Chapter Ten

I sleep in way too long, but whatever. After that little chat with Rune last night, I'm kind of depressed. When I finally stir, Rune remarks dryly, "Good morning, princess." Some girls might like being called princess by a guy with an accent like that, but me? Nah.

"Shut up," I mutter as I lumber out of the bed and stretch.

"Were you dreaming last night?"

I sit near my bag and pull out some food. Nothing like forced rations to make food last longer; I'm probably losing weight like crazy—and I don't have much extra weight to lose. "Uh, I don't think so, why?"

"It sounded like you were. It was a very… fitful sleep," Rune explains, the mark on my wrist glowing with each word he speaks. "I was a tad concerned."

"You, concerned about me? Awe, shucks. You know exactly what to say to a girl to make her blush." I rip off a chunk of meat and take a bite, mostly to stop myself from saying anything else. I… don't really remember my dream, whatever it was, so it couldn't have been that bad.

Rune groans a guttural sound. "Back to your insufferable self, I see."

I shrug, though it's not like he can see it.

After I finish my small breakfast, I get searching. Now that there's daylight, the tower is illuminated. The top floor is a bedroom, basically, full of nothing but beds and chests at the foot of each bed, where the researchers must've kept their belongings while stationed here.

I almost don't look around, figuring if there's going to be something it's going to be on one of the lower levels, but out of the corner of my eye, I spot a leather-bound journal on the floor, near the bed in the far corner.

Just to be certain, I go check it out. I pick the journal up and flip it open, expecting to see a language I can't read, but to my surprise, it's in English—or maybe it's not, and I can simply understand it because of the bond I have with Rune. Either way, I can make out the words. Some of them barely, because it's in a messy cursive script.

And what's on the first page? Property of Frederick LaRoe, First Researcher for Empress Krotas.

"Holy shit," I say, breathless as I sit on the nearby bed. "This was his. Frederick's dad was here." And he's also named Frederick LaRoe. How confusing. I'm gonna refer to him as Fred from now on, just to differentiate the two.

"What a stroke of luck," Rune says.

I flip to the next page. It's full of writing. I scan the rest of the book and find it's the same. "This has to be his journal or something." In other words, a diary. There's a lot of reading here; I don't think I can sit here in this tower and read it all today. I'll have to take it with me and read it bit by bit.

This can't be the research. There has to be more.

I go to the last entry and read that. Fred talks about regretting leaving his family in Laconia, but he knows he did what he had to. Empress Krotas contracted the madness, and one of her last wishes was for him to see Empress Morimento. If there was anyone who could fight the madness seeping into her veins, it was surely the empress of the just. It was too late for Krotas, but perhaps Fred could save Morimento.

The last paragraph of the journal entry talks about Frederick. How, if by some miracle of chance, Frederick ever finds this journal, that Fred loves him more than life itself. That he's sorry he could not make the world better for him. He's sorry he failed.

It's… reminiscent of something my own dad might've said, if he kept a journal. After he got sick, he kept apologizing to me, like he owed it to me.

I shut the journal and cause a whiff of dust to fly at my face. I wave it away as I say, "Looks like our guy went onward from here. It sounds like he left this journal here because he assumed Frederick would try to follow his trail eventually, if he never came back." And he would've been right, had the guards not stopped Frederick from leaving.

I haven't run into any more storms lately, so maybe Frederick could've made it here on his own. But that's taking a chance, a chance that might've killed him.

"It appears we must go forth, to Acadia's castle. I know you don't want to see any of the empresses, but you might not have a choice," Rune says.

Getting up, I stuff the journal into my bag. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I want to search the rest of the tower before we go, just to make sure there's nothing else important here." Even if I can't find Fred's body anywhere or his other research, at least I found his journal. It'll be something to bring back to Frederick.

"Good idea."

I work my way down. Some of the floors hold nothing but old, withered garden pots with plants long since dead. One of the floors has nothing but maps upon maps. All useless to me.

As I work my way down, floor after floor, I find more books. Old, thick tomes. Bookshelf upon bookshelf, it comes to a point where I'm surrounded by smelly tomes, and the sheer volume of books overwhelms me.

Shit. There's no way I can go through each and every book just to see if there's anything pertaining to portals or the woes in here.

