Chapter Fifteen

Magnysia's castle is unlike Pylos's and Acadia's. While Pylos's is built literally from the depths of a mountain and Acadia's stands tall amongst flat plains, the castle in Magnysia is grand, beautiful, and nestled inside a forest. The only space that's clear of trees is the space the castle and its grounds occupy. And unlike the other two, I don't see a city sprawled around it. It's literally just the castle.

The stone is different, the architecture, too. I don't take much time to study it, given the fact that I'm in extreme agony and probably going to bleed out soon. As much as I want to stand there and marvel at the sight of the grand castle that looks more European than anything else, I can't.

I do the only thing I can: I start walking while keeping pressure on my gut.

Each step is pure pain, but I power through it. My allegedly super-fast healing isn't doing the trick this time. The castle door sits open, so I can slip inside without expending any extra energy. Once I step inside, I walk into a whole different world.

Rich tapestries—though dust-covered—hang on the walls, near the windows. Grand paintings adorn the walls, scenery from Laconia if I have to guess. A dusty carpet lines the floor, guiding the main paths from room to room. Lots of wide-open space, and yet it feels the most homey out of all three of the castles I've been to.

It's beautiful. It really is. I would've loved to see it in its prime, before Laconia fell upon hardship. Before Invictis was released and told to wipe Laconia and everyone in it off the map.

I hear not a sound as I venture deeper into the castle. I suppose I should look for the undercroft… or Krotas. Morimento said she's still alive. Not sure if I want to stumble upon her while I'm like this, though. She'd cut me down in a millisecond.

Then again, if she's still alive, maybe trying to find the undercroft will be a wasted effort.

I drag myself through the castle. I don't go up the grand staircase, sticking to the ground floor of the castle instead. Stairs with this wound? No fucking way.

As I search, I think back to Morimento and what she said—and how she said it. It didn't sound like she expected me to fight Krotas, so maybe the third empress still has some of her marbles and isn't completely off her rocker. A girl can hope.

I turn into another hall and look around, deciding to call out, "Krotas? Are you here? Hello?" Must be the adrenaline racing through me, but the pain is starting to wear off. Or maybe I'm just going a little numb.

I don't get an answer—not that I thought I would—and I round another corner of the castle, spotting some sunshine. What I assume is an entrance to a garden or a courtyard is actually just the end.

Yeah, like, the end of the castle.

"Whoa." I stop myself from taking another step when I realize it isn't just the end of the castle. The entire back half of the castle is destroyed, like it was incinerated or a bomb went off. The hall walkway literally ends in a steep drop-off, the leveled part of the castle nothing but a crater.

No rubble. Nothing that would hint to the castle when its structure was fully sound. Just one huge dip in the ground that must be, at its center, thirty feet down.

Clutching the wound on my stomach, I carefully lean forward and glance to my left and right. The rooms that are unlucky enough to be next to the crater are either half-demolished or nothing but rubble. It's seriously like someone took a knife and cut the castle in half, took it away, and then dropped a fucking bomb on the place.

My stomach churns, and I don't think it's from the wound. No, something else crawls over me right then, a strange, almost itchy feeling I can't quite put a name to. I don't feel right. This whole place… it doesn't feel right.

A meow alerts me to a guardian's presence, and I look down to my feet, where I find a cat with long, flaming red hair. The tips of its fur are a light orange color. With its bright, yellow eyes, the cat looks like fire incarnate.

"Hey, there," I say with a wince. "Do you know where Krotas is? Or the undercroft?" Maybe the only remaining empress is waiting for me in the undercroft. Maybe she trapped herself there in an effort to put Invictis's madness to rest.

The cat meows again, waiting.

Ah, right. Its name. I need to say its name.

I'm slow to drop to my knees near the cat—doing so isn't the easiest thing in the world—and I reach out with my other hand to pet it. "Sorry," I whisper. "Today's been… a day. I'm not really at my best right now. I know everyone wanted me to find a way to beat Invictis, but I… I don't know if I can."

As if reminding me that I'm severely injured, my stomach throbs, and I groan as the cat's name comes to me: "Hetrina. Your name is Hetrina, isn't it?" I haven't been wrong once, so I know that's the feline's name. It's a bit of information I shouldn't know, and yet I do—and I don't know how to explain it.

