It is gray, for one thing.
"Gray" isn't usually a quality that makes something noteworthy, but it's hard to dismiss any detail of the imposing structure before us. It towers over the rows and rows of quirky, idyllic little crystalline homes of cheery red and blue at its base, glinting in the fading light of evening, a great unfriendly exclamation point that dominates the snow-crusted landscape stretching out around its base.
I tug my Angora scarf closer around my neck, gazing up at the structure.
"Monolithic." I hardly realize that I'm speaking the word aloud.
Shining Armor glances over at me and puts a hoof around my withers. I instinctively press my body against his. Shiny is big for a unicorn, big and warm. He's joked once or twice about having a bit of earth pony on his sire's side, but I'd believe it as stone truth. I've felt his hooves stroking my coat on many a cold night in Canterlot, and there's no way in Equestria that those are the delicate, lily-clutching, tile-striding hooves of a full-blood unicorn.
It's good that Shiny's got a little earth-tribe blood in him. It's good that, as an alicorn, I am honorarily one-third earth pony. It helps me feel like less of an invader here on these sacred stones.
My husband raises his snow goggles, perching them above the base of his horn. "I don't get it," he says, gazing up at the bleak, barren spike of raw crystal. "Are there two castles? Because this doesn't look anything like the one in the picture that Princess Celestia showed you." He squints up at it, struggling against the glare. "It doesn't look much like a castle at all, to be honest."
"This is it. It isn't surprising that it looks different now than it once did." I summon up my best recollection of the mouldering tome that Aunty Celestia drew up from the forbidden section of the Archives. "'The castle and its monarch are one, just as the Empire and its monarch are one. As within, so without.'"
"So this castle"—he gestures at it with one hoof—"serves as a literal, physical indicator of the health of the Empire."
"Yes. And its roots run deep. The Crystal Empire sits at the nexus of all earth pony magic in all Equestria. Ponies have merely made do in the thousand years since its disappearance, forging local points of control; but with its reappearance, it has reasserted dominance over all the old crystal ley lines. The health of the Empire has the potential to spread across all Equestria."
A harsh, snowy gust whips at our manes.
"Equestria's in trouble, then."
I nod. "That's why we're here."
"Loving that confidence, honey, but do you have any idea what we're actually supposed to be doing? Because I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea." Shiny trots up and taps at the impenetrable crystal tower with one hoof, producing a strangely musical tone. "We already know that the locals'll be of no help."
"Third time might be the charm!" I say, sunnily. "We probably owe them another chance, at least." I cross to the nearest cheery-looking home and give the friendliest of all possible knocks at the door with my hoof. The door does not open, but a nearby curtain parts. I can see the glitter of an eye through the aperture.
"Hi!" I say, exactly as I did the previous two times. "My name is Cadance, and I'm an emissary from the Principality of Equestria, to the south. Can you spare a second?"
The eye disappears. I maintain my position of the stoop for a good minute, my smile unchanging.
"I'm not sure she or he wants to talk," Shiny says.
"I'm deciding to have a little faith," I say. My decision to do so is soon rewarded by the rattle of the door latch and the door opening the merest fraction of an inch.
"Hi!" I say, again, at the face that peers at me through the crack. “Do you have a moment to chat?"
"I'd ... rather not," says the pony within. Her voice is like frozen lead. "It's cold out."
"It is a bit chilly," I admit. "I'm afraid I'm spoiled to the balmier climate of my southern homeland, but—"
"You don't understand," she interrupts. "She told us that if it ever got cold, it was a sign that we should stay indoors for our protection. If it's cold, that means we're in danger."
"I understand," I say. "Or at least empathize. One question: who is 'she'?"
"She was ... good. Kind. She wanted to protect us."
"What was her name?"
The little pony behind the door opens her mouth as if to speak, but then winces, as though suffering a sudden, terrible headache.
"I ... don't remember. I'm sorry. Excuse me." The door shuts in my face.
I am about to return to the street when the door opens once more. I turn back around to see a tiny, yellow, sad-eyed colt at the door, extending his hoof to me. Resting on his hoof is an uneven but lovingly-crafted snowflake, snipped out of blue construction paper. I smile and accept the gift, feeling my heart warm.
“Thank you so much, this is lovely! Did you—”
I am cut off as the little colt is whisked hastily inside. I can hear the noise of a bolt being thrown.
“Gotta admit, that was kind of adorable,” Shiny says, as I trot back over. “But it didn’t get us much.”
"It didn't get us much, but it got us something. Enough to give me an idea." I fish the heart-shaped pendant out from beneath my scarf, the pendant that has been mine since I helped redeem the wicked enchantress Prismia with the raw power of love, earning myself both a royal title and a unicorn's horn on my forehead in the process. "Back in the Age of Legends, the Empire was protected both from the winter chill and from outside aggression by a heart-shaped block of cosmic spectrum that was found in a dragon's hoard. Even if she can't remember what's happened here, somepony in authority obviously taught her that 'cold' means 'danger.' If the protection of their cosmic spectrum has failed, the entire Empire might be on some kind of lockdown."
"Cosmic spectrum's the same stuff your crystal heart is made of. Is your pendant maybe cut from that same block?”
"Based on what Prismia told me about it, I think not. Same substance, different source. But cosmic spectrum’s always been rare, even in the Age of Legends, and it's virtually nonexistent nowadays. Aunty Celestia once told me that a piece the size of my pendant is worth more than Ponyville and everything in it."
"Whatever it was didn't save the Empire from this unicorn king who wiped it off the map. The one your aunts turned to shadow."
“Yes.” I bite my lip. "Something obviously went very wrong. It's likely that the Empire's heart was broken, or stolen, or worse. My pendant is probably a poor substitute, but it's the best we have."
