Aella stood up and looked around. She didn"t remember what had happened after the woman took her hand."What"s the cookie for?" asked Felix, looking at her left hand.
"It"s the for the… fairy," she answered before she realized what she was saying. In her hand was an oversized orange cookie. Where did that come from?
"Fairy?" asked Alfred.
"You know where a fairy is!?" exclaimed Bridgette.
"Yes," she answered slowly, not liking how she had answered automatically. Had that woman messed with her head? Giving it a shake, she decided it wasn"t worth worrying about what had already happened. Hopefully, there wouldn"t be any nasty surprises in the future.
"Well, then let"s go kill that demon!" said Alfred, jumping to his feet and flexing his shoulders while bouncing around. "I"m ready to be doing something other than sitting around."
"You always hate sticking around," pouted Bridgette. "We have such interesting talks when you"re here."
"That reminds me," said Aella, turning to Bridgette. "The king said that the demons that came from the north were gargoyles, and those from the south were demons, but it was easier to call everyone demons, so they stopped using the word gargoyle."
"That means you are two races! The runes are very specific that a gargoyle be the one who touches the circle, so we need to find out what the difference is and find a gargoyle," said Bridgette.
"The circle wanted to react with me," said Aella, "which means my father is probably a gargoyle. I need to find him and ask him."
"But I thought the advisor who was in contact with him, couldn"t reach him," said Alfred.
"That just means he doesn"t have his communication device. I imagine he"s still alive. I"m going to have to look for him."
"We"ll be here until you come back," said Alfred, sitting back down and managing not to sigh.
Teleporting to the throne room, she wanted to double check with the advisors in case her father had checked in, but they weren"t there.
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"Your Majesty, have you already woken up?" asked Frederick, looking surprised.
Aella realized she hadn"t taken a nap yet. She wasn"t tired though, so something must have happened to make her not need to sleep as much. Thinking about how that may have happened, made her start to feel scared, so she decided it didn"t matter.
"I am rested," she nodded at him. "How are things going?"
"About the same as before. It hasn"t been that long since you left, we figured you were still asleep." Seifer didn"t look convinced.
With a thoughtful nod, she teleported above the area where the building had been with the carvings. This was where she had fought the harpies. Below her the land looked scrubbed clean. There weren"t any trees or bushes left. The sides of the mountains looked almost like they had melted and sagged. To the south, she could see a dark line, where the washed away trees and debris had collected. Teleporting was faster than flying, and she was soon directly above the area.
There had been a small valley here, just enough to catch the trees and cause a net. There were torn tents and bloated bodies from the demons that were caught in the flood, then trapped in the debris. The ridge of carnage extended for miles. It would take her a long time to search the whole thing for her father. Maybe he had seen the storm coming and took refuge in the mountains.
Teleporting to the ledge overlooking the portal, she looked around for anyone. Checking the tunnels and rooms that Brian had left, she again found no one. Her heart was starting to ache at the thought that maybe her father really was dead, but she didn"t allow herself to worry. Methodically checking each nook and cranny, she finally found a sign that some of the troops may have escaped. A recent firepit was still warm, on a ledge overlooking the destroyed camp grounds.
Flying up, she was determined that whoever had been there, wasn"t going to escape her. She studied the mountain side, checking for any spot that someone could be hiding. The location and age of the pit, made her think someone had cooked their supper on it the night before, and had let it slowly die overnight. Chances were, they weren"t that far away.
Pulling out her goggles, just in case they might help, she spied the black line of magic before she spotted the figure hiding in the bushes. Her black dagger had sliced through the line before the demon could kill the person. Flying over to the figure, she rolled her father over, and saw that he was barely breathing. His eyelids fluttered, but he was burning up with fever.
Laying her hand on him, she healed him, but he didn"t wake up. The disease that was causing him to die, was still there. Poison and toxins had built up in his body. She had healed the damage, but the damage wasn"t what was killing him. She was going to lose him if she didn"t get those poisons out of his body.
Teleporting with him, back to the throne room, she called for her healers. Frederick ran off himself, to find them. Seifer came to stand over her, as she continued to try and heal him, hoping it would keep him alive long enough for the healers to remove the poison.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"General Brimsey. I need to question him about something very important, but if he dies, I won"t have anyone else to ask," she answered calmly. The last time she had been this tight with her emotions, was right after she realized she would have to fight to survive, and that no one was going to help her.
"Wasn"t he stationed up near the mountains?" he asked, looking at her in surprise.
"I didn"t see any other survivors. There were so many dead, I"m surprised I found him."
He shook his head as he turned to deal with the newest wave of messengers.
When the healers finally arrived, Aella had leaned back away from her father. She was sure he was dead, or so close to it, the healers probably wouldn"t be able to save him. Moving out of the way for the healers to do what they could, she watched without emotion.
"Your Majesty?" called Firion. He had a young boy with him, looking terrified, and Tezra with her family.
Without blinking an eye, she teleported next to the boy, slicing through the black line that started to pulse the moment the boy laid eyes on her. He fell to the floor, spasming, but it quickly ceased since she cut the line the demon from above had placed on him. The sooner that demon died, the better.
"Care to explain what just happened?" asked Firion, glancing at the boy on the ground.
"No, get him up. He doesn"t look like he would know much, but he must have some importance for the monster to target him. Tezra, do you know anything about the secret of the Spell Spire?"
Aella had checked over everyone with her goggles, the moment she saw Firion enter the room, and only the boy had a black line.
"I… I know of A spire, Your Majesty, but I"m, not sure if it"s the same spire you speak of." Tezra held her daughter"s hand very tightly, and her husband stood behind her, holding her shoulders, as if holding her up. They all looked petrified.
"That might be what I want to know about. Tell me what you know."
"Right after I was chosen as a Counselor, Drozgar approached me, and told me that I could go to the spire with him. He was the one who kind of controlled the counselors, but I was able to turn him down, by promising to go another time."
"He died in the last fight, didn"t he?" said Aella, trying to remember. The name definitely sounded familiar. Hadn"t Jugthu mentioned a Drozgar when Zalgor was taunting her after her bath?
"Yes, the lightning hit him, turning him to dust. I believe it was common for all of the counselors to travel to the spire at least once, to ensure they were on board with whatever the group consensus was, but I never went. I became a counselor too late, and always managed to evade the other counselors when they were getting ready to go. Something about the way they talked about it, gave me the creeps."
"It"s good that you avoided it. How are you and your family doing?" she asked, not really caring, but looking for something to continue to conversation. The boy had started calming down, and she wanted him to see she wasn"t very scary. Tezra was the one to raise him, and her opinion of Aella was important to the boy. While Aella wasn"t sure the boy knew anything, she was curious how the demon had managed to get a tether on the boy, unless the boy had seen the monster in the spire.
"We are doing well, Your Majesty," she said, bowing quickly, as if she were afraid Aella was about to order her to do something.
"Have you been to the spire?" she asked, looking at the boy.
His eyes got big as he stared at her.
"Your King has asked you a question," prodded Firion, grabbing him by the arm.
"The place really high?" he asked, in a whisper, "that has the old demon in the glowing circle?"
"That"s the place," she said. "What happened when you went there?"
"He was told to touch the circle," came a deep voice from behind her.
Swirling around, Aella saw her father sitting up on the floor, with his head drooping, but he stared at her with strong eyes.
"That"s what they have everyone do, who is taken to the spire."