At first, all Rapunzel could remember was the burning flash of the Moonstone's blinding light. She never thought it could be so bright, so piercing. It was a cold light, icy and chilling to the bone, seeping through her skin and shocking her heart. It was nothing like when she had first touched the black rocks; this was uninviting, dangerous. It made her feel afraid.

Then everything went dark, and by the time she came to, the chamber was filled with jagged black rocks once more, their wicked tips pointing accusingly at her from all directions. She didn't feel the blame at first; she was too busy trying to feel other things, like the sensation of Eugene's haggard breath ruffling the top of her head. It didn't start to sink in until his furious words swam into her ringing ears.

"Cassandra!" She heard him bark, a startling tone from a man she'd rarely seen so upset. As her vision cleared, she could see his face above hers, livid and twisted with an anger she could almost taste. "I don't care what excuses you make – do you have ANY idea what you've just done?!"

Rapunzel tried to turn her head; it was hard, but she managed to crane her neck about, sucking in a pained breath through her clenched teeth. Eugene noted her movement with only the slightest glance, a flicker of relief that his princess was awake, and she felt him tighten his arms impulsively around her.

Rapunzel's eyes, still bleary and blurred with confusion, could just make out Cassandra on the far side of the chamber, wreathed in an eerie blue light. Her ancient armor was gone, her dark hair replaced by vibrant moonlit strands, her scarred arm hidden by the new suit of blackened stone she now wore. The dim kindness in her gaze had been scalded out of her hazel eyes, replaced by the same lifeless light that had sent Rapunzel to the brink of consciousness.

"I do," Rapunzel heard her handmaiden answer. Her voice was clear, calm, controlled. If it had been in any other place, at any other time, she wouldn't have come across as so…alien. She sounded like a different person. "And I know what I'm doing now. Varian!" She raised her scarred arm with a clean snap, her stone-clad fingers clicking through the air. "You were a fool to challenge my ambition, and now you will face the consequence! Your will is mine, and you will obey."

Eugene stood, grimacing as he wrenched Rapunzel up with him. She winced in his arms; the knockback from the Moonstone had caught her off guard in more ways than one. Instead of acting as her shield, her hair had only weighed her down - she was certain she'd bruised a rib, and even as her confusion began to fade, the pain in her neck remained. She fought against it to look over Eugene's shoulder, staring in horror at the scene that was unfolding in the entryway.

Varian had crumpled to the ground, his forehead pressed into cold stone beneath his feet. Like Cassandra, he was also encased in black, his face obscured by his own head of bright blue hair. The streak he always had was white, simmering against his armored fingertips as he clutched at his head. A sound eked from him, a cross between a shout and a whimper. He seemed completely unaware of everything else around him: unaware of the princess' allies, lying in groaning heaps on the throne room's floor, of his two unconscious companions, who had been cast aside by the Moonstone's unbridled energy. Even the animals were in a stupor, Rudiger's hulking form whining as he struggled to move.

Every muscle in Varian's body was shaking, trying to fight Cassandra's compulsion. Then Rapunzel felt horror ice the marrow in her bones as Varian suddenly stopped. His hands fell away from his head, and when he looked up, his gaze had glazed over with emptiness. Half of the Moonstone could be seen embedded over his sternum, glowing in fizzling fragments next to his heart. He slowly stood and remained motionless as Cassandra approached, stepping past Eugene without so much as a dismissive glance. Rapunzel could feel Eugene's heart ramming against her, dying to stop their traitorous friend from leaving. But his strength was spent, and Rapunzel's safety was his top priority. With a cough of outrage choking from his throat, he didn't move an inch, glaring with heated vehemence at Cassandra as her black heels clicked purposefully past.

"No," Rapunzel moaned, sitting up in Eugene's arms. Tendrils of golden hair fell into her face, threatening to obscure her horrified face. "Cass…Why are you…why?"

