Chapter 22: A Long Overdue Conversation
A few days had passed since the Induction Ceremony. The other princesses had gone home to their respective kingdoms, and Adora finally had an audience with Salas. She felt on the verge of hyperventilating right outside his office, deep in Bright Moon castle. Strong hands pulled hers away from her braid when she moved to redo it, and Adora turned to see Bow giving her a knowing look.
"How many times have you messed with that in the past half hour?" he asked, releasing her wrists when she didn't fight him and gripping her by the shoulders instead. "The braid is perfect, like always. Just focus on me instead. Breathe."
"Okay." She nodded and leaned into him as she closed her eyes and took deep breaths. The urge to fix her hair subsided. "I'm calm now," she said after several moments. "Thanks, Bow."
He flashed her a grin when she opened her eyes again. "If it gets a bit much in there, just remember that he doesn't hate you," he said. "He's just scatterbrained with everything that's going on. Angella said so herself, and if anyone has information that can help you it will be him. This is a good thing, you going to talk to him."
"I don't know what I would do without you," Adora said. The relief that flooded her as she soaked in his words was hard to describe. "Are you going to be here when I get out?"
"Probably not," he said, releasing her. "I promised Swift Wind I would fly with him right after this, and I wouldn't feel right canceling last minute."
"Ah." Adora fought to keep her guilt from showing on her face. Bow had couched things in impressively non-confrontational language, but it still reminded Adora she hadn't ridden Swift Wind in nearly two years. It wasn't his fault things had deteriorated between them; it was hers. She had expected too much from him, thinking she could reconnect with She Ra through their bond. "Yeah, no problem. That's…that's probably a good idea."
"Hey," Bow said, shaking her loose from her thoughts. "It's fine. Really. Him and I are overdue for some guy time is all."
Adora wanted to argue—how could it be okay? But the look in his eyes and the expression on his face convinced her and, for the hundredth time that week, she wondered if she would have remained sane even a fraction as long as she had so far without him.
He promised they'd meet up the next day so she could share whatever she got from Salas, and Adora watched him recede down the hall and turn the corner, out of sight. She waited a little longer after he disappeared, just in case he came back, then quickly undid her braid and fixed it for the fourth time that afternoon. She took another steadying breath when she finished, and turned finally to face the door to Salas' office.
You can do this, she thought. She raised a fist to the wood and knocked.
"Come in," came his voice from inside.
Adora pushed inside, only to be assaulted with the sight of the messiest, most cluttered room she had ever seen in the castle. Salas stood behind an ebony desk, piled high with papers and books and other esoteric paraphernalia, holding up a document and squinting at it as he read.
"Hello Adora," he said, glancing over his paper at her as she made slow, tentative steps inside. "Please, have a seat."
She looked to the single chair in front of the desk. Piled atop the cushion sat another stack of books and papers. She almost said something, and then Salas gestured. A tiny ripple of magic billowed out from him, and a small spinning rune appeared over the stack, picking it up, floating it off the seat, and placing it gently somewhere to the side and out of the way.
"Thanks," Adora said, taking the seat.
The stacks of books and papers on the desk itself obscured almost all of Salas standing behind it, and she wouldn't have been able to look him in the eyes had he been sitting down. Salas made another gesture and several more runes appeared over each pile, moving them one after the other out of the way until the desk too was spotless. Once the spell finished, he took a seat on the other side, folded both hands atop the desk, and gave her his full attention.
"Angella mentioned a few days ago you'd be reaching out to me," he said. "She also properly admonished me for not warning you about changing the meeting itineraries. I'm sorry about that, my mind has been all over the place keeping track of things. And now that Entrapta has sent me this log of security breaches to review"—he waved the document he still held in his hand—"I barely have time to sleep or eat, let alone remember the little details." He put the paper down on the desk and slid it off to the side. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Adora fidgeted in the chair. Admittedly this wasn't nearly as intimidating or stressful as she had imagined it beforehand to be. She knew better, had seen enough first-hand to know this wasn't the case, but Salas looked positively harmless amidst a room full of books. That, and spoke in such a way it was hard to not feel welcome in his presence. Her unease, she realized with a small amount of surprise, wasn't that he scared her, it was that she had no idea exactly what to say to him. How did she jumpstart that conversation about her fears and troubles, the Daiamid, and She Ra?