I walk slowly up to the crystalline wall. My breath fogs up the smooth surface.
"This castle entrusted its safety to the power of cosmic spectrum for many, many years. Even if nopony here remembers that, I am hoping that it remembers."
My horn begins to glow. Light and love swirl out from me, and I feel the familiar hum of my crystal pendant beginning to vibrate in harmony with my aura. A small bubble of warmth gathers around Shiny and me. Layers of frost encrusting the shining pavement beneath me begin to melt away, creating sedate and glimmering pools at my hooves.
I turn to Shining Armor with a fillyish giggle. No matter how many times it happens, I am unfailingly, childishly delighted when magic just works like this. Buoyed by early success, I extend my point of power out to the surface of the tower.
There comes a great crash and for a moment, I know nothing. By the time I come to, I am on my back, supported above the ground by my husband's strong hoof. "Cadance!" he shouts. "What happened? Are you all right?"
"I'm okay!" I say, with more confidence than I feel. I gently work my way out of Shining Armor's rescuing grip and find my footing, trying to blink away the blurriness from my vision. "I'm going to try again."
He frowns. "Not a good idea."
"No, no, it's fine. I just wasn't prepared for it. There's so much power here, but it's cold. Numb. Like a hoof you've slept on wrong." My eyes narrow. "I think maybe it just needs a little convincing." My horn ignites again, but instead of trying to impose my will on the structure, even by the tiniest bit, I merely abide for a moment in my re-forged bubble of warmth and present myself to the structure.
"It's okay," I say.
With a noise like a calving glacier, the slab of crystal before me parts, seeming almost to fold itself out of existence in a hundred tiny places at once. I turn to my husband and give him a serene smile. He returns a wary nod, and illumination gathers at his horn. I follow suit, and together, we stride into the narrow, dim corridor that my magic has opened in the wall.
We do not walk far, only a matter of meters, before the cramped passage ends in a spiral staircase leading upward. Shiny exhaustively tests its soundness before giving me the okay, and even then insists on leading the way up. The climb is an uncomfortable one; whoever designed the staircase made it a squat thing, with far too many turns, and we are constantly in danger of chipping our horns against the curve of the stairs directly above us.
"Think the builders were going for deliberately unwelcoming?" Shiny says, as we ascend. "This may be the unfriendliest entrance to a building I've ever seen."
"The whole place feels reluctant, somehow," I say, my pendant still humming at my chest.
It is possibly a trick of the construction, or the unfamiliar angle of the stairs, but the climb seems to go on for much longer than it has any right to. I am teetering on the very edge of patient, regal frustration when the stairs open above me into a long, low chamber, and that is the moment I see it for the first time.
Many years ago, not long after Aunty Celestia took me under her wing, we toured the North Celestial Sea together. We made many such excursions in those days; Aunty Celestia told me that it was to introduce Equestria's newest princess to the whole of the land. One evening, we were ingratiating ourselves to a quaint little wave-washed village clinging to the shoreline, and they requested, no, insisted that we view their town's pride and joy. They led us out along the shore until we came to a great assemblage of interlocking hexagonal columns of basalt, some ten times the height of a pony, reportedly the foundations of a massive bridge laid down by the legendary Rockhoof himself. Aunty Celestia smiled and nodded, her eyes twinkling, and showed these proud villagers the utmost respect. In the privacy of our carriage, however, she confided to me that the perfect hexagonal structures of the causeway had not in fact been laid down by Rockhoof, nor by the hoof of any pony, but were instead a wonder of pure geology.
That is what I see before me when Shiny and I finally emerge from the claustrophobic turns of the staircase: a wonder of pure geology. How else might I describe it? Just like the basalt structures that towered proudly over the Celestial Sea, it is a perfect interlocking mass of towers, columns and stacks, the tallest of which rise all the way to the low ceiling overhead. Unlike Rockhoof's Causeway, however, it is not made from dull basalt, but of the same gray crystal of the castle itself. It gleams in the light of our horns.
A small seat has been carved into the base of the pillars, a gentle slope of crystal leading up to it.
"Whoa," Shiny says, stepping forward. I personally cannot speak. "Some kind of throne room, I guess."
I nod, finding my voice. "We shouldn't touch it."
"Agreed. But we're indoors, at least. Maybe this would be a good place to set up camp? It's out of the cold."
I hesitate, but finally relent. "You're right. The way the townsponies look at us, I suspect we're not going to find a welcoming hotel. And I've no interest in going all the way back to the rail depot, not in this weather."
"So, it's settled, then," Shiny says. "I'll get the bedrolls ready. You focus on keeping us warm. How long does your pendant's spell last?"
"Just as long as I concentrate on filling it with light and love," I reply. "So, not forever. But I'm sure I can keep it going for an hour or so and give us a head start on the night, at least." My pendant hums at my breast, even stronger than before. Is it somehow resonating with the crystalline walls around me? With the throne itself?
As I watch, I swear that I can see a faint wash of blue cross the gray surface of the throne. For one brief moment, it takes on the exact hue of my pendant.
"There's so much I don't understand," I say. "So much I don't know."
"Knowing and understanding can wait until tomorrow," Shiny kisses the tip of my horn. "But don't worry, hon. We'll crack this castle's secrets."
I give him a wan smile, and a quick peck on the lips. We engage in the barest of all nighttime preparations, satisfying the rumbling in our bellies with nuts and dried apricots. It is a poor meal, and by the end of it, I still feel like I would commit several felonies for a good hot rarebit, but it'll have to suffice for now. We snuggle into our bedrolls, and the light of my horn winks out as sleep overtakes me and the amulet around my neck goes still once more. The last thing I see before consciousness leaves me is the throne of the Empire, looming over our rude camp like an impassive idol to an ancient god.
