Chapter 3
2202 Words
Ashta’s grandfather told her that the bedtime story of the missing princess was real, and he confessed to her that her parents did not die in a car crash, but her parents were the ones who were murdered at the ceremony.
Ashta's father’s brother, Gale, took her father’s place as king over the Oligarchy Slayers. Princess Maya, who was her mother’s sister, took her mother’s place as Queen over the Selvempts and she had taken a husband by the name of Rocco.
The people of the kingdoms once called the land Halondelle. However, now, since the two kingdoms have turned their backs on each other, they divided the land between the two kingdoms. The kingdom of Selvempts was now called Tiatum, and the kingdom of Oligarchy Slayers was now called Nemiph.
Selvempts were a breed of vampires that lived swiftly through the ages. They developed into a special new kind of breed of vampires. These vampires developed magical powers and special abilities, and every time they had reproduced, a more powerful species was born.
Every Selvempt that was born, each had a special different ability to help defend themselves against the species that hunted them down. The Oligarchy Slayers. Selvempts had the ability to take human form, and that is the form they took as their primary one. They also could change into a half-wolf, half-human creature.
The Slayers, too, were born with different special abilities. However, their only form they had was human form. The Slayers and the Selvempts fought against each other for ages until a long time ago. The queen of the Selvempts and the king of the Oligarchy Slayers came together and made a peace treaty.
As long as the Slayers and the Selvempts never cross bred, they all could live in peace. Both kingdoms agreed, and the war had stopped between them. Halondelle was born, and magical creatures from all around came and blessed the land with their magic. They had made the land luscious and beautiful. The two kingdoms worked together and lived in peace among each other.
As the years had passed, the kingdoms lived in peace until, one day, when the princess of Selvempts and the prince of Oligarchy Slayers fell in love and broke the treaty. The princess bore a child of both kingdoms, a hybrid, and fear and rage struck both kingdoms. Their peaceful land turned angry and fights broke out between the two species.
The queen of Selvempts and the King of the Oligarchy Slayers came to the decision that they should sacrifice the child in order to save the land and both kingdoms. The princess did not want them to kill her child, so she and the prince convinced the king and the queen that they would sacrifice the child at birth. The queen and king had granted them their request and decided it was best that the parents rid the kingdom of the abomination.
When the baby princess was born, her parents arranged for her to go with a very trusted friend. They wanted her to be raised out in the human world and to be taken far away from Halondelle. They had given the trusted friend all of their riches to take her away and the man took the child into the human world.
The princess and the prince went to the king and the queen. They told them that the child was taken care of, and the king and the queen seized the prince and princess. They felt as though they had to make an example out of them for breaking the treaty and killed them in front of both of the kingdoms.
After their deaths, the cruelty of the king and the queen saddened the magical creatures. The magical creatures all left the land, and the land began to die away. After that, the kingdoms closed their gates on one another, and they turned their backs on each other. The queen and king were uncertain that the princess and the prince really did away with the child, so they sent out scouts across their kingdoms to look for the girl.
The scouts never found the child and the king and the queen were finally satisfied that the princess was indeed dead and gone. When the kingdoms spoke of the princess, they called her an abomination. Ashta realized her grandfather wasn’t really her grandfather.
“What is your name?” she asked the old man.
She had only known him as grandfather, her whole life. The man looked at her and smiled.
“My name is Yinlin. They gave you to me and I became your guardian,” the man explained, as he bowed his head to her, and Ashta put her hands up to him.
“Please, don't do that,” she said, and Yinlin looked at her and just nodded quickly.
“You have come to the point in your life where the magical elements are calling to you. You have already become one with air. You must learn to become one with water, fire, and earth. I will train you to fight like a warrior, and I fear we have little time, because I know that as you get stronger, they will feel it and come for you,” explained Yinlin, seriously.
What was the old man talking about?
“Who is going to come for me?” asked Ashta, concerned, as she looked at Yinlin in confusion, and he looked at her solemnly.
“Your aunt and uncle, and they will come after me as well,” he said, nervously.
“Is that why the Forbidden Forest calls to me?” Ashta asked him.
He looked at her and sighed a heavy sigh.
“You can hear it?” he asked, and she nodded. He looked at her and smacked his lips.
“My, my. We don't have much time at all,” he said.
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Ashta listened to everything Yinlin had to say as he trained her to fight. He also taught her how to be quick on her feet and to become one with earth and water. He wanted to save the fire element for last, because he was afraid that Ashta would burn down the house.
Evidently, they both trained hard for the next couple of months. Yinlin had turned their backyard into a training course, and they trained in every possible situation that they could think of. Yinlin was going to train her with the fire element the next day.
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It excited Ashta to learn about the fourth element. She still wasn't sure why there were five symbols, but she knew Yinlin would explain it to her. Ashta was more muscular and her hair had grown past her shoulders. She kept her long hair in a secure ponytail and braided the loose hair.
