‘Follow the puppets’ was about all the ideas Céline could muster for their rescue mission. Like a golden brick road, they followed the steady, single-file stream of freshly made puppets leading to the distant castle. Matthieu followed silently, his eyes trained on their imposing destination. Despite its debatable usefulness, Matthieu felt naked without at least a pistol on his hip. He could only hope on Céline’s guidance, as everything he knew about rescue missions was probably just as useless as his missing sidearm.

Céline seemed to stare at every puppet they walked past with innocent intrigue, but knowing they were the souls of the recently deceased, Matthieu admittedly found it more unnerving. There was nothing human in the empty eyes and relentless march of souls relegated to eternal existence.

“How long do we have?” he asked Céline, a few paces ahead. “Is there a point of no return?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I only know that it took eleven days for my grandfather to ascend completely.”

“And today is ten days since her letter,” Matthieu muttered. Céline confirmed his conclusion with silence, and his heart sank even further. He closed his eyes and inhaled, focusing on the path forward and barring his pessimism from his mind. He tried and tried but failed to remember how white the tops of the Alps had been.

They continued to walk, very few words shared between them as they closely followed the path. Over time, the number of puppets grew, and what was a sparse, loosely connected line became saturated with wooden automatons. They walked single file, so close to one another that the margin of error between the swing of one arm and the one behind was but a hair's length.

The sun had reached its zenith, irritating Matthieu from its vantage point. Acting as some monumental countdown, the thought of their fleeting time bothered him infinitely more than the heat.

“We’re almost there,” Céline said, sensing his discontent. “Distances aren’t nearly as long as they look in this world.”

They began to scale the final mountain, aided by an ancient stairway crudely masoned into the mountainside. They ascended the right flank, the stream of puppets taking the left.

The castle above them was taller than he had ever imagined, its pearlescent white rocks hewn from sandstone no less domineering as the medieval battle-hardened castles.

But the sense of lifelessness was what unnerved him. None of the Sunday market clamour he had experienced at Melone’s castle, nor the shouting of orders from one guard to another. No banter, footsteps, or horses; empty and unsatisfying like a train set with no current. In spite of its fantasy façade, the profound lack of anything human disturbed him more than any encampment he had taken on the frontline, the threat it posed more unknowable than a lingering soldier hiding with a shotgun.

It stood silent, challenging him to make the first move.

“I've never gone inside the castle,” Céline admitted, sizing up the castle in her own way. Hands clasped behind her back, she had led Matthieu at an unwavering pace, only breaking her vow of silence to assure him of their progress.

“Why not?” Matthieu asked, reluctant to let the fleeting conversation die.

“Because for hundreds of years there's never been a reason to. Knowledge of what's inside is long gone, and there is no guarantee even an experienced Deathseer can navigate it.”

She turned to Matthieu, climbing the stairs backwards as she gave him a sincere, scrutinising glare. “Why are you so desperate to run in? You could die before we enter through the gates.”

Matthieu pursed his lips and averted his gaze to the stairs; watching his feet was easier than facing Céline’s queries. “Because Amadea might be in danger, she might—”

“What if she ascended by choice?” Céline interrupted, forcing a strained pause as Matthieu was roused to answer a question with no clear—let alone simple—answer.

“But you said she never wanted to be a Deathseer.”

“The last time I talked to her was before the Crusade. I was only young; I barely remember her. What if she brought you here to witness her, hoping you would see what she had become and move on? What if….”

“What if what?” Matthieu asked the young girl, her words failing for the first time. She watched him nervously as she spoke.

“What if she meant every word in her letter?”

Céline stopped; like a guardian at the gates, she refused him further passage until he answered, but his answers were not worthy of words. Perhaps it was selfish on his part to take Amadea’s final wish and go against it, to seek some unreasonable happiness when deserved none. To sit there silently and live out his days in a house by the edge of a village, tormented by what he couldn’t save as he read Amadea’s final letter, day after day after day.

“Because I’m a coward,” Matthieu admitted. “I cannot bring myself to follow her instructions as this is all I have left.”

Telling her of the snow atop the Alps was the only thing that kept his legs moving.

Céline watched him, a wince of pity turning into a pout. She swivelled on her heels, reassuming her position and walking forward. “You lie, Monsieur,” she insisted.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“I do not lie,” Matthieu retorted, followed her once more.

“Then you do not speak the whole truth,” she said, running up the steps.

“How is that any different?” Matthieu called after her, reluctantly matching her pace as she disappeared behind the line of puppets.

“They are a world apart!” she called after him, none of the anxiety in her voice he would expect from someone running headfirst into a looming castle of lost magic. Once again, he found himself admiring her wholeheartedly, only wishing he could match the young girl’s courage and athleticism.

The steps flattened into a pathway, and Matthieu found himself peering over the edge of the final step, insisting on keeping their heads low and voices down. Before them lay the entrance to the castle courtyard, the tallest and thickest of the encircling walls. The puppets guarding the gates looked far less docile than the one Céline had thrown off the walls of Melone. Their Armets left no room for a vaguely human face, and their shoulders bore purple cloths, golden insignias etched into them.

There were just as many lining the base as there were manning the battlements, standing at attention like statues of bygone knights and doing so just as lifelessly.

“Maybe they aren’t hostile,” Céline thought aloud as she stuck her head out of cover. Matthieu, still with the instincts of trench warfare seared into his mind, forced her down with his palm. No bullets would be flying their way, but he did not want to test the archers’ skill with a bow.

