Emerging on the other side of the cave—Bevryth dashed into the forest swiftly.
She had already made the decision to escape, and she will be true to it.
Personally, she didn't know who Naela's fiance was—she didn't attend the coronation so she had never seen him before. However—regardless of who he was, Bevryth was certain, that it would be impossible for him to detect or catch her in the forest.
As a Dark Elf, the child of dark nature, the forest at night is her most advantageous terrain.
It was where Dark Elves were the strongest, so she was confident in her abilities.
Even now, her invisibility was enhanced.
Not only was she invisible to the eyes, but the sound she made and her aura became lighter.
Swish!
Under the embrace of the energy, emanating from the forest—she glides through the dense reaches of nature with flawless agility and fast speed. As she continued, she came to notice the eerie atmosphere around her.
"Where did all the mutated animals go? I don't like this silence..." She muttered uneasily.
For some unknown reason, the forest was completely silent.
Not a single noise from mutated animals or chirping insects could be heard, nothing at all.
At this moment, the silence was complete.
Al that could be heard were the leaves rustling and branches cracking under her fast steps.
Moreover, Bevryth could still feel the sinking feeling in her stomach as the bad omen was still present even though she already made her escape from the kingdom. It felt like running in an expanse of shallow black water, and with each step she took, the water became deeper.
But the bad omen didn't come from the shallow black water.
I came from something in its depth, prowling and ready to strike her from underneath.
Due to this feeling, she felt like someone was watching her.
However, there shouldn't be anyone watching her as she would realized it already by now.
Just as she was dwelling in the moment, her mind was pulled back to earlier.
"I AM TRYING TO HELP YOU, CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
Naela's scream rang and echoed inside her mind.
Her voice contained truth to it which amplifies the bad omen Bevyrth was feeling right now.
"Think again, you're making a grave mistake. Kyran is not the Emperor"
Following that scream was General Theodas' last warning, he was very serious when he said that. Now that she thought back to that moment earlier—she recalled that General Theodas' hand was trembling as he grabbed her arm, and there was a tint of fear in his voice.
Upon remembering this, Bevryth clenched her jaw and shook her head.
She began to hesitate, but she decided to push through.
"Just who is this, Kyran? Why did everyone—seem to consider him, a big deal?" She muttered inwardly but she decided to distract her mind somewhere else as this would all be in the past after tonight. "No matter who he was, I will not meet him in the near future—so there is not, a single point in thinking about him"
Swoosh!
Bevryth continued to her destination with a stronger resolve.
She was going to the small hideout that her trusted people created for this very occasion.
Besides those trusted people, only Bevryth and her family knew of its whereabouts.
In haste, she clenched the necklace in her hand and sped up ahead—fearing for the worst.
Realizing that the bloodstained necklace belonged to her husband, Bevryth's body moved on its own. She darted ahead, as crippling fear began to wrap around her heart, worrying for the well-being of her spouse.
But expecting that her husband was injured, her expression darkened.
Power surged from within her core—she swore that she would kill anyone who dared to harm her beloved. Along the way, her anger, only experienced an upward trajectory. Moreover, she also found more items along the way.
All of them were items that she recognized belonged to her family.
Now, she began to suspect that someone had intercepted her family's escape.
Bevryth's mind flashed with the menacing shadowy form of Kyran—she was worried, that he was the one responsible. 'No—it shouldn't be that Werewolf. Naela told me that he would be arriving tomorrow, so this has to be General Theodas' or King Jorik's doings. Both must have planned to stop me from the start, the exchange earlier was nothing but a ruse, a pretend!'
She tried to make the most logical conclusion, but that didn't help ease her at all.
Eventually, she saw light at the distance coming from a glade in the forest.
Bevryth dashed into the light, and stepped into the glade—her heart, and aura pounding with readiness for battle—she would attack anyone in sight. But as she crossed the threshold, her strength vanished without a trace, replaced by a paralyzing horror.
She was left stunned at the unbelievable spectacle before her right now.
Out of her wildest expectations, she was greeted by eight thick ice spikes at the heart of the glade that stretched toward the sky, their forms growing thinner toward their tips. Each spike bore a member of her family—her sisters, their husbands, her aunt, and uncles—all, bound to the icy pinnacles.
Each one of these ice spikes was the source of the heat that she was feeling along the way.
Directly above them was the half moon, casting a cold eerie light.
Its grace shadowed their tormented forms.
One could see their eyes, wide with palpable fear, locked onto Bevryth's, pleading silently for rescue through their gagged mouths. Each muffled cry for help from her family member, was a slice through her resolve like a dagger.
Beveryth's breath caught in her throat, its dryness made swallowing hard for her.
She was greeted by a scene more harrowing than she could imagine.
Expecting to fight the person who intercepted her family, she was instead forced to see the spectacle designed to shatter her spirit. Not to mention—the surface of their skins could be seen rippling and turning ashen.
From the looks of it, the heat was scorching their skin and ashen their skin color even more.
An ice power that emits heat, that was not something usual.
Just then—as though the situation was not already eerie and bad enough, Bevryth saw that at the base of the eight ice spikes was a Dark Elf, a man that she instantly recognized to be her husband, Valthor.
He was prostrating on the ground sideways, with both his hands pierced by ice.
Under the energy from the ice, he couldn't move, and could only whimper in silence.
His teary eyes turned to Bevryth, shaking his head viciously as if signaling her something.
"D- Dear..." Bevryth uttered and was about to take a step forward, but Valthor shook his head even harder. At the sight of this, she hesitated, but it was only then, that she heard a piercing sound coming from her back.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked into the darkness of the forest.
Even though Bevryth couldn't find anything, she could feel that someone or something in the darkness was approaching. Regardless of what it was, she could feel the evil air, surrounding it that sent a shiver down her spine.
In her thousand years of life, she never felt horror this clear.
Only then that two pairs of azure blue eyes appear from the darkness—and it was advancing closer with slow and steady steps. Bevryth, turned towards the entity that was the source of the tense air in the air
Her entire body was shaking visibly.
"A-Answer me," She uttered lightly, stuttering. "Are you Kyran...?"