The wind slowly blew into his room as he was deep in his sleep… Was his door opened…? The lock was off… Harry gently stirred awake… Rising from a dream that felt like a forgotten memory… His eyes slowly opened to gaze at the open door—a shadow was staring down at him. Harry had to let his eyes adapt to the darkness to make out whose shadow it even was… His heartbeat was through the roof as he saw who had been watching him for who knows how long.

The Queen.

How long had she been watching him… Harry could only stare back into her glowing red eyes… They weren’t blinking… Or was time frozen…? What the hell was up with her… Why was she so frightening… Harry slowly sat up on his bed… His face only closer to the staring and silent figure at the foot of his bed… The queen’s eyes seemed to control everything around her in this instant… She had full control over him and his emotions even if he did not wish for that to happen…

He blinked for a small moment and he found himself laying down on his bed once more… Ahh… A dream within a dream it was… She wasn’t at the feet of his bed at all… He was just so utterly terrified of her that he had a nightmare of her. Not only would he have to duel her today… But he was already having one agaisnt her within his mind… Great…

He let out a small sigh as he gently sat up on his bed… The recent mental battle still bothering him for a moment… Until he noticed something was indeed off about his room… He did actually feel like he was being watched… But by whom? From where? Harry’s gaze scanned the room as he stood up… What the hell was he feeling… His eyes locked onto the door of his room as it flung open… The queen walked in… She looked at him surprised, clearly having expecting him to still be sleeping… His door was still locked until she had come… So whose gaze was he feeling on him before…? A guard?… No, he truly was alone with her in his room… How strange. Whatever…

This wasn’t the moment to worry about that… The queen was infront of him now… Is the battle right now? Or…

‘Up to your feet and follow me, boy… I have some things to show you before I—We battle.’’ The queen said in her gentle yet rough voice…

He had no choice but to oblige… His feet quickly connected onto the ground as he followed after her right out of his room… Their steps resonated around in the long hall with the bodies who pointed toward her office that were hung on the ceiling… But they weren’t walking toward her office this time… Harry took notice of the fact that she had two sets of swords on her belt… She was obviously walking him down fate… Well, to where they were going to battle, I mean. They arrived at the entrance of a large room… Filled with… Gallows? Harry tried to stumble back in horror as he immediately connected what was about to happen. He was getting hung?! Nah… She definitely was joking, right… She wasn’t going to do this to him after all the trouble she had just—

‘‘Hang Yourself’’

The queen’s words reverberated around the room… She did not even bother to look at Harry when she uttered the words… He was left frozen in a mix of confusion and fear.

Did she truly just say what he heard her say? Was he truly going to do this… Yes… Perhaps this was just some kind of test… To see if he was going to follow her orders even if it could harm him… Surely this had to be a test. But… What if it truly was the end…? His end… No. He shouldn’t think in a negative way… It definitely had to be a test! Harry shakingly made his way up the stairs of the gallows, glancing back once at the queen before wrapping the rope around his neck, turning away from her, and then… Thump—his feet hit the ground.

Harry’s gaze went up to the rope, which…had been cut off? He spun around to look at the queen, who had a warm smile on her face.

‘You passed the first test.’’

So it was a test… A test of faith in her words… She was sick… But it made sense in a twisted way… The queen didn’t need men that would run away in the middle of battle… They had to be willing to die for her… Which he just proved he was…

The queen gave a quick motion to follow her with her head as she sheathed the blade that she had used to cut the rope before he actually had hung himself…

Harry could only follow her… still shocked by all that had just happened… But he knew better than to express it… especially with the queen right next to him.

Where the hell were they walking to now…

They walked out of the giant castle and slowly walked down a giant silver road that led toward a small village within the Queendom walls… Fields were everywhere… Men worked their asses off, while the women seemed to simply…talk to other in the streets… Seems like in this Queendom… Men are inferior to women… They have to do all the hard work while the women simply enjoy their days… Harry knew half of those women were murderers… But the law didn’t apply to women who killed men… Since men were seen as if they weren’t human… That was another reason he had been so confused by the fact that the queen had an interest in him.

Harry glanced at a small man who was carrying firewood on his back… The man dropped a small piece of the wood, which made all the women of the village who were nearby stop their chatting and stare at him… Harry bent down to grab the piece of wood so he could give it back to the man without him having to drop all the wood, bend over, grab it and then grab all the wood again… However as soon as he stood back up… The man’s head wasn’t on his shoulders anymore… It was rolling on the ground as the queen next to him had her sword high in the air… Blood pouring down her blade… Men could be killed… Just for that here? The queen glanced down at Harry with a cold gaze…

‘‘Pick up the body.’’ She ordered.

Harry didn’t wait for her to repeat her order as he bent down and put the body onto his shoulder, putting the head under his arm as he kept following her… The blood of the head staining his ragged clothes…

All that the guy did… Was drop a piece of wood… He could had just apologized… He didn’t…deserve such a fate… Did he?

