Through the blinding light, Adon could see nothing.

  There was a cataclysmic sound accompanying the ray, however, and that told him more. The sound was one of stone crumbling and falling.

  Adon reached out with Telepathy and inhabited the visual frame of the closest person to him—Rosslyn. After so much experience using Telepathy, the effort to gather more information from another’s mind was almost a reflex to him. The effect was as though he had suddenly possessed her body. He could see what she saw, though her vision seemed to be wavering slightly.

  The ceiling several feet in front of Rosslyn was collapsing. Adon observed huge slabs of stone breaking apart, tumbling down, and forcing the griffins to keep back. One of the creatures was struck on the head by a smaller fragment of stone, and two of its fellows were forced to drag the unconscious monster backward. The rest continued to maintain a safe distance. Rosslyn seemed to have done a great deal of damage to the ceiling from what Adon could see; stone was falling in larger or smaller chunks everywhere, and the damage only appeared to be getting worse in the area she had attacked—though he could not see the actual scale of the devastation wrought, since Rosslyn’s eyes were focused on the enemy rather than on what Adon was suddenly curious about.

  Then Rosslyn turned around, and Adon both felt and—surreally—saw her grab him and place him on her shoulder. Then she started climbing the cliff face. The other knights were still climbing, except for the ones who were already inside the tunnel to the next level, but everyone was far ahead of Rosslyn.

  Despite—or perhaps because of—her status, everyone had just trusted that she could handle the griffins. Maybe they had known exactly what she intended to do.

  Adon observed Rosslyn’s vision blur and then focus again.

  Something was going wrong.

  Are you all right? he sent.

  Just need to get to exit. The reply was weak. He could feel that as with her vision, the state of Rosslyn’s mind was wavering too.

  Someone give the Princess a hand! Adon telepathically shouted up the cliff face.

  Not necessary, Adon, Rosslyn thought. I will be fine.

  Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision, and after only a few seconds of this, she revised her previous thought.

  Actually, I may need a little help.

  As she reached for the next handhold in the wall, she blinked away the advancing shadows—but they were relentless. Her hands kept moving—Adon could sense the motion in his body, even as her vision went black—but she was functionally almost blind.

  Adon left her mind and returned to his own body. His vision was a bit blurry—a continuing effect of the blinding light he had experienced a minute or so earlier—but it was better than actual blindness.

  He used Transformation, extended his legs, and turned them invisible. Rosslyn was still climbing upward, as a couple of knights waited slightly above to grab her. Adon placed the tips of his lengthened limbs on top of Rosslyn’s hands to guide her reaching from one handhold to the next. He thought she would want to look strong in front of her men—not let people know that she seemed to have gone temporarily blind.

  Her lips curled into a small, tired smile as she felt his touch.

  Then the Princess managed to climb those last few feet, at which point two of her knights took her under the elbows and carried her gently up to the exit. Adon fluttered after them, deliberately moving slowly and keeping one eye toward the griffins, but none of the monsters made an aggressive move.

  Adon’s Telepathy might have been on the fritz, but he could have sworn he felt a slight glow of contentment from the lead griffin as it looked at him. No, it must have been his imagination or something.

  The butterfly was so focused on watching for any aggressive action that he barely noticed that the same lead griffin whose feelings he was observing was brown with some white dappling across its wings.

  He did not consciously notice this detail at all. But his Impeccable Memory recorded everything faithfully. When Adon replayed the scene in his mind later, as he would, he would recognize that the monster that had seemed happy that Adon and his friends had escaped was none other than the griffin he had named Speckles in his mind—the one with whom Adon had made the alliance.

  For now, Adon set down on the landing of the tunnel moving downward to the next level. He had made certain that he was the last living creature out of the second floor of the dungeon.

  As he landed, the butterfly observed that Rosslyn lay slumped against the tunnel wall. From her posture, she was clearly unconscious. Two knights stood at her side. One looked anxiously back out at the second level, as if worried that the griffins would pursue. The other knight, a woman, checked Rosslyn’s vital signs, feeling her pulse, opening her eyes and checking that they could follow movement, and testing her reflexes.

  At Rosslyn’s other side, William knelt. He frowned stoically, but Adon felt genuine worry from him. Whether that worry was genuinely for Rosslyn or for his own future plans if she should die in the dungeon, Adon could not know without probing deeper.

  He chose to respect William’s privacy. Adon had not intentionally violated it on the occasion when he overheard William’s opinions about Rosslyn right after the young lord first arrived at the palace.

  Maybe if Adon just tried to put that interaction out of his mind, despite everything, he and William could get along.

  Then the young lord spotted him.

  “You!” he growled. “Fine alliance you crafted, mystic beast! What happened back there?! How did Rosslyn wind up like this?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Adon sensed a mixture of genuine anger and opportunism in William’s mind. It brought out his own conflicted, wrathful feelings. Forget trying to get along with this jackass!

  The butterfly began formulating his angry response in his head.

  “I saw everything,” interjected the other young lord. Frederick stepped forward from a little further into the tunnel. “Rosslyn decided to cave the ceiling in on those freakish creatures. No one made her this way. She did it to herself. Damned fine light show she put on.” He smiled. “You should be proud of her. And as for the butterfly, I think he did very well. His alliance lasted just long enough. Considering that we lost two knights against a fraction of the total threat from this floor, fighting at ground level—” He raised an eyebrow at his brother—“I think Adon saved our skins. I would not want to think how matters would have resolved if you and I had tried to lead a scouting party into the level ourselves. We would have been attacked from all sides with no hope of help.”

