Chapter 24
Upon entering the tower, the air tingled as the portal’s familiar magic transported us to the first level. An illusion had been cast on the tower so that it appeared to each individual solving its puzzles that it was empty of the other contestants; at our request, the judges had agreed to count our group as a single contestant.
The magic faded around us, revealing a mist-shrouded atrium aglow in golden sunshine that danced across the sea of mystical plants growing in swaths of color and intoxicating perfumes.
I lost myself wandering the twisting paths, admiring the unique flora—I recognized many of the plants that also grew in the forest near my home or in Alden’s garden of potion ingredients, but there were many I’d only seen in black and white illustrations in books, and still several others that were entirely foreign. I lingered to study them, taking in the details of every unique leaf and interesting blossom.
“As fascinating as this room is, we have more important matters to attend to than a garden tour.” Princess Demetria’s disapproving tone tugged us from our reverie.
Alden straightened resolutely from the clump of herbs he’d been studying, Kai followed suit with much more reluctance, his longing evident with his affinity for herbology; King Ciaran had remained in the shadows cast by several blossoming trees and leafy ferns growing alongside the glass wall.
“Has anyone discovered any hint indicating what this room’s challenge is?” Alden asked.
Princess Demetria pointed a slender finger towards a door on the farthest end, nearly completely obscured by the wall of vines. Alden parted the leaves and honeysuckle to reveal a door shimmering with magic. Five panels decorated the edifice, each with a riddle etched into the wood.
“It appears that the answer to each riddle acts as a key that when combined will open the door.” Alden traced his fingertip across the first line. The letters glowed, revealing the first riddle: look for me here, look for me there; the true me is one of many and difficult to snare.
Kai’s eyes immediately brightened with recognition. “It speaks of the mirage flower, a plant that’s able to project dozens of ghostly copies of itself in order to fool creatures that wish to harm it. It’s a useful ingredient in many potions, but its unique illusion ability makes it difficult to harvest.”
“And does your knowledge on this plant’s properties also include how to determine which of its illusions is the real mirage flower?” Princess Demetria asked wryly.
“That is part of the trick,” Kai said. “Other than the mother plant being the only one with a scent, there’s no other discernible way to determine it other than trial and error.”
She heaved a frustrated sigh. “A troublesome plant.”
Alden beckoned to the spellbook that had been floating around the room, and it obliged, changing its contents into a book of herbology and opening to the entry of mirage flowers. Based on the illustration, the blossoms themselves appeared entirely ordinary save for their shimmery petals that helped them blend into their surroundings, which would make it difficult to locate not only the duplicates but the primary plant we would need to harvest in order to open the door.
We looked out across the sea of blossoming greenery. Suddenly the room that had once created wonder with its variety now overwhelmed us with its overload of senses that the transparent plant would blend seamlessly with.
“Can the imposters be located with a simple tracking spell?” King Ciaran asked from his shroud of shadows.
Kai shook his head. “Traditional tracking magic doesn’t work on it, but I imagine there’s a trick that’s not recorded in traditional herbology texts…one we must discover if we have any hope of progressing.”
Princess Demetria sighed. “Which leaves us to experiment, an inefficient method when even with our combined powers we are limited to how many spells we can cast.”
Kai gnawed his lip. “Then perhaps we should first try and find it through a traditional search rather than magic.”
We split up to cover a section of the atrium, but we hadn’t been searching long when we discovered another trick of the room—as we wandered, the walls seemed to expand, making the chamber much larger than it had initially appeared, which required us to cover more ground and made it difficult to locate the real mirage flower even with the five of us working together.
As we searched, we came to discover another unique feature—the room was broken up into regions, so that desert foliage grew alongside plants from more temperate climates. I hoped this would narrow our search, only to learn that the mirage flowers could adapt themselves to any climate, increasing the overwhelm as heavy as the mist shrouding the air.
Princess Demetria’s frustrated sigh eventually penetrated the tense silence. “This is taking too long. At this rate, we’ll spend the entire day on this single clue, leaving us no time for the other riddles guarding the door, let alone the tower’s other floors.”
