The Obsidian Crown of the Lost Dominion

by Akira Knightley

  Blaise pulled away from Taylor and turned to face Hailey. “Hey! I don’t know what you guys are talking about! I was nowhere near Kieran or that witch doctor, ok?” Blaise yelled at her.

  “You need to do better than that, Blaise, because they’re both missing and you’re the last one seen beating up on Kieran,” I said.

  “Wait, what are you guys accusing him of now? Kidnapping? Not one but two people? I have had it with the two of you!” Taylor screamed. “He was with me last night, all night!”

  “Oh we know you were together,” Hailey said. “I didn’t think you would like wearing those grungy robes and ugly dagger belts but I guess anything for a little power.”

  I was taken aback by Hailey’s accusation. “Wait, wait! You guys stay here,” I told Hailey and Blaise. I pulled Taylor a few feet away from Blaise and me. “We need to talk.”

  Once we were out of hearing distance of the others, I said, “Listen, I know you don’t know me and we have not been close friends before but, Taylor, I am asking you for help to find my parents and prove my innocence—”

  “Hold up, you need to slow your roll there, sister. I don’t know why I, Taylor Van de Kamp, should even care what you and Hailey think of my boyfriend. Nevertheless, I was nice to drive you around because, for some unknown reason, you think that he is evil incarnate and I want to prove you wrong,” she said.

  “Taylor, just wait, I need to explain—”

  “No, you wait! Let’s just rewind for a minute there. First off, I don’t care about this quest. Not that I am a heartless bitch but I just don’t have anything to contribute here. I have my own life. I like what I am. I’m proud of my accomplishments. Winning in gymnastics, my cheerleading squad, being prom queen, those are the kinds of quests I’m into. I like to help you, Abi, but this is just not my gig. Besides, I know they all think I’m too shallow to make any difference anyway. I can’t afford to be entangled with this any weird stuff, whatever it is!” she said non-stop.

  “I’m just saying, I know you want to help but I don’t think you can do that if you keep telling Blaise everything.” I said, interjecting before she could set off on another tirade.

  “I didn’t tell Blaise anything! What makes you think I did?” Taylor said.

  “Well, first he found out about the box and he knows that the doctor had it. The next thing we know the office was burgled, the doctor beat up, and the box was stolen. Then, you go with us to Black Rose where we found out about the crown. Well, he can’t account for his whereabouts last night. The doctor and Kieran were kidnapped from the hospital last night. They haven’t turned up yet. And worse, the Sorceress has the crown now. I know you love him but, c’mon. We found him beating up Kieran under the bleachers asking him about the Knights!” I pleaded with her.

  “You are impossible! After all the horrible, life or death situations we’ve been through. You have the audacity to accuse my boyfriend? My boyfriend who nearly died twice just because we happened to share a detention class with you. Well I don’t want to be sucked into her private little hell! All this magic, all these supernatural stuff is not for me and Blaise!” Her voice rose to a fevered pitch. She stomped her foot in frustration.

  I felt my blood rise to my cheeks. “But how do you explain all those coincidences?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. You’re right! We’ve never been friends and we never will be friends. He’s my boyfriend. Don’t you think I would know if my boyfriend is part of a cult? Don’t you think I would know if he is evil? Just because all of you think I’m just some airhead that I can easily be manipulated doesn’t make it true. So yeah! We can’t be friends because I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t trust my judgment. It probably would be best if we don’t talk anymore, ever!”

  “Taylor!” I pleaded.

  “No! I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I am so done with all this drama! But I can tell you one thing. You will eat your words. He’s a good guy and I will prove it!” She grabbed Blaise by the hand and left.

  From behind, I heard Hailey say, “Just let her go. You tried. Some lessons need to be learned first-hand.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Blaise’s Tunnel Vision

  I looked at Taylor and Blaise walking away. Taylor’s shoulders were heaving up and down. It was apparent she was crying. Blaise stopped her and they seemed to be having a heated conversation.

  “Let’s go, Monty. We need to keep going,” Hailey said.

  I turned around to go when I heard Blaise’s voice. “I can’t believe the two of you! You are so ready to blame me for everything. You don’t who you’re protecting!” he was saying as he was walking towards Hailey and me.

  “Do you think you can intimidate us?” Hailey shouted at him.

  “I don’t care what you think, but you don’t know the whole truth. And I will not have you hurt Taylor because you two are too dense to see it! You are being played!”

  “Blaise, let it be. I’m done with it!” I could hear Taylor running after Blaise but Blaise was on a warpath and would not be pacified.

  “No, babe. They don’t know the whole story. I wasn’t beating up Kieran. I don’t even know how his nose got all bloody. I started to ask him about that night in the hallway. And he started to run. So, I chased him down. He went under the bleachers, saying something about he’s not one of them. I was trying to get him out of there to explain himself but your friends here showed up,” he said, fuming mad.

