Chapter 6 - The Scholar's Sacrifice
The journey back into the territory of Bellavere had to be made under the cover of a freezing mountain fog. Elias left his royal standard behind, dressing his remaining six loyal guards in the plain leather doublets of mercenary scouts. They moved along the low hunting trails, avoiding the main stone roads where King Odran’s garrisons kept watch.
Master Gideon rode at the front beside Elias, his horse laden with heavy leather saddlebags filled with forbidden texts on ancient stellar sorcery.
"The Temple of the Sunless Well has been abandoned since the First Dynasty, Your Highness," Gideon explained through his thick woolen scarf as their horses picked their way through a rocky gorge. "The texts say it was built over a fissure where the world's core meets the upper crust. It is the only place with enough gravitational density to draw the star-fire out of Her Highness."
Behind them, Princess Seraphine rode a heavy black warhorse. She sat as she always did—perfectly straight, her gloved hands holding the reins with robotic precision. She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, conserving her strength as the temperature dropped.
Suddenly, the horses sniffed the air, their ears flat against their skulls. A sharp, high-pitched whistle echoed through the fog overhead.
"Crossbows! Get down!" Elias shouted, throwing himself flat against his horse’s neck just as a heavy steel bolt cut through the mist, burying itself into the tree trunk beside him.
From the rocks above, a dozen soldiers in the crimson and gold livery of Bellavere descended, their heavy swords drawn. These weren't assassins; these were the King's personal inquisitors, men trained to hunt down heretics and political prisoners.
"In the name of King Odran, surrender the asset!" the lead inquisitor roared, his heavy iron shield raised.
Elias drew his sword, his blade meeting the inquisitor's with a deafening ring of steel. "She is the Princess of Bellavere and the future Queen of Ardenfall! Stand down, or face the wrath of my house!"
The battle was fierce and clumsy in the thick mud of the gorge. Elias's guards fought bravely, but they were outnumbered three to one. One by one, his men fell to the heavy crimson shields of the inquisitors.
Master Gideon pulled a heavy glass flask filled with alchemical fire from his pack, his old hands shaking as he prepared to throw it into the enemy ranks. But before he could cast the vial, an inquisitor's blade pierced his side. The old scholar gasped, falling from his mount into the slush.
"Gideon!" Elias cried out, trying to cut his way through the wall of shields to reach his mentor.
Princess Seraphine saw the old man fall. A low, terrible hum began to emit from her helmet, so intense that the ground beneath her horse’s hooves began to crack, the mud freezing into solid ice within seconds.
"Do not... use your power!" Elias shouted at her, his voice frantic. "If the iron cracks, you'll die!"
Gideon looked up from the ground, blood bubbling at his lips. He saw the pale-green light beginning to leak from the seams of Seraphine's helmet. With his remaining strength, the old man crawled toward the inquisitor's lead horse, slamming the vial of alchemical fire against the beast's iron shoe.
The explosion was blinding. A wall of blue flame erupted across the gorge, separating King Odran’s soldiers from Elias and the Princess. The blast threw the remaining inquisitors into chaos, their horses screaming as the fire consumed the brush.
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Elias used the distraction to lunge forward, scooping Gideon’s fragile body onto his horse’s saddle before grabbing the reins of Seraphine's mount. "We have to move! Now!"
They tore through the smoking ruins of the trail, leaving the fire and the screams behind them, plunging deeper into the hostile heart of Bellavere.