She took a deep breath and dove right in, starting with the nightmares. The entire time, he merely listened, sometimes asking clarifying questions and other times only nodding or leaning forward to show his investment in her words. Before she knew it, she had walked him through the entire vision that had plagued her for three years since that day aboard Prime's citadel.
"This is a common phenomenon when coming into contact with the Beast I'm afraid," Salas said, frowning slightly and giving her a sympathetic look.
"Is there anything I can do to make them stop? Or make them, I don't know…less?"
"It's not a perfect cure, but you could try to stop your obsessing over the Beast. Once you stop thinking about it day in and day out, the nightmares will gradually lose their potency."
Adora frowned. "I don't think about the Beast every day like that," she said.
"You don't?"
"No."
"And your constant, almost pathological physical training near daily for the past three years has nothing to do with the Beast? The hours upon hours you spend meditating in front of your runestone? The weeks at a time you'd lock yourself deep in the castle library or George and Lance's collection, poring over old tomes and deciphering ancient writings?"
Adora frowned. He recalled a lot about behavior for someone so busy they couldn't be bothered to warn her about barring her from meetings. "All of that is so I can try and get back in touch with She Ra."
"And then you can fire the Heart and defeat the Beast when it comes time. When that's done, you've succeeded in saving trillions of lives. Then you can rest?" Salas let the words hang between them for several moments and something clicked in Adora's head.
"Oh. Okay, I think I see what you're trying to get at." She narrowed her eyes. "So, your advice is to just stop worrying? 'Hey Adora, have you tried solving your problem by, I don't know…not having a problem?' There's a universe eating threat out there and I have the responsibility to stop it, Salas. I can't force myself to just not care about it."
Salas sighed. "You're missing my point. During the first conflict, you were considered extraordinarily lucky if you lived at all after exposure to the Beast in person. A small amount and you might have gotten out relatively unscathed, a tiny bit more and you'd lose your sanity if you were lucky enough to emerge at all. Any more than that and the Beast claimed you entirely and took you as a thrall. In fact, there are only a handful of people that we know for certain ever lived through a lethal exposure, one of them being Corynth and another being someone I explicitly am forbidden from discussing. I'm sure you know who I'm talking about."
"Evelyn."
Salas shut his eyes and hissed with tense shoulders. Adora let silence linger between them, until he relaxed and opened his eyes.
"How many times do I have to tell you it's dangerous to utter that name?"
"We're on a planet-sized black-site research station," Adora said. "One that Horde Prime explicitly agreed not to spy on while we worked. You yourself told me about Taline's sister not long after she left. If the Emperor was going to bring the hammer down on us for saying that name here, it would have happened already."
"Yes, but I'm concerned about what happens later," Salas said. "Etheria will enter the public sphere at some point, and when it does it will be the center of a great deal of attention and scrutiny. Just because you may be safe to utter that name now does not mean that will always be the case. If you were to slip up in a place where the emperor could pay attention—"
"Okay, okay I get it," Adora said, deflating. "Sorry. I won't let it happen again. Can we just get back to the part where you help me? Please?" She felt a little bad cutting him off like that, but another of his endless lectures was not something she was prepared to handle graciously. Not with her nerves as frayed as they were—she already felt the urge to fix her braid again.
Salas eyed her with exasperated eyes before he continued. "What you were exposed to aboard the citadel was merely this person's last memories before they passed. The Beast wasn't actually there, but seeing through her eyes as the thing consumed her must have been enough to influence your brain chemistry anyways."
"I don't actually remember seeing anything of her memories," Adora said. "She Ra said she protected me from them. I just a vision of my own."
"Even so, that mind of yours is ruminating," Salas said. "It's doing everything it can to re-analyze the threat it experienced that day, over and over again, turning it relentlessly to inspect every angle so it might know how to fight properly should it stumble across the Beast again. The only problem is, there isn't really a threat. Not an immediate one, at least, because you aren't in any immediate danger—you're sitting here, in my study, with me. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I think so," Adora said, nodding. "I know the difference between training to fight this thing and actually being in the middle of a fight with it but…my brain doesn't?"
