We were both created in chaos,
we were both born to destroy.
You were like death and I was like war. And where we collided, darling,
I loved you.
- k.a.

-----❅-----

- Victorine -

-----❅-----

When our lips parted, I opened my eyes again and looked into Nicolas' face, breathing heavily.

Confusion began to spread through me. This hadn't just been camouflage. I felt that with every bit of my body. Especially with the slight tingle that still prickled in my lips.

Before I could say anything, Nicolas leaned forward again very slowly, but stopped before he could close the distance between our lips again.

"May I?" he whispered, glancing at my mouth as his fingertips gently caressed the skin of my cheeks.

It had been nice. Nice to feel that warmth and closeness. To close my eyes, to forget everything else for a small moment, all things terrible in this world, and to concentrate only on our two bodies.

But forgetting the awfulness of this world for a moment would not make it go away.

It wouldn't help me gather information to free my sister. All of this was about that. Not about me, but about Crescentia. And I could never forget that.

"No," I replied softly.

Nicolas began to smile weakly, as if he had already expected that answer. "I understand."

"Let's go back," I suggested. "I still have a few people in my sights. And I need to check out the employees, too."

"Let's go, then." Nicolas nodded at me and offered his arm again. With a confident posture, we walked back to the throne room where I resumed my work.

For about two whole hours I tried to get some reading out of everyone in the room.

It was a long time before I finally came close enough to one of Cepha's advisors.

Unfortunately, our eye contact was not long enough for me to get any important information. But I knew that he sometimes sat at a table together with Cephas and informed him about the internal and external situation of the kingdom with other advisors. And I knew where his mistress lived.

As unobtrusively as possible, I was walking after the advisor who was going away, only to stop in disappointment. I would not go into the men's room. That would attract far too much attention.

Instead, I looked around for Nicolas, who had already disappeared somewhere again. Sighing, I took a few steps and looked in all directions.

But then my body stopped in mid-motion. Froze as I caught sight of a face in the crowd that looked like that of Crescentia.

And with the next blink, it was gone.

"What-?" it escaped my mouth weakly. I stumbled a small step forward and squeezed through the people, roughly pushing their bodies aside.

It couldn't have been. It had to have been a figment of my imagination. Was my head playing tricks on me? Was I too exhausted from using my ability all the time? Was I still in my right mind?

And yet, despite all the doubts, my legs dragged me forward as if automatically. My heart was beating up to my throat. I thought I could hear nothing but my heartbeat and the blood pumping violently through my veins.

When I finally crossed the dance floor, I stopped again. There was no Crescentia here. Of course there wasn't. What had I imagined? I should go back to the shelter. Rest up and get a good night's sleep. With a refreshed mind the next morning, consider how best to proceed now.

One last time I looked around. Then it caught my eye that a door was ajar. Nicolas had said that they had all been locked, hadn't he?

Before anyone else could notice, I crept to the door, disappeared through it, and closed it behind me. I tore off a small piece of the hem of my dress and slipped it halfway back through the slit so Nicolas could find me again.

Briskly, I turned around again. I was standing in a corridor. It was somewhat less wide than the corridors that had led up to the throne room. This one, however, was so dimly lit that the end of the corridor disappeared into darkness. When I looked at the floor, I discovered traces of wax.

I squatted down and felt the soft, warm drops. They were fresh. Just dripped onto the floor.

Breathing heavily, I grabbed a sconce with two candles and pulled hard until it finally came off the wall. Hot wax hit my bare arm skin, but I was just glad I now had a portable light source.

I kept walking and spotted more drops on the floor. Like a trail. A trail for me.

It had to be Crescentia. Oh God, it just had to be her. I had really seen her. She had broken free from the dungeon and needed my help to escape from the castle.

I ran. So fast that sometimes I almost missed the tracks on the floor. They led me through corridors, several intersections, and even up two flights of stairs.

No one else could be heard. It was just my breathing, my quick footsteps, and my fiercely drumming heartbeat.

