The trudge through the snow is long, I find myself wishing that I hadn't wasted the morning but, as soon as the thought appears, it vanishes and I smooth my hair back to soothe my frustrations. No morning with him could be wasted, my grateful muscles could attest to the wonderous nature of proper aftercare, I needed to be at my best if we were going to finish this.

 Much as I wanted to be upset with him, his logic made sense. We all had our parts to play, I had just hoped it would end on my terms. I wanted so badly to keep everyone safe, keeping us apart was the best way to do that, he was my greatest weakness.

If I was being honest with myself, I still didn't quite have a plan. Free Fergus, it seemed like the details behind that were blurring by the moment. With a chill in my body, I huddle tighter into my cloak as the world around us trembles. 

It was as if the earth beneath our feet rested on top of a minefield, shaking and shuddering with periods of concerning stillness. No birds, no wind, not even a breeze to stir the trees. 

Gabriel and I were still a depressingly long mile walk. When my anger had fizzled, it didn't surprise me in the least to feel the familiar weight on the side of my face. Surely, he was watching me once more.

Feeling Gabriel's eyes on me causes my skin to crawl and I brush my hands over my arms to push out the chill of those ever-encroaching eyes. If I was to die today, I wished to do it with all of our heartache on the table. Often, this walk would be the only way I could pick the brain of my tortured warlord. Now, I'd do the same for my son. 

"Must you stare at me? We're alone now, I can call you out on it. You've been gawking at me for coming on a week."

I expected a shy surprise but it was as if he'd been waiting for me to point it out all along, with a sigh of relief, it was as if he could finally breathe. Gabriel doesn't have the familiarities that most possess, a shrug or crossing one's arms, even a simple gesture that shows appreciation could easily slip him by. So to see it so clearly on his face might mean I was beginning to know him. 

"It seemed I was invisible to you, you've hardly said a word to me." He doesn't answer my question, in a typical fashion. 

I kept my face composed, I needed more than anything to keep him on my side. That was what was important. "You've been working for the enemy, I'm upset with you. Besides, it's rude to stare." 

Petty as it was, it was my truth. While he was my son, my only remaining family, he was also the cause of all this mess. It was hard not to be resent, to not blame him, despite his raising.

"You almost ruined everything by trying to tell Verando. I've had to keep an eye on you, besides, you can't blame me for wanting to look at you. You're my father, it's quite odd to me how much we look alike. I've never seen someone who looks like me, it's a novelty." 

Considering this, his gaze moves to track over the shivering trees. No doubt our spirit army was following us to our destination, we wouldn't be doing this fight alone. If they we close by, it could only mean the darkness followed. 

"Why didn't you tell him, by the way?"

Pursing my lips, I kick my boot through the fresh pack, trying to find the cobblestones but they were long since buried under dying layers of earth. The black grit spreads up over the stark white, a streak in the perfect snow laid out before us. I pretend to walk in my warlord's footsteps, recognizing the shoe size and the striding compared to Tonic's more mechanical stride with his fake leg. 

It quietly amuses me, having to stretch my steps to match his stride. 

There was a time when I might have quaked in my boots, now war seemed like something inevitable. I was afraid, but not for the reasons of my youth. I only feared for what I might lose, not the beast that lurked in what used to be my home.

 "I didn't know what I saw and I knew you were listening, Verando will do anything to protect me, and pitting him against you wasn't in favor of the mission much as I'd love to see you pay for your crimes. I do need you." 

I did need him, just in case I wasn't enough. For while I was feeling recharged, that energy was under the pretenses of dark magic. My darkening fingers were evidence enough that my body was indeed falling into failure. I was using a magical crutch, when this was over, what would be left to support my frail form?

All we had left between each other was honesty, there was no more room for lies or careful dances around the object that needed to be spoken. If we failed, we might never speak again, to do it now seemed like the right thing. 

"Do you think we could have been friends? Like Verando and Tonic?" 

The question is so innocent, I consider this, softening my expression as he accesses the side of me that loves Xavier with every ounce of my soul. 

"Gabriel, I wish every day that this could have turned out differently for you and your mother. You'd do well to remember that Tonic and Verando aren't friends, at least, they weren't three days ago. Tonic has made a lot of mistakes." 

I realize now the reason for his question. Gabriel knew this all too well, he wanted some sort of closure, but I felt inadequate to offer it to him. 

