"Quit smirking like that," Matthias snapped.

But he snuck another glance at Abel who walked one step ahead of him. He suspected she did that to simply piss him off, and he felt entirely stupid when he realized it certainly did its job.

Abel shrugged. "Like what?"

"Like you've manipulated the sun into shining at night."

She loosed a tinkling laugh. "And you're the sun in this scenario?"

Her auburn hair hung down her back, bits of it tucked beneath the leather strap of her quiver. He glared at it and picked up his pace until he fell instep beside her. If possible, Abel's smug expression widened. She was a maddening girl.

"Anyways," she continued, "I think I'd prefer to be the sun."

For some reason, he wanted to ask why, but it turned out he didn't have to. She continued regardless.

"The sun goes where it pleases. Even at night, I like to think the sun has simply left to go explore someplace else. It always stays in the light."

Matthias couldn't help it; he looked at her again. Her slight shadow splashed up against the dimness of the tunnel they walked in. Not the worm's tunnel, thank the gods. He watched it waver between the cracks of the stone as he said, "There's an old story that claims the sun and moon coexisted once in the same sky."

"The Tale of Earth's Deceit?" Abel said. "Sebastian read it to me on our journey here." She peered over at him. The look of it made Matthias clench his fingers around the air as if he could snatch back his words, which had somehow so encouraged it. "But I didn't think the academia of Halorium bothered with such nonsense tales. Are you a mystic, captain?"

He frowned. "Isn't everyone now?"

"But you were always, I assume."

There was an inquisitive accusation to her tone that both worried and awed Matthias. He stared at the wall, jaw ticking, but felt Abel's gaze on him all the same.

"Astrid knew, too. I'm assuming Queen Davina remembered since her own daughter spews out magic everywhere, but Bash never—"

"So did you," Matthias said, interrupting her. "You didn't seem at all fazed enough when you mentioned the portal earlier."

She stopped in the middle of the tunnel to glance back at him. The corners of her lips flipped downwards, a small dimple in her chin appearing beneath her mouth. It reminded Matthias of someone. Then, she looked away, flipping her hair behind her ear in a gesture that was suddenly self-conscious.

"Because I grew up reading the stories. I wanted to believe. Needed to. I had to believe in something grander than the life I was stuck in."

Matthias looked her over with a subtle sweep of his eyes. She was beautiful in a way that screamed at Matthias to watch his back around her. Her slender, graceful form had, no doubt, tricked many, and her tawny eyes shone like a predator's. Not to mention, she was from Eilibir where, Matthias imagined, the most interesting person who lived there was Sebastian. It hardly spoke of much. So what exactly had her life been like that had forced her into such atypical vulnerability?

And why did he particularly care?

Matthias shook his head and moved to march past her when her posture straightened like a hound on a scent. Her neck quirked as she flattened her palm against the stone of the mountain.

"By the Scribes, your fortress walls are ridiculously thin," she said under her breath.

"Thin? We're inside a solid mountain that runs nearly sixteen kilometers deep—"

"Be quiet!"

He scowled but shut his mouth, trying to pick up on whatever Abel could hear. Swallowing his breath, he allowed the pounding of his heart to drown out his other senses until his ears began to faintly ring. It was a trick he'd perfected since childhood; after all, at the young of age of four, he had begun his training for the role as Captain of the Royal Guard. He had moved into the barracks by the time he had been six. Everything within him had been born out of militaristic precision and survival instincts to preserve the Salvera Crown. So, whatever Abel could hear, Matthias should be able to pick up on it tenfold.

His shoulder brushed against Abel's hair as he inhaled and forced his hearing outward.

Still nothing.

Next to him, Abel clicked her tongue in disapproval against the roof of her mouth. He could hear that, at least. He peered at her. "You're full of shi—"

She grabbed his elbow and yanked him down the tunnel. "This way. Come on! Where's the nearest exit?"

Matthias grunted, perplexed, as he stumbled after her haste. She flung his arm back at him, apparently fed up with his inability to keep up, and began tapping her fingertips against the wall. He dug the heels of his boots into the ground to right himself before hurrying after her. "I feel a draft," she murmured to herself, seeming to have forgotten him entirely. "It must be right—around—here!"

With a masked astonishment that was becoming harder and harder to contain, Matthias watched her pull an arrow from the quiver that hung over her shoulder. She stuck the tip of it into a crack and then ran it along the seam of the hidden exit she had just found. When it released the latch that kept it shut, Abel let out a small, "Aha!" and spun back to grin at Matthias.

