Some days are war but just know you've won plenty before and you can do it again.
- a. Fellow

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- Nicolas -

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"You heard it. Also look under the beds, men. Check everywhere!" we heard an unknown voice in the living room of the house.

When someone reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open, I let the movement happen for a split second and then stopped it by pushing against it with my full weight. A loud gasp of shock escaped the man, who could only see a crack in the room, before he was silenced by Tryphosa's blade.

"They're here!" another then yelled, whereupon someone tried to pry open the door. Forcefully, I pushed against it to keep them from storming our small room. Through the gap, Tryphosa could attack without the soldiers getting too close.

"There's another one! Behind you!" someone yelled from the room in front of us, at which I concluded that Orestes had snuck out and attacked the soldiers from behind.

Now two men also seemed to be pressing against the door at the same time. My strength dwindled so that I could barely hold it. The foot I held against the bottom of the door slid wider and wider. The gap grew wider and wider. One of the soldiers held a shield in front of him and squeezed through the gap, trampling over the body of his comrade on the floor.

When the door burst open, everything happened far too quickly to realize it fast enough. The two men charged into the room, pushed Tryphosa backwards while blocking her attacks. Another person entered, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the room with incredible strength.

My feet caught on a body on the floor in the doorway and I stumbled. When I regained my balance, I jerked my sword up to attack, but the counterattack was already coming so hard that the hilt of my sword was ripped from my hands. My weapon landed on the floor a few steps away, clattering, and slid up to the wall of the house.

I took a step back and pulled a long dagger from my side holster before looking forward again. The leader of Cepha's army was even taller at this proximity than I had estimated him to be. His armor left no clear patch of unprotected skin anywhere except a gap for his eyes.

With my heart pounding harder, I felt thoughts racing through my head. Would my fire be able to harm his thick armor before he could overpower me? Could I do anything with my puny dagger?

"Do you surrender now?" the man asked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Orestes struggling heavily with another soldier at the end of the room, slowly being pushed into a corner by him. In the back room, I heard sounds of fighting from Tryphosa and the two other men.

Damn! I clenched my teeth with furious anger and could vomit on the spot because of my wretchedness.

"Yes," I groaned out, trying to buy a little time to go over my options. Set the ground on fire in front of him and flee? He would probably just run through the fire toward me.

But before I could finish considering this possibility, someone jumped on the leader from behind. I could hardly believe my eyes as the person grabbed an arm around his head. While the leader jerked his sword up, unable to hit anyone, the person stabbed the man repeatedly in the eyes through the slit of the helmet.

The leader roared deafeningly loud as he whirled around to throw the attacker off him. The dagger stabbed hard again with a smacking sound through the remains of the eyes and then finally hit the brain. The screams abruptly died away. The attacker jumped off the man even before he hit the ground. With a roll, the person had reached the wall of the house, picked up my sword and threw it to me.

I got hold of it by the hilt and looked into the person's face for the first time. Victorine's free skin of the opened helmet was covered with blood splatters. The flashing eyes held only brief eye contact with me until she turned, ran a few steps, lunged with the sword, and struck hard at the leg of the soldier Orestes was fighting. I saw the soldier lose his balance and then finally seemed to wake up from my torpor.

With the sword firmly in my hand, I turned and ran in to the next room, not stumbling over the corpses again. One of the men lay dead on the bed, while Tryphosa and the other soldier were still dueling.

I raised my sword and let it crash down on his arm from behind. This was protected by armor, but it was struck downward. Tryphosa took advantage of the moment, in which the soldier had hardly any strength in his arm, and struck hard against his sword, so that it slipped out of his hand.

Immediately, the soldier raised both unarmed hands upward to surrender. Tryphosa held her sword menacingly close to the soldier's face. "On your knees."

Silence reigned for a few seconds, then the man followed her command. Tryphosa didn't flinch as she ripped the helmet off the man's head, grabbed him by the hair with her left, and drove the sword through his throat with her right. With a rasping sound in the background, I turned around and looked into Victorine's blood-spattered, serious face.

"He had surrendered," she groaned tonelessly. I didn't know if she was blaming us or just realizing that this is what happened in war.

Orestes stood a few steps behind Victorine and looked down at the leader's corpse. "Now you can't look into his eyes," he remarked, his words obviously directed at Victorine.

"I already have," the king's daughter answered him, but did not avert her gaze on me. "Therefore, I have a guess as to where Cephas might be in the castle."

