The sound of shuffling followed by silence resounded in the room. Tah Min pushed herself up from the ground and turned to see that Gabriel was standing with his back towards her. She could feel her heart rapidly beating away in her chest. A long, exasperated sigh escaped her now bruised lips as she slowly stepped back, trying to get to the door. She froze when the sound of metal slamming against the door to her chambers began to echo loudly. She whipped around, stumbling to her feet and scurrying away from the door.
“FIND HER AND CAPTURE HER! WE MUST EXECUTE HER TONIGHT!”
Tah Min felt her blood run cold. A traffic jam of words were caught in her throat as she began to panic. She repeated the words “I cannot die here” over and over in her head like a mantra. “There are still things I have to do,” she thought. Her mantra drowned into white noise as Ea’s smiling figure flashed briefly in her mind. Panic turned into resolute determination as she steadied herself. She turned back to Gabriel, collecting herself just long enough for the thought of escaping elsewhere to flash through her mind. She had no time to figure out a plan of action as Gabriel’s hand was once again in her hair.
It happened so fast she almost didn’t feel it when he yanked her head back and shoved his dagger, which he had walked over to pick up, into her mouth and sliced her tongue right off. He pulled away, cleaning his dagger with a satisfied grin on his face. Tah Min’s eyes widened when she looked down to see blood dripping into her hands. She raised her shaky hands to her face just as the pain hit her. A horrifyingly fearful gurgle emerged from her throat as she struggled to blink away the tears that began to form in her eyes.
“I would find a place to hide if I were you. Y’know you and your people are going to make this really easy, what with how religious they are and whatnot.” Gabriel slipped his dagger back into the side of his belt and dusted his hands off. “If they break in here and see you bleeding and screaming like that, you know what they’d think? They’d think their Priestess was being punished by the great phoenix for breaking her vows. It’ll just confirm all the rumours that have been floating around.”
Tah Min paled as she felt her knees give way. She collapsed to the ground with her hands still over her mouth and blood flowing thick and sluggish through the cracks in her fingers. She watched as Gabriel laughed to himself, walking over to the window and popping it open. He turned back, giving her one last condescending grin before throwing his legs over the window sill and hopping out of the window. The sound of the locks on the door being broken snapped Tah Min out of her stupor and she felt her heart sink as the door slammed open and a mob of angry people stormed inside.
•~•~•~•~•~•~•
Ea had managed to make to the other end of the tower with relative ease until he came upon a group of guards blocking his way, just before he got to Tah Min’s window. Panic surged through him as a million thoughts flooded his mind. Why were they already gathering near her chambers? Did they get to her already? Were they there to stop others from trying to get to her? He didn’t have time to worry about that however, he needed to act fast. He took a deep breath and calmly walked over to the guards. As he approached, he found himself sighing in relief when he noticed that the guards that were hovering around happened to be the ones he was sparring with earlier this morning.
One of the guards spotted Ea coming towards them and alerted the others. “Your Highness! What are you doing here?”
“I heard some disturbing rumours and came to speak to Tah Min but her door was locked. General Yiran and I suspected that someone might have been inside with her. Have you seen anything?”
The guards exchanged looks with one another. “We haven’t, we heard those rumours too so we were thinking the same thing as you but we saw a crowd of people heading towards her chambers. They didn’t look like they were heading there out of concern for the Priestess. The had just passed by when we heard them, we figured they would get there before us with the pace they were going so we decided to sneak around here and cut them off in her chambers before they got in.”
“What are you waiting out here for then?”
“We just got here and heard things knocking around inside, we were trying to figure out how to sneak up on whoever was inside without getting caught. The windows are located behind some sliding screens and we can’t open them without making a lot of noise”
Ea lifted his hand, brandishing a clawed finger. “I can help with that.” He heated the tips of his claws, which formed a sort of precision tool he could use to cut an opening into the window.
Ea turned to the window, but just as he was about to press his claw to it, it burst open, this time by Yiran who had thrown himself out of it to escape the mob. He was covered in gashes and wounds that bled through his neat attire, staining it with blood.
When he saw Ea, he grabbed him and began running towards the main tower. “I couldn’t hold them off! There were too many of them. We have to get to the main tower. If we can make it there, we can barricade ourselves off from the mob.”
Ea saw no reason to object to this plan and followed him. As they ran, they saw the Solarian soldiers that had escorted Ea and Tah Min there, battling with the guards of the summer isle. Ea thought to himself that perhaps he trained the summer soldiers a little too well, after all, he was the one to help them improve as per his promise nearly six years ago. Flames fought flames and the fires of the battle grew larger and larger until the Isle was consumed by the raging flames of both sides. Ea tore his eyes from the bloody scene that played out behind them and returned his attention to the path to the tower. As the sun began to set and the flames soared high into the sky, turning it blood red, they entered the tower of howling flames.
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