Chapter Four

My first thought as I wake up laying on dirty stone is that I'm not dead. What would normally be cause for a celebration is nothing more than a fact as I sit up and groan. I open my eyes as I hold onto the side of my head—kind of pounds, by the way.

I'm no longer in the throne room. In front of me is a pile of rubble the size of a truck, blocking off the hallway I lay in. The air is thick with dirt and dust, and it takes my eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness.

I'm not in the throne room any more. If I have to guess, I'd say I'm somewhere underneath them, my body intact and my bag still clinging to me from the strap around my shoulder.

Groaning, I labor to get to my feet, though I don't bother in dusting myself off. That vision with Morimento was… weird. It was weird, right? I don't have any other words to describe it. She was vague. Said something about the undercrofts.

And something about bringing someone back to Laconia, but she never said who.

Since I can't move forward, I need to turn around and hope there's another exit somewhere. My feet shuffle along the ground as I turn and start walking. My entire body is sore, like that blast really took all of my energy.

Is Invictis still up there, somewhere? Does he think I'm dead? Probably.

I groan as I shuffle along, wondering why my luck has to be so shitty. First I'm transported to this freaking world, and then I'm sent off to kill one of their empresses, and now some big, ancient baddie whose only purpose is to destroy Laconia wants to make sure he kills me, first.

The worst luck ever, no joke.

I follow the hall. My eyes adjust to the lack of light. Wherever I am, it must be underground. Smells earthy in here. The hall abruptly ends and turns right, so that's where I go. I keep walking, focused on only one thing: the way forward, but then something out of the corner of my eye stops me.

I pass a jail cell, similar to the one I was thrown into in Laconia, only there aren't any windows, which makes these way gloomier. Empress Morimento's words ring in my head, but I push them away as I keep walking.

It doesn't even occur to me that she meant I have to take someone in these cells back to Laconia. I'm too frazzled to put two and two together to get four. As far as I'm concerned, there's no way anyone could be alive here.

But then I pass a cell that has someone in it, and I freeze.

Did I just imagine that, or is there really someone in that cell block?

I move back to the jail cell and let my eyes focus on the man huddled in the corner of it. He's in the fetal position, though he rocks on his feet. His arms hug his legs to his chest, his face leaning down on his knees.

"Hello?" I'm almost too speechless to speak, but I do, and the moment I say that word, his head snaps up.

"You—" His voice comes out dry. Too many shadows and not enough light; I can't see his face. "—my lady said you would come, but I thought my lady was wrong. I should've known better. My lady is never wrong. Never wrong. Always right, even if it takes time—" He rambles, talking fast, and he comes across as a madman.

"Who are you?" I ask as I step toward the metal bars. "How are you alive down here?"

"The threads. My lady protected me, like she protected you. My lady's sister did what she could but she… she was already lost when I arrived." He crawls to the bars, on his knees as his dirty, bony fingers cling to them. "The madness whispers, trying to get in your head. It would've gotten inside me, but my lady kept me safe."

Through the darkness, I can see a middle-aged man. His face is gaunt but familiar, a mop of unkempt dark hair on his head, an unshaven beard on his cheeks. That's when it hits me. I know exactly who this man is.

"Fred?" I breathe out his name. "Frederick LaRoe?"

His brown gaze widens in the darkness. "You know? Of course you know. You know everything."

"I don't know about that, but… I do know your son. He sent me here looking for your research."

"Confiscated by my lady's sister." Fred's eyes squeeze shut, and he bangs his head against the metal bars. "I should've stopped her, should've known—" He's about to bang his head again, but I reach through the bars and stop him, and the moment I grab hold of his filthy tunic, he trembles and sighs. "I'm sorry. I… I suppose, perhaps, the madness did creep inside me after all. A man can only be so strong, even with his lady's will behind him."

I move away from the bars. "I'm supposed to get you out of here. Would you like to see your son again?" That's assuming he and I could make it back to Laconia before Invictis destroys it all. At this point, who knows?

He gets to his feet, though he sways as he does so, as if his legs are not used to carrying any weight. "My son. My… my boy. You know him? How is he?"