I might've been shown some of the other empresses' memories, but there are still things I shouldn't know, these cats' names one of them.

Hetrina's fuzzy cheeks puff in a cute expression that's almost like a smile, and she turns away from me and launches herself off the abruptly-ending hall and starts to trot down to the base of the crater, where a door formed out of nowhere.

The undercroft? Shit.

I have to lean on the nearby wall to get up, and only when I'm steady on my feet do I trail after the cat. It has quite the head start on me, but once it gets halfway down the crater, it waits for me to catch up.

Walking down such uneven ground is difficult beyond belief when you're injured and feel like passing out. Honestly, the only thing keeping me going is spite. The pain is back, the adrenaline from the fight with Invictis having worn off, and sharp pangs of agony pierce my gut with each step I take.

It's miserable. It hurts like a motherfucker. I've never felt this awful in my life—physically, I mean. After my dad died, I… I guess I did feel so terrible I made myself sick and depressed for a while, but grief is different, and it never really goes away.

I make it to Hetrina's side, and then the cat disappears in a poof, reappearing near the base of the stone door that stands on its own. It doesn't wait for me to reach it before opening the door for me, a black entryway all that greets me once the stone disappears under the archway.

Once I reach the entrance, I smile down at the cat and say, "Thanks. I'd pet you more, but… I think if I bend down again, I won't be able to get up." I don't wait for the cat to respond; I walk into Magnysia's undercroft.

Much like the castle, this undercroft is different. As I walk along the narrow stone pathway that I know eventually opens up into a wider, more circular platform, no magical torches light on their own. The undercroft is dark; the only bit of light comes from a dull reddish hue from the aether surrounding the platform.

"Hello?" I ask, and my voice echoes in the magical space. I get no answer, nor do I get any extra light. My eyes eventually grow accustomed to the darkness, but all I'm able to make out is the end of the pathway and see the outer curve of the platform, where I thought Krotas would be waiting for me.

But she's not here. I'm alone in the undercroft.

I groan as I think about what to do. Am I missing something here? Is there more to this since Krotas is supposedly still alive? If she is, where the hell is she? I feel… weak. My fingertips are starting to get a little cold. I don't know how much time I have left.

When nothing happens, I decide it's time I leave the undercroft. I can't stand there and wait an eternity; don't have that luxury. So, I slowly turn around and shuffle my way back. At least the door to the real world stayed open and I didn't get locked inside a dark undercroft.

That'd be a shitty way to go. Almost as shitty as getting stabbed by someone you thought you knew.

I'm so focused on my wound, on getting out of the undercroft, that I don't realize it's not the same exit, that the outside world changed while I was in there. I walk out into a brightly-lit room, where a woman I've never seen before lays in an extravagant bed. A fresh sheet is draped over her, and she holds a baby.

But the woman isn't Krotas. I saw Krotas in memories. This woman… I don't know who she is, but there's something about her that's strikingly familiar. Dark brown hair, eyes that crinkle when she smiles. She's covered in sweat, but as she gazes down at the baby, she looks the happiest a person could be.

I hear voices behind me, a man's and a woman's. The man says, "Forgive us, my lady. My wife thought it would be better to introduce you to the child after—"

"Nonsense, Frederick. You are some of my most cherished friends. We need not stand on pomp and circumstance," the woman says, and right when she speaks, she walks around me, to the bedside, where she greets the woman in the bed.

That's when I know what this is, who the woman in the bed is: Frederick's mom. And that means…

Fred walks around the other side of the bed, a warm smile on his face as he sits beside his wife. He looks so much younger than he does now; his dark eyes don't hold an ounce of madness. Clean-cut, hair short; his son really is a mirror image of him.

The woman leaning over the other side of the bed is Empress Krotas. She wears a yellow ensemble full of belts and buttons, plates of armor on her shoulders. Her thick brown hair has traces of red in it, and her eyes are nothing but kind as she gazes down at baby Frederick in his mom's arms.

"I knew it would be a boy," Krotas muses with a grin. She gently rubs the top of the calm baby's head, an almost wistful expression crossing her face. "I think he will take after his father, in both generosity and intelligence."

