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Trinity
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I led the march to the portal. With each of the commanders following behind me and the troops behind them. It was time for us to leave. We were about to go to the battlefield and begin this war.
The portal had been prepared in advance. It was located in the courtyard where we had held the wedding and all the banquets. It was open and able to hold a lot of people, so it made for a more efficient place for us all to travel from.
"Listen up." I got their attention with a magically amplified voice. It was less amplified really and more enchanted so that all in attendance would hear it like I was standing in front of them. "This portal can take up to one thousand people at a time. It is large but we will not be arriving there all at once. The first Squad going through will be Trevor's followed by Valerian's. Reece's squad third followed by mine. From there it will be Dietrich's, Landon's, Nathair's, Rahim's, Noir's, Anastasia's, Crawford's, and finally Queen Gloriana's. Does everyone understand?"
"Yes, my Queen." The words echoed loudly from all over the large clearing.
"Good. Trevor, you may start to take your squad through."
In large groups that left by the several hundred, and sometimes closer to the max of one thousand. It took a long time, but we all managed to get the troops through. They were all moving as fast as they could to make this as quick of a process as they could. I knew that these men and women that were fighting with us didn't want to be here any longer than they had to. No one wanted to be at war.
When it was my turn to move through the portal with my squad, I took the lead. I was accompanied by my guards who refused to leave my side and all the others that had made it into my platoon of fighters.
I saw Reece waiting for me on the other side and went to him immediately. I could tell that he was still not happy about me going on this mission, but he had to get over that and just deal with it. I was going to be the type of Queen that led my people into battle instead of sitting on the sidelines.
"I see that she hasn't broken them through just yet." I pointed out as I looked around the clearing.
"No, but I sense that it won't be long. There is a crack in the barrier that is most likely how she made it through to this side." Athair mòr answered as soon as my question was out there. "And I can see where her magic has touched this area. It seems that her powers have grown while she was trapped in the dark Realm."
"The dark Realm is what used to be the Fae's home, correct? Is it possible that the majority of the magic of the Fae was left behind there when you left?"
"Alas, my dear Trinity, I do believe that is exactly what happened. There were a lot of powers that we gave up and discarded as no longer needed when we left there. Those that were imprisoned there most likely fed on that magic over these last five centuries. I had no idea what to expect when they break through that barrier and come spilling out toward us." Athair mòr sounded so grim and not very much like he was looking forward to the battle.
"That's so comforting." Trevor joked from beside him. "Thank you so much for that." His sarcasm was his defense mechanism right now. None of us wanted to go to war but it was what needed to be done.
The steady stream of warriors coming through the portal was showing no signs of stopping yet, so we needed to move so that we weren't in the way. When I walked further out into the clearing that we had arrived at, I saw that the space was vaguely familiar. It looked a lot like the place that Danu had brought me and Reece that night for the magical meeting.
There in the distance was the rocky cliffs and below was the stormy sea. There was an open field that seemed to be growing in size with each group of warriors that came through the portal. It was like this space would become as big as we needed it to. That was kind of convenient with how many men and women were with us. We would not be fighting while on top of each other.
The other thing that I noticed when I searched the clearing near the cliff was that it seemed to be infected with an evil energy. This was not at all what the clearing felt like when I visited it during my celestial meeting.
"Something is wrong here." I said as I looked around me.
The grass was green and the sky was blue, but it was like there was a filter over it, something that dimmed them and darkened them somehow. It's not like it looked ugly or wrong really. It was more like that filter made it seem not right.
"So you noticed." Anastasia came to stand next to me. "This feeling, this haze covering the clearing is the dark magic that has begun to seep through that crack."
The moment that Anastasia said those words, she pointed to a large black boulder that had a slight crack in it. There seemed to be a small amount of thick black fog pouring from within that boulder.
As I watched, that boulder shook and the hairline crack in it split open to be much wider than before. That thick fog billowed out thickly and almost seemed to choke me with its intensity.
Following the stone's cracking and the smoke, a large number of hideous beasts started to pour out of the boulder.. The battle was about to begin.