Chapter Thirteen
I try not to think of that dream as I head deeper into Acadia, but that proves difficult. Mainly because… well, to be honest I can't get him out of my head—and I don't mean that in an I'm-going-insane way. I mean it differently.
It's like I'm still mourning the lie, the fake friendship… if you could call it that. It's dumb to be sad over something that never existed, to be sorrowful over a man who's not really a man at all.
Like I said before: I hate him. I hate him and I don't.
Add what he said about seeing me in Acadia, and I'm on edge during the journey. Days go by, and each and every day I don't see him, I get more and more nervous, like he's going to pop up out of nowhere and kill me before I have the chance to defend myself.
I have Gladus's magic now, but even that won't be enough. I don't know if all the magic in the world would be enough. If I have any hope of defeating Invictis, I'm going to need more than magic. I'm going to need a shit ton of luck.
Whether it's because I'm anxious or because I just want to get this shit over with, I travel well into the night each day. It cuts back on my sleep time, yes, but a part of me is always nervous when I lay my head down. I don't want to somehow drag Invictis into another dream.
Let me just say that trying not to think of something makes you want to think about that thing you're trying to avoid even more. It's a vicious cycle.
I zoom along the countryside, staying near a river that will eventually converge in the same water basin the castle is near. I should come upon it from the opposite side. Acadia is the largest region in Laconia, making up the eastern and southern parts of the kingdom. The castle sits squarely in the south, so even with magic, it's quite the journey.
But I make it, and I make it without having any other shared dreams with Invictis.
I come upon Acadia's castle in the early afternoon, and the moment I see it, I can barely contain my excitement. It feels like I've been traveling forever. At least, once I'm out of here, it'll be a straight shot back to Laconia, a route I'm familiar with.
Acadia's castle stands tall behind an impressive stone wall. That stone wall keeps the city inside safe from its surroundings… just like it keeps the afflicted inside. Since I know the castle is in the southern edge of the walled area, I do a bit of parkouring up the stone wall.
I get a running start, and I kick off the ground and land on the stone wall, a bluish-gray magic appearing beneath my feet once I launch up. That magic keeps me going, pushes me forward, propelling me as I sprint up the wall like gravity isn't a thing.
With magic, damn near anything's possible. It'd be fun, if the kingdom wasn't full of skeletons, blighted creatures, and the walking dead. I'd love to fuck around with magic while worrying about nothing in particular, but alas, I have a baddie to beat, and I need the aether from Acadia's undercroft.
I make it to the ramparts along the wall, and once I do I move to the inner edge and look out at the city. I'm closer to the castle than the rest of the city, but from the height of the wall, I can see enough.
It's strange how it feels like both just yesterday and an eternity ago that I was racing along the rooftops of those houses, doing my best to avoid the shuffling zombies in the streets—zombies who, by the look of it, are no longer grouped around the metal gate that keeps them from reaching the castle.
Hmm. Maybe with Invictis gone, the afflicted don't feel such a strong urge to go to him. Or maybe they don't have any urges at all, since they're dead. Honestly, I think I would've rather gone out like the people in Pylos. At least then it's quick and your body's not still moving around after you're dead.
I don't linger. I keep moving. I keep to the ramparts until I'm at a place where I can jump down and be in the castle's overgrown gardens. It's not an area of the castle I've seen before. It's just beyond the throne room—which is nothing more than a pile of stones now, that wing of the castle utterly destroyed when Invictis revealed his true self to me.
The gardens are overgrown, obviously, having had no one to take care of them for the last two decades. And yet, even with how overgrown the bushes and trees are, everything is still flowering.
The sun shines down on my head as I walk through the main pathway through the garden. The flowers on the bushes to my right are a pretty pink, while the ones on my left are a mixture of blues and greens, so vibrant and fragrant the air itself smells wonderful.
It's funny. Not once in my life have I ever stopped to admire flowers. Never really cared for them, and I never understood why some people put so much effort into their pots and flowerbeds each year. I've never been a plant person.
But today, I think I get it. It's sensation overload with all the smells and colors around me, but it goes to show how resilient some plants are. How, even after years and years of neglect, nature finds a way to take care of its own.
I feel… at home in this garden. Like I don't want to leave it. As overgrown as it is—so much so that some of the pathways weaving through it are completely covered in vines and the natural spread of flowers—it's still gorgeous.
Apparently I've been through so much here that I can now appreciate flowers. Kind of silly.
