Shault was standing next to Selatravis so that he could see over the heads of everyone in the stands. The man with the gun arms had just shot the strange girl with two swords for the second time.

  “Who is she?” Shault asked.

  Selatravis shook his head slowly as the girl got up and began her fight. Like everyone else, they watched Susi use techniques that had never been seen in the vorago before—at least, not in this time.

  Shault had witnessed the magicks of the Ancient ones in action before. Somehow, these Talea monks had tapped into the old ways.

  “We should help her.” Shault said.

  “I don’t recommend getting involved yet.” Seladia said from next to Shault, startling both him and Selatravis.

  She had washed her hair and donned a new travel cloak, an expensive one from the look of it.

  “Great, you’re back.” Selatravis rolled his eyes.

  “They’re crucifying this poor girl for sport.” Shault said, disgusted despite her brutal success.

  “I don’t remember seeing her in the orb, but I can gather why.” Seladia said, looking just as curiously at Susi as the rest of them. “There’s a kind of black hole of space—an empty place between events. But none of the sequential foresights I witnessed quite made since…until now. Of course it’s her!”

  “What are you babbling about?” Selatravis asked.

  “I think—I think I’ve got it.” Seladia’s eyes darted in their sockets. “We need to get out of here. We need to move, very soon.”

  “I’m gonna kill her.” Selatravis looked to Shault. “I’m gonna straight up push her off a bridge!”

  “We just got in here,” Shault said to Seladia. “Help us out a little, Sel.”

  “There’s a place under the castle where we can find one of the Remel orbs.” Seladia held up a finger.

  “We just. Had. One. You gave it away!” Selatravis yelled.

  “You shouldn’t go with him.” Seladia pointed at her brother.

  “With who? You want me to stay here?” Selatravis asked.

  “Shault needs to be in the castle undercroft…. You and me: we deal with Marks.” Seladia nodded to Selatravis. “Shault, stay the hell away from Susi.”

  “Where exactly am I going?” Shault asked.

  “Every castle has an undercroft for their relished dead,” said Seladia.

  “I know what an undercroft is.” Shault waved. “How am I supposed to find it?”

  “I have faith in you.” Seladia said.

  Shault looked to Selatravis who shrugged.

  “Okay, big brother,” said Seladia, “time to put on your senator’s cap.”

  She reached past Shault and grabbed Selatravis’s wrist before tugging him toward the exit row.

  Selatravis gave Shault a final confused look before they disappeared within the crowd.

  Shault scratched the slight beard stubble on his chin, drummed his fingers on his cheek, and then filed toward the interior level of the vorago coliseum.

  He dropped to the bottom of the steps and adjusted his dress coat as he followed the signs for the restroom along the wide stone passage beneath the vorago.

  “Is it possible to have someone bring my clothes?” A fair young woman’s voice spoke from the corridor ahead.

  It took Shault a second to realize it was Susi—the Susi that Seladia just told him to stay away from—surrounded by guards as she filed toward whatever prison room they had set aside for her.

  One of the guards confirmed her request and turned, only to run directly into Marcus, the chancellor’s son.

  Shault stepped out of sight as this exchange happened in the corridor ahead.

  “You’ll stand down, Lieutenant!” Marcus ordered. “My father made it very clear that I was in charge of the guard.” He announced to the men surrounding Susi. They lowered their guard and allowed the prince to enter the circle and embrace Susi.

  Shault squinted as he peered around the stone pillar he was hiding behind. He wasn’t hiding, he was standing near the restroom, waiting his turn. He watched the girl hug the prince back. They parted.

  “I think you’re starting to realize what this event is all about.” Marcus said.

  “I need someone to bring my clothes—my clothes.” Susi said seriously.

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  “I’ll have them brought to you shortly.” Marcus said. “Is there anything else I can get you before…they send you back out?”

  “Nothing. Just my clothes, and find out what they did with Grobeche.” Susi said.

  “I’ve been asking everywhere, but my father has instructed the guard not to speak to me.” Marcus paused, heaving a heavy breath through his nose. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, but I needed to see you.”

  “I really wanted to see you.” Susi said to him, biting her lip as she tried not to smile.

  “Sir, the Auctor would like your council.” A guard interrupted.

  Marcus turned as if he was about to dress down the man for interrupting, but Susi grabbed his arm. “It’s okay. I have to go, but…thank you for coming for me.”

  Marcus took a deep breath as he looked into her eyes. It was apparent to Shault that the prince was going through some sort of existential crisis internally about this girl.

  “I’ll be back shortly.” He said and went the direction opposite to Shault’s position. Susi continued with her triage of guards into the passage leading deeper into the vorago. The way ahead was clear now.

  Shault took a deep breath, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and continued down the corridor toward the castle. He encountered a solitary guard at the far end of the vorago under-passage.

  “Can I help you find something, Sir?” The guard asked Shault.

  “Oh, just looking for the restroom.” Shault said. “They put you all alone way down here?”

  “Not a lot of traffic this far down. Restroom’s that way.” The guard nodded his spear toward the sign pointing toward the other direction.

  “Just seems foolish to put someone all alone at any potential security checkpoint.” Shault said.

