever might emerge.

The boot stomped through the puddle, creating a ripple-effect beneath the light.

Elisara’s eyes followed the broad legs of the person who now turned to the bars, oblivious to her presence.

She tensed when her eyes landed on the person’s face and attempted to back further into the wall, desperate for it to swallow her whole.

Elisara would do anything to avoid confronting this moment again.

Izaiah Hakim, Kazaar’s second-in-command, stood before the bars, his expression hungry and demanding.

His hunched back forced his head down at an angle that made him appear like a predator towering above his prey.

Elisara’s heart thundered and breath quickened as she wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking before his presence.

Izaiah pulled a set of keys from his pocket, twisting one slowly in the doors to what she now remembered as her cell.

The suffocating, damp room neighboured many empty cells in the dungeons below the palace boundary wall.

Its underground location only added to the chill, which became more apparent in the absence of the Keres sun.

Panic chilled Elisara’s bones, who trembled at the thought of returning here.

She now remembered why she recognised the hole in the wall; it was her only glimpse of the outside world during the nights of her military training.

She forced her feet to move as the cell creaked open, frantically looking at the past version of herself that Izaiah approached.

“Get up!” Elisara screamed at her sleeping form.

“Get up!” She tried to make her way around Izaiah, but his broad build filled the doorway.

He tossed the keys aside and fiddled with the buckle holding up his dagger-filled belt, which rattled as he approached.

Elisara screamed at the young woman who lay on the low camp bed in the cell's corner, sleeping. When she woke, Izaiah’s hand muffled her scream as he climbed atop her.

Elisara froze at the sound of footsteps in the distance, having never considered what was happening outside of the barred walls.

Young Elisara bit hard on Izaiah’s thumb, and he cursed, clambering off her.

“You bitch!” he spat. Elisara knew what came next.

She pressed her hands against the wet floor, the concrete turning to ice as she recklessly guided it towards Israar’s boots.

He sneered at her. “You think you can stop me?” Laughing, he took a step forward and his boot froze midair.

He tried to shift his ankle, but the ice climbed until it encased his calves.

Running footsteps sounded in the distance, and a shout rang out that Elisara had never recalled at that moment.

“Elisara!” a voice shouted.

Kazaar. An image flashed before Elisara of Kazaar facing her in a different room.

She was with him before waking here, she realised.

Elisara’s heart tugged in different directions—toward the man coming to save this past version of herself, and the other who betrayed Elisara during her final moments of lucidity.

Before Kazaar made it to the cell, ice crawled up the body of the man who had haunted Elisara in every waking moment since then.

Upon reaching his neck, Izaiah sputtered, no doubt trying to conjure another expletive.

Yet when her saviour rounded into the cell, Elisara screamed, and Izaiah Hakim shattered.

Blood and ice scattered, and the bloodied parts of him were indiscernible.

Elisara instinctually raised her arm, and although she acknowledged this was a nightmare, it felt real.

The smell of iron filled her nose while she stood in Izaiah’s bloodied remains.

Sobs sounded from the corner of the cell. Elisara pulled her arm away to find Kazaar stepping tentatively towards her past self. He reached for her, and she sobbed again as his hand found her shoulder. When she didn’t recoil, he pulled her into him.

“It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair, frowning at the shards of his second-in-command across the floor.

Elisara stepped slowly from the cell’s shadows, watching with intrigue.

Ever since the night in question, she had tried to erase every reminder from memory.

She had forgotten how quickly Kazaar arrived and his clear concern.

He presented himself so differently compared to his demeanour throughout training.

“It’s okay,” he said again.

“No!” she shouted, shoving at his chest. “It’s not okay! None of this is okay!” Elisara watched herself crawl backward on the bed, fortifying the icy walls in her mind as she shielded her face from him. Pain flitted across Kazaar’s face.

“You go home tomorrow,” he whispered. “It will all be over.”

Elisara frowned at her past self, who cowered in the corner. You go home tomorrow . It had sounded different back then, like Kazaar was exhausted, tired of dealing with Elisara, desperate for her to leave.

Kazaar rose. His eyes glowed as he melted Izaiah’s remains and backed out of the cell. “You won’t have to see me again,” he said.

Shadows crept into Elisara’s vision and crawled along the floor toward him.

Elisara stepped forward, feeling oddly drawn to the darkness as they surrounded Kazaar.

She peered into the floor’s wet reflection, where the same white eyes appeared—except now, tendrils of black streaked through them.

She stumbled forward, and the darkness engulfed her once again.

***

Elisara blinked rapidly at the sudden change in light, confronted by the beating sun of Keres.

She clambered back when she realised. She stood at the edge of the canyon rock, kicking up red dust as she did.

She coughed and shielded her eyes, and after finally steadying herself, she assessed her surroundings.

Twenty recruits stood lined up along the canyon rock above the Abis forge; half were dressed in emerald-green, while the others wore red.

Elisara’s heart quickened, recognising the next nightmare to unfold.

Elisara watched her past-self furiously summon gusts of air until a plume of red dust soared above her.

She swung her arm, directing it toward Kazaar, who stood several steps away from the edge.

