Anri never had seen an ability like Sehun’s but she had no time to marvel about him. Right now he was handcuffed, the guards still pointing their weapons at him. Every time she tried to tell the guards to lower their weapons, Barathon cut her off, which made her really angry. She couldn’t voice her opinion properly since she could hear the souls leaving the bodies of the dead. It was just a small whisper but it send shudders down her spine. Strong hand suddenly grabbed her and took her away from the now bloodied meadow. Blue eyes similar to hers looked at her with worry. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Lance wanted to lead her far away from the meadow but Anri refused. “You can’t stay, Anri. It’s not safe for you and you know it.”

As her brother he was one of the very few who knew of her heritage and the powers that had been bestowed on her. Anri could understand his worry but he was overprotective and couldn’t see that she was fine. “I will ing kill the vampires for what they did.” She managed to pull away from Lance finally and stared at him defiantly. “First of all, I am fine. Secondly, you will not do such things. They defended me from… whatever those creatures were. Without them I would be dead, most likely!”

“Without them you wouldn’t even be in this situation!” he screamed, his face breaking out in red hives of stress and anger.

For a moment Anri stared at her brother then she turned around,walking away from him and back to the meadow. “Anri!” Lance again grabbed for her arm but she slapped him away. Something suddenly slammed against the back of her head so hard that she started to lose unconscious. 

When she woke up, it took her a moment to recognize where she actually was. It was her bed room in her private quarters in the palace. With a jerk she sat up. Someone had changed her out of her bloody clothes and had taken care of the cut that now wasn’t angry red anymore but just a darker pink against her pale skin. Anri wasn’t sure how long she had been out but she needed to go see Sehun and the others, if they were still alive. She quickly changed her white robe into a very casual green tunic and brown pants, paired with brown boots. Just as she wanted to leave, the door opened. Lance came in, seemingly surprised that she was already up. “Get out of my way. We will be talking later about this,” she hissed at him. Taken aback by her angry reaction, stepped away from the door.

“I just wanted to protect you, sister. Those people are not good. Their race just causes destruction. Anri, they have shed blood on our lands.” There was an imploring undertone in his voice but Anri didn’t want to hear any of it. She could feel a surge of power inside her, her eyes glowing dangerously as she narrowed her eyes at her brother. “You and your stupid prejudices can go yourself. Lance, you weren’t there. No one has the right to judge them, especially not you.” Not caring about Lance anymore, Anri quickly ran down the hallways towards her aunt’s court. She needed to talk to Niamh and tell her what really has happened. The sun was just setting in the west so maybe she was lucky and had been out for only a couple of hours. 

When Anri entered the court, it was empty except for a couple of people. Taemin was there, which relieved her, Niamh Barathon and her aunt’s personal healer. They were hunched over something Anri couldn’t see but from the putrid smell it seemed like it was the corpse of one of the grotesque and deformed elves that had attacked them. Barathon was arguing with Taemin, his hand on his weapon. Taemin and her aunt were the first to look up towards Anri. “You are awake,” Niamh assessed but she seemed satisfied somehow. “Where are the others? Are they alright?” Anri asked Taemin, who nodded. “They are doing okay. I am just trying to convince your blockhead lover boy to pull the guards away and that Sehun did not try to kill you while we also take a look whatever the this is.”
There was swelling anger in Taemin’s voice, which Anri could understand.

“You were ambushed and endangered Anri. You killed elves!”

“Whatever attacked us weren’t elves anymore anyways” Taemin shot back at Barathon who was now pulling out his sword. “You will do no such thing,” Niamh suddenly said, her voice dangerously calm. Barathon gulped but put the sword back in the hilt. “Anri, since you can see that they are about to kill each other, why don’t you tell me what happened.”

Her aunt waved her over to her side and for the first time Anri could take a look at the corpses. They had turned black-ish with dark green spots that looked like mold. Despite all the deformities the larger corpse was unmistakably an elf. “Who would do something like that?” she whispered, still shocked by the mutilated and deformed brethren. “That, your majesty, is something we try to find out,” the healer answered. The smaller corpse next to the elven one reminded Anri of a redcap, which was a smaller goblin. They did have bloody red caps on but their teeth usually weren’t this long and their hands not red, and they weren’t as fast as the one who had injured her.

Since her aunt was still waiting, Anri told her about Sehun’s findings and about the attack. Just very casually, Niamh brushed her hand over Anri’s back but it was a gesture to ask if she was fine. Anri gave an inconspicuous nod but her aunt’s mood quickly turned worse after all the revelations. The ground trembled as Niamh’s powers threatened to burst. “Who dares to do something like that?” Her anger whipped through the air, splitting jugs and vases in half. “Your majesty, we should not make this public. It’s enough that the Vampires and we know about this. Let the Vampires conduct the investigations since people know that they already tasked with finding out how their young ones got here. If you are raising a fuss over this, it will make the situation worse. Do send out a small group of our troops to investigate the attack on the Vampires as well, just to keep the facade up since they would be surprised if nothing would happen.”

Niamh’s anger subsided. The healer, who has been taking care of her since she was a young elf herself was ancient and one of the few people she would always listen to. “You are right. Then we do it like this. Anri, my dear, you will continue acting as the Vampires’ guide and help them unearth whatever or whoever caused this. Whoever attacked you might now know yet that you found out how they teleported the young ones. For the sake of keeping up appearances, they have to remain our prisoners though, and the older Vampires will still need to be their caretakers.”

A relieved sigh came over Anri’s lips. She was thankful that her aunt was seeing reason.

“