~~~High King Indigo of Ethiria~~~

A scream echoed through the air.

The small dragon like Scavelture (Scav for short) let another screech free as he glided down to me, toy firmly gripped in his jaws. It was saggy and limp in his mouth.

Once Spike, my pet Scav (a gift from Tsuki, since Scaveltures only existed in the Pearlescent Dynasty and nowhere else), gave me the toy, he sat, the spiked tail for which he was named wagging excitedly behind him as he waited for me to throw it once again.

I inspected the deflated snowflake-shaped toy, the wide puncture holes from Spike's razor sharp teeth tearing even wider as I poked it, the entire thing a shapeless, definitely in no state to be used wreck.

Good thing I had brought backup. Most dog toys weren't strong enough to withstand the teeth and jaw strength of a Scav (strong enough to crush a bone in one bite), so I was used to frequently replacing Spike's toys.

Pulling a bone shaped toy out of the small bag I had with me, I threw it, the toy spinning end over end as it sailed into the underbrush nearby. Spike took off with a gleeful howl, wings spreading as he used the jets on his hind legs and tail to launch himself into the air and glide towards the elusive toy.

I leaned back against a nearby tree, taking in my surroundings as Spike dug through the bushes, displacing several squirrels and one disgruntled raccoon in his wild search for his toy.

The royal gardens were quiet and peaceful, trees and plants scattered around everywhere with clearings of space intermixed and the occasional creek or small pond for the many, many creatures living within.

The gardens were accessible only to the royal family, the council, and the gardeners who kept it clean and running. Artemis loved taking care of the smaller flowers and plants whose care was easy for a busy princess to water every once a while in between responsibilities. She also sheltered all her stray animals in the gardens, frogs and cats and dogs and birds and so many animals who had been found injured or abandoned and were subsequently taken in by the young princess and cared for (with the help of several veterinarians to make sure they were healthy and safe).

Spike was still busy trying to find the toy, sniffing the air and digging in the dirt as his tail lashed about, hitting branches and flapping against the disturbed dirt around the large dog-sized scavelture. I snickered as I noticed the bone toy impaled on Spike's tail, out of his sight unless he twisted around to look. Another toy gone, but that would keep Spike busy for a good few minutes until he saw it.

I let my mind wander, gazing at the sky where the sun was slowly inching across the sky. It was just past noon, almost time for lunch. Today was a pretty quiet day, no meetings or overly important things to do, so Cherry was probably making lunch for everybody. I grinned to myself, stomach shifting in hunger. I hadn't eaten yet today (don't judge, I forgot! It's totally normal to not eat anything all day and not notice for hours) so I couldn't wait for the meal, as well as being able to sit down and spend time with my siblings. With everything that had been going on recently, we barely got to see each other.

Spike trotted up to me, thoroughly destroyed toy dangling out of his jaws and embedded in his claws, and dropped the scraps at my feet, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he grinned up at me.

I sighed good naturedly, kneeling down to pick up the wrecked toy, not even trying to put it back together. When I stood back up, someone was waving at me, getting closer as they ran full speed, slowing to a walk as they neared closer.

Princess Artemis, dressed in a cute sky blue short sleeve and a pretty pink skirt that swishes around her simple slippers as she walked, stopped next to me, out of breath from her short sprint. I reached over to ruffle her long blonde hair, the blue highlights shifting as she stood back up and tossed her hair behind her ear.

Grabbing another toy for Spike, I tossed it, letting him run after it again as I turned to face my youngest sort-of-sister, giving her a hug that she enthusiastically returned.

Arti was technically my sister, as she was one of the children who were adopted and raised alongside me to inherit the council positions when I ascended to the throne, as per Ethirian tradition. But she was also more.

See, Ethirian tradition dictates that the throne must always have an heir at all times, no matter who currently has the crown. I wasn't meant to inherit for years, not until I was much older with a family of my own (ew, marriage, but it was for my empire soooo), but with the death of my parents, I had no choice.

Their deaths and my ascension left Ethiria with no heir, though, which was a problem. A problem that we solved, thankfully.

Artemis was several years younger than the rest of us. While normally children adopted by the royal family were as close in age to the heir as possible, Arti was special. The noble family that had offered up their children to be the future council members died, leaving their sole remaining child, newborn Artemis, without a home. My parents agreed to adopt her as well, despite me already being 8 years old at the time. She was raised with us as everyone's little sister, and she inherited her own spot on the Council, but her age also made her perfect for another ancient Ethirian tradition that we took advantage of.