I try the cell door. It's locked, but it rattles and shakes. I bet with a hard kick I could knock it open. "He's not a boy anymore, Fred. He's a man." A man that I kissed when I was feeling lonely, but Fred doesn't need to know that much.

"A man? But, no. He can't be—he was a boy. My boy is a boy."

"Do you know how long you've been gone?"

"A year. Or two. Maybe… maybe two." Fred's answer comes swiftly, and based on how fast he says it I have to assume he believes it. "He can't be a man. If he's a man, then… then maybe I have gone mad. Maybe you're not real." He steps back in his cell, his trembling hands reaching for his hair, like he wants to yank some of it out.

Okay, the man has definitely lost his mind.

"I'm real," I say. "And I'm going to get you out of here." He probably won't believe me until he's face-to-face with his son, and only then will he accept the fact that he's been trapped here a hell of a lot longer than a year or two.

How is he still alive? Did Morimento keep him alive with magic, or was it from Krotas? Was it leftover effects from Invictis being stuck here since he wasn't whole until recently, putting the entire castle in a frozen state of time? I don't know, but right now it doesn't matter.

I kick the cell door, right near the lock. It rattles quite a bit, but it doesn't open, so I kick it again. It takes me three tries to open the damn door, and once it's opened, I have to go inside and pull the man out.

"Come on," I tell him. "We need to move."

He can't walk that well, so we can't move that fast. It sucks, but now that he's free I can't exactly leave him behind. Besides, if Laconia is still standing when we get there, at least I'll have something to show for my journey, besides the whole, sorry I lost my magic and accidentally unleashed an ancient evil thing.

The castle has a lot of halls, but eventually we make our way up to where we can see sunlight. Fred squints and stumbles when we emerge into a hall with windows, and I reach for him to steady him—and to pull him along. We can't wait for him to get used to the sun again. If Invictis is still nearby, we need to move.

It takes us a long time to find the front hall of the castle. We come from the opposite direction of the route I took to reach the throne room. I don't hear a thing, which I take to mean Invictis is gone—though I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

"Come on," I tell him, grabbing the man's hand as I pull him along, "we're almost out." I hurry us down the carpeted path that leads to the front doors of the castle. It's like I'm leading a child. A child who doesn't know a thing.

We reach the doors, and I use my full body to push one of them open and hold it for Fred. He stumbles outside, and the moment the sunlight touches his skin, he falls to his knees.

It's only then do I see just how filthy the man is. His hair hasn't been brushed in years, and his beard is far too long and scraggly. A few gray hairs are laced in the brown color, yet another sign of just how long he was trapped in that cell.

I tug at his shoulder. "Come on. We need to move." How we are going to leave the castle grounds, however, I don't know. Acadia has a lot of afflicted within its walls.

Fred is too busy looking at his stained, boney fingers to say anything. Or to get up.

"Come on!" I try to rally him to his feet. "Don't you want to see your son again? You need to—"

The sunshine above us is blocked out by a shadow with six wings, and I squint and gaze up at Invictis floating in the sky over our heads. With the light coming from him and the natural sunlight, the gold that makes up his body shimmers and ebbs, as if it's all a living thing.

"Going somewhere?" Invictis's deep, threatening voice fills the air, and Fred howls and brings his hands to his ears, as if trying to block him out. He floats down, landing on his two metal feet. "I admit, I do not know how you still stand, but it does not matter. You will die before you leave Acadia."

"Demon," Fred mutters to himself, starting to rock, what must be a comforting gesture to himself. "Always there. Always whispering. No!" Seeing Fred like this, it makes me wonder just why I don't react the same to Invictis.

I glare at the golden bastard. "Before you try to kill me again, answer one question for me."

Even though this figure has no face, I can still see his irritation growing. Good. If he's going to kill me, the least I can do to him is annoy the shit out of him until he does. Apparently it's the only thing I'm good at.

"Why do you have those wings if you don't need to use them? Just curious since you can float. Seems redundant, doesn't it?" I ask. "Seriously, think about it." Beside me, Fred stops rocking, and he stares straight up at me like I'm doing something he never thought possible.

"You—" Invictis flaps his wings at us just to prove a point, and then he raises his hands together over his head as he lifts off the ground, like he's going to bring forth more magic to kill Fred and me for good. He's so entranced in ending me that he falters when a loud roar pierces the sky.

