I don’t think I’ll ever get the smell of wet dog off me after this one. As soon as we're back on land, Ulric reclaims the armor and weapons he loaned me and then we all have a very anticlimactic farewell before I’m tossed back in the dungeon under the arena. I basically just get a ‘good job’ nod from both him and Gabs and then the three of us part ways. Which is enough for me. Knowing these two, I wouldn’t expect any more.

  Once the guards get a whiff of me, I’m taken straight to the bathhouse (thank god) and then I have to wait another two days before they let me see Piper. I figured they’d just bring her to the prison, but Ulric really did me a solid and worked it out with the empress so that I’d get a trip to the palace to visit her. So when the time finally comes, the guards throw me into a carriage that’s basically just a big cage on wheels, and then a pair of horses drag it all the way through town. And I hate to say it, but their capital city is something special. Place called ‘Fortun.’ They really love their greenspaces here. Everywhere I look, there’s trees and flowers and even the homeless people look cleaner than the ones back home.

  The entire city is built on rolling hills, which makes it hard to get a sense of how big it is when you’re in the middle of it. The empress’s palace sits on the tallest one, right in the center of town. When we pass through the gate and I first lay eyes on it, I’m actually a little embarrassed of my home country. This place makes the castle in Valencia look like some hick peasant’s outhouse. There’s actual color here, on big tapestries that hang from every tower under spires of gleaming metal.

  The carriage stops in front of a big, gaudy staircase and then the guards squeak the door open to let me out. Up the stairs we go and before I know it, I’m inside the most opulent building I’ve ever had the pleasure of standing in. There’s red carpets lining the floor down each hall, flags hanging from the ceiling, and enough stained glass windows to fill every cathedral in Gillan. I feel like I’m defiling the place just by breathing in it.

  I’m informed by the guards that they’re keeping Piper at the top of one of the towers. Music wafts into the hallway from some unseen room and I can’t help but settle into a soldierly pace alongside the guards while we all march our way there. Old habits, you know.

  We finally make it to the spiral staircase that leads up to Piper’s door and for some reason I’m suddenly sweating as much as I was in the volcano. We climb to the top and then I wring my clammy hands together while the guards unlatch her door in painfully slow order. Then they throw it open and there she is, standing in the middle of a room that’s not much smaller than the one she’s got back home. She has a modest gown on that looks like something a maidservant would wear. She’s got her hands held together in front of her lap and her bubbly, ever-present smile is noticeably absent. She looks grim. And I hate myself all over again for bringing her to this place.

  I walk inside and then, before the guards can even get the door shut, she’s in my arms with her face buried in my chest. Then we stand there like that for I don’t know how long, not saying a word. When she finally pulls her head back, both her cheeks are soaked with tears. I put my hands on either side of her face and use my thumbs to wipe them dry. After that, she tells me she didn’t think she’d ever see me again and I tell her she’s the only thing I’ve thought about since they split us up. Then she motions toward a chair for me to sit on before walking over to lower herself onto the bed to face me. Once we’re both sitting, she asks in a very un-Piper-like tone, “Are they treating you okay where they’re keeping you?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine.” She tilts her head forward and gives me that look she makes when she knows I’m lying. “Well, I mean, I’m basically living in the worst place imaginable—but I did just get moved to a room with my very own window. So there’s that.”

  She doesn’t even crack a smile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  “Your fault? I’m the one who said we should come here.”

  She shakes her head. “But I’m the one that wanted to run away in the first place. This whole stupid thing was my idea.”

  “Well, I’d have been fighting in this dumbass war and would probably be dead by now if we didn’t leave.” She still looks skeptical. “Honestly, those last few days with you were some of the best of my life. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

  She smiles for the first time since I walked into the room. Then she glances around for a second before changing to a less tragic subject, “So you fought a monster that came out of Hell? You have got to tell me about that! How big was it? And did it really look like a dog?”

  I tell her the whole story. It actually sounds pretty remarkable when I lay it all out and by the end of it, I’m positively smitten with myself. Then she asks, “You know what this means though, right? Lilithene has the gem now.”

  My head pivots backward. “Who the hell is Lilithene?”

  Her eyes dart all around. “Uh, the ruler of this country.”

  “Oh, no shit? Everyone just calls her ‘the empress.’ I was starting to think she didn’t have a name.”

  Piper laughs and then gets serious again. “Yeah, but seriously. This could be really bad.”

  I shake my head. “I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea what that stupid rock does or why the empress wanted it.”

  She takes a deep breath before explaining, “It’s rocks like those that give sorcerers their powers. Or in this case, a sorceress. She’s got it attached to the end of a staff now. Just like the one Fallow uses.”

  “A sorceress? The person running this country is a sorceress?” She nods. “...Well, I guess that explains why Ulric takes orders from her. You should see this guy in action. He’s fucking unreal.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Yeah, it’s so sad, isn’t it?”

  I wrinkle my face at her. “What’s so sad?”

  “What the empress did to him. Don’t you know?” I shake my head. “She took his lifeforce and hid it away in her vault. He’s basically her slave as long as she has it.”

  “Lifeforce? The hell is that?”

  “It’s what’s keeping him alive. Don’t you know what he is?” I roll my eyes and nod. She continues, “The empress could destroy it and send him to Hell whenever she wants. So he does whatever she tells him to do. She promised him that if he went and got that gem from Cerberus that she would give his lifeforce back but then when he actually did it, she said she changed her mind. She’ll probably never give it back to him. He’ll be her slave forever.”

