“Mother, please try to calm down, it is not that serious. Do you remember what the doctor said about stressing yourself out? It raises your blood pressure, take a seat, please.” She was growing more concerned by the second, beating herself up for telling her mother about her meeting with the king, she was far too sensitive for topics like these.

“How dare you say it is not serious? You refused a direct order from the emperor! Do you have any idea what that means for yourself, for us? We could lose everything! I refuse to be sent back up there!” With agitation clear in her voice and shifting from bright red to a ghostly white, she looked like she was about to faint, which only made Maeve’s concerns deepen.

“We are not going to lose anything, mother. And I did not refuse a direct order of the emperor. I merely stated that I did not agree with the methods that were suggested to me. I took an oath and I refuse to go against my word!” The seriousness in her voice was loud and clear.

That seemingly flew above her mother’s head though as she ignored it and continued talking “What good is an oath if you will lose your life respecting it!”

“We are not going to lose our lives!” She too began raising her tone at that moment.

“Being sent back to that hell hole might as well mean the same thing! Do you think the emperor rules over the five kingdoms because he requests things from people? If you are of no use to the empire you are tossed away like trash, the way we have been before.” Tears were incessantly streaming down her wrinkled face as she spoke “You, thankfully, did not live there long enough to remember, but I have lived in that vile place my entire life, The City Above is nothing but a big prison cell where we are sent be exploited and tortured until we rot!” her breathing became staggered “If not for the emperor then accept his request for your poor mother, I beg of you!” as if the last drop of energy has been poured into that last plea, her knees gave out, making gravity take it’s course.

Maeve caught her mother in an instant, saving her from an inevitable trip down to the hard mahogany flooring, and embraced her while she regulated her breathing. Seeing the strongest woman she had ever met in such a frail and vulnerable state shook her to the core. That woman has been through hell from the moment she was born, she was terrified by the thought of being sent right back there after everything she endured in order to get to where she was now. Although her departure from The City Above happened at a tender age, Maeve never forgot a moment from the time spent in that place, remembering how scared she felt as a little girl when the sun came up and numbness overtook her body, and how she felt stuck to the burning asphalt beneath the scorching sun. The image of the people around, unlucky bastards, not fast enough to find shelter when the first rays of sunlight appeared in the sky, who were suffering the same painful fate as her was forever engraved onto her heart.

It was quite understandable that people wanted the curse broken, to free themselves from the agonising chain of suffering. A common purpose that united the revolutionists. While their reasoning was easy to comprehend she had to agree with the eternian, breaking the curse would bring more bad rather than good. It would bring chaos and death as their kind has been learning to live with the curse for centuries, making it an integral part of their lifestyles. The rebellion must be stopped, but she refused to shed any blood.

She kissed her mother’s head while a defeated sigh escaped her lips and with a small smile she almost whispered “Ok Mom, I’ll hear them out…”

*

His eyes were closed as he relished in the pleasure of a soft pair of lips around his shaft. He fisted his hand in her hair, encouraging an up-and-down motion while he imagined a pair of beautiful eyes, that gleamed with the hue of precious jade, looking disobediently into his own. The pure eroticism of the forbidden image plastered unapologetically at the forefront of his brain made his member pulsate with pleasure. His hand started moving faster, almost approaching his release, the moans of the woman sitting on top of him lost to his ears.

A sudden knock on the door made him immediately open his eyes in panic and everything became still as it opened to reveal a pair of beautiful green orbs that stared blankly at him, with pupils glowing in the pitch darkness of the room.

“I was told I could find you in here. You seem preoccupied, should I come back another time?”

As the back of his neck turned various shades of red he sent her a seductive grin to cover up his embarrassment. “Not at all princess, would you like to join in?”

“This is a very inappropriate thing to do inside the royal palace. Have you no shame?” Her choice of words made him chuckle, and it turned the task of keeping his mouth shut seemingly impossible.

“You are right, where are my manners? I apologize, it was my mistake to not realize that you would much rather have me all to yourself, milady.” He turned to look at the pair of eyes watching their exchange in horror from above his member and gestured for her to leave. ”I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry darling, the lady requires a private audience.” When the door closed behind her the lights turned on exposing the pretty face of the girl he was sent to find in this dark soulless place, she stood there, almost expressionless in front of him, wearing a long form-fitting dress, dark saturated red with black lace on top of it and a black kimono that reached the floor overtop.

