Lisanna was fast. In a flurry of movement, she aimed her bound fists at Natsu's face while simultaneously breaking for the hallway. Where she expected to go, what she expected to do, Natsu didn't know. He was ready for her, though, and leaned way back, jarring his shoulder into the stone wall behind him. Her fists just grazed the side of his face, brushing past his jaw without causing much damage. Natsu launched himself forward again and looped his arm around Lisanna's waist and in the same movement, slammed her back into the wall.

The breath went out of her. The breath was out of Natsu, too. They struggled to breathe, Lisanna squirming for another frantic moment before the fight went out of her. Then they glared at each other, neither happy with how things ended.

Natsu recovered first. "If the guards saw you fleeing, they'd kill you," he advised her.

Somehow, Lisanna managed to look down her nose at him, though she was a whole head shorter than he. "Somethings are preferable."

Natsu's teeth ached from clenching them so hard. He grabbed her arm and started steering her around bodily. "I'm finding you a new cell."

Lisanna dragged her feet, making this as difficult for Natsu as possible. "I thought you wanted to know about your brother?"

"You lied. What else is there to know?" he growled.

"Where Miss Porlyusica has been, and how that affected your brother." Her defiance was almost limitless. A little smile split her lips. It grew when Natsu's attention intensified.

"What?"

Lisanna held up her bound wrists. "Release me."

"You'll try to run again."

"Maybe." She winked. "Don't you want to chase?"

She was filthy and in rags, too thin from days on the lam but beneath the grim and starvation, she was beautiful and Natsu felt himself flush all the same. Fiorian women were so bold, he almost didn't know what to do with himself. He knew he didn't want to be a fumbling boy king, though, and narrowed his eyes as though he were annoyed, not embarrassed. "This is no time for games."

Lisanna smiled without reply. They stood in a stalemate for too long before Natsu decided his curiosity was stronger than his fear of losing one renegade criminal. After some searching through the keyring on his belt, he undid her cuffs with one of the many keys he'd inherited when he became king. There was no way one man could remember which key opened which locks. They were too numerous.

Like Lucy's, Lisanna's wrists were chafed and sore-looking. Infection seeped from her skin. She must have been on the verge of collapse, but she still found it in her to be headstrong and defiant. He admired that about her. She didn't let prisoner rule her.

As soon as she was free of the magic-restricting cuffs, Lisanna began to change form. She got small and furry and fast. Natsu was used to seeing mice and other rodents in the dungeons when he bothered to venture down here, but Lisanna's was pure white, her eyes red like rubies, and the effect was so unsettling, he almost didn't give chase when she started to scurry through the tunnels. He came to his senses last-second, before she disappeared, and doddered through the hall after her, earning looks of concern and fear from prisoners and guards alike.

"Majesty," said one armed guard, stepping out in front of Natsu as he came around the bend and started heading back toward the castle. "Is everything alright?"

Lisanna's lithe white form disappeared in a crack in the wall and she was gone. He swore under his breath.

"Majesty?"

"Fine! Out of my way," Natsu commanded. The guard hurried to move. Behind him was Lucy in her cell. She watched him with her half-dead eyes, flat-mouthed. He looked at her once, not again, and lunged after Lisanna. Or where he thought Lisanna might go. There were tunnels throughout the walls. Marin Hollow scurried through them, spying for Zeref and Brandish, learning the secrets of prisoners without their knowing that they were being spied on. Countless terrorist plots had been destroyed because of his talents. Natsu hated him and he hated all his tunnels. He hated Lisanna for running and Lucy for lying and Zeref for dying and August for maybe trying to overthrow the throne for reasons yet unknown to him. Every damned thing in his life, for that matter. He hated it all.

Dusky light broke across Natsu's face as he came to the surface. He breathed deeply, expecting relief after the dank rot of the dungeon. Instead, the smell of dust and blood and sorrow enveloped him. He envisioned burning it away. If only he were so powerful.

"This way, Majesty," said a light voice. Natsu spun and found Lisanna leaning against one of the marble pillars in front of the dungeons. She wore another sly smile. She clearly liked that Natsu had no idea what to make of her. "Keep up this time." Then she changed back into a mouse and was snaking through the grass.

Natsu swore. He was exhausted but felt his sleepless nights burned away by adrenaline. He gave chase, looking half-mad, he was sure, to anyone watching. His thoughts cascaded one after the other as he tried to prepare himself for Lisanna's information. Was she going to confirm what Lucy said about August? What did she know about Zeref? How did she know it? Why would Zeref trust her with anything? And the real question—why hadn't Zeref trusted him?

