“Hey everyone.”

  Caledon entered the room, seeing Viveria languidly speaking with Vale, who was fighting to keep awake. The skeletons stood outside their room, watching him in silence.

  “Cally, you’re finally back! Where did you run off to?”

  “Oh, you’ve forgotten already? Didn’t I tell you I was off on a walk to…”

  His voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Explore the Dreadwood?”

  Any hint of fatigue left in Viveria’s eyes disappeared as she lunged off of the mattress. Shiver snored in a corner of the room, in blissful sleep.

  “You went without me? How dare you! You big buffoon I’ll-”

  Caledon beamed, and he confirmed his suspicions. The Nectar affected their memories. He glimpsed at their full cups, they were bound to have taken a drink since he last saw them.

  “Well, I’ve found just the place. You coming, or not?”

  Viveria’s eyes gleamed, as she tugged at Vale’s sleeve.

  “What’s in the pack?”

  “More Nectar. Leave your goblets here, I’ve got plenty – I asked the kitchens. Now come on! When are we going to get the chance to have a drink under the Dawntree like this. Mother and father could be completing their talks at any moment now. We don’t have time to waste.”

  His sister grinned and pulled Vale from her seat. Shiver stumbled to her feet with a yawn, staring at him with her piercing eyes.

  As Caledon left the mansion, he strode past the golden text that had been scribbled all across its surfaces, now revealed to him. Zel had left him messages across the surfaces of the mansion, in an attempt to assist him to snap out of his reverie. Whatever the Nectar was, it had concealed them from him.

  His expression did not waver, as he strode past his guide’s attempts to ground him.

  He would not lose himself again.

  The group walked out of the mansion, beyond the field of black roses.

  As they did, Caledon thought he felt eyes lingering on his back.

  ---

  Finally, they found a glade, a short distance away. They settled under the stars, into the soft grass beneath them.

  Viveria watched, her brow ruffled in confusion as her brother set a torch down in the middle of the group.

  “Caledon, where did you get that?”

  “Oh I thought we’d get a little chilly, it was a good idea huh?”

  Viv hiccupped.

  “Now where did you put that Nec-“

  “So Viveria, who’s stronger. Father, or that Lord we saw with the wooden rapier?”

  “He would give father a run for his money, that’s for sure. But there’s no way he could… waaaait a minute, why are you trying to distract me? Where’s the Nectar?”

  Caledon sat in silence.

  Waiting, and watching.

  When he saw that beads of sweat had erupt on their foreheads, he broke into a smile.

  Caledon confirmed his suspicions, as his eyes lingered on his Phobia, which burned brightly in the middle of the small circle they had formed.

  What better, to combat corruption, than being usurped by another form of it?

  His own.

  Now, he had only one challenge.

  He lunged, intercepting Viveria as she made a break for it, back towards the mansion. They fell heavily, and Caledon drove a knee into her back and retrieved the rope he had nicked from a storage room – hurriedly tying up her legs.

  “Let go of me, you bastard! I want Nectar!”

  They all reacted in different ways. Vale, crept backwards looking at him with wide eyes.

  Scared.

  It hurt, but there was only one way out of this.

  As Viveria tugged ineffectively at the rope binding her, Caledon strode towards Vale.

  “You saw what happened. Can’t you feel the urge to drink?”

  Vale stared at him as she frowned, her eyes narrowing as they passed over his face.

  Finally, her eyes widened in recognition.

  Then, he felt the biting cold overwhelm him.

  For a split second, his movement was arrested. So was the movement of the trees that swayed in the gentle breeze around them.

  Unable to move his body, his thoughts remained within his control, and he felt the edge of a cold blade touch his throat.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as mist peeled away from its surface, which shone in the moonlight of Idriel and Valefor above them, the silver and golden moons of Elucidor.

  The surface of the blade marred by innumerable cracks.

  Shiver’s eyes similarly shone like her Phobia, and drilled into his own - gleaming cerulean. Then she tilted her head, as if considering something.

  She brought a finger to a bead of sweat on her forehead.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Then licked it.

