amos's stares penetrated through my heart, stripping my soul bare and piercing it sharply until I felt like shattered glass. Helpless and broken, spread everywhere, unable to see what was in his mind.

The echo of his voice still rang in my head as I stared at him, at how he stood, leaning on his ivory cane. His face was void and as blank as an ink-less paper, waiting. My throat tightened. Not angry, I noted, even though I knew it from the very start. Only disappointed.

''I ask you again, Celestia. What is it that you've found?"

"A solution," was all that came out of my mouth. But my voice was steady and cool. And bitter on my tongue. It was the voice I learned to use with maids and servants, the one I wielded to speak my way with the soldiers. It was the mask of the queen I was supposed to wear, and not the Celestia Ramos had sheltered for long months and guarded with his soul.

But I had become a bit of both, still growing to be the steel-forged ruler my throne needed. And steel did not bend nor break.

"He is leaving, Ramos."

It was like the world spun all at once as the words reverberated around us. And Ramos loosened his grip, his long, beautifully carved cane fell to the ground, shattering into bits and splinters. His face fell, his eyes crossed by the phantom of fear. And pain.

He'd raised my father as much as he did with my mother, watched him grow into the mighty king all Ardoria loved and praised.

The Court Leader pushed his way to the dais, wobbling on unsteady legs before he sat on a chair Siltheres had carved just opposite us.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose before his hands fell in his lap, drowning in the mass of fabrics his cloak was made of. He took in one deep, heavy breath and eyed the three of us with a stare that showed just how much was already crashing on his shoulders.

"I received words," he whispered, and suddenly, I truly saw how mightily the seven centuries he lived pressed on him. "About a raid on the castle. My spies have been coming in and out with loads of contradicting information for the past week." His cerulean eyes fixed on my face, the ring of grey around his pupils seeming to glow. "This is why I haven't called you yet to seek the remedy. I would give the world, too, to have Aragon back. But not when we could be under siege."

Breathing became hard.

It was Siltheres that spoke next, voice deep and guttural and filled with power, "They will attack, but not here and not now. My own resources told me such." Siltheres flared his wings and leaned over us, his massive shadow swallowing us whole.

Ramos's shoulders slouched and his body ever so lightly loosened up. He extended one hand, mentioning at the book, and said, "Show me this spell you claim to be the one.''

For a moment, my mind lapsed as those words sank, and something within me stirred. Something that was small but bright. Hope. It was a flicker of hope that bloomed in my heart. With no time to lose, I showed Ramos the page and watched as his eyes skimmed over the curved ink. ''I can only see it fit for Aragon's condition, but the question remains in how to cast this magic.''

"Perhaps we should write it on the King's skin like the ancient Elves used to do,'' proposed Leon, adding one to our endless possibilities.

Absentmindedly, I ran my fingers across the old and crumbling page, stroking the inked words. And what followed little did to surprise me; I had become too familiar with this. The moment my skin touched the ink, the words moved, separating themselves from the pages and floating in the air. Letter after letter and rune after rune, the spell glided through the air until it reached my hand, the words merging with my skin.

Once all the charm marked my flesh, the pages fluttered before new words appeared.

''Beware the black fire,

for it is a siege to peril and dire.

Dark mist rules with foam,

a weapon that shall hit straight home.

Only his blood can be the breaker,

the sun forever remains the curse's slaughterer.

But sand trickles fast,

after the second ticking, the malison wins at last.''

"The final verse is a warning to hold dear. Once the magic settles in, two hours will be the timeline separating life from death.''

Siltheres' words had the time to expand in the air before a surge of power surged throughout my core, humming a chant in my blood. A chant that awoke a part of powers in my veins I never experienced before.

"Two hours." Ramos tilted his head back, leaning it on the head of his seat. "Aragon has only two hours left."

I didn't know how my legs moved and how my feet shifted, but I sprang out of the realm so fast my muscles almost snapped. The only thing I heard as I made it out and into the castle was the thud of the Book of Astazan fallin from my lap and on the ground. And the echo of Leon and Ramos's footsteps as they ran behind me.

I will not lose him. Not again.

I spurted in the massive hallways, whirling between the lefts and rights. My cloak and dress billowed at the speed I ran, not stopping once to take a breath or to think where to turn next. I had visited him after we came back from our journey so much I knew each and every alleyway that led to his room. Each single night, I would visit him, would lay next to him, would renew my promise as I held his hand before falling to sleep. Whenever I had the time, away from the studies Ramos made us continue or learning how to be an adequated ruler, I would spend it next to its idle frame.

But not anymore. Because no matter what it would cost me, and before the two hours would end, he would be here. No matter what, I would have him back.

I stopped in front of the wall leading to his room, standing straight, my glowing totem against the appearing sun on the stones. Magic against magic, the wall vanished and the familiar wooden door appeared. Swinging it open, I entered his sanctuary, my eyes falling on his sleeping physique. Each night, his state became worse. Each night, he would lose a bit more of his colors, looking on the threshold of death. But I would no longer enter this room to find him sick and asleep. I would no longer crave to know what it felt like to have a father. I would not allow myself to fail him, not after what he and Mother did for my safety.

