Join me in night painted with crimson and black.

His blood boiled in his veins—but the joy that grew within him was monstrous. He became something without a name, something no language knew description for. Night peeled itself from the sky and stepped into him; stars alight in his eyes, white and mercilessly hot. They had a scent, ancient scent of eternity, and it obscured the fae knowledge. His body twisted into a prayer to the void, a poem of blood and shadow, he had become a child of the timeless black. Delight and agony being carved in him until they were indistinguishable.

The gods tried to merge with him, to stop the metamorphosis, to keep him from swallowing their light, their flame, their souls. But he was stronger now—stronger than all of them together. He had drunk from them for too long, gnawed at their magic until it fused with him. Now he took in the spirit of their shared flame, the one they closed in Tiyan. At last, he was what they feared most: a perfect epitome of power.

He heard Nymre screaming—her hair writhing in the winds created during the birth of a new god. The world stopped itself, unmaking its past, bowing before the flesh of the newborn night.

Lorian felt nothing. No joy. No pain. No fear. At last, he was free from the burden of feeling—feelings that had always been shackled to suffering. The emptiness soothed him like a cold cloth pressed to a rotting wound. The gods devoured him slowly, tendrils of burning light piercing his darkness; but he devoured them faster. The flames around them dimmed, swallowed by a hunger that had no end.

“Poor, poor fae.”

“Your time will never come.”

“Spread beneath our feet for eternity.”

“Evaporating and merging forevermore…”

But beneath their words, he felt their terror. Panic. Hunger. Fear. A twisted joy at feeding—any feeding—but fear because the feast was turning against them. Lorian’s night buried deeper, shadows rearranging their divine organs, teasing the fire inside them, growing larger with every second, ready to burst through their divine flesh.

“Nymre.” He turned his smile toward her. Panic painted on her face. His voice rang through the collapsing chamber, cold and resonant, like a bell beating underwater. Tears trailed her cheeks…

He tried to recall what he had promised her.

Eternity.

Love.

Pleasure. Safety.

But what was love to a creature without a heart? What was safety beside a being who devoured gods? And eternity—was it not simply a longer road to abandonment?

She reached toward him with trembling fingers, as if unsure whether she wanted to touch him or flee.

His smile widened—an enchanted mask stretched too far, beautiful in a way that hurt to look at.

“RUN.”

That was all he said.

Run.

He would not let her be consumed by his hunger. This place would collapse soon—releasing his power into the night sky.

Pain slammed into him. The gods pressed closer, their flaming bodies forming a cocoon around him. They touched him, stroked him. A lover’s touch, a tormentor’s caress.

Lorian’s shadows struck back. Like a rowan blade in a puka’s flesh. Like an iron nail in a sprite’s heart. The gods felt pain too—but they grinned, and so did he, all of them baring their teeth in a silent, shared madness.

“You have no chance, little godling.”

“We are hungrier than you.”

“We are much older.”

“We own this land.”

“We own your kind.”

Lorian’s pain arose, worse than anything he had known in life. A molten crown pressed into his skull, iron splinters twisted in his gut… He heard Nymre scream—closer now. She had not run.

Foolish woman. She had not run.

*

The first trumpet rang. The first horse—white and wild—shook the rain from its pale mane.

Sarsha, moved by the power of the word Kosel had spoken moments before, pierced the shadowed talons into Rapis’ heart.

Golden mist rose above him. For one terrible second, time froze—feeding on life, draining the world—and then the mist vanished.

*

The gods howled as their connection to Rapis cut. The flaming ropes gnawing at Lorian’s tendons withdrew—for a moment. It was enough.

Lorian grasped the nearest god’s head.

His fingers—shadow blades sharp as diamonds, sharper than them—closed around it and squeezed. More tendrils sprang from his flesh, reaching for the others, holding them back while he fed.

They crashed onto the crumbling stone. The god writhed, but Lorian was stronger. The others still fed on him, tearing at the night around him, but as long as he devoured this one—one by one, he would consume them all.

For the first time in his life, Lorian lost composure.

He didn’t waste time on a kiss. He sank his shadowed teeth into the god’s throat.

*

The blinding light swallowed the unmaking temple. Nymre, still held where she stood, covered her eyes with her arm.

Run.

She wanted to. Her mind screamed for it. But her body refused.

If he died here, her purpose would disappear with him. So she waited—fear bubbling in her throat, thick and iron-like, ready to burst out as another ragged scream.

She didn’t dare to call his name, though her heart begged her to reach for him. Her limbs were numb, her skin cold, her pulse slowed. Her heart should have been racing—but it barely moved, as if she were watching her own undoing unfold before her.

She couldn’t help him.

She was nothing but a distraction.

Run.

She would. She truly would.

But her legs sagged beneath her, and her soul screamed in a voice her body could not obey.

*

The second trumpet rang. The black horse with a star on its forehead shook the dew from its moonlit mane.

Ona—vessel of something far different—buried her hand in Sindr’s tangled hair. His misty eyes brimmed with tears—pain, terror, and a twisted, delirious joy.

“Yes…”

The word shivered on his lips as her hand plunged into his face. Bone cracked. Flesh parted. Something vital snapped. She pulled, and the world seemed to stop and take a breath as she tore a trembling mass of his brain.

The place of shadows.

The gate to twilight.

Ona—animated by the god’s will—bit her teeth into the grey, quivering tissue…

*

Lorian tossed the god with a shattered throat onto the stone. His limbs froze for a heartbeat as he felt his hold over Sindr snap. A millisecond—yet enough. The others surged toward him, sinking their teeth into his night.

They latched onto him like starved parasites, burying deeper. Every bite burned through him as if he were still mortal. Their divine saliva seeped into his wounds, spreading, rooting, claiming.

Nymre.

She was there.

While they devoured him—deeply, greedily—his gaze locked with hers. Her eyes were wide, impossibly blue, half-hidden behind the raven mask. Terror shone in them, but something else too: a plea.

A plea for him not to let them. Not to let them take him. Not to let them take everything.

He stood in his chamber, with his eyes closed. Moon caressing his skin—he sensed its dim light spreading over him. Delicate, sensual touch of element that every winter lord loved. Its power, its beauty and its calling. But Lorian, somehow, stepped forth, before all kings of Ain’asel. He heard the moon song. Not only imagined it, while it gifted him with his magic. But he heard it, deep inside—resonating in his ribcage, pressing tangled notes onto his heart.

Only Nymre knew it. Now, she stood by his side, leaning over his shoulder, her hair on his arm. She smelled of light ocean breeze and it was a scent unforgettable. Something born in pure water dressing the spiderweb with its droplets. A morning song of a awakening day.

“What do you think about?” he heard her voice.

He wasn’t thinking of anything. He just took in the magic of the night. His pitch-black eyes opened. The moon was there, enormous, like in the day of New Lunar Year. Nymre wore the same black silky dress she was wearing when they loved violently after they left the court enjoying debauched feast. It was even torn in placed his passion reached it. Few feathers beneath her feet.

Remember? His trophies. She wanted him to tear them from her back.

But now, she looked like a serenity. Calm, soothing, beautiful. A healing medicine for his restless soul.

“I think of… how far we have led the lie.”

Her gaze held undecipherable mystery.

“Lie?”

He laughed, in a way that only he was able to. Deep, but silent. Sensual yet threatening.

