“ADAIR!!!!” I shout. “ADAIR’S BACK!!”

I looked at a servant and told her to get Ryan.

She flew off. I heard Aidan fly up to me.

“Kallan what-” he starts. He stares at our near dead brother. He looks at Lilly and grows very pissed off, most likely blaming her for what happened.

“What did you do to him?!?!” he roars at her.

“I- I- I- I didn't do it I swear!!!” she cried. She began crying. The guy in black looked like he was about to kill aidan

“Dude, what the hell?! That was uncalled for!!” the guy in black said. He did not look happy. “You better apologize to her.”

Aidan softens his look and ignores the dude in black. He can sense that Lilly’s tears are sincere.

“You must be Lilly.” he said softly. “Is Adair-”

“He's still alive, just unconscious.” Lilly says, still crying. The dude in black is still glaring at him.

The dude helping Lilly took Adair and handed him to Aidan. Adair moaned slightly. Then the older man finished walking up carrying another person. I also recognize the person being carried.

It’s an equally beat up Hametsu. My confusion level has gone from 1 to 100. Who the hell beat him up that badly? Was it the other Hametsu? Will the confusion ever cease?!

Ryan came in the nick of time to help with Adair and Hametsu.

“What happened??” he asked urgently. He laid his eyes on Lilly and suddenly got shy and quiet. The dude in black raises an eyebrow, the other guy just stays quiet the whole time, holding the beat up and barely awake Hametsu. Hametsu is struggling to stay awake. He looks at me with pleading eyes. I just look at him, not sure what to think. I turn my attention back to Ryan and Aidan, who doesn't seem to notice Hametsu, despite being less than five feet away from him, and I thought I was oblivious but come on guys.

“Adair is back, seriously injured and freezing cold. Help Aidan carry him to his room.” I told him.

“O-okay,” he said, distracted by Lilly. He awkwardly walks towards Aidan and helps him carry Adair to his room. I have guards carry Hametsu to a spare bedroom.

After a few minutes, Lilly calms down with my and Kage’s help.

“Thank you sir for helping me.” Lilly said to the older man.

“‘Twas my pleasure, young lady.” he replied.

“Kage, thanks for helping us get here.”

“You’re welcome,” the guy I assume to be Kage said. “I’m going to get to the bottom of what happened. Once Hametsu has enough energy, I’m gonna ask him a few things.”

I called over a few servants to bring some warm towels. All three of them are soaked. I invite them inside. Honestly I should’ve done that earlier but I was so preoccupied with getting Adair and Hametsu inside that it didn't cross my mind until now.

The three of them wrap the towels around themselves. Kage makes an audible sigh of relief with a face of pure satisfaction.

“You may stay here as long as you wish after the rain stops,” I told them.

“Thank you, your highness,” the older man said with a slight bow.

“Thanks,” Kage said, holding the towel like a blanket. He is so nonchalant and casual.

“Kal this is Rick. He helped me carry Adair and his wife helped with some of the splits,” Lilly explained. “And this is Kage, one of Hametsu’s best friends. He found him unconscious a few hours ago inside the temple.”

“Pleased to meet you Kage,” I said to the guy in all black and grey.

“Likewise,” he says back. He reaches his hand out for a hand shake. I take it. Damn he’s cold. It's gotta be from the rain.

“In case you’re wondering, that is the real Hametsu,” Kage said.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“He smells like evergreen.” he says, as if it was obvious. “The fake one reeks of dark energy, which is not a pleasant smell.”

“That still doest help,” I tell him.

“Hametsu is fiercely loyal to those he cares about. He would never do this to you. I’ve known him for most of my life,” Kage explains. “Yes he is sadistic and psycho, but he has been getting major therapy for it... and I mean MAJOR. He has a therapy session three days a week. It’s a very slow process. But he’s getting better. He stopped killing people and is finding more ways to cope with his random insanity episodes-”

“Okay Kage, that's enough.” Lilly scolds.

