"You think you are the only one who notices when someone is bleeding themselves dry?" Chronos scoffed, crossing his arms and averting his gaze toward the half-repainted black walls of her courtyard. "Your magic fluctuates every time she confronts you. It is loud. It is annoying. And it is disruptive. If you plan on keeping the Guardian like this forever, then you better start finding ways to deal with Victoria, right now."
Fina stared at him, as a cold wind swept through the courtyard, carrying the sharp scent of wet earth and fresh paint.
She closed her eyes, letting the memory fade back into the yellowed pages of the journal before carefully folding the loose sheets back into the hidden pocket of the spine.
Aefia sat alone on the cold floor of her study, her hands trembling as the weight of the revelation settled over her.
Chronos had known. Seraphina had known. Victoria had been playing the exact same long game decades ago. Using the exact same playbook of subtle framing, backbreaking labor, and psychological warfare.
Aefia leaned her head back against the edge of her desk, staring up at the grand ceiling. Her throat burned with a dry, feverish rasp, and her eyelids felt heavy, but her mind was clearer than it had been all week.
Victoria hadn't just planted some evidence in the basement to frame Seraphina back then—she had left it there as an ongoing trap, waiting for whichever foolish successor inherited the third Aethalgard's seat.
"She really thinks I am as fragile as the girl she broke," Aefia whispered to the empty room, her voice dropping into a sharp, quiet register. A faint smile touched her lips despite the pounding heat behind her eyes.
She stood up slowly, her knees wobbling slightly from the sickness of handling dust, before she steadied herself against the edge of the mahogany desk. She gathered her notes, the original journal, and the microphone recording, shoving them neatly into her invisible storage.
If Victoria wanted a repeat performance of her ancient victory, she was going to be sorely disappointed. Because there was already someone who would love to see her demise from above a high cliff. Aefia wasn't Seraphina. She didn't seek peace treaties, and she certainly didn't swallow insults to buy three months of uninterrupted silence.
"Puppet," Aefia called out softly into the quiet room.
A tiny tear in space flickered near the bookshelf, and the miniature wolf floated out, its ears twitching as it upside-down-hovered in front of her face.
"What? Done crying over ancient history?" Puppet sneered, crossing its tiny paws. "You look like a ghost. A very sweaty, feverish ghost."
"You remember the key?" Aefia asked flatly, ignoring the insult.
Puppet flipped right-side up. Reaching it's hand into the empty space beside it and pulling out a heavy brass metal that was brought out from her inventory. "Right here. Forged it perfectly from the residual magic trace near Victoria's private quarters, just like you wanted. No alerts triggered."
The brass bit into her skin, the unnatural cold clashing violently with her fever-flushed temperature. The thing about the inventory skill, was there was no heat source inside void. So the items that go in, come out feeling like ice that was set inside a freeze for a twenty day period.
She closed her hand around it, feeling the subtle magic humming beneath its frozen surface. Well... Nearly frozen. Actually... Frosted.
"Good," Aefia muttered, sliding the key into her pocket after having it heated up, enough to store. "Let's go take a walk down to the basement."
Puppet happily followed, as they both walked out of the double-doors, closing it tight behind them.
***
The transition from her study down to the sub-levels of the Death Castle was jarring. The smooth, polished stone of the upper floors gave way to ancient, unrefined rock dripping with cold condensation.
Right... So half the Realm knew and no one was able to stop Victoria. Aefia thought to herself. What kind of a woman is she?
The walk down the basement stairs was also horrifying. Regardless of it being the Death castle, what is the point of putting literal animal skulls on the wall. She had seen multiple cat skeletal along the way, and the repetition was not ending.
It sickened her to the stomach. Although Puppet was right behind her.
"Stop making that face, it is embarrassing," it zipped past her ear, hovering right in front of her nose, floating completely upside-down, mid-air with its tiny paws crossed over its chest.
"Who is here to watch you get embarrased?" She let out a dry smile. Her fingers clawing at the walls along the edges while her eyes were swollen underneath from the sickness. The stress just caught up to her, resulting in this sudden cold. "I am just terrified of these 'decorations' they hung up on the walls."