“Our search seems ineffective,” I mused. “It’s as if the room is designed for us to rely on our powers.” Quite fitting for a magical challenge.
Alden grew pensive. “Hmm, I wonder…” He considered a moment. “Perhaps our search is too narrow; we need to broaden our reach. Rather than focusing on finding the real mirage flower, let’s first locate one of its many illusions.”
“I’ve already encountered a few, but when I tried to harvest them, they faded upon contact,” Kai said.
“Which is exactly what I need to test my hypothesis. If you find one, don’t touch it; I want to experiment.”
Though its camouflage caused the flower’s illusions to blend in with their surroundings, we managed to find one in short order; as before, it faded when we tried to uproot it, evidence it was merely one of the flower’s many illusions. Before the plant could completely vanish, Alden bottled its magic and lifted the vial to the light to study its contents.
“Magic always leaves traces,” he explained. “Just as each spell produces its own fingerprint. By deciphering the mirage flower’s pattern, we can better understand the magic affecting its illusions in order to follow the trail to the real plant.”
He produced a droplet of power and added it to the vial, swirling the contents until it blended with the spell before studying it again with a concentrated furrow.
“Upon closer examination, this spell appears too advanced to be a simple illusion spell, making me suspect two spells are layered on top of one another to create its unique effect.”
Kai and King Ciaran looked noticeably impressed by his conclusions, but Princess Demetria pursed her lips against the praise her brother deserved.
With a whisper of magic, Alden sent a swirl of golden light into the vial. I watched in fascination as it wove through the contents, sifting through the interlocked spells. Alden frowned in concentration as he guided the light; our group gave a collective murmur as the two spells slowly unwound from each other. Carefully Alden guided the first one out.
“A cloaking spell,” he murmured as it vanished. “Which explains why it was a challenge to find even the illusions of the mirage flower.”
The moment he removed the cloaking spell, the illusion spell also dissipated, like a chain reaction. Small flashes of light glistened around the room as all the illusions vanished and the mirage flower gleamed brightly, guiding us so we could harvest it.
“You truly are a wonder when it comes to your knowledge of the components of magic,” Kai said. “I could only ever dream to possess your level of understanding.”
Alden tried to accept the praise humbly, but a grin toyed at the corners of his mouth, evidence of his pleasure with his accomplishment.
Kai set the uprooted plant into the first panel of the door. I heard Alden’s breath of relief as the entire door glowed in response. The plant absorbed into the wood, leaving behind an amber flame that matched the flower’s coloring. We would need to light all five flames in order for the door to open so we could progress.
The second riddle illuminated on the wood: Plain I may seem but don’t pass me by, seek deeper and purplish tresses you’ll spy.
Once more the group turned to Kai for his insights, but this time he appeared uncertain. “Many plants look ordinary while possessing unique properties,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure which one this refers to. Purplish tresses? I can think of several plants with purple flowers, but…” He bit his lip, scanning the lush growth that surrounded us.
Alden opened the spellbook to search through it, but paused when I laid a hand on his arm. My careful study of the healing arts supplied me with the knowledge necessary to answer.
“Mauveroot. At surface level the plants appear as entirely ordinary greens, but when dug up they reveal their signature mauve-colored roots, like thin strands of hair beneath the surface. These strands can be brewed into high quality healing potions, though the process is tricky because if they are broken from their stems prematurely, they will have no effect.”
I had discovered a batch growing at the far end of the room in the mountainous section, hidden beneath the shady leaves of a holly fern that had almost completely obscured it. I might not have noticed it if not for my affinity for healing magic that acted as its own tracking spell.
When I’d first stumbled upon them I’d had to resist the temptation to pluck them, unsure whether the room was enchanted to respond to incorrect answers or in pillaging plants not part of the challenge. Even now, I had to resist uprooting more than we needed for the door.
By Alden’s concerned sidelong glance, he sensed my unspoken longings and rested a gentle hand over mine. “When the challenge concludes, we’ll procure more for your brother.”
I clung to his promise, even as I hoped it would no longer need to be fulfilled; if Alden succeeded in winning a place on the Enchanters Council, I hoped Corbin would no longer need my growing collection of herbs and remedies with the charm that would restore his health once and for all.
