Chapter Thirty-Five: The world changes too fast.

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~~~Third person, seventh moon, 276 AC~~~

~~~~Asshai~~~~

In total darkness, not a single ray of sunlight could be seen; the streets maintained perpetual shadows, and not even the thousands of torches and bonfires in the city could keep it illuminated.

Entering the room and closing the balcony door, Isabella found herself leaning back on a black couch while holding her left hand over a pendant.

"Knock."

Wiping away the tears wetting her cheeks, Isabella cleared her throat and permitted her to enter.

"Princess" Henry greeted her, donning his armor. Receiving a small gesture from Isabella.

They had arrived two weeks ago in Asshai and since then she had not gotten news from her father. All they knew was that the war in Carcosa had evolved to major, with many dead on both sides, which was why Isabella suffered in silence constantly.

"Is there news from Carcosa?" Isabella asked hopefully, silently praying that there was.

Henry flashed a sad smile, answering Isa all, or she wanted.

"Damn, peacocks!" Isa shouted in rage, overturning a wooden table that was near her.

"Pathetic," a soft voice was heard from a corner of the room, causing Henry to draw his sword. At the same time, Isa raised her right arm, and several dark tentacles came out of it as if controlling the shadows in the room.

The dark tentacles soon met a wall of orange fire, which stopped the tentacles and made them disappear. "At least your father trained you well," she said to an unknown person, stepping out of the shadows and coming into view.

The woman, with green eyes and dark brown hair, smiled at Isa and her guard, as her blood-red necklace around her neck glowed. "Mother?"

Who else but me?" The beautiful woman replied, walking over to Isa and hugging her.

"I missed you so much; I was afraid; you don't know how much I had to go through" Isa spoke into her mother's neck, who comforted and cooed to her.

Isa's mother continued to talk to her, comforting her and giving her a chance to release all the stress she had had to go through. "I'm here, my little one; it's all over; you have me with you".

"Where have you been? Father said you had responsibilities, but that was six years ago." Isa pulled away from the embrace, wanting answers from her mother's abandonment long ago.

Her mother gave her a soft, motherly smile full of love, as she wiped the tears from her face. "I am a high priestess, my daughter. I have had that duty for many years; I had to do it, and yes, it is no excuse, but it is the truth. Believe me, if I could have avoided it, I would not have left your side all that time."

"Henry, I want to talk to my daughter." Isa's mother spoke to the little girl's guard, who showed a conflicted face and, only when Isa nodded, obeyed.

"Princess... Lady Kinvara" he said goodbye, then left the room and stood guard outside the door.

Helping Isa up, Kinvara walked over to the table lying on the floor and lifted it. "You're already very strong, this table weighs over two hundred pounds," Kinvara told Isa with a proud look on her face.

"Well, living with Daddy had its good points" Isa answered her with a slight blush on her face.

"In which I am grateful to him, although sooner or later, the Carcosa thing would have to happen."

Isa flashed a serious look, wanting to know more. "What do you mean, mother? Was there a plot long ago?"

"Your father made a lot of enemies, daughter, sooner or later, that would come back to bite him in his bony ass," Kinvara answered her, making Isa shake her head indignantly. "I don't need that mental image, mother; you can keep it yourself."

"Hahaha," laughed Kinvara softly, her eyes sparkling as she saw her daughter after a long time, "your humor hasn't disappeared either."

"It's not like it used to be before; I had to grow up so fast; Carcosa does that to people," Isa said with a sad look on her face. "Yeah, it does."

Kinvara nodded, only to have the mood suddenly turn serious. "But let's not think about those heavy and melancholy events anymore, let's talk about your future."

"Your father is still fighting a war in the hidden sea, and although your father is powerful and the magic of the world is returning in leaps and bounds, that's no guarantee that you're not in danger."

"You felt it too?" Isa asked in surprise, to which Kinvara nodded.

"Ten moons ago, yes, the magic in the world grew exponentially; it spread like a vine from The Dothraki Sea to the rest of the world," Kinvara said, conjuring a strong blue flare of fire in her right palm.