“I have no idea where your manners are, nor your common sense, if you have ever had one. Given the nature of your mission shouldn’t you be acting with caution?” With the right eyebrow raised and a look that seemed to be questioning his intelligence, she looked quite funny, enough to make him chuckle.

“I am assuring you, princess, I was being very cautious.” He smiled while covering himself with a black silk robe that had been previously discarded to the floor.

“Whoring around in the royal palace while being a guest of the king looks to me more like stupid and disrespectful rather than cautious. But I might be wrong, I am not very well-versed in your traditions.”

“You’re funny princess, I’ll give you that. My offer still stands, you know, you are so uptight, it might do you good to loosen up a bit” he was pushing his luck, but for some reason, he couldn’t refrain from opening his mouth.

“I suppose coming to see you was a mistake then. You can come find me after you look for your decency. I will not discuss the safety of our kingdoms while your privates are hanging out in the open.”

As she was turning on her heel to leave he shouted after her “How will I even find you? I can’t see shit outside this room.”

“You’re a big boy, you’ll figure it out” Those were her last words as the door closed behind her.

He threw himself onto the bed looking at the ceiling. He did make a fool of himself, which was not desirable, but at least things were starting to set in motion. She was rethinking it, as she should, she wouldn’t have come to see him otherwise. While getting on her nerves was particularly entertaining he had to talk to her seriously. His mission was not to make friends nor to earn anyone’s trust, his mission at the moment was to take the girl with him and get out of this place, it was so dark and depressing, no wonder people here were so uptight. Nictopians had an even worse reputation than his own people, given the nature of their affliction they did not mingle all that much with the other kingdoms, they lurked in the dark and weren’t all that friendly, barely even helping their own. It was a shame really, their intelligence network was so good it could rival that of Eternium, stealth was their forte- turning into shadows did help them in that department. As interesting as their society was, walking in the dark and being able to see only glowing eyes floating everywhere he looked instilled a profound sense of disquiet within him.

His mind drifted back to the girl, Maeve, a pretty name for a pretty face. From afar she seemed to be just that, a pretty princess, quite a bit spoiled and whiny, throwing a fit when things did not go her way. But she wasn’t just that, the king wouldn’t have recommended her to him when he came here to ask for his help if it weren’t the case, as this request came straight from the emperor and the revolutionists posed a threat that could potentially destroy his kingdom it was obvious that he was going to send forward only the greatest talent of Nyctopia. She was the best in her field, he was told she used to be the best asset their intelligence unit had seen in a very long time. She was quick, ruthless, and extremely effective. If that were the case, he needed her, which meant playing nice.

He finally decided to get dressed and go find the jade-eyed woman. After turning off the light Dominic pressed the button next to his bed and about a minute later the sound of the door opening could be heard and a pair of glowing eyes emerged from the darkness.

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“Please let the king know I am requesting an audience with him”

“Of course, sir. Is there anything else you need?”

“That is all, thank you! You may leave.”

*

The situation was solved fairly quickly, he was informed of her location at the Research Sanctum and someone was assigned to take him to that location, if it had been any other situation he would have tried to remember the road that the driver chose to take, but given that he couldn’t even see the vehicle that transported him to his destination all the information he could gather was that the road was fairly short, about ten or so minutes. Suddenly, the car came to a stop. He heard the door of the driver's seat open and close and then felt the one near his side open as well. Not being able to see anything he tried to carefully exit the car, managing to feel the ground beneath his feet Dominic felt confident enough to rise only to be met by a throbbing pain in his forehead followed by a barely audible chuckle.

“I heard that…!” he said, looking angrily toward the other man while rubbing his now-visible forehead bump. Of course, he was met with silence, the man hadn’t spoken as much as a word other than introducing himself when they met. “Very welcoming behaviour indeed…” He thought sarcastically.

The driver grabbed him by the arm and led him through what he assumed was a courtyard, given by the smell of flowers, then up a flight of stairs, a few doors and hallways and that is when he sensed another person approaching them, making them both stop walking.

