Page 32 of Bright Blinding Ruin

It’s too bad Invictis doesn’t have a face when he’s like this, because it’d sure be helpful to me to know if I’m actually matching his threatening demeanor with my own or if he justfinds me amusing or annoying. Without, you know, a face, it’s impossible to tell.

“The day draws near.” His golden chest rises and falls with a false breath he doesn’t need to take. “I will see you in Acadia, Rey. I look forward to seeing what you’ve learned on your own.”

God, he irritates me, but before I can say anything back—mainly a harshfuck you—the dream crumbles around me, and I wake up in a musty bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Shit.

Chapter Thirteen

I try not to think of that dream as I head deeper into Acadia, but that proves difficult. Mainly because… well, to be honest I can’t get him out of my head—and I don’t mean that in an I’m-going-insane way. I mean it differently.

It’s like I’m still mourning the lie, the fake friendship… if you could call it that. It’s dumb to be sad over something that never existed, to be sorrowful over a man who’s not really a man at all.

Like I said before: I hate him. I hate him and I don’t.

Add what he said about seeing me in Acadia, and I’m on edge during the journey. Days go by, and each and every day I don’t see him, I get more and more nervous, like he’s going to pop up out of nowhere and kill me before I have the chance to defend myself.

I have Gladus’s magic now, but even that won’t be enough. I don’t know if all the magic in the world would be enough. If I have any hope of defeating Invictis, I’m going to need more than magic. I’m going to need a shit ton of luck.

Whether it’s because I’m anxious or because I just want to get this shit over with, I travel well into the night each day. It cuts back on my sleep time, yes, but a part of me is always nervous when I lay my head down. I don’t want to somehow drag Invictis into another dream.

Let me just say that trying not to think of something makes you want to think about that thing you’re trying to avoid even more. It’s a vicious cycle.

I zoom along the countryside, staying near a river that will eventually converge in the same water basin the castle is near. I should come upon it from the opposite side. Acadia is the largest region in Laconia, making up the eastern and southern parts ofthe kingdom. The castle sits squarely in the south, so even with magic, it’s quite the journey.

But I make it, and I make it without having any other shared dreams with Invictis.

I come upon Acadia’s castle in the early afternoon, and the moment I see it, I can barely contain my excitement. It feels like I’ve been traveling forever. At least, once I’m out of here, it’ll be a straight shot back to Laconia, a route I’m familiar with.

Acadia’s castle stands tall behind an impressive stone wall. That stone wall keeps the city inside safe from its surroundings… just like it keeps the afflicted inside. Since I know the castle is in the southern edge of the walled area, I do a bit of parkouring up the stone wall.

I get a running start, and I kick off the ground and land on the stone wall, a bluish-gray magic appearing beneath my feet once I launch up. That magic keeps me going, pushes me forward, propelling me as I sprint up the wall like gravity isn’t a thing.

With magic, damn near anything’s possible. It’d be fun, if the kingdom wasn’t full of skeletons, blighted creatures, and the walking dead. I’d love to fuck around with magic while worrying about nothing in particular, but alas, I have a baddie to beat, and I need the aether from Acadia’s undercroft.

I make it to the ramparts along the wall, and once I do I move to the inner edge and look out at the city. I’m closer to the castle than the rest of the city, but from the height of the wall, I can see enough.

It’s strange how it feels like both just yesterday and an eternity ago that I was racing along the rooftops of those houses, doing my best to avoid the shuffling zombies in the streets—zombies who, by the look of it, are no longer grouped around the metal gate that keeps them from reaching the castle.

Hmm. Maybe with Invictis gone, the afflicted don’t feel such a strong urge to go to him. Or maybe they don’t have any urges at all, since they’re dead. Honestly, I think I would’ve rather gone out like the people in Pylos. At least then it’s quick and your body’s not still moving around after you’re dead.

I don’t linger. I keep moving. I keep to the ramparts until I’m at a place where I can jump down and be in the castle’s overgrown gardens. It’s not an area of the castle I’ve seen before. It’s just beyond the throne room—which is nothing more than a pile of stones now, that wing of the castle utterly destroyed when Invictis revealed his true self to me.

The gardens are overgrown, obviously, having had no one to take care of them for the last two decades. And yet, even with how overgrown the bushes and trees are, everything is still flowering.

The sun shines down on my head as I walk through the main pathway through the garden. The flowers on the bushes to my right are a pretty pink, while the ones on my left are a mixture of blues and greens, so vibrant and fragrant the air itself smells wonderful.

It’s funny. Not once in my life have I ever stopped to admire flowers. Never really cared for them, and I never understood why some people put so much effort into their pots and flowerbeds each year. I’ve never been a plant person.

But today, I think I get it. It’s sensation overload with all the smells and colors around me, but it goes to show how resilient some plants are. How, even after years and years of neglect, nature finds a way to take care of its own.

I feel… at home in this garden. Like I don’t want to leave it. As overgrown as it is—so much so that some of the pathways weaving through it are completely covered in vines and the natural spread of flowers—it’s still gorgeous.

Apparently I’ve been through so much here that I can now appreciate flowers. Kind of silly.

I stop to smell one of the pink flowers. I don’t have to hold my hair back; I tied it up in a ponytail with Prim’s ribbon. Once my nose is buried in the flower, I inhale deeply and fill my lungs with the sweet scent of whatever the hell the flower is.

Not a rose. Not any sort of flower I’ve seen before. Must be an Acadian specialty.

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