"It's judging me," I murmur to myself, and then I am lost to dreams.
Shining Armor is poking me with his hoof. "Cadance!" he whispers, his voice harsh with what sounds like alarm.
My eyes fly open and I bolt upright, my wings quivering. I can see my breath steaming from my nostrils. Even though we're far away from the slicing wind outdoors, the cold has penetrated our little camp. "What's the matter? What's going on?"
Shiny's eyes are bright. "Nothing bad, I promise. Sorry for scaring you."
Something enticing tickles at my nose. I frown. "Shiny, did you ... cook?"
"I swear I did not," he says, pushing in my direction a velvet pillow supporting a small deep-blue crystal dish full of steaming food: toast rounds, hot and mustardy cheese, a sunny poached egg. It is the most picture-perfect serving of rarebit I've ever seen. I look at him in puzzlement.
"Got up in the middle of the night to look for a chamber-pot," he explains. "When I got back, this was here."
A quick health spell confirms that it is exactly what it seems to be: a delightful little plate of cheese and egg and toast. I give it a tentative bite, find it delicious, and end up accidentally devouring the whole thing.
"Sorry," I say, sheepishly, my mouth still full of crumbs. "Did you—"
Shiny waves it off with a little laugh. "I'm fine. Thanks."
"One of the townsponies," I say, touching at the corners of my mouth with a crisp linen napkin laid out alongside the plate. "They must have brought it as a gift, or something?"
"I doubt it. See, there's more." He leads me across the room to a small, low passageway I'm positive was not there before. We pass through it, and for a moment I am certain that I am still asleep and dreaming. My breath catches in my throat.
"Crazy, huh?" says Shining Armor.
I feel my jaw hanging slack in a distinctly un-regal fashion as I crane my neck about, taking in the sight. I am not native to Canterlot, but I've lived there for many years, and I've seen my share of palatial halls. The sheer size and quiet opulence of the royal ballroom we find ourselves in puts all but the largest of them to shame. Shining columns near the walls rise toward a high, arched ceiling, barely visible in our hornglow. Between the columns, stately crystal-glass windows with sumptuous violet drapes let in a flood of moonlight. We step forward, and as we do so, variegations in the crystals create patterns that dance crazily in our moving light: sometimes hearts, sometimes snowflakes, sometimes spiraling geometric patterns that resolve and unresolve and resolve again as we move through the room. Soft music fills the air, an elegant Beethoofen E-flat major waltz, and it does not take me long to find its source: a polished modern gramophone, freshly wound.
I inspect the disc on the platter. "The Phoenix Chamber Orchestra," I whisper. "My favorite." I turn to Shining Armor. "Shiny, did you—"
"I absolutely did not."
"I don't understand. None of this was here before." My booted hoof strays to the amulet at my neck, which is humming again. "Did I make all this?"
"If you did, you have excellent architectural taste."
"That's what worries me. I'm not sure I do."
"Seems like it might be the castle's doing, then, and it's made you a lovely welcoming gift." He smiles rakishly at me, extending a gentlecoltly hoof. "Would Milady care to give this new dance floor a shakedown run?"
"Should we? I don't know..."
"Cadance!" he says, in mock dismay. "You'd turn down a welcoming gift?"
"I suppose not," I reply. "I suppose it can't hurt." As the dreamlike music fills the room, floating from the gramophone bell to the vaulted ceiling above, Shiny takes my hoof and twirls me in a perfect court dance. As we glide across the floor, our horns scribe intertwining curls of light—his, radiant magenta; mine, placid teal-blue—through the chilly atmosphere of the ballroom.
I grin, helplessly. "Oh, Shiny. It's magical."
"Straight out of a fairytale," he agrees. "Calling it now: best fallen empire reconnaissance mission ever."
"How long has it been since it's been just the two of us? No hoofmaidens, no stuffy courtiers..."
"No bumbling newbie recruits, no materiel requisitions officers..."
"No Celestia," I add, forming and loosing the words before I even fully realize what I'm saying. When my brain catches up a moment later, I find myself in a giggling, wide-eyed flush. "Sorry!"
"Why are you apologizing?" Shiny asks, dropping me into a dip. I smoothly transition from court to ballroom style, the perfect follow to his lead.
"Aunty Celestia is ... Aunty Celestia. She's noble, wise, beautiful."
"Something of a troll," Shiny counters. "Possibly crazy. Trust me, as her Captain of the Guard, I should know."
"She's not that bad! It's just, well, it can be difficult living in her shadow, is all."
"Mm-hm. You're not the first pony in history to feel that way, if you'll recall."
"Oh," I say. "Yes, right. Princess Luna."
"Still not 'Aunty' Luna?"
"We're getting there," I say. "Eventually. But, yes, I'm pretty sure she felt the same way, once upon a time. It didn't end well."
"No, it did not. And I'm not eager to see history repeating itself over a matter of your pent-up frustration."
"Shiny!" I protest. "I'm not going to give in to dark forces over this. I'm not even particularly frustrated!"
"So, the thing where you sneak out of the castle at night, in disguise, and take part in violent full-contact roller derby matches. Not trying to let off steam? Not even a little?"
I flush. "Okay, yes. It can be hard to spread your wings and soar on your own around her, and yes, it can be a little irritating. A lot irritating. It's nice to have distance sometimes, is what I'm trying to say."
