The hallways of the castle were mercifully empty as Amara and Evander ran through them. Closed rooms and modest lounges dotted their path, and it quickly became clear that they had entered a service area of the castle, one which housed lower ranking servants and guards attached to Shabboleth’s household. It was pure luck that everyone who’d lived there had already cleared out, perhaps to join in on the pursuit of the invaders in the upper levels of the castle or simply to escape the danger.

  It wasn’t long before Amara heard a familiar clamor erupt from an intersection further ahead. Evander was the first to respond, coming to a short halt beside a closed door in order to test the handle. When it opened he turned back to Amara to give a quick nod, then shifted sideways to enter the room without hitting any part of Jezebel’s unconscious form against the doorframe.

  Amara followed him inside, barely present despite the obvious urgency of their situation. The idea hadn’t occurred to her that she might lose Mattias in the process of gaining the elixir Shiloh needed. He’d given her so many reasons to be suspicious of him, and in truth she hadn’t trusted him much at all, but still. He’d seemed so invincible and ageless, and had been her companion for so long.

  There had also been a question she’d needed to ask him, perhaps the most important of her life. But she’d been too frightened of what his answer would be to ask it. In fairness to herself, it had seemed like she would have all the time in the world to eventually gather up enough courage to ask.

  The room they’d ducked into seemed to be little more than a simple break area for the castle’s servants. There was nothing within it beyond a small bed and a blank nightstand positioned against the wall nearby. The room was hardly big enough for Amara and Evander to stand together in, but they managed nevertheless to fit inside.

  Evander carefully set Jezebel down on the bed, and Amara immediately placed her back against the nearby wall and sank to the floor. Moments later the clamor they’d heard rattled past the room, and Amara watched as Evander froze up to listen.

  Guards, he mouthed silently to her. She responded by gathering up her knees in front of her and resting her forehead against them. The danger seemed irrelevant in comparison to what she’d just lost.

  The door to their room remained closed as the clamor rattled by, and when the guards finally moved out of earshot Evander breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  “Thank god,” he whispered. “We’re safe for now, at least.”

  Amara didn’t move or react, but she could feel his eyes on her.

  “What should we do? Shabboleth’s probably going to be back, soon.”

  She responded with the barest of shrugs. The world was never prepared to just slow down a little and give her enough time whenever something bad happened.

  “We have to do something, Mara,” Evander said. “He’s going to kill us if we can’t figure something out.”

  Shut up, she thought. What do you expect me to do about it?

  “...Honestly. I don’t understand this. We agreed to ditch Mattias back in Raven’s Roost, didn’t we?”

  “Doesn’t mean I wanted him to die,” she mumbled.

  “But why are you so upset? He’s been manipulating us—”

  “I don’t know, okay?!” she screamed into her legs. “Just leave me alone, for god’s sake!”

  “Alright! Alright. I’m sorry, Mara. But please don’t shout right now.”

  A rough sigh exploded from her. After staring for a few moments Evander decided to sit down against the wall beside her.

  “What happened with that bright light?” he asked quietly. “That was when he transformed, right? But all those guards screamed and then there was nothing left of them but their gear.”

  “Dunno.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing. “...I guess that confirms it. Not that it really needed to be confirmed.”

  Amara lifted her head. “Confirms what?”

  “That he was the Sullied One. It was in the scriptures, remember? Something about mortal man being unable to look upon his true visage without inviting oblivion.”

  She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.

  “You never did pay any attention during temple,” he said with a tiny smile.

  “I guess if the guards had all been women they’d be alright, then.”

  “Oh, sacrilege! Don’t let the Seeker hear you talking that way.”

  “She won’t,” Amara said, blinking hard. “Nobody else will, either. Cause we’re about to be dead.”

  Evander accepted her fatalism in stride. “...Yeah. Maybe we should just leave the princess here and try to escape on our own.”

  “He’d still come for us.”

  “You’re probably—”

  The soft crinkle of rustling covers sounded from the bed. Amara and Evander shared a worried look, but neither seemed willing to move.

  Jezebel lifted herself out of bed with a bleary-eyed look, and immediately leveled a stare onto Amara and Evander. She held her gaze on them for a while before casting it across the rest of the room. When she spoke her voice was terribly brittle.

  “Was any of that real?”

  Amara shared another look with Evander before he responded.

  “...Yeah. It was real.”

  Jezebel stared at him for a long moment before two enormous tears leapt from her eyes.