"They are just bones, Aefia. Dry, boring cat bones. If you trip and fall on me, I am biting your finger."
"I am not going to fall on you," Aefia muttered, swatting vaguely at the floating nuisance without looking up. "Besides... They are cats. What harm did they do to get killed like this?"
When if they were artificial, that would have been detectable. Or maybe they were made with magic, so it looks this flawless. But, she didn't have the time to think...
Her head was pounding, a stubborn fever radiating heat behind her eyes while her skin felt ice-cold against the damp air of the stairwell. Suddenly, she misjudged the height of a step, and her boot caught the edge, causing her knee to buckle slightly.
She stumbled forward, catching herself against the rough stone wall just in time. The sharp heat in her forehead flared, making the stairwell tilt for a brief, disorienting second.
"Told you. You are walking like a drunk newborn," Puppet scoffed, flipping right-side up and landing with zero weight on Aefia's shoulder, digging its tiny paws just enough into her dark jacket to anchor itself. "Just keep moving. The door is at the bottom. And don't drop the key. It was a pain to get—I mean, retrieve."
"I don't even know what that is supposed to mean..." Aefia spoke while panting. Her fingers holding her throat as if she was having difficultly inhaling. "Whatever... You made a duplicate, so there is nothing to steal. It was just forged."
Without a further delay, she started walking down the remaining of the steps. The levels went incredibly deep, and the construction style didn't match the ones of the main body castle—which must mean there were multiple things happening while Seraphina's eyes were away in work.
Which also shows why she would get that much work from the others. The only thing that she would never look away from, was work. Just like her mother who had passed away so early.
"Puppet," Aefia suddenly called out. "If the previous third Aethalgard had been working for other Guardians, by standards, doesn't it mean those titles also belong to me?" She asked, her voice devoid of any other statement that wasn't about solving this situation first.
"I mean... Technically, that does make sense. Why did you ask that?"
"It gives me an idea that I haven't had in a while."
"To corner them and take their positions?"
"After I deal with Victoria." Aefia spoke while reaching into her pocket, her fingers brushing against the frigid metal of the key Puppet had handed her long before. The brass was so intensely cold it felt like holding a shard of pure ice, sending a sharp bite straight up her arm and clashing violently with her fever-flushed skin.
She hated holding it. In fact, she hadn't touched the icy key since Puppet made handed it to her. She did graze her finger along the body of the metal, just to store it inside her inventory for later use.
Something about it felt wrong—like it carried a malicious intention meant to trouble her in the future, a trap that would arise if she used it blindly.
However, she couldn't parse the feeling properly through the haze of her fever.
At the very bottom of the winding stairs, the path ended abruptly before a massive, iron-reinforced wooden door. Frost coated its edges, bleeding out into the surrounding stone. There were no crests, no handles—only a heavy, silver-lined keyhole pulsating with a faint, nauseating blood drops. That fell to the ground with a splatter.
The outside made it look like a serial killer's hide-out. I mean... Who knows if it was.
"This is it," Puppet whispered, floating up off her shoulder and circling her head nervously. "The magic on the other side of this door... it is heavy, Aefia. It feels like rotting magic."
"That makes no sense." She spoke while looking upward at her little pet.
"Ugh! Don't you know that time when we just came back to settled inside this castle? And you kept saying it felt like some paranormal activity was going on?" It yelled down at her with frustruation.
"Yes?"
"That is the presence I am getting from the otherside." It answered back, before clawing at her hair a little tighter in fear. "Anyways! Do it already!"
Aefia took a slow, deep breath, forcing the air into her burning lungs. She lined up the icy brass key with the lock, her fingers trembling slightly from the shivering heat racking her frame.
The brass hit no obstacle like she had hoped. Surprisingly enough, it was the perfect fit that made the entire atmosphere grim.
Her eyes widened in shock as she turned towards the source of this. Puppet stared back at her with silence.