I stop to smell one of the pink flowers. I don't have to hold my hair back; I tied it up in a ponytail with Prim's ribbon. Once my nose is buried in the flower, I inhale deeply and fill my lungs with the sweet scent of whatever the hell the flower is.
Not a rose. Not any sort of flower I've seen before. Must be an Acadian specialty.
My eyes close, and I stand there for a few seconds, soaking it all in. I can't imagine what this place looked like when it was actually taken care of. If I wasn't on a mission, I'd find myself a nice spot somewhere and take a nap while soaking up all the different scents in the air.
I hum to myself as I open my eyes, and before I straighten, I spot something I didn't see before—something I wouldn't have seen if I didn't stop and turn to smell the big pink flower.
A stone door that looks remarkably like the one in the library at Pylos. It sits beneath the thick branches of an overgrown, flowering tree; the reason I didn't see it before. Completely shaded from the sun, built into stone that, realistically, has no natural place in this garden, and yet it fits.
This is Acadia, so why wouldn't the undercroft be in a garden?
I abandon the flowering bush and push through the overgrown rows until I get to the door, ignoring the thorns that try to snag my clothes on the way. Stepping beneath the shade of the flowering tree, I stand before the door to the undercroft.
It's literally built out of nothing. It can't be more than two feet thick. Just another thing that proves how magical it is.
"Okay," I say as I study the door, "where are you, guardian?" The last one was a magical cat, so I can't imagine this guardian will be much different. My eyes see nothing, and I try to call for the beast even though I don't know its name: "Here, kitty, kitty." I make a pst-pst sound with my tongue, what I'd always do to get the attention of the alley cat that liked to hang around Frank's place.
A cat's meow is my answer, only it comes from above me.
I take a step back and look up, and I instantly spot the guardian of Acadia's undercroft: lounging on one of the lower branches of the flowering tree, stretched out like that spot is the cat's favorite place to snooze, is a spotted cat.
A pink spotted cat.
Its body is a light, bubblegum pink, and its spots are a darker magenta. Its entire coat is unnatural, and yet when it turns its furry face downward toward me and yawns, it looks just like any other cat. Just, you know, pink.
The cat's blue eyes blink down at me, and it yawns again, making no moves to get up and come down. I set my hands on my hips and say, "Hey there, kitty. You going to come down for me or are you going to stay up there?"
The cat gives a quick sneeze and then starts to lick its right paw, its tail lazily flicking back and forth. So, as unnaturally colored as the cat is, it's still a cat, which means it doesn't give a shit about what I need.
Right. That's just a cat.
As I gaze up at the small creature, I know I have to think of its name. The other cat's name came to me out of nowhere, so I'm hoping this cat's name comes to me in the same way. I bite the inside of my cheek as I stare at the adorably fluffy pink face, waiting for a name to hit me.
"What's your name, cat?" I ask. "You're going to keep ignoring me until I figure it out, aren't you?" I swear, the cat gives me a knowing look after that, like it's telling me I'm correct in my assumption. "Okay, what could your name be?"
The lazy feline is totally unbothered by my presence, like I could cease to exist and it wouldn't give a shit. Yeah, just like any other cat. Some cats really don't give a fuck, and this pink asshole is one of them.
Don't get me wrong, it's still so freaking cute I can't even contain myself—it's a pink cat. Of course I want to hold it and rub my face in its fur and tell it how cute it is and how I want to take it home, but I have a job to do. I need in that undercroft.
I stare hard at the lounging cat. Seconds pass, maybe even a minute. A strange name comes to me out of nowhere, and I hesitantly say, "Miram?"
That gets the cat's attention, and the cat stands. After an adorable stretch and a bit of scratching on the branch, it disappears in a magical pink poof. Seconds later it appears by my feet, and it meows the loudest meow I've ever heard as it rubs its body against my ankles and curls its fluffy tail around my lower legs.
"Awe, aren't you the cutest thing?" I say as I bend down and give it some good pets. I scratch around its face. This one seems to really like being pet under the chin, so that's where I focus my efforts. "Miram. You've got the prettiest coat I've ever seen. I've never seen a pink cat before."
Miram brings her bright blue eyes to me, like she's commiserating on how sad that statement truly is.
"If I could take you with me, I would," I tell her. "I would in a freaking heartbeat. It has to be lonely here, all by yourself." She meows at me, agreeing, and I pet her some more. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm kind of in a rush. I need inside the undercroft. Think you can open it for me?"
