Alwyn

The rhythmic clatter of the horse's hooves echoed Alwyn's pounding heart. She knew how outnumbered Wilder would be in the palace. She'd heard many of the North Isles guards roamed the halls. Zavier and Quinn with their men should already be inside, helping, but still...there were so many.

Alwyn urged the horse faster, the deserted streets giving the horse complete freedom to surge forward. As they approached the palace gates, Alwyn spotted two guards waiting on either side, their weapons drawn.

"Cyrus," Alwyn said. "Handle them."

Cyrus released his hold on Alwyn's waist and a second later two daggers flew passed her. One buried itself in a guard's chest, the second in the other guard's stomach. Alwyn reigned in the horse as they reached the gates and turned him sideways. Hooking her foot around the gate latch, she flipped it up and kicked the gates.

They swung open and Alwyn encouraged the horse down the manicured lane. At the entrance, she leapt off and raced towards the open doorway, Cyrus right behind her. They found the foyer empty, but cries and striking metal guided them further into the palace.

When they barreled into the throne room, Alwyn stopped. Bodies lay strewn about the floor like fallen leaves. Some dead, some on the path to it. Frantically, she searched the faces of the fallen and alive for Wilder but she didn't find him. She did find Kristoff, one arm bleeding, fighting off a soldier. Alwyn darted over to him, cutting the soldier's leg and stabbing him in the ribs as he staggered.

"Where is Wilder?" Alwyn asked a panting Kristoff.

"He followed King Titus who has Lydia, through there," Kristoff said, pointing to an archway across the room.

"Cyrus, help the Prince," Alwyn said. "And find a healer if you can."

Cyrus wrapped an arm around the Prince and led him off as Alwyn sprinted for the archway, jumping over prone bodies as she went. As she passed through, she faltered, choking on her breath. No, no, no, no.

Laying surrounded by ten men and bleeding was Wilder.

"No," Alwyn whispered. She knelt by his side, struggling to breathe through the tightness in her throat and the pungent smell of blood.

She pressed trembling fingers to his neck. Please, Wilder, please.

When she felt a weak pulse, she blinked and tears spilled down her cheeks.

Furiously swiping them away, she forced herself to think. Assess the wounds, deal with what you can. She cut Wilder's shirt and used what wasn't covered in blood to clean his chest. She sucked in a breath at the sight but gritted her teeth against her fear.

As she searched for something to stanch the bleeding, she noticed his leg was bleeding from a deep gash. Swearing, she pressed Wilder's bloody shirt to his wound and shifted to his leg. She knew this type of cut, if not stopped he could lose his leg.

She pulled her shirt off, leaving her in an undershirt, and wrapped it around his leg, knotting it tightly. She took her dagger and twisted the hilt around the fabric, creating a tourniquet. With at least one problem solved, Alwyn breathed a little easier then moved back to the first wound. She located another knife and cut the shirts away from the dead soldiers around Wilder. As she pressed the material to his cut, she heard hurried footsteps.

Zavier rushed through the archway and skidded to a halt, Joric right behind him.

"Is he-" Zavier asked.

"Not yet," Alwyn snarled. "Where the blazes were you?! You were supposed to help!"

Even as she yelled this she saw how disheveled and splattered in blood he was. He had been fighting, only not in a way that would have helped Wilder.

"The servants met us in the dungeon," Zavier said, still staring at Wilder's bloody body. "When they heard the warning bells they thought we would come that way. They warned us, a majority of the palace soldiers were right outside the kitchens. It took too long to get here." He whipped his head around. "Where is Lydia?"

"I don't know!" Alwyn snapped. "Wilder needs help."

Zavier pointed to Wilder. "Joric, help her." He took off.

"Where are you going?"

"To protect Lydia!"

Alwyn focused back on Wilder as Joric knelt beside her.

"We need to move him to a place where a healer can work on him," he said.

The calm and control Joric spoke with helped Alwyn swallow down the mountain of emotions trying to crush her. She nodded. Wrapping more shirts about him, Joric lifted Wilder from under his arms while Alwyn lifted his legs. Together they managed to get him into a sitting room with a desk. Alwyn swept her arm across the desk, sending the contents flying in every direction.

When they laid Wilder down, he looked even paler than before. The sight turned Alwyn's stomach.