“What is on today's' agenda?” Ashta asked Yinlin, as she walked into the kitchen.
It was the next morning. Yinlin looked at her.
“I want to show you something when you get back from your morning coffee run,” he said with an uneasy smile, and Ashta looked at him in surprise.
“Morning coffee run? Grandfather, I haven’t been on a morning walk in months,” Ashta said, as she huffed a laugh.
She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. Another thing that he had trained Ashta to do was to live on the nutrients of the land and drink more water than anything. She hadn't gone to the coffee shop in months.
Seemingly, Yinlin still liked it when she had called him grandfather. That meant that he was still her family. Yinlin smiled at her.
“Go, stretch your legs, and bring me one of those lattes back that you like so much,” he said, and Ashta looked at him oddly.
Yinlin never drank coffee.
“Are you feeling okay?” Ashta asked him, suspiciously.
“Yes, my dear, I am fine. Now go. Get out of here,” he said with a nervous laughter, as he waved at her with his hands, and Ashta smiled and nodded.
“Okay. I will be right back,” she said, and he nodded as she headed out of the front door. Yinlin watched her walk down the driveway and sighed a heavy sigh. He looked at Ashta’s picture on the wall sadly.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered to the picture.
He knew the scouts were headed their way, and he could feel them. They were coming for him, not because he had Ashta. It was because they knew he was an Oligarchy slayer, and he was living among the human world. The kingdoms frowned upon that. They also didn’t want humans on their land.
The king and queen would torture him until he told them why he wasn’t living in the kingdom if they took him back alive. When they were finished, they would kill him. It was an offense punishable by death. He had to send Ashta away before they had gotten there, and the coffee shop was the only place he could think of. They couldn’t find out who she was, they would kill her too.
Yinlin said his prayers, and he pulled out his sword. Suddenly, the front door was kicked open, and he saw the two scouts. He jabbed the sword into his chest as they started running toward him.
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Contently, Ashta walked down the road and headed for the coffee shop. She had forgotten how her morning walks really improved her day. Evidently, she made it to the coffee shop, walked inside, and then she walked up to the counter. The girl took her order quickly and Ashta looked around.
She noticed that everyone in the coffee shop was staring out the window at the Forbidden Forest, and Ashta saw Lashanna in the group of onlookers. After a few moments, the girl handed Ashta her two lattes and Ashta approached Lashanna.
“What’s going on?” Ashta asked, and Lashanna turned her head and smiled at Ashta.
“Hi Ashta. Something came out of the Forbidden Forest. It looked like two men dressed in armor,” she said, excitedly, and turned back toward the window.
Ashta thought for a moment, and then she realized those men were probably the scouts that Yinlin told her about. Suddenly, Ashta dropped the coffee cups and ran out of the coffee shop.
“Ashta!” Lashanna called after her, as she looked at her oddly, and then looked at her friend that was sitting with her. The guy shrugged his shoulders, and then Lashanna grabbed his hand.
“Come on,” she said, as she pulled the man with her and out of the coffee shop.
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Ashta didn’t care to turn around. She had to get to her grandfather before those men did. She ran down the street as fast as she could and up her driveway. Immediately, she stopped in mid-step as she saw they busted her front door off of its hinges. Cautiously, she made her way up the front steps and through the doorway.
Thankfully, Yinlin had taught her to move silently and to listen hard. Suddenly, Ashta heard footsteps headed her way, and she ducked into the coat closet next to her. She peeked through the c***k of the door. Horrified, she watched as two strange men walked into the hallway and stopped.
“The old man is clean,” said one man.
They both had warrior helmets on, so Ashta couldn’t really tell what the men looked like. Also, they were dressed in strange-looking clothing. Silver plated armor chest plates, and their helmets had a mohawk that was a blackish purple color.
“Who is the pretty girl in the picture?” asked the other man, as he pointed to one of Ashta’s pictures.
“Maybe his daughter?” said the first one.
“She sure is pretty,” the man huffed a sigh.
“Come on, Kralom. We did what we needed to do. Stop drooling over a human girl and let’s go.”
“Daven, do you think she could be the princess?” the man sighed, and looked at the other.
“Do you think an old man could contain such a powerful being for so long?” he asked, and the other man shook his head.
“No, I guess not.”
Horrifically, Ashta saw their bloody swords, and they sheathed them in their holsters.
“Good news is, the old man is dead. Come on, let’s go home and report to Queen Maya. She can send word to those disgusting neighbors of ours.”
Ashta watched silently as the men left the house. She waited a few moments and then opened the door.
Frightened, she peered around the door and saw that the men were gone. Quietly, she made her way to the kitchen and saw that there was splattered blood everywhere. Then she saw him. The only member of her family that she knew and trusted was lying in a pool of blood. She ran to him and cradled his lifeless body in her lap.
“Grandfather!” she cried.
- Writer