  “That’s sweat alright. I can’t remember the last time I felt it on my skin. Vale, I think he’s right. It messed with our memories. I can’t believe I forgot you, princess. I can also feel it compelling me to consume more. Can’t you?”

  Caledon stared flatly at the girl, as she let out a low hum. It was easy to forget what a character she was. Especially when she could turn into a demon at the drop of a hat.

  Vale’s eyes furrowed as she grew aware to the sensation insidiously driving her to drink.

  Caledon’s shoulders slumped in relief, his ploy, a success.

  ---

  “Kill me. I want to die.”

  “I’ll gladly do it, Shiver. If you don’t shut up.”

  Vale and Shiver were not taking their withdrawal from the Nectar elegantly. They lay on the ground, their faces caked in sweat and their pupils dilated.

  At least they had regained more of themselves.

  Zel appeared in a flash of flame before them.

  “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Thank you, Zel. It was my Phobia. Ironically… my own Fear of corruption subordinated whatever had its hold over us. Exposure to my Phobia broke us out of it.”

  Their memories had begun to return to them. Barely. For one, they remembered each other. The events that had transpired in the Archcity of Fear, and subsequently at Brimstone.

  Their journey to the Dreadwood and what came after?

  They were patchy. Most of all, the events that immediately preceded their stay at the mansion were beyond their reach.

  Less mercifully… they still recalled the events that transpired while they were under the influence of Nectar.

  Caledon met Vale’s eyes across the flickering flame of his Phobia. Her cheeks coloured, as she broke away from his gaze. He felt a pang of emotion in his chest, which he shoved aside.

  He steeled himself, there would be time for his idle, useless thoughts later.

  “Our mother and Silas are still in there. Flora has been feeding those elves a substance that corrupts them. Stealing their memories away from them. Keeping them in a trap of eternal revelry.”

  He clenched his fist.

  “We need to free them.”

  “You do that. I need to find Icey. That’s the whole reason I came to his Feardamned forest, to descend.”

  Shiver rose from her seat, staring into the darkness of the Dreadwood – in the very opposite direction of the mansion.

  The promise of Trepidation awaited.

  “No you won’t. We do this together-“

  Vale walked up to her, tightening her grip across her wrist.

  “-and then we find Icey.”

  Vale’s face fell.

  “Shiver… how would you like it if Marta and Pov were under some strange, corrupting influence? Caledon’s mother is in there. Besides… the last thing I can remember is our carriage ride to the Dreadwood, and we wake up in the very heart of it? What on Elucidor happened to our original goal? To find your families, then to descend?”

  Vale let out a soft sigh.

  “I can’t hear Quietus either. It must be an effect of the Nectar. Caledon… is just an exception, it seems.”

  Shiver raised a teasing eyebrow at him.

  “You hear that? You’re exceptional, lordling.”

  He never would have imagined that the girl who once sought to kill his father could change so drastically. It was a welcome change. Shiver turned to regard him.

  “Well then. I suppose you have a plan?”

  ---

  Trying to aid his mother directly, to sneak her out of the mansion would be a fool’s errand. Flora’s attendants were crawling all over the place, and he didn’t doubt that they had their own Fearshapers at their beck and call. Having just recently descended from Anhedonia, they hadn’t acquired that much tangible power.

  With one exception.

  His mind returned to Shiver, and how she had halted the motion of the clearing around them.

  They had settled on a different strategy.

  There was one thread connecting it all together.

  Nectar.

  The liquid that was to blame for their reverie. Which flowed in abundance in the mansion, served with such care to ensure that not a single guest’s cup ran dry.

  They had a chance, a unique one – to end that for good if they found the source of its production. They stood at the foot of the Dawntree, at the heart of Highlady Solastra’s Archcity of Life.

  There would be no better chance of stifling Flora’s storage or production of Nectar, while creating a diversion for Viveria to escape with their mother while Flora was distracted.

  So, Caledon did the next logical thing and dressed up in his butler’s clothes.

  Silas, thankfully, must have been tending to his mother. Caledon squeezed into his pants, chosen for its similarity to the attire of the mansion’s attendants. He felt them constrict across his thighs, threatening to rip at any moment.