With a wavering breath I slowly relinquished my vise grip on the plant, allowing Alden to insert it into the second panel; the plant produced a fern-colored flame when absorbed, light that illuminated the third riddle that appeared: In one of four I can be found, search for me in hardened ground.
“One of four what?” Alden wondered. “Four types of terrain? Perhaps we’re looking for a plant that only grows on mountainous slopes where the ground is hard and rocky.”
King Ciaran tilted his head thoughtfully. “We wouldn’t have been given a clue with so many possible answers. The correct plant should be obvious once we understand the riddle.”
Princess Demetria sighed. “The answer is obvious: seasons. There are four seasons, and in winter the ground becomes harder in freezing weather. We’re looking for a plant that only blossoms in winter, such as hyaglanthus.”
Concern marred Kai’s frown. “Hyaglanthus kills on contact. It takes a very strong spell to be able to safely harvest it; some say it requires an affinity for dark magic. Do you really think the judges would use something so dangerous?”
Princess Demetria shrugged. “I’m capable of harvesting it, but if you have a better suggestion, then by all means share it.”
Silence settled around us as we glanced around the room, seeking inspiration. “Snowbells,” Kai offered after a moment’s consideration.
I stared at him curiously, the name unfamiliar.
“They don’t grow nearby,” he explained. “They’re quite rare—only growing in the northernmost region of the kingdom—and they only bloom in the dead of winter when the ground freezes. Their buds are useful in ice protection spells, but their hardy nature can make them tricky to harvest.”
“I suspected acquiring one of these plants would require elemental magic,” Princess Demetria said. “It appears we’ll need to layer water magic with a freezing spell to create the illusion of winter that will allow the snowbell to blossom so that we can harvest it.” She cast Alden a smug look of triumph. “You’re not the only one who possesses an understanding of theory.”
He shrugged, seeming unbothered by the snub, and I smiled to see evidence of his growth that he no longer felt the need to compare his strengths against hers.
Princess Demetria apparently had an affinity for elemental magic and took charge of procuring this third plant, which left behind an icy-blue flame when we inserted it into the door panel, granting us access to the fourth riddle: Only in full silver glow I am seen, sundered from soil to drink every gleam.
“Full silver glow—that must refer to a full moon,” Alden deduced.
“The starfire plant only blooms at night,” Kai said.
King Ciaran’s voice drifted from the shadows still shielding him. “Lunaroot, a peculiar blue plant that uproots itself during a full moon, so that the tips of the roots are in direct moonlight. They’re quite common in my kingdom of eternal night.”
This plant required a transformation spell to harvest in order to change the sunlight streaming through the glass into moonlight, magic that transformed the day into night long enough for us to locate the lunaroot’s roots poking through the earth in search of moonlight.
The door’s final riddle proved different than the others, given not in words but a blank panel whose wood appeared slightly discolored. I leaned forward to study it, stretching out a curious hand, but before I could make contact King Ciaran leapt forward almost completely from his protective shroud of shadows.
“Don’t touch it! Cast a revealing spell first.”
Alden gave a low murmur, his magic stirring to life in his palm. He frowned in consternation at its faint glow, doubtless wondering if it would last for the rest of the challenges. At first nothing happened, but after a moment an oozing purple substance seeped through the cracks in the wood. King Ciaran released a whooshing breath.
“Poison. No test on our knowledge of magical plants would be complete without encountering one of the basics of herbology: a knowledge of poisons and their remedies.”
Kai brightened. “Poisons happen to be one of my specialties. I live in an area of the kingdom where toxins are common, so have made careful study of poisons and their remedies for the benefit of my village.”
His gaze drifted across the vast atrium in the direction of a marsh.
“I’ve already spotted several plants during our previous searches that are effective against poisons, including mire bells, which are flowers that grow in swamps. The blossoms on their own are not inherently magical, but when crushed into a paste or salve, mire bells have the ability to siphon poisons or venoms from the body like a sponge.”
He guided us to a section of small, brown, bulb-like flowers. We helped him harvest them, with the exception of Princess Demetria, who wrinkled her nose at the prospect of getting her skirts dirty from the swampy ground.
