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Chapter 3: The Rescue

I sat there on a rock near the edge of a cliff. The stars were shining brightly and there were only wisps of clouds in the sky. They weren't dark ones though, their edges looked like they were shining a mysterious glow when the bright stars were caught behind them.

I sighed deeply and buried my face against my knees. Raynald had explained everything to me.

It appears as though we have a new enemy. She calls her self Cassandra and she's a powerful sorceress, surpassing even the power of Rildel or Raynald. She too happens to be a former apprentice of Rilder and according to Raynald she is also an ex minstrel, but she later on got addicted to power and abandoned her old ways in exchange for a greater dark power.

"It also explains why the shadows appeared back in the firstplace..." Raynald had said.

"You see, long ago, Rildel, Mosuke, Rozaline and I fought together against her and managed to seal her and her powers away... Or so we had tought... She managed to get back somehow, however in her weak state she couldn't lift a finger against any single one of us, so she needed a plan, an opportunity to strike and gather her strenght. So she released the shadows upon Esperia. She knew that all four of us had to gather together in order to banish the shadows, and that would give her the opportunity to strike back. And she did.

In one single night, she managed to take over the whole of Saint Domina and capture the King... We tryed to stop her, but all of our efforts failed... She was already too powerful. It was then when she captured Blaine and Rildel too... Now, the only safe place to be is this city, this place is too well hidden and protected from her."

Of course I demanded that we'd have to go rescue them right away. But the others were reluctant. Of course they wanted to save Blaine and Rildel too, but at this point it was way too risky, because we don't even know where the two are kept and if the place is well guarded or not. For all we knew it could've been a trap.

I lifted my head up and stared at the stars.

"He was here every night." I heared a small voice say from behind me.

I turned around and saw Galahad, Rozaline's son.

"Who?" I asked and blinked.

"Blaine... He stood here every day and night, at this cliff waiting for any signs of your return." He said and walked next to me.

"Every day huh..."

'No wonder I felt drawn to this spot...'

"Yes, the whole four days." Galahad said and smiled.

"Four days?" I asked in surprise. But I had only been gone for two days tops. I guess the time flow isn't the same in any dimension.

"Yes, four days and nights...

You must really like him?" He suddenly asked.

I smiled and nodded slightly.

"I do..." I said quietly.

Galahad was silent for a moment and then he ran in front of me and looked into my eyes.

"I won't tell mommy if you wanna go save him..." He said carefully. It was as though he had read my mind.

I nodded and smiled briefly.

"Thanks, Galahad." I said before standing up.

I had to save them, no matter what. I could use the spell again, and find out where they're kept. And maybe if I went alone, I wouldn't draw that much attention, so I could probably pass by the guards unnoticed.

As I was walking towards Blaine's house someone suddenly grabbed my shoulder.

"You weren't planning on going alone, were you?" I heared Dylan say.

I sighed and turned around.

"So you want to come with me?" I asked with a serious tone.

"Yes, I do."

"Are you sure? You know this is going to be extremely dangerous..."

"I'm sure..." He said, nodding reaffirmingly.

We sneaked over to the staircase and looked around before entering the hollow tree.

"I don't think anyone saw us..." Dylan whispered as we made our way down the stairs.

"Good." I huffed and took out the "Song of The Lost Love" -spell. I looked at the paper and squeezed the flute on my other hand tighter.

As we hopped out of the hole in the large tree I immediately looked at the notes and placed the flute at my lips.

'Blaine... I HAVE to find you...!' I tought and began playing.

The paper started floating upwards and began spinning and shooting sparks everywhere. Dylan got startled and he grabbed ahold of a tree as huge golden flames erupted from the sheet of notes, burning it to a crisp in the process. The giant ball of golden flames suddenly spread open burning all of the trees around us to the ground too. Two great wings formed and decended to the ground softly.

It was a giant golden eagle and it was staring at Dylan and me.

"Whoa..." Dylan gasped and walked closer to the creature. It lowered it's head as a sign for us to get on it.

"I think it wants us to ride it." I said and climbed on, holding on the fethers tightly. Dylan nodded and did the same.

The bird flapped it's great wings and we shot up to the sky. I squeezed my eyes shut as the wind dryed my eyes in an instant. As we finally slowed down a little I slowly opened my eyes.

I gasped for air when I saw the beautiful night sky and the land beneath us.

"Wow!" I screamed in amazement.

"We are so high up!" Dylan exclaimed and carefully looked down.

"And we'll be at where ever Blaine's kept in no time at all!" I added.

I had no idea how fast we were moving, but the wind made us hold on the feathers as tightly as possible, woulnd't want to fall from this height!

In no time at all, we could already see the towers of the Saint Domina castle. The whole place looked dark and all the walls and buildings seemed to be covered in vines with thorns and black roses growing out of them.

"Looks like Cassandra's done some redecorating..." Dylan huffed as we approached the city.

"We can't draw any attention! We must land here and continue by foot!" I exclaimed trough the howling of the wind. The bird seemed to understand and began to descend slowly.

When we were close to the ground we jumped off of the bird and it turned into a small butterfly with a flash of light. It began to flutter towards the city.

"Come, we have to follow it." I said and ran after the butterfly as quietly as I could manage.

"Alright alright." Dylan said and ran after me.

We stopped and kneeled down close to the wall near the entrance.

There was a weird black creature standing near the entrance, and it looked much like it was guarding it. It had red eyes and long curved black horns and it looked somewhat like a mixture of a dragon and a minotaur. It was also holdin a large and heavy looking cresent axe wich looked like it could easily chop a head clean off.

"How do we get past him...?" Dylan whispered.

"I don't know... We have to come up with something." I said quietly before I saw the butterfly fluttering towards the thing.