Kneeling next to his bed, my hands tightly glomming his marked one, I allowed my magic to surge in my arteries and veins. Down to each drop of blood I owned, magic took over. The room was silent, void of any sound except the ones of his beating heart and mine, the situation so similar to the first time my eyes ever laid on him. Without looking, I knew Leon and Ramos had stayed outside, leaving us to whatever needed privacy. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and allowed his magic to meet mine.

A blur of time passed as my powers sewed a bridge with his, lifting my soul to the essence of both his power and soul. To the point where his dreams and nightmares met. And it was as I opened my eyes, as I stared at the world his magic lived within that I truly realized how damaged the situation was.

No reflection gazed back, no mirrors reflected the light of my flaming sun like when I had unlocked my own essence. Because the glass was no longer standing high with pride, cloaking me with his elemental, but it was a scattered sea of shreds and tattered crumbs. Ragged, the sky was sheathed with thick clouds, the thin sunrays that pierced them washed the place with a sickening scarlet.

The air was misted with a growing darkness. The cursed chant resonating around me trailed chills up and down my spine. But above that whispering malice, a voice pierced in the encumbering heaviness, reaching my ears with an urge. I would know it no matter what, the pained voice of my roaring father.

I did not take the time to think twice before dashing in this endless universe. Glass pierced the skin of my bare feet, blood trailing as I ran, burning with each step. I didn't stop.

The screams and roars and yells rang stronger, and I braced myself for what I would see. The ground shook as though hell itself trashed and tossed, trying to break free. I pushed my body harder, turning a blind eye to the pain devouring my lowest part, forcing myself to go faster. I had known from my training with Ramos back at the Whitestone Manor and the First Norm that time was never equal in reality and magic. Where a minute in this world passed, it might cost me drastically more in the outside. The thought only made my heart weaker, thinking and calculating how much time I might still have.

As I ambled further deep in this dimension, the scenery changed. Crimson downpour fell as storming whirlwinds, soaking me wet. Flickers of cold flames licked my ankles, shimmering against the remaining dispersed glass. The earth growled once again, thick fogs and mists mantling me.

The howls were no more distant cries or dying whispers, instead, they became full-blown wails of pain that tore his throat as they evade. And I could feel it, the weakness and the fear that took hold of that brave heart.

I stood still, unable to move, my body paralyzed to its last inch, feeling like stone. A wall of black fire stood as high as an obstacle between me and the King behind it. And for a moment, I met his eyes, smoldering emeralds lined with pain and grief, nothing like the vigorous, strong, and commanding ones I had heard off and seen on paintings.

His lips parted once again, my name evading them as the remaining of a torn cry, and I watched. Watched as black chains manacled my father and king. Watched as his mighty blood dripped on the floor, each drop echoing as it merged with the crimson ponds under his floating form. But what brought more fright to my heart was the demon rising behind him. I would know him everywhere, the demon that had haunted my dreams for endless nights. The same demon that attacked us in Arelesia, the one I had killed and damned to peril in hell.

He had come for revenge, and what was a better way than to watch him end the person I had went through the journey for?

A devilish smile tugged at his mouth, showing rows of razor teeth. His clawed hands reached for Father as he walked, the ground shaking with his every step. And it was a nightmare to my eyes as I watched him pierce one of his claws in my father's shoulder, tearing flesh and bones apart. More blood dribbled and I screamed, tears streaming down my face.

Rage had consumed me until my vision became darker than the shadows cloaking us. My muscles tensed as I slammed the wall of fire blocking me, never caring of how my knuckles bled and my skin burned.

On the surge of that moment, the charm inked on my hand glowed for the briefest of seconds. I blinked, observing my trembling hands and trying hard to find the solution to all this mess.

I tried with the slightest of hope reading the spell, tracing it with my fingers on the fire, but all was in vain. My breaths caught in my throat as I watched runes forming under Father's feet, emanating a blackish hew. My spirit broke more as I realized it was a gate to hell and a breaker to its bonder.

The demon behind him spread his wings, his eyes glowing like ruby under sunlight, burning with a delirious lust to avenge. He stood behind my father, more black fire emerging from his hands, hitting straight the king in his back. I didn't scream anymore, didn't yell or hit the wall, rather, I stared at my father's face, at the single tear that trailed down his left cheek. And a part of my soul died as his pain merged with mine, the pain that it was the end. The pain that he never had the chance to see me when I was born, never had the chance to hold me in his arms, and never would.

I watched with too much pain than to hide as he tried to break from the chains, tried to spread his arms, tried to reach my hands. But the blackness tying him thought otherwise. The movements ceased as his breaths shallowed and the sun inked on his palm dimmed. The same sun that brought the faintest of ideas to my chaotic mind.

Only his blood can be the breaker, the sun forever remains the curse's slaughterer.