“Like training or clinging to me or Lilly,” he says, ignoring her. He smiles. From the look on her face, I say she really hates being ignored when scolding someone.

I nod slowly and take a good look at Rick.

Rick has a sturdy build and lemon yellow wings. His hair is blond fading into grey at the roots and his skin is tan. He obviously spends a lot of time outside.

“It's a pleasure to have you three here,” I say.

The castle has many fireplaces scattered about. I take them to the one closest to the entrance, which is in the dining hall. There’s a couch there and Kage just plops himself on the couch after taking his shoes off. He’s asleep in less than ten seconds. I have a feeling that he likes to sleep and it’s a bad idea to wake him up. He looks so cozy wrapped up in that towel.

They sit there in front of the fire while drinking herbal tea. I sit with them. I didn't see my mother. She probably went to see Adair.

“Lilly, exactly what happened?” I asked.

She proceeded to explain what happened since Adair came to fake Hametsu’s castle. Fake Hametsu was all friendly and nice to him for most of the time, and Adair frequently talked with Lilly about healing remedies.

“I could finally talk to someone and just be me,” she said, “it felt like a rock was lifted off my chest and shoulders whenever we spoke. Hametsu never liked to talk about healing remedies and would only talk about war and genocide. That is... until I realize that the Hametsu I’ve been living with for a while was a fake.”

“What?” I question.

“Yeah, the real Hametsu is the one in this castle, as Kage said.”

“Did Adair know?” Aidan asks.

“He found out shortly after I did,” Lilly says.

She then proceeded to tell us about the fake Hametsu and how he mercilessly tortured Adair to get the information about the pendant. He ripped Adair's wings off after chaining him to a wall and whipping him for twenty minutes nonstop. The fake Hametsu beat him and broke his bones. She said that Adair passed out from both pain and blood loss.

“I used some of my healing magic to heal the life threatening injuries once the fake left the room. But that was all the energy I had. I carried him to a room so he could rest while I planned an escape. Later that same night, I packed some food and water, took Adair and got out of there,” she explained. “I heard the fake talking to some sort of shadow about what he did to Oberon. He said that he also added a poison to his scythe to prevent healing magic from working properly. The shadow said Raiden, which I assume is the fake’s name.”

“That sounds like a dangerous poison…” I say. “It also explains why my magic wasn’t working yesterday.”

It took her three days of nonstop walking, running, and hiding from Raiden’s guards to get to Rick’s farm. I’m amazed that she was able to do that.

“The girl is the exact opposite of this Raiden character copying her brother the Death King. I knew it from the innocence in her eyes.” Rick said, “the girl is loaded with kindness and humbly begged for help. I let her stay for two days to rest. My wife made splints for prince Adair's wounds and bandaged his cuts and gashes. The poor boy nearly died twice.”

Rick’s farm is only two day’s walk from our castle. Then they met up with Kage, who apparently was doing some snooping about his own friend and finding out what was going on. He seems to know about the copycat. I also learned that Kage can turn into a dragon and he let them ride on his back and flew them here. They left last night and arrived this morning. Kage is apparently a fast flyer.

Lilly then tells me about all the things Adair said about me and Aidan.

“Adair said that he really admires your stubbornness.” Lilly says.

“My- my stubbornness?” I ask. I never really thought of myself as stubborn. Although looking back, I am pretty stubborn when I put my mind to it.

“He said that when you want to do something, you will do it without letting people try and reason with you.” she says, “he also said that you need to work on it if you want to be a good king.”

I laugh.

“What did he say about Aidan?”

“He said that he's really funny and has a great sense of humor,” she says, “but he scared me by yelling at me.”

“He's a lovable goofball.” I tell her, “he’ll apologize once he comes back.”

We sit and talk and drink some tea that the servants brought over for a few minutes. Aidan and Ryan come back and sit down. Ryan sits between Lilly and me, and Aidan sits to my right.

“Hey Lilly…” Aidan starts, “I'm sorry for yelling at you. It was very rude of me.”

Lilly thinks about it for a moment.

