“So you enter this copy of the Crucible, say a password, and you are whisked inside the copy of the Crucible at the Citadel. Then you just say ‘And they lived happily ever after’ and you are standing in the Citadel itself?”
“I wish it were that simple. When Hesperia turned the copies of the Crucible into portals, she tried to make safe passages, but a great deal of the original structure could not be overridden.
“The story locales of the Crucible are normally each instantly accessible, like drawers in a chest. But when the Crucible is used as a portal, the locales join into one continuous terrain. Only one point of entry and exit exists at the center of this terrain, on the meadow not far from Sleeping Beauty’s castle. To reach any other spot, you must travel, on foot, on beasts of burden, or via magical means, as long as those means were known at the time of the Crucible’s creation—which means no vaulting.
“To make matters worse, Hesperia, concerned that pursuers might follow her into the Crucible, located the actual portals in some of the most dangerous places in the Crucible: Briga’s Chasm, Forbidden Island, and Black Bastion.”
Black Bastion, where he’d been killed by Helgira’s lightning.
“Which one goes to the Citadel?”
“Black Bastion.”
Well, of course. “The whole of Black Bastion or a specific place inside?”
“The prayer alcove inside Helgira’s bedchamber.”
She already felt nauseous. “How do I get to Black Bastion?”
“The map at the very front of the Crucible should tell you the layout of the land when it is used as a portal. From Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Black Bastion is about thirty-five miles north-northeast.”
She rubbed her throat. The collar of her shirt was suddenly too restrictive. “All right, give me the password and the countersign to using the Crucible as a portal.”
He gave both, but added, “You must swear to me, on your guardian’s life, that you will not use the Crucible this way unless you yourself are in mortal danger.”
She hesitated.
He rose and took her hands. His own, calloused from countless hours on the river, were warm and strong. “I beg you, do not, do not put your life in danger, particularly not for me. I will never forgive myself. The only thing that makes this entire madness bearable is the hope that you may yet survive, that one day you may live the life you have always wanted.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes. She looked away and said, “And they lived happily ever after.”
Titus shook. He cursed himself, but the shaking would not stop.
He had been twelve, cocky about his prowess in the Crucible after having vanquished the Monster of Belle Terre, the Keeper of Toro Tower, and the Seven-Headed Hydra of Dread Lake. His death at Helgira’s hand had obliterated any further thoughts of invincibility. In fact, it had been two months before he could use the Crucible again, and even then only to partake in the easiest, simplest quests.
In the years since, he had conquered his fear of the Crucible, but never his terror of Black Bastion.
The wyvern beneath him sensed his growing panic and decided to take advantage. It rolled and plunged, attempting to shake him loose. Practically joyous for the distraction, he jabbed his wand into the beast’s neck. It screeched in pain.
“Fly properly or I will do it again.”
Last time his approach had been blatant, at the forefront of a mob of attackers. He would not repeat that mistake. Helgira’s saga began with one of her lieutenants arriving at Black Bastion on a wyvern. Titus had wrangled a wyvern from Sleeping Beauty’s castle and would try to pass himself off as a soldier coming to warn Helgira of an impending attack.
The torch-lit silhouette of Black Bastion was beginning to be visible, a solid, foursquare fortress that crowned a foothill of Purple Mountain. He murmured a prayer of gratitude for the darkness—he could not see Helgira yet. The last thing he remembered from his previous foray was her slim, white-clad person, standing atop the fort, her arm raised to call down the bolt of lightning that would strike him dead.
In the aftermath, his convulsions had nearly snapped his spine. Even the thought of it made him shake again.
Black Bastion drew ever nearer.
This time, if he were killed, he would remain dead.
The landing platform was five hundred feet away. The wyvern was not trained to carry riders and had no reins. He wrapped his arms around its neck and pulled. It brayed, but slowed to a speed better suited for dismounts.
Soldiers surrounded him the moment his feet touched the platform. “We’ve been attacked!” he cried. “The Mad Wizard of Hollowcombe promised the peasants land and riches in exchange for our lives.”
Dozens of weapons were unsheathed. The captain of the guard held a long spear—one that could follow a fleeing opponent for a mile—at Titus’s throat. “You are not Boab.”
“Boab is dead. They killed just about all of us.”
“How could they kill Boab? Boab is—was a great soldier and an even better mage.”
Titus’s mouth was dry, but he doggedly repeated the plot of the story. “Treachery. They gave us drugged wine.”
“Why were you not drugged?”
“I wasn’t at the celebration. A peasant girl, you see. I thought she liked me, but she turned on me. I heard her talk to the people coming to kill me, so I stole her brother’s clothes and this wyvern to come warn m’lady.”
He had put on the gray, hooded tunic his mother had specified, which he sometimes wore to bed, before he’d entered the Crucible. He hoped it would pass for peasant attire.
The captain did not trust him, but he also did not dare not bring Titus to Helgira. With eight spears trained on him, Titus marched down the ramp to the bailey and into the great hall of Black Bastion.
The hall was crowded. There was singing and dancing. Helgira, in her white gown, sat at the center of a long table upon a great dais, drinking from a chalice of gold.
He stopped dead. Four spears pressed hard into his back. Still he could not move a single step.
Instead of turning angry, the captain chuckled. “Gets ’em bumpkins every time, she does.”
But Titus was neither bowled over by Helgira’s beauty nor petrified anew by fear. He was transfixed because Helgira was Fairfax.
She was twenty years older, but in her features she was identical to Fairfax. Her lips were the same shade of deep pink, her hair the same jet-black cascade he remembered so well.
This was the reason Fairfax had looked eerily familiar when they had first met.
Helgira perceived the arrival of the soldiers and signaled the musicians to halt. The dancers melted to either side of the hall, clearing a path.
Titus sleepwalked, staring at Helgira. Only after the captain smacked him on the side of the head and yelled at him for disrespect did he lower his head.
Before the dais, he sank to his knees, kept his eyes on the ground, and repeated his tale. The toes of Helgira’s dainty white slippers—with lightning bolts embroidered in silver thread—came into his view.
“I am well pleased with you, warrior,” she murmured. “You will be given a bag of gold and a woman who will not turn on you.”
“Thank you, m’lady. M’lady is mighty and munificent.”
“But you committed a grave breach of etiquette, young man. Do you not know that no one is allowed to gaze upon me without my permission?”
“Forgive me, my lady. My lady’s beauty stole my sense.”
Helgira laughed. Her voice was high and sharp, completely different from Fairfax’s.
“I like this one—such pretty words. Very well, henceforth I grant you the privilege. But know this: I always exact punishment for any transgression.”