Trixie casually strolled down the hallway, doing her best to act like she belonged there. It would have helped if she knew more about how the Royal Guard acted, but as it was, she had to really largely on her improvisational skills.

“You there!” she shouted to a random guard as she passed her by. “Are you free right now?”

“Er, yes, sir, Captain… Uh…”

“Trixie!” Trixie could have slapped herself for using her real name so stupidly, but she realised that it was too late to reverse the damage by that point. She decided to simply roll with it. “I’ve been on leave for some time and returned only recently.”

“Ooh! I see… Forgive me for not recognising you, sir!”

“It’s fine. Just escort me to where the changeling prisoners are being held.”

“Escort, sir?”

“Like I said, I have been away for some time. I’m ashamed to admit that I am still not used to the layout of the castle and so I need some assistance finding my way around.”

The guard nodded and then saluted. “Yes, sir! I’ll lead the way for you, sir!” She turned around and began to walk down the corridor with Trixie following behind her.

‘Well, this is going well,’ Trixie thought to herself.

“There isn’t any Captain Trixie!” the guard shouted as he pointed an accusing hoof at Trixie.

Trixie looked between the three guards as she took a step back, smiling at them nervously. “W-Wait… There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this…”

“And that would be?” the female guard who had escorted Trixie asked.

“This!” Trixie drew her halberd with her magic and lunged it towards the middle guard, who seemed to be the most muscular of the three. She managed to knock him down and then turned her attention to the female guard. Trixie swung her weapon, knocking the guard against a wall.

“Halt!” the final guard shouted, drawing his spear and thrusting it at Trixie.

Trixie parried the spear with her magic and took off down the corridor, in the direction she was being led down before running into those two guards.

“After her!”

Trixie lifted her helmet off and threw it behind her, hoping that it would hit her pursuer. “Damnit! This isn’t as easy as Trixie hoped it would be!”

Aura trembled in her cell, a mix of emotions coursing through her as she simply stared at the hard, cold ground beneath her. Shock, sadness, fear, confusion… and anger. She had been frustrated in the past, but never angry. The news of her brother’s betrayal was too much for her. The news that her mother was being set up, and that the only purpose her execution served was to incite a war between nations. It all made the youngling’s blood boil for the first time in her life.

“That can’t be… Odysseus… Odysseus is one of the kindest changelings I know. He’s always been there for me whenever I was upset! He would never do something like that!”

“Really?” Alexander asked, turning his gaze to Blaze and casting a sharp glare. “Well, believe it or not, but it’s true. Odysseus had all of us fooled.”

“Fooled?” Blaze laughed. “That’s not quite right. You just never understood your brother as you as you’d like to think you did.”

“What do you mean?” Aura asked, lifting her head as she addressed Blaze.

“Lord Odysseus cares for each of you deeply. Heck, he even carries photos of you around with him at all times and talks about you a lot during his free time with us.”

“Yeah, the guy’s just crazy is all,” Chill said, earning a scowl from Aura and a confused look from Alexander. “A complete workaholic, too. He likes you guys, sure, but he cares for his ‘goal’ more. He wouldn’t let something stand in his way of it, not even family.”

Alexander remembered how Odysseus referred to himself. “That crap about him being ‘evolved’?”

“Ah, that,” Blaze said, her face turning into a frown as she solemnly shook her head. “Yeah, that’s what my brother means when he says that Lord Odysseus is crazy.”

“So why d’you follow him if you know that?” Alexander asked.

“Because we’re wanted criminals,” Blaze answered, surprising the two royal siblings. “Locked away by Queen Chrysalis for no reason whatsoever.”

“You were?” Alexander asked. “That’s odd. I’ve never come across your names before in our criminal database…”

Blaze and Chill exchanged surprised glances. “It was about five years ago when the three of us were arrested,” Blaze said. “My two younger brothers, Chill and Shock, and myself. We were never told why, it just… happened. Lord Odysseus saved us, and so, we now dedicate our lives to serving him.”

Alexander would have put a hoof to his chin, had his hooves not been shackled up against the wall behind him. “How strange… But it doesn’t change the fact that Odysseus is just using you. Once he’s done with you, he’ll kill you for sure.”

“Lord Odysseus would never do that!” Chill shouted. “He’s crazy, but he’s also loyal!”