"You are exactly right. If you can learn to step away and stay away, to separate your anxiety from yourself after a night terror, your mind will eventually pick up on the fact that you are safe, even if you don't feel that way in the moment. Repeat that enough times, and eventually the nightmares will cease to have as strong an effect. Cognitive behavioral therapy in a nutshell."
"Will the nightmares ever go away altogether, do you think?"
"Not fully," Salas said. "I'm afraid they will likely be with you to some extent even far into the future, but they will lose their potency. They may spike in frequency or severity especially around anniversaries like now, but in time they will lessen to something more akin to an uncomfortable memory instead of a debilitating nightmare."
Adora considered that.
"I also want to add that you aren't the only one struggling with this sort of thing right now," Salas said.
"What do you mean?" Adora asked. "Someone else is having nightmares too?" As far as she knew, only Glimmer and possibly Catra had them. Everyone else aboard the citadel when Taline exposed them—Scorpia, Micah, Bow, even Lonnie and Rogelio before they left—hadn't experienced side effects.
Salas laughed. "Sometimes I forget how literal a person you are Adora. It's endearing. I see why Angella speaks so fondly of you."
Adora flushed and, thankfully, Salas continued without making a bigger deal of it.
"Morale is beginning to dip. The Light Hope roadblock is proving to be a real struggle for our scientists and engineers. Their frustrations are beginning to seep into the support structure around them, which is exactly why Angella gave the type of speech she did at the ceremony."
"She didn't say those things just to get through to me," Adora said, replaying in her mind what Angella had said that night. It was explicitly worded for everyone to hear, but Adora had been so focused on her own problems and her own struggles she only saw it as Angella speaking directly to her in the moment. She forgot the queen had only used her as an example to inspire, even if her words were genuine.
"I've learned once Entrapta starts to feel the stress, then the others have likely been feeling it much worse for far longer," Salas said. "Why do you think I approved Hordak's shore leave early? Entrapta needed a break…Hordak needed a break. Everyone needs a break." He smiled at her. "You especially."
"I don't know how I can do that though," Adora said. She felt like they were finally getting to the root of the problem, the thing she hadn't been able to voice out loud. "Even if I take time off and get away, I don't think I'd be able to relax. I could be sitting in one of Mystacor's spa pools and still be worrying about the Beast and my connection to She Ra. It's like I'm missing a part of myself, Salas. You don't just stop thinking about it because you decided to take a vacation."
"That's a fair point," Salas said, sitting back in his chair and combing his hands through his hair. "Did you find anything helpful from Glimmer about the Daiamid?"
Adora did a double take. "How do you know about that?" she asked. The ansible communications were supposed to be private.
"I know everything that happens here," he said, speaking as if that were common knowledge. "Why do you think my mind can't tell up from down anymore? Too much to juggle for one old man."
"Well apparently you didn't know about all the security breaches," Adora said, then immediately cringed when she heard how bad that sounded. She shot him a sheepish look when he glared at her. "Sorry."
"Yes…well…" Salas adjusted his clothing and sat straighter in the chair. "I must admit I'm impressed she found those breaches in the first place. The crew schedules are supposed to be top secret."
"How is someone able to manipulate the system like that for three years without anyone catching on?" Adora asked.
"They aren't," Salas said, narrowing his eyes and glancing toward the paper from earlier again. "Someone is helping them game the system."
"We have a mole?"
"We have a mole," Salas said nodding. "Although now that Entrapta has brought it to my attention, the charade is up. It's only a matter of time before the intruder is found, and their inside man as well. The funny thing," he said, grabbing the paper again and scanning it, "is their personnel file is only three years old. Same as the length of the breaches."
"That's…bad. That is bad, right?"
"Every person working here on the Heart has an extensive, recorded history either with the Enclave or the Empire, and their entire record should be available for me to see. It's only the members of the standing navy in orbit that are more inexperienced, since we need as many veterans as possible slowing the Beast down on the front lines. But even they have service histories stretching back past three years. To find someone in the system that has no history before the Enclave took responsibility over Etheria in the first place is an anomaly."
