Caroline

The sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff were the first step to her death, the crash breaking her arm to smithereens, deeming her unable to fight against the strength of the current. The roar of the sea surrounded her as she yelped in pain, trying to reach the surface to breathe and scream. That was when the arrow came, piercing her broken shoulder as if it were a knife cutting a piece of paper. Her lungs were running out of air, and her heart out of willpower.

And then, there was this instinct. The instinct not to breathe underwater. An instinct so strong that it overcame the agony of running out of air. It was no instinct that, no matter the pain and the struggle of reaching the surface, forced her to try again, one last time. But her body crumbled under its own weight, her throat and lungs burning as she blew the last whispers of air out, now waiting to die.

Still, no matter how desperate Caroline was, she wasn't planning to inhale until she was on the verge of losing consciousness. A nightmare which was going to become reality mere heartbeats later. Yet her mind told her to hold her breath, ready to die. And her body told her that she was dying and that she had to take a deep breath.

She could see the light sparkling on the water and her blood twirling inside it, escaping her in small lines of red and fading into the night. She could feel the rocks below her piercing her back. She could taste the salt of the open ocean, the sweet kiss of the reality of her dire situation. Who knew that this was going to be the last thing she saw... the last thing she felt... the very last thing before...

That was when the only thing more unpleasant than running out of air took place, with her senses still barely awake, ready to feel the crucifying pain of inhaling water with the first involuntary breath. This was how the drowning began, but not how it ended. She was afraid now, screaming in pain in the middle of the sea. She didn't want to die, but the screams only made her die faster and more painfully, aiding the water in the attempt to take her life. But that still wasn't the end.

A spasmodic breath dragged water into her mouth and windpipe, water flooded her lungs and ended any chance of air reaching her insides, even if she managed to reach the surface. Her heart was pounding harder now, trying to get any air it could find to the rest of her body. Her organs burned as the invisible poison reached every single one of them through her blood.

The pressure was pushing her from all sides, making her feel like she was being trapped in a world she couldn't move, breathe or escape. A world in which pain was the only state of being, and being was just another way to die. The edges of reason were blurring in this strange universe and fear was clawing deep inside her stomach, tears mixing with the water around her. The tide had taken over her... she was at its mercy

Here, half-conscious and approaching her death, in no position to fight her way back up to the surface, she could just witness herself dying in the middle of the cold night. And how the very process of drowning made it harder and harder not to drown, much like how crossing her and trying to fight back against her would have resulted in your wounds being deeper and deeper, but not lethal enough to release you from the pain. But that was when she was still alive.

Darkness was taking over her, as she gave up any and all fight, giving her body to the Gods of the Sea, who were punishing her for not being a true Darlean. Punishing her with more and more pain, which outweighed her dying senses. As her panic faded into numbness, slowly decreased, echoing around her like an anvil echoing on metal. One... last... ti-

The only feeling worse than drowning was the feeling of that same pain after she gasped for air in her room, her body failing her almost immediately afterwards, before she let it fall against the wooden structure of the bed, listening to her bones crack.

Her breath was heavy. Her chest pounded in pain. The room around her was filled with blinding light and warmth but even so, on the inside, she only wished that her nightmare came true. That was when the bells started ringing in the distance.

They echoed inside her room, and they echoed inside her head, making the pain shoot down to her entire body. She put her hand over her eyes to be able to look around, looking for the window that was the cause of her most recent distress. She attempted to stand up, only for her muscles to give up on her, letting her fall to the ground. "How long have I been sleeping", she attempted, before realising that her voice was lost. She attempted to push herself up, but to no avail, as if her muscles were unable to so much as flinch, with the ones that did feeling like repeated stabs of agony.

The second attempt was more successful, but nonetheless, a failure filled with a spark of pain through her entire upper body, forcing her to try again and again. She looked around the room, only to see her armour sitting on its stand, her sword next to it and her shield broken in half underneath.

"No", she whispered, pulling herself towards the shield. "This can't be happening", she cried, now fighting through the pain, pushing herself up and balancing herself by placing her hand on the bed.

She limbed towards the broken shield, the last relic of her family that wasn't in the hands of her father and brother, the only relic she got to hold herself. And she managed to get it broken in a fight against. In a fight that was worse than drowning. In a fight where she had no way to defend herself.

He had used her own body against herself, she realised as she picked up the two pieces of the shield and held them against her chest, letting the tears make their way down her face and onto the wooden floor. She was a bigger failure than she thought she was. Who knew how many of her men she had gotten killed due to her incompetence...

She gave a light scream and blindly threw one piece of the shield to her left. Which was enough to prompt her Red Guards to rush into the room, just as she fell on the ground, her sobs only covered by the coldness of the repeating bell, echoing like the hammer of a blacksmith hit an anvil over the city.

