Crimson blood instantly burst out from Aria's mouth and that made her stop screaming, without her scream the tornado stopped and disperse.
Aria then close her mouth, cutting out the blood bending magic of Mayari, then she burst a speed of flight charging a direct attack to Mayari.
Evan quickly grab Mayari and flew high to dodge the attack but Aria isn't done yet, she pursue them and keep on throwing spikes of ice.
"Attack!" The King ordered, pointing his sword to Aria.
"Ahhh..." the army charge and readied their weapons, spells and magic for a war.
Aria breath ice and snow, freezing all she passed by. The soldiers then fired flaming arrows, throw their spears and tridents, and the mages sphered a powerful flame that hit Aria hard.
Aria spun, powerful wind and blizzard throw half of the army off guard. She fired colossal ice balls to the archers, and breath ice to the others.
"The protection barrier is gone, I must land you to a safe place." Evan said as he glided in midair, holding Mayari with him.
Mayari looked back at the piercing war of the dragon and the mermen. Seeing Aria wounded and bleeding is a great opportunity for her to end this, "Turn back" she demanded.
"It's dangerous, Mayari. You must not." Evan reasoned.
"Cant you see?..." Mayari asked in a cool tone, "Aria is poisoned, I don't know why and how I know but I sense it and I need to extract her blood before its too late." Mayari have this great gut feeling that the substance that poisoned her is the same as Aria maybe because of the green, bloody red, purplelish web of veins surrounding Aria's skin from her feet to her neck that kinda like strangling her painfully. And Mayari confirmed it when she extracted a little blood of Aria a moment ago.
Evan look back and felt awful in Aria's state and the frozen soldiers below, he himself also want to end this. Convinced, he flew back.
The mages then focus their overall power making a chain from the water. With their sync gestures and movements they had finally chained Aria, as soon as the water caught Aria's neck it turned to solid ice.
Aria flew, whirl, and breath ice just to break out from the chain. Another chain caught her mouth that made her stop breathing ice. Willing to escape she flap her wings vigorously and that gave the mages a hard time maintaining the two chains that her mouth break free from the shackles.
As soon as her mouth was free she sharply cried that made the army shut their eyes and cover their ears. Finally, her neck broke free and she continued to bring havoc,
But through all her malevolent acts, from the corner of her red ire eye a sparkle of painful tear dropped.
Evan's eyes widened, he couldn't believe what he just saw, he needs to confirm what he just saw; "Did you see Aria's tear?".
Mayari nodded, "You're right, there is something wrong with her."
Evan growled in pure anger, 'Who ever did this to Aria... I can't wait to throw him between bars.' He thought to himself.
They stop a mile away from Aria but enough for Mayari to perform blood bending. Mayari let go of Evan and stepped on midair as soon as her snowflake appeared. Forwarding her hands once more, she concentrated. Crimson light glowed around her and blood started to abide her calling.
Crimson blood started oozing out of Arias burns and wounds, floating and stopping to join each other into a sphere of red ruby.
"What is Ms. Mayari doing?" Nino asked puzzled.
"So this is the blood bending..." Xera was fascinated by the sight, gazing at it with wide eyes.
Just minutes later Evan landed near them.
"Evan what is happening?" Helen asked.
"No time to explain, for now I want all of you to gather and protect Mayari while she is performing blood bending." With that Evan left.
"Devide into two groups, gather and protect Mayari, and the other will hold Aria!" Carlos commanded and the soldiers obeyed.
Aria screech a glass shattering cry and purple thunder strike from the dark sky. With a split second with great speed, Aria charge at Mayari but was block by an invisible wall cast by the Myrim mages.
Then the soldiers throw enchanted chains to hold Aria, but with Aria's wings in great force, she instantly dodged the chains, fired balls of ice and breath ice knocking and freezing the army of knights.
Blood is still coming out in her wounds and she is very pissed off about that. Then out of nowhere Xera and Carlos appeared, they hold hands together combining their magics, commanding the frozen sea to unfroze and turn into a whirling figure to trap Aria.
