CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - REVELATION

Fiona and Hewie walked over a short and narrow walkway to an open area of about 25x30sqft. The sudden rise in temperature made her skin tingle, as if thousands of tiny needles were pricking her from the inside. Her eyes scanned the large, open space. The highly unusual interior design and the minimalist architecture were highly different from the gothic, medieval style in the castle and mansion. This place was more… eccentric. Stained glass in the ceiling threw a peculiar pattern of circular shadows on the floor, and several thin pillars of what seemed to be some kind of hollow wood were going from floor to ceiling straight ahead. There were descending stairways on both sides, divided in three sections they turned 180°.  The pattern on the floor, the banisters and railings, the lamps, the pillars, the overall shape of the room… everything had a round or globular shape to it. Fiona couldn’t spot a single square-shaped item anywhere.
“So this is the House of Truth…”

She had half expected to see Lorenzo welcoming her at the door, but the place seemed totally deserted. Though, he was a very old man, and from what he’d written in the last note, he had great difficulties moving around. She would have to search him out herself. Fiona stepped half way down the stair to her left.
“Lorenzo?”
No answer. She walked all the way down to the floor below. Underneath the staircase and between two grizzly bears, a grandfather’s clock was slowly ticking its way through the early morning, reminding Fiona that she’d spent yet another hour in this nightmare of a place. A skull of what had once been some kind of antelope hung to her right and a grey wolf had been placed in a corner. Hewie glared at the stuffed canine with unease. The area also housed a flowering shrub, a wooden couch, chairs with no pillars and a small cabinet. There was another eerie-looking hole in the wall on the other side of the room. She walked up again and descended the second staircase with Hewie right behind her. The other room seemed to be about the same size as the one she’d just visited. A single torch was lighting up the area and the crisply burning fire was sprouting showers of sparks into the air. Fiona started to feel uncomfortably hot and took off Leon’s jacket. Carrying the brown leather clothing over her left arm, she walked over to some crates, the only items in the otherwise empty room. The print said; Caution. Extremely flammable. Meaning the crates were probably filled with explosives or the like. She thought it best to keep her distance.

Back on the upper floor, she found a door hidden behind pillars of bamboo-like material and entered a narrow pathway with walls of dark stone. Human shapes and figures were protruding from the walls and ceiling. Though the limbs were of stone, Fiona still found the unnerving sight to be extremely macabre. She hugged Leon’s jacket tight and drew in the scent of leather and male cologne. A sweet, warm, tingling sensation rushed through her body and she felt her cheeks glowing. She had no idea what so ever as to what type of brand it could be, save for definitely not the heavy and spicy Hugo Boss her father used to favour. This scent was light, fresh and energizing, but still masculine. The perfect type of cologne for an active and sporty young man.
The creepy corridor ended at a closed door with a strange carving on it that resembled a sun. She turned the knob, pushed the door open and peeked inside. Was there a shadow sitting in the darkness? She walked a few steps into the room for a better view when suddenly the door slammed shut, nearly decapitating Hewie in the process. Fiona’s body spun around and then she turned and squinted into the darkness.
“Who’s there?”
Eerie, squeaky sounds and hazy breathing emerged from the dark void beyond and scared Fiona. Terrified, she hurried back to the door.
“Poor Fiona…”
That voice… she had heard it before. On the telephone… Lorenzo?! Hands on the knob, she slowly turned. The shady figure kept talking.
“Riccardo put you through quite a bit, didn’t he?”
Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the murky room. She saw weird equipment and posters in the back, bookcases along the walls and a statue half buried in the floor in front of her. But Lorenzo was still hiding in the shadows.
“Unlike Ugo, he was always a troublemaker. A bad apple.”
More grunting and gurgling, menacing sounds were rising from the gloominess ahead. Faces of stone were stirring at her from everywhere. She was really starting to get anxious and she regretted leaving Leon. What Lorenzo said next stirred up a turmoil of emotions inside Fiona as the truth her parents had hidden from her, a truth she wished she had never learned, was revealed.
“I, Aureolus Lorenzo Belli, created them both, Riccardo and Ugo.”
Deep down she already knew, but to hear it spoken aloud, from someone she’d thought was only trying to help, was a blow to the stomach. Then she felt nothing but numbness.
“But then along came that wench, Ayla. She stole Ugo away from me!”
Fiona could hear the contempt in his voice. He chose that  moment to reveal his small and bony figure. An old wheelchair emerged from the darkness, and the man sitting in it looked like he could be around a hundred and fifty years old.
“Of course, then you came along, my dear. My dear Fiona. Fate brought you back to me!”
His hands frantically pushing the wheels, he started rolling towards Fiona at lights speed while laughing hysterically. “Now you are mine. All mine!”