After walking up another hallway and another flight of stairs, I ended up at a closed door after the last flight of stairs. I clutched the sconce tightly, reached for the handle, and opened the door.

The room that opened before me had to be another throne room. It was barely lit, and was marked by black shadows. I guessed that it was very wide, because it went on for a long way to the right and to the left, and only then it merged with the shadows. A few steps in front of me led to a raised platform. And there stood a throne, larger than I had ever seen. With an enormous backrest of gold and a seat of red leather. It was no match for the one downstairs in the hall, where guests were just dancing.

"Victorine."

I winced. That voice sounded almost foreign, unfamiliar, and yet I would recognize it even after decades.

And then my sister stepped out of the shadows of the room.

"Crescentia," I groaned, sobbing. Tears welled up in my eyes. A feeling of relief came over me, as if the weight of several tons had fallen from my shoulders. My knees became weak and my legs trembled as if they were about to collapse and drop me to the cold ground.

But then my legs decided to run. Finally, finally after all this time and terrible uncertainty, to hold my little sister in my arms. I suppressed a sob, and yet I felt like the luckiest person on earth.

She was fine. She was unharmed. Crescentia was alive.

With a jerk, I slowed down. My body froze. In the middle of the run, I stopped as if my feet had been nailed to the ground.

I tried to lift my leg and move. But I was in shock. My muscles were not petrified, but so stiff that I could not move them. Like a bolt of lightning that had struck me. Whose electric force had trapped me, unable to make a single movement.

„Crescentia, run!" I would have liked to scream, if only I could.

Who else was in the room? Who was hiding in the shadows? A witch? How could I get Crescentia out of this castle? How was I supposed to fight without being able to move?

But then it dawned on me. I knew this state only from one situation. When my mother had paralyzed me to push me into the secret passage to save my life.

What was happening here?

I watched as my sister slowly stepped forward and came closer and closer to me. Her long, light brown hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, caressing the delicate contours of her narrow face. The white, almost pale skin was flawless. I could also make out no visible injuries on her cleavage and bare, slender arms.

The long dress on her body hovered just above the ground until Crescentia suddenly stopped in front of me. Had I been able to move, I would only need to raise my arm and extend it to be able to touch the tip of her nose.

"You actually came all the way here?"

Her voice sounded different than before. Cold and cutting. I wondered if I could really hear a hint of scorn and derision from it.

"That's really almost a little sweet." She smiled. The corners of her mouth pulled up, but lacked the laugh lines around her eyes and any other signs of a genuine smile. I felt a chill run down my spine.

Suddenly my muscles were freed from paralysis, so that the heavy arms fell down at my sides.

"Crescentia," I pronounced her name in despair. "What are you talking about? Let's get out of here quickly. Let's go back home."

"Home?" she repeated incredulously, laughing mockingly. "First of all, Spero is not my home. Never has been."

Now she looked me firmly in the eye. "And second, I'm here by choice."

"Voluntarily?" I didn't understand a word she was saying at all. What had they done to her? Had they tortured her? Enchanted in some way?

I concentrated on her eyes and tried to penetrate her mind. But nothing happened. It was worse than when I first met Nicolas. There was no entrance into Crescentia's soul. The attempt was absolutely futile.

"Oh, this must really shake your naive outlook immensely now," she spoke compassionately, leaning her head a little to one side.

"I don't understand," I admitted in exasperation.

"Of course you don't," she quickly replied, as if it were self-evident.

I felt my eyebrows draw together in confusion. How my vision narrowed as I looked closely at my sister. I had never seen her like that before.

Her posture just bristled with a confidence that seemed almost arrogant to me. Her voice was cutting, her chin lifted arrogantly.

None of this matched the shy, loving, well-behaved Crescentia who buried her nose between pages of books day and night.

What had happened in the time between the attack on Spero and today?

I watched as a smile slowly crept onto her lips.