The queen gazed toward Harry for a moment… His disapproval of her methods clearly visible in his face… The way his jaw tightened… The way he totally avoided looking at her… However she chose to not make a fuss about it… Unlike she used to do to anyone else.

The queen let out a small sigh before ordering him to follow her down to the river…

The river was quite misty due to the temperature down there… It would be the perfect place for their duel… A duel in the mist… How…perfect for a battle… Just the right ambiance.

Their steps traveled gently across the silver road. Harry’s footsteps were obviously louder due to the fact he was transporting a body. Soon enough… Harry’s feet hit the small water of the river; he took a small glance at the queen, who told him with a single glance to throw the body into the water so that it would wash away somewhere else. He obeyed. The body splashed against the water before gently being carried away by the slow current, vanishing fast in the mist.

Harry gazed back to the queen, wondering what she wanted to do next and froze as he saw her holding out the second katana that she had brought out… He gently reached out, grabbing the katana by the handle, holding it up in front of him, and testing out the weight.

‘‘I see’’ He muttered to himself.

Harry glanced back at the queen, who had begun to slowly circle him, letting her feet bounce against the ground below the water of the river… She looked like she was fully in control of everything despite the fact that her katana was still sheathed… The sound of water suddenly stopped as it waved under her now still feets… She gently pulled her blade out of its sheath, holding it up by the handle in front of her with a slight angle to it, just like a swordsman would hold a saber.

Harry blinked as soon as he felt the air suddenly get pushed toward him… The queen had just leaped forward; her sword was already moving toward his neck at a fast pace. The water gushed around behind her as if she had moved before the water even had the chance to move at the same time. He ducked away from the blade; however, the blade tore through the front of his nose, leaving a small bleeding wound on it. Harry let out a small yelp as he felt the sudden rush of pain hit him…

The queen let out a small chuckle as she backed away from him to let him get into a better stance… She was playing with him… Playing with her prey.

Harry let out a small sigh as he tightened his grip on the handle of his blade, taking a small step to the left to steady his body, ready for whatever the queen had planned next… He knew he stood no chance agaisnt her… He would have to adapt. Fast. The queen smeared against the air as she appeared right in front of him in a display of pure, elegant, godly speed; however, this time he leaped back not to dodge but to try and use the mist as a card he could use, sadly. He tripped as his feet connected to the floating head of the corpse he had thrown into the river just earlier. Harry fell down and hit the front of his head against the riverbank as he let out a surprised yelp. The queen stood there dumbfounded. The water shifted against the weight of his body… The queen stepped closer to help him up… However, to her surprise. He wasn’t there anymore—feeling the air get sliced toward her neck, she lifted her blade up to the sky. Without looking, she raised her blade just in time to block Harry’s strike—his clever use of the mist caught her off guard.

The queen glanced at Harry before pushing him away with her blade before glancing back at the floating head… Even tho he had put himself at a disadvantage by tripping on the floating head… He used the sudden moment of spot he had from the mist to make sure that she had heard him fall so that she would drop her guard so that he could sneak away from the place he had fallen…to attack… “Very clever,” she thought.

She wouldn’t allow him to be this clever with her…

The queen sheated her blade for a moment before glancing at Harry as she revealed her real name to him as a way to show him that he had grown respect to her.

‘' Elaria Vaelwyn is the name. Remember it.’’ She said as she seemed to blur agaisnt the mist once more…Harry was ready for it this time, he quickly gripped the handle of his blade as tight as he could to be ready to parry her upcoming attack.

The image of Elaria ‘‘The Leopard of the Blade’’ smeared across the mist as if she was moving faster than her own image…The smear circled around Harry before violently jumping forward toward the man, her blade ready to strike…However…Harry raised his blade just in time to block her attack as he spun around, using the momentum of his spin, he rapidly sent a counter attack aimed at her cheek which tore throught the already scarred skin—This didn’t stop Elaria at all. She lunged a hand forward and gripped Harry by the throat before throwing him into the river and before he even had the time to hit the ground—she stood before him, blade at his neck.

He froze as he felt the cold blade agaisnt his flesh…Had he lost? No.

He rolled to the side and sweep his sword agaisnt her to block any upcoming attack that she could had done as he dodged away. He quickly jump to stand on his feet after his roll to face her once more…His bleeding nose now having the whole lower of his face covered in the red substance…

‘‘Just give up’’ She said as she had already gripped him by the face and slammed him into the ground, knocking the grip on his sword out of his hand before he even had the time to realise she had moved.

Harry let out a small groan as he gently stood back up making no move to grip his fallen sword instead…He tried to directly punch her? He was totaly unarmed and yet…He chose to attack with his fist? Elvaria was completely caught off guard that she didn’t even think to dodge, his fist connecting right into the cut on her cheek making her stumble back and falling onto one of her knee as she watched Harry collapse from exaustion right after his last attack…

This guy…He was different.

Exactly what she needed.