“You're forgiven.” she says.

Aidan smiled at her. Then he decided to make the fire dance. I elbowed him to make him stop because it was very dangerous and he could've burned the castle down.

I look over at Ryan. He looks pretty shy.

Then I looked at Lilly, her face was red and she was twirling her hair. The two of them looked at each other and got very shy.

A sneaky smile crept up my and Aidan's faces.

Lilly and Ryan have crushes on each other. They fell in love even though they just met. The love at first sight cliche is working it’s magic. I lean over to whisper into Ryan's ear.

“Talk to her.” I whisper to him. He nods.

“So...uh...Lilly, it's uh, v-very nice of you to bring Adair back to us. Th-thanks.” He stammers out.

You idiot, I think, that's not how you impress girls.

“Dude, that was weak,” Kage says. He plops himself next to me. When did he wake up?

“I was thanking her. Sheesh. Again Lilly, thank you.”

“Uh, s-sure. I mean, I couldn't just leave him with Raiden...” she said.

Ryan nodded.

“Complement her!!” Kage whispers to him.

“What do I say?” he whispers back.

“I don't know! Say her hair looks pretty or something!” Kage whispers in return.

Ryan nods.

“I like your hair.” Ryan says, “it looks really pretty, like, dark brown, like dark oak and it shines like bronze.”

Aidan rolls his eyes. I facepalm. Kage shakes his head in total disappointment.

“Th-thanks I guess,” she said.

“And your eyes are like beautiful emeralds that shine in the sun.”

Lilly blushed.

“And you're so nice and adorable and kind and…” Ryan was at loss for words. He eventually found his tongue, “you're so beautiful and kind.”

Lilly blushes even more.

“Thank you. That was very sweet of you,” she says, and then she proceeded to compliment him back.

“Your hair reminds me of the night sky, and your eyes remind me of the sky in the daylight, vast and full of wonder,” she said, “I can tell that you are a noble and gentle warrior who would defend his people to the death. You're also full of kindness.”

Then they hold each other's hands. Aidan, Kage, and I look at each other with excited grins on our faces, like young kids on Christmas morning. Kage even makes a little squeak of excitement, causing me and Aidan to giggle a bit.

Then Lilly scooted a little bit closer to him, just a little bit. Ryan put his arm around her. Lily put her head in his shoulder.

Ugh I wish they would just kiss already. Kage looks ready to push the two of them together to make them kiss.

“Oh man I just realized Hametsu will have a fit about this,” Kage says with a laugh.

“What do you mean?” I ask him.

“He is extremely overprotective of his sister. He’s gonna freak out when he finds out about this.” Kage continues with a laugh. Lilly just sighs with a look of annoyance. She’s probably aware of this fact.

After an hour or two of chatting by the fire, the rain finally stops. We walk outside. There’s a rainbow when we step out. The rainbow is bright and brilliantly colored and seems to sparkle. The scent of grass and rain fills my nose. The best scent.

“This is a good omen,” Ryan says. “The Mother Goddess is blessing us for something.”

We look at the rainbow in silence for a few minutes until Rick states that he has to leave.

“Good luck Prince Kallan. I pray that Prince Adair and Hametsu will recover quickly.” He says.

“Thank you, Rick, for everything.” Lilly says with a smile.

“My pleasure Lilly.” Rick replies.

“Want me to take you home?” Kage asks him.

“Thank you, but I believe I can handle it myself,” Rick states. Kage shrugs.

“Okay,” he simply says.

Rick flies off shortly after.

I get dressed and go into Adair's room. He lies under his dark green covers, asleep. Some color has returned to him, but we don’t know when he’s going to wake up.

“Kal,” I hear a hoarse voice call. I look around and hear that it’s coming from Hametsu’s room. I go over to his room. Kage is in there, curled up on the bed, asleep, next to him. When did he get there and how did I not notice?

“What’s up?” I say. He looks almost as bad as Adair, cuts, bruises, gashes and broken bones.

