The conversation with Fiona had disturbed the prince. After telling me I was to remain in his sight, he’d gone utterly silent, and it felt as though we were mindlessly wandering the empty halls of the Underneath. His emotions were in turmoil, unreadable to me, especially when I had no intention to pry further than what lingered on the surface.

No direction we took made any sense. The corridors were endless, each door revealing dozens more of them. We’d gone left for several turns, then right for a longer period of time, then left again. Cobwebs danced in the corners in our wake, settled dust rising once more to clutter the air. It was suffocating down here, and the orange glow of the torch did little to ease me.

Were they going to act like nothing had happened? More likely, they expected me not to notice. But I was keeping track of every movement, emotion, and word. How they’d seen in the dark without light, elves and ithanae glass, what I’d seen in Lorelis’ soul, the return of my would-be killer, and everything that had happened since then. I committed it to memory, churning it over in my mind while I followed the prince.

I was trying to piece things together when Lorelis abruptly stopped, placing one hand against the wall. I’d nearly smacked into him, and I didn’t imagine him being too forgiving on that. The prince continued his silence, and so did the soldiers ever looming behind us. We stayed like this for an uncomfortable stretch of time, almost enough to make me ask him if he was alright.

The wall began to rumble and groan, as if it was giving a deep-bellied protest. Silt rained from above, streaking down on us in clumps. To my bewilderment, the wall Lorelis touched began to split, pulling itself apart. It moved slowly, like a long forgotten muscle. At last, when the silt stopped, so did the wall.

Revealed now was a staircase, leading up towards another solid wall of stone. The wall that had opened had framed itself into a neat archway, the horizontal stones now slanted to give the top a sharp peak. It was unreal, and I fought with myself to keep my expression schooled, and my tongue still.

The prince dropped his arm, removing his hand from the wall. Everything shook again, though it was faster this time, mirroring the entryway with the same acute arch. “It’s the glass you should fear, pure-blood, not the stone,” Lorelis muttered without looking at me. He began up the steps, and the shuffling metal feet behind me gave me no choice but to follow.

I assumed he was talking about the ithanae glass, whatever that was. “I don’t believe you’re leading me towards death, Prince Lorelis, so where are you taking me?” While he despised me, not for a moment did I think he’d implicate his father by killing me.

I couldn’t help but to look at the newly formed stone as we climbed the stairs. My list of questions for Galan grew by the minute, and I almost worried I’d forget them if I never got to voice them.

“You claim to have lost most of your memory. I’m curious to know, do you remember your life before?” His question caught me off guard. It felt sincere in an odd way- he truly did want to know, and it wasn’t out of malice. As far as I could tell.

“Some of it,” I lied. I remembered everything, and I hated that fact. I’d forgotten at first, and stupidly, I’d wanted to remember it. Just like my emotions. “Why do you ask?”

“I want to know about Reddon. What your days looked like, how it felt to have the God of Death, Ascelin, on your doorstep.” We’d crested the top, the soldiers at my heels with louder, more excited steps. The room it spit us out into was a large, square room with no windows. The only light was a lone, dimly burning torn jutting from the wall from its metal holding.

“Reddon is a small village, with less people than you could likely imagine, when you’re living here.” I’d decided to be truthful here, but careful in what I shared. I doubted he was actually clueless when it came to Reddon and its inhabitants. “Half is built from the old wood forest, the other from mountain stone.” A brief smile found me when I thought of my home, but it vanished when I remembered I’d never see it again.

Lorelis hummed in thought, mulling over the information I’d given him. This room seemed to be our destination, and I was more than lost. I couldn’t recount how I’d gotten here, and from the rumbling behind me, the way back was already gone. “And your days? What did you do there, as the last of your line?”

His curiosity took me by surprise. From what I could gather from his emotions, he was only asking to know. Currently, he would do nothing with what I gave him, but I could not trust his futures after seeing them. Far too many had been wicked, cruel leaders and heavy-handed love for the ones close to him. He was not a good man in those futures, and I wasn’t sure if I could call him one now.

“I don’t quite remember.” I didn’t know what the favored did or didn’t do during their days. Mine were spent in fields with a sickle in hand and baskets over my shoulders, weighing me down. “I tried to continue my line, but it wasn’t meant to be,” I said, nearly choking on my words. It was true, I was never meant to have that child.

“You’re truly the last of the Aevennar line then?” His question wasn’t prying, but it raised my alarm nonetheless. Perhaps I’d said too much, and saying that I was the last of my name wasn’t a good idea.

“In a way, yes,” I said, attempting to save myself. “I have plenty that I am related to- different branches of the family, you could say. But they all have taken new names, save for me.”

“An unfortunate story,” Lorelis murmured, crossing the room with his back to me. Through the dark, just out of reach of the torch’s glow, I spotted a door, tall and imposing. “I almost pity it.”

“Where are we?” I asked him again, examining the room we were in. It was bare of furniture or decoration, though I could tell it was used. It felt like an entryway, and whatever was beyond the door gave me an uncomfortable feeling.