“He’ll do it to silence you,” Aura said, her head hanging low as tears rolled down her face and dripped onto the already-damp floor. “Just like he tried to kill Shark. That’s also why he went to such great lengths to kill me,” she gasped as everything suddenly started to add up to her.

Alexander nodded his head. “Odysseus is smart. Very smart, and very cautious. His strategies are brilliant because he eliminates all risk as soon as possible. He can come up with plans that no one else could ever predict.” Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “From what I saw in his hidden documents, he’s been able to hide his illegal activities for all of these years by silencing all witnesses.”

A silence passed in the dungeon, and was only broken by the sounds of a struggle in the corridor outside.

“The hell is that?” Alexander asked.

Trixie slammed a few guards against the wall with her magic and knocked them out with some bucks to their faces.

“Captain Precision Perfect! The intruder went that way!”

“Stop right there, criminal-”

Trixie cut off the advancing captain’s warning by slamming a door into his face. She then rushed into the dungeon’s reception and locked the door tight with a magical spell. The captain on the other side began to bang against the door, but considering that it was reinforced, Trixie was sure that it would hold.

She turned around just in time to see two guards advancing on her. Trixie used her halberd to block their spears. Whilst their weapons were locked, she used her magic to teleport behind the two guards and unleashed a cloud of smoke to obscure their visions.

She struck the backs of the guards’ necks – which were unguarded by their armour – with her hooves, knocking the two guards out swiftly. “Okay, now to find Aura… Thank Celestia running randomly through the castle resulted in Trixie finding the castle’s dungeon. Of course, getting out might be a problem now.”

Trixie searched the reception’s filing cabinets until she had found the folder that she was looking for. After taking out the appropriate document, she then descended down deeper into the dungeon. On her way she passed by a storage area, where the belongings of the various prisoners locked away in the dungeon were being held. She used a locator spell to see if she could find the saddlebag that Aura had taken from her.

“Ah-hah!” she shouted as she followed her spell’s pull. She eventually came across her saddlebag and picked it up, after checking and confirming that her stolen belongings were all still inside. “Now to find the cell where Aura is beings held.”

“Halt!”

Trixie looked up and saw two guards charging towards her. ‘Do they not think of trying to taking me by surprise?’ she wondered as she rolled her eyes. She charged up some magic into her horn and blasted them with a dazing spell that caused them to fumble and trip over each other into an undignified pile. She jumped over the pile and charged through the dungeon, lifting the document that she had stolen to her face. “The ‘Special Block’, huh? At least she’s getting the royal treatment,” Trixie joked as she rounded a corner.

“STOP! INTRUDER!”

Trixie was met with more guards as she passed through the corridor, causing her to stop occasionally to parry their attacks with her halberd and make use of her magic to stun them.

At long last, Trixie reached the deepest section of the dungeon. Also known as the ‘Special Block’, where, as the name suggested, criminals of a special nature were locked inside. Criminals too powerful to be restrained by normal means, criminals that were banished but then returned, and prisoners of war.

After spending some time fumbling about with the lock, Trixie was finally able to make her way inside the Special Block, slamming the door shut just before a group of five guards could follow her inside. Using her magic, Trixie welded the door shut to buy herself some time. “Aura, just hang on a little longer.”

“What is the cause of this disturbance?!” Princess Luna shouted as she approached the crowd of guards gathered outside of the dungeon’s reception area, driving a battering ram into the reinforced door. “Explain thyself!” she commanded to the captain leading the troops.

“Princess Luna, sir!” Captain Precision Perfect shouted, saluting alongside his comrades. “Terribly sorry for this disturbance, but an intruder has made their way into the castle’s dungeon, sir!”

Luna raised an eyebrow and then motioned for the captain to stand aside. Her horn glowed green and, a second later, the door was blasted open by her magic. “We shall go in alone. You are ordered to guard this entrance in case the intruder tries to escape!”

“B-But Princess Luna-”

“No buts! This intruder could be the changeling prince, Odysseus! I will need to be able to fight him at my full strength, which will be impossible with my troops in harm’s way.”

The captain nodded in understanding and saluted his princess. “Yes, sir! As you command, sir!”

Luna descended down into the dungeon and came across a few injured guards lying unconscious on the floor. She heard shouting and banging ahead and quickened her pace, eventually reaching a crowd of guards banging on the door to the Special Block.

“At ease, soldiers!” The guards quickly halted and turned to their princess, saluting her arrival. “We shall take over from here! We order each and every one of you to stay outside and guard the exit!”