"Oh no!" Dylan gasped as the butterfly flew in front of the black creature.

It let out a loud snort wich blew the butterfly away from it's face but it came back and landed on top of it's snout. The creature began swinging it's axe and roaring when the butterfly wouldn't stop bothering it.

"Now's our chance!" I exclaimed and we quikly and quietly ran past and behind the guard. We jumped behind a nearby building and looked around to see if there were any more guards around.

The main street to the gate of the castle seemed to be empty, except for the guard at the castle doors.

"The butterfly's going towards the castle... But how do we get past the other guard?" I asked and looked at Dylan who just shrugged and sighed.

"Well, let's get closer and see what we can do." He said and began sneaking towards the castle, staying behind the buildings.

"It's weird that she hasn't placed more guards around her castle." I said while looking around.

"There are only a few guards here and there, and it's pretty easy to get past them all."

Dylan nodded and stopped at the corner of a building that was pretty close to the castle doors.

We looked at the guard and leaned against the wall of the building.

"Ok, so, we need a diversion. First, we-"

I couldn't finish my sentance when I suddenly heared a loud thump and the sound of the guard collapsing on the ground.

"Bulls eye!" Dylan snickered when the round big rock he had thrown landed on the ground next to the uncontious guard.

I blinked and grinned.

"Or... That works fine too."

We slowly pushed open the castle doors and snuck inside. The whole main hall was quiet and dark.

"Follow me, I know where the dungeons are." I whispered and began running towards the doorway hidden behind the staircase of the hall.

I opened the door and the stuffy air from the stone corridors gushed out trough the doorway making both of us cough.

As we ran down the stairs there were some torches lit up on the walls and they cast shadows around us.

"This place is kind of spooky." Dylan said and tryed to look over his shoulder.

"I know..." I said without slowing down.

We suddenly stopped as we heared voices from ahead.

"Just calm down sonny, someone will come, you'll see..."

"Look, old man. We've already been down here for a whole day, even if someone might be coming, we still have to try and figure out a way out of here if no one does!"

My eyes lit up as I heared the familiar voices. Without saying a word I began running as fast as I could towards the voice. Leaving Dylan behind me with a surprised look on his face.

I stopped in front of the bars of a cell and almost stopped breathing when I saw the two figures.

"Oh! Would you look at that." Rilded chuckled.

"We should try coming up with a plan, Rildel!"

"You should try turning around." Rildel said and smiled.

"What on earth are you mumbling on about no-" He suddenly stopped in his tracks as he saw me. We both just stared at eachother without saying anything.

"Blaine..." I said quietly when tears of joy began filling my eyes.

Blaine took a step forward and opened his mouth.

"Mi.... Michael?" He said slowly and stared at me.

I nodded slowly and smiled before we both ran to the cell door and embraced eachother trough the cold iron bars.

"I was beginning to think that I would never be able to see you again." Blaine said softly and squeezed me tightly.

"I told you I'd be back. I would never, ever, break that promise we made." I sobbed and pressed my cheek against his chest.

"We need to get you two out of there!" I said and pulled back from the embrace.

I took the clef necklace in my hand just when Dylan caught up with me.

Blaine and Rildel looked at him curiously.

"And who might this be?" Rildel asked and went closer to the cell bars.

"I'll explain later." I said as I turned the clef in the lock and opened the cell door.

"Right now we have to consentrate on getting out of here, they might already have noticed that something's amiss."

"They already have!" Dylan shouted and pointed towards the staircase. There was a large pack of guards charging in trough the door and they were all armed to the teeth.

"We have to get out of here!" Blaine exclaimed and almost like a reflex, he picked me up on his shoulders.

"Come, this way." Rildel said and ran towards the other end of the hallway.

"Isn't that a dead end?!" I asked as the guards were gaining up on us.

"That detail can be fixed." Rildel said and smiled calmly.

We arrived at the end of the corridors, and there was nothing but a wall of stone ahead.

"So what now?" Blaine asked and nervously turned around as the pack of guards had blocked our way out. They were slowly approaching us with their sharp weapons pointing in our direction.

Rilder turned around and placed his hands on the stone wall. He began speaking an old language that I couldn't recognize and suddenly the whole wall began turning into sand. As the wall dissolved the sand piled up on to the ground where we stood.

"And there's your way out. Quikly!" Rildel said and we rushed trough the newly made doorway out to the streets.

As the guards were about to follow us, the whole roof of the corridor suddenly collapsed on them, giving us time to escape.

"Why didn't you just do that when we were sitting in the cell?!" Blaine yelled as we ran towards the city gate.

"Do you honestly think Cassandra would be that foolish? Of course she made the whole cell magic proof before putting me in there."

"Well we managed to get out safely and that's all that matters." Dylan said and stared at the gates ahead of us.

"It might be a little too early to say that!" I yelled when I saw another hoard of guards running after us.

"We can't run like this forever!" Blaine growled and winced.

That's when I saw the butterfly flying at the gates of the city.

"And that's our ticket out of here, get ready to jump on!" I said and held on tight on Blaines mane when we got closer to the butterfly.

"Now!" I screamed when the butterfly turned into a giant eagle again with a brilliant flash of golden flames.

In a split second we were all shot up to the sky far out of the reach of the guards.

"Magnificent! Magnificent indeed!" Rildel said with a wide grin on his face.

"This is why I chose you as my apprentice, Michael."

I just smiled at him and turned to look at Blaine who looked somewhat releaved.

I pulled my self closer to him and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled at me and wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me close to him.

Finally, we were back together...

In the tower of Saint Domina Castle, Cassandra was looking at the dark red wine in an elegant glass goblet. She slowly stroked it's edge with her finger.

"You will be back... Child. And you shall bring him back to me too... Your weakness..."