Rune must read my mind, because he suggests, "Why don't we venture onward, hmm? We can always swing by the tower on the way back to Laconia if we don't find our researcher." He is right. We should move on. Coming back wouldn't be too hard since the tower is just off the river.

So, even though I had grand plans of searching through the tower, we leave. Before we go, I do wash my clothes and take a quick bath in the river—as good as I can, anyway, since I have no soap. Before I know it, I'm zooming along the river, moving on.

Acadia's castle isn't close to the tower. It's not quite in the heart of Acadia; more like on its opposite end, where the river eventually empties out into a big basin surrounded by plains. Even zipping along the water like this, it's going to take me days to get there. And all the while, all I can do is hope that time isn't passing the same back home, that only a few minutes have passed.

That I haven't lost everything.

The deeper I get into Acadia, the more I start to realize just how wrong this is. So much empty space. So few villages, scattered in between. Many of them are on the river side—and I do a quick check of each them before moving on—but they're all empty, devoid of any other living creature. Even the animals are few and far between.

It's a wasteland, even though it's green and beautiful. It's like I'm the only living thing here, and that just feels wrong.

At night, I read more of the journal. A few pages here and there before the sun sets and takes away my light. Fred details some of his experiments, some of his thoughts on the woes—so at least, if this is all I can bring back, it's not like I'll come empty-handed. Some of Fred's thoughts are hard to follow. The guy's obviously smart as hell. It's too bad the woes got him.

It's the fourth day after Catarin Tower that I read a passage in the journal that sticks with me. I'm lying on the grass, using my cape as a makeshift pillow. The sky is purple and pink, the sunset nearly complete.

I'm not the first to wonder where exactly the woes began, nor will I be the last, should Laconia survive. The deeper I go into Acadia, the more I start to wonder if there's more to it. There are wildlands everywhere. Even before the woes it was dangerous for anyone to leave the main roads during their travels, and I can't help but wonder what secrets Laconia holds? What secrets have been lost to time?

What have we forgotten as the centuries went by?

I suppose it is possible this is not the first time the woes afflicted us. I have searched and searched through the library of Laconia, read through every volume I could get my hands on. The history of the land is not as well-preserved as we might hope it is. There are gaps, missing pages in some of the old texts. Some of the words have been lost to our language.

But even then, the library did not hold all the answers. For instance, who were the first empresses? Were they always attuned to the aether? Who gave them their power? Why is Laconia divided into three regions, not four? Not more? Our written histories simply end, leaving me to wonder just what has been lost to the sands of time.

We are a small people, but strong and proud. We give our praise and our thanks to our empresses, but even they are not immune to the destruction and the chaos dividing and conquering our kingdom. Again I ask: how can they control the elements while we cannot?

Are the empresses connected to the woes, and if so, how? Why?

It is these questions I must ask Empress Morimento. I pray to the gods that she still holds strong. Empress Krotas instructed me to fix this mess, and I must do as she commands. I can only hope that Empress Morimento lives and that the madness has not yet taken root in her mind and her heart. If she is lost, then surely Empress Gladus is lost to us as well.

Without our empresses, what are we? Who are we? Are we nothing more than poor souls, trapped, waiting to die?

No. I will not let such a fate come for my son and my wife. I have a duty to this land, to Empress Krotas. I am on her quest, a quest that she herself is unable to commit to. The aether may just be our saving grace. I will discover what caused these woes, and when I do, I will do anything to right what wrongs have been committed across the land. If that means I must die, then… then I am a man faced with his own death, and I accept the inevitable.

I close the journal and stare up at the darkening sky. The questions Fred asked are good ones. This might not be the first time these woes hit Laconia. If their records only go back so far, who could say for sure? If that's the case, then obviously someone had to survive. The woes had to end. Nature itself had to recover.

And the empresses… Fred suspected they were connected to the woes somehow. It's obvious the woes are magical in origin, and if the empresses are the only ones who can command nature, what if they were the cause?

It sounds like they lost their minds, like they went batshit. People with that kind of power, people who lose their minds like that… it's not a far leap to suggest they might've done something they shouldn't.

The people's precious empresses might be the reason so many are dead. Somehow I don't think that idea would ever be accepted in Laconia.