"Exactly," says Shiny, giving me an underhoof turn. "Maybe this place appeared at just the right time. I have no interest in seeing you become a monster, Cadance. Equestria has too many of those alrea—"
There is a distant roar. It is not loud, as such, but it seems perfectly attuned to the frequency of the crystalline walls all around us, so much so that the whole place vibrates with sympathetic resonations. The gramophone's needle skips across the record, hissing as it hits the blank grooves at the center. Shiny takes a half a second to carefully set me down before rushing to the ballroom's towering windows; with a few awkward wingflaps, I beat him there.
The moon is gone.
For a moment, I think the snowclouds have merely returned. It would make sense, and it would be no cause for alarm, but some deep and primal part of my being is not hearing it. I am transfixed, a primitive prey animal like my distant ancestors, catching the barest whiff of a lurking predator that will destroy me not out of negligence, but of sheer, burning hunger.
"Shiny, can you—"
"Way ahead of you, dear," Shiny says. He scrunches his face up in concentration and his horn flares a bright magenta. The black sky takes on a reddish hue, now the color of sunset rather than midnight, and my husband winces as the strain of casting a city-sized barrier causes what I know to be lances of pain through his skull.
The roar again. Louder. Not frustrated, questing. Coming closer. "Shiny—" I begin.
"I know!" he shouts. "It's still coming!"
"Is it trying to break through? With repeated impact? Like the Changelings did during the invasion of Canterlot?"
"There's no impact at all! I don't get it! Nothing should be able to get through that shield!"
"Except light," I breathe.
"Huh?"
"Your shield! It lets light through!"
"Yes! But—"
"If light passes it, so does shadow, right?" I say, practically babbling. "The unicorn king! 'Turned to shadow,' Aunty said!"
"Light!" Shiny says. "Light and love! Cady, your amulet!"
"My amulet's ward isn't like your barrier spell! There's no way it could shield the whole city!" My eyes go wide as I furiously calculate. "Unless—"
I bolt out of the ballroom, half-airborne, back toward our camp, my amulet pulsing at my breast. The gleaming bulk of the Empire's throne rises up before me. For a second, I can once again see a shimmer of blue cross its cold, gray surface.
The roar again, loud, close, just outside the wall now. I hear it rise up like a wave, threatening to overwhelm the tower and everything inside.
I crash bodily into the throne, my shoulder striking hard crystal right above the carved seat. The impact rings and vibrates throughout the entire narrow little room like the strike of a carillon bell.
"Light and love," I whisper. "Light and love. Light and love. Light and love and light and love and light and love and—"
A great lash of energy rocks my little pony body. For a brief, incandescent moment, my horn, my amulet, the throne, the castle, the entire lost Empire, it is all one thing.
My vision goes white.
Seconds later, Shiny is there, having followed hot on my hocks, and he finds me seated placidly upon the Empire's throne, my horn glowing a tranquil blue.
Through new, high windows that never existed before, moonlight spills, as though it had never been obscured. The only sound is the low, susurrating hum of my magic and the hiss of the gramophone from the other room.
"So," I say, recovering my breath. "Still the best fallen empire reconnaissance mission ever?"
"It's moved down a peg or two. Is it still out there?"
"I don't know," I admit. "I don't hear it or feel it. I don't think it's gone forever. But I think we're safe as long as I can keep focusing my magic."
"How long is that?" says my husband, ever the tactician.
I try an easy grin, with a confidence I do not feel.
"I'm fine."
It is the morning of day two, and I am not fine.
On day one, I was fine. Fantastic, even. As fantastic as one can be when one knows full well that an evil, devouring force lurks right on one's doorstep, at least. I admittedly felt a little groggy from my interrupted night of sleep, but the situation felt well in hoof. Besides, it was nothing in comparison to the wonder of seeing the castle come to life around me. The walls all around me gained color, changing from their pallid gray to a calming icy blue. Every minute I wasn't looking at it, the ceiling of the throne room seemed to gain an inch or two, until I found myself seated in a grand audience hall to rival anything I had known in Canterlot. Intricate and delicate crystal fretwork seemed not so much to grow out of the walls as to emerge as the walls themselves receded, as though the carvings had been trapped in ice that was slowly melting away. By midmorning, a runner of carpet leading up to the throne appeared, literally in the blink of an eye.
I was not confined to the throne, either, thank the stars. Once I began to more consistently perform the mental gymnastics involved in seeing myself as one with the Empire, I found that I did not have to sit at the center of power to maintain resonance with it. I began to take short promenades down a shining new colonnaded hall, out to a small, open balcony which had presumably also been called into being for my benefit. Outside, the air was warm and sweet, with wisps of white cloud punctuating the clear Northern sky. The sun sparkled across the neat geometric streets and precise little crystalline shops and homes that spread out from the base of the castle, and it all looked like a tiny little piece of paradise.
Shining Armor was less impressed, his mind always on the darkness that lurked outside our bubble of security. In between providing for my needs, he began attempting to recruit some of the townsponies into a sort of posse to help him search the frozen wastes outside the city for any evidence of the fallen unicorn king. When the response he received was predictably dismal, he began searching alone.
"Maybe he's not just a shadow," Shiny said that afternoon, still shivering from his last excursion outside our little sanctum. "Maybe something's anchoring him to the physical realm. If we could find it, maybe we could ... I don't know, dispel whatever's keeping him here?" He shook his head. "This is Twily's bailiwick, not mine. We'll know more when she and her friends get here."
My heart leapt a bit. "Your sister's coming?"
"Princess Celestia sent a summons to Ponyville shortly before we departed. It's a little harder getting all six of the Element Bearers organized, but they'll be here soon." He gave a wry little smile. "I don't think that there's a force in Equestria that the two of you working together can't overcome."
"Along with my brave, heroic husband," I added. "Don't sell yourself short. Be careful, but keep on looking; I'm sure you'll turn up something."