"Found it."

"You're certain you didn't bring that portal to life?"

"I'm flattered you believe I could."

Matthias arranged his expression and stalked past her, placing a hand on the newly revealed door. He pushed it outward, wondering what could possibly be on the other side. Not that he would ever admit it to her, but he had never seen this door before. He paused and tried to listen again. Cold air froze the tips of his ears, but he still heard a whooshing roar that sounded like the wildfires that swept through the deserts of Demue.

Beyond that, he heard muffled shouts.

He turned back to Abel.

"Well, don't let me stop you." She mocked a curtsy his way. "After you then, captain."

"Insufferable woman," he muttered, but he stepped out first.

She popped up right behind him. "I heard that."

Of course she had. Matthias huffed and motioned her away from the door so he could shut it behind them. He heard Abel gasp and felt her spine push back into his arm as she retreated from...something. His instincts flared to life. Matthias spun, one hand wrapping around the hilt of the blood-sword at his waist. On instinct, he threw his free arm around Abel's stomach in a protective gesture he would have used with Astrid.

He looked out at what had caught Abel's attention.

His breath whooshed from his lungs.

The passage had deposited them outside the fortress walls on the northernmost side. If Matthias looked up, he imagined he would see the balcony that led from Queen Davina's throne room, but he didn't dare test his theory. Instead, he looked down the sheer cliff of which he and Abel were one step away from falling off.

"Curse the skies!" He pressed Abel further back into the wall behind them. Or, rather, attempted to do such a chivalrous act.

She pushed at his arm. "Get off of me, you buffoon! And quit talking! You're unbearably noisy! I'm trying to hear them!"

Well, if this was how he was to be treated for trying to be altruistic—he dropped his arm from her, feeling rather foolish, and peered over the ledge.

"Hear who?"

"Your sentinels, I assume."

Her tone was so unperturbed by their dark and precarious surroundings that it was difficult to not gape at her. Although, to be fair, perhaps after escaping two fae warriors and collapsing tunnels, this was nothing more than a midnight stroll for her.

Further proving his thoughts, she grinned back at him."At least, they're boisterous and untrained enough to be your men."

Matthias doubted she had heard anything and that this was merely an excuse for her to mock him entirely. "What would soldiers be doing down this cliff? What are you doing?"

Abel had plopped down on the edge, her legs dangling off into the deep, night air as she leaned on her elbows and peered into the darkness. "Look! There!" Her eyes narrowed. "It looks like fire."

Sure enough, a bright reddish glow flared upwards from below where they sat. Matthias stared at it, watching as the flames illuminated the two, twin plateaus that jutted outwards from the mountain less than a kilometer below them. On each one stood a massive structure that glinted metallically against the moonlight and the fire that poured from them. Ten to fifteen people stood around each structure on the plateaus, calling out instructions that Matthias couldn't decipher.

He joined Abel, glancing down the drop of the cliff. "What are those?"

"Dragons," she breathed. "They look like dragons!"

"No." Matthias's heart stuck in his throat. "It can't be. Dragons are all but extinct, I would imagine. Besides, these look to be made from steel."

"Not metal," Abel corrected. "Those are alchemists down there. They've created some type of chemical compound that resembles the scales of dragons' underbellies."

"How do you know so much about dragons?"

"I don't, really. I mean, I've read all the stories about them." Abel shrugged. "But I'm listening to what they say down there." She turned to observe him with a tight smirk. "Seems like some of your men are there. Seems odd, doesn't it? That your guards are a part of this, and yet you—their captain—claim to know nothing?"

He met her tawny-eyed stare. "You're insinuating an accusation against me."

"And if I am, will you deny it or not?"

Matthias sighed, running a hand over his head as one of the dragon mechanisms released another torching blow. "I see little point in combating anything you say. You'll believe what you want, regardless."

"Good man." She patted his shoulder before turning back to the scene below them. "You said dragons should be extinct," she said. "What do you mean?"

An almost forgotten memory flashed behind Matthias's eyes: the wild, fiery beasts from the realm of Demue who could transform into the most beautiful, but conniving of women who had been hell-bent on seducing villagers and then burning those villages to the ground when they had spent their fun. Sorceresses. Treacherous fire-breathers. Flames licking up his father's tree groves as he ripped Matthias from his mother's arms and—

Matthias shook his head. He found he had to clear his throat before he said roughly, "During the Purge, they chose the wrong side. When Soleita bled the magic from the rest of the realms' lands, so did it bleed from the dragons."

