Deliverance (26 page)

“How nasty of Bogdan to trick them like
that! He’s a genius,” Valamar stated.

“Indeed, he is.” Saitar agreed, “Oh, and the
king will regretfully be unable to attend the wedding and asked me
to apologize on his behalf. You see, we believe that Prince Blaze
will try to sneak into the castle to save the girl, so the king
will have his hands tied with the town defenses all afternoon. I
will be joining him as well.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was looking forward
to his presence,” replied Valamar.

“Well, it is necessary if you want your
wedding to be uninterrupted by that whelp,” Saitar stated.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Valamar admitted.

Gavril suddenly felt a mixture of anger
towards the two men and shame at the way he treated Blaze. Just as
soon as he vowed to find him and make amends, Gavril could hear
Valamar and Saitar laughing and walking away, so he cracked open
the door and saw that the coast was clear. When he was sure no one
could hear him, he shook his head and muttered aloud, “The bastard
was telling the truth!”

Gavril then opened the trap door and called
down to the rebel and said, “Tell the others it’s safe to come in
here!”

“Yes sir!” the young rebel called. Gavril
then heard the rebel’s footsteps fading into the tunnel.

****

Blaze snuck through the corridors of the
castle in the stolen guard armor. Thankfully, he didn’t have to
hide since the helmet covered most of his face, but he had to be
careful not to attract suspicion from real guards by lingering
around. He remembered how the Daldussan soldiers marched and tried
his best to mimic it despite never actually trying it. Apparently,
he was able to pull it off, and even though he got a few stares, he
knew the other guards just thought he was a rookie by the way they
shook their heads.

Whenever he was sure no guards were in the
corridor he marched in, Blaze then creaked one door open at a time
and checked inside each one for Crystal, but he could not find her.
He didn’t dare check too many at a time, because he was afraid of
getting caught and ruining any chance of Crystal escaping. He was
beginning to get nervous after an hour of looking and not finding
her, and he had to hide how frantic he was after another half
hour.

Dammit! The wedding is about to start, he
thought.

He was just checking in another empty room
when he suddenly heard footsteps behind him. His heart sank when a
knife suddenly appeared in front of his face and then was held to
his throat. He was suddenly shoved into the empty room and the door
was closed.

Blaze then heard a familiar voice say behind
him, “If you make a sound, I will kill you. Now tell me where
Princess Amelia is being held captive.”

Blaze then replied, “Gavril, it’s me,
Blaze.”

The knife suddenly moved away and Gavril let
go of Blaze, who immediately turned around and lifted his helmet
off of his head. He looked at Gavril, who was accompanied by two
other rebels, and he pleaded, “Look, Gavril, I know don’t care what
you think—”

“I’m sorry,” Gavril interrupted.

Blaze straightened up and responded,
“What?”

Gavril let out a long, deep sigh, and
replied, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said you didn’t
betray us. I overheard Saitar talking about what he did to your
tracking mark. I then found Thaddeus and the others in the dungeon
and they told me all about it that as well as how Malcolm told him
Crystal is needed in the Lost Realm. They also told me you were
here, so I figured if I looked for Crystal, I’d run into you
eventually.”

“Well now that we’re on the same team, let’s
go find Crystal,” Blaze responded.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Gavril
said.

“Do you have a plan that doesn’t include
threatening me?” Blaze remarked.

“No, but your disguise gives me an idea.
Let’s get the other men together and get into position,” Gavril
replied.

Blaze placed the helmet back onto his head
and said with a smirk, “Let’s go crash a wedding.”

****

Crystal stood in front of a tall mirror and
hated everything she saw. There were three elderly seamstresses
making the final touches on a large, intricate wedding dress. To
her dismay, the collar was very low and completely exposed her
shoulders and showed far too much cleavage. Her hair was pinned up
and had been dried with pins overnight to add curls, and once
again, her face was covered in makeup.

