They giggled. Echoing laughter of children sang across the folds of the intimate hall. The royal blue curtains neatly tucked under the white stone curb hang steadily from the emptiness of that bare moment. When she stretched her glimpse along the dreary foyer, it stood in both familiarity and dread. Unlike when Alve was awake, this path should have terms that went either to the left or the right. But like the same as before she dreamed this one, the passage just went on and on with no end. When the dancing mirth and chuckle of the children went away in dead silence, the princess’s hopefulness tailed.

“Over here, this way!” once again it called to her, a little boy’s voice resonating farther away in the hall. And as she did all over, Alve followed. But this time, she ran.

Down into the bleak hall with her little short lanky legs, she wished she could lapsed many a time but this was important. The drag of her nightgown and her feet’s continuous tug against it was slowing her fast. Soon she would have been belated. She pulled off the dress over head and tossed it away before she had lost her second chance of saving her uncle.

Onward she went. The light outside briskly dashing by her face at each window opening. “Over there,” frankly the voice supplied. Though the High Adjunct was not yet there in her view, Alve kept.

“-Here. Over here. There. Here -” the voice went on and on calmly despite the rush of Alve’s heart and the loss of her air.

Then by the last pump of her legs, of the enduring, “there. Here. Over here-” like pure instinct, when the voice finally said, “sister!” Immediately, Alve cried out from the empty distance, “uncle! Watch out for the silver serpent!” Came out of nowhere tendrils of runny luminescence enraptured itself into formless two figures before the binding colors and shapes of the High Adjunct, suited plated steel armor with his blue cape of the Thravadin figure fastened behind him, and the extensive white snake, large in its wake, in full capture of its previous phantom stalking its prey.

Still running towards the formed characters, Alve bellowed again, “Uncle! Uncle! Snake-” trying her best to capture the dream-High Adjunct’s attention. The little boy’s call as well, “Sister! Sister! Runaway!”

And like before, though both did their hardest. Though one was now crying in passionate warnings, and the other, his infinite repeats. The High Adjunct did not look back. The snake kept forward.

“Please uncle, stop!”

And she awoke. Naked and weak to the elements of that cold spring night, Alve opened her eyes to the canopy of her bed. Slightly darkened by Oria’s full glow, the blue ceiling was turning blurry with the immense tears from her eyes. Alve blinked rapidly afterward, wiping them intentionally. It was moments later when she realized the tight grip of pain beneath her chest. Still laying at her disgruntled bed, she panicked as it became too painful to cry for help.

Tussling over and over the sheets, her pillows falling down as each kick of desperation punctuated the cry for relief. But the colossal window to her balcony burst open with raw winter winds. Blowing away her scratched papers and other painting materials, the gale thwarted her horror and eventually taught her to breathe again. As the swirl of frightful events slowly faded into the distant hymn of the wafting air, the princess at last cried in silent rasps.

She cradled herself beneath the freeze. Alve was beginning to wonder about the nonplus after her latest nightmare. Urda was not there. Frenzied again, she remembered the loud sound. The very mysterious rigid boy. The garden. Her uncle.

In the tensed apprehension, Alve immediately stood up from her bed and ran to the door. Hoping to escape her guards the second time, she was appalled when the knob would not go down. Barely even reaching the latch, she banged at the door with cries of, “Please! Someone, my uncle needs your help!”

Her situation was becoming unyielding however when no response was answering her. Backing away, Alve’s tears were again flowing down, warmer than usual. She was tired, cold, trapped, and alone.

She coughed and shook. She was beginning to convulse with the unregulated condition of the room. Frantic, she went to the window balcony so she might close it up. Might was already an exaggeration. Hardly moving an inch of these, the princess eventually went back to her bed. She gathered her nightgown and endowed it again for any warmth she could get. Still cold, she retreated to her sheet and pillows, making small smiles as she made herself a small castle to sleep in. While engineering her future palace, a wave of pain washed over her head. Her coughs were becoming rougher, and her vision dizzy. Fortunately, Alve was able to latch onto the large portcullis of her bed and dragged herself atop the new cozy palace.

Losing consciousness, Oria’s light was now gently fading away into shade as Alve’s window slowly closed on its own with the parting wind to sleep. While on the crest of her worries, her mindfulness however was now being dampened as the missing frost lulled, “rest.”

Arlou could barely move at the sight of that hideous creature. It had grown a new flesh, of thick ivory and bloodless meat. Lady Bane had just finished dancing when the glob of dark eth extracted itself from her before it had gone to latch onto his father. But the Lord Visor’s agile reaction was able to save the King and for his father to cut off the monster’s head.

The King, Arlou said silently to himself as he watched the burning of rotting sinew draw both horrid and darkened faces of the injured guests. The King, his father, Chustern’s Acolyte, stood in pale worry. The Chrovesteran relic, the ancient longsword, stood with him as well, wary of the history of its last use. The prince had been pushed aside by his father when the threat had emasculated itself to them. Hidden behind their upended table, Arlou lay and watched as soldiers in blue and orange came marching in the now roofless Fedolarian Hall. Assistance was now momentarily given, apart from Lady Catera’s dramatic cries of, “Ow, I think I broke my hip.”

The King’s decision on a new marriage perhaps was still honored by the goddess as a slow downpour came down upon the accursed event. It was a cold shower now, drowning away the sad cursed Fae.

“It is Terras Tron.”

Arlou spun. Just behind him was a girl, perhaps in her youth, with unidentifiable features from the dark but her voice, a smooth sincere lullaby. She was tucked by herself with perhaps injuries as no movement came about.

“Terras Tron?” Arlou asked.

“The cold is always him,” she responded.

There was a long pause for Arlou as the statement made an untoward regard. He eventually realized that the delusions of the night’s affair had gone over his head. “Oh, forgive my cretin's reaction. You are injured I presume?”

Surprisingly, she responded with a small jeer. “Yes. Yes I am.”

“Let me help you with that then.” The prince said as he crawled to the unmoving lady and immediately checked her vital signs. Seeing that she did not sit awkwardly, he figured he could heal a little without disturbing the spine area. With momentous ease, he casted a minor eth-leahn towards the person’s bruised and trashed skin. Silver and gold eth cirrus rung over the cuts as it relieved her bloody gashes and returned it to a scarred nip.

“You are one smart kid.”

“I get that often.”

“You can call me Mihca, your grace.”

“Oh. Mihca-”

“Prince Arlou.” Immediately Terras Tron’s cold could not match the horrifying frigidity of the High Adjunct’s call. “He’s here, bring him to the infirmary directly.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The shade stood below the steps of the king’s distraught table, his visage darkened behind the dying fire. Retreating his hand from Mihca, Arlou tried gathering himself as soldiers in orange were coming up to their area with a stretcher in hand. Seeing that the prince could stand, the High Adjunct lifted his hand to withhold. When Arlou passed his way from where his uncle stood, the soldiers inevitably followed suit. The High Adjunct, courtly as he could be in wetter dust and soot, bowed to Mihca before following to escort the prince out of the hall.