It was clear Aknon didn't know where he was going, but I was scared that he'd walk straight into the path of Onyx's mother. He wasn't thinking clearly, there were probably thoughts swirling in his head like flies surrounding food.

"Aknon, hold up!" I said with a huff, due to the fact we were running once more. "Slow down!" The black grass, which looked dead but didn't feel dead, was high enough to reach my knees, which made it significantly harder to run. "Let's think this over and talk."

"Yeah, come on Aknon!" Sarphi called. "Please just let us talk this out. It includes all of us!" She was quickly running out of breath as we tried harder and harder to catch up to Aknon.

If Dwi was in charge of this place, then why hadn't they stopped Aknon from leaving? Why hadn't they trapped him in some kind of shadow yet? Did they care that Aknon was rejecting them and panicking? Or was this simple fun to them?

I didn't care to find the answers at the moment. All I cared about was catching up. I couldn't help my mind from wandering, just like I assumed his was. I was running quickly, but I kept getting distracted.

That was until Aknon fully disappeared.

I skidded to a halt and was pushed down to the ground as Sarphi barrelled into me, Prin falling on top so that we were a pile of bodies.

"Get off," I said in a tired tone. I was beginning to feel the weight of the new information. "Where'd he go?" I tried to scramble to my feet, but it was taking Sarphi a little while to get off me. She had a few tears running down her face, and she was shaking slightly, like she was trying to hold her emotions back, and it was taking a great effort.

"He teleported," Senka's voice came from above us. She sounded quiet and small, like she used to as a doll when she didn't tell us something. "He can do that down here, so can you, but I'm sure that's not very useful if you don't know where he's gone." She bent down and wiped the tears from Sarphi's face. "But we have to go after him."

Sarphi pushed Senka's hand away with a sniffle and a huff. "We'll find him," she said, not sounding very confident, but she stood anyway. "Above anything, child of Dwi or not, he's our brother."

"You should've told us," I said, completely dismissing the topic. I felt very hurt that we'd travelled this far with her, and she hadn't told us the answers she had all along. "We would've been prepared. Aknon wouldn't have run off."

Senka looked down once again, shaking her head. "You know that's not true, Acer."

She was right, but I didn't have to admit that she was right. Aknon wouldn't have believed her without proof. And even if he did believe her, he would've run off just as he did now.

I understood how he felt. He felt like he'd been screwed over by Dwi, due to how we've been treated our entire lives. We were ignored and judged, but not because of who we are, but because of who our father is. Whether the public knew it or not, they were right about us being related to a curse.

"Right." IU shook my head and bounced up, looking around. "Where would Aknon go?"

"Out of here," Prin said. She wasn't wrong, but that wasn't really the answer I was looking for. "How does the teleport thing work?" She turned to Senka.

"Well, you just need to think about where you really want to go." Senka shrugged, looking around the area, as though suspecting Aknon to be playing hide and seek like when we were kids.

"So, out of here, might be a good guess," Sarphi muttered.

"Oh, if that's the case then we're in trouble." Senka looked a little more alert now. "He could be anywhere, literally. If he just used those words, then he could be any place which isn't here. And he'd be stuck there if there aren't enough shadows, darkness, or power there."

"What?" Sarphi asked before groaning. "Come on, to out of here we go." She took Prin's hand and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate.

"Oh, no you don't." I took their hands and separated them. "We don't know if we'll end up in the same place he did. I am not losing both of my siblings within two minutes." Even the Words as they left my lips made me emotional. I hated not knowing if my siblings were safe or not.

"But he's out there, we don't know where he is. We could end up at the same place, and we could find him, and then we could all be angry at Dwi together." Sarphi sounded desperate. "Come on Acer, who do we trust?"

"We're not leaving Prin," I said. I figured that would immediately win her over. "We don't know how this magic works, or even if it's safe. We're going to find him another way."

"What other way?" She had me there.

I stuttered a few times before looking over at Senka. "How good is the mother dog at sniffing things out?"

Senka shuddered. "About as good as Onyx, but we can't get her to leave her post." She clasped her fingers together. "We could take Onyx, and he should bring us right to Aknon. Like I say, there's a chance he's gone right outside, but there's also a chance of him being a million miles away."

