After Xavier and I finish the walk and talk about seeing each other next, I head back down to the prison. I originally went on a walk to clear my head and keep my emotions in check but after this walk there is no way I can keep them in check now. My brain keeps flashing to what he said before we kissed.

  Because I haven’t been able to get my mind off of you. You are the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of before my eyes rest. I think of you before saying good morning to the sun and before I even have time to realize that I get to spend another day in a world where you exist. I take comfort in knowing that I get to breath the same air as you. I was born in the perfect moment where you get to be in my life and I wouldn’t change it for anything else.

  Did he truly think that way? He doesn’t even know the consequences of loving someone like me. Not only am I a Magnificent, but I am also immortal. I will have to see him grow old and eventually live a life where he no longer exists.

  But, would it be worth it? I think so.

  I take the last step into the prison and see my brothers still standing there figuring out where to start and who to start with. I look over to the old lady’s cell, making sure that she got the mattress that she was promised.

  “Sister, where did you go? Are you feeling okay?” Strider strides over to me in one big step. Sometimes he can take the older brother role a little bit too far, as if he has forgotten that I am his queen and that I don’t need anyone to protect me because, well, I’m immortal.

  “I’m fine,” I reply. I step past him towards Theon and the book, rying to change the subject back to finding a cure and saving the world.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You face is just… well…”

  “Spit it out already. We don’t have all day for this.”

  “I think what our brother is trying to say is that your face is extremely red. Like bright red. Like you look like a-”

  “Yes, I get it Theon. I feel fine and if I didn’t I will tell you two right away, okay? Now, can we get back to finding this cure?”

  Strider nods and tells us that he is going to make some calculations on some paper to figure out ratios in the serum we will make first. While Strider is in the corner, trying to get his surroundings as less distracted as possible, I feel Theon lean over to me and whisper something just loud enough for me to hear.

  “I think the color suites you well sister. I like him and I think he will be good for you.”

  Theon leans away from me and I turn to him, my face feeling even hotter than it was before. How did he know? Am I truly that obvious?

  I clear my throat before asking him, “How do I do this? You know, actually love a mortal and then eventually say goodbye to him. It all feels so fast and I want time but I know he doesn’t have much of it.”

  “Is he worth it?”

  I like to believe he’s worth it. I have never felt something like this before, with any mortal. If I have to sacrifice a little bit of happiness in order to have the best years of my life, then I will gladly sacrifice it. He waters the dying garden that was in my heart. I am starting to finally feel alive again. If I can feel alive again, even for just a slight fraction of my life, then he has to be worth it.

  “If he’s worth it, then you won’t think about the pain when you’re with him. He will brighten up your day just by stepping into a room. Life will feel like it has stopped for a heartbeat when he brings his eyes to meet yours. There is no denying it if it is to be, and Orien,” he grabs my shoulders with both of his hands, “I can tell it is meant to be. He is your other half.”

  My other half. That just sounds right. It feels like floating on clouds on a windless day. Birds singing while they float along with me in the sky full of sunshine and warmth.

  “How did you get over it, you know, when she passed. I just want to know so that I can be prepared.”

  I hate to bring the memories back to my brother but I have a kingdom to run and I need to know how to cope with the loss when it comes so that I don’t mess up my kingdom.

  His pupils grow large and glassy. His brows sink down and when he closes his eyes, a single tear falls down his cheeks.

  “I haven’t gotten over it and I never will. This is something that will forever haunt me, no matter what happens in my life.”

  I must look discouraged because he then squeezes my shoulders and gives me a slight smile. “But I can take comfort in knowing that I gave her the best possible life that I could have ever given her. I watched her grow old, safe and sound in the castle. I know that our father got nowhere near her and that she is probably smiling down at me from wherever she is. Maybe she even met mother and they got to know each other quite well. She was worth it and if I could do it all over again, I would. I wouldn’t have changed anything. I love her and always will. I piece of her will live forever because that piece is in my heart. I will carry out her memory forever and ever. She will never truly die and knowing that brings my comfort and peace.”

  Theon is no longer looking into my eyes but past me. Little tears are falling down his cheek but then he realizes what he is doing. He looks back at me and then wipes the tears off his face, waiting for Strider to tell us the science we need to start with in finding a cure.

  “So, I was thinking,” Strider says, “Maybe we should add some of our blood into a potion. If you look into this book, they used to practice medicinal cannibalism. Says here that they used to have people drink each other’s blood and if someone had anxiety they would even have people eat a heart from a soldier.”

  “And did any of this work?” I ask.

  “Well…” Strider hesitates. “No, but if you think about it, our scientists and doctors have been working on a cure for centuries and they have found nothing. Maybe our blood was the key ingredient and that was all they were missing.”

  I must look unamused because Strider continues with, “I don’t know where else to start Orien. This was the only thing I could think of at the moment. Think about it. If our blood can kill people by just putting it on a knife then maybe we can save people too. We could use our blood for good instead of bad.”