Fiona screamed, jerked the door up and dived through the doorway. The old man leaped out of his chair and grabbed Fiona’s leg, which caused the young girl to fall. She heard Hewie barking and felt Lorenzo’s scrawny, skeleton like fingers groping and grasping her thigh. It felt like she was being molested by a mummy. She fought to free herself, but the persistent, breathing corpse refused to let go of her. He tore off the compress on her tight, and Fiona screamed in dread and pain as his dry, bony fingers bore deep into the open gash. His sneering and gurgling grew louder as he got more and more excited by the sight of fresh blood pouring out of Fiona‘s wound. He loosened the clutch on her leg and Fiona kicked him hard in the face and staggered to her feet. Hasting out of the dark hallway, she squeezed her hand on the bleeding wound while asking herself why. Why was he doing this? Why was this happening to her?

Lorenzo’s pupils grew wide as he saw his hand smeared in Fiona’s blood, and a spark ignited in his otherwise dead, pallid eyes. “Azoth,” he gurgled and with a serpent’s tongue, he licked his hand free of the crimson fluid. His dried, wrinkled corpse twitched and jerked in excitement, and he felt an immense joy as he greedily slurped up the fresh bloodstains on the ground. Not a single drop was left behind.
“Azoth.”

Fiona ran the fastest she could back to the front door. It was closed. Had she closed it behind her when she’d entered the building? She couldn’t remember. She pulled hard on the handle, but the door wouldn‘t budge. She heard gurgling and grunting behind her and dread shot through her body. He was coming for her. While Hewie stalled Lorenzo, Fiona ran down one of the stairs to hide in the shrub below. Crouching between branches and leaves, she could hear Lorenzo, searching around for her. His eerie breathing and the feverishly grunting while he was crawling over the floor was sickening. Oh, please Leon. Hurry up.
Lorenzo stalled, hesitated and resumed pulling himself over the floor. Fiona went ice cold as she felt his scrawny fingers curling around her ankle. He had found her.

Fiona tried to shake her foot free from Lorenzo‘s clenching fingers, but he refused to let go. How could a crippled, old man be so strong? Hewie came to her rescue once again, and by fiercely biting Lorenzo’s neck, he forced the old man to let go of his death grip. Fiona stumbled up the stairs, hasted down to the other room and crouched behind the explosive crates. Hewie remained upstairs, barking like crazy. It was a poor hiding spot and Lorenzo was a good hunter. Though hiding was not her objective. Quite the contrary, she wanted to be found. It didn’t take long before Lorenzo had dragged his dried corpse down the steps and now he was glaring suspiciously in Fiona’s direction.
“Is that you, over there?”
As the old man approached with an unusually high speed, Fiona darted out from behind the crates and grabbed the crisply burning torch a few feet away. She waited until the crawling fossil had circled the boxes, and then she threw the torch behind the crates. When she started running for the stair, she tripped on the tile and nearly twisted her ankle. Lorenzo stretched out his long arms and grabbed a hold of Fiona’s leg. Through Hewie’s intense barking, Fiona heard the sound of wood burning. So did Lorenzo. The old man turned his head and his expression froze. “FIOOOOONAAAA!”