“Why do I lie to you, Nymre? Why do I lie to myself? Why I still think our life is to save? This world is already destroyed. Not because of the gods. Because of my hunger. I am a dark hole that swallow light. Nephena had right and I adore she had—”

Nymre shook her head.

“Nephena was a fool. You were only fifty years old. This was not your fault.”

“But of course it was” his smile lightened his features, cold, cruel. “I was angry. And my anger always lead to catastrophe. Just as my passion. Just as my mere being. I am a ruin, and I always knew it. Since I have dragged my youngest brother to the crystal casket. Since my flame swallowed Inge. Her branches probably still call my name. I go, love and hate, admire and crave… and I leave debris behind.”

“You love pain. Own one, just as much as I do. But you are life just as you are death.”

“Why?”

His eyes bored into her like two obsidian blades.  He truly wanted the answer, as beautiful, as cruel as it was. If he is not the end of the world, the blood between the human’s fingers, the flesh open by his hunger… then who he is?

“You are Lorian Ain’Dal, the hundredth king of Ain’asel. And you are more than that. More than your needs, more than your lust. You are a true child of the sacred forest, deadly, rapid, but  beautiful and full of budding creation. You were the source of suffering – but also my salvation. And…”

Her face got closer, her lips brushed his, leaving a trace of salty water.

Salt.

Tears.

“… you must live. Now.”

NOW.

The gods almost brought him to his knees. Nymre looked at him, from afar. He still felt her salty kiss.

You are more than that.

More than your hunger.

And if I can’t live. I will take them with me.

His shadows amassed like a black cloud. His power burst around him, spreading its night-black wings. His back adorned with them, bigger than Nymre’s, bigger than half of the chamber – which would not hold them, if it was not falling apart. Black mist enveloped the temple, a proof of his godly ascend. It pulsed around them, a beat of millions hearts, trapped in the palace of Dal’coler and in this place—his own army of lost spirits, which he held on a leash. A millions of dark tendons led from Lorian to the walls of the temple… and further, leading a trail back to Dal’coler, spreading with the speed of light.

They all led to his victims, whose blood he trapped in the apples, whose souls he enchanted in the concrete of his fortress.

And they all were on his command. Unwilling soldiers of their tormentor, who held them just for this very moment.

He pulled.

Millions of soul, hundreds of ghastly, tormented and angry apparitions, clashed against the all-powerful strength of the ancestors. The gods tried to feed, as always—but they were too many, too furious, too wounded and too suffering. They not only clung to gods—they entered them, evaporating in their flames, but managing to fill them with fear and despair. With belief of inevitable end. With visions of demise. They were eating the gods with overpowering feel of failure.

Lorian only waited for that.

He felt pressure in his mind, like the moon was stolen from the sky and placed inside his head. His being was weakened from within, by the opposition of life the gods represented. It was not a feeling, alive void which he held inside his black eyes. It was void all life was fearing. Void of the nothingness—dry, hollow. A barren stone on the silent desert, what was left to look upon the empty world.

But moon was not a tool of harm. It was a hunter who blessed him with its light. Stolen from the sun, living only in the night.

His power entered gods. Slowly, he found them, among the flaming veins, magma bodies and fire muscles. He found them, even if burrowed deep, so deep his fae shadows wouldn’t be able to dig that far.

Yet… he wasn’t a fae anymore.

And he sucked their souls in.

His shadows twirled inside him like maddened dancers—impatient and eager.

The gods’ chamber had been prepared for him, and that alone had cost several ritualists their lives. The walls brimmed with dead flesh; the smell of decay was too sticky, too sweet. His lips stretched into a small, mocking smile. Light pulsed beneath the meat, and the eyes hanging from the ceiling turned toward him at once, shedding tears that burned small holes into the stone floor where they fell.

They were so close to awakening. Their open eyes, their grins—none of it was merely predatory. Everything about them was stained with furious, powerless fear. Their light reached toward Tiyan, who lay spread wide upon the wooden elevation—the wood taken from the sacred forest, which had offered itself with joy. He felt the forest now: begging, desperate, wounded. Only a few hundred heartbeats remained until he would end its suffering. Free it—and himself—from boundaries, from the pain that had drilled into him for far too long, from mortality. Such burdens would remain for lesser beings.

He felt the mind of Nymre walking beside him. She was afraid—but not of death. She feared losing him. Feared abandonment. Feared loneliness.

I do this for you as well, Nymre. But the thought was not enough. He wanted her to feel it. He would no longer be a fae if this ended as he desired—but even that could not carve her out of him.

Nymre moved as though she were flying. Her wings carried her more than her feet did, bare and barely touching the ground. Anyone who had never seen a fae would have mistaken her for an ancient goddess come to offer eternal pleasures.

The elevation trembled under the attempts of the awakening ancestors, desperate to steal Tiyan from his grasp. It was futile. Tiyan was full of shadows, and they shielded him from their greedy hands.

Lorian buried his fingers in the vessel’s hair—unsweated, dry like summer hay. Tiyan’s body was steady, almost collapsed, as though he had already reconciled himself to his fate. The final blow Lorian had given him—his mother’s betrayal—was the iron nail that burrowed deep and split his heart open.

He was willing to die.

And the gods knew it.

“My naive mortal,” he sighed, feeling Tiyan’s skin, tasting the nearness of his end. “You will end a very cruel era. An era of slavery and pain. The future will be much darker. But much more beautiful.”

Tiyan moaned; Nymre shifted by his side.

Lorian realized his voice had deepened, resonating through the chamber unnaturally. As if it was not him speaking, but the new blood inside him using his throat.

The ritualists had left long ago. Only three remained: the king, the storm, and the offering. And those who would give their lives to feed this new world.

“Lorian…” She caught him by the arm. He turned slowly toward her, his gaze pleased. That alone made Nymre halt. “Just…” The air caught in her throat. “Just… just live, Lorian. No matter how. Do not allow them to destroy you.”

It was not what she wanted to say. Her mind screamed at him to stop, to abandon all of this. But that was no longer an option. There was only death or this sacrifice. No good solution remained—not in these times, not today. No tomorrow.

“How do you…?”

She was asking how she would release and absorb the vessel’s power. She would not like the answer.

The gods’ fingers moved slowly through the mass of meat, crawling over roots and flesh like spiders—spindly legs eager to seize him and drain him dry. That was what gods did: drain every fae, then move on to devour all life.

But it did not matter. He was not doing this for them. Even if they would believed he was. Their assumption would make his new rules far more pleasant.

His hand sank deeper into Tiyan’s hair, pulling. Heat surged through his limbs; flames pressed against his skin, wanting to burst free, to rule the earth, to consume him. His hand traveled down Tiyan’s neck, closing around it for a heartbeat—Tiyan gasped for air—then continued its path across his chest, his stomach. The shadows joined the caress, spilling between Tiyan’s legs.

The vessel shivered, as if touched by the most exquisite delight.

“Lorian…”

Lorian, however, was already deep into the rite of flesh and blood—where power could be released only through… connection. And lust.

His lips met Tiyan’s. They were scorching, like a furnace. His own were no less hot. Lorian gripped the boy’s hair and kissed him.

Flame writhed inside Tiyan, desperate to enter the one violating their owner—their child, their prey. Lorian’s tongue tasted him as though he were a dish served to appease a ravenous desire. He sensed Nymre behind him; her breath came hard and fast.

The kiss deepened, grew violent. Lorian’s shadows pulsed between Tiyan’s legs, and the boy groaned—biting the long tongue invading his mouth. But Lorian only laughed into him and sucked harder. The gods’ fingers gathered the piles of flesh from the walls; some dripped to the floor, some hovered in the air, defying gravity.

