A panting servant came over to the dinner table. "Your Highnesses," she bowed, looking at all of us, speaking through strained, urgent breathing. "There's someone at the gate."

Serena got up, "Una!"

"We don't know that yet," Ralph said and I watched him and Doran scurrying off their chairs at the same time. Serena walked after them.

I took a step forward as well, but Lord Orlon spoke –

"I am afraid, dear, you've to stay hidden."

I nodded; he was right. Sitting back down on my chair, I wrung my hands in my lap, twisting Ralph's silver ring. The silence was awkward as we both sat, waiting for an answer from the others.

"Your Highness," I cleared my throat, "Since how long have you suspected that there was something off with the Gemini Princes?"

He sighed, before answering, "I always had an inkling but a little before coming to the Conquest, a strange fear struck me. I was not going to participate, honestly but the discovery... forced me to."

I snapped my head at his words. "What?"

Lord Orlon let out an embarrassed laugh, "There was no reason for me to partake in the Conquest, when our House had Doran. You haven't seen him duel. He is the best. Ask Ralph."

I kept blinking at him.

He continued, "I thought they were working together, the twins. How could I send my son into a death ring? Who was to know whether or not they would kill my second son as well? I only have Doran."

I put my hand over my mouth, letting his words sink in. All this time, he was protecting Doran.

"How could you make that decision for him? How could you not tell him?" I asked, my voice rising higher.

"It was too late. It is too late for me to win his trust back. There are some things that I've said to him ever since he was a child, that can never be forgiven. I tried my best to keep him away from all this, to not let anyone's attention fall on him, to keep him safe from the twins...but it never works with him." Lord Orlon sighed, "That rule-breaker. Both my sons."

"Doran needs to know that his father doesn't deem him unworthy." I whispered.

Lord Orlon averted his eyes from me, and reclined back in his chair. I suddenly felt awful for having meddled in their family matters, but the men were so bad at communicating their feelings, I couldn't just sit and watch, could I?

Footsteps rang in the passage through which my three friends had left. I felt Una, before seeing her, and smiled to myself. She had come! To a Summer Palace!

But something was wrong, I felt my breath hitching in my chest, as I really looked at Una, her face was hung low, skin flushed, her short hair wet and stuck to her face, shoulders slumped. She was drenched in water. I remembered the mysterious thundering and the rains that had followed, as I took her in. Her boots were soiled with wet mud, as though she had walked the distance. A murderous thunderbolt sputtered in my heart.

I looked at Serena's extremely worried face as she kept an arm linked through Una's and supported her. Even Ralph and Doran seemed perplexed by the situation.

"What's going on?" Lord Orlon asked, skeptical like me.

Doran pulled a chair for Una, and she sat down without a word. My body went still as I realized her eyes were swollen red, as though, she...she had been crying...? Una?

And I was suddenly afraid to know what had made Una this way. What could make Una cry in front of everyone, in a Summer Palace?

Serena pulled another chair, and sat as close as possible to Una's. My eyes met Doran's and he gestured me to go ahead. "Una, are you okay?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

A few moments passed before Una lifted her head slowly. Her hollow black eyes met mine, and my heart perked up in my chest. She looked truly miserable and I had never expected to see my strong, fierce friend reduced to such despair. There was a reek of deadly silence around us.

"Una..." Serena whispered gently.

"He killed my Spikes."

***

"What?" Doran shrieked.

"He killed my Spikes. He. Killed. My. Spikes." Una repeated, her eyes vacant and gaze fixed ahead of her, as she clenched her fists around the arms of her chair.

"Nova..." Ralph whispered.

Una whispered through clenched teeth, "Neo."

Everyone froze. I looked at my sundial and then at Ralph's. The revelation was long overdue.

The Gemini House. The Gemini Twins.

One alive, other dead. One good, other bad. One slave, other master.

"But didn't he die?" Serena asked, "Two years ago."

Una shook her head, a few drops of rain drops drizzled from her hair onto her clear honeyed skin.

"But then where is Nova?" Ralph snarled.

"He is the slave." I muttered again.

Prince Neo has been masquerading as Prince Nova all this time.

He had enslaved his own twin! I felt bile rise up in stomach. Too evil.

"We have all been such idiots." Doran's jaw tightened, and he banged his fist on the table. "Why did we forget about the dead twin? About that twisted Neo?"

"Because he was a good riddance," Lord Orlon said, with hands on his hips, eyes blazing.

"Later," Serena said, her eyes not leaving Una's, "Una come on, you need to rest. And change."

"No." She screamed into the unearthly silence, "My Spikes is dead, Serena. He wanted a dragon bone, and he killed Spikes. He killed my Spikes and I could do nothing. Spikes died in front of my eyes, and I did nothing. He died saving me, from him and the Eclipses he has as slaves." She whispered, shutting her eyes, pushing the tears out, "My Spikes is dead and I did nothing."

