An owl hooted outside my window, waking me from a broken slumber. The metallic scent of blood and the acrid smell of stale sweat hit me so hard it made me gag. An odd sense of disorientation fell upon me--that chill of the unfamiliar.

Where in Hades am I?

With a groan, I sat up on the straw mattress and hugged my knees to my chest as my addled brain tried to piece together what had happened. My body ached all over thanks to lying for so long on the bumpy surface.

The stone walls almost pressed upon me, and then it suddenly came to me. Lord Darius had ordered the Dragonborn guards to escort me to the dungeon.

Good gods! I must have passed out.

The moon cast its cold, silvery light through a barred window onto the stone wall opposite me. I shivered when a cold draft howled through the cell. A constant drip fell from the ceiling towards a puddle on the floor at regular intervals, but time seemed to stand still.

How long are they going to keep me here?

"Hello?" I shouted as I slowly rose to my feet. My voice echoed in the stone cell, and a pit of emptiness gnawed at my stomach. "Is anyone there?"

No one answered.

I have to get out of here.

With a little jump, I grabbed hold of the iron bars and hoisted myself up until I could look out of the window. I saw grassy fields at eye-level, but the longer I looked, the more I realized that the lawn was moving. Like a carpet of black slime, the surface of the grass shifted as thousands of snakes slithered around, emitting a rattling noise that cut through the silence like maracas.

What in Hades? We don't have snakes in this part of the world! This has to be a nightmare.

When a snake hissed two feet from my window, I yelped and let go of the bars, landing on the stone floor with a frustrated grunt. I didn't dare attempt to return to the window. I had hoped to pry loose a bar. Upon closer inspection, I realized even my small frame wouldn't be able to fit through the gap.

I hope the snakes don't find their way in here!

"I wouldn't if I were you," a deep voice growled from the corner of my cell.

Startled, I whipped around to see a translucent ice-blue image of Lord Darius. He looked like a phantom of the night.

"What do you want, Lord Darius?"

"Open yourself up to the magical power inside you. Try to balance my ice with the fire in your soul."

When Lord Darius hissed my name, his breath clouded before him, and the humidity in the air froze into ice crystals that danced in the air like snowflakes and glistened in the moonlight. The puddle on the floor of my cell hardened into black ice after a series of pings and pangs.

Goosebumps rose on my flesh, and my arms began to glow under the skin until flames erupted and danced across my body. To my amazement, the fire neither burned me nor caused me pain. It simply warmed me and counterbalanced the Shadow Rider's iciness.

"Lord Darius, what's happening?"

"Finally, you're beginning to access the powerful hidden magic inside you," he replied.

"Is this real?" I asked with a gasp.

The flames mingled with the ice crystals, which turned into droplets and fell to the stone floor.

"Yes, Helena," he breathed. "That's it. Feel the fire inside you."

"How is this possible?" I asked as flames licked my upturned palms.

"Magic manifests as a different element in every person according to his personality," he replied. "When the mind has something tangible to envision, the magic is easier to control."

I gazed, wide-eyed, as a tiny ball of fire rose from my palm and dissipated when it touched Lord Darius' frozen fractals.

"A word of warning: do not use your power to contact the boy," Lord Darius hissed. "I forbid it."

I whipped my head towards him. "Why?"

"Focus on visions that can help the Empire so that I can protect you from Lord Hesse."

"Are you crazy?" I cried out. "Dahlroth is a part of you. Don't you get it?"

The Shadow Rider didn't reply. His frost spread across the walls and the floor near where he stood. When he raised his palms towards me, he exuded an iciness that made my forearms itch and tingle. At first glance, I thought I saw tiny white insects crawling on my skin, but I did a double take and realized they were frost crystals spreading and extinguishing my fire magic.

My flames vanished. Without my power to warm me, my teeth began to chatter in earnest as I clutched my arms.

"Let ... it ... go, Helena."

"You're traumatized," I said. "No wonder. They split your psyche in half."

"Is that what you think?" Lord Darius asked as he cornered me against the wall. "Tell me, why do you think no blade can touch a Shadow Rider?"

I crossed my arms. "Magical armor and protection spells."

Without another word, Lord Darius threw his iron helmet to the stone floor with a clang that reverberated in my cell. When I looked up, I shrank away from him as far as I could.

He was headless.

I gasped in horror. When he neared me, his cold breath fanned across my shoulder.

Without a head, he shouldn't be able to survive, much less breathe or speak. Is this one of his tricks? Has he cloaked his head with an invisibility spell?

"Your father had no chance of defending himself on the day he died," Lord Darius hissed. "When Andreas stabbed Lord Hesse, his blade didn't bite flesh."

Oh, gods!

My insides twisted in fear. "You can't be harmed because you are a projection of Dahlroth's darkest self. In order to kill you, one needs to find your hidden body."

"All Shadow Riders are projections," he replied. "Not just me."

"All of you?" I asked, stunned. "Even Lord Hesse?"

"Especially Lord Hesse," he replied. "Shadow Riders are pure evil."

"You aren't pure evil," I insisted. "You kept your word. You tried to warn me. You were too late, but you tried to help. You protected me from that maniac at the castle."

"Lord Darius is the Rider prototype." He turned away from me. "I'm imperfect."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Or maybe your soul is just stronger. Maybe Lord Hesse was evil even as a human."

"That's where you're wrong. He needed a projection more than any of us. The King ordered the most skilled men from all walks of life to join him. Hesse was an artist--I was a man of science."

Too shocked to reply, I simply stared at him wide-eyed.

