When the last of the Nether Elves had fled into the Nether, Princess Emerald came out from behind the stairs where she had been sniping at the elves and hugged Princess Citrine. Otto smiled at the sight while cleaning his sword. After the reunion had been finished, Princess Citrine looked at him.
“Who’s the shiny fellow?” she asked.
Princess Emerald smiled wide. “See?”
“This is Otto, the Royal Paladin. Our father put him in charge of our protection during this journey,” Princess Sapphire said.
Princess Citrine raised an eyebrow at him. “Good job you’re doing.”
“I say, my quest is and has always been to track down the Midnight Queen. As far as I’m concerned, these two were just tagging along in the hope of finding you.” Otto shook his head. “In fact, I have a mind to send you three back to Crystalia Castle right now.”
The glares that they gave him made him shut his mouth.
“You’re not sending us anywhere,” Princess Sapphire said with an amused smile. “Besides, there’s a lot we have to talk about.”
“That’s right; you said something about Ruby.” Princess Citrine caught Princess Sapphire’s gaze. “What have I missed while imprisoned? And what happened to Ruby?”
Princess Emerald was the one to break the bad news. “After we all returned from our personal attempts to find Amethyst, Sapphire and I learned that Ruby had been killed.”
Princess Citrine raised her hands to her mouth. “Oh no!”
Both Princesses Emerald and Sapphire bowed their heads in sorrow. “We had her funeral and put her body in the crypt. That’s when we found out about the connection between her killers, and that’s why we came here. It was the Midnight Queen. About five days ago, she stole Ruby’s body. We knew then that we had to go to the Midnight Tower to stop her.”
“You have been trapped in the Midnight Tower how long?” Otto asked Princess Citrine.
Princess Citrine wiped away a tear. “A couple of weeks. I went in there searching for Amethyst, but I never found her and eventually was overrun and captured. After I managed to escape earlier, getting some help before returning to search again only made sense.”
“How did you escape?”
“I was locked in a cell with magical, unbreakable bars, but the floor wasn’t magical.” Princess Citrine raised her palms. “It took me a while, but I managed to break through it with a few strong punches.”
While the fact that she had punched through a solid rock floor seemed unbelievable, Otto remembered the decaying rock that had crumbled from the Tower in the Fallen Wood and how weak the corruption had made it. He made a mental note to be careful while moving about inside.
Princess Citrine balled her fists, looking around at the dead Nether Elves. “So the Midnight Queen is responsible for Ruby’s death?”
“According to the ones that were with her . . . yes,” Princess Sapphire said.
Princess Citrine looked over her shoulder at the entrance to the Tower. “And she’s in that horrible place?”
“According to the elves fighting on the front line.”
Princess Citrine ground her teeth and groaned. “Argh, I just escaped that accursed Tower! Oh, well. I was going to go back myself eventually. If it means avenging Ruby, there’s no time like the present to get my warrior face back on! Let’s go!”
Princess Emerald grinned. “Well, we didn’t come here for nothing. Let’s go, Sis, Sis, Shiny!”
They all nodded. Otto didn’t feel all that happy about it, but nonetheless turned to face the dark, looming structure of the Midnight Tower with the three princesses.
Otto was hesitant to enter such a place of horror. He had traveled so far, yet these steps to the dark doors felt the hardest for him to take. Still, he balled his fists and walked to the stairs anyway. From the way the princesses climbed them ahead of him, they didn’t seem to sense his foreboding. Seeing them approach the Tower so fearlessly gave him strength, and he forced himself to continue until they arrived at the large doors.
The opening appeared to yawn, the darkness reaching out from it like it had from Crystalia’s royal crypt. Already Otto could hear whispers drawing him inside. The princesses disappeared into the Tower, and if only to keep his promise to the king, Otto knew he had to follow them. He clenched his jaw and entered.
He stopped, looking around in confusion. He was in the war room of the Paladin’s barracks back in Crystalia Castle. After the darkness of the Tower, the white room with its large marble table shone with a radiance that nearly blinded him. As his eyes adjusted, he was shocked to see someone in white armor standing on the other side of the long table, his face covered by a helmet.
“Ottovius . . .” The gleaming Paladin lifted the visor, and Otto recognized the face beneath it. “You finally made it. Good job, my son.”
Otto felt a smile creeping onto his lips but forced it down as the cold memory of what Aelyph had told him returned. “You’re not really here; you’re dead.”
His father shook his head, and his silver-blond hair began to fall from his head. “You have lost your faith, son.”
Suddenly the skin on his face shrank, wrinkled, and darkened until it seemed to hang from his bones. Otto’s surroundings became hazy, changing from the bright white of the Paladin’s barracks to the indigo pillars of the first-floor hall of the Midnight Tower.
“I’m so disappointed in you!” The voice rose until Otto was screaming, trying to escape the shame in his father’s words. “What a pity that the last of our order will also be the most pathetic among us.”
No, you’re dead, you’re dead!
“You will fail in your mission, you will fall here, and this Tower will be your grave!”
Quiet!
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up. Ahead of him was a corpse in a suit of rusted, gray armor, but it wasn’t his father. It was simply leaning against the back wall, standing before a steep staircase on the other side of the room. He put his head in his hands and looked down. The wide, checkered floor was scuffed with marks, and his eyes wandered up to the spiderwebs that hung everywhere. The three princesses were looking at him, eyebrows slanted in concern.
“Otto, are you all right?” Princess Sapphire asked, taking her hand away.
He nodded. “I-I saw a vision of my father, but I knew it to be false, and when I saw him, it suddenly became a nightmare, and then I was . . .”
“Here?” Princess Citrine looked around. “You mean it became reality. We appear to be in something very close to a living nightmare right now.”
“I think everyone will need to be on guard and stay focused on what’s in front of them.” Otto lowered his hands and strode forward, scanning the floor. “We can’t risk any of us being affected by the Tower’s influence while we are fighting here. If you see something out of place, point it out to us to confirm it exists. If you start feeling strange, take a moment to get your bearings. We’re going to have to be each other’s mental compasses here.”
Princess Emerald raised a hand above her head. “Everyone’s seeing a creepy-looking hall and stairs leading up, right?”
Princess Sapphire smiled. “Yup.”
Princess Emerald sighed in relief. “Thank the Goddess; it’s not just me.”
Otto grinned, feeling a bit better with Princesses Sapphire and Emerald to lighten the mood. “Okay, let’s go. This Tower won’t climb itself.”