Fred and his wife both bow their heads, as if what she just said was a blessing. "Thank you, my lady," Fred whispers in hushed tones.

Though there's a lot to look at, I'm laser-focused on Krotas and the way she's gazing down at baby Frederick. It's almost like I can feel the wheels turning in her head, new desires popping up inside her. For the first time in her long life, Krotas wants more.

The room around me shifts and changes, becoming blurry for a few moments before throwing me into another memory. I'm in a different room in the castle, a room littered with toys. The entire left side of the room is lined with tall windows, and the sun shines through it.

Frederick must be a year or two years old, not old enough to really play on his own. He's not alone, though. Krotas sits in a rocking chair, holding him on her lap. She has some kind of toy in her hands, which Frederick is keeping occupied with. Some wooden animal whose neck moves when you pull down on the tail.

Krotas acts enthralled with Frederick, totally unaware that someone else has walked into the room with them: Fred. He hurries over to their side and bows his head as he says, "My lady, you wanted to see me right away?"

"Yes," Krotas says as she sets the toy down and hands Frederick to his father. "As you are my closest friend and advisor, there is something you should know." She holds her hands behind her back as she wanders to the closest window, and she closes her eyes the second the sun hits her skin. "Our work together on the portals… I have been experimenting on my own."

"My lady…"

"I am old, Frederick. I have seen things, done things, which you cannot imagine." She opens her eyes and turns back to Fred, her mouth tugging into a smile. "I found another world. It is so unlike our own. The things they have, what they can do—there is no magic, but at the same time, there is so much of it."

Fred sets his son down and moves closer to Krotas. His voice comes out quiet when he says, "I don't understand."

"It is full of wonders, Frederick. I should take you there one day, if you're willing. They have these… metal creatures that are like horses, and tiny things they talk into. The buildings, the clothing—it's all so very different from Laconia."

"How many times have you visited this… other world?" When Krotas only smiles, Fred says hurriedly, "My lady, it is not safe. What if this other world figures out what you are? What if they trap you somehow? You must think of your people—"

"You don't understand, Frederick. There, I am not an empress. I am not Krotas. I am simply a person." She chuckles softly and shakes her head, as if she's stuck in a state of disbelief. "I… I met a man there. He stopped me from walking out in front of one of their metal horses. He bought me what they call coffee afterward—a disgusting drink, but he wants to see me again."

Fred looks on as Krotas whispers to herself, "And I think I might like that, too." To Fred, she says, "He has the kindest smile I've ever seen. And his laugh… I could feel it in my soul. You would like him."

My head spins with what I've learned. Krotas could portal. She portaled into another world—my world, it sounds like—and based on the way she's talking about this guy, she likes him a lot.

I blink, and everything changes around me once again. I'm suddenly standing in a war room of sorts. In the center of the room lies a table with a giant map of Laconia etched into it. Armored men and women stand around the table, all of their attention on Krotas at the head of it. Fred stands in the back, and I recognize his wife as one of the soldiers.

Or generals? I don't know.

"My sisters and I will meet on the southern hills of Pylos. There, we will do what needs to be done. If we are not successful in our endeavor…" Krotas leans on the table before her, her armored hands flat on the wooden surface. "You must evacuate every village near the castle. Work your way to the main city. We've seen the blight and the plague centralize near each castle; hopefully moving everyone to inner Laconia will be enough. Start the preparations now."

No one moves, and that causes Krotas's anger to flare. "What are you waiting for? Go, now!"

With that shout, the soldiers leap into action. They file out of the room one by one—all of them except Fred, who waits until they're alone before he speaks, "My lady, are you certain this course of action is wise? I've found no research on these woes—"He doesn't bring up Invictis, which tells me, perhaps, he doesn't know about the golden bastard yet.

Krotas glances to the war room's door. It's closed; the conversation they are about to have will be a private one. "That's because there is no research, Frederick. There is only what has been passed down from empress to empress. Memories so old they're no longer clear. My sisters and I must act, for if we do not… Laconia will surely fall."

Here, she wears flowing robes, and she reaches inside, to what must be a pocket, and she pulls out a crystal. A soul gem, one of three. She sets it on the table before her, her eyes on the bluish stone.

