A rough hand crashed down onto her skull. The thick, white fingers interlaced between the three spikes of her crown. Thalia's stomach fell away as she was thrown through the air, flipped, and landed over Xieol's shoulder. The air rushed out of her lungs in a whoosh at the impact with his back. The room erupted in applause. Arkzirax everywhere through their mighty fists together and bellowed their approval as Xieol leapt off the dais and strode out of the room, his Empress hanging over his massive shoulder.
Thalia only hoped the cameras had cut in time.
Xieol said nothing as he strode though the citadel. Her head knocked into his back with each massive stride. When he took the tower stairs four at a time, she thought she would lose consciousness. Her ears popped, lights burst before her eyes.
When he arrived at that dreaded room atop the tower, he kicked in the door before it had time to retract into the wall. Without a thought, he ripped her body from him and tossed her across the room. She flew into the wall with a gasp. Her body crumpled to the ground like a rag doll. The crown hit the ground with a thud.
Xieol was already approaching her. His words boomed in the round room. Thalia couldn't hear him over the blood pounding in her ears. She looked up and saw him looming over her through a haze of red. Her fingers wrapped around something cold. Xieol loomed above her and without a thought, Thalia drove the pronged metal crown up.
Right into his stomach.
His right hand clutched his abdomen, his left hit her in a punishing backhand that sent her flying into the wall. She looked up at him from the floor in a daze. The prongs of the crown slid out of his abdomen coated in black, oily blood. It dripped down his white skin and marred the slick floor where it fell in tiny drops.
"I will watch them cut you open myself." He said.
He spun on his heel and left the room. Thalia hoped he had gone to tend to his wound. A certain excitement coursed through her veins. She had hurt him. For some reason she had held him above mortal pain in her head. But now, oh now, he could bleed. The Mighty Xieol was not invincible.
Three gearmen filed into the room before the door shut. They stared down at Thalia, smiling where she laid on the floor. Her mind whirred along with the sounds of the gearmen.
"Get back," She ordered, as she drug herself up from the ground. "Stand against the wall."
The Gearmen fell back without protest. Once they were all pressed against the opposite wall, Thalia wrapped the long train of her gown around herself, until she was fully cocooned in the metal scales.
"Thank you for your service." She told the gearmen. "And tell Xeiol... Tell him no."
Clutching the train about herself, she took a running leap through the window. Sparks exploded as she passed through the net. Fireworks danced before her eyes for a split second. Then her stomach dropped and she fell. Cold wind stun her eyes. Tears dripped down her cheeks before they too were whipped away. Far beneath her the green grass and the crystal mirror lakes rose to meet her.
At least she would not die Xieol's puppet. For once in his life he would be denied. The grand plans he had announced would come to naught. The whole court, the entire known universe had heard him proclaim he would use her to achieve supreme dominance. Now they would all see his failure at her hands. Her feeble human hands would rip his dreams from him.
Maybe she was playing right into Cruft's plan, or Eliane's. Maybe she had always been intended to die this way. It was better though. Better than to die at his hands. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind howl around the outside of her cocoon.
Sooner than she expected, she collided with something, hard. Shock slowly bubbled away and she realized she was alive. Hardly even injured, aside from some new bruises. Shaking hands peeled away the train of her dress, and she gasped.
The wind continued to howl around her as she sped sideways around the tower wall. Her window loomed above and the ground... the ground was still far below. Puzzled, she splayed her fingers against the hard surface that was preventing her fall. It was as if the air itself had hardened and was speeding her away from the tower. Already the citadel was becoming smaller on the horizon.
Then the hard surface below her began to take form. What had once seemed nothing but air began to solidify into a silver form. It was a huge conical shape with two fins, one rising above her and one pointing downward.
A ship. She had landed on the nose of a spaceship.
The ship made a quick bank to the right and Thalia shrieked as she began to slide towards the edge. She scrabbled across the smooth surface and was just about to lose her grip on the craft entirely when a man appeared above her and grabbed her by the wrist. She was quickly jerked up onto the wing and through a hatch into the ship proper.
"Get back to work!" Her rescuer yelled at the blurry forms around her. Thalia's heart pounded in her throat. She swallowed back nausea and disbelief.
"Show's over!" The male voice boomed again.
She looked up at her savior again and watched him tangle his hand into his chestnut hair in frustration. "Steer to the forest," He commanded, and the other forms around them rushed into movement. "Get us out of here!"
"Of course this happens the one time I decide to cut through a restricted zone!" Thalia noticed she was suddenly alone with the strange man. He turned his attention to her. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing crashing onto my ship?"
"I'm...Thalia."
"And?" He demanded, unimpressed.
"You didn't watch the broadcast, did you?"
"While stealth-moding through a restricted zone? Close enough to reach out and touch the main citadel?" He looked at her like she was insane, "No. I must have missed it, why?"
After the ceremony, Xieol's blow to her face, the electronic netting and almost falling to her death, Thalia couldn't find anything to say. She watched blankly as the man picked up a remote control and punched in the keys. A display on the dash lit up and showed them the entire ceremony in triple-time. The man hit a button and the image froze on a close up of her smiling face.
"Crap." Was all he said as he grabbed her by the upper arm and began dragging her down a hall.
"I can walk!" She ripped her arm free. To her surprise, the man allowed it.