Miram chirps at me before she pulls away and saunters to the door. As she rubs against it, the door comes to life, much as the one inside Pylos's library did. The stone door becomes a true door, and it opens into Acadia's undercroft, though I see nothing but blackness inside.
"Thanks, girl," I say, slow in standing. The cat sits and watches me as I walk toward the opening in the magical door
I'm more confident this time than I was in Pylos. I step inside with no hesitation, right onto a stone platform. Pushing into the darkness, it's much the same as it was the last time. A straight path made of stone, surrounded by nothing but blackness until I get about ten feet inside, where a pair of magical fires erupt, glowing and guiding my path.
The only difference? These fires are a bluish green, and they illuminate the aether around the platform with the same mixed hue.
I don't turn around. I know the undercroft has sealed me in here until I see what I need to see. But first thing's first: before I reach the area where the path widens into a circular platform, I reach for my necklace and kneel on the edge.
The small, empty vial unscrews from its lid easily, and I lean over the edge of the stone and dip it into the thick, viscous aether below. After all the air bubbles have escaped, the vial is full with Acadia's aether, and I lift it up and study it for just a moment before returning it to where it belongs.
The only reason I don't jump out of my skin when I stand and turn toward the circular platform is because I've done this once before, so when I spot Empress Morimento standing there, waiting, I know she's waiting for me.
More flames erupt in the air behind her, more than enough light to illuminate the dark expanse around us. I'm slow in approaching her, feeling some kind of way about it. She looks just as she did in that vision I had of her, when she told me to bring Fred back to Laconia: some of her blond hair braided in a tight crown around her head while the rest of it falls down her back. Her bluish-green eyes match the color of her regal robes. White, porcelain skin, with a sharp jaw that doesn't detract an ounce from her beauty.
She appears no older than thirty, but I now know that's a lie, and I can't help but wonder how old this woman is. How many years did she see before Invictis was unleashed and everything changed? I bet she never saw it coming.
"Hello, Rey," Morimento speaks with a calmness I feel in my bones. "I've been waiting for you to return."
"Morimento," I say her name, an odd sense of tranquility sweeping over me as I near her. The woman must radiate peace; it really is a shame what happened. "I got Fred to Laconia, like you wanted."
The smile she gives me is slight but warm. "And now you are here, just as I knew you would be. You've come and gathered the aether, and with three combined you will be able to enter the great chasm beneath Laconia and see the truth."
She must be talking about that stone door in the library beneath the council chambers. I have a thousand questions I want to ask her, but before I do, there is something I should say. That small skeleton sitting on the throne, the one Invictis pretended to be, grown.
Morimento was a mom. She had a son. She lost not only her people but also her family.
"I'm sorry about your son," I whisper. "I'm sorry I didn't know… I didn't know Invictis could affect reality like that. If I would've known—"
Morimento shakes her head. "Don't. I appreciate your sympathy, but our fate was written in the stars long before you stepped foot in Laconia with Invictis guiding your actions. I do not begrudge you for falling for its tricks. I…" Her blue eyes fall to the space between us. "Perhaps it will be easier to show you."
A bright white ball of energy materializes between us, a memory she's sharing with me. I know what I have to do, so I don't waste any time; I reach for it and immediately I'm thrown back in time.
I stand in the throne room. Sunlight shines through the stained-glass windows behind the throne, illuminating the golden band around Morimento's head. She sits on her throne, looking bored, as a nervous man approaches.
Fred, I realize once I see the man's face. He's younger, and he's a dead ringer for his son.
"What is an agent of Krotas doing in my castle?" Morimento hisses, sounding not like herself at all. The opposite of calm and collected. Here, she sounds vicious.
"My lady sent me on a mission—"
One of her guards hurries to her and whispers something in her ear. With a wicked glint in her eyes, she listens to whatever he says, and only when the guard leaves does she stand and approach Fred. Step by step, it is not the welcoming guise of an empress to one of her loyal subjects. No, the walk she walks right then is one of a predator about to strike.
"You are here to steal from me," she whispers with a frown. With a sudden jerk of her hands, a vine grows out of the ceiling and snakes down, coiling around Fred's ankles and pulling him off his feet. In seconds, the poor man is dangling helplessly mid-air.