"My lady," Frederick whispers as he rounds the table, stopping only when he stands beside her. "You are in no position to wage war against something we do not yet understand, not when you are—"

"I am the empress of Magnysia," Krotas states as she bares her teeth. "It is always my position to fight and wage war when my kingdom is at stake!" Her shoulders rise and fall with emotion, and she takes a few moments to calm herself down.

Fred bows his head. "My apologies. I am with you until the end, my lady."

"Good." She pushes off the table and stalks out of the room, and the next thing I know, I'm standing in a field of green, on a hillside surrounded by the three empresses: Krotas, Gladus, and Morimento.

Seeing them stand side by side, in the bright light of day, is enough to give me chills. I can feel their determination, their will to defeat Invictis strong. They each wear their armor—except Krotas, who still wears that robe with nothing but gauntlets and shoulder pads.

It's like moving pictures in front of me, everything crystal clear and sharp. Invictis appears in one picture, floating above their heads and shining so brightly he's hard to look at, his wings spread wide enough to block out the sun. The next image is the empresses revealing their crystals, the soul gems. Then the gems are floating above their heads as they chant in unison.

Their will, their strength, is enough to divide Invictis and separate him for what they hope is for good. But that hope dies when they return to their castles with their piece of Invictis.

The blight doesn't go away, neither does the plague. The scourge upon the land becomes more frequent as Invictis lets the kingdom know how angry he is. His madness seeps into the empresses one by one, even after they lock themselves in their castles in an effort to try to protect their subjects.

I'm thrown into another memory. Back in the war room, with Krotas and Fred. The necklace I now wear with three small vials full of aether sits atop the etched map, near Fred, who is slow to take it, dangling its emptiness between them.

"I am sorry I kept you here for so long, Frederick," Krotas says. "You must take your family and go. Get them situated in Laconia, and then… then you must travel to my sisters." She lifts a hand to her head, like she's fighting a headache.

But I know it's not a headache. It's Invictis.

"My lady, you cannot stay here alone. How will you—"

"I will survive, as I have so far. I can only pray my sisters fared as well against the onslaught." Krotas bares her teeth in what must be pain. "Listen to me. You must go to Acadia and then Pylos. You must get the aethers. Collect them and bring them to Laconia. There is a door in the great library beneath the conclave chambers."

Fred cannot hide his concern for his empress. His brows are furrowed, and he looks like he wants to argue with her, to tell her that he will remain at her side for eternity—but her resolve is still strong, and he must sense any argument would be a wasted effort, so he asks, "Then what? Then we can destroy this demon for good?"

Krotas must've finally told the truth—that the woes began with Invictis and not randomly. It is a secret that faded as the years went on, something no one knew until I brought Fred back to Laconia… and unleashed Invictis again.

"Then," Krotas pauses as she lifts a hand to her stomach, "everything will change."

And that's when I realize it.

Krotas is pregnant.

She must've been pregnant this whole time. It's why she's wearing the robes and not full armor. This whole time she's been fighting against Invictis, standing with Gladus and Morimento, while ready to fucking pop.

Mad respect. I can't even imagine what it must be like, how much harder it made everything.

"Go," Krotas whispers to Fred. "Go now. I cannot fight it forever. I can feel it trying to worm its way into my head, and once it does… no amount of loyalty or friendship will stop me from doing its bidding. You must go! Do not tell a soul of what we discussed here—only my sisters, do you understand?"

Fred nods, and then, even though it's clear he doesn't want to, he leaves.

Maybe because this is Krotas's memory, but I know that once he leaves, she'll be alone. Fred was one of the last. She will be alone, but that's what she wants. She doesn't trust herself to be with anyone else, not with Invictis whispering into her head, trying to get inside her when she's asleep.

Invictis is a disease, and she does not know how much longer her body can fight against it.

Soon enough the castle is empty, save for her and the child in her belly. She knows what she has to do. She knows, even though she doesn't want to admit it to herself. That's why, a week later, when she gives birth, she uses her magic to make it go faster. Smoother. She cuts the cord herself, cleans the babe herself. She swaddles it, does everything she can with a sullen smile on her face.