"Stay with him," Joric said. "I'll find a healer."

"And servants to assist," Alwyn called out to him as he left.

Alwyn stood beside Wilder, wanting to do something, touch him, hold him, beg him to come back but she couldn't move. She felt planted to that spot, trapped in a world where the only thing that mattered was watching his chest rise and fall so shallowly she thought he might not be breathing at all.

Don't die on me. Don't you dare die. Great seas, please, please don't die.

When Alwyn felt herself breathing just as shallowly as Wilder, she pressed her fingers to his neck. She couldn't feel anything. There was nothing to feel. Why was there nothing to feel?!

She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes, willing her blood to stop pounding in her ears so she could hear. There. Faint. Very faint but it was there.

As she straightened, Joric returned with an older man and a trio of servants. Alwyn stepped aside so he could see Wilder. The old man surveyed him with a passive expression. It was so passive Alwyn could read nothing from it, no hope, but neither despair.

"Can you save him?" she asked.

He eyed her, again without expression.

"I will do my best."

"Can you save him?" she yelled at him.

It couldn't end like this. Wilder had given everything to protect Lydia, to see her kingdom returned to her. He was barely old enough to command soldiers but he'd done it like a true leader. He couldn't die now and miss seeing his work come to fruition. He could not die! 

"You need to save him!"

"And I need you to leave, I will do my best but I can't do that with you nearby, so leave."

Alwyn almost attacked the man but Joric caught her arm and pulled her from the room. She ripped her arm from his grasp and shoved him.

"Go!" she yelled. "Go back to your Prince. I don't need you!"

Joric hesitated, but Alwyn knew where his loyalties lied. He left. 

Alwyn couldn't leave. How could she leave, Wilder? He was so alone and she couldn't leave him. She couldn't. She was in this palace because of him.

She thought of the other palace, the one in ruins. She watched him crumble but not break. She understood him. She made him a promise then, that they would return and save his father.

She'd made him a promise...her promise!

She knew what she needed to do. Saying a silent prayer for Wilder, Alwyn turned away from the closed doors.

She ran through the palace, spotting Cyrus helping aid wounded soldiers. As she drew closer to the kitchens she slowed her pace. Laying across the floor were dozens of injured and dead soldiers, most of them Titus's men. Picking her way through the tangled of bodies, Alwyn made it into the kitchens.

In a corner, servants huddled in tight knots with wide, terrified eyes. One servant let out a shriek at the sight of Alwyn and she realized she was coated in Wilder's blood. She raised her hands but even those were smeared red. She dropped them and tried to rub some of the blood off on her trousers.

"I need your help," she said. "Where are the dungeons and does anyone know where the keys to the cells are?"

One servant, a gray-haired woman shakily rose to her feet. "What do you want from down there?"

The iron in her voice said this was one of the servants who had given food and water to Commander Ror and the other prisoners.

"I want to help free them," Alwyn said.

This excited the other servants and they got to their feet, some helping others.

"We don't know where the keys are," the same older woman said.

"No matter. I can take care of the locks. Bring candles and lanterns."

The servants scurried to assist Alwyn and once armed with enough light, they made their way to the dungeons. Alwyn didn't let herself think as they descend the stairs, her only focus was Commander Ror. She'd promised Wilder they would come back and save him. She was going to keep that promise to him.

The rank smell washed over Alwyn as she entered the dark tunnel. Flames flared to life and the blackness receded enough that Alwyn could make out curled figures in the cells. Passing a few of the closer cells, she found Commander Ror's. He didn't stir as Alwyn slid her picks into the lock and began to work. Neither did he move as Alwyn swung the door open and stepped inside.

"Please", she silently begged him.

Crouching down, with a servant's lantern spilling light over her, Alwyn gently touched Wilder's father.

"Commander Ror," Alwyn said. "Commander, we're here to get you out. Your son is...Wilder is in the palace."

The name stirred the Commander and he opened his eyes. The color exactly like Wilder's nearly made Alwyn cry but she forced her tears away.

"Get him to a room," Alwyn said, standing. "Some of you should get food ready for all of these prisoners. The rest need to help me get them out of here."