They touched the true core of demise. Their bodies awakened—fast, faster than ever before—but their awakening was only the prelude to their death.

And they felt it. They knew it.

Tiyan moaned, his legs wrapping around Lorian’s waist, hungrily. Lorian only deepened the kiss, his tongue shifting into shadow and reaching into Tiyan’s depths.

Into his heart.

Into his core.

He was not kissing him. He was not even offering him.

He was devouring his soul.

And Tiyan allowed it. His mind was calm—like a stagnant pond, like a dead ocean. But his body was eager. His body was so willing.

A thin thread of flame latched onto Lorian’s shadowed tongue and traveled down the fae king’s throat. Lorian welcomed it with a hiss—straight into Tiyan’s mouth. Then more followed. Dozens. Hundreds.

Millions.

Tiyan’s soul, shattered into tiny particles, streamed toward the shadowed form of Lorian’s body. Heat burned around them, forcing Nymre to step back, her hair lifting in the warm wind rising from their joined bodies.

Lorian drank—hard, voracious—taking every drop of the gods’ son. His muscles tightened in a spasm that could have been a climax, if it had not seized his entire body. The gods screamed from within the walls, their hands reaching toward them, their eyes more alive than they had been even before their slumber.

Nymre screamed too, watching as Lorian was consumed by a black mist tangled with a flaming blaze of dancing, maddened fire.

And the world went silent.

And the world went white.

*

Nymre tried to lift herself from the ground, but she could only drag her body across the floor, unable to feel her limbs. Her eyes were blind, and panic welcomed her in the bright nothingness. Her ears felt like stuffed with dove feathers, shut on every sensation.

Lorian… She tried to call him, but no sound escaped her lips.

What happened? Lorian…?

The chamber was drowned in white. She realized she wasn’t blind—reality itself had become nothing. As if a star had died, cutting away all vision and sound.

How…

Was the rite not successful?

Where am I?

She crawled forward and suddenly touched something wet and sticky. Her fingers closed around it.

Meat.

Her sight tried to scream. Her voice tried to break through the bizarre mist. But it felt as though all life had been erased from the world, leaving only white silence.

Meat? From where?

She prayed it came from the walls, where the gods had been trapped.

She couldn’t bear the ringing emptiness. Her senses were not made for this bright void. She collapsed again.

*

When her senses returned, she heard the entire temple crumbling. The sound came through the mist—muted, buzzing in her skull rather than roaring. The walls were falling as if struck by a storm too wild for them to withstand.

“Lorian!” Her voice finally broke through the pandemonium. The temple was being stripped of its flesh. Meat evaporated slowly, peeling away in excruciating layers. The stone beneath corroded, as though time had decided this place had reached its end and accelerated its decay. It looked like creation in reverse—unbuilding itself.

And then… she saw him.

He was there.

Power oozed from him like he was made of it, like his core became darkness and now he spread it, to send life on its knees. His shadowed form, solidified and immense, emanated a night so deep it killed any light that dared approach.

Beautiful—cracking with flames so hot she felt them even from afar.

Tiyan lay at his feet. She couldn’t tell if he was alive, though she doubted he could survive this. The collapsing temple looked as if it were being devoured, scraped clean of its very essence.

And around Lorian—ten figures, each connected to him by a string of light, each one dissolving into the shadowed beauty that was Lorian.

Gods.

They were eating him, and he was eating them. A tournament of will. A true measure of power.

They smiled—grotesque, delighted. Lorian smiled too, dark and hungry smile of someone who reached the absolution. They devoured each other with joy painted across their faces while the world collapsed around them.

Nymre screamed, even if he scream wasn’t born in her throat—but in her heart.

She screamed.

Like an evening that knows the day will never come again.

“Kosel?”

Taniv lifted his head from his meager meal. Every dish in Glok’narasel was bathed in the solid essence of water—pure, distilled from snow. Without it, food would not pass their throats. The Unseelie often used this trait to torment the Saru. How many Seelie had died with throats clogged by food that any ordinary creature would swallow with ease? A small globe of meat, damp and easily digestible, landed on the plate with a muted smack.

The chamber in which he dined was lit only by water lilies—small, glowing flowers, drifting on the shallow water that surrounded his feet.

Saru need water. Saru are water. If they are not water, they are nothing.

“How is it possible? He was found. Dal’coler reached him.”

The messenger looked equally bewildered, but he carried more news.

“He… is not alone, sashel. Sarsha… Sarsha is with him.”

Taniv needed to see it with his own eyes. It was unnatural for the Unseelie to release prisoners—except as examples. Or perhaps…

“Is someone following him? Did the lakas detect any magical emanation—hostile or otherwise—in them, or along the path they traveled?”

“We did the tests, sashel.”

“And?” Taniv could swear the messenger was hiding something. But why? Their safety depended entirely on how well they could defend against Dal’coler.

“Nothing, sashel… but Sarsha was with him. It was only a matter of time until—”

Now Taniv understood. Sarsha was the aura collector. She could see auras, even hidden ones. Yet the very auras she perceived were slowly masked and shared in her presence. She was too young to truly comprehend the dark magic of the Unseelie. They would have to interrogate her.

Gods, how cruel it sounded. But they lived in circumstances where free will was already diminished.

“Bring Sarsha first, govavel. I want to ask her a few questions.” He hesitated. “Or… bring her here, feed her, and let me inform the nakar’logi.”

The messenger bowed and departed to carry out the order. Taniv looked down at the meat before him. He should eat it—the meat was rare, at least not rotten. The magical winter had brought nothing but suffering to the Seelie: not only Saru, but Taktah, Ronics, and Sharevals. It destroyed their crops, transformed animals into fungal colonies, and brought most Seelie cities to their knees.

The nakar’logi might know if Sarsha had swallowed Unseelie magic… but the gods in his head were a cruel burden. Their voices rang so often that Rapis had lost all common sense. Yet this was still a war—a war for independence, for becoming a nation of free fae again, not slaves to darkness.

Taniv pushed the bowl of meat aside and stepped across the water-soaked floor—ankles deep—toward Rapis’ prison.

Prison.

It was not a prison for Rapis, but for what he had become in the name of freedom. His rowan chains stripped him of all power—save the one that spoke through him. The gods. Through him, they promised to help the Saru break the Unseelie’s grip on Seelie lands. All they needed was to capture the lone human traveling to Dal’coler. Capture him, drain his blood, and fill him with light. But one of the Bean Sidhe had found Kosel—and so close! So close. Now Kosel was returning home, with his daughter they all believed dead.

Looking at Rapis’ ruined face and body, Taniv wondered if it was worth it. He had sent more Saru into the Shadowlands, but the shadow faeries had grown exceptionally cruel, as though something had enraged them.

“Nakar’logi…” He touched the parched skin of Rapis’ face. His leader seemed not to see him, yet shivered at his touch—as if he were drinking water from Taniv’s fingers, not merely feeling them.

Rapis looked like a walking corpse. Yet before his decay began, he had told them all they must allow it. Only this could save Seelie from the dark folk. Only his sacrifice could bring them down.

Staring at the rotting, trembling form of his leader, Taniv was no longer certain. If this sacrifice was necessary, what would come next? How many more sacrifices would Saru have to make to cut the ropes binding their freedom?

“Nakar’logi… Kosel has returned.”