“Lirael, good evening, is everything alright, are you here to pick up Lady Maeve?” the voice, which he assumed belonged to a woman said, and after that, her glowing blue eyes drifted to him for just a moment before going back to the man. “I see you brought a visitor with you.”

“Miss Sylvia, his majesty had me deliver this gentleman to her ladyship.” Dominic rolled his eyes “Deliver? What am I, some kind of package?” he thought.

“Oh my, I am terribly sorry, so unpolite of me. My name is Sylvia, keeper of this Sanctum. Please allow me to guide you to her, any guest of the king, and Lady Maeve is a guest of ours.”

Confusion hit him as a slim pair of arms took hold of his own, slowly leading him forward. The smell of a strong fragrance hit his nostrils like a punch in the face, it wouldn’t have been unpleasant if it weren’t for the unwanted closeness, even so, everything in this place seemed to be more fragrant than the smells of the normal world. If you could even call everything upstairs normal.

In no time, a door opened again and after what felt like an eternity he seemed to have arrived at his desired destination as he felt the woman finally exit his personal space and address somebody else.

“Milady, I am sorry for the disturbance of your studies, but there is a gentleman here who requests your audience.” He almost laughed at the sudden shift in the woman’s tone.

“Thank you, Sylvia. You can let him in. Please turn the lights on before you exit.”

“Of course your ladyship.”

It took him a few seconds to adjust his eyes to the newfound source of light, but he could finally see where he was. A sight to behold indeed. Each wall was covered in bookshelves, ornated beautifully in the Gothic style that represented Nyctopia, massive chandeliers dressed in crystals that seemed to have been now turned on in what seemed like an eternity, merely serving as decorations for most of the time, black mahogany flooring, and rows upon rows of bookshelves as if the ones covering the walls weren’t enough already. This place was a bookworm’s dream to put it lightly.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare?” Maeve asked stoically.

“This is quite the impressive little library you have here princess. Didn’t take you for a nerd.”

“I didn’t take you for a whore either when we met. I guess looks can be awfully deceiving.” He deserved that, she was witty, and he liked it.

“Auch, you wound me, princess. And here I was, thinking you missed me.”

“If you are here to waste my time the door is right behind you. I am quite busy.”

“Ok, listen, princess, we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. How about we start over?” He said, smiling coyly at her, reminding himself yet again that in order to convince her to help him he had to play nice.

There was a moment of silence before she started to speak again “I suppose it can not be helped.” She gestured to the chair in front of the massive desk where she was currently sitting. It looked quite a bit messy with stacks of books and papers everywhere, a big mug with some dark liquid inside that he assumed was probably tea, many quills and inkwells, and a blanket, thrown messily at the end of the bench she sat on. In a weird sort of way, it felt cozy, and comfortable, giving off the feeling that she spent most of her time in that room. “Sit.”

“Sit? What was he, a dog? The nerve this woman had was unbelievable!” He thought to himself, highly debating if he should put up with all of this or just get up and leave to find a replacement for her. Nonetheless, he sat down in front of her. Deciding to go against his better judgment.

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” She asked, shifting the tone of her voice to a more welcoming one that somehow managed to send a disturbing chill down his spine. She didn’t seem to particularly want him to respond though as her hand reached for the teapot to pour him a cup anyway. “Sugar?” Not totally understanding what was going on he nodded his head. She pushed the cup towards him, took a sip from her own mug, and started talking again looking straight into his eyes “You must excuse my impoliteness from the day before. I will start by apologizing for my rude departure from our first meeting, and I hope you would be willing to tell me your story, without interruptions on my part again.”

“Don’t worry princess, I suppose you could say I wasn’t so chivalrous with you either.” Dominic said in the friendliest voice he could muster “To keep it concise, there’s a group of people out there who wish to break the curse that has been cast upon us. You and I both know that breaking the curse will mean the destruction of society as we know it. The emperor has sent me to gather a handful of trustworthy and capable people who could help settle this matter as quietly as possible.”