  “Urgh, I’m sorry Silas. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “My, my lordling, you do dress up well. What do you think, Vale?”

  Caledon and Vale blushed in unison, as Shiver’s eyes danced.

  Uh oh.

  The realisation that Shiver had found a new method to torment them threatened to awaken a second Fear within him.

  He turned his attention to Shiver and Vale. He had to admit-

  The Highlady had quite the eye for design.

  They wore similarly tight-fitting black trousers that accentuated their form, accompanied by an elegant red blazer that contrasted beautifully against a distinctive black, collared shirt.

  Given the smug look on Shiver’s face, he was certain that if his gaze wandered for even an instant, he would never live it down for a lifetime.

  “Ahem. Well done getting your hands on the uniforms. We need to figure out where all this Nectar is coming from. For the attendants to refill it as often as they do, the source must be nearby.”

  Caledon grinned.

  “Now then, shall we put our plan into action?”

  ---

  Viltremin was on his break.

  Shifts at the affectionately termed “Mansion of Madness” were a draining affair, more so than your typical hospitality gig. Constantly seeing to the needs of the entitled lords and ladies that partook in the Nectar.

  It was their primary duty to ensure their cups remained filled.

  For what purpose? That was beyond his paygrade. His job was not to question.

  That being said… he did have his suspicions.

  He noticed how the drink made guests susceptible to persuasion. A strategy to broker favourable trade deals perhaps? That was a weak hypothesis, House Flora practically gave away their produce at a loss. Perhaps it was to endear the other houses to the Dreadwood. Did they really have a need for it with their favourable trade deals?

  Nothing really fit.

  The senior attendant sighed, as he enjoyed his walk through the garden of black roses.

  Only for it to be unceremoniously interrupted, by the very thing he most despised.

  Poor work ethic.

  Sprawled before him on the garden were three junior attendants, their blazers stained with Nectar. They lay sprawled, looking upwards towards the vast Dawntree above them, relishing in the sight.

  A vein in Viltremin’s forehead visibly pulsed.

  “You there! What do you think you’re doing lazing around?”

  His gruff voice shocked them from their reverie. It fell to a low growl, gradually filling with vitriol.

  “The drink is for the guests. It seems you’ve forgotten the very first rule – no indulging. Up, now. You know what the punishment is. Go haul in our next batch. You’re in no state to serve them. If I catch you slipping up even one more time, I will present the Highlady with your heads, is that understood?”

  “Yes sir!”

  They called out in unison.

  The male elf, scratching his head in muddled confusion, raised his hand.

  “Um, sir?”

  “What. Put your hand down, you idiot.”

  “Could you point me in the right direction? It’s slipped my mind.”

  Viltremin’s eyes filled with rage, the boy growing more bashful by the second. There was nothing more terrible to be cursed with, than tardy, incompetent subordinates.

  “Through the basement, you imbecile. Forgetting something as elementary as that, we will have to review your contra-“

  “Yes sir! I’ll get to work right away, sir!”

  Seizing the opportunity to escape, the trio bounded towards the Mansion with such a renewed vigour that it left the attendant momentarily speechless.

  With a harrumph, he nodded his head in satisfaction.

  Sometimes, the young ones needed a hard hand. It was a job well done.

  ---

  The trio descended the stairs, walking past the kitchen which was bustling with staff. They received looks of pity at their disheveled state, and nods of empathy. Apparently it was common that the servants indulged, despite the rules against it.

  Finally, they came what looked like the doors to a prison cell, that blocked off access to a tunnel extending outwards.

  “You’re the latest batch of suckers who fell for it?”

  He turned to a group of elves in a similarly dishevelled state, sitting languidly on stand by.

  “Oi! You lot, you’re relieved from duty. If I catch you sipping Nectar again, I’ll double your shift! Out with you.”

  His bored gaze returned to the trio.

  “The same goes for you. Now, off with you.”

  The attendant motioned towards the tunnel, opening the gate with a loud creak.

  The attendant watched as they bounded down the tunnel with an enthusiasm that surprised him.

  No one likes barrel duty… they must have lost their marbles.

  He shrugged. At least he wouldn’t be picking up their slack.

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