Most of the castle was dark, empty, and decrepit, save for a single expansive room somewhere in the center of the castle. When the girls and their bonded approached the doors, Addie took note of how massive they were. Someone had spent a lot of time carving them to look so pretty, with all the swirling images of flowers in the dark brown wood.
Pressing her hands against the left side of the double doors, Addie couldn’t move them at all— even with Nettal helping on the other side. Their feet kept slipping against the smooth stone below, which almost caused her to fall! Luckily, that didn’t matter much to Addie. She definitely didn’t huff out in frustration or anything like that. After a quick jaunt through Realmspace, they went right past the doors and into the giant chamber.
Dark red curtains adorned either side of the chamber, a series of them lined up one after another. Each one had a golden flower embroidered onto the middle. At the end of the chamber was what Addie assumed to be the throne– a towering chair made out of some kind of smooth rock. The throne cast a long shadow against the room’s floor– the back wall of the throne room was made entirely from glass, with plenty of light streaming in. The gardens were behind the glass, Addie making out a small field of grass and neglected shrubbery surrounded by towering stone walls. That didn’t stop the Binary-light from reaching the garden— Addie wasn’t really sure how that worked, though.
Normally, Addie would have marveled at the striking scene. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the man kneeling at the center of the room. His wrists were secured to the gleaming stone floor by cuffed chains. His skin was paler than anything Addie had ever seen before, with hair white as snow.
“Hey, are you okay?” Nettal shouted out while Addie was still staring at the man.
The man didn’t respond.
Squishy led the way forward; his snout upturned as he sniffed the room cautiously. “His heart is not beating,” Squishy said.
“Nettal, Squishy says that guy is dead,” Addie explained.
“Not dead, I just said his heart has stopped beating.” He huffed with exasperation.
Nettal hurried forward, clearly eager to see if she could help the man in some way. Halfway there, she stopped and scanned around the room. Her next few steps were much slower as she cautiously got closer to the man. Eventually, she reached him, and she poked him once before retreating her finger and examining it. Coming to a conclusion, Nettal shrugged and began more thoroughly inspecting the man, her eyes glowing green as she activated her magic.
“Addie, look at his ears!”
Now curious, Nettal’s words drew Addie’s attention. The tips of the man’s ears were pointed instead of rounded. “Huh.”
“And he’s not dead! Though his heart isn’t beating... but somehow he’s not dead? That’s weird,” Nettal muttered, looking at the strange spiky-eared man with a look of confusion.
“The not dead part?” Addie asked.
“Well, that too, but this man doesn’t look human on the inside.” Nettal began poking the man this way and that, forcing his eyelids open, jabbing a finger into his stomach, and even forcing his mouth open and looking down his throat. “His tongue is yellow instead of red.”
“What? Weird.” Addie took a few hesitant steps forward, and sure enough, the strange man had a yellow tongue.
“How is he not dead?” Addie decided to ask after Nettal ignored her in favor of prodding at the man.
“Well, my magic won’t even push into dead stuff. I’ve tried before. My magic can push into this guy, though. I can even feel his ‘injuries’—” Nettal said while making air quotes, “But he mostly just feels... sleepy, I guess? But, also not sleepy.” Nettal nodded, satisfied with her explanation, before turning back to the man and continuing to poke him.
“What’s this?” Addie pointed below the man, where two parallel lines encircled around the man. Addie kicked at the lines, expecting them to be salt or something, only to be surprised when she learned the stone itself had those white circles carved into them.
At four different points between the two circles, Addie saw glowing gems. They were placed directly in front, behind, and to either side of the man. The one directly in front of him was as blue as the sky, but the other three were all red like blood.
“I wonder why one of them is a different color?” Addie moved her pointer finger to the gems.
“Huh? Oh yeah, I guess.” Nettal didn’t even look at where Addie pointed, instead focusing entirely on the man.
“You didn’t even look!” Addie complained, frustrated that Nettal wasn’t paying attention. Her shout echoed through the chamber.
“Yeah, I did!” Nettal shot back. “The gems, right?” She finally looked at Addie. “Maybe that one is blue because it’s the direction we came from.”
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“Why would that matter?” Addie asked, not buying that explanation.
“I dunno, it made sense to me, I guess.” Nettal shrugged.
“What about the book, Addie? Surely, it has more information regarding the castle. It directed us here, after all.” Squishy chimed in– his glassy, starry eyes looking up at Addie as he sat down on the stone.
Without her even needing to prompt it, the book flew out from her soul and manifested within the throne room. Its glowing pages flapped rapidly, quickly turning to its desired page. As always, the book began to fill with glowing words that scrawled across the pages.
*The Heir is bound through four curses of immortality. Broken, the gems turn blue and will release him from his prison.*
Then, much to Addie’s surprise, the book snapped shut with a bang. Without delay, it flew right back into her soul, not even bothering to finish explaining itself or even giving her proper time to react.
“What does that mean?!” Addie couldn’t help but shout; she hadn’t really expected a reply, asking more out of frustration than anything else. “Why is it always riddles?” She let out a groan.
