Ariadne's POV

I smiled as Iris giggled while Bell helped her get her mourning dress on, constantly telling her to hold still. 

"If you don't stop moving then you can't come with us," Bell threatened.

"I don't like wearing black," Iris mumbled, pulling at her dress. "It's not happy."

"That's because we aren't happy right now," Bell muttered. "Because of father." 

"Oh," Iris said looking down at the ground. "But I think father would want us to be happy. So that when he comes back, we can be happy together."

When he comes back... Oh Iris. 

"He's not coming back," Bell whispered. 

I slipped out of the room, needing to get away from the tension. I grabbed a simple black dress to slip on and then hurried and fixed my hair, trying to make my haggard face look presentable while they were still helping the others.

It had been a very long couple of days. 

 After I finished, I went to go find to Charities. It wasn't like her to disappear. 

I was surprised when I found her in her room, sitting on her bed, looking exactly as she had earlier that day.

"Charities, are you coming?" I asked, sitting next to her.

She shook her head, and I was surprised how worn out she appeared to be.

"The dancing might help distract you," I offered.

"I don't want to be distracted," She whispered. "I want... I want everything to be okay."

"Oh, Charities." I pulled her close to me as she sobbed.

It hurt my heart to see her like this; to think about everything that had happened the past few days. I found it hard to comfort her when I felt I needed comfort just as badly. 

"Everything will be okay. It will be different now, but we can make it through this."

"I don't know if I can."

"You have to," I whispered, more to myself than to her.

Then the other girls walked into the room. Iris and Bell had tears in their eyes, and the rest of my sisters didn't look much better. 

"Would anyone object if we all stayed in our rooms tonight?" I said.

"Yes, let's stay," Harmonia pleaded.

The others seemed to agree and then all wandered slowly to their rooms, not bothering to get undressed. I walked into my room after I watched all my sisters slowly disappear into theirs. 

My body felt tired, but I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. I climbed into bed anyway and stared up at the ceiling.

As I heard the clock strike midnight, a dizzying feeling came over me. And I felt like the world was spinning, trying to throw me off it. As the feeling grew stronger I wondered where my sisters were. Were they all alright? I wished they were there with me, not only because of the unimaginable loneliness I felt, but I needed to know that they were okay.

I closed my eyes to try and clear my head to focus on the one thing that mattered to me; hoping the spinning would stop, or at least calm down, but instead, it grew faster. I opened my eyes but quickly closed them again for fear of being sick. It was like that night I learned that father died... Only worse.

I felt the world slipping away and found myself growing weaker by the minute. I was on the brink of giving up when I felt something cold and hard resting against my arm and it began slowly bringing me back to reality. Then I sensed another force snaking its way towards me. It was cold, dark, and unlike anything I could imagine. I tried opening my eyes in panic, but it was like a nightmare that I could not wake up from, and I heard frantic voices in the back of my head calling out to me. I tried to answer and tell them that I was okay, but I could not open my eyes, let alone my mouth.

I was paralyzed.

And the darkness was getting closer, twisting itself around my legs and winding up the rest of my body.

Then a loud scream woke up something within me, and I pushed the darkness away just barely able to hold it off. I opened my eyes and saw all my sisters faces turned behind me and I tried to shift my position to see what they were looking at, but my muscles all felt like they were on fire and wouldn't cooperate.

The ground beneath me sent thousands of pins and needles stabbing into my back. And there was a smell of burning that made me wrinkle my nose. I groaned in agony as all I could do was helplessly watch my sister's faces. My groan seemed to catch Fortuna's attention.

 "Ardeen!" She cried, and ten other faces all turned to me. "Are you okay?"

I tried to nod or speak, but all I could do was open my mouth.

Charities moved closer to me. "Say something!"

My eyes filled with tears as I saw that they were all okay, and I felt so much relief that they had not experienced what I had.

"What happened?" Harmonia asked. "Where are we?"