That goes back to what I told Rune at the tower: it's not my problem. I'm not here to save them. I'm not some high and mighty hero who's come here to save the freaking day. I just want to get home, go back to my slightly less than average life and pretend this was all a fever dream.

I don't want this. I don't want any of this.

I close the journal, tuck it into my bag, and go to sleep.

I stand in a dark world, alone. There is no sun above my head, and yet when I look up, I can see the skies are made of billowing black clouds, white lightning bolts shooting through them every few seconds, their course random but noiseless. An impossible storm rages over my head.

The ground is black water, wet and deep, but I don't sink through it. I stand on it, my dirty shoes floating just above the water, where it can't touch me. Just from looking at it, I can see how thick and viscous it is. If given the chance, it would swallow me up and fill my lungs, kill me without hesitation.

This… what is this? Where am I?

A deep, vengeful voice speaks behind me, "You believe. You hope. You persist. Those emotions make you weak, for you will soon see I am the fate that awaits you." As it talks, its low, gravelly tone crawls over me and makes me shiver. Like nails on a chalkboard or forks scraping against a plate.

And yet… it's also like honey, smooth and welcoming. Enticing even though it shouldn't be. The voice is mesmerizing, and I want to close my eyes and surrender to it, an instinctive reaction.

But one I fight. As tempting as it sounds, I know the root of it is pure evil, and I might be a lazy motherfucker, but I will not let this darkness have me.

I turn around and shout, "Who are you?" I see nothing but eternity stretching on before me, a vast emptiness. More water below, more storms in the sky above. In the distance, they meet, turning into a pitch blackness that threatens to swallow me.

"I am—"

"Death, destruction, blah, blah, blah," I say as I roll my eyes. "Yeah, I figured that out. I mean, if you're such a baddie, why don't you stop hiding and come out already, huh? Stop with this creeper act and just do something already."This is new to me, and yet it feels so familiar, like I've been here before, heard all of this before.

The voice turns into a growl that echoes in the space behind me—but when I turn around again, I see nothing. "Petulant child of man. You will see just how hopeless your journey is. Nothing you do can turn the tide. It is already against you, surging at your feet."

My feet suddenly feel wet, and I glance down to see the water has started to rise. It moves up over my feet, all the way up to my ankles.

Something cold and black coils around my neck, slithering like a snake with no scales. I gasp. The voice is behind me, so low and unearthly it instantly gives rise to goosebumps on my arms as it whispers, "You will fall, and on that day I will rise."

I don't have the voice to ask who it's talking about. More shadow coils curl around me. My arms, my waist, my wrists. It's almost too much to fight, like the shadows themselves beckon me, pleading, promising that if I let them in they won't hurt me.

They're liars, though, and the last thing I tell the shadow behind me involves two words: "Fuck you."

I wake with a start, my heart pounding. I check myself and find no shadows remain, no seductive coils of evil whispers to be seen. My feet are dry, and I'm okay. I'm okay. That dream… it was the most vivid one I had yet, and it brings to the forefront of my mind all the other dreams I've had, the ones that I can hardly remember.

Strange. It's almost like the dreams are getting stronger.Not so long ago I couldn't remember anything after waking, but now… things are changing.

I pick up all my things after eating a quick breakfast, and then I get on with it. Back to it. I try not to let the dream bother me, but this one sticks with me. I don't forget it as the day goes on. Something about it… something about what it was saying to me makes me think it's connected.

To what?

To everything. To the empresses' madness. To the woes. To the plague, the blight, and the scourge.

Does everyone who's left in Laconia dream of that thing, or is it just me? And if it's just me, why? Why me?

I try not to think about it as I venture deeper into Acadia.

Days go by. The river I travel on takes on the mouths of other rivers and creeks, growing larger, its current harder. It helps me propel along faster, surfing along at a breakneck speed. I do an awful lot of complaining to Rune—this journey is taking forever and I'm tired of it already—and on the seventh day I see it.

The river empties into a basin, and I coast to a stop, hovering on top of the water as I stare at the giant stone structure a few miles away.

Sitting in the middle of the flattest field I've ever seen, surrounded by water basins that curve around the outer stone wall like a moat, I see Acadia's castle. It's big, even from this far away. Spires and towers curl toward the sky, old stone that appears black from this distance.