Ahead loomed the castle. Lisanna angled herself toward the servants' entrance and her speed increased, until the last second when she made herself incredibly flat, pushing beneath a gap in the door and wriggling into the castle.

Lungs rioting against his ribs, Natsu ripped open the door after her and hunted the abandoned hallway. At first, he thought she was gone to steal some royal secrets, but he saw a flash of white before she disappeared into another of Marin's tunnels.

Natsu jogged the hallway. Whenever it would transect with another, he'd pause and Lisanna would appear to show him her path. This went on for several minutes, twisting, turning, getting deeper and deeper into the castle.

By the time they passed by the painting of he and Zeref, Natsu knew exactly where she was leading him. He ground to a halt and then just stood there in the middle of the hallway, flexing his hands into fists, and releasing them again, breath sobbing in his lungs. He wasn't sure if he could continue, or if he even wanted to.

Lisanna reappeared, first as a mouse, and then as a girl, shifting in front of his eyes. "Will you stay here?"

Numbly, he said, "Zeref is in there." He could see the door to the cold room ahead and feel the cold brush of Invel's magic on his legs.

Lisanna turned from him and walked on her own to the room. She pushed open the door like she'd done it a hundred times before and stepped inside. It closed again after her. Natsu caught his breath and followed. His legs felt like sticks left too long to dry in the sun, brittle, his fingers like cement, not delicate and dexterous, but clumsy and too fumbly to move. He had a hard time with the door handle. Finally, it unlatched, and Natsu could enter.

Everything was just as he remembered it. Invel's ice encapsulated every inch of stone, and Zeref's body lay prone on its pedestal. Lisanna bypassed Zeref as though he meant nothing, and perhaps to her, that was so. He was the king of a foreign land, the foreign land that was stealing her people and enslaving them. Even if Zeref stood against it, he was part of it.

Natsu hesitated where she didn't, letting his fingers brush his brother's icy ones. Chills slammed through him, and he knew to expect the surreal feeling of hurt, fear, and mild disgust, but he couldn't help himself.

"Hurry," Lisanna said from across the room, "Before someone finds us."

Natsu looked away from Zeref. Lisanna stood beside the fall wall, twitching from foot to foot. The minute light that bled from the torches gilded her hair and made her seem ethereal. He was afraid if he blinked, she'd be gone. And then she was.

Mouse Lisanna made herself flat to slip in through a pinhole in the icy wall. Natsu ran to where she was and fell to his knees, looking through the gap. "Lisanna!" he shushed. "Lisanna! I can't fit through there." And there was no way to monitor her movements behind these walls, they were flat, the room a dead end. If she lured him here as some sick joke and then decided to make her escape from here…

He wasn't sure he could be awful before, but he thought he'd make a special exception once he found her.

Then the wall gasped open just to his left and Natsu stared into a secret room he hadn't known existed. It was dark as pitch in there and the smell that leaked out was enough to make him blind. Natsu held his breath, afraid to use his fires to see by but knowing that ignorance wasn't going to save him; he wasn't a child any longer.

Fire sputtered on the tips of his fingers and its light crawled throughout the room, touching on things he didn't want it touched on. A figure was slumped against the far wall, hands lifted to scratch against the stone. The fingers were bent like fishhooks against the unyielding stone.

The person had died with blood leaking up to their elbows and their face pressed against the wall, but Natsu didn't need to see her face to recognize one of the women that helped raise him. He'd know the slope of Porlyusica's narrow shoulders from anywhere. When he was little, he'd ridden on them on the rare occasion she was feeling kindly, he'd watched them as she wrapped up his cuts and bruises, he'd held them tightly when she'd lift him from the mud.

Now her bones poked from her emaciated body and spiders and millipedes skittered across her back. Natsu thought he was going to be sick.

Lisanna changed back into a girl. She hugged her shoulders, all her mischievousness gone. Now she just looked sad and dismayed. "I found her like this yesterday. But your brother kept her alive in here for a while."

Hot rage whipped through him. He grabbed Lisanna by the collar before he recognized he'd moved and pinned her against the wall. "Zeref would never do this." Zeref was cold, but he was raised by Porlyusica, too. He'd hidden his face in her skirts when the fireworks were too loud, he'd taken her favourite cloak and slung it over the dining chairs to make a fort for him and Natsu, he'd turned to her when he needed a calculating matriarch that would tell him as it was, not as he'd like it to be. Zeref loved her in his own way.

