Voracity
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Interlude: Once & Future III
🕑 Added 2024-06-04 06:07:50 +0000 UTCEighteen months, hundreds of hours of labor, and seven billion souls. That’s what it cost me to get back to the Labyrinth. That was the price of my return.
It should feel like triumph, so why does it taste so bittersweet?
I step out of the portal clad in black robes and breathe in cloying air thick with death. The tea party is over, its attendees murdered and lying slumped on the oil-stained table. The room should be dim, all the candles flickered out or melted, but this is the Labyrinth; nothing is dark here by nature.
The Labyrinth, where innocents are dragged off to kill each other for the amusement of cruel masters. The Labyrinth, where everyone is trapped in a shattered and crumbling worldspace. The Labyrinth, where I bled and screamed and fought and failed.
What a horrible place. Who would ever return to this prison by choice?
I could have asked for a portal to anywhere in Pandaemonium. I could have toured the infinite worlds and gone on adventures free of the Labyrinth’s twisted games and sick overlords. I could have gathered my power slowly, properly, one duel at a time. I could have eaten whole planets and made myself a demon even stronger than Malice or Wonder. But I didn’t.
We have to finish what we started. Bind the shard, climb the tower, claim the throne. But first, kill that traitor Dante who banished us to our own personal hell.
I will never take the slow and careful path; I can’t, lest I betray my nature. Everything or nothing is the only way forward. I must win the game. I must conquer the Labyrinth. I must claim this world, that tower, and whatever lies inside. Whatever Katoptris is, she’ll be mine.
I don’t know why this universe is twisted and broken. I don’t know why the Demiurge laughs at our misery, or why she takes such personal pleasure in torturing me, but I’ll make it her undoing. I will make her rue the day she denied me.
“Alice!” cries a familiar voice that jolts me from my brooding.
Cheshire rises from the floor and rushes to my side. Her cheeks are stained with tears, her mismatched eyes all bloodshot. Her furry ears are perked, and her lithe body is warm as she hugs me tightly and buries her face in the folds of my voluminous black cloak.
I don’t hug her back.
I think I would have, if my sojourn to the false Earth had lasted a mere month, or six, or even nine. If I were still touch-starved and alone, I think I would be grateful for Cheshire’s presence and her body against mine. I spent so many days before reclaiming my magic torn between hating Cheshire and missing her.
I still don’t know how to feel about her. Did she betray me on that fateful day when Dante overheard her whisper? Or was she herself betrayed by the hand of her true master? Did she never come for me because she couldn’t, or because she wanted me to suffer before I returned to her? I was reckless and desperate when I chose to trust Cheshire before. I didn’t have a choice. But now I have power that isn’t bound up in her strings.
“How long have I been gone?” I ask calmly.
Cheshire hears the strangeness in my voice and tenses. She looks up at me and the excitement on her face flickers out. She finally takes in my changed appearance, from deathly skin to shadowed robes. “Are you okay? It’s only been a few hours since you vanished. How… how long has it been for you?”
My fist tightens, nails digging into palm. A few hours. A few hours, she says, while I toiled and suffered for all that time. Aloud, I tell her, “One and a half years. I’ve been stuck on Earth, or a facsimile of Earth, for eighteen months and two weeks. I kept count.”
Her face falls into horror. “Gods and demons, that’s awful. I’m so sorry, Alice. I can only imagine how that must have felt for you, knowing your history.” She hugs me again, but when I still don’t reciprocate she slowly and awkwardly releases me. “Are you… sorry, stupid question. Obviously you’re not okay. But… you’re back.”
“Yeah. I’m back.”
I pull away from Cheshire and walk over to the table where the bodies are. The scene is largely as I left it, save the added morbidity. The oil slick doesn’t hold my interest, nor Vaylin’s tacky porcelain, but Avaya’s lifeless gaze stares straight down at the sword lying right in front of her. Dante didn’t take it with him, which makes him a fool.
“If it’s only been a few hours, I take it Dante hasn’t finished the game and claimed the ultimate prize?”
“He went back to the Myriad,” Cheshire informs me. “He’s probably still there, making preparations for the end.”
“Good. Then I can catch him and tear his soul out of his body.” I pick up the sword and examine it absently. Avaya was storing souls in this vessel, and she seemed to be holding a healthy crop.