"Acadia's castle," Rune comments. "Its beauty is overshadowed by the void that surrounds it. I would be careful as I approach, if I were you. We do not know what waits for us beyond the gates."

I swallow hard as I resume my surfing. I get as close to it as I can on the water before I jump off. My stomach is in knots as I approach the castle's gates. Large wooden doors that put the main doors to Laconia to shame. I have to crane my head back to study the whole thing. My ears hear nothing but the sound of running water.

This isn't right. This doesn't feel right at all.

I'm ten feet away from the gate, but for some reason I can't shake that nagging feeling. I turn around as I shake my head and say, "No, something isn't right here."

"What do you mean? Rey, we made it this far. We can't turn back now. You must go in." He sounds like a nagging uncle or something, and I wish he was here physically so I could slap some sense into him.

"Something's wrong," I say, feeling it in my bones. I don't know how I know, but I know. It's like I have an internal radar for shit, and it's going bonkers right now. I want to get the fuck out of here.

"Rey. Calm down. Nothing's wrong. Nothing—"

The sky cracks, thunder coming from nowhere. The wind picks up at speeds that hurt my skin, whipping my hair around. The blue sky turns gray, clouding over, and the air grows thick with a choking storm.

The scourge. It's here.

"Shadowstorm," Rune mutters. "It would seem your intuition was correct."

I shield my eyes from the whipping wind, my mouth dry, all the moisture sucked out of it. The wind is so strong it nearly knocks me over, but I manage to hold my ground, half expecting a dragon to pop up and attack me.

Hey, that's what happened last time. Can you blame me for being worried?

I'm paralyzed with indecision, knowing the only way I'll be able to find shelter is to get inside the castle's gates and hope nothing worse waits for me there. I don't move. I stand there, frozen, needing someone who's smarter than me to tell me what to do.

And, luckily for me, I have Rune. He yells at me, scolding me at the same time: "Snap out of it! Get yourself together and get through the gate. We need to get out of this storm."

He's right. He's right, of course.

With urgency in my veins, I turn around and sprint to the castle's doors. I push on them to no avail. They don't budge. They're stuck or something. I'm seconds from body-slamming the damned gate when I hear a howl behind me.

At least, I think it's a howl. It sounds unnatural.

I glance behind me and see, through the thick storm, a dozen sets of glowing eyes looking at me. Some float in the air while others are near the ground. Twenty feet away, maybe? They're the only things I can see, and it looks as though they're inching closer.

"Shit," I whisper as I return my attention back to the door. I run against it, using my body strength to try to budge it. The damned thing doesn't move. Whatever those things are, they keep pushing forward, and I know they won't hesitate to tear me apart if I let them get to me.

"Rey, use magic!" Rune instructs.

Fucking duh.

I steady myself, aim at the crack between the two doors that make up the large gate, and blast a force of magic right at it. The tattoo on my wrist comes to life, glowing white as I summon the golden magic. The force of it is enough to jiggle open whatever was stopping me from opening it before, and the right side flies open.

I instantly see the inside is free of the storm, and I dart inside and hurry to push the door closed once more. It's one heavy motherfucker, but after I struggle a bit, I get it moving. The last thing I see are those glowing eyes, watching me from the shadowstorm, beasts of the scourge. I don't know what they are, and I don't want to find out.

I find a thick metal latch and pull it down behind the right side of the door, bolstering it so those things can't just push it open after me.

"What the hell were those things?" I ask, breathless. "And where did they come from?" I stare at the gate, waiting to hear them try to get inside, but they don't. Maybe they don't try because the storm doesn't run over the high stone wall. It remains outside of the castle's walls, strangely.

"I don't know. Perhaps they were summoned with the storm?" Rune offers.

"And why—" I turn my chin up to the sky as I take a few steps back from the giant doors. "—why isn't the storm here, too?" From where I am, a beautiful blue sky sits over my head. That same sky is cut by the color gray just behind the wall. Not once in my life have I ever seen a natural storm respect borders.

Shit. There's no way the empress summoned that storm, did she? Did she summon it to get me to come inside?

"I don't know. It is rather peculiar, isn't it?" Rune sounds thoughtful when he asks, "You could feel the storm before it came?"