"So, let's hope the first one's right." Prin nodded firmly. "Let's go."

"Hang on," Senka said and shook her head. "You need a weapon." She told Prin firmly. "I've been wanting to say this since I met you, and I'm sorry but your makeshift ones aren't that good."

Prin didn't look offended in the slightest. She actually looked extremely intrigued. She had been struggling quite a while, and it was obvious. Whenever we were facing anything which had to be fought, all she could do was run or try and throw things which she found. It wasn't at all practical for any of us. But I wondered if she was actually able to fight using weapons without being taught. We had no time for a year's worth of sword lessons.

Out of thin air, Senka summoned a fan. It looked like any other black fan, but as she moved it, the edge of it reflected her pale skin, looking metallic. "This should do it. It's not so easy to hold onto, but I think you'll be able to manage."

"That's unconventional," Sarphi muttered as she leaned forward to look at it. "Doesn't seem like the easiest thing to grab a hold of."

I nodded in agreement with the observation. It looked like any kind of use may cause it to bend, there wasn't exactly a grip for her hand.

"Don't be silly," Senka told Sarphi with a laugh and a shake of her head before stepping forward so that she was close to Prin, probably too close to be comfortable. "You put your thumb in here, like that. And then you use it like a fan. It'll be like an extension of your hand, so if anyone ever comes towards you, hold it out and spin."

Prin took it sceptically, looking at it closely as she moved her wrist. "This is a weapon?" she asked curiously. It did look very pretty for a weapon, like Senka's sword. It appeared to be something that you would display carefully, not built for practical use.

Senka shook her head. "It's made out of the same thing that the three daggers are made out of." She waved her hand to brush off any concerns. "You'd hopefully not have to use it. But let's go, we've got to try and catch up with Aknon, even if he just teleported outside."

And so, she spun on her heels and began leading the way out of the realm of darkness and shadow, Onyx running after us.

I liked the place. It had a certain aesthetic which felt very mysterious and dark, almost like something you'd read about in an old novel, or maybe a more recent novel involving some kind of mythical creatures which you wouldn't read to children. I frequently read those books, and I was trying to think about anything other than the current situation to calm me down. Thinking of those books didn't help too much, it left me thinking about how lonely I was, which made me think of Prin, which made me think of Sarphi, and then we were all the way back around to the missing Aknon.

Senka kept looking back at us to make sure we were following and that she hadn't lost another. I was sure that she felt awful about the situation, if her shaking hands were anything to go by. She hummed quietly and muttered under her breath, never being able to stay quiet.

The realm didn't really have much of a doorway, so it was difficult for us to actually know if Aknon had simply ended up outside. At least that's what I gathered. It was a very gradual change from Dwi's realm to the actual world we grew up in. One second, I was looking at black trees which seemed to have some kind of smooth bark, and the next I was staring at the wide green plane.

"Look around for footprints?" Prin suggested as she slowed down slightly. "Or anything which could tell us Aknon's been here?" She looked between us before looking down at the grass.

I nodded. "Not a bad idea." I didn't sound at all enthusiastic or motivated. I had a terrible feeling that something was going to go wrong, and I really didn't want to be proven right. "At least we know what the nearest city is."

"Yes, but we also know that it's likely we'd be killed if we step one foot in there," Sarphi replied as she looked at the floor closely. She was practically crawling as she tried looking for boot imprints. "It's a terrible idea of us to go there."

"So, that's the place we have to go." I nodded. "Right."

"Not right," Sarphi denied. "Just because I said it would be a dangerous and bad idea, doesn't mean it's where we have to go."

"But that's the case most of the time," I pointed out, moving away from the girls. "It means that's where we have to go, because nothing's ever simple."

"Let's leave going to the city as a last resort, okay?" Prin asked, looking up with a small and nervous laugh. "We'll look around here first, and if we have to go in, I'll look around first."

"And I can join you," Senka added helpfully. "I can make myself look more normal, no matter how undesirable that is."

"But he's our brother," Sarphi and I said at the same time.

"We can't just let you go look for him by yourselves," I finished off what we were saying. "We have to do this together."