Summer Garden

Ashwen

Ashwen arrived, pulling her jacket tight against the cold. The wind here was blisteringly cold. She could already feel icicles forming against the tips of the wings. She hurried up the stone steps in front of her, and into the castle. This was a place in the nowhere. She wasn't sure how Janus had managed it, creating a realm disconnected from all others. Getting here hadn't been the easiest of things. Navigating the Void. She'd followed his instructions to the letter and still had nearly been pulled back into the lifestream to be reborn.

The castle wasn't much warmer. There were no fires, no insulation. Nothing blocking the gaping holes that acted as windows. The wind howled inside as much as it did outdoors. The stone was rough, unworn. A blue stone of some kind. Cheap, and practical.

Janus had tried to explain to her how he'd made the realm. Something to do with potential energy, sacrifice, and all the coal he'd requisitioned. So far as she could understand it, he'd used the natural magics of his own realm to create a new magic. A costly magic, but one that would not be detectable to the queen or to the fates. From that he'd created this place. A place safe from prying eyes.

A place they could be together, until Janus could resolve this.

She frowned, looking at the empty welcome hall. She'd expected him to be here to greet her, or at least a servant or someone. Not this.

She moved up the hall, and into the first set of stairs that she could find. They lead upwards, up a tower. She flinched as she approached every window, being blasted by cold hair that froze her hair. She paused, out of breath, near the top room. It seemed she'd guessed right, there was a fire here.

She stepped inside, "Janus?"

Her voice echoed in the room, and she moved over to the fire rubbing her hands. This seemed like it must have been an interrogation room. There were broken chains against the wall. A chair sitting close by, just in range of the fireplace.

Ashwen felt the colour drain from her face as she saw the dried out bones lying on the floor nearby. The skeleton was Fae. It seemed old. Too old to make sense. There were no unaccounted for Fae in history. There hadn't been that many of them to begin with, just a few thousand.

She cast a spell in the air slowly with a puff of dust, looking at horror at the aura around the body. They'd only been dead a few days. The life had been drained out of them. Torn out of them. The neck was broken. Someone had murdered a Fae, and then drained out their soul and used it for themselves.

A ghoul.

She stared in horror as it slowly dawned on her.

This was Janus.

He was dead.