Rotten Flower: A Disney Descendants Story

The girl with the Dragon tattoo

As soon as they crossed the bridge, back in the original fortress, they walked right into a corridor, hung with purple and gold pennants and great tapestries, showing all the surrounding kingdoms.

It was hard to tell one from the next, though, mostly because the dust was so thick. As they walked, they even made tracks across the dusty stones, as if they were instead trudging through hallways of snow.

The corridors bent and twisted, the floor sometimes seeming uneven, the walls angling one way or the other, it was almost enough to make them dizzy just walking there.

Every wall and every stone was rendered in shades of gray and black, a faint green glow sometimes seeping through a wedge here and there.

Lilith couldn't stop the excitement building up, they were getting so close to the Dragon Eye, even the others and herself could feel it's energy.

Further up ahead there was only one doorway. A pair of double door, twice the sight of a full grown man.

"This is it," Mal told the rest. "It's here."

"All that's left is grabbing the scepter and going back home, you got this," Lilith said, nodding encouraging to the dark fairy.

Mal took a deep breath, turning to the double doors. "This was Maleficent's throne room. I'm sure of it now. I can feel it." She looked up at them. "Does that sound crazy?"

Her four companions shook their heads, Mal wasn't the only one who could feel it.

Just like that, Mal pushed the doors open as the five of them entered Maleficent's throne room. The shadow and the light. Ceilings as high as the sky, and as black as smoke. Windows spanning whole walls, through which Maleficent could manipulate an entire world.

The throne was missing, but the spot where it was supposed to be still seemed to hold an air of power. The room was the coldest of the entire Fortress, making Lilith hug herself tightly against the cold. It was beautiful, in a terrifying way.

The entire room screamed of Malevolence, chilling the teenagers to their very core.

"There's nothing left." Mal said, kneeling on the one dark spot that no longer held a throne. "It's all gone."

Before this journey it was hard to imagine a world beyond the Isle of the Lost, but now they seen exactly what their parents had seen. The danger and beauty. Lilith was only sure of one thing, their parents stories no longer felt like they were just stories.

"So where is it?" Carlos' voice stopped her train of thought, turning to look at the boy.

"It should be here," Evie commented, looking around.

Jay shrugged slightly. "Should we split up?"

"Think," Mal said, earning everyone's attention. "My mother was never without it. She held it even as she sat on her throne."

Lilith nodded slightly, following Mal's train of thought as she joined her on the spot where the Throne should be.

"It wouldn't be where anyone else could touch it," Evie said. "Try asking my mother if she'll let you touch any of her own Miss Fairest Everything memorabilia."

"But she'd want to see it, of course. From her throne," Jay added.

Evie was the first to spot it, crying out to the rest as she reached out to touch it.

She shot her hand up into the air, extending her fingers. The moment she did, the Dragon's Eye began to shake, as if something about Mal herself was prying it loose from the very light and air that bound it.