I turn away from the gate. "Yeah. That had to be why it felt wrong."

"Well, regardless, we're here now, so let's venture to the castle."

I thought I was in the castle now, but it looks like an entire village sits just beyond the wall, tiny stone houses tucked together, side by side, many on the same cobbled streets sharing a roofline. Two or three stories tall, some have small balconies with planters that still bloom, even after all this time.

And yet, as I walk along, I don't see a living soul.

This place is a giant village, and in the distance, rising higher above the rest, sits the actual castle, a pillar of what these people used to look up to. I walk through the streets, feeling odd and out of place here. The emptiness is disconcerting.

"These people thought they were safe living so close to their empress," I say, "but it looks like it's the same here as it was out there. They weren't safe."

Street upon street; the more homes I pass, the worse I feel. Just because I don't think their problems are my problems doesn't mean I can't feel empathy toward them. Sympathy over what happened here.

It's not right. None of this is right.

"From what we've heard and what you've read in Frederick's journal, it sounds as though the empresses were not immune. The people revered them, and yet even with all of their power, they still fell." Rune sounds… mystified, almost.

"Don't sound so thrilled about it," I hiss.

"They are the ones who sentenced me to a lifetime of solitude by stripping me of my name and my identity and shoving me into that soul gem," Rune reminds me. "It would be impossible for me to feel any sympathy toward them for their fate. I believe in the end, they got exactly what they deserved."

I pass another street. This one looks like an abandoned marketplace. Old, dirty banners hang over empty stalls, unreadable in whatever signs they used to be.

"And what about these people?" I ask. "What about them? You don't feel sorry for the empresses, okay, whatever. Everyone with power always abuses it eventually. The same shit happens in my world, too. But these people? They were innocent. They didn't deserve any of this happening to them." I sound bitter, and that's because I am.

These people didn't deserve this, just like I didn't deserve the life I was forced to have. I deserved a mom who loved me and a dad who wasn't taken from me too soon.

Rune whispers, "No one gets what they deserve, Rey. That is a fact of life. If you think you deserve something, you must fight for it."

I stop walking, and I shake my head. "Not everyone can fight for things, Rune. Sometimes people are just… people. They just want to live. They shouldn't have to fight every single day of their lives just to survive." I point to the castle's silhouette in the distance. "The ones up there? They're the ones who are supposed to fight. They have more so they should give more. The people who are above everyone else should be their goddamn champions instead of their gods."

My world has the billionaires and the politicians who don't listen to the will of the people. Men and women who accept bribes and are so out of touch with the reality of the everyday person that they can't see how miserable life is for most everyone.

It's the same here, with these fucking empresses. Tucked away in their castles, revered as gods among men, worshiped because they're a step above everyone else. It's disgusting. It's annoying. I hate it. I hate the empresses and I don't even know them, but sometimes you don't need to know a person to hate them and what they stand for.

Rune quietly says, "You feel very strongly about that."

Now I'm all riled up. I do my best to shake it off as I resume the walk through the village. "I guess I do. It's the same in my world. We're expected to fight and bicker over scraps while the rich watch us from their mansions or stare down at us from space. They could do so much good, but they don't. I guess you have to be selfish to get that much money in the first place. Selfish and psychotic."

"I had no idea how idealistic you are," he says.

I know what he's not saying: being idealistic doesn't automatically make me correct. I'm assuming a lot here. He might hate the empresses, and they might've wronged him, but maybe they were good people before the woes. Maybe they did help their subjects before they lost their minds.

Maybe all of this is pointless because they're sitting in their castles, dead.

The street I'm walking on dead-ends, so I'm forced to make a turn, and when I do, I stop in my tracks. I'm not alone in this city. I was too busy fuming to hear them, too busy arguing with Rune to hear the shuffling of feet and the cracking of abnormally-placed bones.

People.

Only they aren't people anymore.

Skinny and hollow, concave and boney, their skin ashen and gray. Their clothes are worn rags, hanging off the sharp, ugly angles of their bodies. What hair they had in the past is long gone, nothing but short wisps on their scalp. No eyebrows on any of them. No lips, the facial feature dried up and peeled back to reveal their yellow, rotting teeth. Some of them have holes in their cheeks, showcasing more of their non-smiles.