Salas flipped the paper over for her and Adora saw how little information was printed on it. A small photo of the person in question stared at her in the upper corner.
"That's the guy I saw in Entrapta's lab!" she said, pointing at the picture. "He was at the Induction Ceremony too, just standing there in front of Narre and Miri's grave."
"The name we have on file for him is Kalanthe, although I wouldn't be too certain that's his actual name." Salas sighed and studied the paper again through narrow eyes. Having an inside man to move you around and get through security is one thing, but having a doctored Imperial service record is another. And when I looked into the Eternian dig sites this 'Kalanthe' character visited, none of them showed any signs of tampering at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Those sites are incredibly complex for our team to work through. So much so, that we're still breaking into them to this day. Eternian technology is several orders of magnitude more advanced than the current cutting edge of the Empire. But, once we inevitably do get in, there are no signs of someone else having been there in thousands of years. Whoever this person is, they've been doing something with the ruins, getting in and out over the course of a few hours, sometimes as little as thirty minutes, and leaving without a trace. It usually takes our best people weeks just to get the darn things open."
"That sounds really serious," Adora said.
"Believe me, the fact he is able to do something with the ruins in that short amount of time is more concerning to me than the fact he's been skulking about undetected for so long," Salas drummed his fingers on the desk, a nervous tic. "If you see him again, do not engage him. I want you to call for back up and wait for it to arrive, okay?"
Adora agreed and Salas seemed to relax. "Now, I believe we were originally talking about the Daiamid?" he said. "I know you asked Glimmer to look into it, but I haven't had the time yet to find out on my own what she told you."
Adora wilted. "She couldn't find anything. There's nothing on them other than what everyone already knows. I don't even know what a 'Shaper' is. Is there like, a special type of member they call a 'Shaper of the Daiamid' or…?"
"That's just the official title someone in their ranks had," Salas said. "They 'shape' their magic rather than relying on runes. Thus, 'Shaper.'"
Adora gave him a look that said she didn't find that at all helpful and Salas laughed.
"I'm not surprised you didn't find anything, just to be clear," he said. "The emperor is obsessive about controlling the narrative and flow of information surrounding the first Beast war. Corynth and the other Shapers are a large part of that."
"I had hoped there might be something in the Enclave's records that would tell me more about them," Adora said. "I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but I thought learning about them might help me reconnect with She Ra."
Salas smoothed his hair back with his hands again and sighed. "You aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. The truth is they likely would have had a lot to teach you had they still been alive. They knew how to manipulate magic in the same way as you princesses, only without runestones of their own."
"Glimmer mentioned you might have first-hand knowledge about them," Adora said. "The fact they were considered myths before showing up wasn't even in the public documents—I only knew that because you mentioned it before."
"Of course I have first-hand knowledge," Salas said. "I know more about the Daiamid than you'd ever learn looking for recordings in some archive, Enclave or no. I just can't actually teach you what they would have when it came to your powers. Taline would have been better suited to that, if she were still here."
Adora frowned. "Why would Taline be able to teach me what the Daiamid would have?"
"She would have been one of them if she hadn't so brazenly planted her flag against them at her sister's trial," Salas said.
"Wait," Adora said, heartrate picking up. "Wait, wait, wait…you're saying she was going to join them? Then turned them down purposefully to oppose them? Why would she do that? Weren't they trying to help her sister escape after Prime ordered her executed?"
"I don't know," Salas said. "She's never told me, although not for lack of me asking, mind you. Taline was one of the jurors at the trial. I don't think it ever even crossed her mind that her sister might have been acting out of a genuine belief she was right, but Taline was convinced the Daiamid were manipulating her sister into defying the emperor for their own purposes. She became one of the few people to fight them and live."
"Taline fought the Daiamid?"
"Not just the Daiamid," Salas said. His eyes glazed over in a look that told Adora he was reliving something vivid from his memories. "She fought Corynth himself. On the steps of the Imperial Judiciary, deep in the Heartlands. I'll never forget that duel for as long as I live. I was there when Prime made the accusation of sedition…I was there when Corynth and every other Shaper present revealed their real identities and protected the scientists while they made their escape. I was there when Taline rebuffed Corynth's offer for her to join them."