Cassandra actually stopped, her back facing the princess she once served. "I'm tempted not to give you the satisfaction of having an answer," she admitted out loud. "But since you've been so kind enough to grace me with your all-shining existence, I suppose I could enlighten you at least a little bit." She turned to face them, her eyes still lit with that cold, burning moonlight. "Once upon a time, almost twenty years ago, there was a little girl who lived happily with her mother. Her mother was very busy, always out selling her wares and taking care of business, but even though she was so busy all the time, she took precious moments out of her long days to care for her little girl.

"This little girl…" Tears welled in Cassandra's gaze, washing away the venom and replacing it with an agony Rapunzel had only ever seen from her own reflection in the mirror – a reflection she hadn't seen in almost two years. "This little girl loved her mother very much. She would have done anything for her, anything at all…but there came a day when she realized that no matter what she did, it would never be enough. This realization didn't come in the form of a heated outburst, or a sad song she sang to herself when she was alone. It came one night, in the form of a baby, held in the arms of the little girl's mother. A baby with golden hair, bright as the morning sun." Cassandra cocked her head to the side, working her jaw back and forth. "I still can't believe I could ever forget that moment, when I saw that child in her arms. That child that she chose to keep…instead of me."

"You're Gothel's daughter," Eugene concluded out loud, his throat almost too tight to speak.

Rapunzel didn't believe it. She couldn't. It was impossible, it had to be. The denial set in almost quicker than she could process what Cassandra had just revealed. She found herself shaking her head, her breath hitching in her chest as her own vision blurred with tears. "No, Cass," she whimpered. "Tell me it isn't true."

"There's only one thing I want to tell you, princess." Cassandra's cold stare had returned, a mask of frigid fury. "I hope I never see you again."

The words broke Rapunzel clean in two, swifter and more terrible than a knife ever could.

"Varian," she turned to the boy, who hadn't even blinked as she'd delivered her story. "I'm sure you're very happy to know that you were right all along. No hard feelings, though. You've only made sure you stayed on the right side. I can't fault you for that. I do expect you to deliver the rest of the Moonstone to me, but there is one thing you can do first, since you came all this way." She reached for his shoulder, black stone clinking against black stone as she allowed a sinister grin to stretch across her pale face. "Make sure I'm not followed."

"Leave the boy out of this, Cass!" Eugene exclaimed.

Cassandra acknowledged Eugene's outburst by flashing him a cold glare. "The 'boy' included himself when he tried to take my destiny away from me. Now he pays the price, along with you and everyone else who has ever dared to stand in my way!"

Rapunzel knew she had nothing in her to stop her friend, even if she wasn't injured. Her heart felt numb in her chest, and she wondered briefly if it had stopped beating. It was still there, but each thud coursed disbelief through her veins. She felt dizzy; was it all a dream? It had to be a dream, and soon she would wake up.

Until then, she continued to watch the scene before her. As Cassandra strode across the throne room, one of Varian's companions stirred. It was Martin, the one who claimed to be a Coronan royal guard. He coughed once, rolled over onto his stomach, and saw Cassandra leaving. "Where do you…" he grunted, heaving himself shakily to his feet. "Where do you think you're going, Captain's daughter?"

Cassandra didn't stop; she continued at the same pace without a word.

"Hey," Eugene gasped, turning with a stumble to face the entryway, forcing Rapunzel to turn her head again. "Don't do it, kid!"

But Martin didn't listen. He found his sword, grasped it in his hands, and began to race forward.

There was a blur of black, a flash of steel, and Martin flew backwards, skidding across the floor.

Varian was there, his expression blank as a sheet, his arm raised to block Martin's blow. There wasn't a single scratch on the strange suit he wore, the black stone perfectly conformed and unbreakable against his skin. He made no advancement, but he now stood between Cassandra and everyone else, blocking any chances of reaching her. All the while, Cassandra continued to walk, like a star winking out the sky, she disappeared around the corner. Rapunzel felt her heart plummet; this was a terrible dream.