Wait. A roar ?

His arms fall to his sides and his faceless head turns toward the sky as a big, black ball heads straight for us. The black ball soars closer and closer until I'm able to see exactly what it is: a dragon.

The same dragon as before? Or a different one? Maybe it doesn't matter.

"How charming," Invictis sneers, whirling around in the sky to face the oncoming beast.

The dragon pumps its thick, leathery wings, on a collision-course with the golden bastard. Its powerful jaws let out another rumble just before it collides with Invictis, sending them both to the ground. Invictis is pushed down into the stone stairs, and before he can soar up into the air, the dragon lands and snarls at him.

I never, ever thought I'd be grateful to see a dragon again, but here I am, very grateful.

This might be our only chance to get away while Invictis is preoccupied with the dragon, so I grab onto Fred's arm and say, "Come on, we need to get out of here!" We might need to find another way down, since the dragon pretty much takes up the entire walkway between the castle and the city.

But the man won't move. He stares at the dragon in awe, a mystified look on his dirty face.

I mean, sure, the dragon is kickass and all that, but I remember just how freaked out I was when I first came across a dragon in one of those shadowstorms. It might be the same one, or it might be a different beast. Either way, it doesn't matter. We need to leave.

The dragon bares its teeth at Invictis. Its leathery chest rumbles, heat gathering in its mouth. Fred and I are far enough away to not feel the most of it, but the air around the dragon does sizzle and crack as Invictis climbs back to his feet.

No sooner does the golden bastard get up that the dragon lets loose a thick blast of fire. The flames that would burn anything else to a crisp merely surround Invictis, engulfing him in its color but not destroying him. Still, the dragon does not let up. Its breath of fire burns the stone around him, charring it black.

"She's beautiful," Fred murmurs in awe.

The dragon's breath must increase its power or its pressure, because Invictis lets out an annoyed grunt as he falls to his knees under the flames. His wings shield him like a protective barrier, but the fire is all-consuming and curls around them, getting to him all the same.

I can't believe what I see: Invictis struggling against the dragon's power. It's a beautiful sight. Terrifying, but beautiful all the same. That asshole deserves nothing more than to be pulverized into nothing.

Invictis snarls, and his wings cave in on his figure. With a bright flash of light, he disappears from view, and the dragon now breathes down fire upon nothing but stone.

Shit. That means we're all that's left.

I glance at Fred, torn between wanting to help him and wanting to run for my life. I barely survived my first encounter with a dragon, and that was with magic. Now? I'm toast. Soon-to-be charred toast.

The dragon snarls as it moves its pointed snout in Fred's and my direction. It bares its many long teeth as it sniffs us through its nostrils, as if checking us out. Maybe it's wondering if we're food. I can't tell if it's the same beast, but it looks to be near the same size as the one that attacked me in the shadowstorm all that time ago.

But if it's the same dragon, why isn't it attacking this time?

Its eyes are brown, but when the sun hits them, they look more like warm, fresh amber than anything else, sparkling and beautiful of their own accord. Though the dragon is large enough to swallow me whole, I can still appreciate the unparalleled beauty of it. It's scary as shit, but gorgeous at the same time.

I guess, if given the choice, I'd rather die at the mouth of a dragon than at the hands of Invictis.

I close my eyes, preferring not to see the blast of fire coming straight at me. Don't know how it's going to feel, being burned alive, or how quick it'll be, but I'm no supernatural being like Invictis. I doubt I'll last as long as he did under the heat of this dragon's wrath.

Fire never comes, though, and instead of the heated embrace of a fiery death, my body is surrounded by scales as the dragon scoops me up in one of its clawed hands. My eyelids fly open the same moment I'm lifted off the ground, and a fast glance in Fred's direction tells me the dragon picked him up, too.

What the hell is going on?

With Fred in one hand and me in the other, the dragon pushes off the stone steps with its hind legs, its impressive wingspan flapping with enough strength to lift the giant creature into the air. The dragon's body undulates as it soars into the sky, and in less than half a minute, Acadia's castle is nothing but a memory.