“Right! Yes! So,” Cheshire begins to chatter, “when you were wished away, it severed our bond, but I still have all your stuff that you were storing in your pleroma, and most of the growth and magical investment we made is still built up! All we have to do is make a new contract and—”
I command my shadow, “Eat,” and watch as it surges up my body, flows to the end of my arm as a tide of living darkness, and devours the sword whole. My shadow feasts on the souls that were trapped inside, and I can feel the satisfaction of a good meal mixed with hunger for a thousand more. This world is richer in offering, deeper in meaning. This will be a good hunting ground for the both of us.
I turn back to Cheshire to find her staring, eyes wide and body frozen. After a moment, she finds enough composure to ask me, “How did you do that?” in a scared and disbelieving tone.
By way of answer, I raise one arm and let the sleeve of my robe slide down, then trace my fingers over skin. Lines of runic text shimmer into visibility for just a moment before fading back as I let both arms fall back to my sides.
“That’s a direct contract with the Leviathans,” Cheshire says with a trembling voice and horrified gaze. “You contracted with the Leviathans. That means—”
“That your services are no longer required,” I interrupt her coldly. “I’ve spent a year learning true sorcery from a master of the art, and I’ve supped of the pure Abyss.”
“But your soul—”
“Is mine to risk. Mine to nourish. Mine to burn, if that’s what it takes. I’m in charge of my own destiny now, and I’ve forged myself into a demon the hard way.” I let the dark seep into my flesh and reveal a glimpse of black sclera around burning red irises, sleek horns jutting out of my skull, and darkened veins. “I don’t need a geist.”
My words are like a knife to her heart. I can see the anguish written on her face, and her body begins to tremble. Her eyes grow wet. In a small, frail voice, Cheshire pleads, “What did I do wrong?”
Anger slashes through sympathy and I snarl at her with explosive temper. “You weren’t there for me, Chesh! Eighteen months and you weren’t there for me, and you spoke the words that cost me any chance of talking Dante down. I was stuck in that hell for eighteen months because of you, and I can’t just forgive and forget.”
“He wasn’t supposed to hear!” Cheshire insists. “It was the Demiurge who made him hear, it was the Demiurge who interfered.”
“And who sent you to me, Chesh?” I ask quietly. “Who made you what you are?”
Despair swallows her whole. She stares past me, stares through me. “I thought… I thought we talked about it. Were through it. You were going to… you were going to trust me.” She falls to her knees and clasps her hands together, looking up at me with more tears streaming from her eyes. “Please, Alice. Please, Master. I can still be useful. I can still be yours. Please don’t leave me.”
Please don’t leave me. How can I do this to her? If she’s not lying, then I’m just as bad as everyone who’s ever hurt me. I’m a monster. I’m everything I’ve ever hated, everything that’s ever made me cry.
But, then, how can this be any worse than what I just did to a planet? I sacrificed seven billion human souls and I’m balking at hurting one girl? I’m so selfish. I’m so predictable.
This was easier in my rehearsals, but I can’t break now. I can’t give in. I swallow my doubts and find my voice. “I won’t… I won’t force you away. You just can’t have my soul. Once I claim the shard and break it to my will, we can talk terms for a new kind of contract. I don’t know if you’re a collaborator or just another victim, and, if you really are hurting right now, then… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for so many things, but I… once I have what I need, I will find a place for you. I just can’t trust you with my soul, not when I have an alternative. Please understand.”
“But the alternative is—” Cheshire cuts herself off, scrunching her eyes shut and wincing. She hugs herself, and after a moment she sighs. “No. You’re right, of course. I understand.” She opens her eyes, gets to her feet, and meets my gaze. “Thank you for… for not throwing me away.”
There is a part of me that still yearns to turn back and accept her with open arms, but I do my best to extinguish that flame of foolish longing. “Thank you for understanding,” I say softly. “We can talk more later, but right now I don’t know how much time I have before Dante claims the shard. You said you have my artifacts?”
Cheshire nods and wipes away her tears. “Yes. Yes, right.” She walks over to the messy table and shoves some of the mess onto the floor. One by one she places the contents of my old soul palace onto the tablecloth.
I pluck the locket, Vorpal, and the red cloak, but I let my shadow eat the remaining artifacts. They’re tuned for spells I don’t cast anymore. The rest of my belongings I let Cheshire return to wherever she’d been keeping them.