As if immediately, Aefia pulled the key out of the lock and stumbled backwards until she hit the floor on her palms. Her breath coming uneven in terror.
The same lock that was currently dripping blood, and the same basement that Seraphina thought was kind of weird and strange.
The cold stone tore at her palms, but the pain barely registered past the thunderous roaring in her ears. Aefia scrambled backward on her knees, her back slamming hard against the bone-adorned wall of the stairwell. The icy brass key slipped from her trembling, fever-flushed fingers, clattering onto the damp steps with a sharp, echoing ring.
It fit. It fit... IT FIT! WHAT THE—
It wasn't just a matching key—it moved the internal tumblers as if the lock had been hungering for it, eagerly accepting the forged magic trace without a single grain of resistance.
"A-Aefia..." Puppet's voice lost all its usual arrogant, snarky edge, dropping into a squeaky, panicked whisper. The tiny wolf bolted straight into her dark jacket, hiding beneath her collar with only its wide eyes visible, digging its little claws into her shirt. "The... the air just died. The magic on the other side... it stopped rotting. It is breathing."
"Fuck that! I can't breathe!" Aefia pressed her hand flat against her throat, trying to force air back into her restricted, burning lungs. Her fever spiked violently, casting dizzying spots of red across her vision.
The heavy, silver-lined keyhole stopped dripping.
The thick, viscous blood that had been splattering onto the floor froze mid-air, reversing its momentum like a grotesque reel of film, creeping backward up the iron frame and drawing itself straight back into the keyhole.
Click.
The lock didn't wait for her to turn the key again. With a low, grinding groan of ancient hinges, the massive iron-reinforced door slowly began to swing inward—not forced open by a sudden blast of wind, but creeping open inch by agonizing inch, as if pulled by an unseen, deliberate hand from within the abyss.
A wave of suffocating, unnatural cold rolled out of the threshold, swallowing the heat of her fever in an instant and leaving her shivering so hard her teeth rattled.
"Aefia... get up..." Puppet whispered, its voice filled with warning with its tail trembling against her neck. "Get up, get up, get up—"
Aefia gritted her teeth, forcing her wobbly knees to straighten as she dragged herself back onto her feet. She swiped the forged key off the floor, shoving it into her inventory, and raised her hand, her garnets-red eyes narrowing in pure, defensive hatred as she stared into the pitch-black void of the threshold.
"I-I-I can't!" She shouted while watching as a thick pool of black liquid creeped towards her. And the passages beside her were blocked. "We have no way back!"
"Use your skills then!" Puppet shouted.
Instantly, Aefia's hands clawed towards her ears as she watched the ink trap her legs.
She shut her eyes for a brief moment. Almost instantly, an idea came to her mind.
She pulled out the keys from behind her, and threw it onto the puddle. Watched as the brass got eaten up. It wasn't an idea of course, but it was an illusion.
As soon as it was drawn back, she crushed the illusion inward, until it became thin air again. With her other hand, sharp red lines appeared around the entire basement.
Her fingers pulled on them, shutting the door. And almost instantly, the lock snapped back and started dripping blood again.
Aefia let out an exhausted sigh and felt her knees buckle. She fell sideways with her brain trying to catch up with whatever had happened in that short amount of time.
The last thing she heard... Was Puppet screaming her name.
***
Aefia dragged her limbs up the stairs back to her office. Her lungs burned from when she was sucked out of breath. Her entire body was moving with pure adrenaline, heading towards the office she knew very well.
Just when she pushed open the door, her body tilted hazardously. The fever burned away most of her strength, her skin went from pale to a deep crimson colour at parts.
Luckily, she saw someone approaching. So she forced another step and fell right into his arms.
"What is going on my Sovereign?!" Matthew shouted in fear as he caught her by the arms. His own clipboard falling onto the floor with a click-clack.
"The basement... Is weird," were the only words she could afford. Moments prior to her consciousness sliping away, her eyes tracked another set of similar keys she had just held.
"Good heavens... That woman is already in her final step..." She muttered under her breath before shutting her eyes.