I sat back down on the chair, as Una's words hit me in the gut. Celia, the Eclipse who had saved me from the dungeon along with Dylan, had mentioned about missing Eclipses, and if Prince No- Neo indeed had enslaved them, then there was no hope. He was invincible.

Una's pain flew through me as I thought of Spikes. A tear escaped my eye – I had just said it – I had just made him my friend. The first ever dragon I had ridden. My heart shattered into million pieces – if I had felt so attached to him in just one day – I could not imagine the grief that Una was suffering through. She had watched him die!

Serena was speaking to Una and to my extreme surprise and relief, I found Una gently placing her head on Serena's shoulder. Tears streaked down both their faces and I knew it would take a lifetime to get this image out of my head. I hurriedly got up and walked behind Una's chair. Putting my arms around her neck from behind, I nuzzled my face into the crook of her neck and felt her shaking even more.

Doran kneeled down beside her chair and gently took her hand in his. His way of comforting her, seemed to awaken Una. "He killed your brother," she whispered, almost inaudible. And Doran put his other hand over hers, and they tightened their clasp.

I loosened my arms and wiped her tears as slowly as possible. She lifted her head from Serena's shoulder and her sobs stopped, just a little. Ralph gently put a glass of water in front of her, an unmistakable tremble in his fingers. At some point, Serena managed to convince Una to go upstairs and they walked on slowly. I sat down on the chair where Una had been sitting, not bothering that it was wet with Una's damp clothes and, looked at the three shaken men.

"He killed a dragon – an Earth Dragon; the Throne bless us! The Throne bloody bless all of the Four Realms." Ralph said, his gaze distant and tensed.

"He has mastered black magic!" I whispered.

"For the love of the Throne, he killed Spikes! How could he?" Doran said from the chair adjacent to mine.

Lord Orlon sighed, as if not having paid attention, "Poor girl."

My chest tightened at the two simple words. The enemy royals were having empathy for each other. The world was truly in danger.

"The final round of the Conquest, when does it start?" I asked.

"We get the Enigma tomorrow and it's the New Year's Eve four days from now. Three days to work on it."

"I don't get it, if Nova is winning all the duels, then what's in it for Neo?" Doran asked.

My eyes roamed around in the room and landed on a portrait. Doran and his brother Milan, were smiling brightly, in their armors and swords resting on their shoulders in the glare of the sunlight.

Prince Neo had sacrificed Milan for a ritual.

Sacrifice!

Was that his plan? Was he going to sacrifice someone again this time? Was this the way to get the Throne? "He might be sacrificing someone, for some power, like...like he did before. There must be a way he found out." I said in almost a whisper.

Doran jerked to me, swallowing hard. I looked at the three Summer royals and felt their fear. The expressions on their faces, clearly indicated that I was correct yet somehow wrong.

"Eleni, do not step out of the palace," Ralph walked over to me, and cupped my face in his hands. His eyes blazed with a strange urgent emotion, "Do you hear me?" My heart thundered loudly in my chest. Ralph had never done this before, and this close, I could see every single red speck of his eyes. Father's eyes.

"I will make sure of that," Lord Orlon placed his hands over his hips and dipped his chin at Ralph.

"Wait, why? Am I missing something?"

Ralph let go off me and swiped a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"I am going to kill that bastard." Doran whispered at my side. I turned to him and I saw a vein at his forehead flex.

"Stay hidden, Eleni, that's all you have to do." Ralph almost yelled, staring at my confused face.

"Why?" I yelled back, a little too fierce than intended.

"Eleni," Doran turned to me, his eyes transitioning from anger to worry, "You are in danger. He is after you..."

"No, I am not, for my blood to work, he needs me alive." I said, reassuring him. Reassuring myself. He wouldn't touch me, would he?

Ralph thumped his hands on the table, "I don't believe one word he has ever said, Eleni. You don't know Neo, the way we do. When we were ten, Nova and Neo had stayed over at the Sagittarius House for the Summer Masquerade and Neo almost killed my pet chameleon – his type of fun. You remember that, Doran? And when I tried to stop him, Neo flung the small knife onto me. Everyone dismissed the incident and many more such, because he acted like a perfect boy in front of others. And when he actually died in the plague of Terraskee, no one mourned him. Because everyone knows what Neo was, what he is!"

He added, "But he never died apparently. He switched places with Nova. And even killed Milan as Nova. They were... Damn... How could he do that to them?"

Lord Orlon sighed, "As good as one Gemini twin is, the other one is equally rotten."

"Neo was said to be dead two years back, is that how long this game has been going on? Hell, we need to save Nova, wherever he is!" Ralph said.

"And we need to keep Eleni safe," Doran added.