I look over at Fred and find him grinning underneath his grizzly beard. "You doing okay?" I shout. The dragon flies so fast it kind of hurts my face.

All Fred does is laugh, so I take that as a good sign.

It's strange, seeing the land from so high above. Everything looks different. I've never been on a plane before, so I have nothing to compare it to. All greenery, in all directions, other than the basin where the Southern River empties near the castle. Flat plains with beautiful wildflowers, untouched by the darkness that ravaged this land for the last twenty years.

Darkness that only existed because of Rune, apparently.

Invictis . It still doesn't sit right with me. It's like this is a dream and I'm going to wake up momentarily with Rune still on my wrist and his snotty, haughty attitude dripping from his voice as he mocks everything I do.

My thoughts are interrupted when the dragon shrieks into the sky. Fifty feet ahead, a crack forms in the air. We're heading toward it with breakneck speed, and right before we reach it, it expands like a mirror, and we fly right through it.

The scenery changes instantly, and I bend my head as much as I can to look behind us. That same shimmery mirror is now to our backs, and it implodes on itself and disappears within seconds.

Holy shit. Was that a portal ?

Can this dragon make portals? My mind is aflutter as I wonder just how I could convince this beast to try to send me back home. It's probably a pointless endeavor. Even with how big and powerful it is, it's just an animal, and there's no way I'd be able to get an animal to understand the fact that there are other worlds out there and I came from one of them.

The dragon descends in the air. We're less than ten feet above a dirt path when the dragon lets both me and Fred go. I land in a rolling position while Fred lands with a thump on his backside.

I'm quick to crawl onto my knees and watch as the dragon flies away, roaring into the empty sky as it leaves.

I think that dragon just saved our lives and—I look around us—brought us to Laconia. Fred and I are on the path that zigzags through the abandoned farming fields on the cliffs that surround the city.

I crawl toward Fred and help him sit up. The man is frail; I'm surprised he didn't break after that fall. His hand shakes as I hold onto it and help him get to his feet. "You all right, Fred?"

"My lady is a wondrous thing," Fred mumbles to himself as he leans on me. "My lady said you'd come. I didn't believe her. Her sisters hoped but didn't believe, either." He chuckles, though the sound is dry and weak, and he lifts his free hand to my face. He touches my cheek, then my hair, studying me with an intentness that almost makes me uncomfortable. "You're her."

I have zero idea what the man is saying. Right now, we need to get to Laconia's outer wall and hope someone is there to let us in. We can go over everything he's saying, or trying to say, once he's inside, fed, and washed up.

The man, who must be near fifty, is all skin and bones beneath his overgrown hair. Magic may have kept him alive all this time, but he's hanging on by a thread.

Together, Fred and I walk the path that many took before us, before Laconia fell to the woes. To Invictis. He stumbles and nearly falls, so I end up wrapping one of his arms around my shoulders to help him along. We're so close; can't let him down now. I just hope, pray that Frederick and the rest of the inhabitants are still alive in there.

"Laconia," Fred whispers in awe as we near the main door, built into the outer wall that separates the city of Laconia from the rest of it. "I never thought I'd see it again." He still squints, like the sun hurts his eyes even now. Spending years in the darkness, I can't help but wonder if his eyes will ever get better or if that's how he'll be forever.

"Your son should be inside," I tell him. "He'll be happy to see you. He thought… we all thought you were dead."

He grins at the sky as we step into the shadow of the wall. "I thought I was dead, too."

I don't see anyone walking the outer wall. "Hello? Is anyone there?" I call out. No one answers me, so I carefully let Fred go, and once I'm sure he's stable on his feet, I try the large doors myself. If they're locked, we're shit out of luck here.

The door gives way, and I'm able to push inside enough to let Fred slip in. It's one heavy motherfucker, and after I rush in, it swings shut on its own.

The city is eerily empty, but that could just be due to the fact that everyone that survived the scourge that night the shadowstorm descended on the lower part of the city is still in the upper district. Fred's head whips back and forth as he examines the slums, and I know he wants to take his time in wandering along, but we need to get past the markets to see if anyone is still here.

I guide the man along. We're in the middle of crossing the empty marketplace when I ask him, "Does it look different than you remember?" I don't know exactly how long Fred's been gone, but it's been years; I know that much.