"Varian!" Martin grimaced, turning to reach for his sword again. He raked his hair out of his eyes and found the hilt, but he held it up to reveal that the blade was broken. Rapunzel could sense more than see the stunned shock on the guard's face as he stood again, gazing at the broken weapon in his hand. Then he tossed it aside with a piercing clatter, his trembling fingers reaching to tighten his gloves. "I don't care," he hissed, shaking his arms out at his sides. "I don't need a sword to beat some sense into you, you weak-willed, thumb-sucking nerd."

"Great idea, insult the mind-controlled kid," Rapunzel heard Eugene mutter.

But was he mind-controlled? Rapunzel had heard of a geas before, a terrible forbidden spell that compelled the victim to obey the caster's orders, but she'd never witnessed such a thing before. She had always known how much Varian cared about Cassandra: he had never been very good at hiding how he felt, about her at least. If he was being compelled by the Moonstone's power to obey Cassandra's commands, how much convincing did he really need?

No, she told herself. Varian had claimed he had come here to help. If that meant anything, if any of it was true, she had to find out now.

Varian didn't move, didn't speak. The Moonstone half was still there, casting shadows across his freckled cheekbones. Rapunzel wondered if he really knew anything that was happening right now. Maybe he was dreaming, too. She managed to tear her gaze away from him to address the movement in her peripheral vision; the black-haired girl was waking up now, her hand pressed to her forehead as she moaned. She blinked up with her mismatched eyes at Martin, then gasped when she realized what was going on.

"Snap out of it!" Martin shot forward, ready to swing.

"Don't!" Rapunzel heard herself cry out, reaching out a futile hand.

Martin's fist collided with Varian's cheek, flesh against flesh in a bruising punch. Varian's head twisted as he took the hit, his bangs flying into his face, obscuring his empty eyes. His feet didn't budge, and he still said nothing.

"Come on!" Martin reached for Varian's shoulders, shaking him. "Fight me or stand down, but don't just cave into what she wants! You're stronger than her, this thing shouldn't be doing this to you!" He reached to yank the Moonstone away from Varian's chest, but as he did, his glove ignited into blue flames. He flinched backwards with a shout, wrenching his fingers out of the burning leather. Staggering away, he finally saw the black-haired girl dragging herself unsteadily to her feet. Rapunzel watched a flicker of desperate hope pinch his flushed face. "Shay, you're the one who knows magic! Do something!"

The girl stood there, motionless, petrified by what was happening. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was too stunned to form the words.

"Eugene," Rapunzel whispered, tugging at him. "Put me down."

Eugene's face was set in stone. "Blondie, that's not an option. He has part of the Moonstone, he could kill you!"

Rapunzel's nostril's flared, and her green eyes narrowed. "I said put. Me. Down."

Painfully, reluctantly, Eugene slowly obeyed. He hovered over her, staying close as Rapunzel made her way out into the throne room. Her whiplash sliced up her neck with each step, but she tried her best to ignore it. "Varian," she started, then swayed once on the spot. Eugene steadied her before she pushed him gently away; she had to protect him, protect all of them. This was all so wrong. "Varian," she tried again, "listen to me. I don't know what's going on, and I don't know if you can hear me…but I know you don't want to do this. I know how much you care about Cassandra, believe me. But you can't give into…whatever it is she's experiencing right now. We can talk to her, we can figure this out, but I need your help –"

"MY HELP?!" Varian's face suddenly snapped. He lashed out with both hands, raising them through the air as he unwittingly summoned a slew of black rocks, jagged spikes streaking in the princess' direction. Rapunzel was ready this time; she managed to see Martin throw himself out of harm's way before a glowing golden sheet enveloped her vision, casting itself around her in a protective shield. Eugene was at her side, the spikes clashing around them in glassy splinters.

"Varian!" Eugene cried.

"I'm sorry."