"No! No, I would never. My lady hoped you were… strong enough to fight the madness." Fred fumbles for words, "Please. I have a son—"
"As do I, agent. As do I." The vine wrapped around Fred's ankles releases him, and he falls to the ground with an audible oof . "Guards, dispose of his things and throw him in the dungeon, where he belongs. If my sister wishes to steal from me, let her come herself." Morimento chuckles. "Provided she's able to get her anger under control, for once."
With a flick of Morimento's wrist, the guards lining the throne room converge on Fred and drag him away. No amount of pleading on his part would get the empress to change her mind.
She sighs as she returns to her throne, sitting with the opposite of grace—another reason I'm able to see just how lost she already was when this happened. Someone else enters the throne room after that: a boy wearing the same regal clothing as Morimento, a boy who can't be older than ten.
"Mother." The boy approaches the throne. "Who was that?"
"That, my son, was a traitor to Acadia, a thief sent by my sister. Do not concern yourself with his fate. He is of no importance to you." Morimento's tone shifts as she notes something is off about her son. "What is on your mind, my love? Tell me what's bothering you, and I will do everything in my power to fix it."
She doesn't sound so insane when she's talking to her son. I suppose, in her own way, her son became the only thing that mattered to her, why she ceased caring about the lives of the people in her city.
The boy is a mirror image of his mom, with bright blue eyes and ashen blond hair. He looks down, then over his shoulder. He and Morimento are alone in the throne room, and yet he still whispers it: "I can hear it in the vault, mother. It wants out."
Morimento slides off the throne and takes her sons hands into her own. "My son, my sweet, loving boy… you must promise me you will never go into the vault, no matter what it tells you."
"You can hear it, too?"
"I can, but we must ignore it." The look on her face says it all, and maybe it's because this is her memory, but I can hear her thoughts and I know exactly what she's thinking. She hears it too, all right, and Invictis has already driven her to the brink. She worries whether her son can withstand the pressure.
The memory fades around me, and I'm back with Morimento on the platform in the undercroft.
"I did not realize it then, but that day is the day I lost what was left of me," Morimento whispers, forlorn. "It was not my magic that kept Frederick LaRoe alive all this time; my sister must've placed a spell on him, so that he would remain safe until his mission was complete. My only focus was my son." Her eyes close. "I tried… I tried. I should've sent him away, but I could not bear the thought. It was my undoing."
Another memory sphere appears between us, and before I reach for it, I know this one's going to hurt.
Once again I'm taken back in time, to a room in the castle I haven't seen. A royal bedroom. Morimento sleeps soundly in her bed while a small shadow stalks closer, the only thing visible a glint of steel in the moonlight.
That small shadow is upon her soon enough, and it does not hesitate. It stabs her in the gut with the dagger it holds, and in a flash Morimento awakens with a scream. Her magic folds around her, vines snaking around the assailant and holding him in place in the moonlight.
Her son. Her little boy.
"Mother," he whispers, dropping the bloodied dagger to the ground. "I'm—" He cannot say anything more because a vine grows over his mouth, stifling any other words he might've said.
Morimento's eyes widen when she sees the markings on her son's arms—the runes that indicate a part of Invictis is now inside him. He went to the vault, found the whispering soul gem, and unleashed the monster trapped inside.
And now she's dying, bleeding out as she stares at her own flesh and blood, knowing she must do something. But what?
"You are my son no longer," Morimento whispers in the darkness. "You are Invictis, and I will not let you leave this castle." She holds out both hands toward her boy, summoning more vines that encase him until she can see nothing but her own magic. "You will remain here, trapped, until the end of time. That is my will as empress!"
She throws her hands aside, and the vines that encased her son vanish… and they take her son with them. Though we remain in her bedroom, I know where she banished him: the throne room.
She's the reason her son could not leave the throne, why Invictis was trapped there until he was whole.
If I never would've come to the castle, a part of him would still be there, sitting on the throne, waiting for some fool to come along.
It's only because I'm privy to Morimento's thoughts that I know what she's thinking as she groans and falls to the floor: a spell like that takes everything out of you. Powerful as empresses are, there are some things that simply aren't possible without the greatest sacrifice.
Morimento leans her back against the frame of her bed, not bothering to staunch the flow of blood out of her stomach. The pain she feels in her body is nothing compared to the agony taking over her mind.
She failed her kingdom, her city, and now her son. What sort of legacy is that? The last thought she has before she breathes her last breath is this.
Perhaps the sun is setting on Laconia after all.
