After winding through a maze of alleys, we had finally arrived at the King’s Keep. Sneaking in through the servants’ quarters as to not be seen, we climbed to the highest point of the Keep’s outer walls and peered over to see the city of Aberlan below. “That’s no sunrise,” I mumbled to myself. The light that I assumed before was the rising sun, was actually a great expanse of fire that burned its way through the city. The slums of Aberlan were already ash, the wooden hovels easy kindling for the fire. The once extravagant marketplace was ablaze now too, as the horde of invaders moved fast towards the keep. Within moments, the invaders would be in the castle as all the guards were either drunk or had ventured into the city long ago. The King’s Keep began to shake, as if the earth rumbled in anticipation, moaning as if it knew what was to come. “Come, we need to get out of this city, before this keep burns to the ground!” “I thought the keep was safe!” Marin wined. “Nothing safe from this fire,” I muttered in …show more content…
The attackers had broken through the door and arrows hissed into the room. When Marin saw them, he turned to run. As he made his way towards the window, a golden cup fell out of his pocket and tripped him up, sprawling him and his treasures out across the floor. The room began to shake as the attackers rampaged the treasury and a shelf fell from the wall and landed on top of Marin. “MARIN!” I yelled. But, I could hear no response. As the rest of the attackers swarmed the room, I was forced to leave the window and Marin behind. In a blur, I climbed the latter that lead to the city’s outer walls, looking back every couple minutes to see if Marin had someone scrambled out of the window. I half-expected to see him ahead of me, laughing about how I was too slow, or too tall. I refused to believe he was gone. I refused to weep for the loss; not until I had safely climbed over the city’s once impenetrable walls and into the green hills that surrounded Aberlan; not until I had reached a hilltop vantage point and sunk deep into the grass; not until I looked over towards the once mighty colossus and watched as it turned to ash; not until then, when all possibilities of waking up from a dream vanished, did I