“And how did you come around here?” Akhalia asked Crieff, turning her full attention to him for the first time. He noticed that her eyes were the darkest brown swirled with deep, black ink.

“I found Gerald at the Ordinary Brotherhood,” he managed, hoping that he wasn’t fidgeting, “and then we traveled here to tell you about how the structure is collapsing.” Close enough to the truth. But then to explain the full story and how he had met Ardie on his mission to kidnap Akhalia? It was too risky.

 Why am I here? he almost screamed at himself. Why did I even decide to go with Gruff in the first place?

Crieff tried to trace back to the very beginning.

He had been the befuddled apprentice of Gruff. It was he who had snatched the circlet from the Forest Witch, too blinded by a new want for power to think about the consequences. He had found himself hesitating more and more often as they got closer and closer to their destination. He had thought himself too soft-hearted to be in Gruff’s company.

But now, looking into the cheerful, unknowing eyes at the very queen he had tried to do harm to, he felt that he must be a monster.

Thankfully, the queen accepted the answer with a mere nod and bridged directly into a new topic.

“I suppose I should give you a tour of the palace?” Akhalia said. She rose from her seat, her dark crimson dress trailing after her, and beckoned for her guests and Xavier before stepping into a long corridor.

Ardie trailed directly behind, far too caught up in déjà vu and memories to notice the rest of the group. Laughter echoed, skidding off of the delicate vases and oil paintings as the two of them reminisced and chattered.

Gerald and Xavier hurriedly ran after them, but Crieff lagged behind.

Ardie circled back for him while Gerald was informing Akhalia and Xavier on various weaknesses of the Ordinary Brotherhood. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she whispered, glancing at Crieff. She was clearly concerned why her friend was acting so strange. “Do you need to rest?”

“Yes, it’s very beautiful,” he answered, lowering his eyes. He couldn’t tell her why he was uncomfortable. “It’s very elegant and refined.”

“Thank you!” Akhalia said graciously, the dark ink in her eyes glittering with a gold tint. It was clear that she did not suspect him. Yet. She tugged open a door. “And these are the gardens…”

Crieff followed reluctantly into the long lanes of roses and marble statues that all seemed to despise him, scowling at him with their dark hollows of eyes.

He studied a statue of a smiling fire elemental with her hand poised in midair as if she was creating fire, the only statue that seemed to have warmth in its eye, rather than a dark hollow. With the sun wrapping it in radiant light, the statue looked like gold. Pure gold, in fact. Ardie, he realized.

And then all of the sudden, it all came flooding back. That firelit night, the day after Ardie had left. The warm glow of the fire.

I woke up one night, and she was sitting at in the window seat…She told me she had had a terrible dream about a woman in a dark forest, and two men who spoke to her. She said the woman was angry, because the men had taken something precious of hers. Anyway, rather than having them return it, she told them to kidnap the queen, and they agreed, and that was when she woke up.

He had been wrong.

The queen was simply being civil. She knew perfectly well who he was and what he had done.

His heart shaking his entire soul with every beat, he fled, over the garden wall and into the wilderness.

***

After about–13 days?! Sorry this took so long–I finally got over my writer’s block and figured out how to build on material and information we already had, instead of creating more. Thank you, Hex, for writing that part about Akhalia’s “awareness of the world”! I wouldn’t have been able to end this part without it.

Tag: @Artemis

I'm here.

@Everyone who has not posted yet, please post if you're still interested in participating in the Tag Game and will check this thread at least once a week to see if you were tagged, or would like to join. Right now there are only three people who have responded, including myself. I'm not sure if there are enough people to play.