What Shiny did turn up was, unfortunately, less than encouraging: a few jagged little shards of dark crystal emerging from the soil at the very edge of my barrier, right at the point where the warmth returned to arctic chill. He brought one into the castle for future study, immediately chaining it shut inside a crystal coffer without even stopping to shake the snow from his ear-fur. While I agreed it was valuable to know a bit more about what we were dealing with, having a piece of the outer darkness right there with us was unsettling. Sometimes, I thought I could hear it vibrating.
At the same time, the castle—once so accommodating—seemed to grow more intransigent as the day wore on. The morning had been an endless stream of happy discoveries, carefree new chambers springing forth in ways that defied architectural sense. The unfriendly staircase leading up to the throne room vanished as the reinforced base of the tower metamorphosed into a broad, airy plaza, a change that I was delighted to see; it was the surest sign yet that the Empire's lockdown was ending.
Soon, however, something about the castle began to push back, as though it were struggling against the feel of a newcomer on the throne. A bright mirrored hall, one that I had been quite fond of when it first appeared, vanished suddenly by early evening, replaced with a dark, claustrophobic portrait gallery. The single subject on display was the diabolic charcoal unicorn I glimpsed briefly back in Canterlot, shown in his armored prime. I shuddered at his blood-red cloak, trimmed with spotted ermine skin; a positively unnatural garment that was more suited to a griffon conqueror than a pony. Most chilling of all, however, was the image of him perched on a balcony much like the one I had been enjoying; Sombra, however, was pictured surveying a land of miserable ochre skies, not charming pastoral blue. The castle behind him was a twisted nightmare of black onyx.
A little more exploration revealed a tiny, low closet along one of the walls. Opening it, I discovered a crammed-together heap of paintings, as though they'd been removed from these very walls and disposed of without interest for their preservation. Without exception, the paintings pictured a pale-pink unicorn in ancient dress, watching lovingly over a community of knights and farmers and shepherds. Her flank was marked with the image of an impressive crystal snowflake.
"Is this the 'she' we've heard about?" asked Shiny, suddenly at my shoulder. "The one who cared?"
I nodded. "I'd bet this is Princess Amore, the ruler Sombra deposed when he rose to power. I'd also bet that, yes, she's the one who gave the crystal ponies instructions to protect themselves." I reach out with one hoof, not quite touching an image on the canvas in front of me: a pony tending a flock of tiny pastel ewes, sparing a moment out of his busy day to gaze up at his wise and loving ruler.
"The one they can't even remember," I said.
"Sounds like you're having a moment here, hon."
I smiled a little, my brief trance broken. "Shiny, do you think ponies will ever look up at me like this?"
Shiny gave me a quick kiss. "They already do, Cadance. Equestria loves you."
I struggled with the words a little. "But do they have faith in me like this?"
"Don't worry," he replied. "If Celestia gives you a principality of your own someday, you'll be ten times the princess Amore was."
The warm feeling that Shiny's vote of confidence gave me did not last. The more the castle fought against me, the more difficult it became to see myself as one with the Empire, and the more difficult it became to maintain my magic's focus on the light and love that kept us safe. By nightfall of that first day, both of us were well and truly frustrated, and the fading light meant that all further searches outside our border had to be called off. Shiny and I sat together in the throne room, playing Pachisi, which was an awkward experience. For one brief, crazy moment I considered diverting a sliver of my attention away from the bond I had made with the amulet to engage in some trivial telekinesis, but the consequences of failure scared me away from the idea quickly. I was reduced to batting the pawns awkwardly about with my hooves and wings; when that didn't work, I was forced to grip them delicately with my teeth. Shiny cracked a joke that my earth-tribe powers were on full display.
What was not on full display from me was any semblance of skill at Pachisi. Every match that did not end with me clumsily knocking the pieces everywhere finished in a resounding loss for me. My head simply was not in the game. I could sense the shadow out there, lurking, biding its time, waiting for the smallest sign of vulnerability in our fragile defenses. I swore I could hear that little shard of black crystal rattling away in its casket, in some kind of horrid synchrony with the darkness outside. Afterward, Shiny vowed to stay by my side until bedtime, at which point I revealed to him that bedtime was not an option for me.
"You're not sleeping? At all?"
I shook my head. "I can't focus my magic when I'm asleep, Shiny. You know this. Nopony can."
"Well, yeah, but, I thought ... well, I don't know what I was thinking." He squared his jaw. "That settles it. I'm staying up with you."
"Shiny, no. You've been trudging through the snow half the day. You need to rest."
"If you're not resting, I'm not resting," he said.
And he tried, bless him, he really did. But by about four in the morning, his eyes were drooping, and I had to nudge him with my nose all the way to a tiny bedroom that absolutely had not been present earlier. The accommodations were spartan, in keeping with the castle’s inexplicably growing stinginess, but I was grateful for them all the same. When my knight in shining armor was safely ensconced, I returned to my throne, keeping a quiet, lonely vigil, which brings us to, well, now.
Outside, I can see the dawn of the second day begin to break. I think of Aunty Celestia, many miles away, rising from a plush featherbed and nudging the sun gently over the horizon. In a few minutes, she will retire to the Great Hall for a nourishing breakfast of fruit pancakes which will give her the strength to start the day. Aunty Celestia is, in all likelihood, fine.
I look questioningly at a single dry-roasted almond, and the thought of trying to cram it down my throat feels like murder.
I am not fine.
I am not fine.
It is the morning of my fourth day on the throne of the Empire, the end of my third night without sleep, without rest, without so much as a moment's gap in my focus. The shadow has returned on three separate occasions, and on each occasion, I have rebuffed it. I think it senses that I am weakening. It knows that it is only a matter of time.
