Arsheus
After realizing what was going on I ran back to my room as fast as I could, crashing into servants when they wouldn't get out of my way.
They all looked at me as if I was crazy, but I couldn't have cared less. I had to get to Ria. The fact that Allea had taken her wasn't good, not at all.
I ran as fast as I could and reached my room in record time.
I was panting when I pushed Rin out of my bed and into the cold floor. He didn't even notice me until he was sprawled all over the floor. When he finally did he glared at me, hissing and showing all his teeth.
" What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
" Come on, we're going"
Rin groaned and sighed, but he got up.
" What are we doing?" His voice was tired as he spoke, as if he was tired of life and was just going along with whatever I wanted.
Well, he was going to have a lot of fun when we went seeking.
" Allea kidnapped Ria"
Upon hearing what I had to say Rin's face changed completely. Fear and confusion spread across his face at once as I pushed the door open and went outside.
" What do you mean?"
" What you heard. Allea kidnapped Ria"
Rin looked confused at me, as if the mere idea was unthinkable. If I was been honest I also thought it had to be a joke until I had seen the room. Those ashes were Allea's. I was sure of that much.
" Why would she do that?"
" That's what we have to find out"
Rin looked worried as we rushed down the corridors, back to Allea's now burned room.
" Do you think they're okay?"
I couldn't tell if Rin was worried about Allea or about Ria as he asked. He probably was afraid that the both of them had gotten into some kind of trouble. It was unthinkable that Allea had taken Ria. They were friends.
If it weren't for the way Allea had reacted the other day I would've thought just the same, but the way her eyes had gleamed when she had ran away and the way she had spoken..... I wasn't so sure anymore.
Rin continued yapping and asking questions, saying his theories out loud as we walked closer to the room.
Once we were within a visible distance he shut up and stopped on his tracks, staring at the burned room.
Fortunately for us we didn't stand out as everyone else stood frozen in place looking at the fire.
" That..... That was Allea's doing, right?" Rin's voice was broken as he asked, as if he already knew the answer and wanted me to tell him he was wrong. Well, he was right this time.
I placed my hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward, past the crowds looking at the room and into the actual place.
He shook under my hands, his body also refusing to believe that the woman he loved had taken our ally and was now doing god knew what to her.
It wasn't a good situation, but maybe if we went inside we would be able to find some kind of clues as to where she had taken Ria.
No one tried to stop us as we pushed past the broken and burned door and entered.
The inside was just ashes. Everywhere I looked all that remained were the ashes from when where Allea had burned everything down.
I left Rin looking at one side of the room as I walked up to the other one myself. Outside the servants begun to whisper and point at us, probably wondering what we were doing over here, but they didn't come inside to stop us, so that was a win. I didn't feel like lying right now.
I was busy looking for anything that could tell us where Allea had taken Ria when Rin screamed from the other side of the room.
I ran up to him as fast as I could, dread taking hold of my mind. All I could think of was Rin dying again just in front of my eyes. His scream was the same as when the angels had broken through our defenses and he had sacrificed himself to save me.
For a few seconds, as I ran to him as fast as I could, my feet barely touching the floor, I lived again the same fear that had taken hold of me back then, only that now I wasn't going to let him die.
When I reached his side of the room in under a few seconds, out of breath and feeling as if I had used all my strength to get there I saw Rin was fine, his face ashen and looking as grey as the ashes that were all that remained of the room, but fine.
I sighed audibly before I calmed down. He was fine. I was fine. We weren't under siege anymore. We were fine, the angels were gone and if they ever dared to come back I was going to destroy them. The elders that had taken everything away form me were now dead. I didn't have to fear them.
' Now you just have to fear whatever killed them' I pushed the voice of reason that kept putting me on edge to the deepest parts of my mind and focused back on what we were doing.
Rin was pointing at a particularly nasty burn in the floor, the original structure barely visible through the ashes and other debris.
" What is it?"
Rin pointed at the floor, as if it held all the answers in the universe.
I looked at it from different angles, but no matter how hard I tried I didn't see anything other than burned floor.
" What is it?"
" Over there" Rin crouched down and touched the area he had been pointing at all along. Now that I knew better where to look I could've sworn it resembled the passages under my castle back at the mountains. As a matter of fact they were almost the same. Even the small mountains painted on the sides matched up with the place where I had the real glass castle that the fucking angels had decided to copy.
" Is that my castle?"
Rin nodded.
Now that I knew what to look at I was surprised at how I hadn't managed to see it before. It was obvious.
