.A Spark From Before.

-45-

I hid my mounting horror but didn't need to work that hard on it.

And I observed Seva.

She was turning more and more and moooore paranoid by the second. I couldn't hope for a day without an Elite's death anymore.

But now their death was bitter, knowing I was just like them, following a queen so mindlessly I hurt innocents.

Something is wrong with Seva. Why is she so stressed? Why is she so nervous? No one would dare to go against her, and yet, those four villages, their 'No's landed them dead.

I can still help her. If I show her that she doesn't need to worry, she won't be paranoid, and she'll see how much she messed up.

And so I walked, searching for her, but it was her that found me.

"My dear head mage." I tensed as she hugged me from behind. "How was your mission?"

"It was... Successful."

"Great, now come." She walked around me, waving me after her with her charm. "I have something to show you."

"Yes?"

"You know this castle and others like it have many secrets, the chamber of dragons, the underground archives of old, and many more."

"Yeah, I heard stories about them."

"Well, I will show you a room only the head mage and their successor knows about."

We walked in silence until she stopped before a wall, pulled a key out, and put it in a hole I would have never spotted, turning it.

What I thought to be decorations of vines on the walls shifted and slithered backward, opening flaps of an entrance into a room.

Stepping in, Seva lit the crystal torches on the walls, and I followed.

The air was arid and scratchy, and the glow of the crystal torches sickly and almost evil in a way.

Rows upon rows of shelves reaching up high to the ceiling, vials, books, dried plants, tools, and many things rested upon each ledge, an old wooden desk pushed near the back of the room with dried ink in a pot with an open book and dried plant there.

I walked in deeper.

Passed the table was a glass door, and when I opened it, the air was extremely humid, but it didn't seem to invade the rest of the room, staying behind the threshold of the glass doors.

Stepping in, I felt as if nature had turned angry and evil. Plants I've never seen, not even in the dragon's garden in the castle, grew and spread around, some with deathly sweet alluring smells that promised nothing good, some with flowers that looked like tortured souls, others that twisted like thorny vines on the floor, ripping up the stone paving and growing in the cracks, some I did recognize tho like the Wither Away, seeming almost innocent in this garden of death.

"This is called the poison palace." I turned to face Seva as she spoke. "The head mage, the queen, and their apprentice and heir, respectively, can access this room; any and all poison, anti-magic, or torturous plant is grown in here for research and working out remedies."

I saw her pull a few red flowers from the thorny vines that covered the ground. I watched as red, blood-like liquid dripped from them.

"Like this one, Strangling Devil, how useful."

I froze, recognizing the name, but it didn't make sense.

That's the plant that killed my brother and took Davis, my last family member, from me.

But Seva said it was killed out. An elf grew it, and he was killed as a consequence.

"How so?" I asked carefully seems. Seva didn't care enough to realize what she was saying.

"Solor rests on a tone of bodies. Thousands of millions died ever since the first war that almost killed humanity. Strangling Devils feed off the dead, roots going deep and consuming all corpses."

"Wow, does it grow anywhere else?" I feigned genuine interest, even plucking a flower out for myself to look at sure the plant was breaking up pavement, and all but pulling on the flower lifted the vines from the cracks, so that meant it wasn't rooted deep, so it must be a newly planted one.

"Only in Solor."

I tried my best not to look at her, or she would have seen the distress on my face as I dropped the flower and stomped on it as if I found it useless, but...

There was no other way around it.

"Say, Skarla, are you alright? You look bothered." Her charming smile now felt sickeningly vile to look at.

And the paranoia in her eyes looked like madness.

It was as if the veil had been lifted away from my eyes, and I could now see the reality of it all.

"Yes." I gulped, saying it with a smile and kissing her cheek. "The air is just making me dizzy."

"Yes, it is humid, but as head mage, you will work here to work out new poisons and antidotes, so get used to it."

"Of course." I watched her walk out and followed her.

Seva was not the savior of this queendom, but maybe her future doom.

Seva was not good but a liar.

Seva was the one to kill my brother.