  “Why’s that?” The guard glared at him as Shault drew closer to the guard.

  “Security risks.” Shault shrugged.

  The guard looked over as a golden liquid substance appeared on his shoulder.

  “What the—” The substance wrapped around his throat and solidified. The guard fell to his knees as Shault commanded the golden liquid to knock him out with a proper strike to the back of his head.

  The guard lay unconscious in the passage before him. The gold flowed back into Shault’s open palm and became a perfect sphere once more. Shault dropped the golden ball into his pocket.

  A few minutes later, Shault was dressed in the guard’s uniform. He doubled back down the long, curved passage toward the entrance to the castle.

  Shault needed to keep his clothing underneath, so he put on the outfit over his formal attire. With so much walking, he quickly began to sweat. He entered the castle from the lower passage, passing dozens of guards who didn’t look twice at him.

  Walking through the middle of a large thoroughfare of guards and soldiers, Shault saw dozens of staircases and passages going up, but few going down.

  He didn’t think the down he was looking for would be busy, so he avoided the large groups heading down a central stairwell into the heart of the castle.

  He found a corridor that led to a corkscrew passage leading down. The ornate spiral steps were wide for a large group of people, but empty this morning save for Shault himself.

  He was already below ground level so there were no windows to look out from. He descended past empty shelves for art pieces that had become covered in cobwebs.

  The path leveled to a bridge leading over a great cavern that existed beneath the castle. On the other side of the bridge was the entrance to the undercroft.

  Shault entered, following the main path between mausoleums and crypts dedicated to their dukes, duchesses, heirs, and other important figures.

  The kings’ resting places were on higher platforms that could be reached from different passageways.

  The whole place was lit by turquoise blue glow stones. Seladia had taken them over a river of these stones when they met. They had lit the forest as they crossed over the bridge that was also made of these stones.

  Here, the stones were piled in sconces with wire baskets: made specifically for utilizing the stones’ endless light source. It gave the entire undercroft hall an eerie turquoise hue.

  Shault paused and created a small fireball in his palm the way Selatravis had instructed. A wine, almost lavender light appeared around him as the color contrasts crossed.

  He cast his revealing light to receive a vision of his old buddy, Thayer from Ethan Academy, carrying the orb into the dimly lit path ahead.

  Shault’s eyes followed him as he carried the orb through the darkened arched passage in front of him. He took a step, and that’s when Thayer—the real Thayer, minus the orb—appeared from the darkness.

  “Shault?” Thayer stopped in his tracks.

  Shault was still having a hard time processing that the man wasn’t an ethereal figure made from his revealing light. “Thayer.” He said, surprised.

  Within an instant, Thayer was upon Shault with his silver blade materialized in hand. His was silver as Shault had successfully blocked his strike with his gold. The two parted as Thayer’s face was lit by Shault’s lavender firelight.

  “I thought I left you for dead under Ethan,” said Thayer as he and Shault circled one another. “Yet, here you are: back from oblivion. I won’t make the mistake of leaving you alive a second time.”

  Thayer sent his silver material at Shault as Shault’s gold mixed in his defense. The two carried the same power, and yet Thayer always believed one could defeat the other.

  Shault’s fire extinguished as his gold formed into a sword in his grip. Thayer’s became a silver saber, and the two clashed. Thayer parried Shault’s strike, but the gold rematerialized into a shield as Thayer’s blade threatened to skewer the lower left part of Shault’s stomach.

  Fighting one another this way was pointless. Shault kicked Thayer off of him. “Why did you do it?” He pointed his solid gold sword at Thayer. “Why did you kill Rhaya?”

  There was an unmistakable smirk that played upon Thayer’s lips “For this.” He hissed and unleashed a fiery whirlwind around him that forced Shault back.

  Shault shot his arms out as a powerful wind exploded through Thayer, extinguishing his flame.

  “You’ve been practicing!” Thayer called. He crossed his arms above and below him in an S shape, pinching his thumbs and ring fingers together.

  Shault crossed his own arms in an X, conjuring the stone. Thayer’s lightning exploded upon the rock shield that formed in front of Shault, launching the two apart in the center of the undercroft hall.

  “As have you.” Shault got to his feet.

  Thayer was suddenly struck by a powerful energy that dropped him to one knee. Shault looked about the undercroft. It wasn't him. The whole place was shaking.

  “I’ll deal with you later!” Thayer released a telekinetic blast that sent Shault flying across the undercroft before hurrying toward the passage leading to the castle.

  Beneath the structure of the undercroft were piles upon piles of the glowstones. Shault fell upon a pile of the stones that crumpled beneath him.

  He got up awkwardly, shoving off the guard cap on his head that had become singed from Thayer’s fire.

  “Dammit!” Shault pushed himself up and waded through the stones to an iron ladder nearby. “Why does this keep happening to me?”

  He climbed back to the floor where the two had encountered one another. Something was obviously happening up top. Shault knew it had to do with Seladia and Selatravis’s encounter with Damius Marks.

  Seladia had instructed him to find an orb down here. Instead of going after Thayer, Shault continued deeper into the undercroft.