The room suddenly grew very quiet. Rapunzel could feel the air become still, and she reached out with her hands to tug her bright hair away. The heavenly strands tumbled to the floor, revealing the sight of Varian's frozen form. His expression had flinched into a twisted grimace, his arm still outstretched from his attack. The black rocks around Rapunzel had broken into pieces, shattered by her hair's power. More rocks still stood, some of them dangerously close to where the black-haired girl stood… she was the one who had spoken.

"I'm sorry," the girl said again, her entire frame shuddering. "When you told me what had happened…when I heard about how you'd remembered me…I was so angry with you. Instead of being grateful and happy, I chose to be upset. I was so jealous and hurt. That feeling of never being good enough, not even for her…it was so unfair. I needed someone to blame, for everything. And I blamed you. I blamed you, and I was wrong. None of this has been your fault!"

Varian's right eye twitched, muscles spasming as his teeth clenched.

"I'm sorry, Varian." The girl sobbed once, the most pitiful sound Rapunzel had ever heard. She took a few steps forward, her ankles wobbling. "I'm so sorry!"

"DON'T!" Varian screamed, slamming his palms to his temples. Another wave of rocks unfurled, this time in all directions. But these rocks were thin, almost needle-like, and they seemed to purposefully avoid Rapunzel's unconscious friends. Even the king was spared, his bulky form untouched by Varian's emotional assault. Her hair didn't even react, and its glow was beginning to dim. "You should blame me!" Varian growled. "I should have…I should have…I can't!"

"Varian!" Rapunzel suddenly cried out. "The Battle of Old Corona was my fault!"

"NO!"

"Varian," Martin begged. "Your treatment in prison was unjust, and we all knew it. Your breakout was our mistake!"

"Varian," Eugene shouted. "We were supposed to be a team. If that kid is still in you somewhere, you have to prove it to me, here and now!"

"Varian, please!"

"You can't let this win!"

"Varian!"

"Fight her, Varian!"

"Your father still needs you!"

"I'm here, Varian!"

"Varian…you're my best friend. Please, don't give up!"

Varian…This is not the end.

I…I won't let it end like this. No…My ambition is still greater! I WILL see my father again!

The spell over Varian's mind cracked in half, and Cassandra's geas abruptly dispersed. The physical rebound caused his nose to bleed, red running down his chin, and his eyes rolled back in his head as his knees gave out from under him.

Martin was the quickest, catching him before his head hit the floor. Shay was on her knees, weeping at his side. The others began to stir as Rapunzel felt a wave of relief wash over her, followed by a wall of dismay.

It was over. Everything had fallen apart.

She crumpled to her knees, planting her palms to the cold stone, a single cold face etched like a brand into her mind.

"Cassandra," she mumbled through her tears. "Why?"

There was no trace of Cassandra in the entire castle, no sign of her on the outskirts of the deep canyon. As night fell, King Edmund called off the search, the darkness forcing them back into the castle's firelit halls. To his credit, the king seemed very calm, almost unnaturally so. Adira volunteered to keep watch over the battlements; no one argued. Shorty seemed the least affected by what had happened, seemingly content to scratch his rear and loudly announce that he would take care of the "accoutrements." Normally, Eugene would have objected to the scrawny old man preparing their food, but since none of them were especially hungry, he shrugged his stiff shoulders and let it slide. He had other things to worry about right now.

The first thing he knew he needed to do was talk to his father. Eugene found him nearby, gazing nebulously out of the nearest window, his bear hide cloak clutched tightly over his missing arm.

"You know," Eugene pointed out as he crossed over, "for someone who's guarded this magic hunk of moon rock for the past…however old you are, you seem pretty level about all the crazy things that happened in your lovely house today."

King Edmund spared his son a slow blink, his beard bristling as he spoke. "This is the face of a man who is past feeling, son. I hope that you never live to see such a day."

"Well, I plan on living forever, so we'll see how the odds work out."

"Sounds like something your mother would say."