  “We never used our blood for bad,” I blurt out. “Sure, we killed people but how else we were supposed to save hundreds of other people from turning to Darkness. We had to stop them and they only way we knew how is to kill them. If we imprisoned them, our prisons would always be overflow.”

  Strider puts his hands in the air as if he is surrendering. “Apologies, sister. Didn’t realize you would get so emotional about my choice of words.”

  “I’m not emotional, I just want to make it clear that we were doing nothing evil and that we were killing for the greater good.”

  Strider nods and then talks a little bit more about the ratios of our blood mixed in with some other natural herbs soaked in water. All of us cut our palms and poured three drops of blood each into a goblet. We then mixed up the concoction before heading over to Juniper’s cell.

  “Juniper, we appreciate your cooperation up to this point. As a reward, we would like to offer you to be the first person be tested for a cure,” I say with a smile on my face.

  “A cure?” Juniper asks.

  “Yes, we believe that there is a way we can get you out of Darkness’ hold. We believe that if we can get you out of this, we can work together on getting your baby the medicine she needs without turning to Darkness. We want to help you and we will do anything possible to help you.”

  Juniper’s eyes widen with hope. She jumps to her feet and rushes over to the cell door. “What do I have to do?” she asks eagerly.

  “We just need you to drink this. We think that it could be a start on helping you out,” Strider says.

  “What’s in it?” Juniper looks at the cup, Strider is handing to her, suspiciously.

  “There are just some herbs soaked in water with some other ingredients,” I tell her. Not a lie but not telling her the full truth either. If I were in her shoes and I found out I was drinking blood then I would refuse the drink and try to get our of the cell as soon as I could.

  “Um, okay.” Juniper slowly takes the cup out of Strider’s hand and takes a sip. She immediately gags and spits out the drink. “What the hell is in this? It can’t be just herbs. You guys lied to me.”

  “No we didn’t I promise you we didn’t lie, but we need you to drink that whole potion,” Strider says urgently. I can tell that he can’t wait to see what will happen when she drinks the whole thing.

  Strider has always been the most curious one out of the three of us. Anything that he can experiment with will make his day. He loves puzzles and solving problems, and he’s pretty good at it too. That’s why I am giving my trust to him in this whole experiment thing.

  “Can I get something to chase it down?” Juniper asks. “I don’t think I will be able to stand the taste once it’s all down. I don’t want the possibility of throwing this up if it actually works. I want to be free. So please could I have bread or something to chase it down?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Strider sighs before nodding and demanding a guard to get a piece of bread from the kitchen. When the guard comes back, Juniper agrees to drink the entire thing. She downs the liquid in just a few gulps, cringes at the bad taste, and devours the bread afterwards.

  Strider is practically bouncing on his feet as he asks, “Well, how do you feel?”

  Juniper looks at him with disappointment sprawled across her face. “I feel… the same.”

  “Okay, don’t get discouraged. This might take some time to set in. We will come back to you in a couple of hours and see how you are doing.”

  Juniper gives a silent nod before dragging her feet back to the opposite side of the cell and sits back down on the ground.

  “I kind of feel bad for her,” Theon says to me.

  “Me too, but I guess this is the consequences for her actions. The only thing we can do now is try to get her out of this messy situation,” I reply.

  We check in on the other prisoners. The old lady is sleeping peacefully in the bed we gave her. By the sounds of her snores, she hasn’t slept in days maybe. Guess she really did need that mattress after all. The old man with the beard is still making noises but they are more gurgled grunts than screams now. He might be easier to experiment on now that he is calmer. Next, we walk to the bald man with the mustache.

  He must have not noticed that we were down here because he gasps as we walk by his cell door.

  “Please, please you have to get me out of here,” the man begs. He stays sitting on the floor of the cell and folds his hands together.

  “And why should we do that?” Theon asks. The last time I heard him have this much attitude in his tone was when Strider and him had a little argument about who gets the last little bit of the chicken. It’s been centuries since that happened.

  “I’ll cooperate, I promise. I will do whatever you want.”

  My brothers and I look at each other for confirmation. We all decide that we can give him a potion too. We make another one before we get back to his cell door.

  “Here, take this potion and drink all of it,” Strider commands.

  “Can you bring it in here?” the bald man asks.

  “No.”

  “Please, I am so weak now. I haven’t been able to get a proper meal in days and my body is feeling it. I am too weak to stand right now.”

  Strider sighs and then loudly groans before opening the cell door and walking over to the bald man. His ugly smile seems to be an attempt of politeness but I just shudder. Just as Strider is about to hand the cup over, the bald man slaps it out of his hand and onto the ground. He gets up from the floor and kicks Strider in the ribs so hard I can hear a crack.

  Strider falls to the ground groaning in pain. The bald man runs over to Strider when he isn’t prepared to fight back and grabs one of the glints off of his body. He then runs over to the entrance of his cell at full speed, letting out a battle cry as he lunges towards Theon and I.

  Theon and I dodge to opposite sides at the last minute, letting the bald man fall onto the ground. Fury runs through my veins and they become so hot it feels like it is going to melt my skin.