Aria notice and was about to fly higher when suddenly Evan appeared and slash Aria back with fire in his sword. Then in the finishing touch Helen appeared at Aria's front, with her glowing staff on hand she cast a very powerful spell that sent sparkles of lights in the whirling sea.
Aria is now very weak, without strength she has no chance to escape in this, when the water devoured her, all she could do is scream and froze with it.
Finally, Mayari is done with panting breath her feet buckled beneath her, and the sense of dizziness hit her.
Aria is now trapped in a frozen sea.
"Are you alright, Mayari?" Evan was first to came and asked. Mayari is still glowing red, "You shouldn't push yourself too hard, you can stop now, Aria has been now sealed."
Mayari has no strength to talk, so she just nodded in respond and her glow slowly faded with it is the floating orb of Aria's blood threatening to fall, when the Mayari's magic stopped unexpectedly the orb of blood didn't fall it was floating for a second then exploded.
Whirling wind and blizzard instantly came up, result of the detonate impact, the explosion was enormous and a blow that being so close sent Mayari and Evan blown away high and... far.
Mayari can't stand it anymore her body is being blown away, she felt drained, tired and dozing off she is even barely keeping herself together. With daze eyes she saw Evan holding her tightly and protecting her from bits of ice that was also blown away.
He's saying something; "Mayari! Are you alright!?... Mayari... Mayari!"
But she couldn't hear him or anything like everything is muted, everything is silent, and deafening. She closed her eyes, "Mayari?!..." she finally heard Evan through darkness, and then she slipped out of consciousness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the garden of flowers; roses, dandelions, orchids, violets, daisies and many more is present. Blown by the cool wind as its fragrance spread to the air under the blue summer sky.
In the middle of this beauty is a shady tree, big and green, showered by rich elegant daylight as the sun continued to smile.
Beneath the shade is a mother and her child, the mother is singing a beautiful lullaby to her little flower as she slowly is dozing off to sleep.
Colorful petals are gliding and dandelion seeds are dancing with the wind. Everything was quiet and peaceful, only the sweet melody of a loving mother's voice is present and the hushing of the leaves in this dreamland.
How lovely
How heartwarming
How beautiful
"I love you, my dear Mayari... always." She smiled at her, a smile that she will always adore, and she will always love.
But how is it painful?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mayari then woke up – in her dim gray subconsciousness. She slowly rise and set up above the dead grass. To her surprise, a black furred wolf with deep dark brown eyes is staring right in front of her, its eyes hold nothing. She is pretty sure that this is the same wolf she saw sleeping under the dead tree behind her. To make sure she turned her head around to check.
"Having a dream?" Her subconscious was right behind her. Her gaze is as cold as her, as always.
Mayari lay back and stared at the dark clouded sky and replied, "It is more like a nightmare to be honest."
"Right..." her subconscious then raise her head and did the same, "...she is a nightmare..."
They stayed in silent and continue to stare at the lifeless sky above them, even the wolf did the same. Cold wind then blows at them but they stayed still letting their hair and fur get blown.
The atmosphere is cold and depressful... but it is always like this... in this world behind her head, it is always like this ever since.
...
After a few hours of silent Mayari finally spoke and asked, "What's with wolf?" in an uninterested manner.
"Everyone have animals inside of them and ours is the wolf," Her subconscious answered, "even though we're a killers, we don't behave like savages when killing, we always clean our cuts, we don't easily panic or get angry because of our affectionless behavior. That's why our inner animal, the wolf is sleeping."
"I don't recall being an angry savage, so why is the wolf awake?"
"The wolf mask who accepted you as its mistress triggered the awakening of your inner animal." She explained.
"Oh... I see."
Mayari then set up and fixed her gaze at the wolf, she gently patted the wolfs softs black fur. The wolf didn't respond and just stayed silent staring at her with dead eyes. But deep within those eyes Mayari could see hidden secrets; both dreadful and bloody, like hers.
