Kiana Albion and Niniane led the party down a long stretch of connecting pavilions. How long they went on, Sorrel wasn’t sure. But after what seemed like hours of walking across golden bridges and strangely-green turf, as the light started to change through the depths of the water from moonlight to sunlight, they came across the largest pavilion yet.
Looming over them was a structure that resembled a cross between a temple and a palace, with many columns and a large staircase leading to the great front doors, with towers emerging from the initial structure.
“The doors to Castle Arcadia have been sealed for so long,” Kiana murmured as they ascended the stairs. “I’ve wondered for so long, what secrets the House of Ondrina left inside and why they left them for us.”
Niniane stepped ahead of the party to greet the large stone door with an ornate knocker shaped like a dragon’s head. However, the dragon’s mouth was open, in the perfect shape of an ‘O.’ Her slender brown fingers brushed over the knocker. Her face was stoic, but her golden eyes betrayed an uncertainty.
“There’s ancient magic here, but I am. . . unsure, of how to pull at its threads,” Niniane admitted. “This is unlike any weave I’ve ever seen before.”
“Weave?” Sorrel turned to Kiana.
“There are many different schools of magic.” Kiana did not look away from Niniane as she spoke. “I’ve taken elements from some other styles—“
“You mean the hag’s school,” Delphine interrupted.
“Yes, but I have also been trying to revive the styles once practiced by my people.” Kiana folded her arms over her chest. “Much was lost when the Society of Worlds came. We lost touch with our magics. But luckily, my mentor has been able to provide some insight into how the ancients of our people practiced magic.”
“And weaving is a part of it?” Sorrel thought of her brief brush with magic, with how Coppelius did it. They did not sound entirely the same.
“Yes, it’s one of the ways in which we can understand the intricacies of the spell-work.” Kiana tilted her head. “The main way in which we do spells, however—or did—is through the tides, the flow of water.”
She finally looked away from Sorrel. “I believe I’ve said before that you have great magical potential, a potential that can be honed through that blade of yours. I’d be happy to take you on as another of my pupils.”
“Maybe someday.” Sorrel looked back to Niniane and the door. “I know Coppelius planned on teaching me too.”
Kiana laughed. “You’ll pick up a few of our tricks, while we’re here.”
“I can’t get it.” Niniane let out a grunt of frustration. “We’ll have to find another way in. They wanted this place protected.”
“No we won’t.”
Everyone turned to see Delphine, with a strange and dreamy expression. She walked forward as if in a trance, lifting a sea-green crystal into the mouth of the dragon knocker.
Upon making contact with the ancient stone, the crystal shined so bright that Sorrel was forced to raise a hand to her eyes, and still the light shone through the cracks so brightly she had to shut her eyes and turn away.
There was a loud rumbling, and the light was everywhere.
Then when it was gone and Sorrel could see again, the great stone doors had given way to a large open corridor. Lanterns ignited one by one down the sides of the corridor, each an eerie turquoise blue, bathing the corridor in just enough light to see, to tinge the stone blue and green.
“An Ondrina,” Niniane murmured. “They needed one of their own to even use the key.”
Kiana looked to Delphine. “After you, then.”
The castle was strangely barren, consisting only of identical corridors with turquoise lanterns and dark pillars with a roof made of stained glass revealing some of the faint light from above. Not that it made any sense, as Sorrel recalled that the roof of the castle from outside was made of stone.
What was perhaps the most bizarre were the fish. Floating in the air around them were schools of shimmering fish, who went about their business with no care as to the visitors to Castle Arcadia and despite there being no water inside the castle’s halls.
At first upon entry, Delphine confidently marched through the halls, taking charge of the party. Who were happy to let her lead, given the situation with the door. Sorrel thought it reasonable, the idea that maybe only an Ondrina could navigate the the castle and find the artifact.
And yet with each turn, Delphine’s shoulders slumped, each step grew more hesitant, her eyes began to flick about.
Finally, she came to a stop. “I thought—I thought I’d be able to tell where the door is. But I don’t see any.”
“It’s not your fault.” Gwynn placed a reassuring hand on Delphine’s shoulder. “It’s strange that there aren’t any doors anywhere, or that we haven’t circled back to the entrance.”