  “Oh, Hip,” she said shakily. The way she then angrily wiped the tears from her face reminded Amara very much of herself.

  After taking a few moments to compose herself, Jezebel turned her attention back to Evander.

  “Where is my father?” she asked.

  “He fell into the ocean with Mattias,” Amara said. “He’s probably going to be back any minute.”

  Resolve began to gather in Jezebel’s expression. She shifted over to sit on the edge of the bed.

  “Do you understand what is going to happen now?” she said.

  “We were just—” Evander tried to begin.

  “My father is going to come back and kill you. No, don’t bother arguing. You can’t stop him.”

  “I was just going to say we were about to run away,” he finished.

  “You’ll never escape from him. Not for long.” She paused. “Not unless I help you.”

  Amara was immediately taken aback. “Uh…what? Why would you ever do that?”

  “Because you’re the only Destined to ever make it this far,” Jezebel said. She stood up from the bed and approached the door, pausing with her hand on the handle to cast an intense look down at them. “Come with me.”

  She then exited the room, and Amara heard her footsteps gradually becoming more distant in the hallway.

  “There’s no way she’s serious, right?” Evander said. “She’s setting us up for Shabboleth to get us.”

  “I don’t see a better choice, honestly,” Amara replied as she regained her feet. “Besides, didn’t you hear it in her tone? She hates her father.”

  Evander also stood up. “I’m not sure it was hate, but you’re right about our choices. If it’s run away and almost definitely die, or take a chance and probably still die, I guess I know which one I’d prefer.”

  He turned to leave the room, and after taking a deep breath Amara followed.

  Shiloh has no other way to survive except for us, she told herself. I am not going to lose my mother, too.

  Jezebel was already several dozen feet down the hallway when Amara finally stepped out, moving with an urgent sense of purpose. Evander had already entered into a jog in order to catch up, and Amara soon joined him.

  They followed Jezebel through the castle’s maze-like halls, passing so many closed doors that Amara soon stopped bothering to keep count. On several occasions Jezebel herded Evander and Amara into a nearby room in order to keep them out of sight of the guard patrols roaming the halls. Once she even issued orders to a group of guards that sent them well out of their way. Amara quickly became convinced that Jezebel desire to help them was sincere, though Evander seemed much less sure.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Finally they reached a three-way intersection, and Jezebel abruptly turned about to address them.

  “Around this corner is where my father’s vault is hidden. Stay here and allow me to convince the guards to leave.”

  Evander looked worried, but Amara quickly gave her a nod.

  “Go ahead.”

  Jezebel returned it, and disappeared around the corner.

  “Bad idea,” Evander whispered. “The vault is gonna be one of the first places Shabboleth will check if he’s trying to find us.”

  “If the elixir Mattias was talking about exists then it’s gonna be in there,” Amara whispered back. “What’s the point of surviving all this if we don’t walk away with the thing we came here for?”

  “The point of surviving is to survive,” he shot back.

  Before she could respond Jezebel’s voice drifted out from the nearby hallway, and they hushed in order to listen.

  “You there! I’ve just managed to escape from two Destined who took me hostage.”

  “Your highness!”

  “I want you both to go and find my father immediately. Tell him I’m safe and that I’ve barricaded myself inside the vault.”

  A loaded silence followed, and there was tension present in the guard’s next words.

  “With respect, highness, you know we aren’t allowed to leave our post. The king specifically ordered us to remain here and defend the vault no matter what else happens.”

  “Did you mishear me?” Jezebel said, outraged. “I was just taken hostage! You must report to the king immediately and do your duty!”

  Amara tapped Evander on the arm for his attention, and made a silent throwing motion. He nodded, and quietly readied one of his javelins. While he did that, Amara pulled her lighter out and flicked it on.

  “You can go inside, highness,” a different guard said. “I’m sure a messenger or maybe even the king himself will be along soon.”

  “My father will hear about your refusal to inform him of my location,” Jezebel replied angrily.

  “We’re not to leave for any reason,” the guard responded with obvious anxiety. “You know that, highness.”

  “Oh forget it,” Amara muttered. She stepped around Evander to stand in the hallway.

  The guards immediately noticed her, and they both reacted by raising the shields they held in their hands. Amara sent flame from her lighter down the hallway, dancing in a wide arc to avoid Jezebel, and within the space of less than a second the first guard had been engulfed in flames. As he collapsed to the floor, the second guard turned to run away, only to fall a split second later after Evander’s javelin had shot through him.

  Jezebel looked quite stunned as Amara and Evander approached.

