The young girl sat watching the water in the ornate marble fountains shoot into the sky with her melancholy golden eyes, spray falling down to the surface of the water in a fine mist, leaving behind dancing rainbows in the oppressive heat of the early-afternoon suns. Up above, the smaller sun was starting to rise, adding its warmth to the true sun that was nearing its peak.

Her long pink hair fluttered behind her in the breeze, and her attendant, a young girl who was waving at her softly with a peacock-feather fan to drive away the most oppressive heat, suddenly spoke up, her voice soft and diffident. “Princess, you seem unhappy. Should I call for your maids? Or perhaps your sister? She always knows how to cheer you.”

The princess forced a smile, though it took quite the effort. Still, she was unwilling to show weakness before her attendant. If she did that, her mother would surely scold her. “Pay it no moment, perhaps looking at the water was merely making me thirsty.” Besides, neither of my sisters will have time for me and my moods, not now…

“I see.” Her servant brightened. “I shall run and fetch you a cool glass of juice immediately princess. Please remain here until I return!” with that her attendant put down her fan, hiked up the hem of her dress and hurried off back into the palace behind her.

Now alone, though she was aware that several of her personal guards would still be watching from a discreet distance, she was finally able to show her worries. Biting down on her lip softly, she clenched her small fists, remembering the conversation she had with her older sister just that morning.

“Adoria, the situation on the northern border is far more grave than we are told.” Her beautiful sister had said, her golden-blonde hair that she so envied sparkling under the light of the single sun at dawn. “I know we keep telling the populace that the demons are driven back again and again, but the truth is…” she leaned in close, smelling of sweat and light perfume. “… every time we take further horrific losses. Even with the assistance of Demera Vi Un Crusellode, our Astral fortress was ravaged. I don’t believe we can withstand another attack.”

She shuddered at the memory. Princess Demera had the lineage of Metal, and was renowned for her indestructible style on the battlefield, a master of siege fortifications, making any defence easy. If even she was not enough to secure a clear victory… but that was not the worst.

“… Even so.” Her sister had continued. “Demons are gathering even in our true lands. The days when we could confine them to the Astral ended when the Princesses of Flames and Lightning perished against the Champion of Andras.” Vudorixas the Massacre. Her sister had not named the brute, one of the four great demons who were leading the destruction of their world. It was almost like the legends of long ago, of the four horseman who would herald the end of days. Plague. War. Betrayal. Death. If so, Vudorixas would definitely be the horseman of War…

“… the Princess of Flames has died again. I’m not supposed to tell you this, mother and eldest sister think you are too young, but I think you should know.” Her sister continued. “Now the burden has passed back to her mother. She is too old. Worse, those who have received the gift of Fire and Flames all fought to the end, but …” nothing more had needed to be said. The purpose of the Elemental Bloodlines was to create ever-stronger warriors with each generation. The bloodlines went back two-thousand years, as she was taught by her tutors, unbroken since the first true kingdoms rose out of barbarism and tribalism. And for eighteen hundred years that tradition continued unabated. Until the demons invaded. Despite the warm heat of the suns she shivered, the thought of the demons terrible, though she had obviously never seen one herself.

Her musings were interrupted by her attendant, bringing her cool, refreshing drinks on a tray. She took one, and sipping on it, remembered the last thing her sister had told her before she was forced to rush away to attend a war council.

“… eldest sister Elenya… it is time for her to marry. We have no time to wait, lest our Bloodlines join the lost ones. Earth, Lightning, and now likely Fire… three precious elements destined to vanish… I too…” her beautiful sister had looked away then, saddened. “If sister seems distant, upset… well, please try to understand. Besides… soon you as well…”

At first the demons had been little trouble, or so the history books said. Indeed, initially, when the tides of the Astral strengthened, surrounding the world, it had driven civilisation to new heights. The Bloodlines grew even stronger, and in the Astral sphere around the world new marvels were wrought, new defences built. Some small incursions were easily defeated, and new breakthroughs in Elemental and Magical technology were commonplace. For forty years, the world had prospered. It was then that the way to transfer the power of the Bloodlines from the Princesses to others was found as well.

That was when our kingdom entered a golden age. After all, we have the Bloodlines of Ice, Light, Darkness and Wind. Though Darkness was currently carried by her cousin, the daughter of Duke Vespatian, Kiela. I like Kiela, even if she’s really quiet and you can never tell what she’s thinking…

Apparently everyone thought that nothing would ever change, that the glory of the kingdoms and their Bloodlines would continue forever. But one hundred and sixty years ago, the first Astral fortress fell. The retaliation from the armies of the many kingdoms was swift and brutal, and the demons perished in their tens of thousands, but… that was the beginning of the end.

The demons grew bolder, fiercer, their numbers and strengths ever-increasing, and as the years marched on, strongholds and fortresses were lost one after another, seemingly without respite, the Territories of the Astral falling to the demons, until only a few kingdoms were holding out, those with either Elemental Bloodlines or powerful magical technology. Then, thirty years ago, the Demons finally started finding their way through to the world below the Astral, the cradle of their civilisation. Again, at first it was but a few, though isolated towns and villages were razed, the people slain, eaten, or worse.

Still, now, in the present, around twenty percent of the known world was in demon hands, along with nearly seventy percent of the Astral surrounding them. Anyone who studied the progression of history could see that barring a miracle, there was only one outcome for their world…

“Is there something wrong, princess?” her attendant snapped her out of her gloomy thoughts. “Is the juice not to your liking?”

Realising she had stopped drinking, the goblet held motionless in her hand, she smiled gently. “No, I was just lost in thought. It is very pleasant.”