Rapis’ single seeing eye turned toward him, rolling slowly in its socket.

“Is… Unseelie magic… following… him?”

His voice broke Taniv’s heart. Dry, barely audible. Two weeks ago, Rapis had been strong enough to sweep ten Saru from their feet—nearly killing them. Taniv’s thoughts drifted again to the price they all now paid.

“No. But Sarsha is with him. I… I fear she has swallowed some dark enchantment, without even knowing it. Shall I ask her if—”

“No!” Rapis’ voice tore through the chamber, sharp as a cold gust of wind. “Bring Kosel… bring him… and Sarsha… bind her magic with rowan… like… like me…”

Taniv knew immediately it was a bad idea. Kosel could be the true bearer of the dark spell. Sarsha needed questioning, not binding. He also noticed a strange glow on Rapis’ skin… as though light was devouring him from within. He was…

“I am not mad, Taniv,” groaned Rapis. His blind eye, the empty socket, looked drilled with darkness. “Bring Kosel. Bind Sarsha. I must see them. I… sense tragedy… better if it is me to—”

A violent tremor seized him, bending his body in half. He refused Taniv’s hand. A painful hiss escaped his mouth.

“Water!”

Taniv quickly filled a cup with fresh snow water. With trembling hands, he lifted Rapis’ head gently and poured the water into his gaping mouth. Rapis drank like a parched Saru—even though he had drunk water only an hour before.

“The flame…”

“What flame, nakar’logi?”

“THEIRS.”

Taniv longed to ease Rapis’ suffering. But they had already passed the point of no return. Too much had been sacrificed.

“They… they want to stop me… Bring Sarsha and Kosel… and… unbind me.”

“Nakar’logi! But that is the only way to keep your magic from turning against you!”

“No!” Rapis croaked—like an Unseelie crow. “This could end far worse than my death! We all… could… perish so easily…”

Taniv knew no one should argue with the nakar’logi. But Rapis was his old friend. Rapis had sacrificed the most for the Seelie. Yet…

… the Seelie were the priority. Above all else. If danger was near, Rapis’ offering would be lost.

Thorns of fear pierced Taniv’s heart. Wet. So wet…

Beaded with Seelie tears.

*

Kosel allowed them to bind Sarsha. She did not resist when they sealed her powers with rowan and brought her before the nakar’logi. They had returned from a long, harrowing journey, stained with blood and suffering. Kosel looked exhausted—yet the shadowed tendrils that once hovered above his head were gone. Dal’coler no longer held him in its possession. Relief should have come. But it did not. Something restless fluttered in her chest, like a trapped sparrow, beating harder when she stood before the nakar’logi.

She had never seen him since he had taken the gods into himself. She was not prepared for the sight.

The chamber was dim and silent, heavy with dull darkness. She heard Rapis before she saw him—the mute crack of something breaking. Not body. Not bones. Him.

Sarsha was too young to fully understand her own magic. Yet even bound with rowan, she could not help but see the vast ruin the gods had sculpted into their leader.

She had lived half a year in Dal’coler. Hardened by pain, she felt only hollow pity and empathy for the broken nakar’logi. Even she understood he had paid a high price.

Her rowan-limited skill still revealed the true damage. His skin was parched, as though he had gone without water for days. Rot consumed his face. She did not need her powers to see that his aura was decomposing, burning from within.

When he spoke, his voice was like the murmur of autumn leaves.

“Kosel.”

Her father bowed his head. Sarsha noticed his eyes gleaming, expectant.

“I was released from Dal’coler, nakar’logi.”

Taniv, the Hand, stood beside Rapis, his gaze piercing into her as though he sought to uncover hidden truths. Perhaps she suspected they were under the influence of the Unseelie king. Yet Sarsha’s thoughts were clear, unclouded by dark magic.

“They wanted me to carry a message,” Kosel continued. “That is why… that is why I lost my eye. A warning. To never cross the Shadowlands again.”

But Rapis did not watch Kosel. His gaze was fixed on her. Kosel spoke of his journey to and from Dal’coler, yet Rapis’ attention remained upon Sarsha.

“Sarsha, child. Do you feel anything?” It was his only response once Kosel finished. Her father stirred, ready to speak, but Taniv silenced him with a gesture.

Sarsha hesitated.

During their travels, Kosel had warned her: if the Saru discovered any trace of Unseelie magic within them, they would be imprisoned. Forever, if necessary. He likely did not know what she had seen—the dark shadows nesting in his mind. If that was true, then both of them were stained by Dal’coler. Both touched by its cruel enchantment. And if she revealed what she knew, they would be branded pariahs.

Sarsha did not find this alarming. The Unseelie had used magic upon her. If the Saru decided those dark spells engraved in her aura dangerous, they would act in the Seelie’s best interest. And she would not blame them. The stakes were too high.

But she wasn’t ready to lose her father again. He wasn’t ready either—who was she to condemn her own parent? They were not guilty of being Unseelie prisoners. She wasn’t a martyr, nor was she a creature like Leira.

She was Sarsha.

And she had lived through too many horrors to pay for them again.

“No, nakar’logi.” Her voice didn’t shake. She didn’t even lower it. She looked into Rapis’s broken face and articulated every word. Strong. Not a victim. Not a prey.

Kosel had pleaded with her when they reached Glok’narasel. Do not reveal anything you have seen. The Unseelie king tried to break me. He used dark enchantments and manipulation. I didn’t shatter, though. But who would believe me?

Sarsha had learned, in her short life, that family was everything. She would stand between Kosel—and any danger—every single time. Especially after she lost her mother in the Unseelie attack. The Bean Sidhe, who tore Saru membranes with whispers. Sprites, who ordered small creatures to burrow beneath Saru skin. Red Caps, who seemed to take pleasure in dismembering her folk and staining their hats red with their blood.

And the Higher Unseelie, who commanded them—offering no mercy, taking prisoners, turning them into slaves, servants, toys.

Saru… they couldn’t ask her for more sacrifices.

Rapis’s only eye looked blurred, veiled in white. But Sarsha could swear he saw straight through them. Rowan bound her magic, but not her will.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, elder.” Again, her voice was firm and strong. “They let us go so we could tell you what awaits you if you send anyone to Dal’coler again.”

“And what have they brewed in their minds, then?”

Kosel spoke this time. Sarsha felt heat radiating from him—perhaps from the poor care his eye had received. If not for the bandage stretched across his left eye, he would have looked like Rapis—a twin to the leader, at least in suffering. He would mirror the wound not caused by an enemy’s hand, but by a god who had promised protection.

“King Lorian Ain’Dal offers you relief.”

One of Taniv’s brows lifted.

“Lorian Ain’Dal can offer us relief only by removing himself from our lands.”

“He doesn’t want more bloodshed.”

Rapis laughed—dry, sharp, unpleasant.

“Lorian Ain’Dal? The fae who bathes in our blood? He said that? And you believed him? Oh, Kosel… Lorian is a beast in fae skin. He uses his power not to save, but to subjugate. He loves the sound of our screams.”

“He still offers you a… truce.”

Sarsha noticed Kosel sweating. His skin had taken on a faint reddish tone, and droplets gathered near his eyes and under his chin.

“A truce with slaves. Because that is what we are to him.”

“We are not in a position to throw that offer away. We are already broken, sashel.”

“And that is spoken by a fae who was mutilated by him. How did you lose your eye, Kosel?”

Heat pulsed from her father. It was faint, but Sarsha stood close enough to see more and more sweat beading on his face.