For some reason, my legs felt as if they were fused to the ground. I could not take my eyes off her dark eyes. Thus, she had saved my life for the second time. And what did I do? I willingly put her in danger, over and over again. If anything happened to her, it was my sole fault and responsibility.

I knew she thought differently. That this was not just my fight, but hers as well. That she made her own decisions and always based them on her morals. And yet, I couldn't. I couldn't shake the feeling that I would prefer her to be safe and that for once I would save her life for a change.

This feeling had been there for some time, but almost always hidden deep inside me. It had probably become clear to me for the first time when Victorine had fallen asleep naked in my bed next to me and I had softly whispered I love you into her ear.

I was only torn from my thoughts when Victorine's eyes widened in front of me, her lips parted a narrow crack and she stared at me, visibly breathless.

Neither did I get angry with her, nor did I lock her out of my mind. All at once I even wanted to welcome her into it. I wanted to absorb more memories of her into it. My mind would remain pitch black until forever if I didn't even let light into it.

Our eye contact was broken abruptly as the floor began to shake beneath my feet. I tried to keep my balance as the wooden, rotten ground trembled beneath me. Slowly, we all looked toward the window, where, however, nothing at all could be seen. Then, with the earth still shaking, we heard a truly horrific, inhuman, deep roar.

"What was that?" whispered Orestes after the sound had subsided and we had listened tensely in silence for a few more seconds.

Victorine flipped down the guard of her helmet, cocked a bolt in her crossbow, and turned. I followed her slowly while Tryphosa and Orestes protected me from behind. As we walked, I also cocked an arrow in my bow and waited for Victorine to look around cautiously.

As we crossed the threshold and went outside, the earth began to shake again. All around us it was eerily empty. The battle had obviously moved a little further forward toward the castle.

Looking into the distance, I spotted a huge black dragon with pointed spikes on its back. He was sitting on the roof of one of the wealthier houses, from which tiles were gradually breaking off and which would soon collapse completely under his weight. However, it was still spitting fire downwards, but from here I could not see what was below the creature.

The reason for the earth's trembling, however, was still unknown to me.

"We need to get past him into the castle, preferably along the right side," Tryphosa remarked behind me.

"We need to help the soldiers," objected Victorine, who had already walked a few steps ahead and now turned to face us. "We could climb onto surrounding rooftops and aim our long-range weapons at the dragon's eyes."

I briefly turned my back on Victorine and sought eye contact with Tryphosa, who looked at me with a knowing look. We didn't have time for that. What was happening there actually provided the perfect distraction for us.

"What did you see in the soldier's eyes, Victorine?", I asked as I turned back to her. "Where in the castle is-?"

The rest of my words got caught in my throat as the earth began to shake again, but this time with such ferocity that I nearly fell to the ground. In my jolting field of vision, I recognized Victorine stepping back a bit and holding onto the corner of a small house.

There was such a jolt under my feet now that I stumbled and almost fell to the ground. When I regained my balance, a few steps straight ahead of me, I discovered a fine line running through the earthy ground.

As the ground shook again and the line widened into a crack, I realized that the earth was cracking open in front of us. My instinct was to run forward and jump to Victorine's side. But Tryphosa had already taken a step toward me and was holding me by the arm.

I wasn't going to make the jump anyway. The gap grew wider and wider, while Victorine stepped back carefully so as not to fall in.

Hectically, I looked around to the left and right, but the gap seemed to find no end. To the left, at the very end of my field of vision, a wooden hut was just plunging into the deep chasm that had opened up between us.

Cautiously, I took two steps forward and peered into the abyss, the end of which could not be seen and was lost in complete darkness. Who or what had caused this?

With my heart pounding wildly, I looked back at Victorine and clenched my right hand into a fist. Damn. Damn, damn, damn!

"King Nicolas," I heard Tryphosa's harsh voice behind me. "We have to keep moving."

She was right. Now we were somewhat cut off from the fighting action in a fitting way, and our chances were even better to advance to the castle unnoticed.

It was perfect. If only I didn't know that the king's daughter on the other side would now try alone to save the powerless soldiers from the dragon in the distance.

It was unlikely that I could defeat Cephas and end the entire war before she dueled the dragon. Especially because I had no clue about where Cephas was in the castle, what to expect, and what strategy to choose.

She would not be able to tell me the information she had received about the leader now either. Unless she shouted them out loud to me, but that would attract far too much attention.

Victorine seemed to know this. She looked at me for a few seconds, during which I couldn't shake the feeling that I might never see her again.

Then the king's daughter turned away and disappeared between the alleys of houses.