"That's not—I meant he'd bring her food, water, when he found out she was being kept here. He tried to save her, but he couldn't break Invel's ice spell. He had me run nuts and fruits through the crack in the wall. Now that she's dead, the spell is broken and we can move in and out of the room."

He loosened his hold on her collar, not because he was sorry but because he was shocked. "Tell me everything."

"I don't know everything. Just—the day I was recaptured, I was here, trying to revisit her. It'd been days, and she wasn't doing well, to begin with. Your brother and I were barely getting her enough food and water to survive. I crawled through the hole and found her like this, and then the wall opened and Invel was there. I was so startled, I lost control of my magic and shifted back. He was surprised to see me, too, I think. I started to run. He used his magic on me, and I couldn't move. He probably would have killed me, but people were running down the hall; they'd heard him scream. He closed the wall again and distracted them with me. The next thing I knew, I was in the dungeons and no one would listen to me." Lisanna looked away. Natsu saw the wetness in her eyes. He further loosened his grip on her and let his hand fall to his side.

"Why? Why Porlyusica?" She was prickly and disagreeable, but she'd never hurt anyone, ever. She was a good person.

"Lady Eileen needed a reason to bring her healer to the castle." The familiar voice slithered into Natsu's ears. He tried to spin on his feet, but he was suddenly frozen in place. Footsteps crossed the room, one methodical step at a time. Natsu locked eyes with Lisanna, willing her to run, but ice was crawling up her feet to her knees, and then her hips, and she couldn't move, either. She made a face like it hurt. Soon, she started gasping, as one does after falling into a bath of ice.

"And," continued the newcomer, "Miss Porlyusica would not leave your brother's side. Lady Eileen fabricated a story that she needed some rest. Your lovely wife dropped some nightshade in her tea and Lady Eileen brought her down here."

Hate rose like bile in Natsu's throat. "Invel, release me."

"I cannot. You shouldn't have come here, Majesty," Invel advised. He moved in front of Natsu so they were eye-to-eye. "You should have drowned in Fiore's ship like you were supposed to."

"Why are you doing this? My brother was good to you."

"Because Lady Eileen wants Alvarez's throne, and it's been my experience that if you stand in her way when she wants something, she'll go through you." He pushed his glasses up.

Natsu was so furious, he was burning all over, figuratively at first, and then literally. His fury simmered until it reached a crescendo and then flames broke out all over his body, hot, hot, too hot. As hot as Zeref was cold. "Release me!"

"I cannot."

Natsu made an indecipherable noise purely out of rage and his flames got hotter. Invel took a step back from the heat. Concern flicked across his face as ice cracked. He built more around Natsu's chest, trying to hold him in place.

Natsu thought about his brother lying dead on the table, Porlyusica made to suffer in this cold, dark closet, starving to death until she finally expired, and used the outrage to fuel his resolve. The ice broke around his ribs and then his legs. His feet slipped on the watery ice. When he gripped the wall to stabilize himself, fire leapt across that, too. Faintly, he thought, I'm going to burn the castle down. And frankly, he didn't care.

"Tell me why!"

His answer was simple and maddening. "Because she can."

Invel cringed as curled at the hem of his jerkin, melting the leather to his skin. Sub-zero cold enveloped the room as he retaliated and all Natsu could think was Lucy telling him he wasn't fit for battles, he was a pampered prince that made funny fire ghosts for the children in the city and made gaudy displays to infuriate his brother and his ministers. He accidentally burned down confessionals and not-so-accidentally burned down barns to facilitate his grand escapes. He didn't fight. But he didn't need to know how to wield these flames with finesse. Not then. He wanted them to destroy and so they crawled through the morgue like petulance.

Invel screamed as fire licked at his person. He threw ice at Natsu, an entire barrage. Natsu knew Invel was skilled in battles, far more than he, Natsu was. It was why Zeref kept Invel so close at hand. He was clever and his magic was deadly. Natsu never imagined going against him in such open defiance, but it felt good. It felt better than good. It felt like he was doing something in a world where he'd been forced to do nothing for his entire life.

A needle-like projectile barged through Natsu's curtain of fire and lodged itself between his ribs. The pain was so intense, he lost his focus and his fire went out like a snuffed candle. He tried to bring it back, but it wouldn't come. He'd used up most of his magic in that one uncontrolled burst.

Water dripped from the ceiling, melted ice, and Invel crouched on the floor, panting. More than half of his body was charred an ugly red-black. It looked wet and painful. He could barely move. His jerkin was welded to his body and his glasses were fractured. His attack had been one last desperate attempt to save his life. He shivered, weaved on his knees before collapsing, unconscious.