I can see maybe a few dozen people, all crammed into the street, standing perfectly still—that was, until I rounded the corner and drew their attention. One by one, like a set of dominos, they all snap to attention and whirl on me, their eyes putrid, some popped and dried up.

Uh-oh.

I turn around, ready to run the other way, but when I turn I see I'm suddenly surrounded by a sea of decaying people who died a long time ago.

"Uh…" I stumble over my words.

"Perhaps climbing could get us out of this situation?" Rune's ever-helpful suggestion highlights the only way out of this, unless I want to fight them all. They're not a crazed flock of birds, though.

They're people, and I don't know if I can fight them, even if they are dead.

I dash to the nearest house and try jumping for the second-story balcony. Rune must give me a little help, because I make it easily, hooking my hand through the carved stone railing and pulling myself up right as the two groups converge on where I was standing. They moan, their arms outstretched. Their thought processes must be slow or near non-existent, because it takes the group a while to realize I'm above them.

"I guess dead people aren't the smartest," I whisper. I don't stick around after that. I launch myself up again. This time I see the yellow magic swirling around me as I propel myself to the roof. Parkouring with magic is actually kind of fun, zombies aside.

Three stories up, I climb to the peak of the roof and stand straight only when I'm sure I won't fall. And what do my eyes see? A whole lot of dead people crowding the streets from where I am upward in the city, all the way to the gates around the stairs that lead to the castle—which is still a good distance away.

"It appears they're not inside the castle," Rune states the obvious. "If we reach the castle, we should be safe."

"Yeah, unless there's an angry empress waiting," I mutter with a frown. I lower my gaze to the zombie-like people. They crowd each other, standing so close it's a literal sea of decaying faces. The bones that poke out of some of them aren't charred or blackened, which tells me something different happened here.

Though I can't see any, I don't doubt there are kids amongst the adults. All dead. All turned into whatever those are. It's enough to piss me off.

Rune speaks with a delicate tone, "You can't help them now. Whatever happened to them is not something you can fix." He says something I already know, but it still irritates me, and I don't appreciate hearing it.

"How could this happen?" I ask, glancing all around again. It's like everyone who's here is crowding these streets, not the streets near the outer gate. Even in death, they want to be as close to their empress as they can.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

I straighten up and let my eyes find a path along the rooftops. These homes are so close together it should be easy to jump between them. Magical parkour for the win. The homes don't lead right to the closed metal gate that separates the actual castle from the rest of it, but at least it'll bring me closer.

I start running along the ridge of the roof, and when I reach its end, I leap. I easily clear the space between the homes, where a side-street cuts between them, golden magic twirling around my feet in intricate, sizzling patterns.

Where would I be without this magic? Shit out of luck. I guess I should be thankful for Rune, as much as he probably wouldn't want to hear it.

Wait. Scratch that. He would want to hear it. He might not have a body, but his ego is just as big as any man's.

Ignoring the hundreds upon hundreds of dead people packed like sardines on the streets around me, leaping from building to building is actually kind of fun. Using magic to propel me, I can jump pretty damn high—and when I land, it softens the impact on my ankles.

With each building cleared, I get closer and closer to the castle. The zombies, the blighted, whatever you want to call them, watch me but don't try to follow. I wonder if that means they can't climb. If that's the case, I guess it makes sense that the castle's inner gates are closed to block them out.

Still, that means the empress lasted longer than her people. I don't want to fight a bitch, but if I see her, I might not be able to hold back. I have a lot of things to say to her.

I make it to the closest building near the large metal gates that block the walkway up to the castle's front doors. The castle itself has another wall around it, which is why the inhabitants of the lower district are locked out.

Standing at the edge of the last house, I'm still at least fifty feet away from the gate, and between here and there are countless of faces, watching me, waiting for me to fall.

"Okay," I say as I try to think of another plan. "How to get there from here? It's way too far to jump, even with magic."

"Yes," Rune agrees with a harrumph. "And I suppose you would like to avoid a fight."

"If possible, yeah." My eyes scan the gate. The gate is probably twelve or so feet high with thick metal bars. An idea comes to me, and I glance down at my hand, at the glowing tattoo. I don't know if it'll work, but all of my other ideas worked so far, so why not this one?

I crack my neck in an overly dramatic gesture as I tell Rune, "Get ready for this."