The strain of continuing to invoke, exacerbated by the castle's continued pushback, has rubbed my spirit utterly raw. When I first became an alicorn and learned how to focus unicorn magic, I was delighted with the feel of it, a pleasant light tickle that ran up and down my body and then centered on my wonderful new horn. I am not delighted now, because that tickle has persisted for three straight days and nights and I no longer know what to do with myself. The combination of effort and exhaustion is maddening, nudging over into actual madness. Sometimes, I think I see Aunty Celestia sitting beside me. Sometimes, I see Twilight. I have begun to hallucinate vividly. Shiny's mood is blackening. Each sortie outside our barrier ends up more fruitless than the last. When he is home, he wipes my brow with a cloth and gives me food from our travel rations. As part of its growing obstinance, the castle has ceased providing food. It wouldn't matter anyway; I attempt to choke down the food Shiny gives me more for his sake than mine.
Speaking of my husband. Shiny rose early today, well before the dawn. A heavy winter storm is brewing outside my fragile soap bubble, and Shiny was determined to escort his sister and her friends from the Crystal Mountain rail stop. Their train is scheduled to arrive shortly before sunup. Assuming snow has not blocked the tracks. Assuming the wind is not too powerful to proceed. Assuming some enormous freak avalanche has not buried them all whole. Assuming, assuming, assuming.
It is dark out there. Cold and dark. Shiny set my new gramophone going before he left, but the record has long since played out, the mainspring completely unwound, and I feel too weak to rise up and start it again. I sit in silence, with nothing to do but to tend this single glimmering candle of magical power.
With a harsh noise like sand on glass, a snake of crystals enters my throne room.
I do not react at first. This castle is a place of magic, but more importantly, I have long since lost the ability to differentiate reality and fantasy. For one of these two reasons, I am convinced that the snake will be gone next time I look at it, but I am wrong. The snake persists.
But, at the same time, it is also not a snake. It has no mouth, eyes or face. It does not even move in a strictly serpentine manner. It does hiss, but it is merely the hiss of a thousand jagged shards rubbing against one another. A line, then. A line of black, shattered crystals, winding its way across the polished floor of my audience hall.
I start to speak, but it is lost to coughing. I lost my taste for water late last evening, and my throat is as dry as the tundra outside. I smack my lips and miraculously summon a bead of saliva, a greater miracle than conjuring entire rooms seventy-two hours earlier ever was. "How did you get in here?" I shout, trying for Aunty Celestia's regal poise and Princess Luna's dreadful force. I achieve neither. I sound like a petulant filly whining at a younger brother to leave her bedroom. "My spell holds! I would know if it failed!"
The line of crystals continues to curl across the room. It hisses still, but the hiss begins to form into words. "Your spell does indeed hold, little one."
"Then how are you here?" I demand. "I know your name, Sombra. Princesses Celestia and Luna eradicated you from this land for the turning of an entire age, and I am more than capable of banishing you for half of one!"
"Assumptions, assumptions," chuckles the voice.
"Who are you? How dare you invade my throne room?"
"Mi Amore Cadenza," says the mass of crystals, whirling and rising up into a four-legged shape that looms over me. "I dare because it is not your throne room."
The shape steps forward. The noise of its hoof-fall is like the shattering of glass.
It is a statuesque figure, not in the least because it is made entirely of mineral. It is not carved from a block, but like its previous serpentine form, it is composed of thousands and thousands of broken black crystals. It has the shape of a unicorn, but enormous, easily as tall as Aunty Celestia. A simulation of ancient beaded horn-ornaments drapes across its glinting forehead and down along its elegant neck. I can just make out the raised pattern of crystals on its flank, forming the image of a now-familiar crystalline snowflake. Its eyes glitter at me like diamonds, and there is a very good reason for that.
"Well met," says the figure, in a voice like a sandstorm. "Usurper."
I fall back on my dock, shaking my head. "You're—"
"The rightful ruler of this place? Why yes, yes I am. I am Princess Amore, of the royal line of Unicornia, once and future queen of the Crystal Empire." Her gimlet eyes glance down at her ever-shifting form for a moment. "Pieces of her, at least. And you must be the pretender to my throne."
"No," I say. "He's gone. He's trying to get back in, but I'm—"
"Foal!" Amore roars. "I know Sombra! That blackguard will feel my wrath in due time, but he is not you. The culmination of a thousand-year plot by the alicorns to seize my home away from me!"
"Is this ... real? Am I imagining this?"
"Perhaps I'm not. Perhaps I'm merely a little voice in your head. Your self-doubt. Your stunted ambition. The violent darkness in you that you disguise with jewels and pretty pink ribbons. You've seen plenty of unreal things, haven't you? You're dreaming while you're still awake. Would me not being real make you feel better?"
"Maybe," I say. "Though it might mean that I'm farther gone than I care to admit."
"Would that I could prove it to you conclusively," Amore sniffs. "But I am fragile, barely here, a shadow of myself. I cannot unseat you yet."
"Even if you could, you wouldn't," I say. "I might be the only thing keeping Sombra from taking the Empire back."
"Merely exchanging one thief for another. It matters not."
"Not the same. I'm merely a junior alicorn, as you say, and probably easier to dethrone. Sombra is a known quantity, one who must have defeated you in the past."
Amore scoffs. "Only because I underestimated him. Underestimated the depths of his treachery. He turned me to crystal, shattered my physical form, cast my pieces to the four winds. When I return, I will not be so easily bested."
"Even so, a formidable opponent. And even more so once he's fortified himself here."
The crystalline figure pauses for a moment, appearing to consider this.
"Very well," she says. "A truce, for now."
"Good! Now we're getting somewhere."
"No! 'Getting somewhere' would be restoring me to my rightful place of power! But then again, that is never what you Equestrian ponies wanted, was it?"
