"This. Is disgusting," Annabel said to Walter, concerning the awful stench and strange squelch coming from the ground of the sewers, "Where are we even going?"

We had been walking for a while now, through the catacombs to find a way out of the blood-stained castle, and we had ended up going through the Bowerstone sewers. There had been several bats, which the princess had very simply destroyed with her new found 'gauntlet' which seemed to appear out of thin air, much to the happiness of Jasper- who hated bats- and Walter- who loved battle. It was shocking at first, to see fire come out of the princess' hand, but as Annabel slowly managed to work out how to use her new-found power, I felt more secure.

We had been walking for a while now, and I was beginning to get rather tired, until we could see something in the distance. There was something circular on the ground, though I couldn't quite make out what it was; I had never seen it before.

"It's a Cullis gate," Walter said before anybody could ask, "I thought they were all gone, but this must be one of the only ones left."

Annabel was the first to speak up. "It's also a dead end, where do we go now?"

"Well, gate is the important word here. This will take us somewhere, hopefully out of the castle if we are lucky, though you will need to use your will power princess."

So Annabel stepped on top of the Cullis gate, and used her surround magic to power up the gate. I saw the circle of fire, then everything went into a blur as I felt like I was being pulled in half, it was an abnormal, nauseating feeling. We were thrown onto the floor of an unusual looking room, caked in dust, with a map table in the middle and four doors leading off into other rooms. I sat on the floor rubbing my back where I had fallen on top of something sharp and waited for my vision to focus fully. It was a beautiful room. I could hear in the Clover, the princess's most trusted friend and dog sneeze and whine at Annabel to get off the ground. We all slowly shook our clothes and stood up, groaning and moaning as our joints clicked into place.

"Let's not do that EVER again," I said to everyone, still trying to stretch my arms and legs out fully.

"I second that, Miss Emily," replied Jasper, as we dumped the bags onto the floor to look around the room. "Hmm, this place… Walter is this-"

Walter interrupted. "It is. It's the old Kings sanctuary. Fascinating… He talked of it often, but I never thought it existed…"

I seemed to recall something of a sanctuary long ago, from a story the old King Sparrow used to tell many times to Annabel, Elliot, Logan and I. It was about the first time he had brought the Queen - Annabel's and Logan's mother – to the sanctuary, and how she would try on all his clothes and jump through his gold, play with his weapons like a young child again. I was too young to remember the Queen, but many talked of her being a fair and just woman, who loved all as her equal. But she was unwell for a long time, and the sickness grew inside her, and Avo took her away.

Jasper was flicking through the guide to the sanctuary, trying to find out how to use the map table, whilst I set about to cleaning the sanctuary and unpacking. Clover was nudging her nose on Annabel's hand, but she wouldn't respond to her, she sat there with a vacant expression on her face, staring into the distance.

Broken little toy...

"Did you hear that?" I inquired about the odd voice I had heard.

"Hear what?" Walter asked, but the voice seemed to have stopped, so I shrugged it off.

"Aha!" exclaimed Jasper, pointing to a rather lengthy paragraph in the book, "Well, it says here, 'to use the map table, you must select where you wish to go, and find that specific area on the map, point, and then suffer some slight or extreme nausea until you get to your destination.' Needless to say then I will not be joining you on these journeys; I prefer to keep my feet placed firmly on the ground."

I laughed, agreeing with Jasper on this. "I'll stay as well, tidy things up a bit."

Walter walked along to the map table. "Then it shall be just Clover, Annabel and I." Clover barked at the sound of adventure, but Annabel remained silent. "Annabel?"

She snapped out of her trance in that second to reply, "Yes Walter?"

"Er, we… we should get going to the dweller camp."

"Oh. Right." She got up to stand next to Walter, but her feet dragged on the floor.

And then they disappeared, leaving Jasper and I went to sort the sanctuary back into its former glory.

Time past and things were becoming cleaner by the minute. I had discovered many beautiful items whilst doing this, such as the old Hero's weapons and fascinating books on so many subjects. Jasper was still flicking through the pages of the sanctuary book, occasionally making small grunts and acknowledgements.

"How's the reading going?" I asked, curious about how such a large book could be for a small few rooms.

