Áz - The Battlefield

The Worry of Flowers

Capital of Aggron, Dellaria, Silver Palace.

A Colored Palace was the second symbol of a kingdom's power. A kingdom could only be considered a true "kingdom" if it possessed one of the Throne of the Seven Colors, so around it the rest in the eyes of many were just remnants fighting for power, with no right to any choice on the continent.

From unknown times when the Thrones came into being, the place that contained them was called a palace. The palaces were defined by their magnitude, normally it was the tallest and widest building in the kingdom and with the passage of time in addition to the residence of the royal family it became the place where all the administration of the kingdom took place in every way it could be considered a of the pillars of a kingdom.

The Silver Palace itself was not made of Silver, but the Silver Throne within it emitted an aura that over time changed the color of the entire palace to an almost white silver hue, just as all the other Thrones did with their respective places.

Now inside the corridors of the Silver Palace a girl was running in a hurry, the reason for her haste was probably known to everyone but her until yesterday and the moment the people working in the palace saw her they couldn't help but worry about what she had uncovered. The palace guards, however, could not help but follow her out of concern for her interference in the Throne Room.

— Miss Laylla! Wait! You can't just walk into the throne room like that at random! — Shouted one of the guards who followed her.

— I won't stop until I have an answer! They can't have ended up like this! — She replied as she ran.

Unfortunately the girl was a lord, after passing a flower pot placed on a wall as decoration, of those who commonly decorated large places in heaps, the big blue flowers in that vase broke the same and its roots grew quickly stretching to the guards. and holding them in place.

— Laylla! Let us go! — Shouted another guard, already annoyed by the whole scene.

— No! Not until I see the king! — She replied hesitantly but still leaving them behind and running again.

It wasn't like there was no one who could really stop her, now and then she passed one lord or another, but they didn't try to stop her and looked at her worriedly. The remaining path was not so long and she was soon running again, truth be told, if she was an enemy even though she was a Lord, they would already have stopped her even if it was just to proceed a long time ago. What they were really trying to do was calm her down and it looked like nothing had gone right, she even arrested them so she could.

— Who told her what happened? She's the one they shouldn't have told you yet. — Said an old man in blue clothes on the way to see her pass.

— General Zellaorte! She found something strange and ended up overhearing a conversation between Lord Allia, Lord Celli and Lord Sillasi about Laylla's disappearance. — He declared the guard to him, stopping while three others followed him.

Old Zellaorte looked worriedly to where Laylla ran desperately, but he didn't try to stop her. He had doubts about the king's initiative to let Illye and Noella have made that trip in place of a Captain or if necessary a General, not yet accompanied by at least a Phase 4 Lord. Thinking straight was strange and quite sudden.

— I hope they know what they're doing… — Zellaorte sighed as he walked back the way he came.

Laylla was running, bumping into people and dropping papers and people along the way, her closest cherry red hair was totally messed up and her cyan lotus barrettes were about to fall out of her hair as she ran holding her dress. Only one thing was on his mind, to do everything possible to help look for them, even if he didn't really know what to do.

After going up several and several steps and floors, she arrived at the front of the stairs of the Throne Room and seeing the huge silver metal doors of the throne room she came across the guards of the Throne Room, people in full body silver armor. and white cloaks that went to the ground, after the Generals and Captains of the realm these people are the ones who acted directly in the name of the king. Despite all the "escape" from the other guards that Illye accomplished in the end, she hadn't remembered them, to begin with what she was doing was a desperate idea that popped up in the heat of the moment.

The existence of the throne guards was not a secret, in fact most palaces had people like that.

City Guards.

Palace Guards.

Throne Guards.

They were divided like this in most kingdoms, at least when guards were not integrated into the army in all-out war situations.

The Throne Guards were all followers of the King of Aggron himself, who was also the Lord of the Seals.

Seals were a form of Ritual and one of the few types of rituals and contracts still known to mankind that were taught by the Golden Dragons to the ancient Emperors and later to mankind. Altogether, no more than ten forms of rituals and contracts were known together, and the way they were performed was not made public.

The Sealers, as the followers of the Lord of the Seals were known, could easily stop Illye from using her Authority if they wanted to.

