The carriages were shimmering, almost glistening in the broad sunlight, shining with a glow and a radiance that was such an irony to what lay deep within them.
The living dead.
Each caged beneath the rough and woody exterior of the caskets. Each enslaved in a coffin, not knowing where it would be next.
Were they even dead?
A pulse? None.
A heartbeat? Not a line.
A breath? Not one escaped their parted lips, their eyes shut but the vague terror that filled there faces imminent.
Something had sucked them dry.
Leached them of their life source.
It fed on them like a parasite.
And then it left.
It - or who - it was, just left the limp and lifeless corpse and left.
“Amora?”, I thought at first.
It made sense.
Stealing the Norn Stones, running from the court, leaving Odin and Karnilla absolutely distraught as to what had left the Godseye Mirror in shards and who had stolen the five most powerful stones in all existence, not just to mankind, but a threat to a God too.
Not even a hammer could match that.
No matter how fast the wielder tried.
It made me laugh.
Stifle a few noises of sheer treacherous laughter that would escape my throat to the thought of the most powerful being of the nine realms rendered powerless against a handful of tiny colourless stones.
They channeled power; they channeled rage, they channeled magic.
Not a lot were gifted with that ability.
I swung onto the top of the carriage, and for once knew what I had to do.
All my life I had been the wrong one.
The second choice.
Keeper of lies.
Mischief.
Malice.
Masochism.
Sadism.
No longer.
I’d take those stones and return them to where they belonged, and then I would be proclaimed as the true prince.
I didn’t need the Chitauri, I didn’t need an army.
“Just the knife will do”, I murmured, leaping through the gap of the two carriages, landing on my feet.
I looked up at the faint shadow that stood in front of me.
Hair flowing past her face, blond - no white, almost lifeless - just as her features where.
“Hand them over, prince.”
Oh no.
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