The powerful explosion that followed roared through the entire building and made the floor shake. Fiona instinctively covered her head with her arms. When the white smoke had lifted, she rose and saw Lorenzo’s body lying motionless on the ground, covered in stone wreckage. The explosion had blasted a hole in the nearby wall and unravelled a hidden corridor. Fiona noticed something shiny between the large rocks that laid strewn around the floor. Why was Hewie still barking upstairs…? Leon! She grabbed the golden key and hurried up to unlock the door.

She found the American agent sitting on the steps outside. Hearing the door unlock behind him, he quickly rose and hurried inside.
“What just happened?” His head turned left, then right, and then back to Fiona. “What was that sound?”
Seeing the young girl’s expression, he took a deep breath to cool down.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a much calmer tone. “What the he-, eh, what happened in here? Where’s Lorenzo?”
Fiona remained silent, but pointed at a stair to Leon’s right. He gave her a ‘wait here’ gesture and hurried down to investigate. When he returned, Fiona was sitting at the top of the staircase. The Alsatian was panting next to her.
“He’s gone, there’s no pulse,” he said, unmoved. Fiona stared down at her feet. Leon sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Her pulse quickened.
“Hey, Fiona. It’s OK, you…”
Leon stopped talking mid-sentence when he noticed the large gash on Fiona’s thigh and the streaks of blood running down her leg.
“Who did this to you?”
Fiona felt her eyes burning behind squeezed eyelids. Her hatred for this place, these people, was indescribable. Leon put both hands on her shoulders. His fingertips brushed her bare back ever so slightly. It made her skin burn.
“Did he do this to you?” he asked. Fiona nodded. Her eyes remained shut.
“Lorenzo?”
More nodding. She slowly opened her eyes. Her lips parted. Finally she spoke.
“I-I’m so sorry, Leon. I-I really thought he was o-on my-, our side.”
She turned away. Her cheeks were burning with shame. And something else. An unfamiliar sensation was stirring deep inside her, a growing emotion that had not yet been allowed to surface to her conscious mind.
“Aw, don’t worry about it,” Leon comforted, fighting the urge to hug her. He removed his hands from her shoulders, placed his thumb and index finger on her chin and lifted her head, allowing their eyes to meet.
“I’m here now. Everything is going to be okay.”
Cerulean eyes, filled with sorrow and fear, relief and gratitude. Clearer than the sky and deeper than the ocean, he could have stared into them for hours and be lost in his own world, forgetting all about time and space. Any other place any other time, he would have placed his hands around her head and curled his fingers into her golden locks. Then he would have pulled her close to him and gently pressed her soft, delicate lips to his. Realizing what he was doing, he quickly shook himself free of the fantasy and mentally kicked himself for daydreaming while on a mission. Pretending that his growing emotions for the girl sitting next to him didn‘t exist, he took out a first aid kit from one of the many side pockets on his pant legs.
“We have to do something about that wound before we can move on,” he said, unscrewing the lid of a disinfectant. While Fiona stroke Hewie’s back, Leon washed away the dried blood on her leg with a sterile cotton pad. He then took out a new pad and soaked it in antiseptic.
“This is going to sting.”
Fiona buried her head in Hewie’s fur while Leon cleaned the gash. It felt like her skin was on fire. Then he flushed the gaping cut with saline and covered the injury with dry pads, gauze and tape. Hewie went to get Leon’s jacket that Fiona had dropped when running away from Lorenzo.
“There,” Leon said smilingly when he was finished. “Good as new. Well, almost.”
Fiona giggled. There was something about Leon’s calm behaviour and boyish charm that made her feel safe and relaxed even in this hellish place. The American agent held his gaze fixed on her chest for a couple of seconds and then he quickly turned away, his face flushing.
“Eh, we ought to get going.”
His eyes avoiding Fiona, he picked up his jacket, patted Hewie on the head and started walking down the entrance hall. Fiona fought hard not to laugh.
“Leon,” she called out. The special agent turned and saw Fiona standing almost half way down the stair.
“It’s this way,” she said, jerking her head to the area below. Now Leon felt even more stupid.
“Right.”