Lord Darius took a deep breath. "The Gatál King asks for too much from his elite--more than any mere mortal can give. So scientists and wizards worked together to create Shadow Riders."

"Is the art of projection magic or science?"

"It's both--the two disciplines complement each other."

"How long can you survive like this? You need your soul!"

"You need to stop seeing Dahlroth as a person," the Shadow Rider said in an angry whisper. "He's a receptacle, nothing more."

"It's who you really are," I insisted. "You've just pretended for so long that you've forgotten him."

"Drop this Helena."

"I can't!"

"I warned you of unspeakable pain if you didn't," Lord Darius hissed. "The King will compel me to kill you for knowing too much."

"You wouldn't do that," I said.

"You have walked through the execution chambers at Castle Halcía," Lord Darius whispered. "Would you have me add you to my list of sins?"

I remembered the chambers all too well.

"You're his slaves," I said as I pressed my palms to his chest. "Resist the King's evil, Lord Darius. If you teach me, I can find your body and free you from your dark projection."

"No one resists the King. We're trapped here."

"Here? As in Castle Eismark?"

"Helena, no!" His voice sounded panicked as he grasped my hands in his chilly grip. "Don't even think about it! I forbid it!"

"You're all hidden in the bowels of this fortress?"

"Helena, please, forget it."

"Let me help set this right."

"You speak as though I am doomed," Lord Darius said through clenched teeth as he turned his back on me. "Lack of emotion is a gift, Helena. I can craft a Shadow Rider for you, and your pain and grief would disappear at once."

"I don't believe that," I whispered under my breath, "and neither do you."

A tiny part of me felt afraid of him, but a greater part was intrigued--I had to know the truth. Was Lord Darius truly a projection?

There was only one way to tell. I'd have to touch him.

Despite every voice inside my head screaming at me not to touch him, I stepped onto my tiptoes behind him and reached a tentative hand towards the collar of his leather armor.

My fingertips grazed his invisible, ice-cold neck, and I recoiled. So he did have a body.

Is he a projection or does he use magic to camouflage himself?

When I reached up a second time, he whispered, "Helena, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," I whispered.

Stunned as though I was in a trance, I moved my fingers up his neck to his scalp. The Shadow Rider drew a sharp breath but didn't move until my fingers threaded through his invisible, fine, silky hair. He shuddered, and his skin felt ice-cold, almost painful to the touch. The fine strands fell through my fingers, tickling like the softest feathers.

It mesmerized me.

"Helena, enough of your fantasy," he mumbled. "It isn't healthy."

"This isn't a fantasy," I whispered.

"What?" he hissed as he recoiled.

Before I could think, he whipped around and grabbed my wrist. "How can you touch me?" he growled.

"Let go!"

"How dare you touch me?"

"I--I don't know," I said, wide-eyed. My heart leaped into my throat.

What in Hades was I thinking?

"I didn't think you had a physical form." My thoughts raced in panic. What had come over me? "I was so in awe... I mean ... I didn't expect--"

"Foolish child!" the Rider hissed as he replaced his helmet on his shoulders. "I'm cursed. No one can survive touching me. How did you manage?"

"You kill anyone who touches you?"

The Shadow Rider caged me against the wall with his arms. Despite my best attempts to hide my fear, my teeth chattered and goosebumps rose along my skin.

"Not on purpose," he hissed.

My body trembled. Would the King compel Lord Darius to kill me now? Did I know too much?

"When you dig deep inside your soul, young Helena, you see a raging fire." He drew so close that his chest touched mine with every breath. "So warm. Filled with passion. Such strong emotion."

I stared at his leather breastplate, wondering what lay beneath. Did he have a heart? Or nothing at all?

"Do you know what I see, Helena?"

When the Shadow Rider audibly exhaled, frost crystals covered the outside of his metal helmet. He traced the surface of his mask across my collarbone, I shuddered as frostbite burned my skin, leaving a trail of pink, tender flesh in its wake.

"Ice," he hissed in my ear.

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

"My heart holds an eternal winter that will freeze your soul," he continued. "My touch should have suspended your life, preserving you for all time in magical frost."

"But you didn't," I said, my breath tremulous.

"I will warn you only once. Do not wake the ice-breathing monster that lies inside me, Helena."

"Lord Darius, don't you want to live a normal life with a normal body? You can be free of this hell."

"We will never be free," he replied. "We're Shadow Riders for life, and Dahlroth will live for centuries. I'm an evil wraith tethered to my brethren for eternity, destined to serve the Gatál."

How could magic and science create such darkness? Was it pure hubris to think I could fix it?

"That's why you will do well to let me forget that Dahlroth ever existed," he said in a firm tone as he gripped my head in his hands. "Now you will wake and never speak of this again."

I awoke with a gasp.

My forehead covered in beads of perspiration, I bolted upright on a straw mattress in the dungeon. Little bugs were crawling across my neck, and I flicked them away before I leaped from the infested bed.

With a ragged exhale, I clutched my hand to my heart. I couldn't remember anything after Lord Darius had ordered the Dragonborn guards to escort me to my cell, which meant only one thing.

They'd given me a sedative or some serum that split my unconscious mind wide open.

Was that whole sequence a vision or a drug-induced nightmare?

___

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed the chapter, please vote and/or comment. Any feedback or suggestions are always appreciated. :)

I know this chapter is disorienting--it was designed to be so that you can feel Helena's fear and anxiety. However, if it is *too* crazy, please tell me, and I'll add a few more touchstones.

Don't worry--the answers are coming. ;)