“Yes, sir! But the door…”

Luna walked past the guards and focused her magic on the door. She felt that the door had been welded shut and grinned. “Amateur’s work,” she said as she used her own magic to unweld it. ‘Who is this, I wonder? Shark?’

Once the door was open, Luna walked inside and then closed it again, using her magic to lock it. She walked through the corridor until she reached the cellblock with the captured changelings inside. As she opened the door and looked inside, Princess Luna was taken aback by what she saw. Two changelings and a blue mare wearing a pointed hat and a cape were standing over two changeling corpses.

“You didn’t have to kill them!” the pony shouted.

“Trixie’s right; that was going too far, Brother!” the youngling added.

“Shut up, both of you!” the taller changeling replied in a threatening tone. “They were the enemy! It had to be done! This is war!”

Luna smirked and approached the group. They took notice and turned to face her, each one taking a cautious step back as they raised their guards. The pony, ‘Trixie’, stepped forward and stood in front of Aura.

“Well, well. It seems you’ve saved me a job…” Green flames surrounded Luna and, when they faded, a grinning changeling wearing a brown cloak stood where the princess had been standing previously. “… Brother.”

Alexander moved forward, gritting his teeth together and baring his fangs at his younger brother. “You bastard… How dare you show your face to me after what you did?!”

“Yes, well, in your state, I don’t really need to worry about you anymore. And Aura is hardly what I’d call a threat. But the pony, on the other hoof… I must say, I wasn’t expecting this.”

“You were on your way down to kill us, weren’t you?” Aura asked, sticking her head out from behind Trixie’s leg. “So it’s true? You betrayed us all? Your family… and your kingdom?”

“… My family, yes. My kingdom? Not at all. After all, once I’m finished with my plans, our kingdom will become more glorious than it ever has been in our history.”

“So this is Odysseus?” Trixie asked Alexander. Alexander simply nodded and Trixie’s eyes narrowed as she continued glaring at Odysseus. “Aura, stay behind me.”

Odysseus raised an eyebrow at the blue unicorn in front of him. “How strange… A pony. protecting a changeling?” Odysseus shrugged his shoulders and then took a few steps forward, before stopping when Alexander’s horn lit up threateningly. “Well, no matter. Soon, all of you will be dead. Actually, you made it easier. This way, I won’t have to collapse the whole dungeon just to cover my tacks.”

Aura gasped and turned away from her brother, tears welling up in her eyes. Alexander’s glare intensified and he took a step forward. ‘Maybe I should’ve knocked her out after all… No. She needs to know the truth.’ “So you were going to kill us all. Even you comrades.”

“Comrades?” Odysseus asked, before turning to face the corpses next to the group. “Oh, you mean them. I prefer to think of them as… tools.”

“Damnit!” Alexander shouted, shooting a blast of magic at Odysseus. Odysseus simply deflected the blast and allowed Alexander to continue his outrage. “How dare you?! Those are changelings, not ‘tools’! You don’t get to play around with lives like that! Like they’re only there for you own convenience!”

“And how is that any different from what you do? You’ve killed countless numbers on the battlefield-”

“Those are enemy soldiers who had the chance to surrender! You’re manipulating your allies and killing them just to keep them silent! You’re a menace, Odysseus!”

Odysseus sighed as he shook his head. “Well, of course I would want to keep them silent. After all, if they reveal my plans to the wrong changelings, then it will all be over for me. How is that so hard to understand?”

“And what about loyalty, huh?! Those two looked up to you for saving them! They gave their lives to you, and you-”

“Misplaced loyalty is not the same as true loyalty,” Odysseus said, silencing his brother. “You see, true loyalty is when one unconditionally gives their lives to serve you, of their own free will. But misplaced loyalty is much different. It is when one thinks that they’re serving you of their own will, when their strings are truly being pulled behind the scenes. Such ‘loyalty’ is dangerous, as it can a betrayal if they were ever to discover the truth.”

“What ‘truth’?”

Odysseus shrugged. “You say that they ‘looked up to me’ because I saved them. Well, what do you suppose would happen if they ever discovered that I had set the whole thing up from the very beginning?”

Alexander said nothing more. Aura’s tears continued to flow strong as she closed her eyes to the truth and she was wishing aloud to ‘wake up’.

“… I see now,” Alexander said after a moment of silence. “You arrested them back then. Unofficially, too. That’s why there was no record of it.”