Fiona let the special agent pass and walked behind him down the staircase, past Lorenzo’s body and into the secret hallway. She’d caught the American agent red handed ogling at her breasts, and for some odd reason, she found it incredible amusing. She never found it amusing when men stared at her chest, quite the opposite, actually.
This corridor was somewhat wider than the previous one and had less disturbing figures. Occasionally there was a window of stained glass to their left. Fiona noticed little else. Her eyes were locked on Leon’s back. The parts of her skin that had been stroked by Leon’s fingers still tingled. When they’d almost reached the end of the hallway, Hewie started to growl and Fiona’s apprehension grew. She turned. So did Leon. Was that… a noise? A voice…?
“Azoth.”
Impossible, but still a reality. Lorenzo had woken up. Resurrected from the dead, he‘d resumed his quest for more Azoth.
“Quick, in here,” Leon shouted. Fiona and Hewie hasted through a door that Leon held open. The agent closed the door behind him and made sure he was standing between Fiona and the entrance. Piles of rocks and sacks of dirt laid strewn to their right and a demolisher lined the wall to their left. The sound of Lorenzo’s fingernails scraping on the door made chills go down Fiona’s spine. Hewie’s ears laid flat. The crippled man managed to knock the door open somehow, and crawled at full speed in Fiona’s direction before coming to an abrupt stop. Without his knowledge, his robe had fastened in the demolisher’s conveyor belt. The more he tried to drag his dried corpse forward, the more the cloth intertwined with the belt. Leon kicked the power generator to life and the conveyor belt started rolling, dragging Lorenzo’s body under the crushing wheels.
“Fi-Fiona, Fiona. FIOOOONA.”
Fiona turned her head as the old man got crushed by the demolisher. Leon did not. He wanted to make sure that this time, the old man really was dead.
“Let’s move on,” he urged and caught her arm. The trio moved out of the mining area, through a door engraved with a yellow sun and entered a brightly lit hall that was empty except for yet another grandfather’s clock. Fiona noticed it had been almost exactly twelve hours since she’d entered the castle suite after waking up in that basement. Leon tried to open a door straight ahead, but it seemed to be locked from the other side.
“This one is open,” Fiona said and stepped through the doorway, regretting it the next second. The door slammed shut behind her, leaving Leon and Hewie in the foyer outside. Fiona heard Leon call out her name and tried desperately to pull the door open. Then a voice filled the air.
“You’ve been very naughty, Fiona. You’ve been causing me much grief.”
Fiona quickly turned, but there was no one behind her. She started hammering on the door.
“What are you doing, Fiona? Just where do you intend to run?”
The voice was coming from everywhere and nowhere. She ran through the corridor and relief surged to her body when she found a door at the other end. She jerked it up and felt her hope sink.
“Aha. Looks like a dead end, my dear. How unfortunate.”
In pure desperation, Fiona started kicking the wall. The voice echoed through the room once more.
“There’s no need to be so upset, my dear.”
Whose voice was this? Where was it coming from?
“I will have you in my grasp soon enough.”
She backed and nearly fell victim of a falling bookcase. The voice laughed.
“That was a close one, eh Fiona?”
The male voice continued mocking her as she ran through the dark corridor.
“Have you longed for me as I have longed for you?”
The door was still shut tight.
“I can see you clearly from here, Fiona.”
She hammered her fists on the locked door. “Leon. Hewie,” she shouted.
“How adorable you are, Fiona.”
“Leon. Hewie, are you there?”
“Oh, how I love thee Azoth.”
“Hewie. LEON.”
“The young man has gone astray, my dear. He and the beast have headed down the path of the wet method and they are now lost in the coloured hallways.”
Fiona had no idea what the hell that was suppose to mean, but it was clear that Leon and Hewie were no longer on the other side.
“Why must you run from me?”
She sank down to the floor.”
“My dear Fiona, you simply cannot understand.”
She rose and stepped backwards, away from the door.
“Everything I do is for the great truth.”
She couldn’t have cared less about the great truth.
“At last, you are mine, Fiona.”
Fiona heard a click and the door opened.
“Come to me, Fiona. Come to me, Fiona.”