Once we’d gathered an armful, Kai summoned mortar and pestle and proceeded to produce a paste with expert movements that testified to his many hours of practice in creating antidotes. When he finished, he carefully applied it to the poisonous panel, which absorbed it, leaving a purple flame in its wake. We all watched breathlessly to see what would happen.
With all five flames lit, the door opened soundlessly to reveal a staircase with vines twisting around the railing. Silently we climbed to the next floor. Upon reaching the landing, we barely had a chance to stare across the vast forest of towering redwoods when a thick darkness descended, blotching out all sight, without even the dark outlines brought by our eyes adjusting to the night or any stars to illuminate our path.
Princess Demetria’s gasp was followed by Alden’s wince of pain. “There no need to grip me so tightly. I can serve my role as a protective older brother without your maiming my arm with your nails.” Even with the ominous mood that had descended with the darkness, he still managed to sound teasing, embodying his brotherly role even midst such circumstances.
“I don’t need your protection.” The princess’s voice hitched, close enough to reveal that for all her insistences, she hadn’t moved from Alden’s other side.
The darkness created an unsettling sensation; I unconsciously found myself pressing closer to him as well, finding solace in his warmth when the night obscured my other senses.
Kai tried to conjure a flame, but the spark immediately extinguished from his cradled palm, snuffed out by the consuming blackness. “It appears traditional lighting magic is ineffective against it.”
“No light can penetrate curses of night,” King Ciaran said. “This darkness is mere child’s play to the force overtaking my kingdom—thick and all encompassing, with a life of its own that reaches inside of you to twist your thoughts until you fear you’ll go mad.”
My empathy swelled, and I realized that my suspicions regarding him had faded. While he remained shrouded in mystery, I no longer feared that he was the cause of everyone’s diminished powers, or that he would sabotage our efforts, despite his desperation. “Is that why you entered the competition?”
He made a small sound of confirmation. “I’m in search of a spell of light powerful enough to fight against it, knowledge that appears as heavily guarded as the most forbidden spells.”
“Producing light is such a rare feat that most magical wielders go an entire lifetime without managing the task,” Alden said.
King Ciaran sighed. “Even after years of futile effort I’ve failed to discover how to break the curse afflicting my kingdom…save for measures that are far too drastic for me to even consider, but which I may be forced to settle upon if I can find nothing else. It’s not a position on the Enchanters’ Council I’m seeking but access to their vast library that I can only hope contains the information I need that won’t cost me my very soul.” He didn’t elaborate beyond that.
“Does your understanding of this curse of darkness provide any insights on how to break it?” Kai asked.
“I suspect we’re being asked to produce a basic light potion,” King Ciaran said. “A narrow enough focus to provide ample challenge considering very few magical wielders possess the knowledge to brew one. We will need to procure four ingredients that produce light.”
“Would sunflowers work?” I asked. “As plants that follow the sun, from what I’ve read they are often used in light spells after a charm extracts the light they’ve absorbed. Daisies are also known to close themselves off in darkness, leading me to wonder if they may contain hidden pockets of light.”
“Though those flowers would work in theory, I doubt we’ll be able to find any in this particular environment,” King Ciaran said. “However, more than seventy fungal species are bioluminescent and often glow within dark forests, often intensifying their glow at night when it”s dark and most effective to attract insects that help them spread their spores. Due to my research into elements containing light, I’ll be able to procure several for the potion if you’ll all lend your assistance with the brewing.”
“How will we navigate to find the ingredients within such darkness?” Kai asked.
“I’m used to living without the light, so my eyes have already adjusted,” the Lumerian king said. “Therefore the darkness is no hindrance for my sight. I will procure the necessary ingredients.”
“With such desperation guiding your efforts, can we truly trust you to take charge of this challenge?” Princess Demetria asked. “You have no reason to work with us if our mutual success hinders your chances of accessing the Council Library.”
“The limits placed upon our combined powers forbid me from venturing forward on my own,” he said. “I’d be a fool to betray your trust and lose access to the borrowed power that is the only way to overcome the challenges on each of the tower’s floors.”