“Ah, so you do some brains behind that muscle, then,” Odysseus said, provoking his brother even further. “Any more questions? I’m on a busy schedule, so I would appreciate it if-” Odysseus stopped as he sensed something behind him. He spun around quickly on the spot, gasping as he saw female changeling charging towards him with several flames burning strongly around her. “What?!” Odysseus shouted as he jumped back and drew a knife from within his cloak. He threw it at the changeling and the knife pierced her chest, causing her to collapse to the floor in front of him.

“BLAZE!”

Odysseus spun around and saw Chill standing next to Alexander, trying to charge forward but being stopped by Alexander’s hoof. Odysseus turned his head slightly, making sure to keep an eye on Alexander and Chill, and found that the corpses were gone. He quickly pieced everything together and turned to face the unicorn.

“… I see. An illusionist.” Odysseus released the breath that he was holding and his grin returned to his face. “But unfortunately for you, it seems that you had been holding that illusion longer than you were capable of. And that one split-second where you had slipped up was all that I needed.”

Trixie growled at the changeling, angry that her illusion had failed to catch him off-guard. “Damnit… Now what?”

Chill stopped struggling against Alexander’s hoof and summoned seven butterflies around him, all of which became frozen in ice.

“We can’t fight him in this state,” Alexander said. “We have ta get out of here somehow!”

“Trixie has an idea, but…” Trixie levitated the saddlebag that Aura had taken from her and began searching through it. “Please be here, please be here…”

“Hurry up!” Alexander shouted, stepping in front of Trixie as Odysseus approached.

Odysseus stopped when he felt something approaching him from behind. He turned around and summoned his magic to shield himself from Blaze’s fiery attack.

“Hurry!” Blaze shouted, firing blast after blast at Odysseus as she lay on her front on the floor. “I’ll keep him at bay! You all need to flee!”

“But Sister-”

“Go!” she shouted, firing one more blast, before being struck in the forehead by a flying knife. Her face froze in its state of shock and she fell flat on the floor, blood pouring from her wound.

Chill was unable to move, speak, or do anything. He simply stood there, his face frozen in horror as he stared at his sister’s unmoving body. Aura gasped and turned her head away, her entire body shaking and her forehooves covering her ears. Alexander continued to stand guard in front of Trixie as his muscles tensed. ‘Damnit! We’re all still weak from our fight and being locked in here for so long!’ Alexander’s horn lit up as Odysseus turned to face him once more.

“Yes!” Trixie shouted with excitement, having missed the horrific scene that the others had just beared witness to. “It’s here! We can still get out of this mess!”

Odysseus’ ear twitched and he looked past Alexander to find Trixie holding some kind of orb. “Well hurry it up already!” he demanded.

Trixie charged magic into the sphere in front of her, prompting Odysseus to draw more knives from his cloak and throw them at the showmare. Alexander blocked each one with his left foreleg as he continued to guard Trixie.

After a sudden flash of light, which prompted Odysseus to erect a barrier around himself, the prince waited for his eyesight to return to normal before making a move. When he could see once more, he simply stared in front of him in surprise. “… What the hell?” he asked no one in particular as he stared at the empty space before him. “Long-range teleportation? No, that’s not it…”

His ears twitched and he spun around quickly as he heard the sound of the door behind him opening. ‘An invisibility spell! Of course!’

For a moment, Odysseus considered going after them, but ultimately concluded that it would no good. They had gotten away… for the time being.

With a defeated sigh, Odysseus reapplied his disguise of Princess Luna and proceeded out into the corridor outside. As he walked, a grin crossed his face. ‘Well, at least this way, I can justify going to Ponyville, meaning I won’t have to sneak around. Also, I can have security here tightened without it looking suspicious.’

Trixie had remained silent for what had felt like hours. She wasn’t used to being so silent around others, but in the situation that she had found herself in, she wasn’t sure what to say. She wanted to yell at Aura for all that she had put the showmare through, but Aura was too busy curling herself up into a ball, staring at the campfire in front of her. Her sobbing had stopped forty minutes ago, but the youngling still remained as silent as Trixie had been.

Alexander and Chill returned to the campsite after spending twenty-five minutes making sure that the perimeter was safe. The four sat awkwardly around the campfire for several minutes before Alexander took a break from bandaging his wounds to speak up. “Um… thanks, pony,” he said, with venom in his voice, as if the very act of thanking Trixie was completely repugnant to him.