“Why else would they be armed and armoured if not to ward off intruders?” Matthieu hissed back. Céline glared at him, fixing her hair with a disgruntled look while he examined the walls. There were no openings besides a two, a main gate and a smaller door. As expected of such a pristine castle, no faults in its design whatsoever.

“Would your power as a Deathseer have any influence,” Matthieu asked, but Céline shook her head.

“They're not grime, so I'm useless.”

“Well,” Matthieu sighed. “There’s no helping it.”

He took another step forward, his open palm warning Céline against following. “I’ll draw their attention; you make a break for the small door.”

“What?!” she hissed. “No, that’s too simple! Let’s look for another way in.”

“There can’t be another way into a castle like this,” he insisted. “It’s flawless.”

Before he could take another step, Céline grabbed his collar, pulling him closer. “Don’t you dare think I’ll let you sacrifice yourself!”

“I have no intention,” Matthieu assured her, gently prying her hand from his shirt. “Don’t think I survived the war by way of a miracle.”

Her eyes wavered as she loosened her grip, dire concern marring her face for the first time Matthieu could remember. If his words could not convince her, there was nothing short of succeeding that would, and it was out of the question to even consider reversing their roles.

“You do not have to help me, Céline,” he said. “I appreciate your guidance, but I understand if you do not want to continue.”

“You must be joking,” she said, taking the offer as a challenge and responding with a will of iron. “You wouldn't last a second without me.”

Matthieu nodded, taking the girl’s resolve to heart. “If there is any sign of danger, then run.”

“I can’t leave you behind—”

“Run, Céline,” he said. “I will meet with you at the bottom of the mountain.”

Without another word, he completed his trek up the stairway and stood in plain sight for all to see. Each guard’s faceless visors snapped to him.

“Who goes there!” a voice demanded with all the might of a storybook knight, hoarse yet spoken with a regal tongue.

“Capitaine Matthieu de Laval of the seventeenth Holy Legion!” Matthieu replied, playing along with the fantastical scenario. He stomped forward, fists balled, and chest flared. “I wish to pass through the gates!”

“You may not pass through these gates!” the guards replied, the two by the grille gate crossing their billhook polearms over each other. “Only the king may pass!”

Matthieu began to circle left, leading the guards’ attention away from the staircase. “Then I will defeat you all in battle!”

He bent down and grabbed a rock by his feet, throwing it at the nearest guard with all the power in his remaining arm. The rock struck its silver visor, bouncing off with nothing to show for it. A brief silence befell the scene, and Matthieu waited, hoping for a reaction.

He heard the collective sound of dozens of swords unsheathing and almost regretted his wish. The castle guard approached as though each step was bound to a pendulum, swords drawn and points ready. They abandoned their posts, and Matthieu drew back, spouting further insults as the sound of their armour grew louder and louder.

“Lâches! Lâches, vous tous!”

They fell for his bluff perfectly, moving with a one-track mind to exterminate the threat. Slow for now, as though their joints were stuck in place and working through layers of rust and dirt. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Céline spring from the staircase and bolt for the small doorway. Careful not to draw the guards’ attention to her, he continued his charade unabated.

In the moments his mind had spent preoccupied, a guard had closed the distance. Matthieu watched the sword swing towards his head like a scythe through grass. He avoided it, just moving out of its reach as another sword made a pass for his remaining arm. The guards began to surround him, enclosing his escape routes.

“Matthieu!” he heard Céline cry from the doorway, holding it ajar as she looked on. The guards noticed her, and one who had not fully fallen for his distraction threatened her with the point of its sword.

“Céline!” Matthieu shouted as he dodged another sword swing, taking advantage of the knight’s unstable stance to ram into it shoulder first and break through the encirclement. He bolted for the doorway as the knight took a swing at Céline, who barely defended the attack with the door itself. With its sword embedded in the wood, the guard held it open as Céline struggled to force it closed.

Matthieu threw himself into the unaware guard, battering it to the ground as Céline slammed the door shut. Matthieu knew there were only seconds before the immortal puppet realigned its strings. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the door, slamming his entire weight against it to no avail.

“Matthieu!” Céline cried through the door. “I can’t open it!”

He rammed the door again to no avail. His shoulder pounded with pain; whatever the door was made of, it was no longer wood. He tried again as the guards he had outrun drew nearer, getting faster and faster by the second as grounded dirt and rust fell from their joints.

An arrow flew towards him, grazing his shoulder before implanting itself in the ground. Matthieu looked up and found a slew of puppet archers leaning over the battlements, very real arrowheads pointed squarely at him.

“Matthieu!”

More arrows, more armour, more guardsmen he was powerless against. Céline’s desperate attempts to shake the door loose fell into obscurity as Matthieu cursed himself. He could run and try again, make for the mountainside where the arrows would not find him. But he could not, the fear of death freezing him in place as it had on the battlefield. Stripping him of his skills, training and leadership as though none of it mattered.

A familiar sensation, another death so resoundingly worthless. Yet this time, he met it with spite, with bared teeth itching to catch the arrow.

He had somewhere to be, and it wasn’t heaven.

Another arrow tore loose from its bow and sped towards Matthieu, giving him little time to evade. He could almost see it as it flew past his head, nicking his nose as he felt a cold, hard hand grab his shoulder and yank him aside.