In front of those guards the Judge of Aggron stood looking at the girl, apart from a seriousness that was expressed in the face of this man nothing else seemed to be seen, the man who had already entered his forties in physical aspects, she had short dark brown hair with graying streaks and brown eyes. He was dressed all in white from his pants to his overcoat and was simply now waiting for what Laylla was going to do.

Noticing the state she was in, Laylla straightened her short cyan dress and introduced herself to the Judge

— Mr. Noellum, I came here to ask for an audience with the king. — It seriously portrayed the girl staring at the man.

— It was possible to notice that from your pursuit to here. — He replied seriously, sighing as he put his hand on his head.

The other guards who were chasing Noella finally arrived and when they saw what was happening in front of the throne room they returned to their normal duties leaving Laylla there. As they left, some of them were even looking at Laylla with pity for the young woman.

— I hope I can attend an audience with the king anyway. — Devoted to acquiring such an audience even fearing possible punishment for all the trouble it caused, she decided to go along with her request.

— Your audience has already been set, however at the end of it your punishment for disturbances in the palace will be discussed. — He replied quickly, turning around and opening the gates towards the throne room. — Come.

Somehow happy to have her request granted, Laylla hopped up the stairs to the doors, as she passed the Sealers she waved to one of them as if to say goodbye and slowly walked in following the judge.

In response to what she did, no one answered her, they just let her pass.

— Why do I feel like we're part of an audience? — One of them asked, breaking the silence after Laylla was gone.

Leaving the guards out, Laylla looked again at the Throne Room, a place so famous and yet so deadly. Certain ten-foot-tall statues holding weapons and objects stood silently around the Silver Throne at the back of the hall on a higher floor of stairs, and in front of it on a wooden throne at the front was the current King of Agron.

— Lord of the Flowers, what do you want in this place? — He questioned her firmly.

The King's voice could be heard throughout the hall, the black-skinned man like Illye had a younger appearance than the Judge himself, he had dark eyes and curly hair that went down to his chin and wore dark clothes. and above that a silver cape, his eyes looked seriously at the girl who had kneeled meters in front of him when he entered while Judge Noellum had already stood beside him.

It was a fact that the Silver Throne was Kingless as the Lord of the Seals had disowned the Throne shortly after being accepted by him, hence he used a wooden throne instead of the royal throne. There should have been a shiny silver mark on his right arm, but now there was only a barely noticeable colorless mark on his skin that looked more like a simple birthmark. No one knew why he had shed his possession of the Silver Throne, but the fact that he had managed to do so made it irrefutable that as long as no one else possessed it he was in every way the only Silver King in existence.

— I… She hesitated, thinking about what the girl should say. — I came here to ask you about the whereabouts of Illye and Noella, Your Majesty...

—  And is that reason to cause all this in the palace?"Can you believe I don't know everything that happened out there? — He portrayed him without outlining apparent emotions.

— I'm sorry, Your Majesty… However, I still want to know what happened to them and if there's any new information or anything I can do. — Completed Laylla, unconcerned with what would happen to her.

The answer to his request was only silence. For a few seconds the Silver King closed his eyes as if he was thinking about something. About two minutes passed and Laylla was getting uncomfortable with the silence they were in, she wanted to ask him about it but with every passing second Laylla felt more anguished fearing they had really died.

Laylla would have gone with them on this trip, but having just returned from a visit to a village suffering from plantations, a place where her Flower Authority could be useful, she ended up arriving only two days after they had left. Illye and Noella had left for the South and she was returning from the West, there was no way they could even meet on the way.

— We don't have any leads yet on their whereabouts. There are no signs of the carriage, no bodies, no blood, no signs. It's as if all ten of them had evaporated halfway along the carriage, the last place they were seen turned out to be on the road to Azzaria and that's all, nothing more. — Said the King thinking about what to do with Laylla.

There was no emotion about the loss of her daughter in his voice and Noellum expressed it in the same way, they were unchanged in Laylla's view. They could each have lost a daughter now, this after a few years before they had lost the queen and her sister, respectively the mothers of Illye and Noella, and even then for Laylla they were unchanged.

— Your Majesty, who is looking for them at the moment? — Laylla asked, irritated but trying not to show it.

She thought that depending on who it was, there was the possibility that she would be useless in this matter.

— Nothing beyond the common inspection of nearby guard corps. — He declared in response.

Laylla looked strangely at the King's answer, it didn't make sense to even a Lord der sent to search for them. It was totally irrational, more like he wanted to send his only two relatives to certain death.