Wasn't I the kind one? The understanding one? Lately, it felt like I was the dictator. 

" I think you would have made a good father. You are wise beyond your years." 

I had always struggled with the social part of family ties. I had loved my mother, my siblings were consequential of growing up in a large family, and my father only enjoyed me in death. Squirming under his approval, I focus on the path ahead. In death, people made their peace, it didn't make it real. 

"Do you think there is no redemption for Tonic?"

Moments ago, yes. Yet, faced with the vulnerability of this question, I find it hard to commit. I had no reference for questions like these, I had been so absolute just minutes before he spoke. Envari had said that in every version of this thread in history, I chose Gabriel. 

I could see now why she might have thought that. Gabriel, here beside me, walking down a path we might have walked when he was just a boy if we hadn't been separated, I'm already struggling. Gabriel, at this very second, was not a bad person. 

He wanted me to see that. I was the only one who had yet to see that. 

"I believe to be redeemed, one has to truly do something extraordinary and with pure intent. Tonic continues to make the same mistakes over and over, some mistakes are very difficult to forgive."

Gabriel's lips pull down slightly, and he folds his hands behind his back, looking reluctant to continue at such a fast past towards the castle. For a moment, he looked young, despite how much taller he was than me and the mass of red beard. The feral man was bordering on normal. "Like torturing creatures to harvest their essence? Like making elementals? Helping Caspian?"

I'd seen this play out too many times, in my mind, I envisioned Verando showing me what expressions to make to convey the appropriate amount of indifference and wisdom when on the inside, I was crumbling. My truths had become false in this short walk, how could I proclaim something that I wouldn't dare speak out loud to such a damaged man? 

"You're helping us, now?" I offer weakly, tired from the mental gymnastics already.

 I was never good at this part.

"For now." He sighs because I know as well as he does who he truly served, he was the puppet master for all of Caspian's darkness. 

The sky begins to tumble as the castle comes into view, stillness is interrupted by a low howl of the wind as the distant crack of a fallen tree pulls me from my musing and into the reality of our situation. We didn't have time to reconnect, we were on a timeline here. 

Envari appears at my side, "You need to get moving. I don't know how much longer they can hold him off." 

Gabriel swallows, composing his face as he pulls up his hood. "They won't be able to. Not once we are inside." 

Extending his hand, he forms two ice shields and I step onto one. Beneath my feet, the earth trembles, much like it did as the forest unleashed its evil on the edge of the lake. Looking over her shoulder with clenched teeth, Envari motions us to leave, drawing her bow. 

"The forest can respawn as long as it has a power source, get to the unicorn." She doesn't need to voice her concern, I can see by the look on her face that good can only triumph for so long, and while we rested, they fought to keep us safe. 

While we strolled, they kept our greatest fears from invading us. For a split second, I can't help but feel it was just another plan from Gabriel to keep from our goal. 

If I saw him as human, could I kill him when he turned on us? 

Placing my hand behind me, I propel myself forward past the massive gates and down the aged cobbles of the entrance to the castle. The overhanging trees were dripping with dark magic, knarled and broken like witch hands as they curled over the archway leading to the main steps. 

It looked so different than when I lived here as if the castle itself had begun to melt over the years. 

Gabriel holds his hand out to me to slow my pace but I refuse to entertain him, pushing past him to dismount my shield onto the steps and begin the swift jog into the depths of the darkness. The moldy scent of age and moisture hits my throat, almost creating a dull ache as I hesitate at the massive dragon's body lying in a state of decay under the rubble. 

The main head had been ripped clean off. 

"He was a good dragon." Gabriel sighs. 

I press my hand to one of the heads, harvesting whatever magic was left in the beast and grimacing at the taste of dark magic on the back of my tongue. Everything was tainted, there wasn't a surface not covered in it. He had surrendered himself to it so completely, would this have been my fate? 

As the dragon shrinks into a tiny lizard, I gather him in my palm and set him on the sill of one of the windows. "When we return, we can return him to his world."

 Infected by darkness, they would probably reject a second life for him. 

Gabriel says nothing as I step into the inner tunnel of the blown open wall, calling light to my hand and casting it down the space. The building had been blown to pieces, the rock fallen in places and rubbled in others. 