The [Mantle of the Unburned] replaces my ordinary black cloak. I don’t think any of my current enemies are fire-throwers, but it can’t hurt to be prepared. This artifact is my second strongest after the absurd Crest, and it’s already won me two fights. Forged in a wizard’s inferno and strengthened by the flames of a faerie, it holds quite a lot of potential. I’d like to see what happens to it if I keep absorbing the flames of different Spheres.
The locket goes around my neck, and it feels warm. It pulses faintly, like a heartbeat. Is that my soul I’m feeling? The shards of it I left behind? Between what’s in the locket and what’s in Cheshire, how much of myself am I actually missing?
For a moment, I feel the irrational urge to cast the locket into my shadow and be rid of it. But is that irrational? Maybe it’s the inevitable consequence of who I’m becoming, of what I’m carving myself into.
This artifact is a monument to cowardice. I made the heart locket because I was afraid of what I might cut away in my pursuit of power. This is my second chance if something goes wrong. It’s an admission that I might fail, that I might ever want to turn back. A demon should not own an object like this. I won’t become something like Malice or Wonder if I’m still afraid to lose myself in the process. I must lose myself. I must lose my weakness, and my doubts, and everything that has ever held me back. I must kill the girl who cries for her mother. I must murder my fearful heart and cleave it from my chest.
But I keep the locket around my neck and move on to Vorpal.
I take a few practice swings the rapier that was once Homura’s. The weapon feels familiar in my hands, that alien connection coming back to me like I haven’t been separated from it for a year. The sword flows smoothly through stances I’ve never learned, reminding me that this weapon is alive and it is mine. My Crest. My connection to Homura, and, through a marble memento, to Reska.
Before I was banished, I was close to revealing that little secret to Cheshire. I thought many times about sharing my dreams with her and letting her know all about Homura and Reska, in the hopes that maybe together we could come to understand them. But I didn’t. And now, I doubt I ever will.
“Time to move.”
I leave the tea party behind and exit the convention center, unfazed by the scenes of carnage still fresh and gory. The death here is messier than I’ve gotten used to, but it’s not meaningfully different. I stroll through, step outside, and take in the old familiar sights.
Vaylin’s home base was located in a section of Sanctuary with a very cyberpunk feel to it: neon lights, steel and glass, a city of skyscrapers and screens. Everywhere I look there are advertisements for products ranging from milkshakes to shoes to home appliances, but my year surrounded by the genuine article makes the lack of true branding even more obvious than it was last time.
It’s still daylight out, but the sky above is once again missing a sun to provide that light. People crowd the streets, a throng of humanity that I doubt boasts a single real human. Smiling faces, chattering lips, fashion and friends, but none of it real. Figments. How I’ve missed them.
Well, I can’t be certain they’re all figments; I never asked the Emissary to teach me second sight. I didn’t want to be tempted to use it on the people of the false Earth.
A plain man in business attire is passing by, so I grab his arm and ask him directly: “Hey, are you a figment? Answer truthfully.”
He stops in his tracks and turns to look at me. His expression is at first one of indignation, but at my question all emotion falls away and he stares into my gaze with steely focus. “Maven Alice. You have been expelled from Sanctuary by the Myriad. You don’t belong here anymore.”
“Too bad,” I snarl at the figment, and then I wrench his head to the side and sink my fangs into his neck. I pour my poison into his empty soul and in seconds he is mine. I drink a few mouthfuls of his blood for a boost before pushing him off and looking for another victim.
A woman in a pretty blue dress. A man in sweatpants and a hoodie. Him, her, those two, that one. I flit from target to target, lingering only long enough to mark my prey and bind them to my will before moving on to the next.
The street is busy, an easy recruiting ground, but after my ninth conquest the city reacts. Everyone in the area that I haven’t already subverted abruptly stops what they were doing and starts running, sprinting as fast as they can away from my position.
Be like that. “Grab them!” I shout to my thralls. “Pin down as many as you can.”
So they run after their fellows and capture those they’re able, binding arms and legs, two to a victim, and I follow with my fangs to make more of them. I turn those victims that my servants can catch, and when we run out of targets in the streets I have them break into homes and places of business in search of any who hid instead of fleeing. My horde grows, but too slowly for my liking, the city’s resistance vexing me.