The King noticed this and continued.

— Laylla, nothing was found, nothing. If they died all traces of it have been erased, you've heard of a situation like this before. Do you understand where I want to go? — The King explained the point Laylla should focus on.

Laylla thought and remembered when the death of Illye and Noella's mothers happened, she was not as close to them as she is now but she knew that they only confirmed their death because they were warned by the Blue Kingdom Lent.

In Lent there was a huge book where the names of all the Lords who were alive at the time and their respective Authorities were written, as soon as a Lord died his name in black ink turned gray declaring his death.

This had happened to the name of the Silver Queen, the Lord of the Barriers Allastaria. With her death confirmed the death of the two sisters, the two had simply disappeared and usually only the Shadow Assassins could do such a perfect job of making someone disappear and disappear with every trace of it.

— So they… No, I can't believe it until a new Barrier Lord appears and Quaresma hasn't sent anything this time either and it's been two days! Until that happens I'll believe they're alive! — Laylla declared, trying to put the negative thoughts aside by focusing on another point.

Illye was only Lord of the Barriers now because her mother had died and she had been accepted by the Authority after that, but even that didn't happen overnight, it took years before Illye became Lord, so much so that Laylla became a before her.

On the other hand, Illye becoming the Lord of the Barriers was also a plus point, despite the regrets, it prevented such an Authority already well known to the Silver King from falling out of his sight.

— Then go after them.— Declared the King seriously. — I'm not going to send anyone behind to investigate, because considering what happened Malzer may be receiving help from the Shadow Lord and thus trying to reduce our forces, sending more Lords is the same as me asking them to die in sequence.

As bad as it seems in a sense what he was saying had its reason, two could become three, then four, five…

— I won't order you to go, but I won't stop you from going either. Despite being young you are a lord, you must bear the responsibility for your own actions. — He declared looking her in the eyes.

His questioning with that look was certainly a…

"Do you dare go?"

Facing danger, perhaps certain death, there were several outcomes she could think of at that moment and hardly any of them had a good side.

Laylla being stared at like that felt fragile and small as an ant. Perhaps he meant her good by not sending her to the same place as them, but still-

— I will, Your Majesty! — She replied without thinking twice. — Then I'll be saying goodbye now. — She completed getting up quickly and bowing leaving the place later.

Just watching the Flower Lord leave, the King of Aggron and his Judge waited until the gates closed.

— I hope she's okay. Noellum commented. — Really... is this the best choice?

— Noellum… — Replied the King leaning on his arm on the arm of the wooden throne.

— I always say that, Illias, but you being King will still kill us. — Noellum said, sitting on the floor.

— If Aggron resists over this, I still will. — Looking down, replied the King. — Having to choose your kingdom over your family is a decision that I myself consider to be wrong, but I will still make it whenever necessary.

— Don't blame yourself too much. It won't be your fault alone, we're wrong together. — Noellum pointed out, also leaving the Throne Room. — It's a good thing I didn't warn her that their names had been erased in Lent on the same day they disappeared.

— At least one of the three has to have a chance to live, I really hope she does. — The King has finished.

The Gates closed again after being opened once more, the King should also leave soon, this empty room was never very interesting to him.

— Still, the final decision has always been mine. — He commented to himself.

Rising, he also headed towards the gates, the sealers quickly followed.

—  What do we have for today? — Said the King, without talking to anyone in specific.

—  From today to tomorrow General Arlles will be arriving with the results of the investigation into the reason for the Wyverns' agitation in the East and the Water Lord has requested a meeting to discuss the Red Temple's recent actions in contrast to Malzer. —  One of the guards answered him.

The King Illias listened to each information with a melancholy face, after a few minutes after leaving the Throne Room he ended up seeing Noellum and some Lords with him running towards him.

— Illias! —  Noellum yelled in alarm at the sight of him. — Quaresma has just sent a new piece of news. Three names in A'Kalem's Book of Lords have returned to their original state! The two are-

—  Alive… —  Completed King Illias before Noellum finished.

The moment King Illias heard the name Quaresma thus associated with Noellum's turmoil, he had a little hope. However, he suddenly noticed something odd about the information.

—  Wait… Three names? Who would be the third? — He questioned that third name

— The Blue Council did not disclose…