Natsu's side was soaked through. Iron tanged in the air. Blood. My blood. He was bleeding, and a lot, too. He needed to stop it.

Desperately, Natsu searched for something useful. A piece of metal glowed red-hot on the floor. It was once a scone but was now mangled. He picked up, faintly aware of its blistering heat, and braced himself against the coming pain. He hesitated.

"Here."

Natsu had forgotten about Lisanna. She'd found shelter somewhere and came out of his firestorm with some singed hair and sooty cheeks, tattered clothing, and minor burns. She took his hand in her shaking one and guided the burning metal against his ribs. It hissed and popped and Natsu screamed. Lisanna didn't let up, holding it against him to ensure the wound was cauterized.

The pain was so much that when she did finally pull away, he was sick. She handed him a square of cloth she found on one of the free tables to mop his mouth. It smelled faintly of death.

"We should take you to Lucy," Lisanna suggested. "She can heal you."

"No."

Lisanna's lips disappeared. "We stopped the bleeding but—"

"I said no." He would not have her see him vulnerable.

Lisanna didn't flinch away this time. "You don't know anything, your Majesty." She sneered his title with such contempt. "Lucy was the one that told Zeref about Porlyusica." Her throat sounded raw from all the smoke and fire. "She wanted your brother to release her more than anyone. She knew if she went against Eileen, she'd be killed, but she did it anyway. She—she left him a note and—"

"A note."

"Yes—"

She was too afraid to come to him herself, she had to leave him a note. His ire spiked. Natsu couldn't even respond.

"She's not a bad person." On this, Lisanna seemed certain. "She's done some questionable things—"

"In my country, your actions define you as a person."

"Yes, of course, your country where slave trading is barely illegal. Your country where your advisors have literally tried to murder you on multiple occasions." She looked at Invel's unconscious body meaningfully.

Natsu spun away from Lisanna and grabbed Invel by the twisted remains of his jerkin. He stormed past Zeref's ruined body. After his fires, there wasn't even enough there for a proper funeral. Natsu didn't think he'd been angrier in his life. With this newfound conviction, he was going to solve the mystery of Zeref's assassin, and he was going to bring Eileen to her knees.

"Majesty." Armed guards flocked into the hallway, looking alarmed by Natsu and Invel's state. "What happened?"

Natsu couldn't remember the captain of this platoon's name and didn't bother to try. He threw Invel at their feet. "Prep him for interrogation and trial. He's responsible for the murder of Porlyusica." And maybe others, who knew? Maybe this was Zeref's killer. "If he escapes, every one of you will hang." Let it be known in no uncertain terms he would not tolerate treason.

Two men rushed forward with magic-sealing cuffs, cinching them on Invel's wrists.

"Majesty," the captain persisted, following at Natsu's side when he stormed by. "We have word from Captain Fullbuster."

Natsu stalled. "What?"

"Fiore's advance army is sailing across the straight. They'll be here by morning."

Natsu whipped around on Lisanna even though he knew she had no answers—it wasn't her that encouraged the king to launch his army. It took a lot of effort not to accost her. He felt a frustrated yell climbing out of his belly. He swallowed it down and faced the captain again. "Where is August?"

"We can't find him, Majesty," the captain supplied warily.

Blood filled Natsu's mouth. He unclamped his teeth from his cheek.

"Should we continue to look?" suggested the captain.

If August were on the lam, he would only harm anyone that came after him. Enough people had suffered thanks to Natsu. He would find August himself. "Leave him for now." Worms had a way of coming out of the mud. "Happy?"

"Awake in the infirmary."

The first bit of good news he'd had all day.

"Bring my wife out of the dungeons and take her to my chambers to await me." Wife clung to his tongue like the taste of rot. "Guard her always. Do not let her trick you into releasing her or wheedle her way out of your sights." Lucy was going to help him prepare for her uncle's advance whether she liked it or not. They might as well talk about August, too. He wasn't certain if she was telling the truth about the destruction circle, nor was he certain how much that mattered now, but if she had any information… well, he'd be a fool not to listen.

"Yes, Sire."

"And take Lisanna back to the dungeons," he ordered.

There was a flurry of movement and the sound of air being gathered beneath feathers as Lisanna made a break for one of the narrow windows high up against the ceiling. Natsu was ready for her. He grabbed her by one spindly leg and yanked her bodily to the ground. She bounced off the stone, a girl again, wincing through her glare.

"I'm tired of being the only one who gets betrayed," Natsu told her as his guards cinched cuffs around her wrists.