Not his blood and not his sun, no. But the ones of his heiress, the ones of the child he never had the chance to hold. Grabbing the first shard of glass my hands laid on, I cut the skin and the flesh of my marked hand, watching as red thickness oozed from the golden sun and silver crescent. Dipping my fingers in my blood, I lifted my hands to the black fire, writing each single rune, tracing each single curve until there was no more to write.

And the magic bloomed.

The ink on my skin floated in the air once again to merge with the words traced on the wall. One by one, they glared, a blinding, white light seeping from them. Magic and power seeped from the charm, cracking the wall, the glimmering rays expanding in all directions.

The demon growled and I lifted my eyes to my father, to the chains that started to crack, and to the spark of hope that was born in his green orbs. My eyes locked with his, our stares never wavering once even as the world in its entirety shook. The ground shattered under my feet, the rocks crumbling, revealing the familiar, translucid earth. The black fire hissed as it died, the spell's intensity augmenting with fearful speed.

The only thing I could recall was the whiteness growing blindly, swallowing everything around us, shattering earths and skies. And then, the magic broke under the form of a massive explosion.

The world danced in front of my eyes, the impact sending my body flying with intense speed. A cracked yell might have escaped my lips, the sound of the detonation still ringing in my ears. The burst was so powerful that I could feel my body being thrown out of time and space.

The next thing I could feel was both my head and back hitting a hard surface with a painful collision. Forcing my eyes to open, I took in the shape of father's room and realized that I had crashed against one of the walls. The weakest of sunbeams penetrated the room and I stared out of the small window, my eyes locking with the first crack of dawn. My heart fell to my stomach. With a killing dread, I lifted my stares to the bed, my eyes confronted with a reality I refused to admit.

Laying on the bed, his body remained still, his eyes tightly shut. The two hours had finished. My legs trembled as I hobbled to the bed, falling on my knees once I was standing next to it. My shoulders shook as I cupped his toneless face, my head falling on his lifeless chest.

My hands fisted his shirt, my whole body shaking with grief and an unspeakable pain. Tear after tear fell from my eyes and I felt as though my heart died. As though the world in itself had died. Killed were the dreams of seeing my father for once in my life, the dreams of knowing what a family was. Fate had crushed them under his feet along with every bit of feelings I still owned, submerging me with bitterness and heartache.

I cried more, my face buried in his chest, and I wondered if the heavens were truly watching. If Aether had really willed to break his chosen's heart right from the beginning. To send all the hope I still interlaced my fingers with into the deepest pits of the afterlife with his previous king. As I sobbed, the world turned mute and idle. And my heart might have stopped beating, might have ascended with his to the highest heavens. But I should have learned from long that life had never been fair, and most of all, never predictable.

"Why are you crying?" a voice asked and my head jolted up, my heart skipping its beat.

My eyes didn't look for who owned the voice because my heart knew it all too well. A voice I had memorized by heart, a voice that had guided me through the darkest of times to the brightest of hopes.

And through the haziness of my mind and the blurriness of my eyes, I stared at his face, at the faintest of smiles that he traced despite the pain and the weariness. I cried more. Cried until my soul itself shed tears, cried until the heavens might have shaken. I could feel his fingers running through my hair, holding me tight next to his beating heart.

"Father," I whispered through sobs and hiccups, streams still falling down my eyes. It felt like heaven itself, to be held in his arms, to feel the warmth and the heat of his body against mine instead of the faint coldness of his ghost. And for a first time since long days and nights, the sky seemed bright, alight by a new sun. A sun of hope and promises.

"My angel," he mumbled, his lips pressing against my forehead, drowning me with bliss. I felt the warmth that trailed from his eyes and down his cheek, falling as drops on my head as he kept me close, and I held him tighter.

Never again would I let him go, never again would I wake up afraid of when I would lose him. Because he was here, my father and king and guiding sun.

A knock rang in the air and I turned to see Ramos and Leon stepping in, hands over heart, a salute to a king.

"It is good to see you awoke after all this time, Aragon.'' A gleam shone in Ramos's blue eyes, a spark of relief perhaps, but I knew well the love that lit his face.

"Can't say the least, Ramos. I truly can't.''

Tighter. He he held me tighter, wrapping me in delightful warmth. Never getting out of his embrace, I pulled myself to the bed, my arms fastening around his back, my head resting on his shoulder.

Through the corner of my eyes, I stared at the family I had, at the father that I dreamt of having. At Ramos, who was the first to ever make me feel like I belonged. And at Leon, my soul reaching his for the briefest of moments, whispering words of gratitude for his help. The Shadow smiled, and perhaps it was one of the truest smiles I had ever seen.

It was after a little more than seventeen years and a half did that dream come true. Did the loneliness and buried chagrin disappear. And now that I had found a home in Father's heart, I would never let him go. Because it was one promised fulfilled, and as he held me close, I swore another one. A vow to never lose him. And the heavens knew well that I never broke my words.