"Looks like you really are my inner animal." Mayari commented, still stroking the wolf's fur.
"Looks like it's time for you to wake up." Her subconscious said.
"I fainted, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did" she replied, "you over did it with blood bending. Don't worry, your body have recovered through your sleep, faster than the last."
"Then I'll wake up." Mayari close her eyes and when she opened it, a rocky ceiling met her vision. And she could her droplets of water with a low chink, falling from a hight to the ground.
'I don't recognize this ceiling..." Mayari thought.
She slowly set up with her elbow and abruptly felt pain in her left shoulder, she could see wrapped clothing stained in blood – her blood.
'When did I got injured?' she asked herself.
She looked around and saw that she was inside a cave, she also notice burned woods and not very far away from her is a prince sleeping with his back against the wall and a sword in hand.
Mayari stood up and walk nearer to Evan, she bend low in front of him. He looks uncomfortable and uneasy in his state, his silky golden hair is a mess falling over his face, and there are several cuts in both of his arms, some are still bleeding.
Slowly, Evan's eye lids opened and found Mayari in front of him. "Aren't you supposed to be resting, your injured." Evan said in a sleepy voice.
"So you are" Mayari responded, "your even bleeding, your highness."
"Let it be, it will stop on time, it isn't too deep to begin with." Evan replied, stretching his arms, "yours is we should be worried, a piece of ice hit you when you fainted so that explained your injury."
"Don't worry it already stopped bleeding."
"But it is deep and could be infected if we don't treat it," Evan reasoned, "unfortunately, I don't know healing magic."
"Where are we?"
"We're in the Yuver Forest, we got blasted here when Aria's blood strangely exploded." Evan informed.
"Yuver Forest?"
"Never heard of it? This is a curse forest in the far south of the Myrim country, whoever comes inside can never go back or get out, they will be forever trap and lost. Many tried to conquer this forest but no one had ever succeeded."
"So what's the plan?"
"I will collect resources for now, we don't know how long we'll stay here." Evan said, standing up to his feet, "There is a river not far away from this cave, you should be able to clean your wound there to keep the infection a bay." Evan help Mayari stood up by lending her a hand and then they both exited the cave.
When Mayari came closer to the cave's mouth she blinked because of the blinding light from outside. When she opened her eyelids back, the forest captured all of her view.
The forest is covered with white radiant snow with sunlight bouncing from glow to glow, large white sugar-coated trees are boldly standing from the ground to high above, and it look majestically breathtaking.
Mayari couldn't believe that this beautiful forest is curse by a dark entity, although she learned long ago that all beauties have dark secrets. Like the one she knew and loved in her childhood.
"It's breathtaking, isn't it?" Evan suddenly asked that made Mayari breakaway from her daze, "You can even hardly tell that this forest is cursed."
"All beauties have their dark secrets." Mayari responded, with that short sentence she started walking and left Evan.
Mayari pass by a couple of trees and finally made it to the river that Evan was talking about. Like the forest the river is also a beauty with clear glistening streams of water and porcelain rocks that when stroke by sunlight it shines like a pearl.
"All beauties have dark secrets, like this forest and like mother." She whispered to herself as she approached the river.
She sat at the side and slowly unwrap the bloody clothing from her wound. As Evan said, her wound is deep but that didn't make Mayari fright or even flinch to see the bloody cut in her shoulder. She encountered worser than this before.
Mayari then took a handful of cold water and smeared it to her shoulder, dark reddish blood flowed with the river as Mayari continued to clean the blood from her wound and wash the blood-stained fabric.
After wrapping back the clean cloth, Mayari stood up to her feet and was about to go back, when abruptly she heard whispers. The whisper was so quiet that she hardly heard it and couldn't understand what it is saying but she was sure that she heard it.
"Is anyone there!?" Mayari shouted to the other side of the river, but no one replied.
'Strange... I swear I heard it.' Mayari thought as she kept her sense sharp, "All beauties have dark secrets, and this forest is one of it."