Nightmare Fantasy

Chapter 23: Dethroning

Sky continued to guide Orionna into the reporting area he once knew all too well. Tall and gloomy, with a height not seen in the darkness above, anything further was anybody’s guess to what existed. A vibration caused Sky to look at a message. He swiftly read with a happy nod. “Yes, I can use this definitely. Thanks, buddy.”

Use this to access the higher levels, please. That should teach Nevar for the pain and irritations that hateful creature has caused me. -LockSmith-

Sky looked at a complex coding as he activated the application. Marix had been working on this for quite some time for this moment. His message seemed laced with animosity, Sky never understood that the man felt such heated anger at their leader. Usually, it was a cool annoyance. He seemed livid with absolute hate here.

The elevator opened quietly in the still, sterile darkness. Orionna shivered, feeling the grimness of it all. “Is this place really this quiet all the time? How many soldiers see Nevar here to get orders? It's so clean and dark in this place. I don’t care for it very much at all, I confess.”

Sky looked at her seriously as he responded, “No one was allowed here, except just Elites to go to that kiosk there in the middle of the room. No one could get anywhere else in the main building of Sirakui. I haven’t been higher myself. Marix really is amazing to have gotten through past the internal security! That’s bypassing Nevar’s wicked mind itself. Man, the Locksmith is really the smartest man on the planet! But don’t tell Marix I said that!”

Orionna nodded as both stepped onto the clear platform, lifting them up without hesitance while they drifted up to the unknown. Soon, they came up into a grey expanse that took up a whole floor itself in width and was eight stories high, they assumed. A sole mirror a man’s height and several feet wide faced them. It was a peculiar thing indeed as both looked to the other in question.

“What is this about?” Sky assessed in confusion. It was baffling as he scanned the data files on the place that the old team sacrificed for.

Orionna looked at it intently, about to tap it, as Sky shuddered, “Don’t touch that. I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be anything but awful. Look at the smudges carefully. I think that’s someone’s blood they missed to clean.”

Orionna looked to the floor as she picked up a long strand of hair about Chaos’s length and color. Who knew what that was about indeed! They might not get an answer ever, but what strange clues. Briefly, a thought flickered in her mind as she thought out loud, “If this is my family’s palace, what am I going to do about such a horribly creepy thing!?”

Sky looked up as the realization hit him, too. He groaned out disgustedly, “Yeah, this is yours, but I haven’t a clue! I suggest a lot of disinfectant and a lot to the trash heap.”

Wiping his face, their argument resurfaced in his mind as he replayed it grimly. This was their mess together. He had hurt her horribly and been busy not to have apologized! He knew it lingered in the back of her mind as she was dealing with this. Everything made their argument more blaring. According to how Sky had left her in the argument last, the task of ruling would be hers to bear painfully alone. He realized finally what exactly troubled her. She loved him, so it was natural to want him to stay at her side. That was obvious. More importantly however, she knew very well she was also asking a huge sacrifice of himself to rule with her, chaining him down to the Empire in such a way as she had to suffer just being born into it naturally.

This whole time, she was hesitantly asking and needing him to accept being a helpmate, to tackle the grit of fixing everything, and he refused over and over! Status meant nothing to such a monumental burden! He had to admit, she had a burden the size of the world shoved in her lap with meager awareness of what she needed to enact on it. Saying he would merely play being a guard next to her looked foolish and unhelpful now that he thought on this. She didn’t need a hiding spouse, but one boldly next to her with sharp teeth to proclaim she was well protected.