Star Crossed chapter 1

Chapter 1

A lot of time passed before Aztrala opened her eyes again. She had fainted after seeing her planet get crashed into. Her heart couldn’t take it. For all she knew her family were dead now… even if the queen wasn’t her mother, she was like one to her…

Aztrala opened her eyes, and she saw she was in a cold dark room. She shivered and tried to look around, but it was too dark to see. When she tried to move, she gasped. Her wrists were in chains, and so were her feet and her neck! She tried to pull on them but it was no use… Aztrala started to cry. She felt so lonely… “Maybe the moon wolves caught us after all.” she cried. “Where is Kopernia?” She wandered aloud.

Suddenly a dark figure approached her. She couldn’t tell who he was because he was wearing big black robes that covered his face in shadow. “Who are you!?” she asked him, voice shaking in fear.
“I am the head priest of this temple. We found you on the beach, and we weren’t sure if you were an angel or a demon, so we locked you up.”
“Let me go! I’m innocent!”
“How do we know that?” Said the figure. He started to walk around her.
“You don’t, but you have to trust me!!”
The priest stood and stared at her in thought. After a few moments, he said, “okay, I’ll let you out of here for now, but we will keep the chains on you. You have to prove you are innocent first.”
“…Fine,” she said sadly a another crystal tear dropped from her cheek. The priest mumbled a few words and waved a hand over her chains, and they weren’t attached to the floor anymore. “Follow me” he said.

Aztrala didn’t want anymore trouble, so she followed him like he said. He led her out the room and into a corridor. It had stained glass windows all along the walls. They were beautiful, and they reminded Aztrala of the temple at home… that was at home. She tried to fight back the tears, but she couldn’t. The priest heard her crying and turned around. He raised a hand and wiped the tear from her cheek. “I’m sorry, I had to lock you up. You could be evil after all.”
“No, it’s not that, I’m just lost and I miss home… I don’t think I have home anymore.” She cried even more.
“I’m… so sorry. I wish I could take the chains off you…”
“Don’t worry, I will prove myself.”
He nodded at her. “I know you will.”
He led her up some more stairs and into a big room. It had a large window with green curtains with gold edges. Her bed was green and gold too.
“This is your room for now.” She nodded.
“It’s very nice…” she said weakly
“We try to make our guests comfortable” the priest told her with a smile. She only just noticed the smile under the hood. He had sharp teeth. “Who are you?” She asked.
“My name is Kit.”
“Why do you have fangs? Are you a cat person too?”
Oh! No, I’m not. I’m a fox person.” He pulled down his hood. He had white hair and white fox ears, and his eyes were bright green. He was actually kind of cute… he reminded her of Maigo… but Maigo was gone now…
“Make yourself comfortable and come downstairs in a few hours. You must be tired, so you should have a rest. You’re going to need it for the trials.”
“Trials??” Aztrala looked up at him and felt scared.
“Yes, the foxes have 3 trials to test whether someone is good or not. But don’t worry about it now.”
“Okay…”
After Kit the fox man left, she sat on the bed and laid down. She looked down at the chains around her hands and frowned. There was a full length mirror nearby and she looked at herself. She felt ashamed and she had almost forgot she was meant to be head huntress. “…Even if I am the only one left of my planet… I will still be head huntress… I won’t let my people down!” she told herself. She looked at the chains again and snarled. Gathering all her strength, she bit them! Cat people had very strong teeth, so she was able to bite right through them. “Much better…” she said. Then she laid on the bed and finally slept.

Whens he woke up again it was dark. There was a candle lit in her room. She grabed it and left to go downstairs like the priest had asked. When she got down there, she found a mess hall where everyone was. There were lots of fox people all eating food and drinking ale. Kit was sat there too, and he saw Aztrala as she walked down the stairs. “Hey! Come and sit with us, he smiled. She did what he said since he had saved a seat next to him. People all sared at her as she walked into the room. They had never seen a cat person before… how far had she travelled? She sat down, and Kit gave her a plate of food. It had a lot of meat on it. “I heard cat people like meat…” he said with a smile. She smiled back and giggled. “I’m a bit of a nerd actually… I’ve studied your kind a lot. People think I’m weird, but I think you guys are really cool.”
“Then why did you lock me up?”
“You could have been an evil cat,” he said, frowning. “Sometimes they attack us.”
“WAIT, EVIL CATS?!”
“Yes, evil cat people sometimes come to attack us. They work for the moon wolves…”
“But… I’ve never seen an evi cat person…”
“Maybe you can help us then.”
“Yeah…” Aztrala stared down at the table in silence, looking very scared. Kit patted her on the back. She was really hungry a minute ago, but she wasn’t anymore now that she had heard that.

Before she could say anything else, a fox man t the head of the table stood up and banged his glass with a spoon. “May I have your attention please!” Everyone looked at him and stared. “Today we are going to start the first trial to tell if our new guest is friend or foe.” Everyone turned to stare at Aztrala again. She couldn’t help but feel nervous. “What is your name, please?”
“A- A – Aztrala…” she stammered. She stood up and looked around at everyone. They were staring at her with wide eyes, filled with wonder.
“Aztrala, your first trial is to go into the dungeon and get past the dragon down there!”
“The dragon?!” Kit cried out, standing up too. “I’m sorry my lord, but that seems too harsh! Aztrala doesn’t seem evil, why does she have to fight the dragon!?!”
“We need to test her strength…” the fox lord said enigmatically. Kit glared at him, but realized it was useless and sat down. He looked at Aztrala, looking worried.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” she told him, putting on a brave face.
“The dungeon is downstairs, down through the trapdoor in the prison cell.” She didn’t even know there was a trapdoor in there! It was a good thing she didn’t fall through it. “If you do not return, we will assume you are dead, like so many others. If you are evil, the dragon will kill you, for it is a silver dragon, one of the pure defenders of our land.” She nodded, and started to walk down to the dungeon... until Kit stood up again.
“Wait! Please let me go with her! I believe in her.”
“If you really do trust her, “ the fox lord said with a heavy sigh. He waved Kit away, and he happily joined Aztrala.
“Come on, let’s go, I know you can do this!” They nodded at one another and made their way intot he prison cells.

It was even darker than before because it was night, but luckily Aztrala still had the candle with her, so they could see where the trapdoor was. She and Kit looked down at it.
“Have you ever been down there before?”
“No, it’s only for the brave and the prisoners. Dragons are scary, after all.”
“Yeah, but I’ve managed to take thm on before. Evil ones, I mean. Purple dragons… I used to be a head huntress, you know. No, I still AM head huntress.”
“Of your race? A real head huntress of the cat people? Wow… I am so lucky to meet you.” She chuckled and opened the trap door. They couldn’t see anything down there, but it felt warm. “I’ll go first,” she said, and she went down. She opened her wings and flew around with the candle, btu it blew out in the wind. She was about to light it again, but suddenly a big fire lit in the center of the room. The room was very big, and it had massive piles of silver things all around the edges of the room. “Woah… Kit, you have to come down here!”
“Coming!” He said With the agility of the fox, he somersaulted down into the room and landed on his feet and one arm. “This is our kingdom’s treasury. We keep it in the form of silver, because that’s what the dragon likes.”
“Oh yeah, the dragon” Aztrala said and looked around.. “Where is she?”

Suddenly, an ear piercing roar echoed threw the cavern. Aztrala and Kit looked at each other, worried. The a big dragon head poked out of the piles of silver, glaring at them. She narrowed her ameythyst eyes at them and started to growl….