Eugene sighed, folding his arms. He still wasn't sure how he felt about finding his long-lost father after all these years, let alone hearing about what his mother would say. He wasn't sure about a lot of things, anymore. "This is not what we had planned when we decided to come here," he muttered, leaning against the wall. The cold seeped into his back, making his muscles ache. "You would think something that allegedly grants invulnerability wouldn't be able to split in half by some freak accident, but I guess life would be dull if it didn't come with surprises like that." He gave his father a sideways glance. "How do you feel about the kid ending up with half of it?" Maybe his father could tell him how he should feel.

"He is Quirin's son," the king answered.

"Okay," Eugene said slowly, hoping his father would say more. When he didn't, he frowned. "That's it?" So unhelpful.

"There is nothing to be done about this," King Edmund continued, his voice growing testy. "I won't waste my strength wondering about what could have been. My concerns lie more with the traitor you led into my palace."

Cassandra. Eugene still felt the guilt, the weight of the note he'd received from the spirit of Demanitus. He should have known, which made this entire situation his fault. He only hoped Rapunzel wouldn't blame him for it. "I shouldn't have let her come," he admitted out loud. "But she's the only other friend Rapunzel's ever had. They're like sisters…apparently now in a more literal sense." He chuckled mirthlessly. "It's a small, small world."

"Families are no exception to disputes," the king observed solemnly. "Take Horace VII, or even King Creighton himself. Your own ancestors are examples of this."

"Yeah, but this is dealing with an all-powerful magic artifact that can apparently be used to control people and make terrifying black rocks that are indestructible and have put countless lives at risk for decades now!" Eugene sucked in a deep breath, looking sheepishly about to see if he'd woken anyone with his outburst. The hall was filled with the raucous sound of Lance's snoring, and the few animals that weren't keeping Adira company outside had finally started to settle down. Eugene still wasn't sure why Rudiger was a hulking rage-monster, but he figured questions like that could wait. "Where did you put the kids?"

King Edmund rolled his shoulders, loosening the kinks in his surging neck. "The guardsman is resting in the throne room. I never sit in there, anyway."

"Why?"

"Because I have no kingdom to rule, no authority to –"

"No, I meant why is he resting in there?"

The king sighed. "He wants to watch over the chamber, where the others are. The witch girl deemed it the most 'stable' place for Quirin's son to recuperate."

"I'm sorry, did you say 'witch girl'? The creepy chick is a witch?" Then he remembered the spell the girl had cast, trying to restrain the king. "Sorry," he admitted. "Right, magic spell and stuff. It just have a super knee-jerk reaction to the word 'witch', since one of those killed me once. It happened, I have witnesses."

King Edmund cleared his throat, almost uncomfortably. "Yes, well, the Coronan princess said she was going to see them."

"What? I thought she was –" Eugene looked about, hoping to see Rapunzel sleeping over by Lance. When all he saw was his old friend's snoring barrel-chest, he groaned. "Rapunzel…I told her she could talk to them in the morning. She's injured, she should be resting!"

King Edmund allowed himself the rarest, tiniest smirk. "It's been less than a day, and I can already tell your sweet one gives you trouble."

"Among other things." Eugene smirked back. "But she is sweet. For what it's worth, I hope you like her."

"We'll see," the king exhaled. "I have other matters to attend to long before I'm more…emotionally equipped to discuss such things. Speaking of equipment, I expect the Mad King's axe to remain with me. In return, I'll provide the guardsman with a new armament."

"I'll go let him know." Eugene needed the excuse; as refreshing as these chats were, he had exhausted his conversational topics with his "dad" for now. He trudged his way down the hall and descended the steps to the throne room, his own footsteps echoing eerily off the stone walls. The grand room yawned before him, and he felt his stomach clench as he revisited the awful scene. Some of the black rocks had receded when Varian had passed out, but several still remained, and there was debris everywhere.

Clear on the other side sat Martin in the king's throne, his legs splayed casually out across the obsidian dais. His bare arm was tucked into his tunic, his blonde hair was disheveled, and his brown eyes were dim with fatigue.

Eugene stepped toward him and stopped with his hands in his pockets. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," Martin replied.

"Your arm okay?"