"She must have had a good reason to do that. She had to." Adora couldn't imagine someone like Taline making decisions lightly, not after the way she looked her in the eye up on the citadel and commanded her to surrender.
"She must have," Salas said, agreeing. "Although, again, she never told me what that reason was no matter how many times I asked. Never explained why she thought the Daiamid were manipulating rather than helping. All I know is she wasn't faking it. The ferocity with which she fought that day…the look in her eyes as she did so...that was someone who truly thought she'd lose her sister forever if she didn't turn Corynth into a red smear across the pavement."
He laughed and, to Adora, it sounded sad. "Looking back on it now, that's exactly what happened, actually. Still, powerful as she was even back then, Taline was no match for him. If Narre and Miri hadn't stepped in when they did to pull her back…"
He trailed off and Adora's imagination ran wild. She knew what kind of figure Corynth was—had seen some of the documentaries, watched some of the movies, read some of the biopics. That battle must have been unimaginable to witness and she wanted to ask Salas more, wanted to get him to tell her of it in greater detail. But, upon seeing the look of sadness and regret on his face, her tongue stilled. Instead, she refocused on why the topic had been brought up to begin with.
"Even if Taline was powerful enough to fight their leader, she never actually became one of them," Adora said. "How would she be able to teach me what they would have about my powers?"
"It's not just because she fought them," Salas said. "It's because she understands magic at a level even higher than myself. If Battlemages are the Enclave elite, then the Daiamid could justifiably be considered the Battlemage elite. They have a connection to the underlying chaos of the world unlike any other, and that allows them to 'shape' that chaos, and thus the world, as they see fit. Within reason, of course.
"What Taline did on Archanas to earn her 'Seraph' title…the fact she can cast magic without relying so heavily on runes…and just look at what she did with Glimmer. It takes five years on average for a top-class mage to earn a full Battlemage commission from the Enclave. Your friend is an incredibly talented person, but earning the Battlemage designation in little over a year is in large part thanks to Taline's mentorship."
Adora blinked at him. "Okay, she's very talented. Maybe even a genius, sure. But you and the other mentors are no slouches, and Micah is considered a prodigy too. I don't understand how she'd help me when they couldn't. Glimmer is able to do runic magic even with her connection to the Moonstone being severed because she's so far away. I couldn't even light my candle for the Induction Ceremony when it went out."
Salas rubbed his hands together and grumbled.
"I'm starting to believe you are purposefully looking for reasons to fail rather than for solutions. I mentioned runes, didn't I? As mages, we concentrate on the study and application of runes as a medium for channeling magic. If you have the gift, understand the formulas, and can draw good, clean runes, you can cast powerful spells quite reliably. This is different from how you and the other princesses tap into magic through your runestones. The connection, at least in that instance, is more visceral. More…instinctual, you could say.
"Thankfully, since the majority of the princesses have had connections to their runestones for quite some time, the issue with training them is less about how to foster the connection, and more about how to hone it, develop it, and exercise even greater control over it. All of which are aspects that the Enclave and its philosophy around magic excel at."
"But when it comes to me," Adora said. "Someone who didn't have a connection or even formal training for the majority of my life…"
"It's a different hurdle entirely," Salas said, nodding. "One in which we sadly have very little experience in. For us, you either have the gift and can connect or you cannot. We have no pedagogy for training someone to foster a connection in the first place. The Daiamid on the other hand? Taline? People who are skilled enough to cast reliably without relying on runes? They are in tune enough with magic to do so only because they've somehow fostered a connection far stronger than the average mage. Average Battlemage, even."
Adora groaned and sat back in her chair. "But Taline is gone, and she's expressly forbidden from participating in the Heart project in any way. She can't help me. And I can't just not ever connect to She Ra again. There's so much riding on this and I'm literally driving myself insane. What am I supposed to do? I feel like a failure."
"Adora, the one thing I can say is that you will learn to channel She Ra again one day."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind."
"Well, I have enough doubt for the both of us then, and I'm the one that needs to perform here. How can you be so confident?"