Dark, green streaks from the snow slipping down the walls made the path slick and slimy, with the odd smell of ammonia. "Caspian has torn this place apart... we're going to have to be careful, many of these walls aren't going to hold." 

Returning to the hall, I gesture to him to lead the way. 

Into the depths of what was once my home, we tread over fallen ceiling and stone, the scratched and marred walls bear the scars of a battle and an angry, dark soul. I expect disappointment and pain, and yet I feel numb, decided. This place had stopped being my home a long time ago, it felt more like a prison when compared to my time sleeping outdoors, among those who fought for me and our country. 

I'd spent so much time fighting to get back here only to now feel so disconnected in the darkness of its walls.

The trees outside the window explode from impact and Gabriel guards me with his cloak and a quick, uttered spell. He blocks my view, encouraging me as we quicken our pace. The walls become like an echo chamber, with each hit and tumble of bodies hitting the walls of the fortress, they boom and crack, shedding tiny hints of rock that suggest at any moment the place would bury us alive. 

"Go slow," I warn him. 

Much as I'd like to run, bringing attention to ourselves wouldn't help our cause. 

"We don't have time for slow," Gabriel warns.

I don't trust him, I could be running straight into a trap. It must be evident on my face for he sighs and looks at me with wavering patience. Hints of electrically charged bodies shudder in and out of view up and down the halls and I back away from him. 

They flicker like a screen, there one moment and gone the next. "The forest is using the vines attached to Fergus to get into the castle. If the darkness finds us in here-"

"Welcome home, big brother." The disjointed voice coos so sweetly from down the hall. I push past Gabriel's body and start to run, feeling my lungs burn and my body grew heavy. I can't trust him, I follow the pull of magic down the spiraling staircases into the darkness where I'm tripping and sliding on the slick stairs. 

My hands grip the walls yet they offer no handrails and no purchase. I hear the distant chide of my mother's voice. 

"Don't run down the stairs, Nikki."

Slipping into the blackness, I slide on my ass down the dozens of spiraling steps, guarding my face as I attempt just to stay upright. It feels as if hundreds of hands grip and tug at me as I fight my way off the stairs and towards the walls as if the devil himself were behind me. Sparking light to my hands, I press my back to the wall and illuminate the space only to see eyes glimmering in the darkness peering back at me. 

The steady dripping makes my stomach flip and I push light farther towards the edges of my fingers, bringing light to the mangled bodies standing before me. Battered, and bloodied, parts in obvious states of disrepair as their unearthed corpses surround me. 

"You left us here." My other brother accuses. 

"You left us and went with them." My sister adds, stepping closer yet not within the light. 

The smell isn't right, it's mold and mildew, assuring me it's not real and yet they seem very much alive as their bodies succumb to their injuries and seem to melt before me much like the castle itself. 

Something grabs my hand and I strike out, only to see Gabriel shoving me past the illusions and down the black hall. The gut-wrenching scream of my mother dying all over again echoes in my ears and I fight off the shake as I start to run towards the only beacon of light in the darkness. 

The dungeon-like walls are lined with so many dead, so many corpses and hands reaching to prevent my passage. Panicked like an animal running for its life, I burst through the aged wooden door and scrambled into the light of the broken-out ceiling. 

My heart pounds wildly, I can't catch my breath as I spiral and clutch my throat. 

Gabriel grips my arms, holding me firmly as his eyes meet mine. "Nicolas, you have to calm down."

"My- my- my mother-" I manage to heave, desperate for air, desperate for the pain in my chest to stop. 

"It was all a trick, it's the forest playing on your fear. Just calm down, you have to control your heart." All around us the building shudders and I feel claustrophobic, trapped beneath the prison of my childhood. 

"It's going to bury us. We're going to be crushed down here-"

Shaking me firmly, my frustration with his logic brings me to ground. I shut my eyes and take a slow breath. I know better than this. 

"Nicolas."

Slipping out of his chilled hands, I shakily exhale and steady my heart as the surrounding murmurs dissipate. I'm wearing protection from the dark magic, if I didn't feed it, it couldn't touch me. "Let's just find Fergus." 

He says nothing because the task has been fulfilled, my eyes travel to the ground to spy the heavy black roots rounding the corner of the massive room and towering ceilings. They come from all directions, leading to one point, a stone table overwhelmed by the massive beast. 

Only, seeing him now, he was but a whisp of what he once was.