"I am not trying to steal your empire away from you!"
"No?"
"No!"
"And yet, not five minutes ago, this was 'your' throne room."
I breathe in, to speak. My mouth opens. I shut it again.
"Touch," I say. "Palpable touch."
"Not blind, nor deluded," says the specter of Amore, regarding me from many angles as she strides across the throne room. "Nor cleaving to pleasant rhetoric beyond all semblance of truth. What sort of alicorn are you?"
"A not very good one, maybe. I haven't been this way for long."
"A poor alicorn is a better pony, I think," Amore says, something like warmth entering her voice; as quickly as it appears, it's snuffed. "Which doesn't make us friends, little alicorn. Like all thieves, you have taken something from me to satisfy your own needs. What is it? Why so quick to call this throne yours?"
There are many ways that I can take this, but I go for brutal honesty. It seems like the best choice.
"I don't know why I leapt straight to saying that. Maybe I want a place for me to be myself. Maybe I was hoping this place was it. When Princess Celestia first took me to the alicorn realm and I became, well, the pony you're looking at, I thought that I was destined for great things. But instead, after my ascension I just clung to her side, mediating petty, silly disputes between the bickering noble families of Canterlot. When I asked, politely, for more independence and excitement, she assigned me work as a foalsitter. To teach me responsibility, she said."
I glance down, shuffling my booted hoof against the smooth crystal of the throne. "It wasn't enough. I got mad, got frustrated, left Equestria entirely and traveled the world for a while. I only ever came back because my sweetheart from Academy, now an officer in the Royal Guard, started writing me letters wherever I went. We struck up a correspondence, and eventually he started visiting me whenever he was on leave, joining up with me wherever I was traveling that year. We had some wonderful adventures together, but I knew when he finally proposed to me that I couldn't stay away from Equestria forever. I accepted, we got married, and aside from an attempted overthrow of the government on our wedding day, we've lived happily in Canterlot ever since."
"How sentimental."
"I suppose it is? Except for the ‘overthrow of the government’ part?”
"So, the rebellious princess, lusting for power and autonomy, returns to the fold just in time to preserve Celestia’s reign and then effect her will for my Empire."
"No! You're twisting things all around! Something's wrong here. This isn't ... you aren't how Princess Celestia described you. Of the remaining royals of old Unicornia, only Princess Platinum didn't take well to the alicorns' oversight. Aunty Celestia described you as..."
"Yes?"
"Pretty, um, 'cool' about it. I think she was in one of her moods at the time."
"If 'cool' means 'accepting,' or 'compliant,' then yes, I suppose I was. I was young. Trusting, naive. And greatly in need of assistance."
"Tell me," I say. "Aunty Celestia never tells me anything. Or rather, she does, but only whatever part of the story she thinks I need."
Amore smiles, but there is no mirth in it. "Then she has not much changed. An age ago, I sent out a call to Everfree. The Crystal Heart, the center of our Empire, the very reason it existed, had been stolen by a dragon, and its recovery was of the utmost importance. Everfree could have sent an army; instead, they sent your aunts. It was enough. I do not know what transpired up in that dragon's lair, only that their shouts shook the very mountains, and when they returned, they had the Heart in hoof. A rousing success. I believed in the charity and benevolence of the alicorns. The Empire endured for many, many moons."
"And then Sombra happened."
"Yes, well. Their second attempt to aid the Empire did not go quite so well. One is tempted to call it a disaster. In their greed to nudge their way onto my vacant throne, they failed to account for Sombra's dark magics, his many contingencies, and touched off a chain of events that ended with the utter obliviation of my beloved Empire."
"What about the Crystal Heart?"
"Gone, almost certainly destroyed. It is said that cosmic spectrum can only be shattered by the power of an alicorn, and I have no doubt that with two of them running roughshod over the ruins of the Empire, it became little more than a piece of collateral damage. It is something of a miracle that Celestia located another piece of cosmic spectrum just in time for the Empire's banishment to fade. Is that why she chose you, filly? Is that why she uplifted you? All for that priceless hunk of rock you wear around your neck?"
"It's because I demonstrated the purest of all love! Understood its greatest truth!"
"And won from a wicked enchantress an irreplaceable magic charm, one that turned out to be integral in claiming the Empire."
"No!" I protest, but I can feel the seed of doubt begin to put down roots in my heart. Would Aunty Celestia, ever the chessmaster, do that? Elevate me, adopt me, not because of my qualities, but merely as a means to an end?
For a brief second, I see Equestria as Amore sees it, foreign and alien, its vaunted Harmony a consuming force rather than a uniting one. In that second, I understand why the castle fights at what it sees as a pawn of that great corruption.
In that second, I am not sure that it is entirely mistaken.
I shake off my doubts and narrow my eyes. "How do you know all this about me?"
"Perhaps I'm merely a voice in your head, as I mentioned already," Amore says. "Perhaps I'm just a figment of your imagination. Again, filly, does it matter?"
"No. Real or not, we both have the same goal: neutralizing the threat of King Sombra. If you are real, you've known him longer than anypony. What are his weaknesses?"
Amore sighs, sand on a windswept beach. "None that I know," she says. "None except cosmic spectrum, and even then, only when it is powered by the love of ponies. The Crystal Heart kept us safe and warm because the Empire's citizens loved it, loved their lives, loved their princess. That's how Sombra first wormed his way in. He sapped the minds of my beloved crystal ponies, making them forget all the love they had, making them forget everything." She gestures with one sparkling hoof. "You've seen them out there. Mere husks of their former selves."
"Please. There must be something."
