Chapter 134

CHARLES

The dungeons were a torture chamber of the worst sort. All I knew now was darkness and silence, and I could feel it eating away at my very soul.

I had no idea if I had become nocturnal. There was never any daylight down here, so I had no way of knowing if I was still sleeping at night or not. The ever-pressing darkness closed in around me, snuffing out any gleam of hope or happiness it could find.

The others in the dungeons were kept far away from me. I wondered if that was my brother’s doing, if he was afraid that if I had access to a literally captive audience, I could somehow start another revolution.

It wasn’t like the first one had gone well. Despite the fact that I had raised such a massive army, we had still fallen at the hands of Felix and those noble, good-hearted heirs to the throne.

Bastards. I hated the lot of them.

Still, during that maybe-nighttime when I was drifting off to sleep, I thought about all the things I had done. I still believed deep down that I was a better choice to rule Fresonia than my older brother, but I was starting to wonder if maybe I had gone about expressing that in the wrong way.

Every day, I could feel the magic in Fresonia dying. I could feel it in my very bones. My body felt like it was being attacked by invisible knives and my skull was now constantly in a state of pain. On good days, it was a dull ache. On bad days, I wondered if beheading would be a kinder alternative.

The magical core inside me was being completely drained and putting up a fight as it went. The land around me was weakening, and I could only assume that things were even worse on the surface above me.

I feared for the dragons. How were they handling all of this? Were they alright?

No one would give me any information. The guards were under strict orders not to speak to me, and aside from bringing me hard bread and cheese every day, they did not even interact with me at all.

On the third day of splitting headaches from the magic inside me waning, I was struck with a horrible realization.

Had I somehow caused all this with my play for the throne?

That was, after all, the very first action that set this chain of events in motion. If it had not been for the coup, then dragon would not have been pitted against dragon, and perhaps Fresonia would still know peace.

At the end of the day, I realized, a lot of this was my fault.

That thought sat heavy with me for what could have been hours or days. I had been so focused on my petty feud with Felix that I had neglected to consider the true cost of my actions. I had gladly burned the southern border to a pile of ashes in my greed and lust for power, but had failed to think about what was going to be left behind.

To top it all off, I was the only person alive who knew the location of the Library of Magic, and therefore the only person who could direct my brother to the solutions he was so desperately seeking. I had not explored enough of the library to know for certain whether the answers to Fresonia’s troubles were there, but it was worth a shot.

The land was broken, and in desperate need of healing.

Trapped down here, below the surface, with only my own thoughts and the rats for company, I knew that I had to do something. It would take all of us to save my kingdom, and that included me.

I needed to speak to someone about all this. I knew that Felix would likely never hear me out, but there were still two other people who might be willing to talk to me.

I shuffled over the bars of my cell and rattled at them, cringing at the sound of metal scraping against stone. It echoed down the dark hallway, all the way towards the dim light that marked the end of my corridor, several hundred feet away from me.

“Guards!” I called out into the darkness. “Guards!”

There was the sound of hushed whispers from down the hall, until finally I heard the tentative shuffling of feet.

A guard who could not be much older than myself emerged, holding a measly lantern in one hand and tightly gripping the rifle at his side with the other. He took staggered, short steps towards me, as if he was somehow afraid of me.

A few weeks ago, the idea of striking fear into the castle guards would have brought me unimaginable amounts of joy.

Now it just made me sad.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” the young guard muttered as he approached. “You’re considered our most dangerous prisoner.”

“Aren’t there murderers down here?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. I was slightly offended by his remark.

The guard looked me up and down. “And you don’t think you’re directly responsible for hundreds of deaths at the Battle of Barlow?”

So the young guard had a bit of a backbone. I would be impressed if I wasn’t also annoyed.

“I need to speak to my parents,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

The young guard raised an eyebrow and took another step towards my cell. “I don’t think that’s allowed, sir.”

“I don’t care,” I insisted. “I need to see them. It’s urgent. Please.”

The guard lifted his lantern towards my face, as if to get a better look at it. I squinted and turned away at the brightness. It was the closest I had been to light in weeks.

“I know there’s something wrong in the kingdom,” I continued, “but I have an idea of how to fix it. I just need to speak to my parents.”

The guard sighed. “The former King and Queen are quite busy these days, but I can pass your message along and see if they would be interested in a meeting.”

I nearly sobbed in relief. “Thank you.”

“I’m only doing this for Fresonia,” the guard said, turning to leave. “No other reason.”

“I’ll see you at dinnertime!” I called after him. He shook his head as he marched away.

So even he knew that there was something wrong with the kingdom. My guess was that while he could not sense the presence of magic (and therefore sense its decline) he was at least able to tell that the winds were shifting, and not in a good way.

All I could do was wait here until my parents arrived. It would be no use to anyone to beg for forgiveness, but maybe I could leverage my knowledge to at least get a lamp in my cell.

I leaned against the bars and waited.

I did not know how long it had been when I heard two familiar voices at the end of the hallway. I would recognize my mother’s high-pitched caterwauling anywhere, but it was my father’s booming voice that made me sit up straight.

“I need to see my son,” he bellowed.

They approached my cell cautiously, and I could see my mother’s lip begin to tremble. Before either of them could say anything, I quickly jumped into business. “The magic in Fresonia is dying and I can help.”