"The throne room?" Arthur asked questioningly, his voice echoing softly against the weathered stone walls. His fingers drumd absently against his knee.
Lara nodded, her intelligent eyes gleaming in the warm candlelight that filled the room.
"Yes..." she replied, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "While this theory is not confird, every castle needs a throne room... especially ones this grand." Her gaze getting more serious as she spoke "Yet we haven’t seen one. What we have seen, however, is what we believe to be the original door to the throne room."
"It was grand," Lara continued, her voice taking on a tone of reverence, "the biggest door in the castle... intricately carved with symbols we’ve yet to fully decipher. But when we tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge." She frowned, the mory clearly frustrating. "Not with physical force, not with abilities. Nothing we tried made any difference."
Arthur was scratching his head whilst processing her words, his calloused fingers running through his dark, unkempt hair.
"Why would there be a room exempt from the rest of the spell?" he asked, more to himself than to anybody else. The question hung in the air like the dust motes dancing in the rays of candlelight.
Lara shook her head, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Who knows... but if this missing throne room truly exists, my best guess would be that the spell circle is in there."
Aziel, who had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation, finally spoke up. He sat with his back against the wall, long legs stretched out before him, his blue hair glinting in the dim light.
"But if that is really where the spell circle is," he said with question in his deep voice, "how the hell are we gonna get into that room?" His piercing blue eyes narrowed skeptically as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Lara chuckled, though the sound held little humor. "Good question... one I hope we’re able to answer sooner than later." She sighed.
After a pause pregnant with unspoken concerns, she spoke again, her voice taking on a more practical tone. "Well, that’s assuming the spell circle isn’t in any of the rooms with the guardians, so first we’ll focus on what’s readily possible... investigating those four rooms."
Arthur and Aziel sat silent, thinking about all the information they had just endured. The weight of their situation pressing down on their shoulders. Outside, the wind howled against the castle walls, a lonely, mournful sound.
Finally, Aziel let out a deep yawn that he didn’t bother to hide, stretching his arms above his head.
Lara smiled sympathetically at the two boys. "Why don’t you guys get so rest in so real beds? We’ll talk more about our next steps in the morning." She glanced toward the windowless walls. "It’s getting late... well, it’s not actually like we can tell what ti it is, but either way, we’re all tired."
Arthur nodded slowly, feeling the exhaustion in every fiber of his being. ’Now that she ntions it,’ he thought, ’this whole castle feels almost separated from the real world. The windows here are indestructible and show nothing but a black void outside them.’ Arthur got the chills thinking about it, rembering how he had tried to glimpse outside only to see absolute nothingness staring back at him.
He cleared his mind, latching onto another one of the things Lara said. ’Real beds... sleep... that sounds nice.’ After weeks of sleeping on hard ground, the prospect of an actual mattress seed almost too good to be true.
Arthur and Aziel got up and shared a few more words with everyone before making their way to two of the four beds in the room.
Arthur crawled on top and rolled to his back, the mattress giving way beneath his weight in the most pleasant manner. Staring at the ceiling with his head on the pillow, he didn’t even bother getting under the covers. He was already sinking into bliss, his body lting into the soft surface.
’I forgot what a real bed feels like...’ he thought, a small sigh of contentnt escaping his lips. ’This is amazing.’
Despite the comfort, Arthur’s mind was still racing with everything that had happened today. The events of the past weeks flashed through his consciousness in fragnted, troubling images.
’Stuck in a castle with ever-changing doors,’ he mused, his eyelids growing heavy. ’Four stupidly strong guardians that are neither corrupted beasts nor humans... a missing throne room... spell circles... whatever the hell that monster from the hallways was...’
His thoughts grew increasingly bitter as exhaustion began to overtake him. ’The Second Realm sucks. What god did I piss off for all of this?’
His thoughts slowly filtered, leaving only the terror of that monster from the hallways,the fear he felt etched into his mory. ’I forgot to ask about that... I’ll ask to—’
Arthur’s thoughts were forcefully cut as he was drawn away into a blissful sleep, his consciousness fading into darkness. But the peace didn’t last.
In this sleep, Arthur saw his mother, her kind eyes and gentle smile. Then his father, strong and steadfast. Their deaths played out before him—vivid, brutal, and unstoppable. He saw his friend, Luke, blood staining his clothes as he reached desperately toward the roses. The scene shifted to Arthur himself, Luke’s blood on his hands, the scene of Luke reaching for the roses with his last breath replaying in torturous detail.
These scenes played through his mind, reminding him of his own weakness. If he was stronger, he could have saved his parents... if he was stronger, he could have brought Luke back forcefully... without killing him.
The bitter truth settled into his dreaming mind: without power, he’ll never control anything. Without power, anything can be taken from him at a mont’s notice by sothing or soone with more power, and he can’t do anything about it.
Without power, he is nothing. And in the seven realms, the powerless do not survive.
Without power...
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