Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)

Chapter Twelve: Those Left Behind

Kestra

Myra had been away almost all of the day, meeting with the other three lower generals to discuss the upcoming war. At this rate, she wouldn't get a chance to say goodbye to her mother.

Kestra was used to Myra being away. How couldn't she be? Myra was a general, and the heir to half a kingdom. Vera and Viktoria were similar. Perhaps it was the coming war, but their absence filled her with unease. Before, the war had been a distant thing, a faraway feud for faceless soldiers to settle on a nameless battlefield. But in the training ground of the valkyries, surrounded by an infinitely powerful army, it all seemed very real. The sea of nameless faces all seemed to resemble Myra and Viktoria. Each one's blood seemed overly real. War hung in the air, a choking humidity.                                                                                                                                                               

As to who would win, it had never been in doubt. The humans may have claimed a huge territory and boasted an army that dwarfed even the joined forces of the elfin city-states and the valkyrie queendom, but the centre of the apple was rotten and weak. Just as their vast territory was barely habitable, worthless desert, their army was poorly trained, unwilling to fight, and even if they hadn't been any of those things, they would still have fallen.

The valkyries were gifted with swift healing, acute senses, and sharp reflexes that made them extremely deadly. They possessed the wyverns and gryphons. The elves, of course, wielded deadly magic that could wipe out the human armies alone.The Lords and Ladies of the city-states possessed incredible raw power.

But even on the right side of a heavily one-sided war, there were casualties. After the cowardly, monstrous attack on the theatre, even Vera was in danger of assassination. Her blood boiled at the thought of the attack on the elves. Of all the places in Veron, why should that haven of art be destroyed? Better the military, than a place to crush spirits. The valkyries spat upon such war tactics.

She struggled to sleep, the wind howling as though in pain outside her window. Myra was not yet home, still occupied with meetings.The typical cold of the mountains seemed harsher tonight, as though the promise of war bittered the air. She tossed and turned, wondering if she would be awake when Myra came. She knew if she would, the warriror would be grumpy, and she could never fake being asleep. Kestra did not remember when sleep at last surrendered and let her fall into its sweet relief.

She woke up early, and crept out of bed. She lit a lantern, careful not to spill it.Vera had never liked her using those. She hung it up on a hook that lit up the main room, a large area where all four of them would work: Vera, Viktoria and Myra's desks claimed their own parts of the room, and the armoury the warriors shared was in the back.

Her own desk was slightly smaller, lightly piled with her Humanities, Literatrure and Languages work (what was the point of learning the ancient Valkyrian tongue when everyone now spoke Common?), all part of her Arts study. Her canvas and paints stood nearby, a bookshelf hidden behind the desk. The room had been designed so the four of them could spend time together while they did their work.

Home seemed to echo in this place, a gentle wreath of smiles and laughter.

Kestra couldn't help but smile back at the room before her. It seemed to love her. It seemed to know her. She sat down and stared at the blank canvas. She started to paint-just little things, reassuring old patterns. A red flower to start with. She went over it again and again, readjusting and largening, layer after layer. Comforting in its familiarity.

Hours passed without her realising. Myra, Viktoria and Vera were all still sleeping when she finished the first. And the second. And the third. They came in a flurry of colours and images, each lining the wall.

Everyone had their comfort in times of frustration and stress. For Myra, blades and arrows and exhaustion. For Viktoria it was much the same. For Vera it was quiet solitude deep in nature. For Kestra, it was a pile of paintings, one after the other even if they lay in forgotten corners gathering dust afterward.

Myra woke first, then the two queens. They spent their times at their desks, breakfast lying mostly forgotten, work piling up. Often, only one of them remained to look after Kestra as the hours mounted. In the end, she had to stop painting to let them dry and be piled up without being ruined. There was no drying rack in the Hawk Mountains, so she had to get back to the work she'd taken with her. Kestra stared out the window, feeling somewhat hollow.

The war was a whole lot darker than she could have thought. It seemed so very real, so palpable. Something was cold in the air. Myra and Viktoria would be gone for months, and both in danger. Vera would be busy and always under threat of assassination.

Of course, perhaps she and the graceful queen were alone in their sadness. The warriors felt alive now. For thirty years, there had been no war to fight. They had had no purpose but the dull routines of training. Nothing to fight for. Nothing to make their blood roar.

The warriors had been born for war. Made for it. It ran in their veins, roared in their soul. It was their purpose, their duty. She knew the pride it gave them-to march to war, to lay down their lives for the Keeper cities, bright havens of beauty and learning. Places that were worth dying for. It was, of course, more than that. War made them feel alive. Brushing with death painted the world in brighter, more vivid colours-for them.

For so many others, it ended in tears