She made no further argument, but her hesitancy lingered, magnified by the thickness of the surrounding night.
We used the trunks of the trees to navigate our way to a log, where we waited for King Ciaran. My ears followed each movement—his soft footsteps against the undergrowth, the rustle of the branches he parted, his rummaging through bushes, and eventually the sounds of his digging up the mushrooms we needed for the potion.
With the hindrance brought by the darkness, his search took nearly an hour, but in the end he successfully procured four fungi: panellus stipticus, a flat fungi that resembled a collection of tiny fans growing on sticks whose dull shade of beige during the day transformed into dazzling decorations after dark; panellus pusillus, which resembled a viridescent string of light wrapped around tree branches; mycena chlorophos, whose pale-green glow was brightest at one day old; and mycena pura, quintessential soft lilac bell-shaped caps that often didn’t appear to glow because their bioluminescence was limited to the mycelium.
With the darkness’s limitations we were unable to produce flames for our cauldron, so King Ciaran embarked on another hunt through the dark forest, this time for a rare mushroom that didn’t need light to thrive and which had the unique property of producing heat. This one took much longer for the king to locate, drawing us closer to dusk…though how close was impossible to measure in the windowless forest.
Once the potion finished brewing, it transformed into several fireflies that lit up the suffocating cloud of darkness, granting us a portion of the sight that we’d been robbed of for hours. The light was faint, but just enough to illuminate a golden trail to a door hidden behind a thicket of moss growing along one of the redwoods’ trunks.
The glowing door’s light was just bright enough to illuminate King Ciaran’s discouragement. “If only the darkness cursing Lumeria could be so easily dispelled. I’ve come across various light-producing potions in my studies, most of which I’ve been unable to brew due to the fact that the ingredients can’t grow in a kingdom absent of the sun. Those I’ve managed to produce have had little to no effect, meaning that the curse Lumeria is suffering from requires a more complicated solution than what can be created by magic, at least such magic as I currently have access to.”
He said nothing more, and we didn’t linger in the forest, having spent too much time already within the cocoon of trees. We ascended to the next level, weariness evident in every expression. I pressed a palm to my temple which was beginning to ache, but mustered up a reassuring smile as Alden turned to me in concern. This pain was nothing compared to what Corbin endured every day, and I could easily accept this small amount of suffering if it led to his relief.
So the challenges continued, each possessing various levels of difficulty we were able to overcome with a combination of our power and unique strengths.
Hours had passed by the time we finally arrived to the tower’s final level, comprised of nothing but a white void. The moment we stepped inside the door behind us vanished…with no sign of a door to progress found in the surrounding walls of nothingness; it was likely invisible, and discovering it was part of the final challenge.
Our exclamations of surprise were swallowed up by the suffocating silence that choked the air, revealing another aspect of the challenge we would need to overcome in order to proceed: curse breaking, this one a spell that had stolen our voices.
Reservation prickled my skin. Though my elementary knowledge of magic included very little by way of curses outside of my intimate experiences as a frog, it did include the basics of spell casting for me to understand the difficulties in casting wordless incantations, a feat often only managed by those at an advanced level.
Which meant if we had any hope of discovering the location of the invisible door that would lead us to the finish line, we would be required to cast our magic without speaking.
The fragile alliance that had allowed us to work together up until this point cracked beneath the pressure, especially when even with their combined power, our previous spells had nearly depleted all of their magic, leaving everyone exhausted. It seemed no coincidence that this final challenge had been strategically placed as a barrier in testing our resolve.
A series of pantomime ineffectively organized them into a force that would allow them to work towards a solution together, escalating the tension that felt thicker than the magic filling the air past the breaking point. As their expressions twisted in evidence of their rising tempers, I wrangled my mind for a solution, desperate to contribute to helping Alden beyond the role I’d maintained in the background.
A vague idea gradually formed. I tapped Alden’s arm to draw his attention and summoned my power, the only magic I could produce without a spoken incantation. I mimed dipping an invisible brush into the glistening plum-colored light twirling above my palm and used it to mime painting a picture in the air.