The last thing Fiona wanted was to meet the owner of this mocking, mysterious voice, but she had no other choice but to go through the door. She had to find Leon and Hewie. She hurried out of the creepy hallway and walked out to a completely different location than before. Had the entire manor transformed? The door slammed shut behind her and she heard the lock click. The voice spoke again.
“The great Aureolus Belli once said: The most valuable thing in this world is the Great Truth.”
Fiona looked around the room. She noticed a large painting in the ceiling. There was no way to tell where the voice was coming from.
“Human beings… human life… They are not capable of grasping this truth. We cannot merely sit idle and await the future. We must dedicate our lives to the realization of the truth!”
The door behind her unlocked once more.
“Ah, Fiona… no, my Azoth. Come to me… come to me.”

The only other door in the room was locked; she had no other choice but to enter the hallway again. “I guess they have no intention of letting me go home,” she thought to herself as she reluctantly stepped up the steps to the half open door. Pushing it all the way open, she noticed that the corridor had morphed into a small room with green light. Someone slammed the door shut behind her. Fiona turned. The person on the portrait in the castle suite stared at her with eyes that bore deep into her soul. She now knew why this figure had seemed so familiar.
“Daddy?”
The man in front of her moved laughingly towards her. Fiona backed all the way to the other part of the room. The man looking like her father reached out his hand and stroked Fiona’s cheek.
“Ah, Fiona. My dear holder of Azoth.”
Fiona waved the hand away. “What is going on? You’re not my…”
“Azoth is the essence of life,” he said. “We alchemists have the ability to convert it into power. We can live forever!” He drew a deep breath. “Your Azoth, Fiona belongs to me.”
The man started twitching and turning, and his entire body was contracting in what looked like painful spasms, though he never stopped laughing. It didn’t stop until he looked like he was thirty years younger, like her father when he’d been rocking her on his knee when she was four. The painful realization hurt to the bone. “This man,” she reminded herself. “His eyes, his laughter, he is evil, beyond doubt.” He bent down and reached out his hand to Fiona.
“Come to me, Fiona. I will now extract the Azoth latent in you in order to realise the everlasting life of Aureolus Belli.”

Fiona ran out of the room and through an open door. Hadn’t this door been closed just a minute ago? It didn’t matter, this man was dangerous, even more so than the others that had been stalking her. She had to get away now. She ran through a corridor with red windows. Sinister laughter filled the air around her. Or was it just in her head? Was she imagining hearing Hewie barking? No, there he was, thank God. But still no sign of Leon. She followed Hewie into a dark tunnel. The more she kept running, the more she seemed to get lost.
“I’m coming for you, Fiona.”
The alchemist controlled magic and he had the ability to teleport. Hewie’s biting didn’t seem to affect him one bit, he just threw the dog away, mumbling ‘meddlesome cur.’ Running though the tunnel was a nightmare and Fiona though she would never make it out alive. Just when she was convinced that she was merely running in circles, she finally reached a flight of steps and ascended to a near empty area that seemed somewhat familiar. After going up another set of stairs, she noticed this area was an exact replica of where she had first entered this house, but this area had no door leading out of the building. Instead, the walkway ended in mid-air. She walked down the other set of stairs and through a door. She had quit studying the surroundings. No more admiring of magnificent artwork and antique sculptures, she just wanted to get out, she hated this place and she just wanted to go home. She only stooped up to destroy the occasional mini homunculi that were popping up at random.