Fred's answer comes out in a mumble, "Where is everyone? Where is my boy? It's not supposed to be like this." He fiddles with his hands as we hurry along.

I help him up the steps that lead to the upper city, and we find the doors separating the two districts are closed. That gives me hope that the city hasn't been wiped out yet. My fist pounds on the door, and though I don't know if they'll be able to hear me in there, I yell, "It's Rey. I'm back from Acadia."

As I hear the sounds of the doors being pulled open, I glance at Fred. The man is antsy; he can't stand still, though he relies on me for support. When I'm greeted by the guards stationed at the doors, I nod to Fred and add, "Oh, yeah. I have company, too. Anyone know where Frederick is?"

The guards glance at each other, and then back at us. Though I can't see their faces, I'll bet anything they're mighty confused.

We're eventually told that Frederick is usually at the library beneath the conclave or flitting around like a bee trying to help all those he can. Guess Fred and I are on a scavenger hunt, then. We walk up the main path through the upper district. It looks as though makeshift tents were erected in the street, a way for those who made it here to shelter from the rain.

Doesn't surprise me to see that the rich have refused to help. They probably huddle in their stone homes and hope that someone else will save the day. AKA me or the conclave or anyone who isn't them.

Rich people are the same. It really does make you hate them.

Fred and I make it to the courtyard in front of the tallest cathedral in the district, which is where the council gets together. By extension, that means the door built into the stairs that lead up to said building opens into the great library of Laconia.

Might as well check there next, since we're here.

We gathered a bit of a following as we walked along; by the time we disappear into the library, there's a crowd behind us. I think some of the older folk may recognize Fred, and no doubt they are also wondering how he could've survived out there.

I hold the door open for Fred, and we push inside the library.

It's a place I've never been to before. You have to step down to get into it; it literally is directly beneath the conclave. No windows for obvious reasons; just bookcases upon bookcases upon bookcases, all jam-packed with old books that make the air itself stale. Every so often a table breaks up the scene, where anyone can sit while they do some reading.

It's not a huge library. It's probably about as big as the one in my high school, and it only seems larger because it's narrow and long. If you were to widen the walls and bring some natural light in here, I bet it'd seem a lot smaller.

Row after row, we don't find Frederick. I'm about to tell Fred we should turn around and search the many side-streets outside, but as fate would have it, Frederick walks around the very last row of bookcases, an open book in his hand, his head bent down as he searches for something on the page.

Though his eyes are laser-focused on the book and he doesn't see us, I can't help but feel some relief when I spot his face. I don't doubt the man would walk right past us with how intently he's studying that page, so I get his attention by saying his name: "Frederick."

The man freezes, and he's slow in lifting his gaze away from the book. He spots me first. "Rey. You're back. How did it go? Did—" That's when his gaze shifts to the skinny, haggard man standing next to me, and his mouth opens but he does not say a word more.

Beside me, Fred mutters, "My. My lady was right. You aren't a boy anymore, are you?"

Frederick's voice comes out shallow and full of disbelief, "Father? Is that… is that really you?" He doesn't give Fred time to answer. He snaps the book closed and rushes toward him, enveloping the older man in a bear hug.

Seeing them side by side, it really hits me just how frail the elder Frederick is. A man made of skin and bone and nothing more. He needs to bathe and eat, ASAP.

"My boy," Fred murmurs as he hugs his son. "I never thought I'd see you again." He laughs, but it's a laugh whose mirth borders on other emotions. The man sounds as though he's close to tears.

I have to look away from their embrace. It reminds me too much of my own dad, how I haven't seen him or gotten to hug him since… since life took him from me. And the only thing I have left of him, a single picture, is probably in the trash by now. I'll never get it back, and it hurts.

Frederick must pull away from his dad, because the next thing I know he's engulfing me in a similar embrace as he holds the book in his hand aside. "Rey," he whispers against my hair, "you came back. You came back and you brought my father." His arms tighten around me before he lets me go. "How? No. Let's get you two some food, first. Then you can tell me what happened."

Oh, yeah. I'm really looking forward to telling Frederick about how I unleashed an ancient evil whose only goal is to destroy Laconia and its people. It's going to be fun.