Kymalin stared at the earthen wall for as long as she remembered. There was nothing new where she was. There was simply death in Brittlewood. Katri, from the cell opposite hers, had gotten his time three days ago and she never heard from him again. Brittlewood, a place where there were no second chances. Once someone was here, they'd never go out alive, ever.

Such was Kymalin's fate. As soon as the Ice Capital siege failed and as soon as she got to the camp after her defeat, she found herself on spear-point. Immediately, the Heiress ordered her to be seized. The next thing she knew, she was kicked in the shins into this smelly, damp cell with nothing but earth, worms, and the light seeping from the gaps between the roots for company.

The enchanted, wooden door locked and Kymalin knew what she was up against.

That's where Katri the pixie came in.

Kymalin had met the prisoner on a cell in front of hers the first time she ventured to the root-grated gate to her cell. The pixie greeted her with a salute common to pixie families that either meant greetings or you hag. Kymalin chose to go with the first possibility. She struck a conversation with the pixie, hoping to gather as much information about her current imprisonment as she could. That's always the first step in planning an escape.

She learned a ton of things but none proved useful. Brittlewood was a system of imprisonment controlled by a group of mysterious fairies that aimed to lessen the number of criminals in the island. When the rules of magic didn't get them first, sin-bearers were sent here.

Kymalin wasn't from Avalora. She was from the other side of the island but even she had heard of this prison's infamous reputation about its most common way of delivering justice. First, the prisoner was locked in magic-proof, fire-proof, force-proof, dwarven-knife-proof, and everything-else-proof for months and months on end. Then, at random, a guard would march into a cell, drag the prisoner out, and lead them to their doom.

Katri didn't need to elaborate more on that because a month later, he experienced the same fate that awaited them all. Kymalin couldn't care more about the manner. Just the assurance that she would be at the other side of the summoning realm was enough to slap to her face that she has little time left.

There's no one to get her out of here. Security was impossible to get through since even sirtya activity was regulated. Exit and entry of staff were recorded with precise methods. Prisoners weren't even let out of their cells. Management made sure that once a fairy gets in, they would not get out.

It would take a miracle for someone to break in here and come out alive with a prisoner.

Today, Kymalin woke up with a stone in her gut. So, it's not her day yesterday. Today, then. She'd have to wait until midday before the guard unfortunately named Rudik would march down the hall, looking for his next prey.

Unlike his infamous namesake, Rudik the guard was nothing sort of stupid or unlucky. The guard was almost one-and-a-half-fairies-tall and even the most muscular men in the cells cower before him.

Kymalin had snuck a peek once and amid the chattering teeth and the trickle of piss on some grown men's trousers, she saw a being marred with scars, cuts, and with a vest lined with white fur. It must have been a large animal to have been able to cover such a man. Teeth the size of noprary fruits flashed against the midday sun, all yellow, crooked, and pockmarked with black spots. And the smell....gods.

It had been days since the guard had wandered into her section. For sure, he was out there, terrorizing other prisoners from the other regions. Still, Kymalin could still smell the scent lingering in the damp air around her.

She rested her head against the earthen wall, staring dully at a colony of white worms burrowing on the soil a few distance from her place. Lucky them, at least they still got to live their lives until they turn rigid and live no more. A sigh tore off her lips. What did she expect now? Of course, every person in this prison was waiting for death. Patience was the key.

"Veril," Kymalin called in the empty air. A spirit shimmered into existence before settling by her outstretched feet. Upon entry to the prison, she had been forced to strip off every layer of magic she had on herself. That included freeing the service of at least twenty spirits and surrendering her Priestal Artifact. It's something she stole from her mother's personal collection of jewelry and allowed her to summon spirits from the Land of Wonders collectively and bind them to contracts of servitude.

But Veril...

Kymalin couldn't bring herself to cut Veril's bond to her soul. Not when he has the most important mission of all. "How is Vaeri?" she said to the kneeling spirit in front of her. "How is my brother?"

The spirit looked behind him as if her brother was just there. "Still the same, Kymalin," he replied in a gentle voice, one that always calmed her down and told her everything was going to be fine.

Kymalin's heart twinged. Veril had been among the rare spirits granted the permission to address her by her name. He had been with her ever since she could remember. He was the first spirit she had summoned. Up until now, his gentleness hasn't changed. If anything, perhaps Veril had been her one and only friend. He was the only one who stayed constant over the years of haze and confusion. A bitter laugh rose to her throat. Friends with a ghost with no memory and no life. How quaint.

"Kymalin?" Veril called. "What would you have me do?"

She shook her head. There's nothing more she could do, was there? "Is it going to be today?" she forced herself to ask as she did every time she uses the spirit to check up on her brother.

The spirit shook his head. "He is still fighting. Although, I saw the High Priestess looking troubled when she visited earlier."