  That explains so goddamn much. “Okay but, how do you know all this?”

  She shrugs. “Because he told me.”

  “He told you? Ulric told you all this?” She nods. “...I just spent an entire week with that guy and he didn’t say jack-shit about any of this lifeforce business. Why the fucked he tell you?”

  “I don’t know! I guess he likes me more than he likes you.”

  “Huh-uh. No way. I just climbed into a volcano and killed a demon from Hell with this guy. There is no way he likes you more than he likes me.”

  She snorts out a laugh. “What, are you jealous?? Sorry, he just likes me more!”

  “No, I’m not...! Err—Yeah, ya know what, fuck it. I am jealous! I can’t believe he told you and not me!” She raises her hand up to cover her mouth while she bounces up and down, laughing. “What else did he tell you? Did he say how old he is?” She shakes her head and I bat a hand at her. Then she falls backward against the bed with her hand on her forehead because she can’t stop laughing.

  I get up and walk over to sit on the bed next to her. Then I let myself fall backwards, making her bounce up a couple times when I land. Once I’m laying next to her, she turns her head to look at me and lays her arm down to her side. I ask, “So how’s our mask friend? Is the little guy doing alright?”

  She pushes one shoulder up. “I don’t know. They won’t take me to where he is.”

  “Hmph. And what about you? How are you doing?”

  One side of her mouth curls up when she says, “Better now that you’re here.” After that, she pushes her hand up against mine and then we both just stare at each other for a while. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again after today so I try to memorize every part of her face. Her narrow lips, her perfect jaw. Her nose that scrunches whenever she laughs and eyes so blue they almost seem to glow. Those eyes are moving all around right now, like maybe she’s doing something similar toward me at the same time.

  It stays quiet like that until I say, “Ulric told me that you said…that you, um…”

  When I don’t finish right away, she wrinkles her eyebrows and gives me a “Hmm?”

  I’m not sure if I should bring up something she said when I wasn’t there. I suppose this might be the sort of thing I should wait until she’s ready to tell me herself. So, before I say something that might ruin the moment, I lean over, lace our fingers together, and press my lips against hers. She immediately closes her eyes and moans in surrender. It’s a sound I’ve ached to hear for so long it almost doesn’t feel real. Next thing I know, I’m feeling her very real tongue in my mouth for the first time. I had always imagined her mouth would have a sweet taste to it. With maybe just a hint of bitterness to match her personality. Her actual flavor isn’t quite what I’d imagined because she isn’t a crème br?lée, but it’s good all the same. Just to actually have my mouth on hers is more than I could have hoped for.

  As I’m breathing her air and acquainting myself with the texture of her lips, she reaches up and starts clawing at my chest to tug my shirt towards her. I pull away to sit up and drag it off over my head. She gets up and does the same with her gown. Her hair gets dragged up into it before falling back down over her face when she tosses it to the floor. Then she laughs when I reach up to pull her hair out of her face for her.

  Her skin is pale under where her gown had been. There are freckles below her neck and on her waist that I’ve never seen before and a birthmark to the side of one breast that I admire for simply existing on a part of her body that only I get to see.

  She starts to move back towards the bed but stops when I don’t follow. I’m still sitting up, staring at her chest. It goes on for a while. Way longer than it should. She eventually looks down and then back up to ask, “What?”

  I shake my head without taking my eyes off her breasts. “Sorry, I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to see you like this and I just…need a second.”

  She gives me precisely one second before grabbing my face with both hands. “I promise there’s more to see. And we don’t have forever.” Then she pulls me back toward her before placing one of my hands onto her chest.

  After that, the two of us disappear into each other. And for the first time in my life, I’m not thinking about tomorrow. I’m not strategizing or coming up with plans or worrying about the next big threat. I’m not even trying to think of anything funny to say. I’m just here with the most remarkable, beautiful, endearingly odd person I’ve ever met, experiencing a feeling I didn’t know existed. The one that people write poems and make art and sing songs about that you can’t understand until you feel it for yourself. The feeling that the world might actually make sense after all. That everything will be alright even when all evidence suggests that it very likely won’t.

  It’s what it feels like to actually be happy.

  ***

  At the end of our visit, we’re both holding onto each other next to the window with a blanket wrapped around us while we watch the last bit of orange sunlight melt into the horizon. It’s a minute or two after the sun has set that the door swings open and the guards order me out. They have to pull Piper off of me by her waist when they drag me away. Looks like the reality of our situation has sunk back in for us both. And now neither of us knows to say goodbye. So neither one of us says it. The guards just pull me out and then slam the door shut without either of us saying a thing. A few minutes later, I’m outside the palace getting thrown back into the carriage-cage-thing. And then it’s back to the prison and back to my misery.

  The trip from the palace feels oddly serene. Like I could die right here in the middle of the street and not even mind. A sense of peace washes over me and I decide that after the day I’ve had, no matter what happens from here on out, I’ve lived a good life. Sooner or later my luck will run out and I’ll get killed in that arena, but I’ll die knowing that Piper loved me. She’ll keep on living and there will always be a special place in her heart for me. I can die happy knowing that.

  Thing is, when I get back to my cell under the arena, someone’s there waiting for me. And I don’t just mean that hopeless fuck cellmate of mine, Matt. Someone who actually matters is here. As soon as I walk in, he pulls that fancy red cloak of his aside, hands me a sword and says, “I have one more task for you, Valencian. You and I have a sorceress to kill.”