He couldn't describe where he was nor how he got there, he only knew he felt incredibly cold.

It wasn't neither the air nor the sun that shone in the room but the colors of the furniture that surrounded him. It was rich, carefully organized by someone who, probably, didn't live there. The floor and wardrobes were mahogany, the sheets silk, the carpet and curtains carefully embroidered in lilac and emerald. On the wall to his left was a golden frame with familiar faces in it; the crowns on their heads shone brightly under the artificial lights of countless magic stones. He moved the covers off his body and stood up. The carpet beneath him swallowed his toes and he stood still for a moment, debating whether his feet would fall through the cloud-like floor.

“Finally awake?” asked Diane who had been hiding on a chair in the far corner of the room. “Have you slept well?” She, just like himself, was dressed in dark purple. For a moment, Thomas thought he was looking at yet another portrait. Sitting arrow-straight, with her hands crossed on her knees, Diane looked at Thomas with discomfort he was not used to. The Flamer couldn't tell whether it was her long, overly decorated satin dress, her diamonds, or her crown that made her look unrecognizable. The person who gazed at him melancholically was not Diane Hunster: it was the future queen. “Well?” she asked, still not moving from where she was sitting.

“Y-Yes. I’ve slept well.” He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth with a stutter. “Are we in the castle?”

“Where else would we be?” Diane stood up and approached him slowly. He could hear her silk clean the spotless floor. Thomas shivered a bit and quickly turned his eyes towards the carpet. “No wonder you are all over the place, you've slept for three days,” Diane answered.

“What?!”

“We should dine together. I was waiting for you,” she announced before leaving him alone. She didn't look happy. On the contrary, the tortured eyes that looked at the Flamer begged to never step into that room again.

Thomas rushed to get ready. Ignoring the sudden change of clothes he knew nothing about, he put on the shoes that were placed next to the unnecessarily large wardrobe. The fabric that hugged his skin made it hard for him to bend over, while the softness of the shoes made his feet ache. “What am I doing?” he muttered as he, very shyly, looked at his own reflection. “What is happening?” Thomas grabbed his hair and let out an annoyed grunt. Then he slapped his own cheeks. “No, no. Hurry.”

Two guards were waiting in front of his room. He tried to strike up a conversation with them, but they ignored him and started walking, one in front, one after him. The castle was a maze of hundreds of corridors and thousands of unused rooms; Thomas made sure to glance into every single one he walked by and quickly determined that they all shared the same artificial hospitality, a costume hiding hostility. Once they reached the main entrance, he hazily acknowledged that they turned right a few times. One of the guards then opened a door for him and he found himself alone once more. The table that stood in the very middle of the room he entered could, according to Thomas's calculations, hold at least forty people. Regardless, only four chairs accompanied the barely visible white cloth. Such foods he had never seen in his life. The Flamer felt embarrassed to admit that he had no clue which utensils he should use. As he sat down, he slammed his head against the table. His temples were still throbbing, and his limbs felt heavy and somehow slimy. He took one of the forks in front of him to practice his grip, as he had been in the longest sleep of his life. During the little tour of the castle, he acknowledged that Diane was right and that his home was, in fact, much nicer than hers. He couldn’t pinpoint why exactly, but he felt exceptionally uneasy here. Then, loud footsteps drew his attention towards the same door he had walked through ten minutes earlier.

Now that he had a chance to look at him properly, Thomas concluded that his king was the most handsome man he had ever seen. He was tall and with dark eyes and hair; Brandon was the one, Diane, without a doubt, resembled the most. They had the same determined eyes and carried themselves with confidence. Thomas kneeled next to his chair.

Brandon smiled. “What a horrible host I would be if I belittled my guests so!” King Brandon said, putting his hand on Thomas's shoulder. “Why don't we sit down, Mr. Hammer?”

Thomas jumped up and pulled the king's chair. The royal laughed and gestured towards the seat to his right. “Have you had a pleasant trip? First time through Nowhere, I hear,” Brandon asked as he put a piece of silken white cloth over his lap.