“Father…”

“I lost it because I was foolish enough to try to enter Dal’coler.”

“You were indeed a fool, Kosel. But not because you tried to fulfill your mission,” Rapis nearly choked on the words. “No Saru stands before Seelie or Unseelie except to expose the latter’s cruelty.”

“So why you agreed to meet me here, without guards?” Kosel’s tone was mocking. “Did they whisper this to you, just like they whispered to send all the Saru to Shadowlands?”

“You do not remember? You wanted to go, just like the others” Rapis didn’t reply his first question, Sarsha noticed. “You wanted freedom, just as the others. This couldn’t change without the Ain’Dal influence. I hoped…” his featured loosened, like he lost flesh under his skin. “I hoped you returned, Kosel. But you didn’t.”

Sarsha’s heart wanted to tear her chest and leave her bleeding.

“The gods are killing you!” Kosel finally burst. “They never wanted to share this world with us. We are nothing but fodder, so they can claim the strength of Dal’coler!”

“Father…”

“And who told you that? Lorian Ain’Dal?” Taniv’s smile twisted.

“No. I say that, seeing what this flame is doing to Rapis. We are water folk! We should not allow the dam to be built—even if that requires making a pact with an enemy!”

“Enough!”

“Father, please…”

“You are naive if you think the Unseelie will let you prance freely! We are more than food for lost gods! We are SARU! Saru! Sarsha—“

“ENOUGH!”

Kosel’s eye gleamed with a whitish light. She had never seen anything like it. The eye… almost translucent. Beautiful. Otherworldly. The world stopped for a small, tiny, minute second. Sarsha felt as heat spreads—but not the same heat that beamed from Rapis. It was heat of boiling water.

Water, which was only way to secure Saru from drying. Their mother. Their life and promise of eternity.

Her world dissolved.

The shadow tendrils, attached to his head, like strings for a marionette. His pleading to not talk what she had seen. And—the dream, which she wanted to forget, the dream of black mist, filling her pores and entering her body.

“Kars’nah-li.”

The words dominated her world. She didn’t know why but her power, he skill to absorb auras, tossed in her like a joyful animal, ready to play.

And then Sarsha felt it.

Something blooming inside her. A rose of countless petals. And each of them, while opening, revealed a thorn. Water danced, danced and swirled.

Not her power.

… the rowan binds fell from her like leaves torn by a strong wind…

Not anything she knew.

… she heard them: Kosel, laughing, rasp pained laughter. Rapis, shouting. Taniv, calling the guards…

Water evaporated beneath her feet.

The world went dark. Dark like a starless night.

Dark like her nightmares.

Dark—like shadows.

And Rapis glowed. With sharp light, hot one, which made the water boil. Taniv tried to escape the hot water. Kosel stood there, like he was embracing heat and death, alltogether. The last thoughts of Sarsha were who took over his body. Last thought before the shadows clouded her mind.

Sindr’s eyes glowed. Not with light that died in him long ago, replaced with gnawing shadows. Not even with madness. With something primal – joy intertwined with fear of the unknown. A whole cosmic collapse of… hope.

Sindr was at the verge of implosion – if what he planned for them won’t work, he will fall to pieces.

Ona embraced her legs even tighter, seeing the men behind his back. Possibly the same one who desecrated her body. They won’t see her numb and soft like a rag doll anymore. If they touch her, she will sink her teeth in their necks. If they eventually tried to kill her… at least she takes few with herself.

“I see you are not unconscious anymore, Scholar” giggled the Praetor. His eyes embraced Isnan, like he wanted to swallow her, then slid over Ona’s frame. Slowly. Eyes set in a youthful child face, devoured her, like she was a peace of meat. “How you enjoyed the preparation for the ritual? I suspected you won’t cooperate, so I gave you relief from consciousness. Isnan dear,” his lips stretched into a wide smile. “You didn’t offer me your power, even seeing your sister in a situation not for frail minds… I assume either your bond is not as strong as I – or even you – thought… or you couldn’t draw your force out. Perhaps… yes!… perhaps you need additional stimuli… more final.”

His arms twitched when he turned to the inquisitors behind him. His left lid moved uncontrollably. Ona could swear he looks more bloated and wet, than when she met him for the first time.

“Take them to the altar, ah” his voice shook. Anticipation. And pain. “We will see which gods speak to us with more grace.”

The men dragged Ona and Isnan on their feet. Ona could swear she is about to trip and fall, when her legs refused to carry her. But one of the man lifted her up and placing her over his shoulder, he just went with her, like with a sack. Isnan was treated the same way. They heard the laughter of Sindr, chasing them, panicked and cruel at the same time.

“You will be relieved! Like a good witches, you will be purveyors of the healing! Pleasurable healing!”

Ona closed her eyes and allowed the man to carry her up, up, into the dark corridors above them, fear choking her, like a hand around her already clenched throat.

What do they plan?

Why she is not able to be strong anymore?

This powerless feeling was gnawing at her nerves and flooding her mind. She was not used to it. Not used to be exposed and without any weapon by her hand.

She caught Isnan by the corner of her eye… she will not allow them to harm her. She will do everything to save at least, use every mean and coincidence to not let them kill her or do something worse.

She didn’t have strength to claw at the back of the man who carried her – and even if she had, she had no chance to escape, surrounded by windowless walls and enemies. Her blood ran cold in her veins paralyzing her limbs. The drug which they forced into her, was still in her body – small amount, but enough to change her perception.

The chamber which they entered was illuminated with small lamps – not torches like in other parts of the building. The dim glow bathed everything in mellow shadows, soft and leaving more to darkness than to light. Ona was placed on the floor – not delicately at all – and she saw the reason why this room had to become the ultimate tool in a journey to offer the Praetor a relief from his torment.

By the wall, there stood the vast altar.

Shiny stone gleamed like glass, polished and cleaned.

“An end to a tool” grinned the man, passing her and shifting Isnan on his shoulder. “And beginning of the purpose.”

Ona was pushed forth and the knees almost buckled under her. But she managed to stay on her feet. Sindr Alusa was joining them, his face muscles moving uncontrollably. It was easy to see that he won’t bear the torture one day more – if this rite fails, he will drown in the muddy pond of madness.

The acolytes and inquisitors stood under each wall, looking at the Praetor with admiration painted on their faces. Ona could guess how his “magic” could look for them – something new, promising eternal life and end of fae shackles. They could even think his state is caused by his efforts in the battle with the folk.

And Sindr was only a poor lost soul, who was on the verge of insanity. Who could only squirm and make others squirm too.

She would pity him, if not what he did to her and her sister.

The childlike looking figure seemed misplaced among all these people. Perhaps he felt misplaced too, with his knowledge that the only real escape from the fae is… death.

That’s why he craved the Feirne people. They were not only battling faeries. They were magical themselves. Touched by the goddess, beloved children of the order against the chaos of immortality…

“Isnan, child” Praetor’s small hand touched her sister’s hair and caressed them, while her head was hanging down. “Now… you will be placed between the will of the gods… and failure. If you fill yourself with power, drain me of the shadows that reside in my head, I will release the Scholar. The gods need to listen to their beloved, don’t you think? However you call them… you are all their chosen ones. Witches. The purifying flame, burning the illnesses, attracting the creatures with their warmth, scaring the nightly monsters away with the brightness of a day.”

“You know nothing about the goddess” Isnan’s voice was firm, unshaken.