  William stared at his brother, his mouth slightly agape, speechless. Internally, he was fuming, thoughts so loud that Adon could not have avoided them if he tried, unless he completely deactivated Telepathy.

  Whose side are you on? When did you become so cozy with the beasts? was all the young lord could formulate in his mind. There was a slight feeling of betrayal—and something slightly more insidious. Adon read William’s intent clearly now, or at least some fragment of it.

  Do you not remember that they are the enemy here? William thought.

  Adon hardened his heart a bit. If he and the spiders were William and Frederick’s enemies—or at the least William’s—then he would have to be prepared to act as such.

  The three of them were still in their positions, each one thinking and seemingly preparing to speak to the others, tension high in the absence of the Princess who could most easily have made peace between them.

  Then the sky fell.

  Adon heard it before he saw it. Then he observed it through stunned eyes. A massive, solid hunk of whatever stone the second level’s ceiling was made of—an order of magnitude larger than any rock that had fallen before—tumbled downward. It seemed to move almost in slow motion, majestically, like a ship destined for a rendezvous with an iceberg.

  Finally, as it dropped past the line of sight from Adon’s position, it felt as if reality’s speed returned to normal. The rock plummeted to the ground until it struck the ground with an earth-shattering thud. A cloud of dust and fungal particles rolled up from out of the impact zone, creating a blinding—and slightly sparkly—cloud of filth that completely blocked the view of the second level.

  The entire world seemed to tremble for several seconds with the impact. Fortunately, nothing in the structure of the tunnel was loose enough to be shaken free and turn into dangerous debris in the midst of the miniature earthquake.

  Before the dust could settle, and Adon and the others could see what exactly had happened out there, the Princess stirred.

  “I am not ready to wake yet,” she murmured. “Another quarter of an hour, Celeste…”

  Wasn’t that the name of the maid who betrayed her? Adon thought.

  No, he was certain it was. Well, one could not control the content of one’s dreams. He hoped that she would not feel weird that she had been visited by a traitor in her semi-waking dream.

  But her eyes were fluttering now.

  The female knight by Rosslyn’s side knelt down, pressed her hand against the Princess’s shoulder gently, and began speaking in a barely audible voice directly into Rosslyn’s ear.

  “Princess, are you all right? Please wake up now, people are worried about you…”

  Celeste is not here, Rosslyn, Adon sent in a gentle tone, glad that he could communicate directly into her brain. You’re in the dungeon now. Probably best if you wake up.

  Rosslyn’s eyes opened unsteadily.

  “Adon—” She blinked and looked around. “William, Frederick, everyone—”

  I hope you are feeling a bit better, Princess, sent Goldie.

  “I hope you all have not been fighting on my account,” Rosslyn said, finishing her thought. “Please remember we must all get along in here. I could have sworn I heard raised voices in my sleep.”

  William practically lunged closer to her, seizing her right arm in one of his hands as if he was worried she would suddenly throw herself through the tunnel opening back into level two.

  “Princess, why did you do that?” he asked. “I—surely you know that this expedition could hardly go on without you.” William pressed his lips together, and Adon had the distinct sense that the young lord felt that he had said too much.

  “Do not be upset, William,” she replied in an obviously groggy voice. “I saw the path with the least bloodshed, and I took it. I will live. I just need a bit of recovery time.”

  “If time is as critical as I think it is, then—” William lowered his voice. “—perhaps sacrificing a few lives was the price that needed to be paid to get us to the core more quickly without expending that attack. I do not know what price your body had to pay to use it, but I know enough about magic to know that you do not simply do that—” He gestured at the dust cloud still glittering in level two—“without paying a toll.”

  “We have strong constitutions in my family, William. I am glad that few knights and few griffins needed to die to make our escape possible.”

  “Rosslyn, why would you care—” He cut himself off as he noticed that the Princess was looking at the butterfly perched a few feet away. William tightened his lips but said nothing. His face said it all, though.

  Adon almost could have read his mind without Telepathy. But fortunately, he did not have to try.

  You cared about the butterfly’s opinion more than your own safety? William thought.

  “Can you—can you walk?” he asked after a moment. His mouth sounded very dry. “If not, we will have you carried. We must make camp further into the tunnel. We will not advance to the third level until we have all had some rest.”

  “Good idea,” Rosslyn said. She covered a yawn with one hand.

  “Did Adon ask you to make this effort, to spare the griffins?” William asked, his expression slightly twisted as if he smelled something unpleasant. “Was this decision made under his influence?”

  “No,” Rosslyn said, yawning again. “I was inspired by their bravery in fighting alongside us. They are noble creatures, and I hope that when they are not being controlled by the dungeon core—well, perhaps they may even accompany us out of the dungeon. Would that not be a glorious return journey? Riding on griffin’s back? You could tell that story to your dying day, William.” She yawned again. “I think you will probably need to have me carried, William. Please ask a couple of the female knights to do it. You know I am shy…”

  Adon found her quieter, lighter, slightly uninhibited demeanor cute. It was out of character, yet extremely natural at the same time. Maybe it was just rare to see the Princess truly relaxed.

  William rose from beside her, cast another disdainful look in Adon’s direction, then walked over to find another female knight to join the one already standing beside Rosslyn.

  The Princess opened her eyes narrowly and stared at the butterfly for a long few seconds. Enough time that he would have blushed if he had cheeks.

  He heard her last few sleepy thoughts.

  Perhaps I lied a bit… Perhaps you influenced me. Just a little, Adon…

  Rosslyn’s lips curled into a gentle smile as she returned to sleep.