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THE FIGHTING ARENA IS A TREMENDOUS patch of muddy field beneath the castle; an enclosed underground area solely designed for sparring and training and weaponry.

Adrenaline buzzes so raw that it feels warm in here compared to the otherwise cold upper floors of the castle. Hundreds, likely thousands of people-shadow hunters-were seated on level-wise arranged seats around a circular clearing, cheering and shouting with such fevor at the two division of teams fighting. It was a wonder how the castle above, if not the entire Shadowland didn't hear them.

Half-naked shadow hunters spar in the arena, their blows and movements so coordinated, so concisely smooth and deadly, it's fascinating to watch.

Emerick is among them, sweat streaking down his burnished brown hair, the muscles of his back rippling with the movement as he delivers a brutal blow with his sword towards his partner.

Metals clank and the man shields himself on time. But Emerick is quick on his feet, retreating his sword and attacking with another blow after powerful blow. His partner parries every strike but that is all he could do. The shadow hunter is so agile and forceful, that it takes his partner a few more blows and falling on his bottom before he yields.

"Fuck, man. You're always so ruthless." The ginger haired man groans, dropping his sword and stretching his arms as if to check whether they were still intact.

Emerick shrugs, offering his hand with a smile, "Wait till you spar with my sister. I'll seem far more merciful, Brian."

Brian visibly pales, grabbing Emerick's proffered arm, "No, thank you. I would like to stay alive."

Emerick chuckles, the action softening his usually cold features, "She isn't that bad."

Brian rolls his eyes, "The last time Esmeralda sparred with Hector, Hector who shan't be bought down by anyone," he emphasized, "and he ended up with broken ribs and partial coma for a week. The king's second, your sister, is a living death wish."

Emerick opens his mouth to retort when a feminine voice pipes in,

"Are you people backbiting about me?" Esme approaches from behind a pillar a few steps away from the two males, her eyes twinkling with mischief and feigned shock.

"Hello, Brian." She croons at him, seductively trailing a finger across his bare chest, "You gained quite the muscles, I see."

Brian looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole or he'd rather prefer being hunted by the hyenas than facing the girl in front of him.

"I. . . I. . ." He clears his throat, ears turning red, "I'll take my leave." The last words are a rushed shriek before he shashays away, wondering God knows what.

Resistance against mind-reading, it seems, is a familiar trait among the shadow hunters and creatures. It is the reason I can't read any of their thoughts.

"Why do they piss at the sight of me?" Esme pouts. There's something lilting about her tone so at odds to the ferocious venom that dripped at me yesterday.

Emerick gives her a bland look, "Because you're the king's second in command. And you are scary."

Esme radiates pure cheeriness as she drapes an arm over her brother's shoulder and passes him a look of mock hurt, "I didn't expect this from you, Rick. You wound me."

Emerick smiles, flipping her off.

"At this point, I'm not even sure which sibling I prefer. They're both so irresistibly hot." Joshua begins dreamily, dragging me out of my eavesdropping.

I turn to my friend, give him an are-you-serious look.

The moment I'd returned back to my room, I'd narrated everything Thanatos had told me to Joshua. For all of his chatters, Josh was the most trustworthy person known. His bond with me as protector made it even more proficient for him to keep my secrets. He'd never uttered them to anyone in all the centuries of companionship. Never will. I'm certain of it.

So after knowing everything, he'd very enthusiastically accompanied me here only to gawk at the whole place.

Joshua sighs, completely ignoring me, openly ogling Emerick's half-naked body and Esme's stunning figure, "The kind of bisexual stress I'm in."

I roll my eyes, "Ofcourse, that's the only stress you have these days."

"Tell me about it." He's still ogling like a creep, as if the siblings were Gods descended on land, "I think I'll leave the brother for you. I rather like the sister's spirit. Look at how she's glaring at us right now, I might fall in love."

Despite the acidic reply I had for his indirect suggestion, that last sentence makes me direct my attention back to the siblings and sure enough, Esme is glaring, grey eyes set like daggers on Josh and me.

Her ankle-length heeled boots leave dust particles scurrying in her path as she marches our way, Emerick following behind with a pinched expression on his face as he grabs a shirt from a passerby hunter.

"What are you both doing here?" Esme nearly growls once she is face-to-face with us.

I cross my arms, "Last I heard, we weren't prisoners and had free reign to roam wherever we wished. But for the sake of your question, your king told me to ask you and Emerick to take me to the mystic."

As if the mention of Thanatos rivals her resolve, she frowns then passes me a narcissistic smile, "I so believe you."

"Won't believe even this?" I hold out the note, which was left behind on Thanatos' balcony table signed with his scrawl of a hagard handwriting, commanding Esme and Emerick to take me to the mystic's lair.