But Sindr only laughed.

“The goddess? The lie which we all feed each other! Isnan, my cute, silly Isnan, if you spent so many years in purgatory, in a night world where a human goddess is a fodder for jokes and where we all are just toys for immortals… you would know which gods were imagined by humankind to ease the souls” his hand grasped her hair hard and pulled, getting her head closer to his. Isnan didn’t make a sound. “The goddess is a pretty face behind the real power.”

“Let her go” hissed Ona.

“And you, Scholar!” Sindr croaked… then his body was shook by the loud cough. “You was chosen as my very personal sacrifice. To make… ah the GODDESS… fill your stubborn sister with flames – enough of fire to purify me and end all of this.”

“The goddess will not allow it” Isnan’s voice trembled but there was force in it, something Ona always admired in her. Strength built on own heart and own will. “If she released the shadows from your head, they would flood this valley. End the lives of so many people. She might allow me to suffer, but it’s lesser evil.”

“Oh, shut up, Isnan dear” cut the Praetor and hit the ankle of the man that carried her, strong enough to make his brow twitch. “Bind her and let her watch. Maybe she will beg the gods herself.”

Isnan was trapped on the chair – it creaked when they were binding her legs and arms. It was the same chair Arolart was sitting on when she drank the first portion of the drug. Ona’s heart wanted to leave her chest. Her legs still fumbling, her body still weak. How could she let it happen? She was to save Isnan, not make them use her pain against the goddess and all human of this city and nearby villages.

“And she… on the altar!”

The man grasped her immediately again and with the strength of a bear, they hit her back against the cold stone of the altar. Ona lost her breath for a second, her lungs trying to draw air in – in futile. She saw Sindr who took Isnan’s head in his small child’s hands and turned just on the altar – and Ona on it.

“You will look… and you will brim with godly power.”

“You are delusional” groaned Isnan, but Sindr with unnatural force, managed to lock her head just on the right spot – Ona’s frightened  face.

“Maybe! Aren’t all who want to die delusional? The afterlife is better though than living in this casket. Maybe I will grow into a tree… like these wretched fae… I hope Lorian Ain’Dal fills many of them. For the fear he gave me, for the pain he stitched into my body and soul. I hope he rots in similar limbo to my own.”

Ona didn’t know what he talked about and about whom, but her eyes landed on the butcher knife, dirty, sharp, rigged. It shone before her pupils like a black star falling from the sky. She will not survive and all efforts Isnan offered to this valley will be futile. If Praetor won’t gain what he desired, the blood he spill will be an ocean.

… and she felt pain.

Her right ear exploded with it – as sharp as the knife’s blade. With shock, she moaned, not screamed – her nerves barely connecting until she saw her ear next to her, rolling over the marble fracture of the altar.

Isnan watched. Ona knew why. Not because Sindr held her. Not because she liked what she was seeing. Because it was only thing she could do for her.

Not leave her alone.

And Ona… Ona was dragged through broken glass of her own sanity. With each cut, with each slice burrowed deep into her skin, to reveal how much she – and Isnan, or maybe even the Goddess – can stand. Her vision blurred, pain was going through her like jolts of lightning – bright, cruel, sharp. Ona’s limbs were a house of open, raw, pulsing nerves, each tugged and pulled at. Bloating, and hot, screaming as they were forcing her flesh off her body.

She wanted to look at Isnan too. But all she saw was an apparition changed by tears. But she felt sister’s soft caress on her hair, even if she wasn’t able to really touch her. A caress she remembered – and it returned to her with love.

The Goddess… was not by her side.

It was a lie. Even if releasing Sindr’s torment on the valley was a cruel deed, Isnan was a Goddess’ beloved.

But Ona was not.

“Are you ready to be fucked by your Goddess?” she heard like through mist – Sindr’s youthful voice. He talked to Isnan. To her sister. Who she will lose soon.

“You will never know how it feel being loved by her” Isnan choked on words, but they left her mouth strong, even if shattered.

“Do you spread your legs, when she enters?” Sindr hissed. “Do you moan like a whore? I truly wanted to see it, how you become a god’s slut.”

Ona’s tears trailed through her cheeks, when another cut reached her skin. Searing pain, blood.  She was delusional when she arrived here – she truly was foolish enough to think that this world can offer them both something more than suffering. But Sindr was as well. He will kill them, but he will be left with the fae shadows, sentenced to live the eternal life.

And no cruelty will change it.

Her stomach was pierced by the knife.

Isnan screamed.

Terrifying, loud wail of someone who sees her own blood spilled. But flowing from a body of her sister.

She felt acids flooding her torn insides.

Goddess…

She won’t come. She will keep the villages safe. But she will sacrifice her children – for greater good.

“NO!” Isnan voice was full of pain. Maybe even with more suffering that Ona felt, spread on the altar like a butchered hare. “NO!! Not her! NO!”

Ona started to drift away, where her pain was just a ghastly reminiscence of itself and her mind slowly, but inevitably, was collapsing into the void. Her limbs becoming numb, her eyelids heavier by every second.

Her stomach sinking, she didn’t feel her innards anymore. Her body became soft, like wool. Let them cut her – she will just abandon herself in a dream. A dream that will be more potent than any pain – an eternal slumber.

Maybe she will find peace in it. Isnan… forgive me… Tiyan… I hope you found better end than me…

She felt touch. Warm touch. Distant yet burning her soul with… flames. It overflown her, soothing all raw sensations, allowing her to take a deep breathe. Her body was cut in so many places, she saw it from above. Her fingers severed, her limbs carrying so many wounds. The hands made of warmth traveled over her spirit form, almost like a mother’s touch. She relaxed, even if her body was dying. Her soul felt peace. Is death always like that? Pain, then warm, no – hot feathers of a dove over her skin. Like a kiss.

Like a rebirth in another – better – world.

“Use your power, you wretched wench!” Sindr. “Use it or you end like her, but for you, it will be much worse! USE IT! Kill me! Remove it from my head!”

He comes.

He wants us.

He devours us.

Crash him.

Distort his power.

You are beloved.

Beloved of the flame.

Release the night from this human’s mind.

Kill him.

Kill him.

K i l l   h i m .

Who?

Ona’s eyes opened.

Isnan tossed in the grasp of two inquisitors. Screaming, but Ona couldn’t hear it. Sindr was laying, on the floor, with eyes full of terror and… hope. The cultists under walls looked at the scene, not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to react.

Isnan’s hair looked like an ocean wave crashing against the stone harbor. Floating around her like a spider web of tangles.

And Ona…

She raised from the altar. Her guts spilled over the stone, but she felt not life animates her anymore. She felt life gave up on her, offering her into caring hands of the…

Flame.

Her mind collapsed under weight of what was happening. But her hands were ready and willing, stronger, hotter. Isnan screamed, her eyes escaped into the back of her skull.

Ona, with her entrails tangling between her feet, walked at the Praetor. Her eyes glowed with the last throes of the flaming life.

Kill him.

Kill him.

KILL HIM.

So we could live again.

Sindr started to laugh.

His laughter was like pins in the brain.

And Ona wanted so badly to remove them.

She was the witch, a goddess’ beloved. Chosen by the gods, their power on earth polluted with life. She was ready to release the shadow.

Mina was cautious, very cautious. Her days here were stained with too much fear, too much blood and darkness.

But Dal’coler was beautiful.