The moment when she realised that her men were in the room, she held back the tears, only to give an involuntary whimper instead, before looking at them directly. They were talking to her, trying to tell her something, but she wasn't listening she just wanted one of them to stab her through the heart to end the shame that she brought to her people.

But still, none of the guards even dared come close to her, pick her up or otherwise, as they feared that they would lose their lives in the process. "How many?" she asked them, her voice weak yet as stable as the highest buildings of the Empire.

"What do you mean, Captain?", asked one of the two men. She didn't care who it was, though, and her eyes were too blurry for her to look at him even if she did. Blurry from the tears and the blinding light that still dominated the room around her.

"How many are dead?" she whispered, unable to keep the stability that her voice had during the first question.

"Captain, I-I cannot understand", said the Guard to her, his voice trembling and showing the sheer amount of fear that her mere presence put in him.

"HOW MANY ARE DEAD, YOU STUPID COWARD?" she yelled at the top of her lungs, causing another wave of pain to jolt through her broken body, making her feel as if she was drowning again. Her body folded like a piece of paper due to the pain and she clawed her neck for air, before falling to the ground. Shouting had been a bad idea.

The guards came dropped their weapons and shouted at her, but she wasn't listening, she couldn't listen. They picked her up and placed her upon her bed as a young woman with auburn hair rushed into the room, pushing the guards out of the way. Caroline's blurred vision couldn't make out who it was, but she felt the girl's hand placed on her chest as she coughed her soul out.

And then, the pain in her lungs was gone. Not all pain, mind you, just the pain that came from breathing. Slowly, her coughing stopped, the water in her eyes was cried away and she could hear the young lady chant some spell on her to calm her down. Or rather...

At the order of the young witch, the guards picked her up and placed her on her feet as her stomach contracted so violently that she had no time to realise what was happening. Chunks of food covered in the creamy chyme from her stomach were propelled into the air and splattered the wooden floor and wall of her room. She heaved again and once more the floor was sprayed. Now she could not move forward without stepping on her own puke and she was feeling weak.

She sank to her knees against the strength of the two guards that held her up and retched until only clear liquid was coming up. Her throat felt sore from the acid that was layering it and her mouth tasted of vomit. Slaves flooded the room to help clean the mess, one bringing her water and forcing her to drink, again at the order of the witch, as the stomach-acid stench of vomit filled her nostrils.

That helped ease the pain even more, but now she was covered in vomit, with one of the guards having to leave the room to vomit as well. She felt even more useless now, but she still hadn't gotten an answer to her question. It was time to ask one last time.

"How many of my men have died?", her voice was weak and her eyes pointed to the floor, looking at the pools of vomit that she had created. She was scared of the answer, scared of the repercussions, but mostly, she was scared of having to vomit again so publicly.

"Thirty-six died, more than sixty are currently in the dungeon awaiting their execution at the hand-", tried her soldier, before she gave into her thoughts. She had let thirty-six to die and many more to soon be executed.

"At the hand of the Rebellion", she finished out loud. She was now determined to strike back at them quickly, without any help from her father, and burn their bases to the ground once she found them. They had humiliated her.

"No, actually," said a soft female voice behind her. "At the hands of my 'uncle', if you want to call him that, the Queen's, my sister's, Hand. They are facing the consequences of 'assisting the Rebellion', as my dear uncle likes to say. That's because they didn't kill the Rebels or die trying, I suppose, but I don't know for sure. My sister doesn't know, nor should she, I am afraid, else she will try to have her entire council executed for High Treason. But that would be the end of her rule and also that of both our lives", she now recognised her voice from her childhood.

This was Harrieta, the Misstress of Magic and the Queen's elder sister, the most well-known wizard in the royal families, mostly for her 'beautifully adult', as her men liked to say, body and cold, dominating personality. On any other moment, she would have to hug her and recall their past adventures in Alexandria, when Caroline still lived here, waiting for the moment to become a witch herself.

This was the only witch Caroline respected because she was the only witch that used her magic to fight for something, instead of burying herself in her books for an eternity, achieving nothing in the process. But she couldn't respect her now when she allowed such things to happen to men and to her kingdom's allies.

"You are telling me that you are punishing the men of your allies for something your own men are guilty of?" she spat these words sharply at her, before failing to stand up and falling on her own vomit. "Who allowed you to do such a thing? When my father hears about this..."

"I am afraid, dear Caroline, that it was your father who gave my uncle the authority to do as he pleases with your men, as well as yourself. If it hadn't been for me you would currently have been awaiting your execution as well, even if you are the High Diplomat of Darlan, a tittle that, as I understand, seems to have absolutely no value... or am I wrong?", she could feel Harrieta's cold smile piercing her back, but before Caroline could threaten to kill her, she continued.