In the blink of an eye, the castle fades around me, and I stand before Morimento's morose expression. She speaks quietly, "I underestimated its desire to be free. I… thought emptying the castle of everyone other than my son and I would be enough. It was not. Invictis found the weakest and pried its way inside."
She turns around and gives me her back as her shoulders slump. "The darkness took me in my final moments. I sentenced what was left of my son to die on Acadia's throne because Invictis could not be set free upon the land."
Fuck, this is depressing. It's hard to be upset with Morimento for what happened; she was already half out of her mind when her son bonded with Invictis.
"Until me," I whisper. "I set him free."
Morimento turns around, a newfound fire in her eyes. "My sisters and I knew our solution to the enemy was only temporary. We thought… we believed wholeheartedly that by each taking a piece of it and locking ourselves in our castles, we would save Laconia from the woes. We were wrong."
They did what they thought they had to. Understandable, I guess. When faced with an impossible task, you can only try your best. These ladies' best was not enough to stop Invictis. All they succeeded in doing was slowing him down.
I must be too lost in my own thoughts, because I don't see her reaching for me. The next thing I know, she's caressing my cheek with the back of her hand and saying, "We knew you would be special. We simply could not have foreseen why."
My brow furrows. It sounds like all of the empresses knew about me, but that's impossible—unless they can see the future somehow. "What are you talking about? What do you mean by that?"
Her hand falls away the same moment her stare fixates on the necklace with the small vials full of aether. "You have each aether, but before you return to Laconia, you must go to Magnysia. There is still more you do not yet know."
"Then tell me! Tell me what it is I don't know. It's why you're here, isn't it?"
"All I can give you is my truth, as my sister Gladus gave you hers. It is time you listened to Krotas… our sister that remains, in spite of it all."
I can hardly breathe. "Are you saying… are you saying Empress Krotas is still alive?"
Morimento appears sad when she whispers, "Yes. The land of fables and forests awaits you, but before you go, there is one more thing I am to pass on to you." She offers me her hands, and since this is basically a repeat of what happened in Pylos's undercroft, I know what the outcome will be.
I'll have her magic, too.
As I set my hands above hers, her gloved fingers curl around mine. A rush of invisible energy fills me to my core. Blues and greens come alive around our hands, the crackling of magic passing from the empress to me.
"May you triumph where we could not," she whispers, "and may my magic serve you well."
"Thank you." I don't know what else to say to the woman. I already told her I was sorry about what happened to her son. So far, it's two for two; no empress has had a good ending. With Krotas still alive, it does make me wonder just how insane she might be, trapped in her own castle.
I watch as Morimento fades before me, turning into wisps of light that slowly fade away as they drift apart. In less than thirty seconds, I stand there alone, with even more magic at my fingertips. I don't really know what kind of magic she had; based on the memory, I can summon vines out of thin air, but there has to be more to it than that.
Eh, I'll play with the magic later. Right now, I need to get going.
Turning on my heel, I hurry to the open door and race out of the undercroft. The moment both of my feet step on dirt, the undercroft seals itself behind me. I step out into the garden, past the shade of the flowering tree above, and I swear, I see it with new eyes.
The colors are brighter, more vibrant. I can differentiate each flower's smell from the others. I can practically hear each and every leaf rustling with the gentle breeze, like I've suddenly become a part of the garden itself.
Must be from Morimento's magic, a side effect or something. It's not the worst feeling.
I want to stay and enjoy the garden anew, to bask in the unfamiliar sensations of being surrounded by so much life, but I can't. I must leave Acadia and go where I haven't gone before: Magnysia's castle.
Only… I don't exactly know how to get there, so I might as well sit in the garden while I plan my route, right?
I find a nice spot near a bush overgrown with bright blue flowers and take a seat. I tug the map out of my bag and unfold it, holding it over my lap as I study it. Never been much of a map person, for obvious reasons—phones for the win—but I've gone all over Laconia so much that I'm starting to get the hang of it.
I think.
The wind picks up, which I'm not expecting; I don't have a good enough grip on the map to keep it in my lap. The wind picks the parchment up and carries it off, and by the time I get to my feet to try to catch it, it's already landed in one of the topmost branches of the tree draping over the undercroft's stone door.
Great. Guess this means I'll be testing out some of Morimento's magic sooner than I thought.
I start toward the tree, but I only make it two steps before a shadow appears overhead, blocking out the sun's rays… a shadow with the shape of a man and six wings.
Invictis is here.
Well, shit.