Lyse furrowed her brow. “Are... Are those the Donan stones?”
Caldo cackled as he approached the closest spire, drowning out her mumbling. “Poor timing, but a wonderful development nonetheless! With this much stone, I’ll turn every single person in the capital into a dog!”
Judging by Caldo’s words, Lyse inferred that he’d planned to produce these black stone pillars all along. Whether that was supposed to happen before or after capturing her was uncertain. With them, however, he could eliminate any resistance to his plan by turning everyone into dogs—and he would surely use that power to go after the imperial family. The prior incidents around the capital had likely been experiments to see how much power the Donans needed in order to transform imperials.
“Would that explain the incident at the city walls, then? Wait... This is no time for reflection,” she mused before coming to her senses. She reached into her pocket, then shouted, “Get big and carry me to the sky!” An avian monster she produced immediately grew in size and lifted Lyse on its back.
Meanwhile, Caldo began using the black stone pillars to warp the mana of everyone around him. The canine soldiers were unaffected since they’d retreated far enough. However, two knights with Alcede were too slow and got caught in the attack, sprouting doggy ears and tails as a result.
The Alstran prince showed little regard for himself despite Lyse swooping down at him upon a giant bird. “You too, girlie! Turn into a dog for me!”
“That’s not going to work!” Lyse shouted in response as she and her mount collided with Caldo, knocking him to the side of the road. He lay sprawled out and groaning atop the stone pavers, oblivious to the fact that Lyse retained her humanity in the presence of his dark power thanks to the Light within her.
“Seize him!” she commanded the bird after alighting. Its talons gripped the prince tightly, preventing him from even wriggling about. “Duke Alcede!”
“On it!” Alcede responded. He knew exactly what he needed to do when he heard his name, springing into action to put Caldo to sleep with magic. Lyse’s avian monster then carried the prince over to the knights, who promptly secured him.
“It’s still dangerous to linger here, so please get back, everyone,” Lyse instructed as she plunged her hand inside the backpack she was carrying. She withdrew a handful of white rock chips taken from around the Light of Origin. “I hope this works...” she muttered as she lightly pressed a piece against one of the black stone pillars. That was enough to cause a crack, and when she held the crystal in place, the crack grew larger and larger.
“How’s it working?” Alcede asked, checking up on her.
“Better than I expected. Would you mind helping me take care of the Donans first?”
The cultists Alcede had rendered unconscious would still pose a threat if they awoke and started using the stones’ power to control the imperial knights. Mindful of this, Lyse had them moved away from the pillars and asked the soldiers to secure them. She also had the forcibly transformed knights evacuated to safety. Then, one by one, she began pressing the white crystals to the black pillars.
“That looks like it will take a while,” Alcede chimed in. “Could I lend a hand?”
“If you would, please. Thank you,” Lyse replied graciously.
After gingerly poking the white rocks to make sure they were safe for him to handle, Alcede took a sample of them from Lyse. A few knights followed suit. The power of the Light within them was so strong, however, that holding the crystals for too long burned some of the knights. Instead, they opted to bag up the chunks of black stone for safekeeping.
Others yet cast light magic to illuminate the night and make work easier for those tending to the pillars. Alcede briefly paused in the task to revert the canine soldiers to their human forms so that they could help out as well. But even with everyone’s cooperation, progress was slow.
“If only this were quicker...” Lyse said under her breath.
Anybody with mana could use the Donan stones to control the minds of others, and Caldo had secretly produced the stones to exploit that power. Just thinking about it made Lyse restless. Even more nerve-racking, Sidis was still somewhere inside the cistern and might be in trouble because of it.
“I hope he’s all right. Sidis, I mean.” Alcede was worried as well.
“His Majesty made it out before any unsavory rumors started, and more importantly, we’ve now captured Prince Caldo. We just need to deal with these pillars and collect Sidis, then this whole mess will be wrapped up,” said Lyse, her thoughts pouring from her mouth. “Come to think of it, he could be right underneath us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if Sidis were safe, he should have made it out by now. If he’s been detained for some reason, don’t you think it’s because of these Donan stones—”
Before Lyse could finish her sentence, she lost her balance when a piece of a pillar gave way beneath her, sinking one of her legs into the ground. There was supposedly a pocket of water underneath the empty lot—in other words, where the pillars were sprouting from. Given their size and how many there were, she easily found some footing on another...but that, too, broke away under her.
“Miss Lyse!” Alcede called out as she plummeted into the cavern below with a scream. Thankfully, he finished his spell just in time to ensure her a safe landing.
Bewildered by what had just happened, Lyse noticed a chip of white rock at her feet. It must have fallen from her hand and, with her weight on top of it, cracked the pillar she’d been standing upon. Since they spired up at angles, she’d naturally tumbled downward into the pit beneath it.
“There’s not much room down here at all...”
The space was tight enough that Lyse couldn’t fully extend her arms. She sat in place for a moment while contemplating her next move. Should she continue her work from down there, or ask Alcede to pull her back up? As she pondered the answer, from out of the blue...
“Lyse!” someone called.
Lyse recognized the voice—it was Sidis, and he was close. She looked around but couldn’t see him anywhere. Though there was some illumination underground, the dense black stone pillars didn’t do much for visibility. Lyse squeezed her way between them to emerge on the other side of the pillar forest. There, she finally spied the silvery glint of Sidis’s hair.
He’d returned to human form but was dressed in unfamiliar clothes, which he must have borrowed off of someone’s back upon reverting. Gripped tightly in his hand was Seren’s collar, with the Alstran youth’s head dangling down. Lyse was glad to see him in one piece.
“Lord Sidis, thank goodness you’re all right!” she exclaimed. “And what happened to Seren?”
She saw his vacant gaze, but she was more astounded by what rose in front of him—the green light sprouting from the black boulder. Everything within their vicinity was colored by its glow. It was wide enough now that it would take both arms to encircle.
“This means the green light...” Lyse muttered.
“Yes. Seren created it,” replied Sidis. “This is how the terrorists have been acquiring their stones. But how did you get in here? I was trapped inside because I didn’t have enough power to break through the stones.”
Lyse thus shared her story with Sidis. She told him how things had gone with Caldo: how he’d planned to amass the stones, lure her out to capture her, use his stones around the city to control the knights, and eliminate her for once and for all. Then, after disposing of his chief obstacle—Lyse—he’d meant to use his stones to control the populace and launch an attack on the emperor.
“Though we captured Caldo without much problem, the stone pillars persisted. So I tried using the white crystals to destroy them, but as I was doing so, the ground gave way and I fell down here.” Alcede and the others should still be hacking away at the black stone, but it was regenerating too quickly because of Seren.
“Caldo has been...?” Seren muttered in concern.
“Yes, we’ve already arrested him. I suggest you help us resolve things now,” Lyse admonished.
“I see. I suppose I’ve lost the chance to atone for my sins,” he said, hanging his head low again. With that, the green light grew even larger and another pillar shot up out of nowhere, almost completely covering Seren. It was clear that the light fed on his state of mind.
“Please calm down, Seren! And what did you mean by that?” Lyse asked.
“This power of his attracted monsters that led to the death of the prince’s fiancée. He’s racked with guilt over it,” Sidis explained.