  Taylor finally caught up with him and he became somewhat calmer. He kept pacing and rubbing his chin, looking out at in the distance at nothing. He cleared his throat and said, “I saw the hooded figures materialize and I freaked out so I started to run back to the library. I passed him in the hallway. He was behind me then he stopped running. I heard some voices like chanting behind me and I got worried about him. I thought the hooded men got him so I turned around to search for him. When I found him, he had a strange look in his face like I caught him doing something. I couldn’t see anything but he started running really fast towards the library. He ran past me and left me standing there. All of a sudden, I saw these lights coming from behind me. Then I heard the whizzing of something fast. I didn’t know what it was. The next thing I know, fireballs were flying. Kieran was hit in the back. I figured I’m next so I ran.” He paused. He bowed his head and continued, “I just wanted to ask him what he was doing in the tunnel. But every time I get close to him, he starts acting like he’s being beat up.”

  “Wait, he was behind you? But he came in first?” I said.

  He nodded. “I know because he passed me by.”

  “Did you actually see the hooded figures throw any fireballs?” I asked.

  “No. That’s the thing. But it would be crazy to think Kieran did it because he got hit first and he died! That would be impossible.” Blaise ran his hand through his hair, clearly less mad but more agitated now.

  “In a normal world, true. But as we both know, that was nothing but normal,” I said.

  “I know. But I can’t shake the feeling that he did something. I just don’t know what it is. It’s the look in his face. I can’t get over it. It’s like I interrupted him in the middle of something he shouldn’t be doing.” Blaise placed both hands on top of his head, interlacing his fingers. I could tell he’d been over and over that night in his head for a while.

  “It doesn’t really matter now. We’re not getting involved anymore,” Taylor said, still sobbing.

  Blaise shook his head. “I don’t really care what you do with that information but I’m with Taylor. You’re on your own.”

  I watched them leave until the last sparkle of her intense blue and white halo disappeared in the distance. I knew she and I were never very close but at that moment, something inside told me she was important to me. I couldn’t say why or how, but there was a dull ache and a sense of emptiness in my heart. And a
certaintly, that this burden is larger and heavier without her beside me.

  CHAPTER 19

  A House Divided

  After we parted ways with Taylor and Blaise, Hailey and I returned to our classroom and started to research old mansions in Oregon online. After a couple of hours searching, we found tons of images of old, abandoned, dilapidated mansions but none of them looked like the one in the dream.

  “Hey, how do we know it’s in Oregon?” I finally asked.

  “We don’t. We don’t even know if it’s real, much less where it could be,” Hailey said.

  “For that matter, how do we know it’s not in Xana?” I added.

  Hailey didn’t answer. Her brows were furrowed in concentration of whatever it was she was reading online.

  “Unless I could find an article about a famous haunted house sitting by bluff overlooking a river? Where urban-legend puports to be the site of a murder-suicide.”

  “Let me look at that! Is there a picture?” I said as I came around behind her to share the screen.

  The digital photo of the article was in some kind of newspaper archive. The picture was not very clear since the paper was already yellowed with age.

  “Classic love triangle. Husband finds wife with lover in the mansion he built and gifted to her. He goes crazy and kills the wife. Husband never found, presumed dead...” Hailey mumbled while scrolling through the article.

  “See if there’s a picture of the mansion,” I said.

  “Whoa, here’s the interesting bit, the mansion is famous for the crack that goes from the top of the mansion to way below its foundation. Blah, blah, blah...Seismologists baffled as there are no recorded fault lines in the area or earthquake strong enough to have caused the crack. According to local legends, the jilted husband was a powerful warlock. It is said that he broke the mansion with a powerful spell of which still lingers to this day.”

  “Scroll down! I think this is it!” I said impatiently.

  She scrolled further down the pages and there it was: an old picture of the mansion from the dream. Underneath, it said Baron Kayleron mansion AKA the Broken Heart Mansion.

  “That’s what we’re looking for. That’s where we’re going!” I said, thumping on the picture of the mansion on the screen. I started to gather my things from the table.

  “Yes. Yes. You’re right, I’ll print out the address,” Hailey said as she did the same thing. She had become somewhat subdued since we had the fight with Taylor and Blaise. I could tell that she felt sorry about it but she was too proud to say she was wrong.

  We walked towards the locker area in silence.”Listen, we can check out the mansion and then call Taylor if she wants to join us there. She just needs some space right now. Besides, I was probably too hard on Blaise. We really don’t know if it’s him under the hood,” I said, trying to console her.

  She shrugged and pulled open her locker door. “Let’s just go. We can decide if and when we find the Broken Heart Mansion,” she mumbled as she stuffed her school bag into the locker.

  We took a cab to the street address on the article. It was the deserted street I saw from the dream. I recognized the mansion immediately. “We need to find that cave entrance,” I said. I did a quick survey of our surroundings and realized that the mansion had several acres of grounds. “Awww...” I groaned. “It would take days to find a hidden cave entrance here... I have an idea, what about we go through the mansion?”

  Hailey followed my gaze around the overgrown thicket and said, “Okay, but we can’t take too long inside. It’s getting dark and it doesn’t look very safe.” Hailey looked at the mansion with trepidation but started to walk uphill anyway. I followed her.