“Nowhere your special Hound cannot find you,” Lorelis quipped, pushing open the imposing door. On the other side was a long hallway, with large, elongated windows. Light poured in with eagerness, reaching nearly to where I stood. My heart sped faster, and I took a step away, slinking back into the dark. Was he actually trying to kill me? “Send word to my brother,” he commanded the men waiting near where the stairs had been.

Without saying anything amongst themselves, one of them departed, striding past Lorelis and out into the bright hallway. The other remained where he was, still as a statue. I wasn’t sure he was breathing, and I had yet to see any of the soldiers without their shining helmets.

“You traveled here in the sunlight, did you not?” Lorelis asked me casually, leaning back against the wall, settling into a position that told me we would be here for a while.

“I did so in weak light and shrouded in thick clothes.” I wouldn’t mention that I’d also touched sunlight bare, but I was confused once more. I knew vampyrs could not touch the sun, but did that mean pure-bloods could?

“Any amount of toleration for the sun is a wanted trait in your kind,” he praised me, only deepening my unease. What did he intend to do with this information? Seeing through Lorelis had been an unintentional, but enlightening experience. I’d seen bits of how his world worked, how he was raised, and without doubt, he was not someone I could trust. Even now, when he had yet to commit the horrors I’d seen in him. I wondered if this ability was something other pure-bloods possessed, one of the unnatural abilities Galan had spoken of. “Have you tested your limits yet?” He posed the question as though I was a child.

“I have not,” I admitted, now afraid of what he’d ask next. I eyed the space between us, feeling backed into a corner. I had nowhere to go, besides forward into the light. Little shadow remained to hide me from it. Galan hadn’t been able to share what I was, and for that I was scared of what I could and couldn’t do. What if stepping into that light was my end? I’d chosen to fight for myself, and this was my first challenge.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Come forward, Claudia,” he called, surprisingly using my name, not pure-blood. “Though it is real sunlight, this glass is not enchanted, ithanae.” The light coming from the windows was the soft, pale light of morning, a waking sun. It called to me like wind in grass, and I longed to feel its touch as I once had. The longer I stared, the more I wanted to go to it, even if it pained or killed me. I wanted to know if I could, and that desire made me come forward, daring to edge around where it touched. “If it soothes you to know, this cannot kill you. To walk in the day is an ability, no matter if it’s weak or strong light. If you can only handle weak lighting as you say, this will burn you, but it will not bring you death.”

“How do you know?” I asked him, eyeing my footing. I stood pin straight, right on the line where dark and light touched. If I moved even a fraction, I would cross that line. When he didn’t answer, my eyes flicked up to his face, only to find him smiling. It wasn’t a kind smile, but neither was it cruel. It was born from fondness, a memory he held and was thinking of now. I didn’t want to think about whatever was on his mind.

“Entertain me,” he said. “Come into the light and we shall discover your capabilities.” It was enticing, and foolishly, I inched a foot past the line. As my shoe came into the light, I nearly cowered back in the expectancy of flame, yet nothing happened. Admittedly foolish of me, I stepped even further into the light, watching as it raised up my leg to touch the bare skin of my hand.

It didn’t burn me, even as I came fully into it, allowing myself to be consumed by it. Lorelis broke into a laugh, cackling with an odd sense of glee as he watched me. Looking at myself, it appeared as though the light was reflecting off of me, making my skin glow with the white hue of light. “It has been a long time since we last saw one of you stand in full light,” he said, almost as if he was in awe of me.

“This is not common?” My question came out before I could think about what I was asking him. It revealed once again that I knew nothing, and I was close to dropping the facade. I’d thought I could lie my way through Lorelis, but somehow, I’d fallen trap to my own naivety.

“Many possess the ability to stand in diluted sunlight, but this has not occurred in many years. Longer than half of your bloodline.” His answer chilled me, and I found myself wishing Galan could magically appear and save me from this situation. “You may not interest my father, though I believe that will change, you caught my intrigue, Claudia.”

I was beginning to catch his implication, and I didn’t like it. “You cannot make me stay here, Prince Lorelis. You have no right to me, and I am not one of your subjects.”

“That can change,” he said through a smile. “Day-walker or not, your ability to read a soul is valuable enough to make you important anywhere. Surely you know this, otherwise you would not have revealed it to me.”

It’d been a mistake, and now more so. The reality dawned on me that Lorelis’ word, just as much as Fiona’s, could entirely change my fate within the wall of Lonest. “It was not intentional, I assure you. I am young, as we’ve established. My ability is new to me, and I promise it will not happen again.”

“No?” Lorelis laughed again, removing himself from the wall. Though he stood far away enough, he was too close for comfort. My nerves had me pushing beyond the surface of him, reading what lurked underneath his perfected shell. He wanted to use me for something, but the sudden bite of his dark emotions had me pulling away instantly. “And if I want you to do it again?”