I had no idea how he'd known I'd need it or how it had even appeared out of nowhere on the table but somehow the handwriting also cleared he truly wasn't the one to write the letter left at Ryan's death. Unless Thanatos changed his writing, that handwriting from four years ago was like printed cursive. Thanatos' is barely understandable.

Esme grabs the note, reads it and scowls before passing it to Emerick.

The siblings share a weighted glance before the shadow hunter passes his sister a subtle nod.

With a scathing glare, "Well then, let's go." Esmeralda turns around on her heels, "Just so you know, if you get yourself killed by the mystic, it's not on me."

Joshua whistles and I shoot him a scathing glare before we both follow Esme, Emerick in step with us.

***

THE MYSTIC'S LAIR is in the middle of a buzzing lofty night marketplace; women in ankle-length skirts and flowing-sleeve tops skitter around as they shop and bargain, men in trousers and vests play deck of cards at one corner, traders shout offers to tempt passerby into buying their goods.

People rush past, pushing one another from their paths to reach the next shop, lest the first one hadn't agreed to their terms. The place smells of alcohol and spices and meat and something citrusy I couldn't quite place.

I take in the mystic's accommodation in front of me, the cents of land where no one wandered. I didn't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't a tent the size of a pea that reeked of rotting death.

"Looks like shit." Joshua comments beside me, scrunching his nose, "Smells like it too."

"Oh, so now I know you smell shit on regular basis." Esme rebukes with a saccharine smile, looking over her shoulder at Joshua.

"I don't-"

To spare us from their bickering again like the last half hour, Emerick holds up his hand, "All of us can't get in there." He points at the tent, "Majority two, I would say."

"I and Melly will go." Joshua asserts, slugging an arm around my shoulders.

Esme is in front of us in an instant. She grabs Joshua's arm, long lithe fingers clasping around his elbow and pulls him with enough force that he goes stumbling her way, "No, you won't. If you both think I trust either of you to go there alone and not plot something against Master Thanatos, it's wishful thinking."

Her bright blue eyes divert to her silently observing brother, "Rick, you go with the Missy. I'll stay guard with this one." She gestures at Joshua as if he were a pest.

I almost tell her to mind her own business and Joshua would accompany me whether she liked it or not when his thoughts echoes in my mind,

'Go with the hunter, Melly. We don't have time for arguing here. It's almost dawn. Besides....' His eyes skid to Esme for a moment and they turn dreamy, 'I might as well enjoy some alone time with miss sexyness.'

Shaking my head at my starstruck friend, I quip my head at the shadow hunter, "Let's go then."

Emerick stares for a nary too long before nodding and stepping ahead.

We leave Josh and Esme behind to approach the tent when a man emerges out of it. He looks pale, his eyes wide and the cigar in his hand clatters to the muddy ground.

He takes one glance at Emerick and me and warns, "The hag is in a mood today. I say visit some other day if you wish to stay alive."

Emerick frowns beside me when the man rushes away as though he couldn't bare to even stand near the mystic's radial.

"You want to go?" Emerick asks politely, a slight wariness to his tone.

Sighing, I lift the tent's makeshift door, "I don't have time to waste for another day."

Then I walk in, Emerick following shortly behind.

The inside of the tent is shrouded in darkness, no source of light except for the one coming from the crystal ball placed atop a table in the center of the space.

The table is filled with eerie objects-strange astrological cards, black and green marbles, soot pocketed in glass bottles and pouches and a hand-mirror with its surface as black as darkness itself laying in middle of a circle of. . . .human bones.

The mystic sat behind it on an old victorian armchair.

Her eyes were shut, white lashes framing the porcelain skin of her face. Her chapped lips were half entirely black and half horribly pale white just like her hair, the right partition black and the left white. She was muttering something in some strange language, probably speaking to whatever unholy forces of universe the mystics gather gossips from.

My feet takes a step ahead and her dry lips freeze to stretch into a smile so bone-chilling, I consider rushing out of here for good. But I have to stay. I have to know.

Although when her eyes flutter open, the prior decision seems far wiser. Because her eyes. . .they are white, completely, creepily, possessed-worthy white.

"I knew you would come." Her voice is like one and many, male and female all together. It's disturbing.

Even Emerick stands stone still beside me, barely breathing when those irise-less eyes take me in.

"Chosen One." She croaks, lifting a skeletal hand toward me urging me to step forward, "The sun priestesses are looking for you. The Manipulator is looking for you. They're all looking for you."

My entire body seizes, my breathing stopping stand-still at the mention of the priestesses.

No no no. I wasn't here for this. They couldn't be looking for me. I'd. . . taken care of them centuries ago.