“That’s because this place won’t obey the rules of reality, we’re beyond those limits now.” Kiana looked around. “The Ondrinas were the most powerful sorcerers this star has ever seen. There were legends that they were gods, even. It makes sense that they would have made these castles strongholds beyond the likes of anything we’ve ever seen.”
“And their enemy was coming from within the house, so it wouldn’t be so easy as having Ondrina blood on the excavation team,” Niniane added. “No, I’d bet there’s a trick to this.”
Over her shoulder—there it was again. One of the shimmering fish of entirely silver and gold, it was by itself, no school surrounding it. This wasn’t the first time that Sorrel had seen it, she realized.
It wasn’t always going in their direction, but it seemed to find them all the same. Seeing as there were no others that looked quite like it, she wasn’t sure that could be chalked up to finding more of its kind in these halls.
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“I have an idea,” she announced. “Follow me.”
Perhaps because there were no other ideas, they did follow her as she followed the shimmering silver-and-gold fish. It only took a few turns before they came to a door, plain as day. The fish circled the handle, and then vanished entirely.
“How did we miss this?” Sorrel wondered aloud as she reached for the handle, shaped like a long dragon like a sea serpent. “It’s so obvious, especially since there aren’t any other doors around or anything.”
“We wouldn’t have found it on our own.” Kiana shook her head. “Still. . . you have good eyes.”
“Thanks.” With that, Sorrel opened the door to be bathed in pearlescent light.
The interior was unlike the dark and crumbling stone around them, instead looking like Sorrel might have hoped it did in its heyday. The floors and columns looked to be made of pearl, reflecting the warm rainbow iridescence of the crystals on the ceiling. Still, the room was just as barren as the corridors before them—or perhaps moreso. After all, there were no floating fish inside.
They were even giving the door a wide berth, as if they were not supposed to be there.
At the very end of the room was a pool, with water so dark it almost looked black, the water completely still.
“I don’t like this,” Kiana declared as she approached the water. She knelt down in front of it and her hands hovered over it. “I sense that this is likely the way to progress. . . but. . . “
“It doesn’t exactly look healthy.” Gwynn wrinkled her nose.
Sorrel eyed the water with some hesitance, gripping the hilt of the crystal sword tighter. There was something sinister about it—but Coppelius crumpling to the ground remained in her mind’s eye.
She bit her lip. She couldn’t let him down. There was a ticking clock, for how she and the others seemed to keep forgetting it.
If he died, all hope for the star system died with him. She would have no idea how to find his father, to coax him out and finish the fight.
Did his father know, how close his son lay to the grave?
It was as likely as her own mother would know.
Warmth rose to Sorrel’s cheeks, unbidden. She didn’t want to think of her mother, of how both of Celine’s daughters now were tied up in the war as old as the stars. She’d promised her mother that she would come back, that she would return when Valiant couldn’t.
There were many promises to keep. But she would keep all of them.
So without another word, Sorrel stepped into the water.
It was as if the world itself had been turned all around. When Sorrel stepped into the water, she sank down only to be righted again as she ended up on solid ground once more. Well, not quite.
She was in a room made entirely of mirrors, with a flat marble-like surface for the floor, covered in a thin layer of water.
She turned around to see where she’d come from, but there was no entrance or exit. Sorrel frowned and re-examined her surroundings.
There had been a trick to the door, and then a trick to finding the vault for the artifact in the first place. Surely there would be another trick now.
Before Sorrel could contemplate that any further, she heard a splash and turned to see Gwynn stumble forward. Sorrel caught her sister by her forearms before she could fall onto the floor.
“Thank the stars,” Gwynn murmured as their eyes met. “The rest of them, they were arguing about whether to go in after you or not—I couldn’t stand to wait when you might’ve been in trouble.”
“I’m okay,” she assured her as she let go of her sister. “I can’t figure out where the artifact is though—or how to get back out of here.”
“We’ll figure it out, together.” Gwynn took her hand and squeezed us. “It’s like it’s supposed to be, you and me.”
“Right.” Sorrel smiled, only for it to falter. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all of this by Versailles. You shouldn’t have to pay for my choices. I know you’d rather be safe with Maman while all this happens.”
“No.” Gwynn shook her head. “I regretted not going with you.”
She then smiled. “We’re a team, you and I. That’s not changing any time soon.”
“But what about Maman?” Sorrel thought of that final encounter, the last promise she made.