I slowly turned my head, clenching my jaw through the pain, to try and get my bearings. A pavilion. We were in the middle of the all too familiar pavilion in Ailleron.

"Estevan," I whispered.

Charities, who sat the closest to me, heard and nodded. "We are in Estevan's kingdom."

I slowly turned to look at Charities, the pain was slowly going away. "You okay?"

Tears pricked her eyes, but she nodded, grabbing my hand. I tried not to flinch at the pain that shot through me. "Are you?"

I smiled at her thoughtfulness. "Soon," I whispered through clenched teeth.

"Princesses," a deep voice said from behind us. "I did not think you would make it."

"We did not think so either," Bell said bitterly, shooting daggers at Estevan with her eyes.

"Then why are you here?" He asked, and I tried looking at him, but it was too much and I bit back a scream.

I closed my eyes, willing the pain to go away, and I felt a strong hand touch my shoulder. "What happened?" He sneered. "What did you do?"

"We do not know," Charities said quietly.

"Yeah," Bell interrupted and I saw Charities look at her gratefully. "One minute we were laying in our beds, and the next we were spinning around until we landed here. The one place we were avoiding coming to."

 "Why were you avoiding my kingdom?" Estevan frowned. "Princess Ariadne knows not to avoid coming here."

"Can you help her?" Charities begged.

 "You may want to back up," he told my sisters as he put one hand on my forehead and held my right hand in his other.

Then he leaned closer to me, "This will probably hurt, but you will feel better after."

I nodded and closed my eyes tightly as if that would prevent the inevitable pain.

I heard him chanting words in a language I did not recognize. The hard floor beneath me seemed to disappear, taking the feeling of pins and needles away with it. The aches in my body seemed to flow away, as a wave of peace came over me. And lastly, the darkness. 

It didn't want to leave.

 I opened my eyes and saw that I was now even with Estevan's jaw; which looked strained as he continued chanting. Then a flash of light flowed around me, and another one soon followed it, the two pillars of light circled around me and I watched in awe as they got faster and faster. Soon I was enfolded in a cocoon of light, and I could feel the rest of the pain flowing out of me and to the light. Then the dark feeling came back, and I tried to push it into the light, but it just grew stronger, as did my alarm.

Please, not again. I tried to push the darkness away, back to where I had the first time, but all it did was drain my energy. 

I used every ounce of my energy to push it away, and when it fought back I tried even harder. 

Finally, the light disappeared and the dark feeling receded. I remained suspended in the air for another second before I fell to the ground.

"Ariadne!" I heard several voices cry and the next second I was surrounded.

"Are you okay?"

I sat up, and other than being a little sore from the fall I felt much better. The pain from before seemed to have completely receded. Although the dark feeling still lurked on the edge of breaking free again.

"I am fine," I said. "Where is Estevan?"

The sea of girls parted and I saw Estevan pushing himself to his feet. "Princess, are you alright?"

I nodded. "What was that?"

He glared at me. "That was because you refused to come here a second time! Princess, it only gets worse. I cannot guarantee I will be able to help you again if you do not come."

I nodded, not knowing how to respond. 

You must come back every night. 

"Is there no other way? What if I am physically unable to come here?"

He thought a moment. "There is one other way."

I couldn't contain the joy from my voice. "What is it?"

"You could set us free. I believe that when that happens the kingdom will be destroyed, as well as all of its magic."

You have to marry Prince Wilson. I heard Estevan's words echo in my mind. 

"I will do my best," I said.

"Thank you, I cannot tell you how much this means to me."

I inspected his face, how could he go from so angry to thankful? I didn't understand, and probably never would.

"Since we are here, do we have to dance?" Bell asked.

"Yes," Estevan said and music immediately started playing as he stood up. "You are in a ballroom, you must dance."

He helped me to my feet, but I still felt weak. "Could we sit down for a little while longer?"

He looked disappointed but agreed.

I watched my sisters laughing and dancing as Estevan's brothers arrived.

I sighed. This will be a good distraction for them.

Thank you for reading!! 

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