It didn’t remind her anymore of nightmares she witnessed during her first days here. The mirrors, the flesh, the faces… it all disappeared and she partially was aware that it’s thanks to her bending to Lorian’s will. Eating the apple and allowing him to bind her with this place.

She hoped Tiyan would know how to break this spell. Usually, she would trust him in everything… but some time ago it dawned on her that her brother won’t have any power here. She still trusted him, though. She still wanted to trust his strength and determination. He will. He will take her from here, no matter how many dangers and horrors will stand on his path.

Tiyan.

She wanted to embrace him and tell him she is safe. Return to parents and live again – a hard life, but almost normal. Mundane. Their house, not a palace by any means. But it was safer, warmer and better than the huge castle she lived now in.

Your house will never be the same and you know it. It stopped being safe.

Dal’coler was enormous. And dark, with darkness that whispered to her old tales and showed her more and more with every gaze. Each painting on the wall, each arche, was hiding secrets, and her young soul started slowly to be curious.  Walking by Lorian’s side, she sometimes stopped, seeing something that she didn’t expect, only to realize that it wasn’t there… When her eyes were drifting in different directions, the miracle was back, even more tempting and secretive.

This was infuriating, and intriguing. So much, that Mina almost forgot how afraid she was a few weeks ago.

Magic.

From her mother, she knew that it’s a vile thing. That it promises pleasures, joy and beauty, but hides teeth and thorns. She knew as well, that it was magic that wounded Alina in the past. The same fairies who  now hosted her, captured Alina and tormented her for long days. She didn’t want to trust anyone here. But even she couldn’t be aware that the enchantment which held Dal’coler in its claws, already worked on her.

Filling her with trust, even if developed slowly, even if only rubbing her slightly with its soft paws, like a cat, encouraging its owner to allow him to jump on his lap.

Mina didn’t understand magic. It was an alien thing, possessed by enemies of humankind. But all things she was seeing through the last days, was showing it in resplendent light and soothing darkness, which were breaking her tightly woven cocoon she had woven around herself.

She stopped by the window, deep in the niche. Stained glass figures forming a scene, which she had to see closer.

It showed a bright star, with its rays touching the people standing under it, some of them on their knees, some; in a fetal position, naked, holding their legs with their arms. Behind them, a crimson sunset, so red, that it looked like it was painted with fresh blood.

Mina had to touch it somehow. The star. The glass was cold under her fingers. Smooth like a raven feather.

“Creation” she heard the voice next to her and she withdrew her hand, fast. Lorian was standing by her side, his black eyes seemed to reflect the red light the setting sun was offering  to the gathering on the art. “For some, the moment of life. For some, the hour of death.”

“How so?” Mina again looked at the window. She focused closer, to suddenly see the roots coming from the ground, with black flowers blooming from them. Some of them dragged the people underground, some were just trapping them halfway.

She could swear the glass art looked differently when she was looking at it for the first time.

“Creation…  a painful process” Lorian still looked at the artful depiction of suffering. “Dangerous, cruel. Delightful and vile. Beautiful and splendid. Most of your kind don’t even know how you came to be.  Most of you believe in an honored mother, who guards you, even if invisible and distant.”

“No” Mina shook her head. ” It’s all true. The goddess created us. That’s how Alina told us.”

Lorian laughed. It was a light, amused laugh.

“If anyone could not believe in the goddess, it would be Alina Sacrana. She, above all humans, knew what kind of gods animated life. But she would never admit it before her children. It would be way too cruel of her.”

Minas’ scrutinizing gaze landed on Lorian. Alina. Sacrana. He knew her family name. How so? Was he really knowing everything?

If so, what Tiyan was still not here, if he wanted him so much?

“You knew my mother” her eyes looked at him from half-closed eyelids.

Fae tortured her mother. They made her bald and scarred up.

“We could of course say that I knew her. But better admit that we talked a lot during… quite an intense moment in her life. She shared a lot of her past with me… and quite eagerly offered the blood of her blood.”

His black eyes are like the night sky, his face alit with inner darkness.

“You say…”

“Of course not,” chuckled Lorian. “Your mother was  the most fine example of a human species I had pleasure to meet. She would never betray anyone, if she had other options. But… Some things are inevitable. From some things… you can’t escape even after death.”

Mina tried to understand his words, even if she had to dig deeper. But something told her, some inner voice, that she won’t get any more answers.

Lorian resumed the walk. Mina went after him. No matter what her mother had to suffer, she would never betray anyone. Just like he said. She would never.

“Where we go?”

“Somewhere where the winter chill melts by the sun” was an amused, enigmatic answer.

They slowly passed the corridors, filled with stained glass scenes, which Mina learned not to look at, but now, when Lorian was by her side – as dubious protection as it was – she observed the scenes, which were changing the focus, whenever she stopped looking even for a moment. Not moving, but gaining new details.

They entered one of the few lighter chambers, which beamed with wintery sun rays. Almost the whole wall was made of…nothingness. No windows, nothing that could stop the winter cold from entering the room and freeze her to the bone. But of course fae were using magical barriers. This room was a wonder, opened in the wild forest, which grew bitten in the walls, making the chamber look bathed in white. She could almost hear the whisper of the trees and cracking of the frosted branches.

And there… in this room… was sitting the most beautiful woman Mina has ever seen.

Clad in black gown, with golden collar and ringlets, she was sprouting black, raven wings from her back. She was looking through the non existent window, her eyes set in the distance. Mina could feel something in her. She was always very observant. From Lorian, she could feel dark. Real dark, which she couldn’t decipher. But at the same time… a night that blinds the light, but also, offers night creatures a place and means to live.

Feed them and give them a place where they can survive.

From the winged woman…

She was feeling anger, mixed with desperation and affection. She never knew why she could feel all of it. In this place… Dal’coler, it intensified. Like the magic that resided her, gave her wings as well.

When they entered, the woman turned back, her wings cut the air, spreading behind her like a veil made of feathers.

Beautiful, Mina though. She is beautiful.

“Lorian” she was visibly relieved, her lips curling up in a stunning smile.

“I brought the gift, small, young… but very curious” Lorian grinned, a perfect contradiction for her smile. Her smile was like a clouded sun, heavy with promise of fresh spring rain. His… like the beautiful colors of a deadly predator, warning all that it has a poison.

The woman came closer, allowing Lorian to place a kiss on her cheek. Mina could feel how strongly they pulled each other. Something she never saw between anyone she knew. Tiyan loved Noyd, she cheered for them, always. Her father, Gravir, loved Alina. But these two…

How do you know that?

How have you learnt that?

You never had such a strong feel…

But here she was, feeling them, they were dawning on her like their elements, fire, water and cruel stars.

“Have you shown our guests the most breathtaking parts of the palace?” the woman looked just at her. Her eyes were pale, very big, almost transparent. Blue like a drop of rain water.

Mina knew now that light warmth radiating from the woman was her aura. Again, opposed to the shadows that Lorian was bathed in.

“Not even in the slightest part. Now, when the apple was consumed” – the woman scoffed. Lorian laughed, lightheartedly. “When it was consumed, Dal’coler lays before her like a ripe fruit, ready to be picked. And I would detest myself, if I had to deprive her of that.”

“I hope you don’t plan any more depravations” joked the winged woman and leaned towards Lorian. He didn’t seem to care that Mina stood between them, and dragged her closer.

“How clever of you to mention it…”

Fire.

Love.

Mina knew, somehow, that they do feel it. The fae were able to feel it. How was it possible? They were dark holes in the soul of the world.

