Faint Light

The air carried a fresh yet heavily damp scent. Other than the dead brown grass beneath me, my surroundings were pale white. Rasbora was seated a few steps away, not staring directly at me—but not quite looking away either.

Someone approached and sat nearby.

Oscar.

"How long have you been around?" I asked, prompting Rasbora to look in my direction. She seemed to understand I wasn't talking to her, since she looked down shortly after.

"Enough to not need an explanation."

"Good. Can you tell me what to do?"

"Umm… are you sure you want to leave that choice to me?"

"... No, I guess that would defeat the purpose."

"I do have some small advice, if you want it."

"Please."

"I think that, whatever you choose, you'll end up with some regrets. So don't beat yourself up about it."

I nodded.

The image of Princess appeared in my mind. That small, childlike creature—cute in an odd way, and as awkwardly innocent as Oscar.

To a certain extent, taking care of her was an attempt to ease my guilt of letting Jacks die, and a part of me felt like saving her now would somewhat make up for what I did to Oscar.

No, there's nothing to make up for. I didn't kill Oscar. I mustn't forget that.

Regardless, she didn't deserve any of this… yet Betta was trying to convince me killing her would be for the best.

Would it?

And even if it was, did that make it correct?

But leaving her alive would strengthen people's fear of the Cursed once the news of the dead knights spread. Convincing the High Knight and all her subordinates to tell a lie about Princess dying wasn't achievable either.

Any other option?

…

Is there really nothing at all?

No miraculous solution that would save everyone?

I spent the following hour sitting in silence. My clothes had gotten drenched in the humidity, and my fingers and nose were numb from the cold. Oscar had disappeared a while ago, his absence accentuating the colorless void surrounding me.

Nothing else to do now.

Time to start moving.

"Rasbora, I need a favor."

"Aye. Anything."

"I'll leave tonight to visit Princess. Can I ask you to stall Betta starting tomorrow?"

"Eh? Ya're leaving?"

"Please, can I count on you?"

"... A-aye, ah'll do mah best."

"Thank you." I stood up, intending to head to my room and get ready. Good thing the reports the High Knight had given us included a map of the chasm where Princess resided.

"Will ah see you again?" she asked before I left. I turned back, giving her my feeblest but most sincere smile.

"You will."

ᗢ⫘⫘⫘⫘𖦹⫘⫘⫘⫘♡

Three days later.

My feet dragged on the ground, leaving muddy prints behind. At least some sunlight was making it through the fog today, its faint warmth giving me a measly but much needed boost of strength.

I'd barely slept since I left, as Betta could catch up to me any moment—though perhaps there was a world where she'd decided to trust my decision and wasn't currently pursuing me like a hawk.

Thanks to the clearer view of today, I was able to see the mountain chain with clarity. The grey walls stood in straight lines, sharp like broken glass.

According to the map, the place was near—she was near.

More than a few openings hollowed the walls, which would've been a massive time sink had I needed to check each of them. Fortunately, the one I was looking for had been marked with red paint by the knights.

Nothing fancy, just a pair of quickly scrabbled circles.

Like the ones from that chasm.

It was a tall, triangular opening in the rock, like someone had pulled apart two of the mountains to create a path underneath.

I stopped in front of it, making up the excuse that I needed to steel myself. What were supposed to be a few seconds stretched to a minute. It was like my feet were sinking in the ground to prevent me from proceeding.

Move.

Please.

Something touched my back, pushing me forward and making me stumble. I looked behind but there was no one there. Whether it had been my imagination or not, I'd managed to move, so I kept going before my legs had the chance to freeze in place again.

My steps submerged me inside a darkness as thick as night, with faint traces of light coming from above the chasm. I lit up my oil lamp, but it ran low on fuel after I'd been using it for three nights in a row. Its glow was that of a firefly stuck at the bottom of a lake, about to drown any moment.

The place was so quiet my breath echoed. Maybe Princess had left after the attack? Perhaps all the way to the Cursed Lands?

No. I'd been fooling myself long enough already.

After walking for a dreadfully long while—my lamp about to perish—I saw another source of light: rays reaching all the way down here from a wide opening above. Some of them faintly illuminated a wall.

A wall painted with splatters of green and orange—not the work of the knights.

As I got closer to inspect it, I heard shifting around me. Thick. Heavy. Clacking steps against the stone, growing ever closer.

I didn't move. If she attacked, so be it.

A huge being—twice my height and wide as a tree—appeared under the light and hissed at me, but I didn't take a single step back.

And she didn't move either. She just studied me like something she hadn't seen before—or at least not recently.

I did the same.

She was so different I couldn't believe this was the same Princess. Not just her size—her features were all… far less human than I remembered. She'd grown a second pair of arms. The fingers in her hands had been replaced by round pincer claws. Her silhouette could've once been mistaken for a little girl's, yet now it resembled that of a medium Cursed's.

And those eyes…

A black so deep they appeared bottomless, yet like the crack in the ceiling illuminating this chasm, they also had a minuscule but unmistakable luster.

Soft blue.

That tiny bit of light blinked, then the hard-shelled limbs looming over me lowered, and Princess crouched down to look at my features more closely.

One of her pincers moved close to my face, touching my cheek. I placed my hand on it, feeling the hard shell on my skin. Rigid like bone—yet with a certain warmth. I leaned my head against it.

"Hi, Princess, it's been a while."