She hated it. She felt like nothing more
than eye candy and she knew that that was all Valamar saw her as.
For the past three days, she barely slept and didn’t eat at all.
She had only water that the castle servants would bring up to the
room and refused to eat in the dining room where she knew Valamar
would show her off as a trophy to Bogdan and the others. She knew
all too well that Bogdan would laugh at the look on her face when
Valamar called her a pet name, and she would give up her magic
before she gave him that satisfaction.

“Almost done, dear,” the oldest seamstress
muttered.

Crystal remained silent, as she also had
been since she was first locked into her room. Her whole body was
too numb for her to utter a single word.

Ten minutes before the wedding, Crystal
emerged from her fitting room into the corridor of the sixth floor,
and two guards were waiting to escort her to the wedding site on
the third floor. Crystal saw that the guards stared at her for some
time, and even when their commander came forward, he had to bark
orders at them in order to snap them both back into reality. As
much as she hated the leering, Crystal no longer had the will to
stare daggers at anyone.

The two guards marched silently on either
side of her, and as much as she couldn’t help but notice that
something was odd about them. They were silent and continued
staring at her as they walked but not in a lustful way, it seemed.
However, she didn’t feel like questioning anything, so she ignored
this gut feeling and continued walking.

After finally reaching the third floor,
Crystal’s heart pounded in her stomach as the two guards opened the
double doors to reveal a heavily decorated room that was once where
she prayed with her mother to Caris. What was once a small temple
was now lined with floral decorations and rows of seats on either
side of the room. Nobles of all kinds from Ordale sat waiting for
the ceremony to begin, and as soon as the doors opened, they all
stood up to welcome the bride.

Crystal looked at her feet as she walked
down the aisle, but she could still feel Valamar’s eyes on her. The
two guards stood on either side of the door and out of the corner
of her eyes, she saw them stay next to the entrance and heard them
close the doors behind her. At least eight other guards were
stationed on either side of the room, giving no opportunity for
escape.

Crystal finally arrived at the altar and
turned to face Valamar. When she didn’t look up at him, he lifted
her chin with his fingers and she jerked backward to avoid being
touched. After receiving a warning glare from Valamar, however, she
held her head up anyway so he wouldn’t try to touch her again. Both
the bride and groom then turned to face the altar and waited for
the judge to begin the ceremony.

“Welcome, one and all. We are brought here
today to join this man and this woman in the union of marriage,”
began the judge.

Crystal faded in and out for several minutes
as the old judge continued to speak. She stared off into space and
heard bits and pieces of what was being said, but then Valamar
turned to face her, grabbed her hands, and held them up
tenderly.

“I do,” Valamar said.

Crystal realized that the judge had asked
Valamar if he would take her as his wife, and then he asked her the
same thing.

“And do you, Princess Amelia Atteberry, take
Lord Victor Valamar as your lawfully wedded husband?” he asked.

Just when Crystal sighed and readied herself
to say “I do,” someone else suddenly blurted out, “She does
not!”

The entire room immediately faced the
entrance, where one of the guards who escorted her to the wedding
stepped forward. He removed his helmet, and Crystal’s heart sank
when she saw his face.

“Blaze?” she asked in disbelief.

“How did you get into the castle? Guards!”
Valamar yelled.

The guard that stood behind Blaze then
brought up his weapon and pointed it at the back of Blaze’s
head.

“What are you doing here?” asked
Crystal.

“I’m here to rescue you, that’s what,”
replied Blaze, completely ignoring the blade pressed to the back of
his head.

“Why would you do that after what you’ve
done?” she cried, “You have a lot of nerve!”

“Please, Crystal, just come with me,” Blaze
pleaded.

“I can’t! He’ll kill the others if I do!”
she cried, “Have you any idea what you’ve done? I can never trust
you again!”

“Then trust me, Crystal,” said the guard
behind Blaze, who then removed the sword from the prince’s head and
removed his helmet.

“Gavril!” Crystal cried.

“Crystal, believe me, Blaze didn’t betray
us!” Gavril pleaded, “Just ask your husband-to-be.”

Crystal looked at Valamar, who smirked and
said, “Very well, you figured it out! But that doesn’t change the
fact that none of you will be leaving.” He then snapped his fingers
and barked at the other guards in the room, “Arrest them!”