“That’s great!” her servant said, relieved. “The suns are harsh on your beautiful skin though. I should get you a parasol…”

As she watched her servant scuttle off, she finished her drink, the juice no longer sweet on her tongue, her troubled thoughts making everything taste bitter, like ashes…

********

“Keldruin of the Noble Elves is reluctant to dispatch any of their forces. They take the long view…” her mother’s chancellor was saying. The princess froze at the door to her mothers’ chambers, not expecting her to be talking about important matters.

Shamefaced, she halted at the door, not sure whether to back away or simply knock and announce her presence. But I see mother so little now. And father is away at the front-lines…

Frozen with indecision, she continued to listen. “More fool them.” Her mother spoke, her tone cold as ice. “They may be one of the few lands able to hold both their Worldly and Astral Territories against the enemy, but when all of the rest of us are gone, and only demons surround them on all sides, it will be too late to repent their foolishness and wish they had been less isolationist, better neighbours.”

“Crusellode still offers us support, though with their Princess of Metal injured, they will be limited in what they can provide for the moment. She was only sent to the battlefield because she is the hardest to kill of any Bloodline. No doubt now they will seek to have her pass on the Bloodline to a new daughter, so for the next few years she will be married off and try for a child. Her brothers will have to take up the slack, but even the Metalguard are nothing more than trivial obstacles for the current demon hordes…”

“We could ask your cousin for help, I am sure she…” the chancellor began again, only to be shot down ruthlessly.

“Never. The path that witch has taken, with her poor daughters… it is cruel enough that I am asking mine to marry men they likely detest so that they may pass on their Bloodline before fighting and likely dying on the field of battle, but to do what she has…” her tone was venomous. “… it is abhorrent. I must be a hard mother, cold, for that is the weight of two-thousand years upon my shoulders, but to turn my daughters into little more than abused tools to spawn more warriors… do not mention her again. Some means cannot be justified. Better we all perish than become worse than the demons we fight.”

“I understand. So then, the Noble Elves have turned down our entreaties. What about the other races? We are on poor terms with the Dwarves, but even so…”

The princess tried to slink away from the door, only for it to open, her eldest sister looking down at her with a distant, false smile on her face. “Sister, I thought I heard you out here.”

“Uhh, sister Elenya, I was just wanting to speak to mother, but I heard the chancellor in there, so…” Elements above, my sister is huge! She had always wished she was bustier, like her sisters, but they usually just teased her and said it would come when she was older. Still, my sisters are both beauties. Elenya has eyes and hair the colour of the finest jade, while mine is this stupid, weak pink colour.

“Stop pouting.” Elenya whacked her gently on the head, causing her to tear up. “You might as well come in. We are almost done.”

Seeing the chancellor, she held in a shudder. She didn’t dislike him personally, not really, although she found him a little unctuous and quick to flatter her and her sisters, but she had a natural aversion to him, as apparently his son had a high affinity for Air and Wind, so was a likely candidate to marry her sister Elenya. The son, Barbro, she loathed.

The potential marriage alone was not the entire reason for her antipathy of course, though it was certainly reason enough. She had found him staring at her other sister as well during balls and parties that were held at the palace, and even at her and Kiela. Rumour was that he had already got several girls pregnant. I hate him, he’s creepy. My poor sister…

Remembering what her middle sister Claira had mentioned this morning, she prayed to the Elements Above that Elenya could avoid marrying him, and at least find someone she could be happy with, or at least tolerate. Sadly, in these hard times, happiness is not something we can demand. Our kingdom still stands, but many others… she shuddered, darker rumours circulating amidst the servants when they thought that no-one else was listening, detailing lurid, vile tales of what happened to those in demon-held territory, especially captured Elemental Princesses…

“I shall take my leave.” The Chancellor bowed. “My Queen. Princess Elenya. Princess Adoria.” He bowed to them all in turn, displaying faultless manners. “My son passes on his regards.” He smiled toadily at Elenya, who nodded politely, her face expressionless except for a tiny smile. “I do hope I can see you together soon. In these current times of war, it would be reassuring for the Bloodline of Wind to have an heir, would it not?”

With that he left, and Adoria relaxed, only to be rapped on her head by her sister once more. “Ouch…” she muttered, clutching at her head.

“You need to keep your feelings from your face. Put on a mask, as I do, and your mother does.” Elenya warned her. “Anyway, you wanted to see mother, so I shall leave you.”

As she turned for the exit, her mother spoke. “Daughter. I’m sorry to push you to this, but it is either Barbro or one of the Noble Elves. Only they have the requisite affinities to strengthen the Bloodline. I know the choice is hard, but… we no longer have much time left. The demon advance grows swifter year on year. I suspect within ten more years, everything will be over.”

Elenya nodded. “I understand, my Queen.” At that, the Queen clicked her tongue, annoyed, but Elenya carried on as if she hadn’t heard. “But if I could have a little more time to mull it over…”

“A little. It is all I can spare. The same for Claira too. Soon we will all have to face the battlefield, and I’ll not have Wind and Ice end the same way as Earth and Lightning.”

Elenya bowed once more, before retreating from the room, and out of the corner of her eye Adoria could see the mask slip, her face cold and anguished. Sister Elenya… I wish there was something I could do to aid you…

“So, my daughter, what brings you to see me?” her mother asked, her golden hair flowing like a waterfall of molten metal around her still-youthful face. “I have little time for idle chit-chat, I fear.”

No! I forgot why I wanted to speak to her… now what do I do? Mortified, Adoria wracked her brains for something to say, the stern azure gaze of her mother conspiring to keep her head empty…