The monotonous ticking of a grandfather’s clock lured her through an arched opening to a murky area only lit up by a couple of flickering torches, and from there she entered a place unlike any other she’d seen before. The room was circle round with an orange-red glow. A gaping hole in the centre took up most of the floor, thick pipes travelled along the ceiling and large fans were built into the wall. Hewie was sniffing the stone covet ground near what looked like a small altar. The caduceus had been engraved in the stone above a small, spherical groove in the middle of the plate, suggested what was missing from the construction. Hewie was barking and his back had gone rigid.
“Hewie?”
Fiona crouched down next to the canine.
“Have you picked up the scent, boy?”

They left the area and Fiona followed Hewie into a tunnel supported by wooden beams and illuminated by torches. After a couple of minutes, the path divided in two and since it seemed that Hewie had lost the track, Fiona had to guess which way to go. She chose the right path, which ended at a locked door. She turned the key that had been left in the lock, opened the door and was back in the hall where she had lost Leon a few minutes earlier. There was a third door in the hall, but it was closed so tight one should think it was welded shut. Had it been sealed by some kind of alchemic power? Was this the way out? She walked back into the dark tunnels. Where in God’s name was Leon? Hewie was barking at a wall as if he was trying to tell her something. Fiona noticed some irregularities in the wall and reached out her hand. The moment her fingers touched the wall, she felt a stabbing pain above the left shoulder blade. Her hand flew to her back. She was convinced she was bleeding but there were no traces of blood on her fingers. A red mark appeared on the wall, the exact same shape as her birthmark. What was going on here…?

The wall parted in two and revealed a cane of caduceus. Its wooden handle had started to corrode and the cane had fallen into disrepair. Fiona carefully removed the item and hurried back to the strange room. She made it without any distractions and put the cane with the two intertwining snakes into the groove. The ruby on top of the staff glimmered in the orange light. Suddenly the ground started to shake and sparks of electricity travelled along the walls and the pipes over Fiona’s head. Next minute, the fans started rotating and the hole in the middle of the room filled up with red glowing magma. Fiona knew she had to be careful. If she fell into the pit, she would be toast… quite literally.
“Your effort is for naught.”
Fiona gasped and lifted her gaze. Through the ascending heat and tiny bubbles of lava, she saw a familiar figure. Too familiar. Like her father when he was walking her to her first day of school, holding her hand and comforting her, telling her that everything would be okay. A stab of pain. Now she would be forced to kill or to be killed. The realization hurt. She had to remind herself that his monster was not her father.
“How long do you plan to keep this up?”
Aureolus Belli lifted his head and squinted.
“Let’s finish this, Fiona.”
He vanished before Fiona’s eyes, teleported to the other side of the hole, landed on top of the young girl and knocked her to the ground. Then he arched his body backwards, raised his hands in the air and laughed. A blue light surrounded his arms. Hewie attacked. The alchemist shook himself free and kicked the dog hard in the side. Hewie howled in pain.
“Meddlesome cur!” he exclaimed. “I’ve had it!”
He hurled his fist in the floor, which made the ground shake like an earthquake, and then he ran towards the terrified girl who was still lying on the ground. Fiona picked up a jade coloured stone and threw it at the now young, powerful and furious Lorenzo. The pebble bounced off and landed in the pit, which caused a burst of flames sprouting out of the well. It seemed to stun Lorenzo for a short moment. She continued to throw and kick stones into the crater while avoiding the alchemist for what felt like an eternity. He seemed to get more and more infuriated for each second that went by. Then a gush of wind. Hewie had stepped onto a platform and activated one of the fans. The blazing air seemed to drain the alchemist of his powers. He stumbled backwards to the edge of the lava pit, and laughingly he dived into the inferno. It as if he had nothing to fear, not even death itself.
Fiona knew that no one could fall into hot-glowing magma and survive. Nevertheless, something just didn’t feel right.
“Come on, Hewie,” she said to the canine growling at the edge of the well. “We have to get out of here.”
The ground was shaking and bits of sharp stone were falling from the ceiling. Had she activated some kind of self-destructive mechanism?
A large tremor made Fiona instinctively crouch down. The path to the right was blocked by large boulders, and she was stopped by a shut door to the left. She tried to turn the handle, but it wouldn’t bulge. Something seemed to be snagged on the other side of the door, keeping it from opening. A glowing light in the corner of her eye and the smell of burnt meat caught her attention. Something was burning, moving…?
“Fiooona!”
Impossible!
Aureolus Belli, engulfed in flames was coming for her, calling desperately for her Azoth.
“Hewie, go!”
The canine hit the door and burst it open. Fiona flew through the doorway and into the tunnel. Another tremor caused her to fall to the floor. The flaming corpse was getting closer. Panic was building up in her. She stumbled through the tunnel on all four, her heart fiercely pounding in her chest. A falling statue. She had to use all her muscle force to prevent the heavy thing from squashing her. The orange light was growing closer and closer.
Suddenly the weight of the statue lifted and someone pulled her arm.
“Fiona, come on. Let‘s move!”
Leon!
“This was, hurry. The building is going to fall down at any second.”
Young Lorenzo, now merely a burning skeleton appeared in the doorway and made Leon’s eyes go wide.
“What the- shit! MOVE, NOW!”
He took Fiona’s hand and together they ran out to the main hall with the flaming corpse closing in. Lorenzo reached the door first and blocked the only way out, screaming and waving his red-glowing limbs in a last desperate effort to stop Fiona from leaving. But he’d been on fire for too long and he soon crumbled to the floor. No Azoth could save him now and after a few minutes, there were only a few ounces of ash left of the great alchemist. Fiona kicked the black powder.
“This time,” she whispered. “You really are dead. You bastard.”