"I never understood why you haven't killed your father yet, he seems to send you to your death more often than most fathers do. Nonetheless, let's get you cleaned up and talk about helping your men without getting us both killed". Caroline wanted Harrieta to let her alone to cry away her sorrows, but what Harrieta did was order some of the palace's maids and slaves to make her a bath and clean her up. After that, Harietta told her what happened while she was asleep, hoping to fill the gaps before someone overheard them.

"I was on the Southern frontier, in a lightning campaign against the Rebellion's forces there, as well as their allies near Chalcedon when the messenger who meant to summon me to attend the coronation finally arrived. But I couldn't come back, because Kalchidon had been taken by the enemy on that very day, stealing our supplies in the region and recruiting the population of the city. They somehow managed to go through the old system of aqueducts in the walls and imprison the garrison inside. I couldn't just allow this to happen, so I took charge of the siege for the three following days." she paused and sighed, trying to control her emotions.

"But I didn't have the supplies to follow up with this siege, not in the middle of the Winter. And the Rebellion's forces outside the city, few as they were, had cut my supply lines nonetheless, using swift cavalry manoeuvres to destroy the convoys that brought me food and ammunition. Then, the next summon came, when I decided that I will march my army back north to Gordium to resupply and come back to the city on horseback with a select 500 riders". She continued and gave a faint smile. "Turns out I was too late for the feasts and the celebration".

Caroline sat up in her tub and looked straight into her bright green eyes. "Is this a joke to you?" she said, wishing that she had killed Titanya that day, just to have an excuse to make Harrieta bleed right now. Anger boiled inside her, hatred. But not one that was directed at anybody else but herself. She was the one who had caused this to go from a celebration to a bloodfest. It was her incompetence. Only hers.

She wasn't about to answer that question so easily. "As I said, I was too late. My sister was unconscious, much like you were, and my cohort came into a city filled with rubble, wails and public executions all 10 major squares simultaneously. I could see the bay, still filled with hundreds of bodies and at least 10 ships that were bombarded, from what I assume is magic, to the bottom of the said bay. The city was in disarray and the council had seized immediate control." She stood up, making Caroline realise that she was taller than her, with her green dress and her tiara making her seem even taller. She had skin white as a cloud and a long chin, on which red and black tattoos ran, forming patterns of runes that unsettled Caroline. But still, even so, she was hauntingly beautiful, a calm before the storm that was her personality.

"I stormed into the meeting, asking for an explanation, only to be told that the rebels had attacked and their affiliates were being executed for treason against their crown. I asked for a number and I was told that there were 50.000 people that were scheduled to be executed, along with all of the guards from the ceremony since none of them could be trusted. They were attempting to kill one every twenty people that lived in the city." she went silent once more, her eyes turning into a shade of brown as she recalled something she didn't voice.

"Then, I asked to speak to the Titanya, they told me the Queen was gravely wounded and not to be disturbed. I laughed at them and realised what they had done before going out of this room and riding through the city to stop all executions on my own, making my cohort seize control over the execution platforms and telling the guards to report that all executions proceeded as planned. But of course, I can't be sure that nothing slipped through the cracks. I have been releasing the executed into the woods but that will feed the ranks of the Rebellion in the process. But your men... your men aren't quite as safe as you'd imagine since there is no reason to execute them publicly and some have just been used to feed the Royal Beasts."

Caroline gave a blank stare to the distance and suddenly realised how cold her water was before closing her eyes. She could have gotten her men out of the city, but now, now she had no men to get out of the city. "So, how long have I been asleep?"

"Twenty-five days. And you have also been summoned to Anatolia by your brother since twenty of those, a brother who demands that you bring him the Shield of Darlan for him to gift to the Tribes of the East. I tried to have my men repair it, but to no avail, the wood is too old to be put back together. I would suggest running off to Ashikaga with your remaining men and never coming back again, Caroline. Your father wants you dead, your brother soon will too and there is no glory to be found here for you. You are a brilliant commander but there is no future for our kind in Carthago." Harrieta told her, before placing her hand on Caroline's shoulder, feeling her with a strange warmth that she hadn't felt ever since she was a still a young aspiring commander.

"That is not the Darlean wa-", she began, her voice trembling. But then she had to stop and look at the broken shield. The Darlean inside her had drowned over the course of a single day. Tortured and beaten, with the pain still inside her, she was no longer Caroline, the Daughter of Darlan. She was Caroline, its failure.

"Neither is dying. And death comes for us all, so it is time for the Darlean ways to change. Now rest. I will be back in a few hours... and I will smuggle you out of Carthago because nobody is safe on this continent anymore".

Caroline couldn't argue with her anymore, her voice was too soothing to argue with. She just wanted to sleep as she heard it. And as such, she slowly did.

But this time, she was determined to not ever wake up again.