Where was I? What had happened? Why was I moving?
The thoughts crowded into each other as I blinked slowly, wakefulness trying to force its way to the surface of the sea of consciousness. Above me, the blurry shapes of stones and the glow of magelights blended together, wetness forming along the corners of my eyes from the brightness. My body smacked into something hard and a groan escaped my lips, buried pain throbbing through me.
Was I dreaming? Surely I had to be. Was… Was I being carried? No. Nobody would dare carry their Empress around so roughly.
Darkness enveloped me again as my heavy eyelids fell shut…
*** *** ***
I returned to the world of wakefulness sometime later—I wasn't sure how long—and I was no longer moving. Hard wood pressed against my back. That was odd. Shouldn't I be in my comfy bed?
An image of a face flashed across my mind. Bright, golden eyes staring into mine and a twisted smile that made my gut twist as the memories of our encounter in the vault tower flooded back to the forefront of my thoughts.
I opened my eyes to find myself in the back of a large wagon, walls made of iron bars surrounded me on every side. I peered out at the lush brush and trees on either side, the bright moonlight from above illuminating everything in hues of white, red, and yellow. Ophelia's form was huddled in a lump off to the side, close to one of the walls and Sil was standing near the rear of the wagon, his back to me.
"Welcome back to the world of the living," he said. His voice was soft but it carried a new sound to it. Was that defeat?
I felt a tear slip down my cheek as golden light filled my vision, bathing the wood floor of the wagon in an otherworldly hue as a series of words shimmering into existence.
Quest Objective Completed: Break Into the Palace Rewards: 1000XP Quest Objective Failed: Break into the Vault of Irindour and steal one of the Imperial Seals.
Optional Objective Completed: Infiltrate the Empress's personal rooms and gather clues about her plans. Rewards: +3 Free Skill Points
Congratulations. You have reached Level 5. New Skill: Viper’s Bite – Coats the user's weapon in mana-summoned poison. Any target struck with the poisoned weapon becomes infected with a slow-spreading paralysis Debuff. Effects last 20 seconds. Ineffective against undead. +3 Attribute Points.
I stared at the words, willing them to be untrue. To somehow awaken from this nightmare.
But I knew it would not be so simple.
The words shimmered again, dismissing themselves as they were replaced by others.
Items Removed: Ring of Minor Strength, Enchanted Cloak of the Shadesmith, Jerkin of the Ancient Wanderer
I frowned at the words. The benefits those items had offered would be hard to replace.
New Quest Detected: Escape Quest Objective: Your attempts to break into the Vault of Irindour was thwarted and you and your companions have been captured. Escape by any means necessary.
I wasn't sure how long I stared at the message. I finally willed it away as Sil's voice broke the silence, closer to me now.
"We've stopped for the night, but we'll be back at it in the morning, I imagine." He was kneeling beside me, his bright eyes looking me over. "Are you okay?"
I nodded dumbly, pushing my tears back down as I slapped a palm against my cheek, running it down my face.
I would not cry. Empress's did not cry.
"I'm fine." I said, keeping my voice as cold as I could. "How is she?" I pointed a finger at Ophelia.
"In an out, just like you. We've been traveling for three days so far. West, I think?"
"West?" My mind rushed to try to catch up. Why would we be sent west in a prison wagon? The only place west was… "The Seven have forsaken us."
The words left my lips before I could stop them.
"What?" Sil asked, eyeing me.
"There's no reason to send us west, unless she hopes to cut us off from something."
"I don't understand."
I pushed away from him and used the bars to lift myself to my feet. "West is away from the coast. The further inland we go, the longer it will take us to get back to Caelthara."
Crossing the wagon, I looked out into the forest to what I guessed was west based on the current paths of the three moons that filled the sky. I couldn't see anything, of course, but it was more the appearance of looking out that way that mattered here.
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"Don't you see it?" I asked, turning back to face Sil. "If she can keep us away long enough, we can't interfere with her plans."
I started to clench my fist before forcing it open and flat against my thigh and closing my eyes. I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly after several moments. The Empress had clear plans to start
"We need to get back, somehow."
Sil let out a low laugh. "I don't think that's going to happen. Listen, I'm all about staying positive, especially in the middle of bad situations. But this? This is far from simply a bad situation."
"You're right," I chimed in before he could continue. "It's an opportunity."
"Come again?"
"If she is sending us west, she'll think that she's gotten rid of us. We can use that to our advantage somehow."
"She seemed to know that you were coming, considering she rolled out the welcome wagon the way she did, and you think you're somehow going to pull one over on her? I don't know if you know who we're going against here, but she's a lot stronger and smarter than that."
"I'm smarter."
He laughed again.
"Don't laugh. I mean it."
"She's the Empress of everything for Seven's sake. How can you be smarter than that?"
I shrugged. "You'll just have to trust me."
Sil threw his hands up and leaned back against the bars. The wagon shifted slightly with the motion. "If you say so."
*** *** ***
Morning arrived with a quietness that seemed to swallow the sounds of the night. The chirps of the bugs that called the forest faded, and the sixth and seventh moons began the final leg of their journey toward the horizon.
Sil was leaning against one of the walls of the wagon, his head cradled against two of the bars. It didn't look very comfortable, but I kept quiet, my own body leaned against the opposite side, Ophelia's head resting in my lap again.