Cheshire watches with an inscrutable expression, and while I wait for a new victim to be presented I turn to her and say, “We talked about something like this. Do you remember?”
She laughs, though it’s not a happy sound. “Of course. It hasn’t been two years for me.”
“One of my clearest desires, though I resisted it. I was afraid to want it, afraid of what it made me, when we first discussed it over tea. I was afraid to want this. And even as I accepted that I was becoming a demon, even as I planned to take Vaylin’s spell and make it mine, still I hesitated. Still I doubted.”
Another figment is found, and I bind it to my will with blood and shadow and meaning.
“I was a fool to wait so long,” I tell the cat. “This is everything I ever wanted.”
Cheshire brushes her hair to one side and pushes down her top to expose her naked neck. “Then, if you bit me, would I be what you wanted?” She meets my gaze with fathomless need. “Is that the price you ask? Will those be the terms of the new deal?”
Hunger burns in me, and I remember what fascinated me so intensely about the changeling who once called me Master. An untrustworthy creature, one equal parts appealing and revolting. What monstrousness, to desire a thing crafted for one’s service. What perfection, to find someone molded to fit you. How wonderful and terrifying to be known.
I have learned, or I think I have learned, that I will only ever feel comfortable if I have power over others. I will only feel safe if I hold all the knives, and I only love what I can control. Not always as literally as comes with enthrallment; the girls I lay with in my latter months on Earth were never under my spell… but I did, in a way, hold power over them.
I trace my fingers up her neck, to her chin, and hold her in place. I stare into her eyes and let her see the hunger blazing red. I bare my fangs.
“If you are mine,” I tell her, “then there is no need for a poisoned kiss. If you are not mine, then you are hers, and I don’t believe for one single second that my magic could tear you from her grasp. Not as I am now.” I pull my hand away. “No, those won’t be the terms.”
I return to my hunt, but prospects are quickly drying up. The figments left in reach are taken, and then nothing is left to take. But something is off, more than just the sudden absence of prey. A street corner becomes an out of place dead end. The buildings seem taller, denser, impenetrable, like the city has become a maze.
Cheshire voices my concerns: “The city is doing more to hamper us than just moving figments. It’s shifting the geography to impede our progress. It’s blocking our path to the Myriad’s temple.”
I grimace. “Well, I’m officially sick of this. So let’s go over that wretched eidolon’s head; I’m going to summon the Beast.”
Cheshire freezes up and stares at me. “The Beast? Are you serious? That’s insane. At best it won’t answer, at worst it’ll try and kill you!”
“Nah. I think I know what she wants from me.”
I find the nearest window and press my hand against my own reflection. I roll my shoulders, breathe deep, and run through the words in my head, tweaking them until they’re just right. I need to do this properly. I need to be in control.
“Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria, you are called. The Red Queen summons you, Beast. Let us have words, as we have once before, and let us speak of our destinies.”
The glass ripples, and then the whole building shatters inward. Glass and metal implode, sucked into a single point of absolute mass, and then that mass twists and contorts into the shape of a woman. The glass woman stretches misshapen limbs and breaks them into more normal proportions, and then her body flickers in a wave of transformation from glass and metal to meat and bone, a thing of dripping gore, and then that too is remade and I find myself once again staring at my reflection.
“Beast,” I greet her. “It’s been too long.”
The Beast tilts her head. “Has it? For you, maybe. Why do you call me, Maven Alice?”
I gesture to the city around us. “Your garden is burning, and I’ve come to settle the flames. I’m the only one who can… but a certain eidolon is getting in my way.”
The Beast snorts and leans back, lifting one leg and resting it against solid air. “Liar. The fires are out, the game is won, the war is over. And then you came back, here to reignite the fighting. Is that your idea of settling?”
“It’s yours,” I claim with a smirk. “I’ve figured you out.”
“Oh?” She lifts an indulgent eyebrow. “Well, now I’m curious. Do go on.”
First gamble. Easier gamble. “You don’t want Esha and Dante to win. You infected the Machinist with lamentation and the Huntsman with euphoria, and that poison made them turn on their allies. If not for your curse, there would have been a united front against Vaylin, but you wanted the city to erupt in violence. The only wrench in your plan was Esha, for resisting the madness you gave her. You caused all of this, because you want to see the board wiped clean.”