"Because this isn't an issue about whether or not you have a connection in the first place," Salas said with a smile. "If you felt nothing when you reached for your power then I'd be more concerned, but this is about fostering your existing connection and learning to tap into it again, not learning how to reconnect something that was severed. If that were the case, not even Taline nor the Daiamid would have been able to help."
Adora frowned and considered that. Was that supposed to make her feel better? She wasn't cut off from her powers entirely, but practically speaking, was there any difference?
"You are afraid, Adora," Salas said, bringing her out of her thoughts. "And I completely understand that feeling, especially with the weight you put on yourself. But you are not ready. You will be one day, but not right now, and that's perfectly okay. Don't rush it."
Adora let out a big breath, finally understanding for the first time what everyone had been trying to tell her for so long. It was okay to not be ready. Lots of other things weren't ready either, like Light Hope. They had time. She flashed Salas a small smile, then faltered a bit when she realized how foreign doing so had felt. It must have been some time since she had smiled last.
"The Heart project will continue," Salas said. "And Entrapta has also floated some ideas for trying to activate and channel the Heart without relying on She Ra. You'd still be the first choice of course, but if she comes up with that breakthrough then the fate of the galaxy won't rest on your ability to perform any longer."
That made Adora feel even more at ease. Being able to fire the weapon without She Ra would be a huge boost, and it honestly would take away almost all the pressure she felt. She'd be able to reconnect with her powers at her own pace, without worrying about trillions dying if she failed. If it could be done at all, she knew full well Entrapta would be the one to figure out how.
"I think I'd like to take some time off," Adora said, relief flooding through her as she finally said the words.
Salas didn't miss a beat. "Done," he said. "Next two weeks are yours to do with what you will. Just take your PDA with you and check in from time to time."
Adora smiled wider, the sudden urge to collapse into a bed and sleep for a week straight hitting her hard. She stood, thanking Salas out loud for his time and thanking Angella and Glimmer in her head for pushing her to do this. As she made her way to the exit, she realized the overwhelming pressure that had been in her chest for so long had disappeared.
For the first time in a long while, she felt free.
Adora woke from a nap, hours later and long after the sun had set. The moons, framed by the alien constellations and nebulae of their new sector in space, shined through the tall window of her room and bathed her in their light. The triangular silhouettes of a half-dozen Orbital Defense carriers holding a parade formation loomed high overhead, standing stark against the night sky. She stood and stretched, feeling well rested for the first time in ages. To her surprise, the first thing her unburdened mind wandered to was Catra.
Her thoughts had edged toward her old friend every now and then in the past, typically in moments of quiet, and each time it had done so she'd been diligent about pushing them down in order to refocus on her training. But now, after a blissful sleep and with nothing on her plate for the next two weeks, she found that she didn't actually want to push the thoughts away anymore.
How was Catra doing? What was it that she had asked Glimmer to look into for her? How was Phoenix Station? Did she miss her? Or had she made new friends and moved on already?
The last question in particular sent a stone of anxiousness plummeting through her stomach, and she wandered over to her PDA on her desk, hoping she'd find a distraction on its screen. Instead, seemingly without thought, she turned the device's record feature on and started taping a message to Catra. She got all of two words in before she suddenly didn't know what to say and quickly deleted the footage.
Now she didn't want to think anything about Catra at all. She slipped the PDA onto one arm, clasped the gauntlet with her still-cracked runestone in it onto her other arm, and grabbed her fighting staff. When the (practically second-nature) urge to do her hair up in its tucked-in braid came, she ignored it and headed out the door, hair down for the first time in years, after slipping her shoes on. She had the sudden urge to make a trip to the Crystal Castle, and decided that a solo walk through the cool night air under the stars would do her well.
Feeling playful for the first time in ages, she made a game out of sneaking past the guards patrolling the hallways. They wouldn't have stopped her had they seen her, but it gave her something to focus on, and kept her mind from inadvertently turning back toward Catra again out of idleness.
Soon, she made it out the castle and to the grounds. Dozens of new fortifications, barricades, and turrets littered the area, all of it set up during the Enclave's previous three years. It was as clear and frightening a sign as any that they were preparing for war. She rounded a particularly tall guard tower when a voice called out to her from behind.