“I need to tell you about the guy pretending to be me.” he says hoarsely. He clears his throat. I walk over to him.

Hamewtsu tells me everything he knows. The guy copying him is named Raiden, which confirms what Lilly says. He’s got black wings, bowing-orange hair, and red eyes. His main objective is to get the dragonfly pendant from me.

“However I don’t know what for. He said something about freeing someone, but I don’t know who.”

“How did you get all this information?” I ask.

“I have spies, remember? The spies you captured belonged to him and he disguised them as Death Fairies to fuel the fire and make you hate me more.” he continues, “I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to do some dirty tactic to get it from you.”

“Thank you for telling me.” I say, “I’m sorry for misunderstanding.”

“I don’t know what kind of fairy Raiden is, but it's something I haven't seen before. Ask your father about it. He may know.”

I nod.

“I will.” I say. “Also how did Kage get there so fast? I didn’t notice him.”

“Teleportation,” he says, struggling to stay awake.

“He can teleport?” I ask.

He nods tiredly and passes out from exhaustion. Kage wakes up for a second, scoots a little closer to him, carefully hugs him, and falls back to sleep. I wish I had a camera with me, because it looks adorable.

The news of Adair's return and his condition was taken surprisingly well by the people. They’re actually glad to have him back and pray for his swift recovery. The news of Hametsu being here brought forth a mix of responses. Some of anger, some of sympathy, and most of confusion.

A few days before the duel with fake Hametsu, I discovered that I had healing magic. Before that day of the duel, I've been practicing it by healing the sick and the bad injuries that people got. I've gotten very good at it now. The poison just prevented it from working on my father. I went into Adair's room to use it on him, but Lilly told me to wait.

“He's not ready yet.” she said.

“Lilly,” I said. “how do you know??”

“His lips are still blue. He's still freezing. If he still had his wings, he'd heat up quicker.”

Wings help regulate the body temperature. They absorb and release heat when necessary. I learned that from the townspeople.

But Adair's room is already so hot. I’m only in there for about a minute and I’m already super sweaty.

Adair is under five thick blankets with heat absorbing abilities and his room feels hotter than a summer day in the desert. How is he not burning hot yet? Let alone warm?

It came to me that he has hypothermia, severe hypothermia. That on top of broken bones, horrible bruises, deep cuts and ripped off wings.

He must've been through hell on the day he was tortured.

I call Aidan over.

“What do you want bro?” He asks.

“What do you do to help Adair with hypothermia?” I ask back.

“Well, I can get Lamia to heat his blood up to body temperature,” he says.

That sounds absolutely disgusting.

“Who told you that?” I ask again.

Lilly timidly raises her hand.

“I've treated severe hypothermia before in years past,” she started, “before I lived in Fae I was studying to be a doctor and I had to do a project of how to treat hypothermia, both moderate and severe so… yeah. I know how to treat many things. Adair taught me some of his healing remedies,” she explains. She laughs nervously.

I’m really worried about Adair. He seems to be okay. He’s sleeping peacefully in his coma while he has blankets piled up on him plus a hot room.

“Aidan, turn the temperature of the room down significantly.” Lilly says. “This is very bad. What made you think having his room be this high of a temperature was a good idea?” she scolds.

Aidan looks sheepish and turns it down to just a little bit above room temperature. Lilly and I heave a sigh of relief. It felt so nice now.

I hear Roxy run down the hall. She’s wearing a really pretty, knee length, turquoise dress with sparkles and a gold trim. She’s also wearing really pretty brown boots and her hair is braided with a sapphire ribbon. Her sapphire blue wings droop a bit while she’s trying to catch her breath. I go over to her.

“You must be Lilly.” she says once she finally regained her breath, “I'm Roxanne, but you can just call me Roxy.”

“I'm Lilly, Hametsu’s twin. The good twin actually,” she says, extending her hand. She probably makes that joke a lot since Hametsu can be a prick.

Roxy laughs a bit and shakes Lilly's hand.

I look at Roxy dreamily. I love her so much, I can't contain it sometimes.