Alden nodded to indicate he understood my idea: use our magic to create images of our thoughts in order to convey our ideas so that even without words, we could effectively communicate in order to work together in overcoming this final obstacle.
In one of our Alden’s lessons he’d given me throughout our journey, he’d taught that illusion magic was one of the trickiest to conjure, made more difficult without a spoken spell. But that made it an ideal focus within the confines of the enchanted tower, especially as illusions had yet to be tested in the competition, though this was undoubtedly knowledge those on the Enchanters’ Council would be required to possess.
Concentration furrowed Alden’s brow as he mouthed several spells that at first did nothing without sound. I could almost sense his frustration emanating across our invisible connection of understanding that had only deepened in our time together—his regret at not having focused his studies on incantation-less magic sooner.
I laced our hands together and gave his a reassuring squeeze, silent support that I hoped would still the discouragement hindering his ability to perform the advanced magic required. With a wavering breath he returned my squeeze and kept our hands entwined as he tried again, the furrows in his brow deepening with his focus.
The air around us stirred with Alden’s magic and gradually an image came into focus. Upon seeing it, one by one the others used their power to illuminate their ideas, spells that created images out of the thoughts that the curse forced to remain unspoken. Each acted as a puzzle piece that together assembled to form one coherent whole.
The plan in place, we turned to face each other. Straining with effort, Kai slowly formed an illuminating spell. A glow appeared at each of our throats. I leaned close to Alden to examine his; it was as though a golden cage encircled his vocal cords, stifling all sound. Judging by the nods from the others, this was what they expected to discover.
Princess Demetria took off one shoe and searched the sole, lighting up when she found a tiny pebble, little more than a grain of sand that clung to it. With a flick of her hand, she suspended it in midair and faced King Ciaran, pooling her power with his. Light built between them as they pressed their hands towards the pebble, muscles trembling as they poured their magical strength into the challenge. The light flashed and then faded, and the princess caught the pebble as it fell.
I inaudibly gasped as I saw that their transformation spell had turned it into a walnut-sized lump of gleaming gold—not the gold used for coins and jewelry, but a magical substance that could be formed into a powerful tool.
Alden nervously took the stone from Princess Demetria, breathing deeply as he closed his hand around it. He shut his eyes as he focused on his spell, causing beams of light to shine between his fingers. After several tense moments he opened his hand, shoulders drooping when he saw the unchanged lump of magical gold on his palm.
His gaze met mine and I glimpsed his escalating panic, along with the sense of inadequacy he’d struggled with for as long as I’d known him. A surge of sympathy coursed through me. I wished I could speak to encourage him and remind him of his talent, but more importantly I yearned to tell him that my feelings towards him didn’t depend on his magical ability.
In a moment of inspiration, I took his arm and traced letters along it with my finger, slowly enough that he could follow the invisible words: you are enough.
I enclosed my hand over his holding the stone. I couldn’t offer my own magic without breaking the rules of the competition, but I met his gaze, willing him to draw strength from my support. My heart beat wildly as he leaned closer, searching my eyes. Our gazes locked over our clasped hands and for a moment we stood frozen, sharing more than our determination to win.
Desperately I tried to keep my pounding heart in check as it pled with me to fling myself into his arms, sternly reminding myself that the emotions stirred by this challenge didn’t mean that Alden cared for me in the way I longed for, or that we could have any future together.
With difficulty I drew back a few inches, redirecting my gaze to our clasped hands that held the stone. Alden followed my gaze and nodded. With a deep breath he once more closed his eyes, his hand tightening around mine. I could feel the vibration of magic, and then the sensation of movement against my palm as Alden’s spell bent the lump of gold to his will.
When he drew back, I uncurled my hand to see a gleaming golden key; the others celebrated in silent victory. Alden took the key and held it first to my throat. I felt it catch as the cage binding our voices fell away. I took a deep breath, smiling as it released in an audible whoosh. Alden grinned back before moving to unlock the others.
The moment the last cage was unlocked, the curse shattered around us like scattered pieces of a broken mirror, causing the door that had previously been invisible to appear. It opened to the staircase that would ascend to the final floor…and with it the end of the competition.