This was the Fire Lord.
Aldrik’s focus was past her, toying with the Northerner as he sent the assassin scurrying to avoid one blindingly powerful magic flame after the next. Baldair was quick to follow behind his brother, freezing in his step as he took in the carnage before him. Vhalla pushed against the ground, trying to keep herself even partly upright. She was safe now and the heartbeat was beginning to fade. Behind it lurked an agony that threatened to tear her apart.
Aldrik had finally made it to her, and she saw his shoulders quiver with rage as he looked down upon her mangled and bruised body. “Lord Taffl, Baldair,” Aldrik spoke to Daniel and his brother but his eyes never left her. “Apprehend that man and bring him here—alive.”
The prince knelt at her side. “Vhalla,” he whispered.
“Aldrik,” she choked out, emotions overwhelming her. Vhalla’s face twisted in agony. “Aldrik, she’s-she’s-I, it’s my fault, it’s my fault.”
“Vhal ...” Fritz had been the only one of the steadily growing onlookers to approach the two. He sunk to his knees as well.
Vhalla hung her head between her shoulders and wailed in mourning.
“Mother, no ...” Fritz gasped. Vhalla expected him to be staring in horror at her. But he looked beyond.
She followed the Southerner’s gaze over her shoulder, past where Baldair and Daniel were dragging the overpowered assassin toward Aldrik. Her eyes followed the bloody trail she’d left to the inn that was now in need of repair from where she’d slammed a stone-skinned Northerner into its side. Vhalla’s eyes fell on a small row of bodies that was being lined up before the doorway. There was the man who’d been cut almost in half through the abdomen, the woman with the wound to her neck, another two Vhalla didn’t even remember falling in the scuffle, and then a Western woman.
Vhalla scrambled to her feet, Aldrik and Fritz in too much of a daze to stop her. Limping the pain away, she broke into a clumsy run. Daniel tried to grab her as she passed but his hands were too busy keeping the Northerner under control.
She pushed away the man who was situating Larel’s body in the line of the fallen, collapsing at her friend’s side. “No no no no no Larel.” Vhalla pressed her palms against the woman’s mortal wound, as if she could somehow heal it now. “You can’t, you can’t do this to me!”
Her throat was raw from screaming, but Vhalla’s ears could barely make out any sound. She leaned forward, pressing her face into Larel’s still warm shoulder, gripping onto the shade of her friend. It was too much. She rocked back and forth with every sob. It was too much.
“Vhal,” Fritz placed his palms on her shoulders. Vhalla didn’t move. “You-you need to get tended to.”
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked, twisting out of his grasp, pressing herself closer to Larel.
“Vhal.” He grabbed her.
“I said, don’t touch me!” Vhalla twisted, swinging at him. She didn’t have the strength for an even halfway decent attack, but Fritz still took it upon his tear stained cheek. Quiet sobs heaved his shoulders.
Vhalla stared up at him at an utter loss.
“Bring the Windwalker.” The Emperor’s voice cut through the rising commotion of the square. His icy blue eyes found hers.
Vhalla gripped Larel’s arm tighter. “No,” she whispered.
“Vhal, you need to go,” Fritz pleaded, kneeling quickly to block the Emperor’s view of her disobedience.
“No,” she pleaded with Fritz, shaking her head. “I can’t, I can’t leave Larel like this. She needs me.”
“She’s dead, Vhalla.” Fritz’s harsh words were a knife that cut through the last scraps of hope in Vhalla’s heart. “And you might be dead too if you don’t heed the Emperor’s call.”
Fritz pulled her upright and herded her toward their ruler.
“It’s my fault ... It’s my fault ...” Vhalla whispered, repeating the mantra over and over in her head.
“What happened here?” the Emperor demanded as she arrived.
All eyes were on her. Vhalla swallowed and turned to the Northerner. “He was a juggler, at the festival.”
“Speak clearly, girl!” the Emperor took a step forward.
Aldrik stepped forward as well, wedging himself protectively between his father and Vhalla.
“The people who attacked on the Night of Fire and Wind, they were the jugglers from the festivals, the ones who came to the capital. There were two missing in that attack.” Vhalla’s voice echoed emptily in her ears.
“And our attack was a success! We had no idea Emperor Solaris was growing Wind Demons,” the man spat. His accent was thick and heavy and it would have been difficult to understand if its inflection hadn’t already been seared on Vhalla’s ears from that fateful night long ago.
“You speak forcefully for a man who is about to die,” the Emperor said quietly.