Krotas can't take joy in the new life she brought into this world because she knows how much more death will follow. She holds the baby for a few moments, lets herself smooth out the baby's tiny tuft of hair, even while the shard of Invictis whispers to her from across the room.

Yes, it's there. The shard sits on an empty bookshelf in what should've become her child's playroom. She can't bear to have it out of her sight—that's what she tells herself, anyway. The truth is much more sinister.

She's getting weaker, her will fading.

But as she gazes down at her child, she's given a renewed sense of purpose, and with it comes a hardening of her resolve.

"My beautiful baby," Krotas whispers, her back leaning against the wall. She gave birth on the floor, letting her body do all the work, with magic its aid. "You will be strong and beautiful. I wish… I wish I could be there to see it. Your father will take good care of you. I love you so much, my Aurelia." A single tear rolls down her face.

But I'm stuck on the name and the way she said it. Aurelia, pronounced ah-rey-lee-ah.

Holy fuck. No. No, no, no. No, this isn't—she's not—this is fucking insane. There's no goddamned way. There's no way in hell that baby is me .

Krotas struggles to stand, and as she does, a portal opens in front of her. I can see the inside of a house or an apartment, one in my world. I see nothing but a couch and a coffee table… a couch and a coffee table I remember being in my living room growing up. It must be where my dad lives.

Fuck me.

"I can't wait for him to come home," she tells the baby… she tells me as she shuffles toward the portal. Its edges shimmer in and out of existence, like it's fighting itself to remain. "I must leave you and sever the ties between our worlds. You will have a good life, Aurelia. How I wish I could be there with you, by your side, while you discover who you are."

That's the last thing she says to me before she bends to kiss me on my forehead and leaves me for my dad to find. Once she's crossed the threshold and is back in Laconia, a second tear escapes the corners of her eyes as she looks at me through the portal.

Krotas turns away and pulls at the threads of magic keeping the portal open. I feel what she feels, and inside my chest, my heart breaks. As she severs the connection, makes it so that she denies her future self a visit to earth to bring me back, I know she's only doing what she thinks is best.

This is her memory. Not only do I feel what she feels, but I know what she knows. Out of her sisters, she is the only one that can control portals, the only one who can summon them at will. She does not worry that her sisters will find a way to her daughter, to me; she never told them about my father or who he was, where he was from. In her mind, no one will ever be able to cross worlds again.

But that's before. Before she fully severs the connection and glances at the shelf where the soul gem should be. Before she sees it's gone.

Krotas races to the bookshelf and searches for it, desperately hoping it simply fell and rolled away, but it's not there. It's not anywhere she looks. She has a thought, then: somehow, the shard of the demon followed her daughter through the portal. But why would it do that?

And the answer comes to her as she starts to lose herself: because there it is safe. In that world, it has no one to destroy it. It can freely manipulate from inside its soul gem. There it can get revenge on Krotas and make her daughter and her lover insane.

But that's not true. I don't remember ever seeing that crystal until the night I was sitting on the roof and saw it flash across the street. It must have been thrown somewhere else while Krotas was severing the ties that bind our worlds together.

Empress Krotas… is my mom ? She's my mom and she left me with my dad thinking doing so would keep me safe. She didn't know he'd die a decade later and leave me broken. There were so many things she didn't know, and now it's too late.

Krotas howls in pain, a broken cry that makes me turn my head away. Her rage is overwhelming. It literally boils the blood. She always prided herself on being a just woman, but inside she's now a broken shard of what she used to be, having lost not only her love, but her daughter as well.

And the shard of Invictis.

When I look back to Krotas, I find her engulfed in flames. Her body, her clothes; everything on her is on fire. That fire pushes outward with a force that would've knocked me onto my ass if I was really in the room and not just a bystander in this memory. The fire is strong enough to disintegrate everything it touches; furniture, metal, and stone.

A bomb didn't go off in the castle. Krotas did.

It's so bright, the fire so solid and consuming, I have to shield my eyes for a bit to reorient myself. I hear walls crumbling around me, turning to dust. My ears hear a deep, growl of a howl, a roar that rocks me within my core, shuddering my lungs with its strength. I drop my arm and gaze upon what became of my mom.

Oh, my God.

She's the dragon.