For a person to qualify as an heir to the throne of Ethiria, they had to be related by blood to the royal family. Adopted siblings don't count, so none of the Council could inherit.

However, adopted children do count as blood members of a family, thanks to a really old blood ritual I found. Artemis was 8 years younger than me, and still a child, since she was 14  and I was 22 at the time. Using the blood ritual and taking advantage of our age difference, I could both legally and magically adopt Arti as my daughter, making her the Crown Princess and royal heir to the throne.

So yeah, Artemis was both my sister and my daughter. Hey, if the gods can have weird family relationships, so can I! I'm a god's champion, it's like the same thing.

Spike returned again, thankfully this time with the toy intact. I gave it to Arti, a giggle escaping the 16-year-old as she threw the toy and watched Spike bound after it joyfully.

"Excited for lunch today?" I asked her, tucking a loose strand of her hair back. Arti nodded enthusiastically, leaning in with a smile and lowering her voice to a joking whisper. "I peeked in the kitchen and I saw Cherry making tacos."

I gasped dramatically, flinging myself back against the wall and covering my mouth with a hand as I feigned shock. "Tacos? On a Tuesday? Who would've guessed!"

We laughed together, Spike tilting his head in confusion when he returned and was ignored. After waiting for a moment, the impatient scavelture whipped his tail up and shot a harpoon, the slim, razor sharp bone spear impaling itself several inches deep into the stone bricks next to my leg.

Rolling my eyes light-heartedly, I grabbed the toy out of Spike's jaws and, using a small wind spell that I learned from Sir Seth of Hylia (a small enough spell that even a non-magical person like me could do), I launched Spike's toy extra high, the small object sailing across the clearing and into the trees. Spike launched himself into the air after it, diving into the bushes to dig for it with a screech.

Arti leaned against the wall next to me, dropping her head into my shoulder (yes, despite being eight years younger than me she was still taller) with a happy sigh. After a few moments of peaceful silence broken only by the occasional screech or howl from Spike's search for his toy, Artemis lifted her head up again, looking over at me with her previous joviality vanished.

"Indi..." Arti paused, forehead furrowing as she thought of how to word her question. I turned to face her fully, linking one of my hands with hers in a silent show of support as I waited for her to speak.

"The demon isn't a really bad thing, right?" Artemis finally said, the soft tone she used betraying her fear of what my answer would be. I paused, considering my reply.

Problem was, the demon was a bad thing. A really bad thing. An extremely powerful being whose identity was unknown, who could apparently teleport and was a master of dark magic, and who had a sworn vendetta against every single empire and emperor. Simply put, the demon was a catastrophe of epic proportions.

But I didn't want to say that outright. Arti was scared, and the last thing I wanted to do was scare her more. Luckily for me, Spike finally found his toy and came running back to us, the decimated balloon toy dangling from one of his many spiky horns, where it was clearly stuck.

I knelt down, allowing Spike to half climb into my lap (he was much too large to sit in my lap anymore, fully grown scaveltures can be quite large) so I could reach his horns to carefully disentangle the toy. I didn't have any more toys left in my bag, and Spike whined as I stood back up, my lack of toys to throw clear.

I whistled softly at Spike, one of many signals I'd trained him to respond to. His ears perked up, the magical scavelture hierarchy rune etched on his face glowing briefly. Spreading his white and icy blue wings, he jumped into the air, boosting himself up with his jets and gliding away with a final chirp of farewell.

When I had first been given Spike when he was just a baby, Tsuki had also given me a book guide to raising and training pet scavs. I took full advantage of said book, and now fully grown, Spike could respond to several dozen different commands in variations of whistles, clicks, and even a few word commands. The command I had just given him was to return to home, which for him was my bedroom, where he had a separate closet sized room attached to mine with everything a young adult scavelture could want and need. Spike had plenty of things to entertain himself with there, and I'd go get him at lunchtime so he could eat with the rest of us.

With Spike gone and no more distractions, I had to answer Artemis's question. After another moment of trying to figure out how best to word it, I took a deep breath and gathered both of Arti's hands in mine, guiding us both to sit down on the soft, springy grass.

"The demon... It's bad, yes. Really bad." I said, wincing as Arti's eyes widened with panic. "But it's not unsolvable," I continued, squeezing Arti's hands reassuringly. "Ethiria is very powerful, and when you combine us with the power of every other empire on the continent, or even just the majority of them, we become unstoppable. One person, no matter how much dark magic they possess or how powerful they are, cannot stand against all of us working together."