The Flamer followed his example. “I wouldn't call it pleasant, Your Majesty. But it was most efficient.” Thomas swore the awful taste returned for a second while he rummaged through his head. He was glad he didn’t have time to think because the happenings of the past ten or so days were anything but ordinary.

The king looked him in the eye. “What a nice voice you have, Mr. Hammer. You do not mind my calling you 'Mr. Hammer', do you?”

Thomas shook his head excessively. He clutched his hands to stop them from shaking. Nervous like never before, he felt sweat drip down his forehead. Who would have thought it was only Diane’s father?

“You should be at ease, Mr. Hammer. Anyone capable of lasting more than five seconds in my daughter's company deserves my greatest respect,” Brandon continued, pushing his spoon into the mushy black creation in front of him.

The Flamer couldn't explain why he felt wronged. Offended even. “My greatest apologies, Your Majesty, but that’s not at all how it is. She is very fun to be around,” Thomas answered, releasing the grip on his hands slightly.

The king smirked. “I can imagine.” Then he looked at Thomas with a different kind of smile. “But, I must tell you, I still find that blurring of senses most uncomfortable. In Nowhere, I mean.” Brandon cut the steak in half and frowned. Then he raised his hand and a servant appeared by his side; he took the plate in front of Brandon without a word and disappeared. “I like my steaks on the rawer side,” the king explained with a smile.

“Oh, well, I completely lost my senses,” Thomas acknowledged as he forced the biggest piece of stake into his mouth.

Brandon smiled again. “Ah, yes, it does happen sometimes. Tell me, did you see or feel anything out of the ordinary when that happened?” When he noticed Thomas’s reluctance to answer the king smiled again. “I always remember the saddest moments of my life, while my wife sees the happiest ones. I wonder which one is in the right.”

Thomas found his question strange and unnecessary and decided to attribute it to good manners or curiosity. “Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I did feel a little strange.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Brandon leaned forward. “How so?”

Thomas’s eyebrows narrowed. “I am not sure. I felt something… warm, I guess, somewhere in my body. I am not exactly sure. Do you know why?”

The king leaned back again. He seemed satisfied. “Well, when our senses are blocked, we look inside ourselves uninterrupted. What you saw or felt could be anything really. Power, for example.”

Thomas felt lightheaded again and suddenly lost his appetite to the point where all the foods in front of him made him want to vomit. “Oh, it’s probably not that. I am not that powerful. Just average, I guess.”

Diane barged in not a second later. Thomas's head snapped in her direction, and he was met with fury in human form. She didn't say anything; she sat to her father's left and angrily forced her spoon into the same mushy substance.

“Lovely to see you,” the king commented emotionlessly.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Diane bit back. Turning to Thomas, her eyes displayed dissatisfaction. “I told you to dine with me. Why didn't you wait?”

Thomas felt his cheeks flushing and his sudden nausea didn’t help. “Oh, well…”

“Where are your manners, Diane?” the king asked, the same disinterested expression on his face. When she didn't answer, he continued: “What happened to the Ravens? They couldn’t come?”

Thomas shivered a bit. He wasn't sure whether he was supposed to witness the conversation that was about to unfold.

Maybe they forgot about me.

“Why would they? They couldn’t care less about a king’s ball,” Diane replied, mockingly emphasizing the last two words.

Brandon's ears turned slightly red. “Now, that is not the way to talk to your father, is it?”

“Since when do you care about family relations?” Diane bit back once more.

“Since we are having a guest. I thought your mother taught you manners.”

“Only to be spoiled by your lack thereof.”

“I believe that is enough, Diane.”

The atmosphere was unbearable. Thomas's experience in Nowhere which had him unconscious for days suddenly seemed more appealing. He was waiting for the moment they would jump at each other's throats. But they didn't. After eying each other for a moment, they silently turned back to their lunch.

“How did you two meet?” the king asked Thomas suddenly.

He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would be bothered by silence, so Thomas figured the information must have been of importance to him. “Well, Her Royal Highness found me,” Thomas replied shyly. “I was working late at the bakery… you see, I load flour and help them with other manual work.”

