Page 37 of Down from the Tower

Counting doesn’t help. I’m either going too fast or too slow, and after a few minutes I give up tracking the time before looking down at him. I can make out his outline pretty well now in the dark.

Please wake up. Wake up and tell me what we need to do next. I’m not sure where to go from here.

Being in a forest is… terrifying. I’ve never spent this much time outside of the castle, and although the fresh air is nice it’s something of a nightmare to imagine how much space is around me. Even if my tower was confining, it was mine, and before Zarev showed up I knew exactly what lurked in the dark corners of the room.

Briefly, my heart aches for Cheshie again. I don’t know if I will ever see my faithful feline again, but at least he’s a resourceful cat. The times he didn’t return to my room I never worried for his safety, and no matter how many people despise me in the castle most of the residents like him.

When Zarev still isn’t awake sometime later, and the moon’s shifted in the sky, I begin to pace. My ankles and the tops of my feet ache, but it’s nothing compared to the pain in my arms or the incessant pounding in my head. This is a different type of suffocating silence than the quiet I knew in the tower.

“What am I doing out here,” I mutter, and it doesn’t escape me that talking to myself is probably a bad sign. “Why did I let this man ruin my life?”

Pursing my lips, I almost want to argue with myself. Ruined is a bit of an exaggeration when I didn’t get the chance to live up to now. Zarev opened my eyes to things I’ve never imagined, and now I’m in the midst of it.

My map of Tressa is insufficient to the real world. Midas made himself more important than anything else, acting as though the world centers around him. If I were being honest, Tressa pretty much does.

I know nothing about the continent - Mystica, the land I’m standing in now. This forest and everything beyond is something I should’ve studied, but mother and father made it sound so far off that I never worried about it. To learn that there is a whole world on the other side of the wall is mind boggling, and I don’t know what to do now when my world isn’t limited.

“You’re still with him, girl.”

I scream before slapping a hand over my mouth. My arms whine in protest, and something’s poking from the skin, but I cannot see anything and I don’t want to try and blindly pull things out in the dark. I’ve always been a bit of a wuss when it comes to the pain, and whatever is stuck in my skin pulls and hurts when I try to remove it.

Turning towards the voice, I recognize who the voice emanates from and try to quell my displeasure. “Modred.”

“The very same,” he grumbles, his form so see-through now it’s unsettling. He died, and now I suppose this is what’s left. He’s still the same, with a pudgy middle and eyes that are looking for secrets. Even in death he gives me the creeps. “Thanks for murdering me, little princess.”

I frown. Modred is a mystery to me. My time with Arthur was brief, and mother and father never spoke of any family members of his. Arthur is someone Midas holds at an arm's length, an adversary that he kept happy with my magic but had very little control over. So meeting Modred when the Camelot King should be long gone was jarring, but I can’t say I had any idea he’d be so strange. Swallowing, I try to find the right words to say to someone who’s died. “I’m… sorry. It was an accident. But you pushed for more than I could give.”

“Wouldn’t is more like it,” he replies dryly, before glancing at Zaev. I wonder if he can see better in the dark than I can. Could a spirit hurt me? “Wake him.”

“I’ve tried. He’s sleeping now. He got injured back there and his body needs time to recover. He doesn’t wake up when I try, so he’s not going to until he’s ready.”

Modred scoffs, and I realize he’s just as insufferable in death as he was in life. “Something drew me here. I’m assuming it’s him. Wake the man, Princess, so I can be on my way. Whatever this in between thing is, I’m not a fan. He’s Death, or … something. That monster will know what to do.”

I purse my lips, my mind flickering to those shadows of his. Does controlling the darkness make him more of a monster than a man? I shake my head, my hands trembling when I ask the next question. “You realize you are dead?”

“Yes, a snivelly little princess killed me.”

“I’m not that little,” I snap, glancing down at the ground. Truth be told, I still don’t know exactly how to tell my age. I counted years by the celebrations when I crested eighteen into full adulthood, but I don’t know what’s happened in the years since. Timeline wise, I’m thirty or so, which makes me an old, unmarried maid in these lands. But physically I still feel like I’m in my twenties, and appearance-wise it’s almost impossible to tell. My face retained youth while my body matured, my hair endlessly growing and my gift keeping any lines from forming on my face. It almost makes me wish that I could see them, so that I know the passage of time is real. All the times I’ve used my magic made things unclear, and Midas is the only king to sit on the throne of Tressa in…

I blink. I can’t think of another King. History isn’t a big deal in Tressa. That was never part of my studies. We value the here and now, and that’s Midas. A cruel, unforgiving King, but someone who kept adversaries out of our lands until recently.

Then again, I think he’s got most of the Kingdom believing we live on an island. Or perhaps it’s just me he tricked.

“Just wake the demon, Princess,” Modred snips, crossing his arms as he pulls me from my jumbled mind. He’s oddly clear in the dark, possibly because the outline of his form is such a different color from the stark night. “Figure out what to do with me and I’ll be on my way.”

He twitches, his neck rolling back as he finishes speaking, and when it twists back his eyes roll and make me gasp. It only lasts a moment before Modred shakes his head and the evil in his dead eyes is gone. He straightens his neck out again, bent unnaturally far back, and looks at me as he shakes his head.

He blinks, and it’s like nothing ever happened. I swallow, reminding myself that whether or not I can see this man, Modred is dead. He should be long gone, out of sight, and even if his soul is angry I shouldn’t even be able to see him.

My skin crawls, and I shove back the nerves. Zarev is still unconscious, so getting worked up over something I can’t control nor fix does me no good. The more creeped out I allow myself to get, the harder it will be to calm down later. If I panic, who’s going to help? Modred certainly isn’t interested in my comfort.

I swallow again and sink down to my knees. Grabbing his shoulder, I give Zarev a shake. “Please…”

He doesn’t stir, which probably isn’t a good sign. I glance down at his chest, where the gold is dimmed but still clearly there. I don’t know how to tend to someone’s wounds, and fingering my hair I can only imagine what might happen if I tried to do something and made it worse.

“Why don’t you use the hair,” Modred asks, impatience coloring his voice.

“My hair,” I deadpan, glancing back and the ghostly presence. “My hair reverses age-”

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