"What are you—" Rune doesn't have the chance to finish the question because I do it.

I aim and act like I'm catching something as I jump off the roof. A glowing magical band of light appears in my hand, a lasso hooking me to the gate and pulling me with it. The magic would've brought me right against the gate, but with a jerk of my wrist I change the angle of trajectory, and I continue sailing through air, up and over it. I clear the gate with room to spare, and I land on my own two feet as the magical slingshot-slash-lasso dissipates.

I let out a chuckle of disbelief. "I can't believe that worked. Call me Wonder Woman, because I kick some freaking ass with this magic shit."

"Wonder Woman?" Rune echoes, thoughtful. "Is that someone I should know?"

Now it's my turn to groan. "Forget it."

I crane my head back as I study the castle before me. After what looks to be about a hundred steps, the castle's front doors sit, closed and unwelcoming. With a glance behind me, I wonder if Fred even got this far. If he did, how would he have made it through that gnarly, dead crowd?

I start up the step, my nerves a mess. "What, uh, what's the plan if we come across Empress Morimento? Maybe going through the front door isn't the best idea."

"There doesn't appear to be guards," Rune says. "Perhaps the castle itself is empty and we will find what remains of Frederick LaRoe."

"Or maybe she's sitting somewhere in the shadows, waiting to pounce on me the moment I walk in." I don't want to fight some grand empress, but Rune better be ready to kick some ass with me just in case.

"I suppose we won't know until we are inside."

Step by step I head up, leaving the shambling crowd of dead people behind as I get closer and closer to the castle. Now that I'm close, I see the stone walls of the castle are clean, a brilliant white compared to the stained block that fills the rest of the city.

I'm about halfway up the steps when Rune speaks again: "Rey, wait."

Though I don't want to, I stop. "What?" My tongue feels heavy. Should it feel that heavy? I glance over my shoulder. Now that I'm higher than most of the city, I can see over the stone wall that surrounds it. The shadowstorm that forced me in is gone, nothing but pleasant weather as far as the eye can see.

"Before you venture further, you must face the reality that you may have to fight Empress Morimento. If that happens, you need to be prepared to do everything it takes to win." AKA kill her. He wants me to be prepared to kill her.

Could I? Could I kill someone, even if they are a raging lunatic who let their people turn into zombies? I don't know. I don't know if I have it in me.

"And if I can't?" I ask, my stomach in knots.

"I will protect you as long as I can, but I am… I won't be able to protect you infinitely. Eventually, it will be up to you." He sounds almost regretful at that, and I wonder if he sounds like that because he wishes he was whole or if he wants to protect me more than he's able to in his current state.

Doesn't really matter, does it?

I swallow hard as I resume my walk up the white block steps. "We'll play it by ear."

Rune is near silent when he mutters, "I don't know what that means."

"It means I'll wait to make a decision until we're inside and I can see what I have to deal with."

"Ah, yes. That makes sense." One day I might not have to explain every single saying to Rune, but today is not that day. I can never bring up any memes to him. They would be way too much to try to explain.

I reach the top of the stairs, the sun shining brightly on my head. A gentle breeze blows past me, rustling my hair and my cape. I'm sure I look like shit right now hair-wise thanks to the shadowstorm I encountered just outside the wall and in general. Washing my clothes in a river—washing myself in a river, too—with no soap… well, it can only go so far.

Ten feet away are the castle's doors. Their wood is inscribed with metal designs, not only for latches but for a decorative purpose. My heart beats fast in my chest. The only thing I want to do as I stand there is blink and miraculously wake up in my tiny apartment, and in doing so realize this was all just a lucid dream.

But too much time has passed. There's no way this is some convoluted dream. Somehow, someway, it's real, and I'm about to march into this castle to search for a dead man's research. Oh, and let's not forget that in doing so I might have to fight a freaking empress while I'm at it.

Yeah, this day keeps getting worse and worse.

"I can do this," I whisper to myself, taking a step toward the doors. "I can—" Something pushes both castle doors open in front of me. They creak like their hinges haven't seen use in years, one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. It's almost like the doors open for me, like they were waiting for me.

Rune lights up on my wrist as he muses, "It appears we are already detected. The empress must know we are here."