Martin shrugged. "It's fine. I'm just cold."

Eugene shuffled his feet. "I, uh…I bet you're wondering why I'm here."

Martin shrugged again. "Not really."

"Well, I have a very important message. From the king. That's why it's important."

"Uh-huh."

"The king wants his axe back."

"That's great. I don't have it." Martin gestured half-heartedly across the room, where the axe lay among a pile of rubble on the floor. "Those rocks over there have it."

Eugene stretched his neck with a sigh. "You know, we're all a little under-the-weather right now, so I'll cut you some slack, since you're probably just as exhausted as I am. Since I'm down here, though, there is a question I wanted to ask you."

Martin held his hands out in an open gesture, his eyebrows disappearing under his hair. "Let me guess. You want to ask me what the heck I'm doing here."

"No." Eugene said with forced levity. "Actually, I was going to ask why…yeah, I was going ask why you're here."

"It's a looooooong story," Martin answered. "Like, at least forty chapters."

"Give me the revised version."

Martin sat forward with a grunt, wincing. "About a year ago, I passed my guard's training and was given jail duty as my first assignment."

"Jail duty." Eugene nodded slowly, running a hand through his dark hair. "Oh, I can see where this is going."

"Yep. About a month later, some kid from Old Corona gets thrown in the clink. Very unusual punishment for a minor. I knew it, the Captain knew it…we all knew it was strange. But we didn't question, didn't argue. I assumed off the bat that this kid was some kind of arsonist or serial thief, but even those kinds of crimes only warrant a jail cell for an adult. This was a teen, almost old enough to enter the academy, like I did."

Eugene blinked. "You pitied him."

"I pitied him." Martin gave a half-hearted smile. "Me and my bleeding heart. I threw him a bone, talked to him like I would any other human being. At first, he didn't say anything back, but after a while, he started to humor me. A lot of it was salt and back-biting. I was a guard, and he was my prisoner. It wasn't sunshine and rainbows…but he never gave me a lick of trouble."

"That's a surprise. Wish I could say the same."

Martin frowned sharply. "I'm not going there."

"Alright," Eugene conceded. "So, then he escaped."

"I never saw it coming. Call me naïve. Word up the chain was that the king was finally getting around to considering a lighter sentence, maybe even turning him over to Yaeger to oversee research."

"Yaeger." Eugene remembered him: the poster boy for the Captain's scout team, high-ranking and always ready to beat someone with the stick he had up his…He cleared his throat. "So, he escapes. Then what?"

"I was on duty when it happened, so I took the fall. Got pushed to the street, outside the gates. It's what happens when the Captain doesn't have enough dirt to nix you, so he tries to forget you exist. A few weeks later, I'm going about my day, feeling sorry for myself, wondering when Bethany's going to write back to me, when lo and behold! There he is, sneaking around the corner."

Eugene clapped his hands to his sides. "Okay. This is all great, but how did you go from wanting to bring the kid in to becoming his best friend?"

Martin shrugged. "That's easy. He saved my life. The deal was that I'd still bring him in, just not until he got to the Moonstone and saved the world, or whatever. Of course, then all this happened, and now…" He shrugged again. "At the moment, I'm just happy he's alive."

Eugene sighed sharply. "What about the witch girl? What's her story?"

"Ask her," Martin supplied lamely. "Something about being his long-lost childhood friend, her mom being trapped in a tomb…her uncle's some crazy witch hunter that tried to kill us. Oh, and she's a bit of a pyromaniac, but she's kind of in denial about it. Friendly suggestion: don't use the 'w' word around her. She doesn't like that very much."

"Great, just great." Eugene wiped his hands down his tired face. "I'm definitely going to forget that at some point. My sleep is…I need it."

"Yeah," Martin narrowed his gaze. "Maybe before you go get some, you might want to explain why the Captain's daughter decided it was a good idea to stab you in the back and nearly get us all killed?"

Eugene made a dry chuckle. "Just like you said…It's a looooooong story."