"You're going to change everything." Her tone switches to angry and she sounds like a corpse, "The priestesses should've taken care of it. They failed. We're all going to pay."

Mellisa, breathe.

Breathe breathe breathe.

Focus focus focus.

Ask your question and get out of here.

I step ahead and place the animal bone Emerick and Esme suggested to bring along for offering if I wanted to know anything from her.

"The. . .the p-prophecy. What is the another version of it?" I hadn't hoped for my words to stutter, I hadn't hoped for my hands to shake, yet the traitorous things do portray the terror inside of me.

The sun priestesses. . . .

No, it didn't matter.

I wasn't the child who didn't know how to handle her own powers anymore. I was stronger now. They couldn't do anything anymore even if they're alive.

"It doesn't matter. This prophecy or that, the chaos shall happen either ways. Where there's a will, there's a way. The greatest of conquerors is the one who conquers it all." The mystic laughs, the sound skittering over my bones, "He knows. He wants to be that."

Where there's a will, there's a way.

The greatest of conquerors is the one who conquers it all.

Those lines. . .they were there in the letter left behind at Ryan's death.

I push back the fear, the delusions, I push away every thought that reminded me of how at a time, I had been weak, had been at the mercy of others.

No more. I'd decided long ago.

So with a deep breath, "Who is he?" I ask, steadily.

The mystic gives me a conspiratory smile, "The brother of the one who you aid now."

The quickening of Emerick's heartbeat is evident at her words, confirming my partial doubt.

Yet, my eyes narrow at the mystic, "Who?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. All the prophecies say the same thing." She sing-songs, tall form clothed in black hood and robe rising off her seat on the ground, "He'll conquer it all and you'll be the key and all of us, slaves at his disposal. Unless. . .you're dead."

In one animalistic move, she lunges.

Everything happens so fast, I don't get the time to brace myself as the mystic pounces on me, her sharp nails attacking to scrape every exposed skin of my body as I fall down on the ground on my back.

The horror of her ghastly face so close to mine renders me in momentary shock.

Off, I had to get her off me.

I gather my powers to do just that when the mystic is thrown off my body and yeeted across the space with a force that she goes clashing against her tent, taking it down with her.

Emerick is looming above me. He grabs me, strong firm arms clasping my shoulders and hoists me back on my feet. Before I can even glance back at the mystic, Emerick takes my hand and drags me outside of the tent in a rush.

Esme and Joshua pause on whatever they were possibly bickering about as they take us in.

"What in the eggshell-"

"What the fuck-"

Both of their curses are cut short by the mystic screaming, her fallen tent now starts to tremble as she tries to get out of it and possibly kill us all.

"What did you do?" Esme gapes.

Emerick's hand tighten on mine, "We all need to get out of here."

"No shit, Sherlock." Joshua snaps.

Rushing to my side, my friend takes a look at my possibly pale and scratched face and curses under his breath, "What the hell happened, Melly?!"

That single distraction is all it takes for the mystic to get out of her tent trap and unleash on us.

"The sun priestesses call to me. I will tell them, I will tell them you dwell here. They'll kill you if I cannot!" She laughs maniacally with the voice of many, lunging across air.

Fury burns my skin as I look at her so desperate, so eager to kill me, to kill everyone.

She'll tell the sun priestesses. . . .

Everything slows down, narrowing to that thought.

She'll tell them.

They'll come for me. For Joshua.

The invisible shield I keep around myself to conceal my aura drops. It's in that exact moment the mystic realizes the threat of what she's to face, that Emerick and Esme realize the extent of what I am.

Joshua shakes his head, "Melly, no-"

Before he can stop me, I lift my arm and the entire area of the mystic's lair catches in blue flames. The mystic's screams pierces my ears, people around the market cry out, clearing the place and running away like ants.

But all I do is stare blankly, darkness creeping my heart as the mystic's lithe body engulfs in cerulean fire. Her skin and bones and hair dissolve into nothing but soot as the entire land of her lair turns into a barren graveyard.

When I turn to my companions, Emerick and even Esme looks terrified. Joshua is striken and again, again I remember the kind of monster I am.

"Who's Thanatos' brother?" I ask, the icyness in my voice even foreign to me.

Esme and Emerick go still, wide eyed. Joshua shakes his head, ridding himself from the shock to stare up at me.

My eyes narrow, I take a step ahead towards the siblings, "Who. Is. Thanatos. Brother?"

Esme shakes her head, her posture turning vigilant as if she wouldn't answer even if I took her life.

It's Emerick who sighs and retorts at my another threatening step ahead, "Dyrk, the Master Manipulator. He's Master Thanatos' younger brother."

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Sheesh....what now?

Y'all got any theories about anything and everything?👀