It's strange, isn't it? How your heart can burn . . . and burn . . . and suddenly it turns to ice? She sat in the window of her room, where she had been holed up for most of the week. Her under eyes bore deep and dark eye bags and her slightly chapped lips seemed to be set in a small frown. Her cheeks were tear stained and her nose rubbed raw from the countless blowing of it.
The door to Y/n's room opened slowly and a short sweet whistle came from the other side of it. Y/n didn't move from her seat by the window and whistled the sweet tone back to her visitor. Loraine smiled and opened the door further, only to stop in her tracks to observe the room.
Books that Y/n had held dearly were scattered around the room - pages from the books torn out and crumpled on the ground along with the bedding to the giant bed. The room looked a mess and it was then that Queen Loraine took a proper look at her daughter. The young girls hair was slightly messy, her clothes were crinkled and had dark blotches from her tears, and she looked as if she hadn't gotten proper sleep in days.
"Oh, my dear girl." Loraine sighed and walked over to hold her daughter who had began crying once more. She shushed her soothingly and took a seat beside her on the windowsill. "What happened."
"War. This stupid war." Y/n hissed as she swiped away her burning tears with anger. There was a part of her that made her stop for a moment, made her feel for a moment. It was almost like a switch in her heart - like a light turning off and making everything it once lit up, dark.
Stop being so weak. Grow up. Get. Over. It. She thought.
Loraine watched with worry as her daughter looked out the window at the far away kingdom; Snowbrooke. Her eyes flashed purple and when she turned back to her mother, the only emotion her eyes held was anger.
"I am going to win it. And when it is over, may the Gods have mercy on the King." Y/n said and before she exited the room, she looked back at her now worried mother. "Because I won't."
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Night had fallen and Loraine rushed through the dimly lit corridors of Raven Castle - her long blue satin dress dragged slightly behind her. The tapping of her shoes echoed slightly as she picked up her pace and practically ran through the corridors as if something was after her.
She finally came to a stop when she stood in front of a wall - a dead end. The frantic queen looked around in the darkness in search of any strangers or unwanted attention. When no threats seemed to be present, Loraine stretched her arm out and placed her palm on the cold grey stone.
"Show me." She whispered. It seemed as though the wind had carried her words throughout the corridor, creating a ghostly sound.
Stone scraping against stone rang out and the wall separated slowly from its previous spot. Wind blew past her from the hidden corridor as she stood impatiently in front of it. When the wall had moved just enough for her to slip past it, she took off through it and down a set of stairs where a lit torch sat on the wall waiting for her.
She grabbed the torch and hurried down the stairs, her dress in one hand so she wouldn't trip over it. Her heart raced at a high rate and she breathed heavily through her nose as she stood in a large room deep under the castle.
The darkness of the room gave the women an unsettling feeling. She placed the torch in a holder on the wall and began lighting candles - with her fingers. She touched each candles wick as she passed, leaving a bright fire in its wake.
Once she finished lighting the remaining candles, Loraine walked over to a table that had two candles (one on each end), a giant book in the center, and three small jars - the contents unseeable from the dirt that was slightly smudged on them.
The queen seemed to work quickly with what she was doing - she rushed around the giant room, rummaging through drawers and flipping through old tattered books that had pages falling out of them. She bit anxiously at her thumbnail as she set down three more jars next to the other smaller ones, and a large glass bowl.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath and opened them again, her hands reaching for the first jar and unscrewing the lid. She reached into the jar and delicately took out a spring flower that had been kissed by The Goddess Of Birth; Thanera. She placed it in the bowl and gently placed the empty jar down and reached for another one.
The second jar lifted off of the table with a heavy grit. She unscrewed the lid and carefully placed a piece of petrified oak from the snow filled mountains, into the bowl. When it came down to the third jar, the queen became somewhat nervous.
Did this need to happen? She thought and shook her head at her doubt. Yes, it did.
With a pair of tweezers in hand, Loraine opened the lid of the jar and plucked out a piece of cooled molten rock. She dropped it into the bowl and stepped back when the rock shook slightly and turned to ash. She took a look at the bowl and gave a satisfied look at it and then moved on to the smaller jars.
The contents of the smaller jars glowed lowly when they neared the glass bowl of ingredients. One by one, Loraine plucked three ingredients from the jars - the small bone of a 1 month old stag, the tooth of a matured snow wolf, and a dragon scale. She shaved the bone down to dust and crushed the tooth into a fine powder before tossing the ingredients into the bowl.
As she mixed it together the table began to shake slightly and the ingredients in the bowl began to glow brightly. It was almost done. Loraine stepped away from the table when it stopped shaking and grabbed a vile of silver liquid that looked like water but with a slight metallic look to it.
She poured the liquid into the bowl and watched as it swirled and swirled until the concoction looked like clouds. Loraine sighed deeply and began whispering into the bowl as if she were afraid someone would hear her.
"You must listen to me." She whispered. "There isn't much time. A powerful curse is coming our way and it is your job to stop it. Meet me in the Meadows Of Old."
Loraine looked around once more and then faced the swirling bowl. "The Raven calls you children. And it is your jobs to answer her." With another small shake, the bowl stopped swirling and glowing and the only thing that remained in it was water.
Hopefully they had received the message and hopefully they would go. The kingdom needed them - the world needed them.