I peered down at her, running a hand across her hair and brushing it out of her face. She looked so much younger like this.
Somewhere ahead of the wagon, men began to stir, the smell of a fire being snuffed out. I couldn't see them from my current vantage point, but I felt the wagon tremble when they reconnected the driving beasts to it.
I glanced over my shoulder as a gust of wind sent their smell wafting across the wagon. They were great hulking beasts that looked similar to cows or oxen, but they had massive horns that grew up in circular, winding motions like rams. They also had long, thin tails that slapped freely against their bodies, warding off insects and other vermin.
I watched one of their tails smack against one of the soldiers as he hooked the wagon's yoke to their harnesses. His eyes snapped to mine, and he cringed before turning away.
"She moving yet?" Sil asked from his place across the wagon. He was starting to look more haggard now, and I didn't think he'd managed to get any sleep throughout the night.
I shook my head slowly as I turned to look at her again. "Not yet. I'm starting to worry about her." I'd try to use [Insight] to try to get an idea of what might be wrong with her, but the System hadn't given me any useful information.
"She took quite a hit from the Empress. You both did. I'm honestly surprised you're already up and moving."
"I'm stronger than I look," I said, keeping my voice low as more soldiers began to move around us. "So is she." I touched the back of my hand to Ophelia's cheek. Her skin was warm, at least, which meant her heart was still beating.
The wagon lurched as one soldier spurred the beasts into motion, a whip cracking through the air over their heads. We began moving forward, passing by groups of soldiers that walked beside us. Some rode horses, but they were few compared to those who carried themselves on their own legs.
Sil pulled himself up to his feet and crossed over to us, slumping down beside me opposite of where Ophelia was laid out. He leaned in close, his voice lowering.
"So you think we can get out of this?"
I nodded slowly, still looking down at Ophelia's face.
"Do you have a plan or something? Anything?"
I quirked an eyebrow at the impatience in his voice. Hadn't he just been the one telling me that I couldn't be smarter than the Empress? Why was he now so concerned about whether I might have a plan or not?
"Aria, please."
That was strange. I couldn't recall telling him my name. "How do you know that?"
"What? Your name?"
I nodded slowly, gaze settling on him.
"She mumbled it in her sleep." His finger pointed at Ophelia.
"I doubt that," I said, returning to stroking her face. "I got her into this mess, so I doubt she's thinking very highly of me at all right now."
"The plan, though, what is it?" He asked again, his voice more insistent this time.
I looked up at him again, taking in his face for several moments. Sweat beaded on his forehead, a few droplets even streaked down his cheeks. The almost pristine look that he'd had in the Empress's chambers the night we'd met him had faded, replaced by something else. Wrinkles now marred the skin around his eyes. He hadn't had those before had he?
No. He'd had no wrinkles at all. I remembered because it had unsettled me at the time.
"She didn't mutter my name, did she?"
"The plan," he hissed. His hand moved to my shoulder, fingers gripping it tightly.
"Let go of me and answer the question." I gave him my coldest Empress voice, emerald gaze boring into his. "Now."
His grip loosened slightly and he shook his head, almost unperceivably. The wrinkles around the corners of his eyes seemed to lighten, as if the skin was somehow growing tighter.
"I'm sorry," he said after a breath. "I just… I can't handle being in a cage." His eyes danced around the four walls of iron bars, his expression still somewhat haggard despite the slowly vanishing wrinkles.
I had so many questions—like how he could make wrinkles vanish. How he knew my name. I also wanted to know how he had made my [Insight] skill so useless. That particular skill felt like it would be useful for if I met anyone else like Aurelion. If the System had deigned to send me and him back in time, then it was possible, even likely, that it had sent others. Whether or not they all had the same goals as me was another thing entirely. Perhaps some of them were meant to stop the monsters like me from getting too far.
"Why were you in the palace?" I asked, finally, ignoring his previous apology.
His gaze found mine again, his tongue flicked across his lips, sharp teeth once more peeking out against his lips.
"It's going to sound crazy," he admitted.
"Let's hear it."
"I… uhh. I was given a quest to infiltrate the Empress's quarters."
My eyebrow rose slowly. "A quest? Like something an adventurer in a play might go on?"
He nodded, licking his lips again. "Apparently I succeeded at part of it, but failed the rest."
"What was the rest of this quest?"
"I was supposed to stop the Empress."
I let out a slow breath. Could that mean me? "Stop her from doing what?"
His head swung from side to side slowly. "I've no idea in the slightest. All it said was 'Stop the Empress'." He repeated the words as if he were reading from a storybook.
My breath hitched. "Who gave you this quest? Someone you know?"
"Well… That's the thing," Sil started. His hand slipped from my shoulder and he leaned back against the bars. "There's this voice in my head. It tells me things to do, and when I do them, it rewards me."
"Rewards you how?"
"Well," he said, holding up a hand. "The part that I did complete, the infiltrating the palace part? It gave me this as a reward."
I watched with wide eyes as something small, round, and metallic appeared in the palm of his hand, as if it had fallen out of thin air.
"I'm not sure what good a ring can do, but that's what I got."
I immediately used [Insight] on it.