She felt a mystical power flowing through the door leading out of the house of truth, and it opened when Leon placed a hand on it. It was still dark outside, but now the sky had a clear blue colour. The sun would rise at any moment. Behind them, the house of truth was now nothing more than a pile of boulders and large rocks. They had managed to escape just in time. Now they were heading into the darkness of the chaos forest. There was a small pitch and some sharp rocks ahead and Fiona, who was still walking around with no shoes on, cut her toe. Leon took her in his arms and carried her over the uneven terrain. The short mini skirt barely covered Fiona’s private parts and she started to feel self-conscious again. The dress was very beautiful and comfortable, but it was not something that she would have chosen to wear herself. She hoped that Leon didn’t think this was how she normally dressed. Luckily, his mind seemed to be occupied with other things. When he reached the soft forest ground, he put Fiona down. Her foot didn’t hurt that much, and they would move faster if she ran on her own feet. Leon lit his flashlight and they spotted a narrow path almost hidden in the thick forest, which was travelling in the direction of the castle.

Hewie stopped up and sniffed the air. They didn’t have much time. He started to run down the slope, but slid on the wet, moss-grown surface and collided with a large boulder. One of his paws got jammed between the rock and the stone covert ground. His other paws panicky scratched the stone surface until he started bleeding from his claws, but his canine body didn’t move an inch. Any desperate attempt to shake free only resulted in excruciating pain. He saw Fiona’s blonde hair disappear between branches and leaves in the forest ahead. He didn’t bark, did nothing to call for her attention. He still smelled danger in the air and he wanted Fiona to keep moving forward. If she just kept running she would make it. Besides, she had someone else to protect her now. Hewie knew that he would die, alone and in pain, but knowing that Fiona would be safe gave him peace. He loved Fiona and would sacrifice his life for her in a heartbeat.