Releasing Arti's hands, I focused on her face, where the look of panic had faded into one of hope tinged by fear still.

Tapping her lightly on the forehead, I met Arti's gaze evenly, the two of us looking directly at each other instead of letting our eyes wander as we spoke.

"Everything is going to be okay, Artemis," I said reassuringly, keeping every trace of my own fears and worries firmly tucked away. "This isn't going to be like the Verdanian civil war. No one's going to get badly hurt."

The Verdanian civil war was an event that had happened a couple of years ago, when I was 21 and newly crowned high king. A small rebellion had broken out amongst the noble circles of Verdun, their goal to overthrow Queen Cat and instate their own puppet ruler on the throne, one who would let them get away with not paying taxes and exploiting the poor.

I, along with Lord Sylver, had gone to Verdun with support troops and supplies to help Cat beat back the rebellion and reestablish order in her empire. Nobody had expected it to last long, perhaps a few weeks at most to put out the worst of the fires and arrest the ringleaders of the uprising. Tsuki hadn't even made the long trip across the continent to go and help, it was that small. 

It ended up lasting almost a full year, the insurgency of nobles having been much stronger and numerous than we had thought. Near the end of the war, I had gotten fatally injured in an ambush, and I would have almost certainly died if it weren't for Luxen, who had intervened and healed the worst of my injuries to keep me from dying. Annoying god still left me bedridden for months, though. My blasphemous, disrespectful ass did not hesitate to curse out The Great Light multiple times during my recovery. If Luxen had a problem with me mentally yelling curses at him, they did not react visibly, unfortunately. I was so bored of being in bed then I would have gladly fought a god just to do something different. 

It had been terrifying for everyone involved, especially my siblings, since they had to stay in Celeste and continue to rule Ethiria in my absence instead of rushing across the ocean to make sure I was okay. When I had finally returned from Verdania, we had all spent months having massive sleepovers in my bedroom together since no one wanted to let me out of their sight. Good thing the Azure Chambers (the royal bedrooms for the reigning ruler) was more than big enough to accommodate 9 people. Seriously, my bed was massive.

Artemis sighed, and I pulled her into a hug, ducking my head so I could fit into her arms. Arti hugged me back, burying her face in my hair. We stayed like that for a few minutes, until a bell distantly went off, announcing the time (2 in the afternoon) to the entire castle.

I untangled myself from the hug, standing up and brushing the grass stains off my pants before offering a hand to Arti as she stood up too, giving me a small smile. I smiled back, nudging her gently with my shoulder as I nodded my head towards the nearby pathway, leading to the entrance to the gardens. "We should head back in, it's almost lunchtime."

Arti nodded, bouncing excitedly, the earlier worries thrown to the winds by the anticipation of eating lunch with everyone together. I grinned, her infectious excitement making me happy flappy hands lightly.

About to walk after Arti, who had started up the path back, I paused when I heard a distant cry— the distinct call of a royal dove messenger bird from Arcefracti. Waving a hand at Artemis, who had paused when she noticed I wasn't following her, I backed up a few steps into the open clearing, gazing up as the black bird circled overhead, coming to a landing on a nearby low tree branch. I walked over, the crow chirping and settling its wings as I slid the letter out of the carrier pouch on the dove's leg. I unrolled the small parchment out against the tree, angling myself so the sunlight could reach the paper and I could read it.

My good mood evaporated as I scanned the small, jaggedly written text on the scroll, clearly written in a hurry. Gently picking up the dove and releasing it into the sky, I jogged up to Arti, who's smile faded at the look on my face.

"Indi, what's wrong?" Artemis asked, concern coloring her tone. I wordlessly handed her the letter, letting her see for herself. She gasped in horror when she read it, eyes wide. After a moment of her staring at it, probably rereading to make sure she had seen it right, she gave it back to me, the shock fading into dismay and resigned disappointment.

"Tell the others I'm sorry?" I asked, Arti nodding. We hugged quickly, Artemis stepping back less than a minute later and giving me space to summon my wings. Thank goodness I was only wearing one of my modified shirts that had slits in the back for my wings. I had just tossed it on this morning because it was the first thing I saw, and now it was saving me time that I could use to get to Amissan faster.

Spreading my wings once I'd fully summoned them, I jumped into the air, aligning myself with a wind current heading in the direction of Arcefracti and swooping into it, flying as fast as I could.

Spreading my wings into a steady and speedy glide, I sent up a quick, panic-tinged prayer to Luxen that I'd make it to Amissan in time.