Amore rounds on me, her eyes blazing. "And if there were?" she shouts. "Why would I share all my secrets with the little filly who wants to play castle? The sniffling brat exercising her adolescent fantasies all over my palace? My home!"
It takes every last ounce of my flagging strength to not escalate along with her. I close my eyes, raise my hoof to my chest, breathe in, and let go. In that peace, insight comes to me.
"The dragon," I say, calmly.
"Yes?" Amore snaps. "What of him?"
"I just realized what's been bothering me. Aunty Celestia said that the Heart was 'found in a dragon's hoard.' Not 'recovered from.' 'Found in.'"
"I fail to see the difference."
"The difference is, in your story, Celestia and Luna brought the Crystal Heart back to you after it had been stolen by a dragon. You'd already built the Empire around it."
"Yes. Before the Heart, we were little more than a colony of miners, working ore veins of the Crystal Mountain. The Heart gave us warmth, security, an identity. Make your point!"
"My point is this," I say. "It seems to me that the dragon tried to steal the Heart from you because you stole it from him first."
Silence falls over the throne room.
"You do not understand," Amore says. "He was dormant. Slumbering. Possibly for centuries for all we knew. When he awoke, he informed us that he had long ago claimed the entire mountain, and all its treasures, as his own. More wealth than anypony, any creature, could ever need in a thousand lifetimes!"
"And yet," I say, "perhaps it was still his."
"He didn't even want it!" Amore protests. "He said, explicitly, that he was merely keeping it from us to make us suffer!"
"And yet," I repeat, "perhaps it was still his. No matter his reasons, it was still his."
"What are you saying?"
"That the Empire is stolen, Princess Amore. It was, indeed, stolen from you, but it has always been a stolen thing. From the very beginning."
"Fine!" Amore spits, and I can feel glitter strike my cheek. "Well debated! You've caught me in a hypocrisy! All land is stolen, Princess! Equestria itself was stolen from the bison, the moose, when the Three Tribes fled here from their doomed homeland. Do you hold me to a higher standard than your precious Celestia?"
"Maybe not," I reply. "But perhaps I hold me to a higher standard."
I rise from the throne, my legs shaking, and step down the gentle ramp. My hooves are silent on the carpet I apparently installed with my mind. "Princess Amore," I say. "I love this land. I think that I loved it from the moment I first saw the walls of this castle gleaming on the horizon, as my husband and I trudged here across the frozen plains outside. I have realized that I would like nothing more than to live out my days ministering to these sad, lonely little ponies with all my heart and my strength, helping them back to the light in whatever way I can. But I will not do it as a thief."
I smile up at her, my eyes weary. "You may be a figment of my imagination, but then again, you may be real. 'Changed to crystal and then shattered' feels quite mythical to me, and mythical deaths can often be circumvented. If you are here—if you are anywhere—this throne is yours."
Amore sits. Though it is difficult to discern features on the shifting mass of crystal that makes up her face, I believe there is a trace of awe there. "You would do that? Abdicate, outright?"
"The Crystal Ponies loved and trusted you, and you loved them in return. I would never deny them their rightful queen. Yes, in a heartbeat. I, or any of my heirs. In perpetuity. It sounds like a huge promise, and somepony will probably regret it somewhere down the line, but I believe with every scrap of my being that it is the right promise to make. Until the day of your return arrives, however, I humbly offer my services as steward of this throne. To watch it and keep it safe, so that there will be an Empire for you to return to."
Spreading my trembling wings, I bow my head to the floor.
"Great Princess Amore," I ask, "will you accept my fealty?"
"It's funny," says Amore, distantly. "Shortly before everything went wrong, I took the desperate step of consulting an oracle on how to keep Sombra from ultimate victory. She told me that Sombra will only meet his end when the Crystal Heart returns at last to the claws of dragonkind. Maybe you and that oracle are both correct, or at the least, two lodestars to the same conclusion. Maybe the only thing to do is to somehow right the wrong that's at our very foundation.” Her mien darkens again. “But the Heart is gone! Destroyed, probably! And even if by some miracle it isn't, returning it would doom the Empire!"
"If somepony I trusted told me that it'd be the secret to defeating that specter outside … I don’t know what I’d do right now. No matter what it meant for the throne.”
"The dragon of Crystal Mountain departed these lands long ago."
"Perhaps the Heart merely needs to be claimed by a dragon."
"But that would still end the Empire, would it not? Either we fall to Sombra, or we fall to the dragons! Doomed either way, yes?"
"It certainly sounds that way," I say. "But then again, it is prophecy. Prophecy is notoriously tricksy, and I'm not that good at it. Your Highness, I hate to needle this point, but—"
"Yes, little alicorn. Yes, Mi Amore Cadenza. I accept your stewardship over my throne. Keep it safe. Keep the Empire safe. Keep my ponies safe. Until I am able to return. Above all, remember me."
"You honor me with your trust," I say, struggling upright. "I promise you that I will always remember—"
I am about to say more but she is gone. Not even a fleck of crystal dust remains. With a noise like a sigh, the tension in the castle that I've been fighting against for days dissipates like morning mist, and my oneness with the place becomes complete again. I am still four days without rest, three nights without sleep, but in this moment of transcendent unity, I feel the strength to endure until a solution is found. Until an oracle's words come true. Until the Empire is safe once more.
I nod to myself, then work out the proper pattern of legs to turn myself about. Step by step, I make my way back up the short rise. It feels a bit like climbing a mountain, but I endure. The throne must not be vacant. The Empire must be watched. I have a promise to keep, now.
When I finally arrive, I am surprised to find that a cushion has been placed on its seat for me. It is decorated all over in a motif of crystal snowflakes.
"Thank you," I whisper.
I seat myself on a throne that is not mine, and await the coming of my husband, my sister, and the dawn.