He had not seemed to have heard me, so I pretended I hadn't said anything and continued to unpack all the items in the bags we had brought.

"We're back!" I could hear Walter in the main room, so I walked from the weapons room into where the newly-dusted map table stood.

"How did it go?"

This time, Annabel spoke up, grinning for the first time since Elliot's death. "We almost have complete support of the Dwellers; it was incredible to see the outside world and places I had never been. Now all we have to is take out Saker."

"Saker? Are you crazy!? He has an entire army of Mercenaries at his beck and call and you want to take him on?" I exclaimed.

"Yes," Walter replied grimly, "But we will need some more hands if we are to stop them all."

I jumped to attention at this point. Because to be honest? I loved fighting. The heat of the moment when you bring your opponent to his knees was such a thrilling thing, even though I hadn't really done any fighting since being taken into the castle when I was eleven. But fighting reminded me of my Father, who I had loved dearly. My mother has died just a few weeks after I was born, so it was just him and I, but we got on well and never had any troubles. He taught me all of my fighting, and I realised that I was a pretty good shot, so fighting always made me think of when things were fine with him and I. But he's gone, and I left my family home to find work in the castle. I smiled back at Walter, "I'll get my gun."

I walked into the weapons room to find my gun where I had left it on one of the manikins I had cleaned up. It was the Holy Vengeance pistol, passed down from my Great-Great-Grandfather to me, after he shot himself because he had impure thoughts one morning. Slightly odd, but I like the way it feels in my hands, my own slice of history. I walked back to the main room where everyone was, gun in hand.

"You ready?" Walter asked.

I nodded in reply.

"Good, I'll quickly sort out supplies and come back when we are ready to head to the mercenary camp, where Saker is."

Walter walked out with Jasper following at his heels like a lost puppy. The real dog however, was fast asleep in the old Hero's dogs basket I has discovered, leaving Annabel and I time to talk, just to each other. She was leaning over the map table, looking at the Mercenary camp. I walked over to her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

We stood like that for a while, until she broke the silence. "I miss him."

I sighed. She really was hurting. "We all do princess, we all do."

"I hate Logan. To think he would do something like this to me: it's sick," she took a long, deep breath before continuing, "How can I go on without him? I- I don't want to do this-"

She was about to run out of the room at this point, but I grabbed her arm to stop her doing so and made her turn to face me. She had to hear the truth, even if it hurt her. "Annabel." She stopped trying to struggle when she saw the serious expression I had on my face. "Elliot is gone, and there is no magic in the world that can bring him back. And I will be here every step of the way, helping you fix yourself back up again."

"I can't," She whispered, "I just can't."

"You can and you must! This… crying and saying you can't… It's not what Elliot would want you to do for the rest of your life. He'd want you to continue what he died for. He died to save those people, now it's your turn."

She stood for a while, processing everything I had said before turning back to me and saying, "How do you give such good advice? How do you know exactly what to say?"

I shrugged it off, even though inside I felt like I was going to explode with glee, "I like to prepare myself for these kinds of moments."

She laughed half-heartedly, before walking over to where Clover napped, fidgeting every couple of minutes, no doubt trying to catch an imaginary hare.

"I'll kill him. Even if he is my brother, he will pay for these hideous crimes." The dark words came out of the princess's lips.

At this, I was taken aback. At that moment, I too couldn't understand why Logan would do such things, but I still remembered him before he became King. He was a kind, if not slightly rebellious teenager who loved nothing more than to tease his sister and climb trees. Deep down, I knew that he was still there, that child forced too quickly into a man. But the death of Elliot had blinded her, and I understood. But her words… they seemed so cold, so empty.

The light inside you will die.

That voice again. Annabel hadn't reacted, so I guess she hadn't heard it, but such a cruel voice, like the princess had just moments ago. Where was it coming from? Who had said it? What was happening?

"Emily? Emily!" Annabel had been calling out to me. "We should get going, go kill off some mercenaries while I still have the energy to stand."

"I may be a bit rusty; I haven't fired this gun for months."

Annabel threw her arm over me and laughed, "It's okay, I'll save you with my magic."

"I won't need saving!"

"Hmm? Is that a hint of jealousy I detect?"

We laughed all the way into the room we had seen Walter and Jasper walk into earlier, ready for a fight.