Trixie held her head up high into the air. “No need to thank the Great and Powerful Trixie. She only saved you because she thought that you could be of help to her… That, and Aura would most definitely not leave without you.”

Alexander glared at Trixie for a few moments before continuing to apply bandages to cover his wounds. “So, what’s your relationship with my sister, anyway?”

“… Trixie has sworn to protect her,” Trixie said, causing Aura’s to react by lifting her head up to face the showmare. “That is all.”

Chill kicked a stone in front of him as stared at the ground with gritted teeth and shaking eyes. “I can’t believe it… That bastard, he set us up this whole time.”

Alexander let out a deep sigh and put whatever bandages were remaining back into Trixie’s bag, next to the sphere that they had used to escape earlier. “How the hell did you do that earlier?”

Trixie looked down into her bag and at the sphere that she had stashed away during their escape. “These spheres are like spell flatpacks. They are precast spells that need only be charged by magic in order to be cast. The invisibility spell is especially important to Trixie as the spell itself is so complex it would ordinarily take five minutes to conjure up.”

“What d’ya use it for?”

“Trixie is a magician. Beyond that, she will leave for you to figure out on your own.”

Alexander harrumphed and turned his head to Chill. “So, what now?” he asked. “There’s no doubt that Odysseus is gonna do whatever it takes to stop Aura and me from meeting up with our mother, and in our conditions, we can’t risk being spotted on the way back to the Changeling Kingdom.”

Chill suddenly jumped up to his hooves with a gasp as he realised something. “Shock… Shock is still in Ponyville! He’s completely unaware of Odysseus’ betrayal!”

Trixie rested her chin on her forehoof. “Calm down,” Trixie said. “Trixie believes she met this ‘Shock’ whilst she was in Ponyville before. She can simply take Aura back there and-”

“NO!” Chill shouted, startling Trixie. “Don’t you get it?! Odysseus’ next move is to go to Ponyville… To use the Elements of Harmony! That’s why Shock is there in the first place, to watch them until Odysseus gets there!”

Trixie flinched and turned her gaze to Aura, who still hadn’t seemed to react at all to any of this conversation.

“… Well, that’s not good,” Trixie said, slouching down as she ran several ideas through her head. “Now what? Trixie has to take Aura somewhere safe, but…”

“That won’t work,” Alexander said. “Now that Odysseus has seen you, he’ll make sure you don’t get in his way. And besides, if Odysseus’ plans succeed, Equestria will be screwed, y’know?”

Trixie scoffed at Alexander’s remark. “Please. Equestria has stopped the changeling invasions of the past, they can surely-”

“The changeling invasions of the past were all orchestrated by Mother, or her mother,” Alexander pointed out. “They were soft. Even if they were fighting ponies, they tried not to kill unless it was absolutely necessary… To be honest, I’ll never understand what those two were thinking all those times. Why hold back against scum like you?”

Trixie glared at Alexander. “You… really hate ponies, don’t you?”

Alexander nodded his head and shot Trixie a deathly stare that caused her to flinch. “Of course I do! After what you did, you monsters deserve to-” Alexander stopped to compose himself and took deep, calming breaths. He had to remind himself of the current situation, and that he couldn’t be picky with his allies.

Trixie knew that something must have happened between ponies and changelings in the past, to incite that kind of reaction from him, but decided not to ask him about it. It seemed like a touchy subject and frankly, she didn’t even care that much. She just wanted to be back in her trailer, preparing for her magic shows.

“So, what do we do?” Chill asked, echoing Alexander’s earlier question. “Shock will definitely be…”

“… There may be a way to save Shock,” Aura said, gaining the group’s attention. “Odysseus can’t kill Shock in front of the Element bearers, right?”

Alexander clapped his forehooves together. “Of course! That means he can’t kill him until after he’s used them! Which is after the war is over!”

Chill let out a deep, relieved sigh. “Okay, so Shock is safe, for now. But… what about us?”

“We need to reach Mother,” Aura said, “But we’re too few in number. We need more allies.”

Alexander couldn’t help but grin at his little sister. “Heh, spoken like a true princess,” he said. His eyes lit up as an idea hit him. “He was disguised as Princess Luna, right? What d’you think the chances are that he was able to kill her? Odysseus isn’t very strong in combat, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Princess of the Night still lives.”