Gwynn opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted.
“Indeed, what about Maman?”
Before, the reflections in the mirrors on the walls were blurry, the features lacking clarity. Now, having spoken, Sorrel’s reflection on the opposite wall was clearer, and pressing her pale hand against the looking-glass.
“You left your poor Maman, just as your father did,” the reflection continued, a sinister gleam in her dark eyes. “Just to run off and play hero for a boy you just met.”
“It’s not like that.” Sorrel shook her head, and made to approach the reflection, but Gwynn shook her head and squeezed her hand.
Sorrel wasn’t entirely sure what her sister had meant by that. But ultimately, if there was anyone in the whole universe she trusted, it had to be her twin sister.
“Are you sure?” The reflection smirked as her hand went through the glass and into the room.
In spite of herself and Gwynn beside her, Sorrel flinched and stepped back.
“What are you?” She managed to spit out.
To her credit, Gwynn held tight, even though Sorrel was certain her sister was just as afraid as she was. If not more. Probably more.
“I’m what you see in the mirror, silly.” Sorrel winced as the reflection laughed. “Don’t like what you see?”
It was then that Gwynn’s reflection stepped forward. And she did not do so as slowly as Sorrel’s. Instead, she came right through the glass, entering the room entirely.
“If only you were more selfish, or maybe less,” Gwynn’s reflection lamented. “Poor you, caught between duty and desire, but not brave enough to commit to either.”
“That’s not true!” Sorrel let go of Gwynn’s hand and stepped in front, to shield her. “My sister is braver than you could ever be! All you are—all either of you are are just a voice, just a reflection!”
“Are you so sure about that?” Sorrel’s reflection stepped out to join Gwynn’s dark reflection.
Sorrel gripped the hilt of the crystalline blade tighter and widened her stance. She tried to remember what she’d seen in movies and such, but it was all evading her, flying out of her head like a flock of birds.
The reflections separated and began to circle the sisters. Sorrel wasn’t sure what either would do, or when they would strike. But she knew that Gwynn was defenseless, and she needed to protect her.
“You left your mother behind because you fell in love with a man you just met,” her sinister reflection sang as she passed behind Sorrel. “What a frivolous, flighty thing to do! What a stupid thing to do!”
“What a coward, unable to make a real decision,” Gwynn’s dark reflection sneered as she passed in front of Sorrel. “Unable to tell the truth, what she really thinks!”
“Leave her alone!” Sorrel couldn’t hold back any further. She then rushed at the doppelgänger with her sword.
The doppelgänger conjured a sword that looked to be made of jet-black glass. It materialized in her hands just in time for Sorrel’s crystal blade to make impact.
She stepped back and looked over her shoulder to see her own reflection rushing for Gwynn.
“Duck!” Sorrel shouted.
Gwynn dropped to the water and Sorrel swung over her head, meeting her doppelgänger’s own black mirror-blade. The impact of the strike forced the doppelgänger back, and she had just enough wherewithal to swing back and prevent her sister’s dark reflection from slicing at her.
“It’s not true, anything you say,” Sorrel realized aloud, and she put all of her might down on the blade. It flew out of Gwynn’s doppelgänger’s hands, and the doppelgänger’s dark eyes went wide.
It was enough to make her hesitate.
But her true twin’s scream brought her back to life, just in time to whirl back around and meet her own reflection once more.
She could not so easily push back or break the clash of blades, Sorrel realized after a few moments of infinity, of a stalemate, one that she could not afford with the other reflection.
“You’re not what I see,” Sorrel realized. “You’re something else—doubt.”
The reflection smiled. Not the sinister smirk of before. A genuine smile that looked just like Sorrel’s own.
Then the dark reflections sank into the water on the floor, returning to being merely reflections. Nothing more.
All that was left to prove they’d ever been there was the black mirror-blade that Sorrel had disarmed her sister’s doppelgänger from using.
The real Gwynn snatched it up and got to her feet. As she joined Sorrel’s side, the room shook and rumbled, and the walls parted ways to reveal a passage forward, to a staircase.
“I guess this is our next stop.” Sorrel glanced around her. “And I guess we aren’t getting back-up.”
“It’s you and me then, just like it’s supposed to be.” Gwynn smiled softly, and then led Sorrel up the stairs and further into the heart of Castle Arcadia.