  ”Hailey, I need to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have been keeping a secret from all of you.”

  “We all have secrets. What is it?” Hailey asked.

  “I think Blaise is one of the bad guys.”

  She stopped walking, faced me, and raised her left eyebrow. “You don’t say. We already established that he’s a moron and bully, that’s no secret. So what’s on your mind? Spit it out, Montserrat.”

  “No, there’s something else. I see colors around you. Well, not just you. Other people too, like Kieran and the doctor...”

  Hailey stopped completely and stared at me for a long time. “You mean like a halo? Could it be your eyes...”

  I shook my head. “No, checked that already. I suppose you can call it halos or auras. I don’t really know what it is. What I do know is that I don’t see one on Blaise. I looked and looked but he doesn’t have one. Somehow, he’s not one of us.”

  She continued to stare at me with incredulity in her eyes. “You see one on me, like right now?” she asked slowly.

  “Yes, I do. But listen; maybe that’s how we’re supposed to find who the real knights are. It makes sense that you, me, and Kieran would have auras and not Blaise, right?” I said.

  “And if Kieran is right, that we are the Knights, then that would confirm what I’ve been saying all along, Blaise is one of the hooded men!” But it is still pure speculation. Hailey shook her head and continued walking.

  When I couldn’t deal with the uncomfortable silence anymore, I said, “I don’t really know, but just be careful around him.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  We kept walking in silence until we arrived midway up the hill. I looked up and there on at the very top, covered by a low-hanging dark cloud from above and unchecked vegetation from below stood the infamous mansion. Just as I remembered it from my dream, it was rent from top to foundation, as if someone took an ax and cleaved it completely in half.

  “There it is, The Broken Heart Mansion,” announced Hailey.

  By the Author, “Broken Mansion”

  Artist rendering in pencil. 2019

  CHAPTER 20

  The Sorceress’ Apprentice

  “It sure looked a lot closer from the bottom of the hill,” complained Hailey in between deep breathes as we worked our way up the steep hill. The nearer we got, the more sinister the surroundings became. In the light of the setting sun, the shadow of the mansion and the hill itself appeared to be otherworldly, giving a sense of foreboding.

  “I hear you, but we probably should be careful talking over here. You never know who could be listening,” I said in a hushed tone, while holding my side which was in pain from the hike up.

  “There! There’s the gate,” Hailey pointed. “You see it?” she said, panting. She stopped walking and bent over, placed one hand on one knee, and took several deep breaths.

  “Yes, I do. Keep it down,” I insisted and did the same.

  ”Alright!” she said in a lowered tone.

  The rusty gates were over ten feet tall. I was sure it kept the mansion safe from intruders for a very long time, but not anymore. The metal was covered with rust from disuse and one had fallen off its bottom hinge. The tall brick fences had fallen to disrepair but were still formidable enough to keep people away. The faded “No Trespassing” sign was swinging by one nail, making a squeaking noise every time it swayed from a soft gust of wind. The gate was hanging at an angle from the top hinge creating a gaping entry for me and Hailey at the bottom.

  “Here,” I said while I held the hanging gate to let her through.

  We were careful not to step on any cracks on the pavement but were able to walk straight up to the front door, if you could call it that. The same as the gate, the massive wooden doors were blasted off its hinges. Charring was visible all over where the chasm was.

  “Whoa! Don’t look down!” Hailey said as she pulled me away from the dark hollow space between the two pieces of the house. She picked up a pebble and dropped it inside the pit. She counted a few numbers before they heard it hit the floor. “And please, whatever you do, don’t fall down.�
��

  I examined the entry to the mansion. Even the front steps leading to the doors were cleaved in half.

  It was too dark inside to see anything within the structure although above our heads, we could see the night sky from the jagged opening. I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight.

  “Look! Who could it be?” I pointed at a set of footprints on the dust going inside the foyer.

  Hailey shrugged without saying anything.

  We followed the footsteps until it reached a closed double door.

  Hailey turned the knob and opened the door. I motioned for her to stand aside so I could check it first. I stepped into the room with my phone in hand. The putried smell of stagnation and the disturbed dust from years of disuse assaulted my nostrils. I coughed softly to clear my throat. I pushed the flashlight farther in front of me to fight the overwhelming darkness inside. It took a few seconds to adjust my eyes but in a few moments, I could make out an old sitting room with an old ornate couch and tea table, dusty floor carpet, a huge grand piano in one corner, and several tapestries depicting different scenes hanging on the walls. To say that it was gloomly would not describe the feeling of emptiness and desolation in there.

  The scars of betrayal run deep and last a long time. I motioned for Hailey to join me.

  “Look!” I pointed at the footprints. I shone the light at the footprints. There were two pairs, and their outlines were sharp against the thick dust. They were made very recently. I followed them all the way to the carpeted area of the sitting room. I expected to see deeper impressions on the thick tufts but there was nothing. As if the people who made them either floated away or just vanished. “They end here! Hold up, they end here?” I corrected myself.