The Silver Isles Kingdom

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alexis looked around the manor, the feeling of security and comfort was missing from it. Everything had been changed; it felt more as if she were walking into the dungeons of her castle. As she and the mage walked further into the main hall a new wall and a set of doors that hadn't been there before had been placed in the middle of the hall. Oddly it seemed familiar to her somehow. It took a moment, then she realized it was a similar doorway to the castle's throne room. The décor around the doorway held the same engravings of the silver flowers and the pictorial origin of the isles. However, it was missing the mages and other important figures and details of historical importance. Whomever it was that now ruled Lo Bon was madder than Veshua for leaving out important history of the people was a crime in her eyes. Perhaps it should've been this person they were after.

Pushing in through the doorway, the manor had literally been turned into the throne room of a castle. Because of the smaller size of the manor, there wouldn't have been much more room to make it a full castle. Alexis soon realized that there was no one else there, as if whomever it was that they came to vanquish had fled at their arrival. They got closer to the makeshift throne and found they weren't alone after all. A cloaked man emerged from behind the throne. At first, Alexis was confused, thinking she saw the reflection of the mage next to her. It didn't take long for her to realize it was a different man entirely. Though the two men were dressed similarly, had the same height, there was a clear difference between the new cloaked man and the one next to her. Alexis could feel the vile intentions of the new cloaked man. He was there to kill them.

"Welcome," the man said in a voice similar to the John Ivy knew, "to my new home. What do you think? Much better than it ever was before."

"You fiend! What have you done? Who have you become?!" Jacque exclaimed. Ivy was surprised to hear his voice coming from the hooded man next to her.

"My, my, I have never seen this side of you before. I never thought of you the type to get so angry with your old friend," John snapped back.

"My friend died years ago, you are not him!"

Alexis couldn't tell who either of them was anymore. The man at the throne sounded like John, and the man she thought was John had a voice similar to Jacque's. The man at the throne noticed her confusion and began to walk down to their level. The two men stood in front of each other and faced off in this new throne room. Alexis moved to the side of the room and looked at both men. Same height, nearly same build, cloaked similarly. But who was who? She watched as both men removed their robes. She now saw that John was really Jacque, so the other man...

"What?" Alexis said, mostly to herself. "All this time...?"

"Glad to see you again for who you always were Jacque," John said, breaking the long silence, "a weak and worthless boy."

"You were once a brother to me, John, someone I could look up to. Now you're nothing more than garbage! And you're wrong, I'm no longer as weak as I once was," replied Jacque, fuming red with anger.

"Now Jacque, you know you could never best me. I am far more superior! I can do more with the elements than you! And I know you still can't-"

Jacque threw a blue fire blade at John's head. John ducked in time before the blade could hit. The fire blade exploded and destroyed the stairway to the throne. John had a look of surprise but smiled as he turned to face Jacque again.

"You meditated on the darkness and shadow. I told you not to do that."

"It's all I could do in that pit the archers pinned me in. If not for the veins of the island's rocks, I'd be dead. But you already knew about that didn't you. You knew of the life blood of the islands and had us bury you near a vein so you could come back. Only we didn't know you could come back to life. I had to find out the hard way."