Kymalin sighed at the mention of her mother. She never wanted anything to do with the High Priestess. Possibly because the last time Kymalin saw her, she threatened to kill Kymalin. She couldn't forget that. Not now or ever. "Forget about my mother," Kymalin snapped. "How is he faring with the pain?"

"As far as the medicines in him could go, he couldn't feel anything right now, Kymalin," Veril reported. "I watched the healers administer his constant dosage a few minutes ago."

Kymalin nodded, all the while knowing what those medicines meant. A temporary solution. There was nothing they could do to heal her brother. Nothing. Kymalin wasted her only chance and there was no going back from the path she had taken.

Perhaps, death had been the right end for her.

"Dismissed," Kymalin said as softly as she could. Spirits still had feelings and emotions and it could hamper their chances at a decent life in the Land of Wonders if they end up with trauma during servitude. Kymalin chuckled without humor. Since when did she care about spirits?

A single tear slipped out of her eyes and she wiped at it. No. She promised she would not allow herself to cry. No. She sniffed. No. No.

The tears kept coming. Soon, she was gasping for air as sobs racked her shoulders and forced her chest to take in as much air as it could. No. Stop it.

Then, the ceiling creaked and collapsed. Sunlight streamed in like a theater beam through a hole ripped through the mess of roots. Something dropped from it. Someone she recognized. The figure spoke as they turned to face her. "Hey, long time."

2412, Diori 06, Briss

Breaking into Brittlewood was one thing. Breaking out a prisoner was another.

Xanthy arrived at the front gates of the prison following Ariden's handwritten directions. What greeted her was a depression in the middle of two mountains filled with trees whose trunks could fit about two sugrarsaskis side by side. Ariden said the prison was made from these trees' roots and unlike its name, the cells were supposed to be resistant to any type of force enacted upon it.

Well, Xanthy could change that. Literally.

Before she left, June had grabbed her arm in an attempt to caution her. Breaking into prison could get messy in trial courts if Xanthy was proven guilty. Xanthy shrugged him off. They wouldn't even have a trial or a court if they're all dead by the end of the month. That shut him up, for a moment.

She knew June was on to her for her apparent change in behavior. There's just no point in explaining or talking to him about it. If she did, she might start crumbling. Leading people wasn't just about commanding them or going on missions with them. It meant thinking for them, collaborating with them, and most importantly, sharing the same mission with them.

Xanthy knew she's nowhere near qualified to be a leader. She's a Disfavored harvesting ajilte on a shoddy backyard who happened to have the rarest brand of magic in the island. Suddenly, she was this important hag who had to stop a war either from breaking out or from destroying the rest of the island.

Well, the war already broke out, mostly because of Xanthy's disappearance. (Guilt and denial would come later. Xanthy didn't have time for that right now.) So, the only thing left to do was to end the war with the minimum casualty. From the looks of it, there were already enough of those.

She had to toughen up, no matter how it made her look like to her friends. She wouldn't go far by being the recluse and clueless girl she was before. Certainly, she has to grow up and start thinking, no matter how much she hated doing it.

She wasn't smart. Without a proper education, she was left to grope around, searching for the best rope to pull based on her life before everything. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to go on. She's alive now thanks to either extreme cases of good luck or her friends.

Xanthy shook her head to clear it. She had been doing that quite a lot lately. Her long hair whipped her face as she stared down at the seemingly endless drop towards what posed as the roof of the prison. She clicked her tongue in annoyance as she tucked her hair behind her ear. The wind instead flipped the ends to her face which she spat and slapped out of the way. This was why she insisted on having short hair all those years ago.

She couldn't bring herself to cut her hair. Not now. Not ever. Not with this situation she found herself in. It had been months but she still hadn't gotten used to her new form. Ravalee's form. Everyone knew by now that when Xanthy was born to Eldan and Airese, she had three synnavaimis in place and there's simply no way for a flower-child to carry it all. So, her parents chose the alternative. They split the child's soul into what became Ravalee and the original Xanthy.

Ravalee was sent to live with the brownies. Xanthy was ditched in the Disfavoreds region to hide from the Heiress and the Sovereign who had been looking for her since the dawn of time. All her life, she had been running. She was raised to run and to hide. There's no way she would have fought with just her Disfavored juice running through her veins.

Xanthy did run, of course. She surrendered her soul to the chalice. She ended up in the Realm of the Lost and only then did she learn what was really going on in the island. The Sovereign dealt with slave trade. The Heiress ordered the purges to flush out the half-bloods. Both sipped magic from the island's heart to sustain their life for hundreds of years and for gaining pure magic.

Then, back on the island, it was apparently raining chaos. Cardovia and Synketros open-fired at the Ice Capital in search of the Virtakios. June and the others had to bring her back to save the Ice Sprites. Now, not only was she in a body that wasn't hers, she was thrust back to the world she escaped from in the first place.It's not a world without war.

Xanthy slapped her cheeks. Focus. Figure out how to gather the heirs and the thrones into one place and present her plan. She still didn't know how would that work out but before anything else, she had to get all the heirs into one room first.

