Sakina was a storm contained within the small clearing. She was hurrying here and there, her dark armor clanking with her frantic movements, looking under each rock and in every shadowed nook of the campsite to find any trace of her Queen.
She spun and strode back inside Aeryn's tent, tossing things, pillows, unused scrolls, a spare blanket, as if the Queen would pop out from underneath them. Failing that, she let out a strangled cry and violently called the inner circle of guards inside.
"General!" they said in unison, five soldiers, each trained in one of the four disciplines of elemental control and one non-elementalist, snapping to attention.
"I want all of you to right now look everywhere!" Sakina screamed, pointing toward the dark wilderness. "I don't care how, but do whatever you need to find her! We need to find her as soon as possible! Bring her back alive and unharmed!"
Zephyr, the young guard able to control air, stepped forward, his eyes wide with legal alarm. "Madam! You said 'do whatever'! That is contrasting against the royal command! We are not allowed to use our specialized power without explicit permission from Her Highness, not even for search operations!"
"I said do WHATEVER to find the QUEEN!" Sakina roared, the sound cutting through the tent canvas. The ground beneath Petra, the guard able to geomance, cracked under the force of Sakina's rage. She didn't have the luxury of political protocol; she only had duty.
The guards hesitated, their training warring with the General's scream.
"Move!" Sakina commanded.
All of them started to move out of the tent when she stopped them, her voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. "If I hear that the Queen's disappearance is creating news, I will kill you all with my bare hands! I remember all of you! Know that!"
Sakina then split the small force, assigning the non-elementalist and two others to pack up the site and follow later. She directed the others to fan out and check all perimeter directions immediately, as they did not know which way the Queen had fled. She, however, took the remaining guards specializing in elemental control, Petra (terramancer), Zephyr (aerokinetic), and Maris (hydromancer), and started immediately toward the rear of her camp. She had a sharp hunch that since her eyes had been locked on the tent's front opening, the Queen, being the Queen, must have, somehow taken the less obvious exit through the back of the canvas.
Despite Sakina's fury, the guards cautiously began their search using only conventional means, looking for simple clues like broken branches and scuff marks, fearful of violating the Queen's standing orders. They followed the faint trail with a grim professionalism that seemed agonizingly slow to their General.
Sakina was herself a master of earth control, a veteran terramancer whose strength lay in discipline, not raw youthful power. Yet now, fueled by terror and adrenaline, she was using her elemental power far beyond her natural limit, ignoring all protocol. She picked up huge stones, tore through fallen trees, and pushed aside mounds of earth that were coming in between them and the Queen's faint trail.
"Hold, General!" Petra, younger and far stronger, called out, spotting the tremors in Sakina's hands. "Let me clear the path. We save our energy for the capture."
"Silence! She will be freezing, alone! Move!"
Zephyr, skilled in aerokinesis, used his element to scout the dark canopy, generating silent, swift gusts that pushed leaves and branches out of the way for Sakina, trying to conserve her strength.
"I can't find any trace of her in the air," Zephyr muttered to Maris as they sprinted through the undergrowth.
Maris, running alongside, pointed her hand toward a damp, mossy bank. A thin sheet of ice instantly formed, revealing the slight depression of a fresh footprint beneath the frozen surface. "She's running. She's not using a horse yet. And she's moving fast, judging by the length of the stride."
"She should have collapsed an hour ago," Zephyr wheezed. "Why would she run from us? Sakina is her greatest protector."
"I don't know, who knows what happens behind the closed curtains…" Maris replied, twisting her wrist to melt the ice, leaving no trace for anyone else to follow. "But the General gave an order. We follow. And we pray we find her before anything bad happens to her or her…" she said while looking at Sakina.
Sakina pushed them all relentlessly. Her armor was scraping against the trees, and she was breathing in shallow, painful gasps. She was old, and using her elemental power to this degree was taking a brutal toll on her travel-stricken health. She started feeling dizzy, the world tilting with every rock she shattered. The first rays of the dawn began to break through the forest canopy, casting long, pale shadows that only highlighted the sheer distance they still had to cover. Her vision narrowed, but the fear of failing her Queen was a sharper pain than any physical exhaustion. She used the last reserves of her terramncy control skills to launch herself forward, a last desperate effort to close the gap.
They found the first signs of Aeryn's escape at a small, dried-up gully where the trail abruptly shifted. Two sets of horse tracks, not one, but two, led away from the faint trail of footmarks.
Sakina stumbled, recognizing the change in the sign. The Queen was no longer alone, and she was mounted. The danger had just become exponentially worse. She dropped to her knees, from exhaustion, clutching a piece of jagged rock to steady herself.
"She has company," Sakina ground out, her voice ragged. "Someone helped her. Find them. Find them now, before they get too far ahead!"
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