  How stupid can this man be? I told him that if he tried anything that I would kill him on the spot. And if he thinks that he can take me or my brothers, he is even more stupid than I originally thought. The way he lunged towards Theon and I shows me that he has had no combat training at all in his life. This kill is going to be so easy.

  “Theon, check on Strider. I got him,” I command.

  Theon nods and then runs over to our brother, making sure he is okay enough where he doesn’t need immediate medical attention.

  The bald man takes a minute to get back on his feet, his breathing sounds like he just ran for hours. This is going to be so easy.

  I grab a glint that is sheathed on my thigh and get into a stance. He looks behind me, clearly trying to see where he can escape. Stupid, stupid man. He is so obvious about his next move that I could fight him with my eyes closed just to have a little fun.

  The bald man runs towards me, the glint flipped in his hand ready to plunge it into my body. Right before he gets to me, I dodge out of the way once more. This time, I stab my glint into his abdomen.

  He freezes and I can see his eyes widen as he realizes that he has been stabbed.

  “No, no, no. You stupid-”

  He is only dust now, floating the air around us. Nothing more, nothing less.

  I look over to my brothers. Both of them on the ground. Strider with one of his hands on is ribs and Theon kneeling down beside him to help him with whatever he needs.

  I walk over to them. “Are you alright?”

  “I’ll be fine. There will be bruises for sure but I will be fine,” Strider replies.

  “Come on, let’s see if you can walk,” Theon says. He puts the arm that Strider isn’t putting on his ribs around his shoulder and hoists him up. Strider makes a slight hissing sound but seems to be able to walk without Theon’s help.

  “Do you think you are up for one more experiment? I am thinking we can try our potion on the old man who has turned,” I say to Strider.

  Moving on so quickly after killing a man is something I never thought would feel natural to me. He wasn’t turned but I did warn him and he wasn’t exactly innocent. Maybe, because of those reasons, I don’t care as much as I would have.

  “Sure, although, I don’t think the man will cooperate with drinking the potion. I managed to scrounge up three empty syringes and a couple of needles. We can make the potion and then try to inject it into the man. He’s chained up right now, so all we would need to look out for is his mouth but that should be an easy task.”

  Theon and I agree with Strider’s strategy and make one more potion. This time, my palm is in so much pain that it feels like it is about to set on fire. Shocks of pain jolts my body as I wrap my hand for one final time today.

  We were able to get the liquid into the syringe and walk over to the older man’s cell. Luckily the man isn’t making anymore sounds. Maybe he fell asleep. D people who have turned even fall asleep? I guess we don’t know because we never let one live long enough to even see how they behave on a day to day basis. I don’t want to find out.

  Where the man is chained up, the room is very dark that we can barely see him. We walk over to him but I step into a puddle of liquid. I look down but it is too dark to see what it is. Did he piss on the ground? Gross. Even though we chained him up and he doesn’t have an opportunity to use the bucket, I am still going to take hours cleaning my boots after this.

  I lift my shoe out of the puddle but it is stickier than I thought it would have been. Stars, how old is this piss?

  We walk over to the man who is still. He must be asleep, but he probably won’t be for long once we put this syringe in his arm. It’s a rude awakening if I admit so myself.

  “Should we wake him up?” I whisper.

  “We would probably have more luck if we didn’t,” Strider responds.

  We get closer to the man and then I find out what the liquid is. It isn’t piss, it’s blood.

  The man has his head tilted to the side almost inhuman like. Which would make sense, since his neck is cut s deep that it has almost decapitated him.

  “What the hell?” Theon yells.

  “Who killed him?” I ask.

  “Obviously not one of us. If we did this with a glint, he would be dust right now. No, someone who has access down here killed this man when we weren’t looking,” Strider says.

  “Like a guard?” Theon asks.

  Strider jolts his head to Theon as if surprised by that questions. He gives it some thought before replying, “Most likely. We need to round up all the soldiers immediately.”

  “Agreed,” Theon states.

  I turn to the old man with the beard, tears filling my eyes. These aren’t tears of sadness though, these are tears of pure hot rage. We were finally making moves on finding a cure for people who have turned to Darkness, but it all going sideways. Whenever we take a step forwards, we always seem to get pushed two steps back.

  “You guys go ahead, I will meet you in the throne room where all the guards are to be gathered,” I say.

  “And what will you be doing?” Strider asks.

  “I just need a minute.”

  My brothers respect my wishes and run off to gather any guard that is not doing important tasks.

  Alone, I am left alone with my dying hope. Minutes ago it was alive and well, experimenting giving it more and more strength. Now, seeing this dead body in front of me, took away every drop of strength it had.

  We could always find more followers of Darkness and capture them but if someone on the inside kill this man, how do I know it’s not going to happen again.

  I tear falls down my cheek, burning my skin. I take the same glint that I killed the bald man with and plunge it into the body of the old man. Turning the corpse into dust. Giving him a forever peace.