I kiss her cheek.

“I love you,” I whisper in her ear. She turns her head to face me and our lips lock, startling both of us. But we lean into it.

Aidan whistles and laughs. I stop to scold Aidan a bit.

“Aidan, you probably do this with Lamia every chance you get,” I smirk. He blushes with an annoyed facial expression. I’m right and he knows it.

“We should probably leave Adair's room,” I say. Everyone agrees. So we leave Adair's room and go into the common area. We hang out there for a while until everyone hears my stomach growl. I didn’t realize how hungry I am. Then again, it's kinda my fault because I didn't have much for breakfast, just an apple, banana, a really tiny berry and a really tiny chunk of watermelon.

I imagine what would be for lunch. For some reason I think of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, dinner rolls, and whatever else comes with traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

I rush into the dining area and see platters of poultry, steamed vegetables, and seafood.

“Guys the food is ready!!” I shout excitedly. They all come flying to the large table.

I stuff my face until I can't eat anymore. But then a pecan pie comes out and my appetite is back. It's really weird how that works. I eat until I can't eat anymore and then I see pastries and suddenly I get hungry again.

“How do you eat that much and not gain any weight?” Lilly asks. I shrugged and kept eating my slice of pie.

A little while later, I got a stomach ache. I ask Lilly if she knows how to deal with stomach aches. She does and makes that horribly bitter concoction that Adair made me a few months ago at the banquet for my return.

When she finishes it, I choke it down, I cringe at the bitterness for a good thirty seconds. The stomach ache goes away almost immediately.

“Thanks,” I say.

“No problem!” Lilly smiles.

I can't help but worry about both Adair and my father. I really hope Adair wakes up in time to see our father before he passes.

I go to visit my father.

He’s breathing heavily and looks sort of pale. He's still losing blood, but the blood flow was very light. Some attendants were changing his bandage.

“Father,” I start, “Adair is back.”

He takes a deep breath before responding.

“So I've heard,” he says. “How is he doing?”

“He's in a coma,” I say, “we don't know when he's going to wake up.”

Father sighs.

“My boy, I must tell you something,” Father says. “Come here.”

I lean in a little closer.

“Don't fall for his mind tricks. He will try and break you. Don't let him trick you,” he says urgently. “Romeo tried to do the same thing the last time I fought him. He nearly succeeded in trying to manipulate me into surrendering. I wasn't aware that I stabbed him until I heard him collapse and scream in pain. I heard his son screaming in terror, anger and grief.”

“You feel like he wants to avenge his father?” I ask.

Father nods.

“Avenge Romeo and finish his work.” Father says gravely, “you must stop him.”

“Well… about that.” I tell him about the fake named Raiden and what happened with the real Hametsu. I even tell him about Lilly’s small encounter with Raiden talking to a shadow.

“That is very strange… and smart of this Raiden.” Father says, “I assume he will eventually find out that you know. Is there any information about his appearance?”

“Hametsu said that he has brown-orange hair, red eyes, and black wings.”

“Black wings?” Father says, with a look of surprise. He thinks for a moment. “Raiden is a Dark Fairy.”

“A Dark Fairy?” I ask in surprise. “I thought they were sealed away!”

“He must’ve freed himself.” Father says. “Lilly said he contacts a shadow right?”

I nod in response.

“I fear the worst…” he says. “He may be in contact with the Spirit of Darkness.”

I freeze. If that’s the case then we’re all screwed. Hametsu only knows a little bit about his plans. He may know more, but is too exhausted to tell me.

“You need to stop them, my boy,” he says urgently. “Who knows what he’s planning with the Spirit of Darkness.”

“I will father.” I whisper. I hold his hand. He winks at me.

“You have an extraordinary amount of power. Learn how to use it and control it,” he says, managing a weak smile. I smile back.

“I'm so proud of you,” he says. He coughed and took a deep breath.

I smile at him.

“I love you,” I say to him.

“I love you too Kal,” he says smiling. I leave the room, unsure on how to feel.