"Haven't you ever wondered how Tenebris' troops were able to infiltrate Spero so easily?"

"What?", I whispered in a feeble volume.

"Your loyalty makes me gag," she said, her face contorting in disgust. "You never considered that someone might have let them into the castle? That's really just like you, Victorine."

"What are you saying?" it now came out of my mouth in an angry, shaky voice.

"That the first troop marched right through the village and headed for the castle to keep our own troops busy there," she took a few slow steps back and forth so that the clack of her shoes echoed through the otherwise perfectly silent throne room, "and I could let another troop in unnoticed through one of our many secret passages."

"I don't believe you," I objected. "Who is making you tell this? Is it Cephas? What the hell is going on here, Crescentia?"

"Your loyalty seems to be making you absolutely blind," my sister sighed, as if she found our conversation downright tiring and exhausting.

I felt myself begin to shake my head quite automatically. "No, Crescentia, I know you. You would never hurt anyone. Please stop with these lies. I know you're probably being coerced or blackmailed, but-"

"Shut your mouth!" she was now screaming at me so loudly and indignantly that I could feel drops of saliva on my skin. "Shut your damned mouth already!"

Startled, I took a step back.

"You think you know me?" asked Crescentia now again in a condescending voice and with questioningly raised eyebrows as she began to walk around me like a predator.

"You know nothing about me. I made sure of that early in my childhood. You know with what it started? With you. As a kid, I couldn't make a move without you knowing. You knew everything about me with just one look in my eyes."

Briefly, she stopped and stared at me. Never in my life would I have thought to see so much anger in her eyes. Anger that was directed at me.

"Never could I have secrets. Have anything of my own. All the time you were spying on me and tattling on me. Who stole the cookies. Who was secretly in the library at night. Who spilled milk all over the documents in the meeting room. Nothing was safe from you, you monster!"

"But we were kids," I objected in exasperation.

"Exactly. And I didn't want to have to put up with all that for the rest of my life. So I started building walls of protection. So that my sister and my mother couldn't spy on me anymore. I even started telling you false stories in front of the protective wall. You always thought I was the most adorable creature on earth."

"I'm so sorry, Crescentia," I whispered.

"Forget it, Victorine. Otherwise, after all, you have done me no harm. It's that wretched man we call Father."

I saw her hands clench into fists. "He hated me. Do you know what it's like to be hated by your own father?"

"Father didn't hate you," I objected confusedly.

"And how. Darius he loved. Of course he did; he would become the future king of Spero, after all. Darius got the most attention and the best education and was always favored anyway. And then came you, the second in line to the throne. There is, of course, the possibility that you will have to take the throne if something should happen to Darius. You got lessons, in all forms and varieties. I, the third, who would never take the throne anyway, have been completely disregarded all my life."

"That's not true." I took a cautious step toward my sister, but she instantly backed away.

"And mother detested me anyway. I think sometimes she could see through my facades and protective walls and fake images. Recognized who I really was. And what I desperately wanted."

Confused, I drew my eyebrows together.

"The throne, of course, Victorine. I wanted the throne."

"But-"

"But the throne of Spero wouldn't have been big enough, of course, you're right. I want to get to the most powerful throne in the land. To the throne of Tenebris," she continued to explain.

"That makes no sense," I objected. "Even Cephas' queen wouldn't have a throne. There's only ever one in his throne room."

"Exactly," she agreed with blazing eyes and a diabolical look.

I averted my eyes and tried to sort out my thoughts. Something wasn't right here. I had known my sister for eighteen years. This was not Crescentia. I was absolutely sure of that. They had to have done something to her. But what? And what was I supposed to do now?

"You still don't believe me," I heard her laughing next to me now.

I turned to face her. "Of course not," I whispered with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Slowly, my sister strode toward me. When she was right in front of me, she grabbed my shoulders roughly and firmly, staring at me intently and fixing me with her rigid eye contact.

"Well, take a deep look into my eyes."