“You must be quite strong, then,” Brandon commented, no evident sign of his emotions changing.

“Well, I guess you could say so,” Thomas replied shyly. “That was when Her Royal Highness showed up in front of me and asked if she could stay at my house.”

The king looked up to see Diane’s reaction, but she was focused on her plate. “Did she now?” Brandon asked, amused.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Thomas replied.

“Well, my daughter is quite straightforward when she wants to be.”

The rest of the meal went by in silence. A tremendously uncomfortable one. Once the king had finished, he said goodbye and left the two teammates alone. When he closed the door, Diane slammed her fork onto the table and buried her face into her palms.

“I hate this place,” she whispered.

Thomas couldn't say it, it wasn't his place to, but he knew exactly what she was talking about. After an hour in the suffocatingly spacious room, he wanted nothing more than to run outside and get lost in the wilderness.

“You know,” the Flamer started, “If you want to talk…”

“The ball is in two days,” Diane cut in. “I put a list of names that you should learn in your room. There are pictures as well. A lot is expected of you as my escort. Some of the guests have already arrived, so you might get the chance to see them in the castle. If you do, do not be too kind. In fact, I strongly advise staying in your room.”

“Why?” Thomas asked.

“They are bad people. Every single one of them” was all she said before they each left to their room.

Having a million thoughts trapped in his mind, Thomas tried his best to memorize at least a few of the people who cared about his existence almost as much as he cared about theirs. He sat, dazed, for about two hours before he was startled by a knock. Diane didn’t wait for him to let her in; it was her castle after all. She seemed distressed. So distressed, in fact, that she forgot to close the door.

“What did you talk about with my father?”

Thomas fixed his eyes on the hallway and a soldier’s shoulder he could see beside the door frame. “Nothing special. He asked me about my experience in Nowhere.”

Diane nodded and then left, this time closing the door. Thomas was left to stare and run the entire evening’s worth of conversation through his head; luckily, there wasn’t much to work with. Then Diane appeared again, this time even more nervous, and sat on his bed, next to his legs. Thomas was covered in papers he dropped once she appeared for the second time. A soldier closed the door.

She drummed her fingers against one another and pouted. “Did you learn the names?”

“I just started,” Thomas replied, looking at her in amazement. She looked insane.

“Well, then,” she replied.

“Yes, well,” Thomas repeated, not knowing what else he could do, and went back to studying.

“Thomas!” Diane called out, her voice weirdly deviated.

“Yes?”

“Well,” she started, looking around the room she knew very well, “you know. I mean, I told you before that, uhm, people are going to try to talk to you. They will ask you some… strange questions. You don’t answer those.”

“Okay.”

“And, uhm, they will also tell you some things. About me, specifically.”

“I won’t believe them.”

Diane turned towards him a little but didn’t look at him. “No, I mean, I am not saying that they will lie.” She put her hand on her forehead and then raised her eyes. “Thomas, I have done some things I am not proud of. But I had my reasons. I don’t know if they are good, but they are reasons. So, just so you know. I can’t tell you now what they are, but I will one day. Just not today.”

Her eyes were begging him to say something, maybe to curse her and go back home. But he only smiled and said: “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated. Then her eyes lit up and she smiled. “There will be so many awful people there!” She was now facing him completely. Thomas had never seen her that enthusiastic. “There is this one girl, Sofia, who hates me for some reason, so Isaac and I hate her back…”

“Isaac?”

Diane pulled back a little. The air was out; the needle was in too deep. “Oh, I meant Prince Isaac of Florus. He and I are friends.”

Thomas didn’t want her to stop talking. He wanted to listen to her talk about anything, as long as it was about herself. But she was somewhere else now. Maybe not in Crystalia, maybe not in the present.

“Well, I should leave you now,” she said and stood up.

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I should,” she insisted, a shadow of a smile still present on her face. “You should focus on the names. It would be awkward not to know who you’re talking to.”

And so, it was him and the faceless letters who put the end to a magnificent evening. Then it suddenly came to him: he still hadn't met the queen.