“As quietly as possible meaning that they are a small group of people that could be silenced quietly. And by silencing you mean killing and potentially capturing one or two for interrogation purposes. Is that correct?” she asked raising one brow.

“If you want to get technical about it, sure. That’s about the gist of it.”

“And how do you know about this group of people exactly, I highly doubt the emperor himself would send you on this type of mission based on such little information. Many have tried and failed over the years and it has never gathered so much attention. If you want my help you’ll have to tell me more than just that, I don’t recall asking you to be concise.” For some odd reason, the seriousness in her tone uneased him and made it very difficult to not listen. It felt as though the big library they found themselves in was getting smaller and smaller, making it even a bit difficult to breathe. This feeling of anxiety he was getting was very strange yet extremely familiar to him.

“Ok princess, you want the truth, but you might not like it.”

“As is often the case in situations like these. Don’t sugarcoat it, I can handle more than you think.”

He sighed and kept on talking, debating on how much he could actually tell this girl, it was not yet the time to tell her everything. “I do not know if you are familiar with the type of affliction me and my people have.”

“I am quite familiar with it.” It was his turn to raise his brow questioningly, that is one piece of information he did not expect to hear “You don’t seem that familiar with my line of work either. Please, go on.”

“Anyways, I was on a search mission to find someone, and things didn’t go as planned. The details are a bit hazy as they usually are whenever we travel through time like this, but I ended up in a place of ruin. Death everywhere, the few I have seen alive were suffering even more than they are now. It is an image that will be forever engraved in my memory, I have no desire to live in a future like that, and let me tell you, that future is closer to us than we think.” A shiver ran down his spine while remembering the sight he witnessed. Looking up to swallow and gather his thoughts he continued speaking “There was a group of people, what I could only classify as some kind of cult, wreaking havoc everywhere. The curse was broken and they were taking everything from everyone, money, property, lives, everything they felt that they had been robbed of. It’s not as easy as sparing the lives of those people, there is a war coming, and a little bit of blood spilled is a small price to pay in order to save millions.”

Maeve stared at him, not knowing exactly how to phrase what she wanted to say next. She could tell Dominic was being truthful this time around, at least to some extent, yet she had a gut feeling that was telling her only some parts of the truth, which bothered her, but could understand to some extent. They didn’t know each other, it was only natural for them to not trust one another.

“I will have to disagree with you again. What makes you think rehabilitation is not a viable option? You said it yourself. They were taking money and property. That is because they are oppressed, they have never known what it feels like to feel safe and somewhat normal, and breaking the curse is in their minds the only option.” She was talking faster now, growing more upset by the second. “How about, instead of taking lives we try to find a way to make their lives better so an uprising doesn’t need to happen.”

“How do you rehabilitate someone who has lived in fear their entire lives? Princess, what you are thinking is nonsensical at best. You wish for a form of utopian society that is never going to exist. People don’t just up and change their ideologies when a pretty face asks them nicely to do it. A member of a high society such as yourself will never understand how the real world works. It’s really easy to think of peaceful solutions when you haven’t known the violence of humanity and the cruelty of fate, I would too, if I spent most of my time in a cozy library like this one. You’re a fucking hypocrite, you know that. No war is won without sacrifices.” So playing nice was out the window now, God how she got on his nerves.

She gracefully got up from her place on the bench, reached into what he could only assume was a drawer of sorts pulled a pair of funny-looking glasses threw them at him, and in the calmest voice he had ever heard she said “I am not about to argue with you about the morality of your choices, nor am I going to try and convince you that my approach is better than yours. But the truth is that you are getting worked up for no reason and pulling words out of your ass without knowing anything about what you are talking about. Put those on and follow me, maybe you will finally understand something about my motives.”

“What are these? Where do you want to take me?” he questioned suspiciously.

“Those are for you to see where you are going. I’m not about to hold your hand while walking, you can manage on your own. You’re a man that has seen many after all.” She said while walking away from him and towards the door.

“Really? You’ve had these this whole time and still left me walking in the dark? I am quite offended by that princess.” The nerve these people had, they had the means, but still chose to let him suffer. “You still haven’t told me where we are going.”

“Oh, but I thought it was quite obvious. I am going to show you what Nyctopia really means.”