entered the chamber.
The king and his aide moved across the room to examine the assassin. The aide reached down and pulled a brooch out of what remained of the assassin's cloak. He looked up toward the king and said, "Sire, this man was from the assassin's guild of the Mildanar tribes to the north."
"You are correct," Henry responded, "I recognize his affiliation from what remains of his garb." King Henry looked over at his wife and Alec, "Will our youngest son survive?" the king said sardonically for he knew that wound Alec received was not fatal.
"Of course, his wound was not so bad" Queen Angelica replied calmly. The queen stood up from tending Alec and walked toward the king. "It looks like we may have to commit more attention to our holdings in the northern territories."
The king nodded to his wife. She was always the politician and well aware of the pending danger a large royal family represents to the many duchies in the kingdom. "Well, gentleman, looks like you got your first taste of what we will face ahead. I would express how well you did protecting your sister but it appears that she managed to handle these things well enough on her own."
The king reached down to pick up Last Kiss. As he lifted the curved blade from the floor, sparks flew from it. King Henry quickly handed it to Ava. As he rubbed his hand, he commented, "It seems that your sword is not pleased that I handled it, Ava."
The royal swords had individual personalities and always selected their wielders; such was the way of the weapons' magic. Last Kiss was no exception. The soul of the sword would not allow a male to take hold of the blade.
In order for a sword to have power, it had to have a kind of intelligence, and generations of use by the royal family had added personality to each sword. When members of the royal family turned twelve, the royal family held a ceremony in to the chamber of the swords so each royal could be "selected."
Each sword has its own history and selects its new wielder based on that history. Alec's sword, Shadow Fang, one of the oldest of the royal swords, had been a gift to the eighth king of Articia, Heldar the Great, who aided the Silver Mountain dwarves in their war with the barbarian tribes of the east. Heldar united the tribes of the lower valley into what is Greater Articia today.
Tristan's sword, created in a time of strife and war, glimmered with flame against its silver blade. The dwarves of northern tribes had united with a group of outcast Silver Mountain dwarves in a revolt against the dwarven King Th'grem. It was the first time in history that the dwarves had fought each other. King Eric the Gold, of Articia, agreed to help the Silver Mountain dwarves defeat the dwarves of the northern tribes, and the weapon masters of Silver Mountain forged a sword for the great king that commemorated that occasion. It was the first sword the dwarves had ever created to kill another dwarf, thus its name of Silver Bane.
Ghost Touch, Dominic's sword, had an unusual history. It was the first dwarven sword given to a royal family member not forged specifically for royal use. One of the dwarven weapon masters named Garn had forged the sword as a way to commune with the dead. He had lost his beloved daughter in an accident in the silver mines and was so distraught that he neglected all else to forge the sword so he could speak to her again. He did not succeed in getting the magic to commune but managed to forge a sword that drew energy out of those it struck and transferred that energy back into the wielder, making him stronger. In his despair for his failure to forge a sword to commune with the dead, Garn neglected his other children. Because of this, his remaining children had to fend for themselves.
One early summer day one of those children, Grenden, encountered danger while returning from foraging in the forest. A mountain bear attacked this child of Garn and as he tried to flee the beast, he became trapped in a gorge. High Prince Hilgar, son of Eric the Gold, was out hunting and came upon the distressed dwarf. The prince fought the mountain bear off with his sword, rescued the son of Garn, and escorted the boy to his home. When Grenden returned, Garn was so troubled over the possibility of losing another child that he snapped out of his grief and recommitted himself to taking care of the remaining members of his family. To show gratitude, he gave Hilgar Ghost Touch as a gift.
Last Kiss was a special sword because it was the only sword forged for and specifically wielded by a warrior queen. In the northern reaches, beyond the kingdom of Mildanar was a band of nomads. They lived a hard life. In the nomadic society, women as well as men fought and trained out of necessity. Arianna was one of the strongest willed of the women of her tribe. In the winter of her fifteenth year, she had a vision dream from the goddess Adara that she was to journey east to the land of the dwarves to receive a gift. On this journey, she met and fell in love with Prince E'ward, son of King Telnard of the Articia territories. The two continued to the dwarven lands only to find the dwarves in battle with the goblins of Coal Mountain. Arianna could not resist participating in the battle and Prince E'ward joined the fray, not willing to let the remarkable warrior woman, of whom he had grown fond, fight alone.
In gratitude to this remarkable pair, the dwarves forged two swords. Last Kiss, the first sword forged specifically for a woman, and First Touch, the sword that King Henry now wields. When the pair returned to the territory of Articia, they raised quite the stir. Young girls and women came out of their dwellings to witness the sword-bearing warrior woman whose reputation had preceded her into the kingdom. Prince E'ward and Arianna were married soon after and none in court or in the entire kingdom dared to question her breaking the tradition against women carrying weapons. To this day, they do not know if the gift the goddess spoke to Arianna was the sword or Prince E'ward.
King Henry rubbed his hands, which were now a little numb from handling Last Kiss, and turned to his youngest children. Alec and Ava looked at each other with trepidation. "Um, I have been training with Alec for a couple of years now" Ava stated.
Dominic and Tristan broke into laughter as they saw the look on the faces of their younger brother and sister. The queen smiled at both of them and turned to the King "I will be heading down to the infirmary now to see if I can help the healers comfort and heal some of our brave warriors who were wounded in the fray."
The king nodded to his aide, who stood and called out to the elite guard to provide an escort for the queen. He then looked over at his younger children. "Why do you two look surprised? Did you really think anything would happen in my castle that I did not know about?"
Ava looked at her brother and started to smile. "So you are not mad that I broke tradition and that I am training in the martial arts?"
The king looked at her and said, "Since you were two years old, we all knew you would have it no other way. With your stubbornness and your athleticism, many of the court commented on how much you resembled your ancestor, Queen Arianna, in both spirit and attitude. But I knew you were destined to be a warrior princess when you, as a toddler, sneaked behind me into the sword chamber and Last Kiss lit up like faerie fire."
The king then turned to his aide. "We have to get back to our duty and secure the castle. We still have many frightened guests in the hall below that we need to attend. Arrange for escorts so they may all return to the safety of their quarters." As he headed to the door of Ava and Alec's rooms, the king stated, "I think under the current circumstances we should arrange for the nobles to return to their respective estates until we finish investigating the culprit of tonight's action."
The aide called out to the hallway to members of the elite guard, "Leave a small contingent to guard the royal quarters. The rest of you come with me to secure the rest of the castle and grounds."
The king turned back to the twins, "Later we will have a discussion about the carnage in this room." The king moved swiftly down the hall with his elite guard to the lower sections of the castle, as two stewards came in to remove the body of the assassin. Once the body was removed, the royal chambermaids arrived to clean the "carnage" that the twins had wrought in their residence.
"Ava, let's retire to our own rooms while this area is cleaned. Mother has ordered me to rest and recover from my wound. By the way, I really liked that tapestry you destroyed. I hope you plan to get me a new one on our birthday." He smiled back to her as he walked toward his room.
Ava entered her private bedroom and sat on her bed. She again reflected on the skirmish that had just occurred.