He stood rigid with his legs braced wide and his arms crossed as Elisara strode forward, spreading her fingers apart and summoning her power as fury contorted her features.

Elisara moved toward herself; she would do anything to prevent watching another nightmare unfold.

Before the harsh wind reached Kazaar, Caellum stepped in front of the commander, about to confront him.

“Caellum!” a young Elisara screamed as the wind hurtled toward him, knocking him over the edge of the forge.

Elisara ran alongside herself, peering over the precipice to the lava-filled river created by the deadly waterfall on the opposite side of the ravine.

The clash and clatter of metal workers echoed as the young Elisara flattened herself on the dusty ground and extended her hand to Caellum, who hung from a tree jutting out from the side of the cliff top.

Elisara frowned. The oddness of the standalone tree in an area so desolate had never crossed her mind before.

She remembered how this scene played out.

Elisara would help Caellum up before Kazaar dismissed them for the day.

So, instead of watching herself, she turned to watch Kazaar.

He stood with the broad stance as before, except his arms were no longer crossed but hung loosely by his sides.

She clocked the slight twitch of his fingers and frowned, glancing back over the edge.

The tree branch moved so subtly she almost missed it, curving upwards as Caellum reached for Elisara, who pulled him back over the edge.

Kazaar’s hand flourished once more before he turned away, and the tree nestled back into the crack of the canyon.

Elisara ignored the rest of the vision, staring at the spot where the tree had been.

Before now, she had always thought herself lucky that a tree had been there to save Caellum. But Kazaar had saved him, using his abilities to extend the tree and catch Caellum’s fall.

“You are a flight risk, princess. You have no control, and that will end up killing someone you love,” Kazaar said, tight-lipped. “You and the prince are dismissed.”

Another image flashed through Elisara’s mind of Kazaar standing opposite her in a small room as vines crawled closer before bursting into flames.

She blinked and turned back to him, assessing the sudden softness in his eyes as a young Elisara stormed away.

His familiar scent of smoke and embers drifted toward her, yet something was absent from his skin as if a layer of his scent was missing.

Kazaar turned suddenly, and she faced her reflection in his dark gaze.

Shadows reached out and overtook the white glow in her eyes, engulfing her yet again.

***

“You have completed your training,” Kazaar’s deep voice carried across the Ashun Desert, patrolling the lines of recruits.

Elisara raised her hand to peer out across the bright sands, shadowing her face while looking for herself amongst them.

When Kazaar patrolled the lines of soldiers, she spotted herself immediately.

Young Elisara stood out in her ivory leather corset, a stark contrast to the burnt orange of Keres.

The night before this was that of the attack.

She had not slept after Kazaar left her cell.

When sunlight replaced the moonlight streaming in through the hole in the wall, guards arrived with her uniform.

She almost did not recognise it after two years.

Elisara walked down the dune toward herself and the other recruits. Overheated and sleep-deprived, she watched herself sway beneath the sun.

“You return to your homes.” Kazaar glanced at the young princess, who scowled at the hatred she could have sworn was in his eyes.

But as Elisara relived the moment from a distance, she questioned whether it was hatred after all.

“You return to your realm, qualified to defend it should you ever be called to arms.” Elisara glanced at her feet as she continued down the sand dune, pausing as shadows seeped into her vision.

When she looked up, tendrils of darkness snaked across the once bright sands of Ashun Desert and blanketed the ground until not a speck of orange remained.

The memory continued as normal despite the invasion of darkness.

She tuned out Kazaar’s last words as Vlad approached with her horse.

He would escort her to the Vala border, where her mother and father waited. Elisara hoped to experience that memory next. She would give anything for another moment with her parents, and to be on the receiving end of her father’s smile.

“Princess, a word?” Kazaar’s voice invaded her again, and Elisara watched as she ignored him and mounted her horse.

A hollowness existed in the young girl’s eyes, with dark circles etched below them.

Her hands trembled as she picked up the reins and turned to Kazaar, her eyes darkening as she looked him up and down.

Elisara felt a twinge of guilt; she could hardly imagine looking at him in such a way now.

Her past-self opened her mouth as if to speak, and as Elisara watched the moment again, she noted the hopeful look in Kazaar’s eyes, unlike the resentment she remembered.

But the young, wounded version of herself saw only a reminder of the pain she had endured over the past two years.

When she looked at him, she saw the man who trusted Izaiah.

The shadows below Kazaar’s feet moved again, reaching for Elisara atop the horse.

The sky changed. The sun dwindled until the sky reflected the shadows on the sand.

Elisara looked up to avoid reliving her farewell with Kazaar.

The stars had always mesmerised her, perhaps because she watched them every evening growing up from the open balcony of her chambers.

She looked for the constellation her father often showed her but was drawn to a shooting star, and then another, and another.

Stars began to fall like rain then—a shower of light drowning the darkness.

She glanced back at herself and Kazaar, overcome by a cooling sensation as flecks of stardust landed on her skin.

The shadows moved again and twisted around Kazaar as he reached for Elisara on her horse.

Before he could touch her, Elisara turned and rode for Vala.

“Elisara!” Kazaar shouted as the darkness enveloped her again. “Elisara, please.”