Child of the Moon.

~Chapter Twelve~

It was mid-afternoon when Rapunzel and her friends trudged through the last few hours of their journey to the Dark Kingdom. They had stayed up all night when Rapunzel and Eugene had returned from their adventures with Lord Demanitus. They had then slept the following morning and into the evening. After they had all woken up, they continued on their journey the whole night and the majority of the day, only stopping twice. Now they had almost reached their goal.

Rapunzel walked ahead of the others, Eugene at her side. She read the slip of paper her boyfriend had shown her over and over again.

"Eugene," she said. "This is ridiculous! No one's going to betray me! I mean, everyone's had my back this far!"

"Well, actually," Eugene pointed out, taking Demanitus' message from her. "That's not entirely true."
The former thief inclined his head back at the warrior walking a few yards behind, talking with his sister.

"You don't think it's Hector, do you?!" Rapunzel exclaimed.

"Look, I love the guy. He's almost like a brother to me. Given, he's the annoying older brother I only put up with because I have to, but a brother nonetheless. But, blondie," - Eugene took his girlfriend's hand - "You can't deny the fact that he did literally everything in his power to get rid of us just a couple months ago. He never wanted to do this in the first place, and he nearly killed us all trying to keep us away from the Dark Kingdom. But now he's completely okay with it after no more than a few weeks? I'm sorry, but that's more than a little suspicious!"

"So what if it is?! He's different now! You've seen it; he's not the same person he was a couple months ago! People change, Eugene!"

"Look, it's not like I expect you to abandon him by the side of the road. I just think we should be a little more cautious."

Rapunzel was about to retort again when she heard her friends gasp behind her. She looked over to where they were pointing and gasped herself.

The Dark Kingdom stood in front of them, dark and proud. A deep gray sky hung over the tall and angled towers of the palace despite the fact that it was the middle of the day. The palace itself looked very much like the one in Corona. However, Corona's had always been thought to look welcoming and bright, and the palace the party looked at now seemed the exact opposite, as did the rest of the city. Everything from the remnants of the town resting at the foot of the palace to the great gates entering the castle was black and jagged. There was a wide, deep chasm surrounding the city. Not a single thing appeared to be alive for miles around. No plants, no animals, and certainly no people. Fields of long-dead crops surrounded the city. The only feature that wasn't man-made was the black rocks, like those in Corona. Rapunzel had thought the ones invading her home were destructive, but when she saw the Dark Kingdom, she knew how bad it could get and how lucky her people were to be spared the fate of the city that lay before them. Every inch and every crevice of the town had been mauled by the rocks. Towers had been cut off the palace. The roads had been torn up. It looked as if fires had burned portions of the city to the ground. The black rocks owned this kingdom.

"Home sweet home," Hector said.

"Well," Rapunzel said after a deep breath, turning to the others behind her. "Let's find a way in."

"I don't know where you think you're going to find that," Adira stated. "Because all the bridges and other ways into the inner city have been destroyed, and-"

"Actually," Hector interrupted. "That's not entirely true."

The others looked towards where he was pointing and saw a small, worn-down gondola hanging right above the chasm.

"Ha, yeah, no!" Eugene laughed nervously. "That's not happening."

"What's the matter, Pompous? Scared of an old gondola?"