  “They were close to doing what I was telling them to do,” she snapped. “There was no need to kill them!”

  “How’s that?” Evander said. “Didn’t sound that way to me.”

  Jezebel bristled at him. “I have empathic powers. I can see people’s emotions with perfect clarity. I’m telling you that they were about to obey!”

  “We didn’t want them to obey,” Amara said quickly. “If you wanted them to survive then you should’ve sent them anywhere else but to Shabboleth.”

  “There was no other way to convince them to leave,” Jezebel insisted.

  Amara shrugged. “Then it was us or them.”

  Jezebel seemed lost for words, and soon broke eye contact with Amara.

  “Where’s the vault, anyway?” Evander said. “There’s nothing here.”

  Amara turned to scan the hallway and realized he’d been right—there wasn’t a single doorway lining the long, empty hall the guards had been standing in. It came as something of a surprise considering how many doors they’d had to pass in order to reach it.

  Jezebel gingerly stepped around the supine form of the second guard and approached the wall beyond. She then pushed against it with both hands, and the outline of a doorway opened inwards. The short room beyond contained what looked to be a tremendous circular door on the far end, gray and metallic but otherwise featureless except for an odd mechanical panel sitting on the nearby wall.

  “Of course,” Evander said with a roll of his eyes.

  “Inside, please,” Jezebel said curtly.

  Amara stepped past her into the room, but Evander wordlessly waited for Jezebel to go before him. Once she did, he stepped inside, and Jezebel closed the wall-door behind them.

  She then approached the panel beside the door, and pressed a finger to it. An odd birdlike chirp sounded from the panel, and the enormous door slowly began to swing open.

  A rush of cool air flowed out of the room behind the door, and Amara was immediately impressed by what she saw. Right at the front of the vault stood an enormous glass container filled to the brim with water, and an aggressive looking deep-sea creature swam about in it. Its mouth was filled with row after row of needle-like teeth, and its skin was midnight purple with transparent fins. The opening of the door had clearly agitated the creature, but it didn’t seem capable of doing much beyond swimming about in its tank.

  Beyond the creature’s tank stood row after row of display shelves, containing a huge assortment of odd, eye-catching objects. Farther in, a row of easels stood in a ring within the center of the room, displaying gorgeous paintings of landscapes done in many different styles. Most impressive of all, though, was an unbelievably huge sword hanging horizontally across the far wall, one which was clearly far too large for any normal person to wield. At a glance, Amara guessed the sword to be at least three times as long as Evander was tall. The thought occurred to her that he might be strong enough to pick it up, but it would undoubtedly be far too unwieldy for him to actually use.

  Jezebel immediately entered the vault without stopping to gawk like Amara and Evander had done. She stepped past the creature in the tank and approached one of the shelves on the wall nearby, one which contained what looked to be several closed vials of colorful liquids.

  She stepped up to the shelf, and carefully pulled one of the vials off of it before turning around to present it to Amara and Evander. The liquid inside was the color of the sun, and it bubbled at the top in an alarming way, presumably as a reaction to being moved.

  “This is a potion my father created to use against Hastur, one of the other Seraphim. It won’t kill my father on its own, but if you can splash this on his skin it might weaken him.”

  After accepting it from Jezebel, Evander raised it up in order to give it a careful look-over.

  “That’s something I guess,” Amara said. “But it doesn’t solve the underlying problem.”

  “I was watching when the Sullied One gave you the grenades,” Jezebel said. “I think if you tried them after my father has been weakened by that potion you may be able to harm him.”

  “But you're not sure?” Evander asked.

  Jezebel shook her head. “As far as I know, no one has ever successfully hurt him. But of all the people in the world, I know him the best. And I believe this is the only way that could potentially work.”

  Amara’s gaze shot to the other potions on the shelf behind Jezebel, and she took an anxious step forward.

  “Jezebel,” she began. “Our whole reason for being here is because Shabboleth poisoned our crops. The entire village we came from is going to die of starvation very soon if we don’t bring back something that can cure them.”

  Jezebel looked surprised. “...He poisoned your crops? I see. I suppose he’s capable of that sort of thing, but I’ve never once heard of this and he keeps me involved in all his affairs of state.”

  Amara was taken aback. “Why would he do that?”

  “For my powers,” Jezebel said. “He wanted someone who could tell him what people were thinking and feeling. So he approached Livia, and their union produced me.”

  “They ‘produced’ you?” Evander said with a scoff.

  “Your parents were both Seraphim?” Amara asked.

