Battle of the Elements
Prologue: Cora

I smiled at the little baby in my arms. Her familiar, innocent eyes that seemed exactly like my own, darted up to me, then went back to playing with her necklace. I glanced over at the two boys who meant everything to me, my husband, Johnathan, and my new born son, Alex. It felt good to see my husband smiling again. He had taken a break from being king to be a father.

We were sitting in the throne room. Many people had gathered to see their newborn prince. It was a wonderful sight, everyone was smiling and laughing. Even the servants were having a good time. Arthur, one of my dearest friends and personal healer, was standing with a glass of wine in his hand, a smile on his face. It had been perfect. Everything I had ever wanted for my kingdom, for my children. But it was short-lived.

An explosion sounded from the entrance of the room, screams erupted throughout the room as two cloaked figures with hoods covering their eyes, emerged from the smoke, one of the figures took off his hood to reveal light blue eyes, sandy blonde hair and a smug, wolfish grin. The other figure kept its hood on. The smug man gave a slight laugh and began to shout to no one in particular “Sorry about the door! We just have some business we need to take care of then we’ll be out of your way!”

In a matter of seconds, my personal guards, formed a barrier around me and my daughter. I turned to my side to replace Arthur wearing a worried expression, he pulled on my arm, telling me to escape, but when I attempted to move with him my feet stuck to the floor like a tree’s roots. After several attempts I knew one of the intruders were using magic, and they wanted me. I passed my child to Arthur and with teary eyes shook my head. It’s over. Arthur had gone, escaped with my daughter. I heard the man mumble something to his partner. In a split second every guard was flung against the walls. The man rolled his eyes like flinging ten fully grown men across the room was a waste of his precious time and effort. Then he slowly made his way towards me. I stood firm, if I were to go down – and I knew I was – I would go down with the pride that I did not beg and that at least one of my children were safe. My husband would protect Alex, I know he will. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain.

A shout sounded from across the room. My eyes flew open to see the blonde man’s arm bleeding, my husband stood in front of the now injured sorcerer, a sword in his hand and a fire in his eyes. The sorcerer said nothing for a few seconds, his eyes were alight with anger more than agony and when he looked up at Johnathan everything inside me stopped and I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell my lover to stop, to run away because if he didn’t he was going to die. The man raised his hand – he was going to kill him. I screamed out, desperate, everything inside me wanted him to stop “No! Please don’t kill him! PLEASE!”

The sorcerer stopped with a start, he lowered his hand slowly.

The other cloaked figure had raised its hand to face its partner. “That’s enough Cole. We were told only to take one life if possible.” She was a girl, even with the cold tone she was using there was some undeniable part of her voice that was female.

Cole – assuming that was his name – rolled his eyes and gave an annoyed grunt, then, with a slight flick of his wrist he sent Johnathan flying against the wall, knocking him out in the process.

The mysterious woman turned to me. She came towards me and pushed her hand towards me. At that moment waves of darkness gushed out from underneath her cloak and came at me. In a matter of seconds the darkness had wrapped around me and everyone else in the room. The sorcerers came towards me. The woman wrapped her arms around my throat.

“May I ask what I did?” I said, glaring into the eyes of this woman.

“It’s what you’re about to do.” The woman said, her words filled coldness and anger. There was a slicing pain in my neck and then I was gone…