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TWENTY THREE

"But how now? We've sealed half of the kings away." Bex pointed out, raising her arms in confusion.

"They must have a secondary source." Felix decided, watching as Conner's faced changed from confusion to shock, and he turned his back to them, looking back as his hand as he forced a ball of purple smoke to appear, hearing a faint noise. He looked back, and it seemed the rest of them did too.

"You hear that?" He asked, and looked at Gracyn, who also seemed to be putting the pieces together.

"The voice...The one in the forest." Gracyn realized, his eyebrows raising in shock, "they're relying on Emile for their power!"

"So we're close!?" Felix asked, but they didn't reply right away, wanting to put everything together before jumping to conclusions.

Conner forged another ball of smoke, "it's weaker than my flames, I don't think he's well."

"What do you mean!?" Felix asked, and Conner turned to him to explain all that he knew.

He explained how when Gracyn and him were returning from his father's, he heard a scream, Emile's scream, and how afterwards he received a surge of energy.

"I still had them on the way here, but they were quieter, weaker. But I think now that we're so close..." His voice trailed off and he walked past them, walking forward, as if he had a goal in mind, "he must be nearby."

~

Gracyn's jaw clenched and he shivered, feeling as if Hell had frozen over. The scenery had completely changed, puddles of water and oil coated the soles of his boots, and plunged into the mud that seem to want to stick to him like suction cups. And the temperature dropped drastically.

Thankfully, their armor was made to survive such a drastic temperature change, but that didn't stop his cheeks from turning red, with a similar thing happening to his friends, except for Conner. "This is...Odd." He heard Felix say, and his head turned, his mouth agape as if to speak, but when he exhaled, he watched as carbonation passed his lips.

"It's getting colder by the minute," Bex said, her arms wrapped around herself, "at this rate we'll freeze."

"But there's no snow," Conner pointed out, "how can we freeze without snow?"

"If our bodies get cold enough, anything it possible, it happened during one of my ventures into Drollia, it's freezing there in the winter." Felix reminisced before his boot splashed into a chilling puddle of water, "one of the rookies went to bed far from the fire, and when we woke up, he was blue, and his eyes were frozen open."

"Stop." Gracyn demanded quietly, speaking through chattering teeth, because though the armor was made to withstand the cold, archer armor was definitely the least prepared for such an ice cold venture, "j - just...Just stop."

The memory of Stephan's ice cold skin felt like invisible critters on his hands as he looked at them, and Felix chewed the skin on his lip in regret.

"Right, we should start a fire." He suggested, looking to Conner, who nodded and motioned for Bex to follow him as they picked up dead branches from the frostbitten trees.

They all sat in a circle, to keep warm, and Conner used his magic to set the dead branches ablaze. Due to his hellfire blood, his body seemed unaffected by the temperature change.

He looked over at Gracyn, who was hugging his knees to keep warm, and Conner could see tears forming just above the slits of his eyes, his bottom lip shivering, or quivering, he couldn't really tell.