The Suitors: A BTS fanfic

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Noor POV-- PART 2

Flames engulfed the ground around us. I could barely see the scene that surrounded Esther and me. I glanced to the queen, whose face was blank and stare emotionless. "We need to go!" I yelled followed by a painful cough.

The queen turned slowly to look at us. Everything happened so fast. The queen took Esther's hand. She looked at her with the cold eyes she had always bore.

"Your majesty!" I shouted. All around us were flames. One wrong move and fire could be our demise. "We have to leave! Now!"

The queen didn't even look at me. Just at Esther. For a moment, and only a moment, her gaze softened. "Be good. Be strong." The queen said to Esther. Then, the woman leaned in closer.

"The crown seems heavy only to those who wear it."

Not a second later, the queen's back was turned to us. The queen lifted the skirt of her expensive and lavish gown, and raced forward, knocking herself and the man who killed the king backwards into the high rising flames. The pair disappeared in the fire, and I knew they were gone.

I grabbed Esther's shoulder as she lurched forward. Esther screamed. A scream of loss and grief and pain. The scream of death. I flinched at her cries. She was too young. Too innocent to feel this way. She didn't deserve this.

I cannot speak on the way she felt about her parents. Whether she really did love them or not seemed unimportant, though. They were her mother and father. She had known them her whole life and lost both of them in a matter of seconds.

A hand on my waist. I whipped around, Esther still within my grasp. It was Hoseok, a smear of ash on his cheek. "Let's go!"

I swallowed again, coughing on the smoke. Esther cried and coughed and gagged on her tears and the poison air. Hoseok saw her and lifted her into his arms. Jimin grabbed my hand from behind, scaring me for a second, but his wide eyes gave me relief. We ran down the corridor, away from the fire that had sent billows of smoke to the halls around it. Cries of men's pain roared from behind us, and I knew my enemies were burning. I felt satisfaction in that fact, but sharp stabs of sympathetic pain for Esther.

Then, as we ran around corners and down corridors, our feet still dully aching and lungs coated with ash, like an angel sent from heaven above, I saw them. Tears immediately stung in my eyes, hopefully cleansing them of some of the smoke. At the end of the hall stood my sweet Isabella, Taehyung and Namjoon.

I almost collapsed as I ran to her. Exhaustion and emotional distress pulling me towards the floor, but the sight of my friends, alive and well, keeping me up and running. "Noor!" Isabella shouted.

I could hear Hoseok and Jimin's fast footsteps following me, but nothing mattered once I wrapped my arms around Isabella. And as if everything I had felt numb to during the fight came out all at once, I sobbed into her shoulder.

Isabella remained composed, but breathless. "I'm so glad you're okay." She said.

There I stayed in her embrace for a few moments. A sad exchange of information behind us.

"The king and queen?" Taehyung asked.

No one said anything, but I could imagine Hoseok's sad shake of his head. Esther still cried quietly in him arms.

Isabella and I broke our hug to collect Esther from Hoseok. Tears still ran down my face, but I was collected as we sat Esther down and wiped the black smears off her face and arms. I tied her hair back and took deep breaths. Jimin and Hoseok explained to Namjoon and Taehyung what had happened and hearing the retelling of the story made me cringe. I knew soon we would have to continue on.

I looked up for a second, out the window on the wall. I couldn't see the flames directly, but in the black, dark sky I saw the outline of smoke clouds. Most of the castle was built with stone or marble, but I wondered what would happen to the knight's wing where wood mostly held up the walls. It was cruelly poetic that the king and queen would burn with their castle, but of course I would never say that out loud.

"M-my sister? Y/n?" Esther stuttered.

I looked to Isabella who may have more information than I did. "All I know is that she was taken out of the throne room by Yoongi. I hope to god he really does love her and won't just hand her over to his father."

I swallowed hard again. In my bones I had a weird feeling, though. I was unsure if I wanted to share my inkling with the group in fear of giving them false hope, but maybe a little hope is what we all needed.

"I don't know why," I started. "I but I have a feeling he does love her. I don't think he'll hurt her."

"I think so too," Jimin spoke up. "I didn't talk to Yoongi much, but I told him y/n was looking for him one time, and his eyes lit up in the way only love makes a person light up."

We were all quiet for another moment. Then Hoseok broke the silence. "I hate to say it, but we have to keep going. Taehyung says they're going to the stables. I think that's the place y/n would go if she had the chance too." He furrowed his eyebrows thoughtfully. "We're still pretty far from the stables, but all together I think we can make it."

I nodded and helped Esther stand. I wondered if Hoseok was being honest when he said he thought we would make it or if he was just trying to motivate us.

Would we be attacked again on the way? Would I have to watch more people die?

I was unsure about so many things, but I was sure about one thing: I was fully prepared to lay down my life for the people around me.

And there's nothing more dangerous than a woman with nothing to lose.