My throat tightened, and it was growing harder to keep from peering into him more. The temptation to see into him and know was overwhelming. Earlier, he’d threatened me after accidentally using my new ability on him. “What are you asking of me?” The rise of my panic brought back the familiar tension within my body- the feeling that I no longer inhabited this body alone. I was growing more confident with its presence, like a comfort to mentally sink into.

“Varyl’ni,” he said, and surprisingly, I recognized the word. Not what it meant, but I’d heard it in my dream. I shuddered at the memory of it and the eons of whispered words and ever changing voices, and still I understood none of it. Were the answers in front of me now, or was there more yet to uncover? “Use your ability for me, and I will spare you from my father.”

My salvation came in the form of Lothaire, now without his golden armor. He was dressed as finely as his younger brother, but Lorelis looked ruffled in comparison. Lothaire’s eyes were on me before Lorelis, but they narrowed when they came back to me. “What’s going on?” He asked, a mix of caution and anger written in his features. He’d been interrupted by his brother’s messenger, and I didn’t need to dig to know that. The older prince was irritated, and in a hurry based on his quickened footsteps.

The light framed him with a glowing aura, crowning at his head in a halo of white. With him standing in the light, it casted a new shadow over where I stood, and I was swallowed once more into the dark. “We have a day-walker and a soul-reader,” Lorelis said with a brief nod to me. He looked expectantly to his older brother, as if waiting for praise. I got the sense that Lothaire had been more of a father to him than Mirin.

“And what do you expect me to do with this information? She is a guest, not a toy Lorelis,” Lothaire said while turning to his brother. While the side of his face was lost to shadow, I saw his anger clearly. Lorelis’ temper began to grow to match his brother’s, his features settling into a disappointed frown.

“You cannot think of any use for a soul-reader, Lothaire?” Lorelis matched the tone his brother had given him. Lothaire’s eyes flicked to me, as if reconsidering for a small moment. “I’m sure father could, if you cannot.”

“Why tell me and not father, then?” Lothaire pushed, coming to stand over his brother. Though close in height, Lothaire was just more than Lorelis, in the way that Galan was more than any of them. “You are losing yourself in this idea,” Lothaire hissed lowly, but it wasn’t quiet enough for me to miss it. “Leave it alone.”

“You’re becoming just like him,” Lorelis spat, physically pushing his brother away. I began to move away, feeling like I should not be witness to this moment. “You stay put, Claudia,” the young prince said.

“It’s not about becoming him, Lorelis. I do what I do because he will not.” Lothaire’s anger had fled, replaced by a deep guilt. In some fashion, Lothaire believed his brother. “If you cannot see the difference, I don’t think anything I can say will change your mind.”

“Nothing has changed! I am actively doing something unlike you,” Lorelis shouted at him, his facing turning redder than it had with Fiona. “I am making a difference,” he said, a fist tapping against his chest. “While you are prancing around doing father’s bidding.”

This was far too intimate a scene for me to bear witness to. The argument between them stemmed deeper than me; I was only a catalyst to bring them at odds. “If I may,” I butted in, quite awkwardly. “It was an accident. I did not mean to use my ability on anyone.”

Neither of them turned to acknowledge me. It was as if I hadn’t spoken, agitating the thing inside me. “You’re doing something?” Lothaire scoffed, pacing away from his brother. “You think openly defying him and undermining his authority is doing anyone any good? Change starts from within, Lorelis. You claim I am no different from him, but it is you that shares his coin. You may have opposing beliefs, but you resort to the same tactics and scheming.”

Lothaire’s guilt swarmed him, and it was strong enough to give me a taste of its bitter sting. Shame clouded him, and he felt he wasn’t what he should be in this moment. I tried to pull away from his emotions, but they were overpowering. They came to me without my seeking, and I could not push them away. “I’m tired, Lorelis,” he continued with a sigh. “I cannot be in two places at once. I know that I’ve focused on father more than you, and I see now what a problem that has become. In my absence, you’ve looked to his example. I’m sorry,” Lothaire murmured softly.

“And I am sorry you do not see how wrong you are, brother,” Lorelis spat. Lothaire’s expression fell, and I felt his defeat in a powerful wave of sadness. In his eyes, he’d lost his brother, and he now gazed upon a stranger. “I don’t need your help. She can be the tool we need to bring change.”

“A day walking varyl’neer?” Lothaire asked in disbelief, a hand rising to rub his forehead. “You’re reaching too far, I’m afraid. You also have no control over her, and cannot command her to do anything for you that she does not willingly consent to.”

Lorelis sneered at his older counterpart. “So you say. I’m sure I can find reason or two enough to extend her stay, or the Hound’s if need be.”

“I will put just as much effort into getting them out of our home, then. Return her to the Underneath, Lorelis. Their meeting will be ending soon, and I have no wish to lose any lives today if he finds out you have taken her elsewhere.” As Lothaire spoke, he was already turning away, eager to return to what he had been doing before. “We will discuss this later, without an audience.”