It felt like an eternity to Allyna. The sun may have burned her eyes and her bones in the time between her frustrated attack and what happened next. Her breathing was tense, slow, full of fear. She looked everywhere for signs of her being found. Guards were all searching and alert. The atmosphere was heavy with the weight of what her actions could have triggered. The end of tradition, religion, and society as they knew it in the Dragon’s Country. For Allyna, it meant the liberation of thousands of people that lived in fear and repressed by dogma and order imposed by a few over the many. But she had failed. And while everyone felt all that be threatened, they all rejoiced when that tension bursted into joy and celebration after the first call:

– He lives! The dragon lives in our Holy Supreme Minister! He lives!! He lives!! He turned the White Lady into flames before she could harm him. Even her, a mage, could do nothing against him! Mighty is the power of Trask!!

The crowd went from stupefied paralysis into frantic celebration. Some jumped up and down, others cried in fanatical relief, while others still remained in their knees, moving their bodies up and down shouting some of the words said before. Allyna saw that even the guards and dragon knights relaxed after they were taken by surprise. She also felt her tension turn into anger. Instead of showing them all how the Supreme Minister was the representation of a false deity, she empowered his image in the hearts of those fools. That made her failure burn in her heart even further. She wanted to get out of there, disappear.

Her friends finally caught up with her. They all understood that it was time to leave – and they should do so as discreetly as they could manage.

They had not even exchanged a single word, maybe tried a few steps away from the crowd when it happened. A golden figure emerged from the crowd, leaving a hooded brown cape floating in the air where he was just a moment ago. He flashed between people to slash his beautiful sword into the Minister’s body. His cloak didn’t have the time to hit the floor. The first guard, the one behind the minister had already been hit by an upward dagger blow below the rib cage. The guards screams, at first, sounded weird amid so many weird screams of joy. It was only when the Golden Knight’s finished his second strike, an upward movement that cut the Minister in two, that everyone’s joy turned to dispair. Screams were now the music playing. The guards and dragon knights turned to fight their former hero. The second guard was still drawing his sword when the third strike came down on him, slashing through his armor, neck, muscles and bone. The knight kicked his sword free of that bloody mess of a guard and parried an attack from the dragon knight in red colors that rushed in. Three dead in a few seconds. And now even the sun finished setting to paint the sky red, a fitting color to that bloodbath.

The magical fires of the city lamps were now illuminating the scene. The crowd ran everywhere, away from the battle. Music now turned into the clashing of metal to metal, screams of reinforcement and battle shouts. Allyna saw her anger turn to surprise and to an eagerness to help her hero. She knew she could not battle them, but perhaps she could give his luck a hand. So she kissed her necklace and held her hands down, murmuring a prayer to Tymora. And, as always, she had answered. From her palms, a mist came, covering the long bridge in what seemed like a thick fog, hindering sight for everyone. It was all she could do. Now it was time to make use of the confusion and run for her and her friends’ sake.

As they moved away from the battle, a long and acute whistle cut through the battle song, followed by the approaching sound of the biggest hawk Allyna had ever seen. She glanced back to see the Golden Knight use the cover of the fog to make a run for the edge of the bridge, and jump down into the river. She saw the giant hawk dive under the bridge and emerge on the other side with the Golden Knight on his back, leaving the rest of the fighters with their failure and their silent grief. She couldn’t help but skip a few steps and jump with her arms around Hannah and the doctor, rushing them towards the house. A smile escaped her mouth and a low giggle followed.

“Good luck to us all now, friends! Let’s go!”