Arie's POV

  Beneath my boots were lahar and the remains of ashfall that came from the dark gray clouds. I walked with dizzy vision, disoriented from falling off at high altitude.

  Far, far away from the thing. Those birds were horrible and monstrous. It turns out the robbery doves had more abilities. They must be enchanted. Dreamer's Magic? I don't recall any memory of enchanting doves to be cannibal.

  The doves still exist, so their sorcerer is still alive. They're not mine from then. Ellie's at bay, and forever shall be.

  I stopped. Ahead was a huge wall, bricked and towering.

  "Hello?" I yelled in the silent place.

  For some reason, I didn't try to be discreet or careful. I yawned.

  So boring. It's so bleak here. Eerily quiet.

  "I have to get back to Skymint," I reminded myself.

  But there's something really weird about this wall. That sensation again. I've sensed this multiple times already.

  There are no stars nor lights here. Just my eyes that had adjusted and the dark fog from above. I held the pavement with both of my hands as I slowly stepped, covering its perimeter.

  I felt a cold in my right hand. The texture was familiar, as though it belonged to those whom I killed. Molded on the stone was a skull.

  Above the wall, a blast of fire came out. Red-orange tint touched my skin. I am able to see my surroundings clearer.

  "Humans must be destroyed! I can't let them have a future!" A roar came from above.

  Those flames didn't come from the wall itself.

  It's Felipe Viciouso.

  Oh no, he's in a bad mood. I ran away from the shade of the flames to hide.

  "What's that shadow over there? I'm kinda hungry right now." He plummeted to the ground, causing an impact and flying debris.

  A small piece caught my eye. I closed my eyelids and gritted my teeth in pain.

  I planned to lie down on the ashes to cover myself, but I find it unsettling, this feeling of resentment toward getting them on my skin. Why is my disgust overriding my fear?

  The flames continued to burn, bearing the Wolf King's body. By observing where the light was, I can track his location and go to the side of the wall away from him.

  "Who did this to you, Sterling?" Felipe bellowed. "This is gruesome. Show yourself... Arie. I'm sure it was you."

  I shouldn't have left Sterling's remains in the open. He will no longer believe I didn't come here to kill him if I show up myself!

  "I don't care about your magic anymore. Your kind must die. Full of lies and pure malice."

  "I realized power worsens the incurable condition of humans. Their thirst for superiority, wealth, and pleasure has made them a hopeless case. Get the hell out of here or I'll burn this whole area."

  I slowly walked toward the light.

  Felipe stood, armored in iron with his gigantic axe on his back. He flexed his metal claws, as though boxing my whole frame with his fingers to see how I would fit in his mouth.

  "There's a flaw in your logic, Felipe. Not every human is selfish, and not every Wolfman is a saint like you think you are."

  "You're questioning my morality, I, once a boy who saved my fellow Wolfmen from the abusive treatment of the Glaciousos? Look at yourself in the mirror, Arie. Are you even an angel for you to judge me?"

  I looked at my hands, no longer trembling in fear, and capable of destruction just as much as restoration.

  "Let me clarify this: my bloodline doesn't dictate who I am. Strip away my title, I'm just a human too, and so are you, Felipe." I said gently, and for the first sentence I saw a look from him that was his fragile heart beneath the mask of dominance. "I want us to have a compromise to end this rift between humans and Wolfmen. All I want is for you to give back the throne to a Glacian. And we won't bother you."

  The air whooshed, swaying my hair around me.

  "But there's a condition."

  "And what is it, Arie?" He raised an eyebrow.

  "You have to tell me where my mother is."

  "You haven't cast a spell all this time to know where she is?" He chuckled. "Who even knows. Laura is no longer here so I can't ask her."

  Felipe thinks she abandoned him. He doesn't realize that when I was in the Gloom Forest, I felt the magic snap. She didn't flee. She died. But I won't be the one to tell him his wife is a corpse.

  "What do you mean? You don't know? I thought you knew her personally."

  "Yes, personally, as I had mistaken her to be my lover!"

  I squinted my eyes at him. "You're not going to tell me that you are my father. No way that is happening."

  "Arie no, I worded it the wrong way." He burst out in laughter. "Do you know that Caron was commanded by your mother to kill you five years ago?" he asked.

  I froze. The lahar beneath my boots felt like it was liquefying. "What? No... she wouldn't. She was my mother."

  "She would, and she did. It was purely her decision, a Queen choosing her kingdom over her child. But she didn't get to see it through." Felipe stepped forward, the iron of his armor clinking like a funeral bell. "While the real Aria was alone in the throne room, waiting for news of your head on a platter, Laura struck. She drugged her and hid her away, taking her place before the chair was even cold."