"That Alchemist, get her out too." Lord Orlon said.

"He is cheating somehow. It's a miracle we are alive," Ralph said looking at Lord Orlon. His eyes flickered dangerously, and suddenly they flew open. "Orella!" Ralph said and tapped his fingers on the table.

Doran met Ralph's urgent eyes. "She might know. Always stuck at the hips, those two and maybe she..."

"No, I don't think she is Neo's ally."

"But nevertheless, we need to warn her for she is the finalist of the Conquest, too. If Nova, damn this, if Neo is cheating, then there's an urgent need to warn her, or at least gauge where her loyalties lie."

­'That stupid girl, will do anything that I say.' I recalled Prince Nova's words about Lady Orella...no, I groaned, not Nova, it was Prince Neo, who I had dealt with all this time.

Prince Nova was the one in the library!

A deep dread settled in my chest. He was trying to escape, just like the Alchemist had when I had found her wand. The book he had found – All About Alchemy! - Maybe he was trying to look up a way to get rid of his enslavement. I put a hand over my chest as I recalled his miserable face. The way the guards talked to him, the way he kept up an appearance, the way he was going through the tragedy!

"Is... Is Prince Nova an Alchemist of some sorts?" I asked silently.

Doran nodded, "An amazing one. My brother and him dabbled in many things together."

For a while, the room grew quiet as the weight of the revelation sunk in us all. But my brain worked, faster than it ever had worked.

"I know the dungeon where the Alchemist and real Prince Nova are."

Doran countered, his forehead scrunched and brows knitted together, "And I don't think they would still be there. Neo wanted us to know somehow that it's him. That he did that black magic freak show, that he killed dear, dear Spikes," He let out a rough sigh, "Neo is the biggest show off. I just know it."

I nodded, fear fast settling in. All this time, I was hating Prince Nova, but it was never him. He was a slave. A weapon in wrong hands. A weapon in his own twin brother's hands. Prince Nova had always been the one who was loved all over the Four Realms. And now his name was tarnished.

The one, who was winning all the duels was the real Prince Nova. The one who had politely extended an invite to Landon, Serena and me to the royal ball at his palace. I knew now, that it was him, because he was that sort of royal, never drawing a line between commoners and royals. The one, who was under a hypnotic spell, and had attacked Ralph in the last duel, whose face was completely blank, tranced, when he had looked at me. Was he aware of what he was doing? Did he know me?

Relief surged through me, as I realized that Prince Nova was not being harmed or tortured, for he had to keep making entrances in the Conquest. The duel with Lady Orella, suddenly flashed in my head. Prince Nova had accepted his defeat and embraced her. It was him. He was the good Gemini Prince. Maybe his trance had lifted when he saw her.

That's when it hit me – A life for a life – Prince Neo had let Serena go from the dungeons and in her stead killed Spikes. He kept his word.

As good as one Gemini twin is, the other one is equally rotten.

Fear rose on my skin, thrashing at me as his face swarmed in. His menacing laugh, taunting eyes and the force of his Air element. He was the first person I had dueled with... and lost.

My breathing turned shallow but I felt a hand gently draping over mine – Doran. Not letting me forget that he felt it all. That he is here, sharing my feeling.

"I looked for him," He said into the blazing room around us, "But he was nowhere to be found. It is as if he disappeared but now, he was at the forest. Where could he be hiding? I want to know, because wherever he is, Nova is!"

Doran's warm palm over mine, tracing circles with his thumb lessened my anxiety. I let my own mind ponder further deep, as I felt him doing the same. There were three rooms in the dungeon, the dungeon that he carved right under the Gemini Palace that Winter Realm had provided him. One room was Prince Neo's golden room, the other Alchemist's room and the third – Prince Nova's room. He had been so close!

The devil loved dungeons, he loved being in the spotlight and still being hidden. He blended in naturally. He had slaves who made him powerful. Prince Neo was an open mystery.

I spoke, as a few more pieces of the puzzle clicked in, and my eyes opened wide, "I think, I know where he could be."

My eyes met Doran's and I just knew that I was right.

*** 

Neo's note: It's my fault. Blame me. Not the author. Thank you. 

On a side note, yes, it was hard to kill off Spikes, and I apologize. 

To everyone, who didn't really get where the twin came from. I'd suggest going through Chapter 1 - the parade where it was mentioned that all the people in Gemini House are born twins. And then Chapter 6 - second scene - where I did mention that Prince Nova has lost his twin brother, who wasn't liked at all.

And well, the book is based off Zodiacs for a reason *wink wink* Some of you had actually gotten it long back, but I didn't react to those comments. For obvious reasons. Duh. 

I know, some of these characters are all very racist, and that's an important part of the book; so, watch Eleni take it all down, chapter by chapter.