"Adora? Is that you?"
She turned around and saw Swift Wind not more than a dozen paces away, standing near one of the stables, giving her a confused look.
"Your hair is down," he said. "Wow, it's been ages since I've seen you like that."
"Hey Swifty…" she said, trying to keep the apprehension she felt from seeping into her voice. Judging by how the hesitancy on his face only deepened, she probably didn't do a good job of it. "What are you doing out here so late?"
Swift Wind blinked at her and turned to look at the stable behind him. "I live out here?"
Shit, way to go Adora, she thought. Way to not make things even more awkward.
"Oh yeah!" she said, forcing a laugh. "Silly me. Uhm…Bow told me you guys were going to hang out. How did that go?"
"Fine. Bow's always a good time." Swift Wind narrowed his eyes at her and took a tentative step forward. "Are you going somewhere?"
"Just going out for a bit. Need to clear my head." Adora took a step back, angling her body away. She hoped he'd take the hint.
"Why don't I come with you?" he said, perking up. "Feels like we haven't talked in ages. Would be good to catch up."
"Sorry I just"—Adora cringed when she saw hurt flash across his face—"I just really need to be alone right now. But yes! We do need to catch up. Soon, I promise. Okay?"
Swift Wind nodded, taking a step back. "Sure," he said. "Soon."
Adora grit her teeth and waited for him to turn away. When he didn't break eye contact first, she did, and swore her heart broke a little because of it. She turned fully around and walked as quickly as she could away from him and away from the castle grounds. By the time she felt brave enough to look over her shoulder, he was long gone.
A good hour and a half later and she was deep in the Whispering Woods. Etheria always had a nasty chill at night, and she hugged her jacket closer to her as a breeze pushed past. The woods used to confuse her and easily get her turned around, but years escaping from Bright Moon and traversing its many trees eventually gave her an innate sense of direction. Soon, the spires of her castle peeked through the branches and leaves around her, and she power walked to the entrance.
Something felt off about the place the longer she looked at it, and it wasn't until she got closer that she realized why: There were no guards at the front, and the door was already wide open. One of the first things the Enclave did was set up a rotation of guards for all the castles, hers included, and no one except her and a select few others had the credentials to open the door.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" she whispered, as she poked around.
Something glinted in the moonlight off in the distance and she ran toward it. Two guards lay with their backs against the trunk of a large tree, placed in a way that no one would see them walking up from the front. Not unless they specifically came from off the beaten path.
"Hey, wake up," she said, squatting down in front of them and snapping her fingers near their faces. They didn't stir and, for a terrible moment, she thought they were dead. Then she pressed two fingers against each of their necks and felt a pulse.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she tapped at her PDA. Salas had told her not to engage and to call for backup if she ever encountered the intruder, and she had a strong inkling that was exactly who she'd find if she went inside. This "Kalanthe" apparently hadn't visited the Scorpion Kingdom or Bright Moon yet when Entrapta had given her analysis, and Adora had seen him in both places since. If he was hitting First One's locations and ruins, then the Crystal Castle would be a natural target.
She typed out a quick message to Bow, urging him to get backup, and pursed her lips when it kicked back an error. She pressed the call button next to his avatar and uttered a frantic curse under her breath when it didn't even attempt to put her through: the stupid thing couldn't pick up a signal.
She glanced at the door to the castle, to the unconscious guards against the tree, and back to her PDA, weighing her options. She could run back to the castle to get help, sit here and wait for a signal, or go in and confront whoever was in there herself.
The lack of connectivity wasn't just a coincidence, she was sure of it. Blocking any and all communications in or out of an infiltration zone seemed like child's play given the intruder could apparently hack into First Ones ruins in a matter of hours. Not to mention downing all of the surrounding surveillance cameras.
Running back to Bright Moon castle to physically bring reinforcements was out of the question as well, she decided. In that time, Kalanthe could escape, or worse, could come back and finish off these guards.
She made up her mind. Adora took a deep breath and, gripping her combat staff tight, she stood and ran into the castle.