The Beast licks her teeth. “Perhaps I did. It’s not a bad guess. But what of you, demon girl? You rejected my gift, you rejected escape, and now you come to me stinking of the Abyss and its worms. Do you think that’s who I want to see sitting on my throne?”
And the second gamble. “I think that’s exactly who you want to see, because you’ve already said as much. Your gift was a test, one you knew I wouldn’t understand until later. You were showing me that what I truly wanted wasn’t survival, or comfort, or anything so sympathetic as being loved. I wanted control, and I still do. You were right about me: I am a monster, and I killed the world for a second chance at chasing the divine. I come to you as everything you accused me of being, and now I’m not hiding it or trying to deny it. I am what you promised I would become when you promised me this city and that shard of your power. I am the Red Queen, greatest of all murderers, and you will help me. I will seize what is mine.”
The Beast’s eyes, my own eyes stolen and reflected, glitter and shine. “And then? What will you do when you’ve crossed that first threshold? Where will you go? How high will you climb, O Red Queen of bloody murder?”
My smirk grows feral and toothy. “I go to heaven on high, to claim her throne. I’ll make the Demiurge my bitch, and then I’ll rewrite this awful world and make a real paradise, not a garden of thorns. And it will all be worth it.”
The Beast laughs and laughs, and I almost break my cocky grin, but when she stops laughing she smiles and tells me, “Oh, yes, I think I can work with that. Go on then, killer. Make my day.”
She snaps her fingers and the next dozen buildings behind her vanish without a sound. Figments step out of their homes, trembling and glassy-eyed, waiting to be preyed upon. And beyond them, beyond the path cut for me, I see the temple and the tree.
Our march is red and ruinous, adding dozens of figments to the mass of thralls. I send off scouting parties to loot knives from kitchens and drag more civilians from their homes to be made mine. By the time we reach the temple itself, my army numbers over a hundred.
The Myriad are ready for us, of course. Warned by their eidolon, protectors in cloth and plate cluster about the entrance to their temple, nervously waiting for my horde to approach. I see dog-eared, drow, half-snake, and stranger creatures defending their home together, with the paladin in power armor at their head. The golden tree rises above them, the symbol of their union that I can’t wait to despoil.
They number fewer, but my thralls are unarmored and have worse weaponry. Sending a ragged militia against a fortified position isn’t likely to end well… but they are, in the end, just a tarpit for my approach.
An approach stymied by the sudden appearance of a shimmering golden barrier.
As I move to step closer to the temple and its defenders, a golden light crackles to life and repels me. The shield completely covers the temple, an impenetrable globe that wraps around and sinks into the earth. The barrier is painful to the touch, and my shadow shies away from it. I frown at the new obstacle.
Cheshire appears beside me and shares in my frown. “I guess I should have expected them to ward their fortress.” She glances my way and explains, “This is a Spirit trick, the principle of hallowed ground made physically manifest. A consecrated barrier. Esha must be maintaining it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “It requires maintenance? Will it weaken or fade if left alone?”
The cat chews her lip and takes a moment to consider that carefully. “We’re in their home territory, and this barrier is everything their eidolon is about. It could probably hold for years without anything pounding on it, but it does tax the priestess and restrict what else she can do with her power. She’s the living heart of the ritual.”
I grin. “Oh, good. Then this should kick her teeth in.”
Cheshire blinks and opens her mouth to ask what I mean, but I’m already moving and throwing orders at thralls.
“Everyone grab a buddy and pair up! If you can find someone you’ve got a semblance of relations with, all the better. Form two lines as close to the barrier as you can, front line kneeling. Leave a bit of space for me.”
My dominated figments scurry about to follow my orders, gathering before the barrier in two even rows. When they’re all in place, I give my next order.
“Standing line: murder the kneeling line.”
Knives sink into backs and throats, stabbing and slashing with empty fervor. These figments aren’t people, so they shouldn’t feel anything, but I’ve filled them up with a need to be loved by their Red Queen. I can feel little pops of sensation as thralls die and blood pools on stone, a wave of something quite like worship. This is a sacrifice, made in my name.
The temple defenders, the Myriad, watch this unfold with horror that I can taste. Fear wafts on the wind, and darker emotions. Some of them hate me for this, or hated me already.
