Battle of the Elements

I stood there, in the throne room with Dane and Harrison, staring at the piece of parchment on the table. The neat handwriting was hers. After three years, I finally hear from her.

It had been three years since the day Shane died. Titania let out some kind off scream and then there was nothing but white light before she disappeared. Since then, almost all of the magical behaviour has up and gone. Search parties were sent out for her, but no-one could find them. Titania had been gone from existence for three years. 100,080 days. I took a breath in as I looked to the piece of paper with those words written on it.

Dear Alex,

I, Titania, would like to extend a hand and ask for peace between two kingdoms. Astia, a kingdom of great wealth, power and military strength will unite with the kingdom of Mylarine, a kingdom of peace and magic. As the king of Astia, this decision is in your hands. But I ask that, before you make any decisions, you come to this location with our old friends Dane and Harrison to see and behold the kingdom I have spent three years building: east of the Cyran woods until you meet with an old willow tree, go into the burrow.

Titania.

I felt both Harrison and Dane’s eyes on me. Dane was head of the guards now, but he hadn’t spoken to Bridgette in months – she would write to him but he hadn’t actually seen her since three years ago. Harrison had replaced Titania’s father when he left, thinking about it now, Titania probably sent him a letter like this, so he left to be with his daughter.

“I think we should go.” Harrison said, breaking the silence.

“Me too. If they’re asking for peace, we should give it to them.” Dane said.

“What if it’s a trap?” I said, voicing my thoughts.

Both of them looked at me, shocked.

I sighed, “She’s been gone for three years. She lost her lover. She could have changed. There’s no telling if she wants revenge or not.”

Dane scoffed, “Alex, its Titania. She wants nothing more than peace. Not to mention that Bridgette and Melanie are with her. They wouldn’t let her do something so stupid.” He had a point.

“Fine. We’ll have a meeting with the rest of the council before departure.” I said, rubbing my temples to get rid of a headache.

We arrived in the Cyran forest at dawn. After the meeting, we had set out for our journey at late morning. After riding all day, Harrison, Dane and I had finally reached the forest. I looked around. “Nothing.” I breathed.

Harrison shook his head as he got off his horse, “I disagree.” He said, stroking his hand down a tree. “See this mark?”

I looked closer at the tree. There was something there, but you had to be looking for it to see it. A small mark on the tree that looked like it had been engraved there long ago, creating a scar on the tree that was only a slightly lighter shade of brown than the rest.

LT

I looked closely at the mark, looking to Dane. Dane shrugged at me.

Harrison rolled his eyes, “You two need to read a history book.” He said with a disappointed sigh, “The symbol was created hundreds of years ago as a code for the elementals. They would use theses to give each other an idea of where to go to find each other. Titania must have set this up for us.” he said, saying it slowly like he would to five-year-olds.

“I get it.” I said, “Let’s just go.” And my horse set onto a gallop.

Before long, probably around fifteen minutes if anything, we reached a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing stood an elegant, huge willow tree. Its leaves drooped down, blocking anything past them. I leapt off my horse and tied it to a nearby tree. Harrison and Dane did the same, no-one saying a word as we walked towards to willow tree. I held some of the leaves out of my way as I walked through the thick wall of them. On the inside was the tree, with its smooth grey bark and the symbol, once again, carved onto it, only bigger. At the bottom of a tree was a small burrow that would’ve belonged to something like a fox or a rabbit.

Dane looked at it with puzzled features, “What now? We can’t possibly fit down there.” He stated the obvious.

As if hearing his words, the ground below us started to tremble slightly. The burrow began to crumble at the sides, becoming wider and wider until it could fit a horse into its mouth. The dirt ground began to change and shift until it all crumpled together to create stairs.

I gave Harrison and Dane a weary look before taking a step forward into the darkness of the burrow.

Down and down we went, the only sound was the faint breaths. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we came to a room. The walls and floors were made of smooth, light grey rocks that had been carved into bricks. On the wall in front of us was an archway made of gold. Small gems were encrusted into the archway and patterns were engraved into the gold and silver. Moss had begun to grow in it from the cracks in the bricks. Behind it was an everlasting waterfall. The water didn’t go anywhere, there was no pond at the bottom, it just disappeared as soon as it hit the ground. And the water seemed to be coming from nowhere, it just appeared at the top of the archway and fell before disappearing again.

I gasped in awe at the beautiful sight of it, it seemed to be glowing in the gloom of the rock walls and dirty burrow. Dane and Harrison did the same. I reached my hand out. A small spec of gold appeared in the middle of the waterfall. It was like a liquid gold as it become bigger and bigger, spreading over the water until it covered it completely. It changed colour, gold to silver, silver to copper, and then finally changing to glass. I took in a slight breath and it cracked in the very place it had started, the crack spreading out until it reached the edges of the archway before the glass shattered to reveal the scene before me…