No one argued and the older woman, Melina as she told Alwyn, relayed Alwyn's instructions. A group broke off and returned to the kitchen, while most of them remained, trailing Alwyn as she moved from one lock to the next. Her world shrank to tumblers and picks. The shuffle of servants' feet. The moan of prisoners as they were carried away. The pungent smell around her.

When the final lock opened and the last prisoner helped out of the dungeon, Alwyn left the suffocating place. She took in a breath as she escaped into the fresh air of the palace. She asked to know where Commander Ror was and followed the directions to the room. Inside, she found Wilder's father tucked into a bed, his breathing low and even. She saw that some of the servants had given him a quick wash, clearing away most of the grime.

He was alive. She'd kept her promise.

With that truth held close to her, she returned to the room where the healer had been working on Wilder. She found the doors wide open and the desk empty.

No! It couldn't-

He couldn't-

She kept her promise, his father was alive. She had to tell him, Wilder had to know they hadn't failed to save him.

A cough behind her startled Alwyn and she whirled around. The healer stood before her wearing Wilder's blood and a solemn expression.

"Is he-"

He raised a hand. "He's been moved to a bed."

"Then he's alive. He'll live!"

"Come with me," he said, not matching Alwyn's hope.

She dutifully followed him, a terrified child seeking comfort from anyone willing to give it. Even if it was from this passive-faced healer. As they passed through rooms and corridors, Alwyn saw the battle was finished. Lorian soldiers moved about, lifting and carrying off their wounded while King Titus's men lay dead or moaning in pain. They'd won, but with how many were dead and injured, it felt hard to celebrate.

The healer led Alwyn to the second level of the palace and a suite of rooms. Wilder lay in the bed, unconscious, his face still as pale as before. Alwyn drifted to his side. He looked so young and so still.

"He's alive," she said, again, willing this to be the only thing she needed to know.

"For now. The truth is, he's lost a lot of blood. I've seen many wounds like his before. He is in the place where he might come back or he might slip away."

Alwyn swallowed, her throat constricting making it impossible to breathe.

"I encourage you to talk to him. Remind him that someone cares for him. Give him a reason to fight to live."

Someone who cares. A reason to fight. She shouldn't be the one standing here. It should be Lydia. Their bond ran deep and he'd give anything to protect her. Even his life. And it seemed he almost had...or almost would.

Alwyn stepped closer to him, realizing right then even if he loved Lydia, she was still the Princess he swore to protect as well. He didn't need a reminder of his duty, he needed a reminder that he wasn't alone. He had someone who cared. He had a friend.

She thanked the healer, who then left. Taking a chair from the table, she pushed it up against the side of the mattress. She sank into it and leaned in.

"Wilder," she said. "Your father is alive. The promise I made you...I kept it. He's alive and waiting for you to see him. That means you need to fight, keep fighting. I've never met anyone who can fight like you. I admire what you can do. Keep fighting because...I want another chance to fight alongside you."

She watched his face for any sign that he heard her. She waited and waited. And kept waiting, finding the smallest things to say.

But Wilder never responded.

**********************************************************************

*Hides behind shield*

Are you going to throw fruit at me? If so I prefer peaches, nectarines and bananas.

*Lowers shield, gets a tomato to the face*

Should have see that one coming. Now do you have anything to share besides tomatoes. Possibly thoughts on the chapter? 🧜🏽‍♀️⚔️🛡

How many of you believe I'm evil enough to kill off Wilder:

You're evil but not that evil, I have hope.

You're pretty evil, I think you'll do it. After all you destroyed the original ships.

I'm eating pop corn to keep from saying anything.

I hate you and your depressing story, Joy.

Gotta say, I'm kinda in that last boat, this story is De-press-ING!

But hey Alwyn is there for Wilder so that's something. She's become a true softie and I'm proud of her for her transformation. Also daddy Wilder- (nope can't say daddy it's become something weird) Wilder's father is alive, so WOOHOO!!

OH! Zavier! Not captured after all! Who saw that one coming?

If you reread it I never say what the smile illuminated looked like. But a smile in the dark is always seen as creepy so I knew it would throw you for a loop! Another plot twist done and done, son!! BAM! I'm awesome! Crushed it! Totally killed it! And Wilder...

Haha that's right, be afraid, be very afraid!

Vote, comment, follow but only if you feel it's completely necessary.

😂 So great!