He hesitated, narrowing his eyes at the terrible scene beneath them. "The dragons were in Rainier at the time—"

"They fought with Rainier? With Queen Davina?"

Matthias nodded. "Some say they fell from the sky like the brightest stars when magic disappeared. As far as we know, none survived the fall."

Abel frowned. "So, Soleita murdered an entire species?"

"It was war." Matthias swallowed. "But some species are better forgotten. Some memories are safer not remembered."

She must have sensed the finality to his tone because she turned away and let out a low whistle as another of the creatures released a mighty bout of hot steam. "The second task is fire," she said. "Wonderful. Bash hates fire."

Despite himself, Matthias's lips twitched when he thought of Astrid standing before him with a sword made of flames. "Astrid loves the drama of it."

Abel clasped her hands in her lap. "Are you sure Sebastian can do this?" The orange glow from the flames pulled at her frown, the wind whipping her long hair around her cheeks. "I mean, I saw him in the first task. It was inspiring. Humbling, even, but fire—"

"Fire can bend even the strongest of steels."

Matthias startled away from Abel at the sound of the intruding voice. The hidden passageway behind them swung outward again. It nudged Matthias in the shoulder blade and pushed him to the side. The ledge was narrow, but Matthias leapt to his feet and dropped into a bow as Queen Davina emerged from the entrance. His hand wrapped around his injured arm from the tunnel's collapse; Davina had found them here. How?

What did she know?

Though she shared the same icy blue eyes as Astrid, Matthias had always thought the queen lacked a certain warmth her daughter possessed. Davina roamed her gaze over him now. The short hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. His only hope was that Abel had enough decorum to keep her mouth shut.

He held back a mad urge to laugh.

"What do you think of my creations, Captain Soiree?" Queen Davina asked. "My alchemists have outdone themselves, I believe. It is miraculous that our two fae intruders fled before witnessing these, wouldn't you say? Our progress was not halted at all after tonight's minor mishap."

Minor? Besides that, she hadn't even bothered to inform him of the specifics surrounding the second task. He had known all about the first. What exactly did Davina suspect of him? "Of course, your majesty; though I apologize for being unable to capture them." Matthias chose his words carefully. "The tunnels provided an unexpected setback—"

"Will Sebastian have to fight a dragon?" Abel interrupted.

Matthias scowled, whether at Abel's inability to keep quiet or because he had not known what to say of his guilt and paranoia, he couldn't be sure. But a wry grin split through Davina's expression.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." She inclined her head towards the two mechanical structures. "Though there is no need for such alarm, child. He will have you to help him."

"Me?" Abel said at the same moment Matthias snapped, "And what of Princess Astrid?"

Davina's thoughtful gaze returned to him, red lips clipping upwards. "They will both have the proper incentives to see this task through to the end. They are our saviours, after all," she assured, "but I will need the two of you. Now, come along before you catch your death out here, and I will show you what I mean."

Matthias chanced a glance at Abel, who frowned at him in return, but what else could they do? His queen had already turned her back on them, retreating into the depths of the fortress once more. It was made wordlessly clear that they were meant to follow. He turned to Abel, but she was already there, her breaths condensing in the cold air between them.

"How did she find us?" Her hawk-eyed gaze scanned him. "You said you knew nothing about the second task."

Technically, he had said no such thing even if it were true. "I didn't."

"Truly?"

For some reason, he realized it was important to him she believed him. He nodded, trying not to glance towards the hidden entrance, very much aware that Davina could hear every word. "Yes."

"And what about now?" she asked. "She said we could help Bash and Astrid in this task. Do you know what she wants with us? You must. You're her captain."

There was no point, and even less time, to argue with her. His secrets had always belonged to him alone. As for Abel, he owed her nothing. Matthias took Abel by the wrist and tugged her away from the ledge of the cliff and back into the fortress before she could fully show her level of brashness by jumping off the ledge. He was lucky there wasn't enough space for her to struggle. Behind them, another spout of fire roared, and Matthias couldn't help but agree with Abel.

That perhaps he had just led himself and Abel directly into a furnace of the queen's making.

_ _ _

Love getting a little more insight into our favorite captain, Matthias! More from his POV, as well as Abel's, coming soon. 

Thank you for reading! Please vote and leave a comment. Here's a fun question for you: Which element would you want to be able to control? I would LOVE to be able to manipulate Earth. Or Water. Ah! So hard to choose.