"I knew it!" Isa altered, raising her right palm as well and summoning the tentacles she had attacked with earlier. "My magic is much stronger now; I hardly ever get tired; in fact, I don't even need sacrifices anymore; it's amazing."

"Yes, now, my connection to the Lord of Light is stronger and purer." Kinvara canceled her magic, and the flame vanished. "But just as you and I have advanced by leaps and bounds, so are the other magic users in the world; just a moon ago, a demon from the shadowlands managed to break through the protections of the place and escape."

Isa was surprised, knowing that the protections that kept all the dark creatures contained in the shadowlands were very strong, even much stronger than the protections boasted by the wall in Westeros, which rejected the step of any magical entity; not even the dead of the great other, not even the legendary dragons, could pass them, and now, protections much more powerful than those of the wall had been breached.

"But what happened? As far as I know, the Red Priests are in charge of those cases," Isa asked fearfully. She knew the role that the Red Temple had in those cases, since the Red Temple was responsible for keeping the step of men from all those evil entities, both demons, chimeras, and hell beings, even from those necromancers who dabbled too much in their art and ended up contaminated by the great other.

"The firm got as far as Vaes Dothrak; there it was destroyed."

"What, how?" At this point, Isa was more confused than ever, "slaying a demon is impossible, even you can only force them back to the shadowlands, and that's after losing many good men."

"I don't know what power was used exactly, but whoever destroyed it is a being with immeasurable power, even more powerful than the night king or the corpse queen," commented Kinvara with a conflicted look. "You are blind, aren't you?" Isa asked her, seeing her mother's strange expression.

"Yes, we know nothing of this being, though all clues indicate that he is a man-made king."

"King? Man? That's wrong," Isa said, not believing that a man could have such power capable of slaying a demon.

"He created a city from scratch; in just two moons, he created people from nothing who were supremely loyal and very powerful. In all my years of life, I have never seen anything like that, and I believe he has not shown his full power, so yes, I believe he is responsible for the demon's death."

Isa raised her head after thinking about what her mother said: "Do you think I should visit his abode?"

"I'm not sure; the witches that accompany him are very powerful; they always protect him, and Xandar, as his city is called, would sense you the first instant you walked through their great gates." Isa bit her lower lip, and in her head, many thoughts were going through her head. He was the possible solution to the problem she was in; he could offer her his help to get her hometown back in exchange for something else, but Isa knew that price could be a very high one.

"I should go to..." Before Isa could manage to finish her sentence, the door to the room burst open, revealing a wounded Henry, with a heavy, dark gash across his chest. "Princess, we're under attack."

That was all it took to cause pandemonium, with several presences outside the doors, fighting the seven men who had followed Isa to Asshai, engaging in bloody combat.

Isa became angry, and as she was about to leave the room and kill those who were attacking them, Kinvara stopped her, only to quickly raise a football-sized fireball and hurl it towards the door, where it crashed into a shadow-covered being.

"Ahhhh!" The being screamed in agony, as it disintegrated in midair. "Shadow summoners," Kinvara said, pulling Isa behind her. "Even the damn turkey men have revived their magic."

Isa didn't stay behind Kinvara for long and joined the fight, throwing shadow tentacles at every enemy in sight.

"Help!" Isa heard a piercing scream, and looking at the source, she found Henry being held in the air, with a shadow summon holding him by the neck, while at the same time piercing his armor and chest with a strange dark dagger.

"No!" Isa screamed in pure rage, raising both hands and summoning tentacles from every possible side, which launched at astonishing speed toward the shadow summon and banished him from the earthly plane.

Henry fell to the ground with a thud, with a lot of blood coming out of his mouth. "Henry, come on, hold on," said Isabella with tears in her eyes, desperate for her friend's state from years ago.

Henry grabbed Isabella's cheek and, with as much effort as possible, told Isa to leave. "Go, go; you are not safe here."

"Isabella, we have to go; there are too many." Kinvara took Isa's arm and, lifting her off the ground, began to lead her away from where they were, while the poor girl watched as more shadow summons appeared and tore Henry and the other men apart.