Which was why she was now standing on top of a mountain, contemplating jumping onto the roof of the most secure prison in Umazure. Fun.

The wind whipped more of her hair into her face which she slapped violently. Strands blocked her vision and her head felt like it was being pelted with cheese with all the hair pulling and slamming against her scalp. Ugh.

She stared out at the depression, the earth sloping treacherously downward into a bridge made from twisted vines and dark, wooden planks. If she ever set a foot there, this mission would already be compromised. From her vantage point, she saw at least twenty uniformed fairies standing guard on either end of the bridge.

The sirtya was useless too. Xanthy had never been inside the prison to know what the interior looked like. She might blast herself into oblivion if she tried that way.

Xanthy crouched on the ground and planted her hand on the grass covering the forest floor. The wind slapped more of her hair into her face and at the same time made the leaves of trees towering above her rustle and quiver. She sighed.

"I hate doing this but I must," she muttered to no one.

Xanthy reached inside herself and pulled on her hidden synnavaim. The Virtakios hissed and recoiled as Xanthy brought her other talent to the surface. She watched as the grass touching her hands lengthen at her command.

Nature magic. Kaviste Listris, to be exact. She still had yet to try Elika Listris but now's not the time. Instead, with her magic fizzing in and out of her system, she exerted energy to the grass. She told them to grow.

And grow, they did, right into the roof of the prison. Xanthy cast a wary glance at the guards by the bridge. No one moved nor noticed the mass of grass magically inching for the prison roof. Xanthy poured her magic on the grass, urging them to break through the surface. Technically, it wasn't force. It wasn't magic either. It's just nature doing its thing.

Xanthy was met with resistance. She had to go down there. If Faw had been here, that little girl had just earned Xanthy's respect. This was hard.

Stepping off the mountain ledge, Xanthy hoisted herself downward, using the mass of grass like a rope. Xanthy inched downward, praying to every god out there for the grass to stay rooted where they were. Nyxis's voice popped into her head at the wrong time. Grass is nature's natural anchor. They have one of the most stable root systems out of all the plant species.

Great to know, Nyxis. Great to know.

Xanthy rappelled towards the roof, the force of the ground calling to her from up here. Faster. The guards were going to notice. She used the random rocks jutting from the mountain's sides as ledges as she climbed down. There were times when the grass-rope creaked and skritch-ed. Xanthy's throat closed up with dread.

After a few, extensive minutes of abseiling down the mountain-cliff, she dropped into a mass of intertwining roots as thick as Xanthy's arm. It spread from where Xanthy landed up to the distance as far as her eyes could care to see.

At least here, the wind wasn't making that much of a fuss with her hair. She could work with that. Xanthy took a step, expecting the roots to crunch or give in under her weight. Not that she thought of herself as heavy. Neither happened. The roots remained pristine. She blew a sigh of relief before dropping her gaze to the trail dimension. Her eyes searched for a typical trail she came to know that was Kymalin. Banshee trail...

Or I could help you track the heir, the Arbotro interrupted her thoughts. Xanthy exhaled. Of course. How stupid. Alright. Show me, she said.

A heavy trail of gray and blue sped forward, curling and glowing like a thousand strips of ribbons used at the Cardinic Festival. Xanthy followed the trail, hoping the mass of trees towering above her would cover her trail and any of her movements.

She crept forward, careful of rustling any fallen leaves in case the guards have been forced to develop super sharp hearing. The trail whined and bucked as if it couldn't stand being tracked. Xanthy narrowed her eyes and followed the course of the trail curling towards a spot in the mass of roots. Down there?

Xanthy had to take her chance now. She dashed towards the spot where the trail ended, crouched, and placed her hand on the roots. Immediately, the properties and the restrictions imbued on it were clear to Xanthy.

She didn't know what spells had been placed on the roots to make them like this but she knew there were something like that in the roots' systems. Her magic crackled to the surface as she called it forth. Slowly, she fed the Virtakios into the roots, seeping through the restrictions, changing and obstructing its programmed make-up.

As expected, the roots cracked and gave way into a hazy hole in front of her. Scuffling sounds were evident from the inside. Xanthy shrugged and launched into the hole. She's inside. Earthen walls. More roots. There was now a shaft of light shining through the hole Xanthy had drilled from the ceiling. It would be more troublesome if it was moonslight. Plus, she couldn't afford to waste any more time in this unexpected detour. Xanthy turned to face Kymalin Iaro. Her heart twinged with something resembling hate. This banshee and what she has done...

Xanthy bit her lip. Kymalin was still an heir and it wouldn't hurt to give her another chance. The banshee must have done something to upset the Heiress to get thrown here. If Xanthy would not bust the banshee out of here, she would be missing her chance to carry on with her plan. Xanthy cleared her throat and raised a hand. "Hey, long time," she rasped.

Then, Kymalin tackled her to the ground.