“She does,” Chill confirmed. “The original plan required the war to go on for a few days. But because of you, Odysseus had to step up his plans. However, thanks to his original plan, and Princess Celestia being away on the battlefield…”

“It would be necessary to keep Princess Luna alive,” Trixie said, finishing Chill’s train of thought for him and receiving a nod from the changeling in response. “And that means that she’s being forced to perform her spell to control the sun and the moon.”

“Now that I think about it,” Alexander started, “I recall sensing Odysseus pass by our cellblock before, sometime before he caught Aura. He was carrying something along. My sixth sense picked it up.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow at that. “‘Sixth sense?’”

Alexander nodded, but didn’t bother explaining. “That could have been Princess Luna. Remember when we were moving through the dungeon? The further in we went, the tighter the security was and the more safety precautions there were in each section.”

“So, wait,” Trixie said, putting a hoof to her forehead as she felt a migraine coming on. “Are you suggesting… that we go back to Canterlot, after having just attacked it, and go into the dungeon – the most secure part of the dungeon, no less – for a chance that Princess Luna may be there?”

Alexander and Chill both nodded in unison. “Yeah, pretty much,” Alexander said.

Trixie stared in disbelief at this and then fell down onto her back. “Oh Celestia… Why did this have to happen to the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

Chill also fell down onto his back and let out a loud yawn. “I suggest we some time to rest. The war isn’t scheduled to start for another few hours and Odysseus won’t make his move until it does.”

“How can you be sure?” Aura asked.

“He can only justify sending the Elements in when things start looking bad for Equestria. In other words, once your princess starts to fight your mother,” Chill explained.

“Why is he sending the Elements in, anyway?” Trixie asked.

“Insurance,” Alexander answered. “In case our mother does win, he’ll have the Elements seal her in stone. And then, regardless of the outcome, once our mother is out of the way, he’ll kill the Element bearers to render them useless. Well, at least one of them. If there’s one thing he fears more than Princess Celestia, it’s the Seeds of Destruction.”

“The ‘Seeds of Destruction’?”

Alexander nodded. “That’s how we refer to the Elements of Harmony in the Changeling Kingdom.”

“Why?” Trixie asked.

Aura closed her eyes and recited, “Generosity – Give all and nothing remains. Honesty – Reveal all and you reveal weakness. Loyalty – Support all of your friends and you’ll backstab some. Laughter – Laugh at all and you forget despair. Kindness – Treat all fairly; reward all when only one is right and punish all when only one is wrong. Magic – Rely too much on magic and you lose your grip on reality.”

Trixie was staring at Aura in complete surprise.

“That’s an ancient teaching where we’re from,” Alexander said. “Its lesson is that too much of anything can lead to destruction. We use the Elements to teach it because each one is the pure representation of an aspect of harmony. It also reminds us that anything with such power could be saving grace, or a weapon, and should be respected as a result. Your race seems to have forgotten that lesson, though.”

Chill sat up straight and added, “Long ago, our seers prophesised that the Elements of Harmony will one day cause Equestria’s downfall, when they finally fall into the wrong hooves.”

Trixie gulped and rubbed the sweat from her brow. “A-And how long… until this ‘downfall’ happens?”

“About ten thousand years from now,” Chill said, causing Trixie to let out a huge sigh of relief. “Well, nowadays it’s pretty much just used as a bedtime story for younglings. Many changelings speculate that our seers of old made many mistakes in their prophecies, since many of them never came true. Heck, I’ve lost track of how many ‘doomsday’s never actually happened.”

The three were interrupted by the sounds of someone snoring. They all turned to Aura to find that she had fallen asleep. Alexander smiled and lay down on his back. “Well, enough storytelling! We’ve gotta recover our energy if we’re gonna storm that castle again!”

Chill also lay back down and shut his eyes. Trixie stared at Aura’s sleeping body for a moment, before getting up and walking over to her. She used her magic to undo the clasp on her cape, and covered Aura’s shivering body with it, before laying down next to the youngling. ‘I swear, next time I see someone in trouble, I’m feigning blindness!’

Mystic ordered her troops to halt. She concentrated some magic into her horn for a few moments, and then continued to lead her troops forward, towards the forest that lay ahead of them.

“I’m sensing four presences. One of them is unmistakably the prince. There are two changelings with him, but I cannot identify them. The fourth presence belongs to…” She furrowed her brow and ordered her squad to wait outside of the forest whilst she investigated. “I’ll go in alone. I don’t want to kill any of you by accident.”