However, the guards stood frozen for a good
while, and eventually, they looked at each other and burst into
laughter.

“What the?” Valamar stammered.

Suddenly, all of the guards stepped forward
and held their blades out towards him instead of Blaze and Gavril,
and one of them shouted, “Don’t worry Miss Crystal, the rebellion
is still alive!”

“Rebels?” Valamar frantically exclaimed. The
nobles in the crowd frantically gasped and whimpered, afraid for
their lives.

“That’s right, Valamar. They all still have
the will to fight and save their beloved leader. Now hand her over
or ELSE,” Gavril replied, who then pointed his sword in Valamar’s
direction, and Blaze did the same.

Valamar stepped closer to Crystal and
grabbed the back of her neck. “Come on then, take her if you think
you can without hurting her!”

“You coward!” Gavril bellowed.

Crystal managed to release herself from
Valamar’s grip. She then begged, “Gavril, please! Go and help the
others! Don’t let them get killed!”

“They are the ones who refused to leave
until you were safe, Crystal.” Blaze replied, “We all knew the
risks involved as much as they did. We all knew that this rebellion
could cost us our lives.”

“I can’t leave, Blaze! I just can’t watch
them get hurt!”

“And I can’t watch you marry another man!”
Blaze blurted out.

The room fell silent as Blaze’s last words
sunk into everyone’s heads. Crystal’s heart pounded as she tried to
understand if what she heard was correct. Even when Gavril and the
other rebels stared at him in shock, Blaze’s eyes never left hers.
He had clearly spoken before thinking, but he didn’t seem to regret
it and stood his ground confidently.

“Another . . .?” she asked in a low
voice.

Blaze sighed, lowered his sword, and took a
step toward her. The room was silent enough to hear his nervous
breathing, and Crystal’s heart nearly stopped when Blaze then said,
“I love you, Crystal.”

She could hear the tears in his voice, even
though his face was dry. She brought her hands up to her face and
covered her nose and mouth. Blaze continued to stare into her eyes
as he began speaking again, “I have never felt love for anyone
until I met you. You opened my eyes to the real world and gave me
kindness when no one else did. You also made me realize that I was
capable of feeling those things too. By the time I realized I even
had a heart, it already belonged to you.”

Tears were now soaking Crystal’s face and
she watched as Gavril let out a sigh, walked forward, and placed
his hand in Blaze’s shoulder in silent acceptance.

The silence was finally broken when Valamar
began laughing.

Everyone snapped their heads in his
direction, and he amusingly smirked at Blaze and said, “That was
quite . . . adorable. I honestly couldn’t do a better performance
myself! Quite a tear-jerking display, but that doesn’t change the
fact that I am the groom and you aren’t.” Still smirking and
chuckling, Valamar then grabbed Crystal’s arm and pulled her closer
to him.

Crystal wrenched her arm out of his grip,
stared him down, and said, “You can’t do any better because you can
never give a woman real love. You don’t really want me as your
wife, but as your trophy.”

Crystal then landed another slap across
Valamar’s face. The crowd jumped and gasped at her audacity, and
Crystal walked away proudly. As Crystal walked down the steps
towards Blaze and was about to say something to him, she heard
Valamar angrily mutter, “I warned you not to defy me!” Suddenly,
Valamar grabbed Crystal’s arm and pulled her towards him and he
looked at the judge and said, “She says ‘I do!’”

With that, he pulled Crystal towards him and
planted his lips on hers again. She showed no fear this time as she
punched and kicked at Valamar to get him off, but it did no good.
She heard Blaze and Gavril yell and charged forward, but before
they could get to her, Crystal felt her energy leaving her. A
sudden blast of magic power erupted from her body and Valamar was
sent flying in the air and he landed on the ground hard.

Crystal had collapsed after the blast and
was too lightheaded to get up. She felt two sets of hands hold her
up. When she managed to get her eyes open, she saw Valamar trying
to get up, but then Blaze marched over to him and kicked him in the
jaw. The groom flew backwards again and was knocked out cold.