The castle was in ruins. The walls vibrated as new cracks formed and slip the bricks. Aurelie jumped over a hole in the floor. It grew larger as she leaped past it. Bricks fell down to the floor below, some bouncing off of a couch and landing on the tiles with a loud knock.
The corners of the walls and the frames of the doors were webbed as if the castle had been abandoned long ago. The walls were bare of paintings and mirrors. Aurelie held onto the side of her stomach, it cramped at the side from all the running and stopped at a passage that opened to her left.
"Aurelie!" she heard a voice call from this exact direction just moments ago. The wall to her right was broken. Thankfully, she had the moon providing some light. The stars, which floated just outside the castle, helped too, but the passage she was meant to follow was pitch black, and they didn't seem to be able to enter through the gap.
She extended her hand, cupping it, and willed fire to spawn from her palm. Nothing. Trying again, she focused on feeling the magic travel through her body. That always seemed to help when her fire was stubborn. Now, however, she could no longer sense the magic at all. Nothing stirred. Nothing churned.
"Aurelie!" she heard the voice again, more urgent this time.
Aurelie pressed herself against the wall and felt with her foot if the floor was stable beneath it before taking a careful step. About five steps in, her foot no longer found a solid ground. She knelt down on all fours and felt the edges of the hole with her hands. It went from wall to wall. There was no walking around it.
"Aurelie!" the voice called again, this time she could recognize it. Kirin. It came from no direction in particular. In fact, she was certain that the voice called her within her own mind.
With the same certainty, she knew she had to go forward to find him. Floor or no floor, he was somewhere in that darkness, and he was calling her.
Aurelie took four quick steps back, inhaled and ran forward, leaping just as her toes curled around the edge of the hole. No ground met her feet. She fell. Purple lights spiraled around her. Her innards hollowed. She caught her breath and braced for the fall.
***
Aurelie's eyes shot open. Sweat ran down her back and covered her face. A breeze blew through the open window and cooled her down. The stars were back where they belonged, far in the heavens and the girls in charge of watching her were spread across the couches, sleeping. She closed her eyes and forced herself back to sleep, hoping to catch the dream exactly where it ended.
When Cassandra came to wake her that morning, Aurelie was exceptionally grumpy. The dream did not return. Funny how it tormented me every damn night, and now that I want to be trapped in it, it suddenly forces me out.
"Have they had breakfast yet?" she asked Cassandra not bothering with morning greetings.
"Sheesh!" Cassandra exclaimed. "Good morning, Princess."
"Yes, yes!" Aurelie frowned and climbed out of bed. "Morning." I was so close!
"The Keeper is out, the King had breakfast in his chamber, and the nobles are being catered to now," Cassandra went over the morning's events while straightening her sheets. They had made a habit of it. "They think Valice is ready to move and a strange woman arrived earlier today. Mrs. Tina from the kitchen had to force the footmen up to serve food; apparently, her presence petrified half the staff." Cassandra fluffed a pillow and threw it on the bed, walking over to the other side. "The girls are fighting over who is to serve her if she stays the evening."
Aurelie's frown finally softened. "The necromancer!"
Cassandra paused, pillow in hand and turned to Aurelie with a crook in her brow. "A friend of yours?"
"No," Aurelie said, "a friend of Revin. She's a giftâwell, her power is." She rushed to the door, and stopped, eyeing her sheer nightgown.
"Is that a good idea?" Cassandra asked, setting down the pillow.
Aurelie walked to a chair near her night table and picked up a long, black robe that she threw over it, the night before. The silk robe had a cape of sorts attached to the back that covered Aurelie's forearms, with a strip of lace for decoration at the hem. "Probably not, but let's face it, my ideas haven't been great overall, why stop the streak now?" Aurelie tied the rope's strings around her waist and made her way to the door.
"What if he sent her to kill you?" Cassandra asked. "And you can't wear that, surely!"
"Revin and I are on good terms now," Aurelie said and inspected the robe. Nothing shone through. As far as she was concerned she was sufficiently covered. This was after all her house nowâdespite being a castle that held over one hundred servants and two hundred guardsâand if she wanted to walk around in a robe, she damn well would! She didn't want to waste time on dressing, not when her dream just tortured her with the idea of seeing Kirin again and the necromancer was just next door.
"Your friends are outside," she said coldly, with a curve in her brow that was solely reserved for Orken. "Maybe you could tell him to bathe?"
It's been less than a week and Orken already had a reputation around the castle. He insisted that the staff taste all his meals and drinks before he touched any of them, and that's the mildest thing he's done thus far.
"I'm the last person he'll listen to," Aurelie said. "Could you ask Maldora to fetch General Dohanue, I'd like him present."
"Malnoria," Cassandra corrected her.
"Yes, that one, or the other â hardly matters which one."
Cassandra opened her mouth in protest, then waved Aurelie away. "I'll tell 'er."
Aurelie unlocked the door to a welcomed sight. They sat on a gold plated bench, pressed together like two birds on a branch. "Morning," she said.
Daerious stood, and bowed. That's new. He wiggled his brows and put on a mocking grin. "Princess, we are at your service."
"I have guards for that." She turned to the two men stationed at her door.