“The ape,” Nettal mumbled; the words were far louder than normal in the silent throne room. “The ape was immortal, Addie!” Her face lit up, and with quite a bit more excitement, Nettal started to rapidly explain, “The ape was immortal, right? I mean, it didn’t even have a head, but it kept trying to fight!” She began pacing around the room, “Doesn’t that make it immortal?”
Addie hadn’t really heard the word immortal much before. The only thing she knew for sure was that Dragons were always described as being immortal. She thought it meant living really long or something.
“And look, Addie! That blue crystal is in the same direction that we fought the ape from!”
“How do you know that?” Addie asked, feeling a bit defensive for some reason— probably because she was still mad about the riddle. “I don’t remember which way we came from.”
“Well, I don’t really remember either since we’re in the castle. But it would make sense!” Nettal said with a big grin on her face.
Addie guessed that would make sense. “Oh!” Another thing clicked in Addie’s mind, “The four ruins of Ennulis! Remember, the book has four ruins of Ennulis surrounding the castle. Maybe that’s where the other ‘immortal curses’ are, too.” After all, the ape had been right outside the cave leading into the Ennulic ruins.
“You’re so smart, Addie!” Then Nettal sighed, “But, does it really matter? We just want to go home, right?”
That made Addie pause and think for a second, even putting her hand under her chin in a ‘thinking pose’ like adults always did. The pose must have helped, too, because all sorts of thoughts were flying around in Addie’s mind. Thoughts about if the sleeping, pointy-eared man might help them get home. Or thoughts about how they still hadn’t been able to find a map that showed how to get home. Addie didn’t have a lot of hope for this random man somehow knowing how to get home, but if this was his home, he likely at least knew where in the world they all were, right?
Addie explained her thoughts to Nettal, lightly kicking the ground in the man’s direction, “Do you think he’d help us get home if we help him stop being dead-ish?”
“Hmm. How about we finish exploring the castle for a map first? Then, if we don’t find anything, we can come back here? Also, ‘dead-ish’ isn’t a word.” Nettal rolled her eyes.
Ignoring her cousin’s attitude, Addie had a suspicion the second half of the castle would be just as empty as the first half had been.
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Addie’s suspicions hadn’t quite ended up being true. The two of them had managed to find a library— well, Addie should say she managed to find the library. The dark halls made it hard for Nettal to see, but Addie always had her reliable spatial sense.
Once they walked into the library, Addie formed two large balls of soul-fire and sent them up near the ceiling to help light up the room.
Addie groaned, “Ugg! There’s a gazillion books in here. It’s gonna be hard to find a map...” She trailed off.
Without responding to Addie, Nettal walked to one of the many bookcases— each one tall enough to reach the ceiling. Addie could see tons of bookcases, all of them stacked in orderly rows, and each one containing what she guessed were hundreds of books.
“Hey, Addie. Can you read this?” Nettal pointed to one of the books on the shelf.
It was too far away, so Addie walked closer to stand next to Nettal. The cover of the book had some kind of language on it that sort of resembled the Furrian language but also not quite the same.
“No idea,” Addie said, shaking her head.
“Maybe you can ask your book to translate for us?”
Addie didn’t even have to ping her book; it flowed out of her soul directly in response to Nettal’s request and began drawing words in glowing blue ink.
*Water Lilies and Their Apothecaric Uses*
“Well, that’s not useful.” Despite her words, Nettal picked the book off the shelf anyway.
Flipping through a few pages caused dust to fly up into the air and make Addie cough. Despite the dust, Addie couldn’t help but look on in fascination. The pages were yellow and crumbling at the edges— some of the ink looked faded in spots too.
“It’s old,” Addie couldn’t help but say aloud.
“Yeah.”
Nettal pushed the book back into its open spot on the shelf, and the two of them continued further into the library in unspoken agreement.
With a focus of will, Addie made sure the flames overhead followed them as they explored. Her soul book remained out and ready to translate for them, but for now, at least they were just looking around.
Lotty’s hoofsteps clopped against the hardwood floor in an interesting way, but his presence gave Addie an idea.
“Ember,” Addie asked through her thoughts, “Can you help us look for a map?”
Addie felt more than heard Ember’s telepathic agreement before she exited Addie’s soul shell and flew away into the dark.
“Everything okay?” Nettal asked, stopping as she turned to look at Addie.
“Yeah, she’s gonna help us look for a map.”
“I can also be of service, my lady,” Squishy chimed in, his triangular ears on full alert.
“Naw,” Addie said aloud, dismissing him, “We’ll need you if there’s anything dangerous.”
“Very well.”
In the end, while Ember did find something called an ‘atlas’, and while she and Nettal saw some ‘geographic encyclopedias,’ they didn’t find anything that helped them figure out where on the planet they were. Both the atlas and encyclopedias were either severely outdated or limited in scope; none of them showed Addie or Nettal’s homeland— instead only showing information about the land nearby.
That’s how Addie and Nettal ended up back in the throne room, staring once again at the pointy-eared man. Nettal wanted to return to the library later to look at some ‘healing texts,’ but they could do that later.
“So, can you heal him?” Addie asked as Nettal placed her palm on the man’s brow.
Nettal huffed in frustration, “I am healing him, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything.”