" What do you think it means?"
Rin got up and dusted off his pants.
" I think it's a clue. Maybe we should check the prison"
" Does this place even have one?"
Rin looked at the cristal walls and then at me, a smirk on his face.
" Do you think the angels obsessed with copying everything we did wouldn't have copied our castle down to the last feature?"
Okay, that was an idea. If it was true it was about to make this a hell of a lot easier.
" If this is right then I know where we need to go"
I didn't stay to look at the destroyed room any longer.
I grabbed Rin's hand and dragged him out of there while his eyes were still focused on the drawing on the floor.
The drawing was clearly a clue meant for us. No one else would even know what it meant, much less after this much time had passed since we had been alive and right now. It was a clue meant for us. That sent me on edge. Why would the person that had kidnapped Ria like to play a game and even give us clues as to where she was?
I didn't like this. No matter how I looked at it it screamed trap and lure. I was sure Allea was trying to lure us into her trap.
I didn't want to go to the dungeons and find whatever was waiting for us there.
Rin stopped looking at the drawing and smiled as he begun running, ignoring the angels that glared at us and looked at us as if we were crazy.
To keep up with Rin I had to run fast, following him in every turn he made.
" We could even be wrong!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, trying to get Rin to calm down. I was sure it was a trap and even if it weren't we had to have clear minds and think of a plan before we rushed in.
" It isn't. You know it too"
I had to agree with him there. I knew the clue was real, this whole fucking castle was made to resemble mine, that had been made clear when even the upper floors were just like mine, but I still thought this all was a very elaborate trap.
I became even more sure of it when we reached the stairs that led down and there weren't any guards waiting.
Rin didn't seem to notice and rushed in, but I grabbed him before he could warn whoever was waiting down there of our presence.
" What are you doing?" Rin looked at me as if I was crazy, but I knew the truth. I had just saved him from making an awful mistake.
" Don't you think it's suspicious that there's no one guarding the entrance?"
I saw the realization dawn on Rin as he looked at the empty stairs.
" It is" His voice sounded broken, as if the faint hope that he had had that Allea hadn't done things to betray us and this was all just a game or that she was forced into it and wanted to help us blew up to smitherings.
" Let's use the other entrance" I wanted to help Rin and tell him he was probably right and that Allea hadn't betrayed us, but not even I could conjure such a lie and make it look convincing. Instead I pushed him out of this corridor and into the next. I was betting everything we had on the fact that they liked to copy every single aspect of my castle. If they hadn't then we were fucked.
Rin caught on on what is as trying to do pretty fast and followed me without complaints, his eyes still dark with betrayal. I knew he was hurting, but we had no time right now. We had to save Ria. We could deal with Allea and what she had done later on.
We went up and down corridors until we reached where we wanted to go.
Once we were there I prayed to everything I believed in that they had copied everything down to the detail.
I laid down on the floor and found the tile fairly easily. Then I begun pulling. Fear gripped me for a second when the tile wouldn't bulge, but after pulling for a while I finally felt it moving.
I smiled as Rin joined in, pulling on the nearby tile.
It took us a while, but when the tiles were finally out I saw it had been worth it. The secret passage down to the dungeons was still there.
Thank god for those stupid motherfuckers.
" Let's go" I smiled at Rin before jumping into the hole. It wasn't deep enough, so when I fell all I got were some scratches that I healed in a second.
A few seconds later Rin also came down.
Looking up I could see the light coming from the torches on the walls, but we had no way of fixing the hole from down here. With a little bit of luck no one would pass by and our little plan would go by unnoticed. We still had to hurry, though.
I looked around in the darkness and immediately found the passage.
I crouched down and begun to crawl in the direction of the dungeons. Rin followed behind me, swearing when the tunnel got so narrow that we could barley pass through.
We kept crawling and crawling until we reached the dungeons, or what were the dungeons in my castle. Hoping that the proportions were right I pushed on the tiles above me until they gave way to some light.
I didn't hesitate as I scurried into the dungeons above me.
We weren't on the actual cells, but close enough.
I turned around to help Rin get up when I heard voices coming from the corridor on my left.
Fuck!
I knew this was a trap.
" Stay there" I quickly put the tile back on it's place against Rin's wishes and ran to the source of the sounds.
Whoever they had chosen for me was going to die.
I would show Allea what happened if you tried to mess with me.
Fire gathered in my hands as I ran into the dark passage.
They were going to pay for taking my toy away from me, every single one of them was.