Orken pushed his hand against the bench and stood. "That's exactly who we're here to protect you from. Even though you're too stupid to see it yet."
"So, you do care." She wrapped her arm around Daerious' and winked. "Here I thought that you'd given up on me."
Despite his rudeness to the staff, whom he referred to as the traitors, he was behaving rather well. In the sense that he didn't kill anyone, or even attempt to yet. Needless to say, Aurelie was suspicious. She didn't for a second expect him to fit right in. He spent half his life hating the royals and the other half trying to kill the King. "Let's get you some food, shall we?" she added, keep an eye out for Orken's reaction to her suggestion.
When Aurelie told them about the Icelands', Kirin and the Dream Keeper(s) she realized that she took the long way around to get to exactly where she was â where they were. Had they been fated to walk these halls with her? They must have been. Otherwise, she wouldn't have stepped into that tavern or Daerious wouldn't have been there. She wouldn't have but she did.
Orken didn't say it, but if she had listened to him in Peter's cabin, Kirin wouldn't have been taken. That thought came to her so often that it had been dissected beyond recognition now. Same could be said for the day the King came to take Kaiden and Elizabeth. If he had gotten there sooner, he would have taken her home. He would have but he didn't.
The pieces fit perfectly together, but the picture was distorted. Everything started anew. A new conflict, a new alliance, a new enemy. That wasn't something Orken would fully understand. He was never truly present anymore. Once or twice he would grunt at her, and then she would see his eye trace past her, into memories.
"I'm going to have to leave you here," she said as they arrived at the dining quarter. New curtains were hung, red velvet. She preferred it when the windows bare, but it was growing colder now. Candles were lit in the dragon-shaped lanterns.
Two nobles remained at the table, and Shaelyn sat on the far side with a fresh plate of food. The men stood as they heard her voice. Shaelyn, of course, ignored her very existence.
"Sit please," she said smiling. "I won't be staying."
"Where are you going?" Daerious asked, ready to protest.
Aurelie bit her lip. "To see a necromancer." Trying to turn over a new leaf, or rather find the old one, Aurelie decided on telling the truth from now on.
"What?" Orken bellowed. Turns out it wasn't the best idea.
"Please!" Aurelie held her hands up to silence him. "Keep it down."
"What the hell do you need a necromancer for," Daerious said.
Orken shook a fist at her. "She's bloody buried the lad already!"
She grabbed them by their shoulders and led them back. All the corners of the hall were clear, and the guards far enough not to hear. "I'm pregnant," she said watching their expressions going from confused to shock. "Yeah, that's right." She looked around again. "I've not buried him but I need to know whether someone else has."
"Who else knows?" Orken asked.
"A shaman."
"Can he be trusted?" Orken's expression was grave. She didn't exactly expect them to be happy about it, but not quite horrified either.
"I think so."
"You think so?" Daerious raised his voice, and stopped, bending his neck back to see if anyone heard them.
"Yes! Okay, he can be trusted," she thought about it for a second and was no longer so sure, "...I think."
"Damn it, Aurelie!" Orken growled. "We leave the first chance we get." He turned to Daerious. "You ready that girl of yours."
Daerious rubbed the back of his head. "I told you she's not mine."
"We're not going anywhere," she said. Two ladies approached them, smiling at Daerious. Lovely, now someone knows about this 'conversation'. They bowed to Aurelie, holding onto their feathered hats.
Orken waited for them to be out of sight before he grabbed her elbow and pushed his face as close as it could get. "Do you not understand? That's why he'd got you here." He pointed a finger at her stomach. "You think he's better now? That child is another being he can consume."
"He doesn't know," she said. "I only found out about a day before your arrival. The only reason he was consuming witches was to break the Iceland's curse himself. He never wanted my magic in the first place."
He and Daerious exchanged looks. "You better hope to God that you're right," Orken said.
"I do," she said. "Not enough to let down my defenses, Orken. Why do you think I didn't summon you sooner? I haven't lost my wits to the luxuries of the castle. This," she pointed at her tiara, "means nothing to me. For all I know," she swallowed before admitting what she was about to say to them and to herself, "the two of you is all I have left." The crown had made her a pessimist. That and all the death.
"Oh, you didn't have to worry about my protection, Princess," he said, whipped out a dagger that had been hidden in his jacket sleeve, and turned it so that she could see the blade. Daerious did the same.
"Put those away!" She looked around again. Dumb as they come!
"Look," she held her hand out, "this is the safest place for us now. I'll follow the two of you anywhere, but we've got another King seeking usâwell, me. I've seen what he can do, and we can't fight him alone. My father is not the villain that we imagined. However, a villain still. Just as much as I am."
"We have another option," Daerious said. "Jermyn is willing to seek the Queen of the forest people and ask her to protect us."
Aurelie's mouth hung slightly open. When she first met Jermyn he spoke about the Queen of the Forest with great admiration. Scared that his magic would harm them, he refused to set foot in that forest again. "Wow," she said. The grouchy giant loved them after all. Daerious probably had more to do with it than she and Orken did, but it was pleasantly shocking nonetheless. "Where is he now?" she asked.
"He settled by the river," Daerious said.