3 Chapter 3 (1/2)

Chapter 3

October, 1110 A.D.

I heard shrieks in the night, and I was leaping out of bed and rushing to the scene, armed with my katana, when I found a horrific sight.

My sons, dead… hanging from ropes in the middle of the hallway. Shizuko was gasping for air, dragging herself along the stone floor toward me.

”Darling…!” She croaked. ”Your father, he's out in battle. I… an assassin got in, and I… I just couldn't stop them.”

I lifted her, and rushed her to our chambers, calling out the physician to our chambers even as I went. He followed us to the room, and I had him to watch after her as I rushed outside, out to the battlefield.

My father was fighting, his mother and he out there using spells that he had only recently began to show me.

I slashed and dashed, slaughtering enemies as I went.

”Father!” I cried as an enemy almost struck him down.

My grandmother rushed to have a couple of soldiers carry him off the battlefield, and she practically flew to a hidden entrance near the back of the castle, and we rushed into a hidden door and down the stairs, underneath the city.

”We have to get him healed, quickly, and then we have to get him sealed! We have to do it quickly!”

I didn't know what she was talking about, but I was shocked and appalled, outright upset and blindsided, when she and the others strapped him down, and chanted. His body changed, looking more and more human, before his body started to freeze.

I could only sit there, stunned in shocked horror, before I rushed out.

I ran. I ran to my chambers in the castle, and I got Shizuko curled up in my arms, wrapped in blankets, before I ran.