  My breathing went shallow. The memory of that day was a blur of shadows and cold looks.

  "The 'Mother' who stood over you after Caron fled... that wasn't Aria. It was Laura, wearing your mother's skin while she did what the real Queen couldn't finish. She was the one who stored your soul inside an enchanted jar."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The ash in the air tasted like copper. "What..."

  "You had died already, Arie."

  I stood dumbfounded. He looked down on me with a frown, which irritated me.

  "And for some reason, Laura was able to bring you back to life before she was exiled as Aria, but it was a messy process. I don't know how she had done it. Maybe she wanted a puppet. Maybe she just wanted to see if a dead girl could still play Princess."

  "I don't understand what you're talking about," I whispered.

  "Whatever she did to your soul, she definitely awakened your sleeping Dreamer's Magic. You weren't a witch until she broke you and glued the pieces back together. First of all... are you even Arie? Or are you just the darkness inhabiting her corpse?"

  "I died already? What does that mean? You can't be serious."

  "I don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure there's a darkness lurking beneath the Princess I am facing right now."

  I nervously laughed. The sound was high and brittle, like breaking ice. My heart was thumping against my ribs, but was it my heart, or just the magic mimicking a life?

  "Don't go off-topic, Felipe." I snapped, trying to find the ground again. "Are you going to step down from the throne or not?"

  "I already decided. I'm going to choose who will be the new ruler of Glacia."

  "Why not me? My mother's exiled and there's nobody else in Glacia who could rule properly. I'll be the one to decide who rules Glacia."

  "Because you might still have a vengeance residue against me even if you had forgiven me already in your mind. It's likely that you'll pick a Glaciouso to be the new ruler, and I can't afford my fellow Wolfmen to be wiped out by your family."

  "I can't afford to have my Glacians either to have a double-agent monarch that can turn against my kingdom and invade it again with your full army. Never."

  "You have to trust me, Arie, in order for this to work out. If not, then I would have to burn you for good."

  "No, you must be the one to trust me. It's my kingdom after all," I stated with my fists clenched.

  "Thanks for proving to me that humans are vile. You must really think that you are superior to refuse my mercy. Let's have a life-and-death duel then. It's simple, no need for messy compromises, and we could do whatever we want if one stays dead. I really believe that you should just have died already, Arie. You're an insult. Through the hardships I went through for you to disrespect me just like this by giving me obligations."

  "I thought we settled on this already." The breeze hit my face. "I had never forgotten that you killed my brother."

  "You'll go with him." He unleashed his axe and charged toward me.

  I ran, and he swung his axe at the wall. It was going to fall behind me. I slid using Ice Foot, leaving ice trails on the ashes I'd passed. This way, I'll be able to pounce on him easily.

  "Choose one, Princess. Be quartered or burned?"

  I skidded the ice and maintained a distance far enough from his range. And yet his build is still enormous.

  "Because I'd like to do both."

  I shivered and my temples ached. I gotta hide.

  All there were was ashes. It is running from a predator while blind. He intentionally turned off his flames to deliver a surprise blow.

  I continued to tremble in fear. Wolfmen can see in the dark, just like bears, and it's only a matter of time before I get killed.

  At this point, I had surpassed my limits. I'm pushing through, despite exhaustion and the feeling of crushing my skin with my joints. I couldn't find any weaknesses in Felipe. His Hot Chili is a berry too like my Chillberry, so we both have enhanced stamina, and he's a Class 5 fruit master when I only accomplished Class 2 on my whole journey with Skymint.

  This might have been the result of my sabotage of weaklings by using Dreamer's Magic. It wouldn't hurt to benefit from it in this case.

  I collapsed. On purpose. There was no point in fighting when it was unfair in the first place.

  I have to fall asleep quickly. Thanks to the body aches, it is crucial for this. I closed my eyes and went to a light nap. There was this spell that Ellie had cast for whenever she's sleeping that nobody would be able to harm her.

  I could feel Felipe's warm breath on my hair.

  "You're sleeping? What do you think you're trying to pull off, Arie?!" Felipe's voice was filled with rage.

  ***

  It was weird, but Felipe, the Wolf King, had sprawled beside me.

  "I was waiting for you to wake up. Come on, I can't end this fight when you aren't even fighting back!" As I stood up, he grinned at me. "Besides, killing you would be a waste. Laura brought up something I need."

  "Wha—"

  He kicked me in my torso, and I spat out blood as I landed far away from him. My elbows were in immense pain, absorbing the impact.

