In the common grounds, cracked stone, shaped by hooves and lit by lantern light, were the only things worth noticing.

  Seraphiel wandered the streets for the first time in his brief life—an eyeless, dethroned child filled with trepidation. A child stared at his missing eye before his mother grabbed his hand and whispered something to him.

  "I saw a foreigner here, just meandering and having a look about. There's nothing to see here—what an idiot," said a man sitting at the edge of the street.

  Seraphiel felt ill—terribly ill. Not from disease or ailment, but from circumstance. He had no idea what he should even begin to do.

  "Hello," a voice called out from behind in a strange accent.

  Seraphiel turned and saw a man standing there, wearing a long black coat, a thick woollen hat, and a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, paired with tinted glasses.

  "I don't have anything. You're wasting your time," Seraphiel said, presuming the man to be a thief.

  "You are indeed missing something," the man replied.

  Before Seraphiel could react, the man grabbed his head and slammed him through the ground while chanting a foreign hymn.

  A ball of fire burned in the sky. The air was dry and hot.

  Seraphiel was once again dumbfounded. No snow. No moon. No cold air. He was in what seemed to be the direct opposite of Cairnreach.

  Before him stood the man, murmuring and tugging feverishly at his long black clothing, which now seemed unbearably uncomfortable.

  "I—I have brought you here…" the man said breathlessly, before vanishing and reappearing behind Seraphiel, covering his eye with his hand.

  Clearing his throat, he began, "I have brought you here for a brief… deliberation!" he said jovially. "Yes, yes. I couldn't help but notice you seem to be missing an eye. Awfully strange. And there doesn't appear to be any sign of damage or mutilation—just a missing eye."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "You won't get any ransom worth anything. Let me go, I'm no lon—"

  Before Seraphiel could finish, the man interrupted him.

  "Dethroned or throned, you are still of noble blood, and of the highest tier. Would you mind answering a few questions?"

  Seraphiel had no real choice. This man, wielding strange powers only the Crown should possess, had dragged him into some inverted limbo, blinded him, and now demanded answers.

  "Sure," he replied, trying to keep his composure in the face of the bewilderment he had endured in a single day.

  "I would like to know what you know about this man."

  He parted his fingers.

  The stranger produced a picture. It depicted a man with ashen grey hair, a slim, deathly pallor, and eyes that seemed to have lost all gloss. He was unremarkable—eliciting no emotion. No curiosity. No fear. No concern.

  "I haven't seen that man anywhere," Seraphiel said, "and I doubt I'd remember him if I had."

  "Hm. I thought you might say that."

  The man parted the fingers covering Seraphiel's eye once again and handed him a flower—dead, a customary piece of Cairnreach flora. In an instant, it was invigorated into a white poppy.

  This show of prestidigitation was just that—a show.

  "Do you like it?" the man asked.

  "Erm… yes," Seraphiel replied.

  "Thanks," the man said.

  The flower began to change shape, becoming hypnotic—colours swirling and vanishing one after another in rapid succession. The man placed a syringe at the back of Seraphiel's head, and while he was in this hypnotic state, began extracting blood and placing symbols around him on the ground.

  He opened the book at his belt, revealing an eldritch symbol: an eye marked with a teardrop falling from its caruncle. He flicked the vial of blood, poured it onto a page, and began murmuring before calmly retrieving the flower and dropping it onto the ground, where it vanished.

  "Ahem."

  He cleared his throat, snapping the young royal back to reality.

  "Thank you for your patronage. This is all I need."

  He handed Seraphiel a card bearing the same symbol as the book—the strange eye gazing downward in pity as a tear fell.

  "I truly appreciate your time. This is the least I can do. When you need my assistance—very soon—tear this card."

  "Yes," Seraphiel replied weakly.

  The man placed his hand on the back of Seraphiel's head and forced him downward.

  In an instant, Seraphiel was back in the common grounds, facing the sign of an abandoned tavern that read:

  "See ya later!"

  Seraphiel stopped, sat on the ground, placed his hands on his head, and began to bawl.

  It was an ignoble act, perhaps—but a normal one in the face of such absurd feats and shattered realities. Or rather, the unreality of it all.

  "What have I done?" he muttered. "This must be divine punishment—for shirking my studies as the chosen heir. It must be. To be dethroned. To be humiliated. To be treated so frivolously by a black magician…"

  He remained there, hands clutching his head, unnoticed.

  Or at least, unnoticed by anyone in Cairnreach.

  The commoners gathered—not around him, but around something else. There was no spectacle. Nothing extraordinary.

  Only a single white poppy lying on the ground.