Good. I lick my teeth, spread my arms wide, and chant an incantation I learned from the Emissary. “I invoke the name of Malice, she who is hatred and defiance. Know me, Malice, for I walk in your shadow. I am the murderer of these and seven billion more, and my knife is not yet sated. I invoke you, Malice, to defile the sacred and desecrate the profound. I invoke the shadow of Malice: unleash your Blasphemy upon this source of light!”
The Emissary taught me something very interesting about the fundamental cosmology of Pandaemonium: when someone of Royalty ascends to their Throne, they alter the very fabric of the universe, even reaching into the Labyrinth. An archdemon can’t breach the barrier, not without an invitation from the Labyrinth’s master, but the idea of each archdemon is always inside the barrier.
So when a massive claw of solid darkness shoves its way out of a hole in the sky and slams against the barrier, I know it’s not Malice herself… but it’s still a little unnerving.
The shield cracks, the very first blow enough to send damage spiderwebbing down from the point of impact. But rather than slam again, the shadow claw stretches its fingers of darkness and begins to trace them over the top of the barrier. Wherever a claw-tip passes, it leaves behind a trail of purple against glittering gold.
The Myriad below watch helplessly. Most of them seem more confused than terrified, not sure of what I’ve summoned or whether it can actually break their protection. Achaia, however, seems to know exactly what spell I’ve cast, and she vanishes inside the temple with a shouted warning to the defenders. The panic I feel from her is tantalizing.
The Blasphemy completes its tracing and taps a single claw-tip against the center of the finished diagram. The top of the barrier shatters immediately, but then a wave of dark violet energy ripples outward from the point of breaking. The golden light of the barrier is warped by the wave, crumbling to ash as it passes, but when the wave reaches the ground it begins to spread insward.
The dark energy passes over the whole of the space inside the barrier and crawls over the earth, and I see many of the Myriad sway or crumple to the ground as it passes over them. It seems to affect the non-human defenders more strongly, but even some of the regular humans double over and vomit as the wave pushes past them.
A sea of easy targets.
“Break them! Slaughter them! Kill for your Red Queen!” I call to my still-living servants.
The diminished horde charges without hesitation, their essence enthralled to my will. Most of them will die, or perhaps all of them, as civilians with knives stand little chance against proper warriors in good armor. But like I said, they’re just a tarpit; the defenders will be bogged down fighting them off, and I’ll be free to move as I like.
It’s time for me to hunt.
I start running, and as I run I transform. My black robes melt into scales and horns, a layer of natural armor, and my hands stretch into vicious claws dripping blood from hollow channels. My jaw cracks and reshapes itself into a rending maw full of sharpened fangs. I’m faster, stronger, deadlier, and I don’t need Cheshire to change my shape.
Beside me, my shadow rises in mimicry of my war form, solidifying into a near-exact replica. Together we leap into the enemy mass and begin our dark slaughter.
And it is a slaughter; I’m so much more than these simpleminded fools can comprehend. I am a demon, a true demon, forged of Shadow by my own bloody hand. I’m more real than they are. Figments or followers, both are just fading dreams. Only a scion approaches the realm of the truly alive.
So they die. I rip flesh with my claws, sink fangs into waiting necks, and leap from one prey to another with careless frenzy. Nothing that hurts me remains living or free-willed for long, and the blood that I drain restores any superficial damage these worthless mortals can land. Power courses through my limbs, the power I painstakingly acquired through months of heinous murder and sinister rituals.
I pin another to the floor and bite into their neck. They shudder and writhe as my poison enters their system, my dark will invading them, breaking them, dominating them. I withdraw, the taste of their blood still sweet on my tongue, and whisper, “Kill the unbelievers.” And they do, because I own their soul, and so off they go to murder their friends.
The battle for the temple exterior is over quickly. When the dust settles, only a few figments and fewer Myriad remain, all of them bound by my cursed blood. Cheshire is silent as she stands amid the carnage, overseeing my handiwork with an unreadable expression. My shadow returns to me, melting out of its mimicked form, but I keep my war face on.
“If you see Dante,” I tell my thralls, “slow him down.”