  I coughed and coughed.

  "I'll just have to hurt you until you pass me your magic. I figured that you refuse to use your magic. I concluded it would be best if you give it to me, the only rightful one to use that magic responsibly."

  His metal claws caught my head, and my forehead bled. A hard cold stone. I cried in pain. He repeated it over and over again. My eardrums rang with a sharp noise, stabbing and unforgiving.

  "It is not stated in the magic law that you can't pass magic. You just can't clone it. That doesn't mean it can't be passed to someone else."

  He dropped me on the ashes and stood majestically.

  "I need Dreamer's Magic now. Don't make it any harder. Pass it to me, and I'll end your life peacefully," he stated.

  I clenched my fists as I slowly crawled. My ears are still ringing.

  "Let's see if you can hit these," he said.

  Fireballs started to rain from the dark sky.

  Fire spread everywhere they landed. The burning ice palace flashed in my mind. My heart raced against the speed of the projectiles. I have to save myself!

  "Felipe..."

  I pulled on his crimson cape, and as he moved I was pulled along with him. My nails had scratched the ashes. I covered it around me. It must be immune to the flames to fit his needs.

  Felipe's boot came down on my ribs. I heard something crack, not break, but warn. The sound traveled through my chest like ice splintering.

  "You're tougher than I thought," he said, almost appreciative. "Most would've given in by now."

  I tried to speak but only managed a wheeze. Blood filled my mouth with copper warmth.

  "Laura made you well, didn't she? Even broken you keep crawling." He crouched beside me, and I could see my reflection in his armor, distorted and monstrous. "But she made you wrong. You're not supposed to be here, Arie. You're an error that needs correcting."

  He's right, something whispered inside me. You're not supposed to be here.

  No. No, that's...

  His claws dug into my shoulder, lifting me up until my toes scraped ash. The burning pain was absolute.

  "Last chance. Give me the magic, and I'll make this quick."

  Through the agony, I felt it stirring. The thing Laura had awakened when she stitched my soul back together. Dreamer's Magic, wrapped in my chest like a serpent, patient and hungry. It had been so easy before, with Ellie. Just speak and reality bent.

  Use it, the voice urged. You're dying anyway. What's the harm?

  I bit down on my tongue until fresh blood came.

  "Still nothing?" Felipe dropped me. My head struck stone beneath the ash layer. Stars exploded behind my eyes. "Maybe you need more motivation."

  He pressed his palm against the ground. Heat radiated outward in waves, and the ashes around us began to glow orange, then red. The temperature climbed so fast my skin felt like it was shrinking.

  "I can make this entire area a furnace. Cook you slow until you beg to give me what I want. Or..." He paused, tilted his head. "I could target something you actually care about."

  My heart seized.

  "Skymint Polarion, wasn't it? Last I heard, he's fighting a losing battle in the Polarmen Islands. I could send word. Have him burned alive too. Would you give me the magic then? To save him?"

  Something inside me lurched, not pain, but absence. A hollow space where warmth should be. For just a moment, I couldn't feel Skymint at all. The connection we'd built, that faint thread of awareness, went silent.

  No. No, he's fine. He has to be fine.

  But the silence stretched.

  "I see it in your eyes," Felipe said softly, terribly. "You felt something, didn't you? Maybe he's already dead. Maybe Laura's final spell was making you love something you'd inevitably lose."

  The magic surged, responding to my panic. I could feel it rising through my throat like vomit, like rage, like Ellie's laughter. It would be so simple. Just open my mouth and command him to stop, to burn, to DIE.

  Do it. He deserves it. He killed Aerol. He's killing you. He might have killed Skymint. Do it do it do it—

  "Stop."

  The word left my lips before I could swallow it back. Not a plea. A command.

  Reality rippled.

  Felipe froze mid-step, his body locked in place as if the air itself had solidified around him. His eyes could still move, darting to me with sudden understanding and fear.

  The silence was absolute.

  I stared at my hand, still outstretched, fingers curled like I was puppeting him. The magic hummed through my veins, satisfied, eager for more. It felt good.

  Ellie's right.

  Horror crashed over me in a wave so violent I nearly vomited. That wasn't my thought. That was... but I didn't have Ellie anymore. The curse was gone. I was supposed to be clean.

  But the magic still tasted like her. Still felt like her fingers wrapped around mine, guiding my hand.

  "I'm here," I whispered, more to convince myself than anyone. My voice shook. "If I'm here then it means I'm still me. I'm still me."

  "Now I have cracked you," Felipe said through frozen lips, and somehow he was smiling.