Great. So much for going in undetected, searching the place from top to bottom, and getting out all without a fight. I knew that was too much to hope for.

I swallow my nerves, steel myself, and march inside. That's about all I can do. Of course, what I really want to do is run away and pretend none of this is happening, but there's nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. This kingdom is in dire straits, and I'm caught in the thick of it. I have to do this if I have any chance of getting home.

A long hall stretches before me. Candelabras are fastened to each pillar lining the great hall, the candles in them lit and burning with dull flames. There are no windows in the hall, and yet I can see perfectly fine. The walls are made of white stone, though some ivy has broken through in some spots. The vine clings to the stone walls, climbing and growing even though it gets no sunlight in here. The floor is covered with a rich blue carpet that seems to be a pathway of sorts, heading down the entirety of the grand hall before following along to the left.

The question is: do I follow the carpet, or do I go the other way and hope that, in doing so, I can avoid meeting Empress Morimento?

I don't know what I'm going to do, but either way, I have to walk deeper inside the hall. I pass column after column, and I angle my head back to see the high arch of the ceiling. No murals, but even so, it reminds me of those ancient churches, where everything is intricate and still standing, even after centuries.

They just don't make cool, strong buildings anymore.

As I lower my gaze, I happen to see something hanging on the outer wall of the hall, where the ivy is now so thick you can't see any of the stone behind it. My feet stop, and I turn to look at what caught my eye.

A picture hangs on the wall, large enough that it's probably only a foot or so shorter than I am. The ivy on the wall curls around its golden frame, but it does not touch the painting inside. I see the subject clear as day: a beautiful woman with a serious expression on her face.

And it's like she's staring right back at me.

My breath catches as I study the painting. Even captured by someone's paintbrush, she is so beautiful it hurts. Assholes in my world would say she needs to smile, but that serious expression tells me more than a smile ever could.

She can kick some ass. She doesn't hide behind her beauty. She is power and grace and beauty all bundled into one, with long, flowing blond hair and bright, crisp blue eyes that seem to capture and reflect the sun even though there's no sun here and it's just a painting. She doesn't wear a crown, but she does have a jeweled headband on her forehead with what looks to be sapphires inlaid in the gold. A matching necklace hangs around her neck, and she wears all blue, though the portrait is cut off once it reaches her chest.

I can hardly speak. "That's…"

"Empress Morimento," Rune finishes for me, lighting up on my wrist.

"She's beautiful."

"Do not let this painting fool you, Rey. Odds are, if she's still alive, she's a shadow of what she used to be. Do not let your guard down."

He's right, of course. That's the thing about Rune. He might be a freaking tattoo on my wrist, but he's right about a lot of things. I never wanted to listen to him at first, but now… I learned my lesson. The ex-wizard knows a lot, and I'm better off heeding his warnings.

I turn away from the picture on the wall and resume my walk down the carpeted hall. When I reach the end of it, I'm left with a choice: turn left and follow the carpet, possibly run into Empress Morimento, or turn right and hope by some miracle I can find Fred's things.

Something pulls at me, something whispers into my ear, and I shake it off. Maybe there's more to it. Maybe the empresses aren't insane. Maybe they're dead or trapped or something. Maybe this is all one big misunderstanding.

I turn to the left and keep following the carpet.

Down another hall I go, venturing deeper into the castle. The carpet eventually leads me to another set of doors, though this set is already open. I walk through them, greeted by the sight of guards lining the room on both my right and left.

Whoa. Guards?

My eyebrows furrow, and I whip my head back and forth, studying them. They are stationary, holding onto shields and spears, not moving an inch when they see me. I can't see their faces beneath their helmets; the metal hides it all. Their capes are a bluish green fabric, pinned to their shoulders above their chainmail.

They don't move. Not their heads. Not their legs. Hell, I don't even know if I see them breathing. It's like they're frozen in time. Half a dozen guards on my left, another on my right. They line the room, and it's as I turn my head to see what they're guarding that the breath gets knocked out of me.

A throne rests at the far end of the room, vines covering its stonework. Small flowers have sprouted, a multitude of colors around the base of the throne. It's not the throne itself that startles me, though.

It's the person sitting on it.

I'm startled because the person I see isn't Empress Morimento.

It's a man.