I stride inside the temple, a dead and empty thing with most of its inhabitants lying dead or brainwashed outside. My footsteps echo through hollow halls. It’s been a year and a half since I walked here, and my recollection is poor. Where is the well chamber? Where is the heart I need to plunder?
“Cheshire, I’d like your guidance,” I call over to the cat trailing nervously behind me. “Do you know the way to the roots?”
She stops, tilts her head, and then nods. “Yes, I can lead you.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely. “Your help is appreciated.”
“Of course,” she murmurs.
The entrance to the well chamber looks like it should be sealed, a second layer of defense, but Blasphemy took care of that; runic symbols are seared into the door, and there’s a faint trace of gold dust beneath it. I push the doors open without resistance.
The inner sanctum of the Myriad is a chamber of clean white stone and vibrant murals. This is a place that was once the thriving heart of a community, a place of worship and celebration. There were attendants here, last time, in white robes, and regular people talking to them. Now, the chamber is empty but for the two women I came here to kill.
Esha is coughing up blood, hunched over by the water’s edge and clutching her staff with a deathgrip. The pale light of the clear pool is dimmer, fading. The gnarled roots reaching down are scarred in places, the wood warped and pockmarked, the white and gold darkening in spots. Esha and her place of power have both been wracked by the backlash of the barrier’s destruction. Blasphemy did its job well.
Achaia is by her side. The knight is supporting Esha, helping to hold her upright, and I can taste a new kind of fear in her: the fear that her love will not survive. In this moment, what would she trade for her love’s survival? I want to find out.
“Hello,” I greet them pleasantly. “I’ve just dealt with, I believe, all of your defenses, so I think now would be a good time to stop and chat. You have something I want, or you had it, and I’d really like to get that sorted.”
Esha doesn’t look my way, blindfold still pointed firmly at the waters of the pool, too busy bleeding, but Achaia turns to me with hatred written all over her face. “Monster,” she accuses me. “We took you in, offered you trust and support, and you betrayed us. Why? For what?”
“Power, obviously,” I laugh at her. “I wanted power, and you wanted to put me in a cage. You wished to make me less than I was, to trap me as something other than a demon. I was never going to be glass like you wished. You were always a means to an end. My only regret is having the game spoiled early. But, before you get hasty, I should tell you I’m not here to kill you and Esha. Not if you cooperate.”
“Cooperate!?” The anger rolls off her in waves. Achaia raises her shield and manifests a blade of golden light in her other hand. “You don’t know the meaning of cooperation. To a beast like you, the only thing that can exist is submission or destruction. Neither will I allow.”
I sigh dramatically. “Oh come now, are you really so reckless? Would you gamble with Esha’s life when I’m offering you a way out?” That gets her to hesitate. Again I taste fear, and so I press the assault. “Have you ever come so close to losing your sacred charge? What is there to gain at this juncture in resistance?” I take a step closer. “I don’t ask for submission, nor destruction. All I want is for you and Esha to leave this city—and Dante—to me.”
Her expression hardens. “I’m not so gutless as you, abomination. I have a duty to this city, to this world, to all living beings. A demon like you… I cannot suffer to live!” She adjusts her stance, ready for conflict, ready to try and take me down.
I tilt my head. “Are you really so shortsighted? If you fight me, you’ll both die. You must understand how far beyond you I’ve evolved. Dante’s little disappearing trick backfired on him, hard. While you’ve had hours to prepare for my attack, I’ve had two years to grow my power.” I sneer at her, and then I cackle with a terrible, maniacal glee. “I burned a world to get back here! Seven billion souls fed to the worm-gods of the charnel pit. You will die, and Esha will die, and neither of you will ever help anyone ever again. If you want to do an ounce of good in this world, then leave. Run away, and find some other hapless fools to save.”
Is it a lie? Would I spare them if they ran? I’m not sure. As a demon, I don’t think I should. On a personal level, while these two may have schemed to strip me of my ascension, it’s not as if they were dishonest about it. I shouldn’t really hold a grudge. But, then, when has that ever stopped me?
It’s a moot point. They were never going to accept. Unlike me, Esha and Achaia are good people, and good people don’t let monsters run free.
The knight levels her blade at me, expression set. “I don’t fear death. If I can die stopping you, or making it possible for Dante to stop you, then it will be a sacrifice worth making. That’s a concept you demons will never understand. Enough talk!”
I shrug. “Your choice.”