  Jezebel nodded. “I’ve never met my mother, but I think she intended me to be much more than what my father had bargained for. After I was born, he brought me home to Lucyra.” She took her own step forward towards Amara. “This castle is all I’ve ever known! If you can’t kill him, it’ll be the only place I’ll ever know. I’ll die still floating in my father’s orbit.”

  Amara studied her in silence for a moment before responding.

  “...Well, we have no other choice but to try.”

  An abrupt silence fell over them as Jezebel studied Amara back.

  “What are your names?” Jezebel suddenly asked.

  “Um,” Amara said. “Mine is Amara.”

  “I’m Evander.”

  “And the name of your village?”

  “Shiloh,” Evander said instantly.

  Jezebel’s gaze darted between them, and it lingered on Evander for a long moment before she turned back around to face the shelf. She pulled another vial from it, one adorned with ornate golden engravings of flying angels at the top. The liquid it contained was as clear as polished glass.

  She held the vial up in both hands for them to see. “This is my father’s greatest creation. It’s a potion that can stoke the fires of life. He made it in the instance that a Seraphim conducted a sneak attack on Lucyra which destroyed most or even all of the city.”

  After staring at it for a moment, she handed it very carefully to Amara.

  “Go ahead, Amara. Place a single drop of it on your finger. Then rub that drop onto the cut on your cheek.”

  Amara looked to Evander, who gave her a shrug. She then placed a hand at the top of the vial and applied a gradual amount of pressure to the golden angels until the lid began to twist off.

  A rich, earthy smell which immediately reminded Amara of Shiloh’s forest wafted up from the vial once the lid came off. Evander and Jezebel looked on in silence as Amara cautiously poured out a single drop onto her finger.

  The liquid felt oddly warm once it met her skin, and after taking a moment to stare at it on her finger she handed the vial to Evander and stepped towards the fish-creature’s aquarium. The glass was reflective enough for her to partially see herself in it, and the creature darted off to the far end of the tank, swimming back and forth angrily as though it had taken personal offense to Amara’s proximity.

  Looking at herself in the glass, she brought her finger up to the cut. A small amount of pain radiated from her cheek as she dabbed at the cut, but the effect of the potion on it was immediate. The cut swiftly disappeared beneath a scab which formed with unnatural speed. Within moments the scab itself aged and crumbled away, revealing a fresh, pink scar across the skin underneath, perhaps two inches long.

  Amara gently prodded the scar with a single finger, then risked a few more when no pain greeted it.

  “That’s amazing!” Evander said. “Did it hurt at all?”

  “Just a little bit at first,” Amara said, still staring at herself in the glass.

  Jezebel took a few steps forward to stand beside Amara, peering at her face in the glass.

  “You’re very beautiful,” she said evenly. “It’s good the scar is small enough to make no difference.”

  Amara turned a stare onto Jezebel, who met her gaze with quiet confidence.

  “So that stuff will revive our dead crops?” Evander asked behind them.

  “No, it won’t work on dead material,” Jezebel said. “But if you use it on seeds, it will make them sprout into healthy, full grown plants.”

  “Good,” said Amara. “That’s close enough to what Shiloh needs.”

  An odd, distant rumble sounded from somewhere outside of the room. Amara and Evander instantly shared an alarmed look, and moments later another rumble sounded, louder and much longer than before.

  The ground beneath their feet suddenly trembled, and the walls began to shake. The rumbling became a crashing, and then a cacophony.

  “My father is coming,” Jezebel shouted over the noise. “If you want to leave this place alive then you must do what the Seraphim and hundreds of other Destined could not!”

  The crashing reached a fever pitch, and sections of the ceiling began to give way. As Amara and Evander ran to brace themselves against the nearby wall, the paintings in the center of the room were crushed beneath a falling section of the ceiling. The creature’s aquarium then took a hit, and the glass shattered into a million pieces, sending a tremendous amount of water rushing across the floor in all directions.

  Across the room, beside the massive sword laid across the wall, the entire far corner of the vault was violently torn away as though hit by an explosion. An immense cloud of dust kicked up, and the crashing then came to an abrupt halt.

  Rows of long insect-like legs emerged from the swirling dust, grabbing onto anything they could find. Something which almost resembled a face then emerged from the cloud, reddish and morphing as though the flesh was trying to remember how to assume a human form. Once it had gained enough detail to almost resemble Shabboleth's face the mouth opened, and the noise which issued forth from it was deafening.

  “Jezebel!!!” it bellowed.