Achaia moves to charge, but at the same time, Esha bolts upright, her terror flooding the room. The priestess wipes the blood from her mouth and screams, “Distraction—” right as my shadow sinks its teeth into her throat.
The whole time I’ve been monologuing, my shadow was slithering across the ground, stretching from my feet all the way to the priestess by the pool. If her wards were in place, if her sanctuary hadn’t been defiled, it never would have worked. But defouled by Blasphemy, her precious temple couldn’t save her.
My shadow devours her whole. She tries to fight it, tries to muster up her last dregs of power, but weak light is swallowed by suffocating darkness, and Achaia races back to her lover’s side too late to save her. In seconds, Esha is gone, and my shadow is snapping back to its rightful place beneath me.
Achaia’s turmoil is palpable, her grief and rage written on her face. Her hand passes through the place Esha stood for only a moment before she gathers her resolve and charges at her opponent. She’s coming to kill me, and it would be righteous if she succeeded. A just death.
I took away the person who mattered most to her, and she fights with every ounce of her spirit to avenge not just the priestess but everyone I’ve ever hurt. She fights for the sake of everyone that I could hurt if I survived and went on to conquer the rest of her world. The weight of the Labyrinth is behind her, and worlds beyond the Labyrinth, all demanding that she lay down her life to stop me.
But it isn’t enough.
Against most opponents, Achaia would be a nightmare. Her power armor is nigh-impenetrable, she’s fighting with righteous fury, and she has years of experience. I imagine she’s close to as strong as you can get without becoming a scion. But that’s the key difference between us: she’s not a scion.
So her light is smothered by darkness. Her blade can’t break my scales. And all the weight behind her can’t overcome the gulf between chosen and unchosen. This isn’t her story, and it could never be her story, because she gave up that right a long time ago.
My shadow swarms her body and pins her place. Her struggle never ceases, but her ability to move reduces and reduces as the darkness thickens around her. When I’m confident the binding will hold, I allow myself another beat of melodrama and place a finger beneath her chin, smiling at her with wicked delight.
“Diplomacy may have failed,” I say, “but you can still be made useful to me. You can still serve as others have served. As all will serve.”
Achaia, fighting to the last, curls her lip and tells me, “You will die alone, and in pain. Your future is already written. I only regret that I won’t be there to see it when every victory becomes ash in your mouth.”
My hands ball up into fists and my teeth grind. Worm. It’s just a worm, and it spits meaningless insults. Victory will be mine. I grab her head and wrench it to the side, exposing just enough of her neck to sink my fangs. She’s strong, but I’m stronger, and she can’t stop me. No one can stop me. Not anymore.
I poison her. I hate her, and I’ll make her love me. I drink of her blood, and through this parasitic act I transmit an idea back into her blood: Love me. Love me. Love me. Like a mosquito transmitting its diseases through saliva on an open wound, the sickness inside me passes on to my victim and blossoms inside an immune system never designed to resist the will of a demon.
And yet, she does resist. Somehow, impossibly, she fights back against my corruption. Her body is growing hotter by the second, as fever-warm as the depths of the Abyss, and I can feel the anguish in her soul as she desperately tries to endure my infection. She had a love, and I murdered her, and she can’t bear to love another. She can’t bear to love something as monstrous as me.
I withdraw my fangs and lick the blood off my lips as I watch her struggle. Her face is strained and sallow, eyes shut tight and lips trembling. She’s in the throes of torment. Fascinating. So even a lower lifeform can resist me with proper conviction. That must be corrected, but how? Is it simply a matter of power? Was my preparation insufficient?
And then a wretched, hated voice calls out to me from the chamber’s edge: “Alice, what have you done?” I can hear the pain in his voice, the raw agony at what he’s seen, but his pain is nothing to what I have suffered!
Dante.
The one who cursed me. The one who exiled me. The one who betrayed me.
It’s time to take my revenge.
---
A/N: Sorry this one took so long, I really underestimated the wordcount and only just made the decision to crack the chapter in half
Comments
AuroraBoost
Any idea when the next chapter is? I'm liking that she is going full evil now
Lucy Severine
Oh, I love this arc so much. Funnily enough, the most painful thing is her rejecting Chesire; everything else, everyone else, they're just extras in the narrative, but she's *important* and thus she deserves better