But at the same time… they could be so normal.

Where was the deception and where were their real faces? When they kidnapped her and forced the apple in? When they were sending horrors at her?

Or when they laughed, teasing each other? Feeling love?

Mina didn’t know, and that was the scariest thing of all.

The woman placed a hungry kiss on Lorian’s lips and parted with him, to return attention to her. Her thick, whitish hair gleamed in the faint morning light. Her face was like a newborn star. All fae had this unearthly shine to them, but this winged woman…

“I know that you don’t have any reasons to trust Lorian… but we really don’t mean to harm you.”

Lorian chuckled again, this time real amusement ringing in his voice, Nymre offered him a deadly expression.

“This is not how you talk to a captive child, Nymre. She is not blind on her situation. She knows we would harm her, if she was not useful. But she is – so we are in an impass.”

Nymre’s bitter air was almost palpable.

“I am not a child” Mina decided to speak. “You sent me into awful places with mirrors and dripping meat. You killed many people. And put a spell on Avras. We couldn’t eat fresh food for years.”

Lorian’s black eyes sparkled.

“Well said, little one. You are far more conscious than my lover thinks. Sometimes we are underestimating humans. But as we came to the conclusion, you are safe, so why not enjoy it? I open before you all the gates in Dal’coler.”

Mina’s hands suddenly became strangely cold. Slight fear creeping into her, something she knew all too well. She will be allowed everywhere, spend time in company of those fey and later…? What later? When Tiyan is already here and she will be used to bend him to their will?

What then, when she won’t be needed anymore?

“I need to be sure. That you won’t kill me.”

The words left her mouth faster than she thought them. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to see Alina and Gravir – no matter what Lorian said about her mother. He was a liar and cruel.

Lorian suddenly stood way too close to her, the cold spread further, creeping, unpleasant. The scent of violets, tempting, like taken from a dark dream.

“Very good, Mina” he used her name for the first time since she appeared here. “You are precautious. I like that. Beings your age usually are more naive.”

Mina swallowed thick saliva. But she continued.

“I need a promise.. Which you can’t break.”

Lorian’s lips weren’t smiling anymore. His features like cut in marble, his pale skin looked even lighter in the faint winter light.

“Why should I do it? I own your future. Any agreements would be delightfully pointless.”

Mina shook her head.

“I know that you couldn’t force the apple into my mouth. I had to agree.”

“The fragile structure of core spells demands delicate touch and a willing need, they are stronger then… but you have nothing to offer, beautiful child.”

“I have. I will do everything you order me. Tell Tiyan that you are not evil. That you will free us. That he needs only to do the thing you want him for.”

Lorian chuckled. His black eyes gleaming with amused sparks.

“And he will believe, you assume?”

“You said that spells will be stronger if Tiyan is willing.”

Something dark came through Lorian face, dark and cruel. Mina felt exposed, and a sudden wave of wrongness washed through her like a tide.

Nymre leaned over Lorian’s arm and looked at Mina with gaze made of liquid intrigue. Mina didn’t back off, though. She needed herself – and Tiyan – safe. Lorian touched Mina’s chin and pulled her head higher – Mina returned him a bold gaze.

“If you insist so… if you need me to delve into your heart and burn a mark on it… We can make an agreement. Something that will give your soul peace of safety.”

“No.”

“I thought that you wanted a promise. I am willing to give you one.”

Never make a deal with the fairy kind.

Mina knew the first law of winter. Fae were tricking humans, giving false promises, twisting words of agreements. And she knew Lorian would use every means to twist this one too.

“I want you not to be able to kill me. And Tiyan.”

She couldn’t believe she said these words. Lorian’s black eyes drilled her through, like a miner’s pickaxe. She could see – and feel – how his shadows amasse around her, a hot presence. So hot, yet her hands – whole body – were cold.

“I am not in a bloodthirsty mood. I don’t need your death and I don’t need your pain. You, though…”

“I won’t do anything endangering Tiyan.”

Lorian’s smile became predatory. Still stunning like sunrise… but a sunrise, with sun falling on the earth, to burn the land.

“I promise that I won’t end your life. Your brother will live too, as long as he was destined by gods, before he ever met me. Even small hair won’t fall from his head. And you… you will be a grateful human being. Very grateful and very open on my grace.”

The sounded badly.

Like a lie.

But she had no choice…

“Is that good enough, stubborn child?”

“Say that you won’t kill Tiyan too. With these words”

This time it was Nymre who laughed.

She was looking at her with a dubious expression, and suddenly, Mina saw a beak, real beak under her mask. Not a fae face. The face of a bird, beak longer and thicker than in a real raven, and above it… two blue orbs, made of azure fire.

Lorian though  didn’t look confunded or displeased. More amused and enjoying it.

“Very well. I won’t kill your brother, no matter what will happen, even if gods planned his death since the very beginning.”

She couldn’t not agree on that, even if she will have to help them achieve whatever he need Tiyan for. The shadows lifted her chin, so she couldn’t not look at Lorian’s face, which suddenly became dark, darker, made of black smoke, his eyes gaining depths of abysmal caves and lakes under the face of the earth.

This was only an illusion…

But why she felt she shouldn’t see this, that even they didn’t want her to see? A creeping feeling of wrongness, of misplaced time.

She nodded, almost invisibly.

She knew from the tales that fae can’t break a willing agreement. And she latched to it, desperately. He possibly hid truths and will try to use them… but she had no other protection. He could kill her – and Tiyan – on a whim.

Something hot touched her and she saw a tendril of a shadow, slowly worming its way on her skin… she backed off, but the misty tentacle followed her quickly and slowly pressed the place where her heart was. It didn’t even hurt. The shadow entered her, through clothes, and placed a kiss on her chest.

It didn’t hurt.

But she knew there would be something new, when she took off the dress.

Lorian was smiling, so beautifully,and her heart jumped at that.

Why didn’t she feel safer?

Ona didn’t know how many days – and nights – have passed since she arrived Arelt. Her vision, her mind, her whole being felt like made of spiderweb, thin and trembling, shivering on every single gust of wind. All she knew was that she was in pain, and her body was enduring things no one should ever have to face. Each time she woke up, she remembered hands. Hands on her throat, on her arms, around her waist… on her thighs… and pressure inside her body, tearing her apart.

Her skin bled. Her mind thrashed inside her skull like a frantic, caged animal – terrified to death. Maybe it wasn’t her blood. Maybe it wasn’t even her body. Maybe she was already dead, and this was the some sort of afterlife: cruel, hazy, unfocused… and painful.

When the men left her alone, she tried to speak. To herself. To anyone. To the goddess. To the faery gods. Speaking – through a clenched throat – was agony, but she did it anyway. She mumbled incoherently, trying to find a meaning. Her mind latched to the words and slowly tried to pull itself from the pit they pushed her into.

Until someone answered.

“Ona…”

Ona.

Ona. That was her name. Someone knew it, someone knew her. Her limbs tensed, ready for another portion of pain. She was touched – yes, but not with force, gently. Calmly, even lovingly. She felt love in those hands, in that voice, even in the scent. It reminded her of home, before the faeries destroyed it, turned it into a decayed battleground.

“Ona… why did you come here? I told you not to. They’ll kill us both now. I tried so hard to protect you…”

“Ona… please… they’ve drugged you…”

“Ona… you must not drink the water…”

“They force it into me…”

“I know… Ona… you can’t drink it… but… I know, yes.

“I’ll give you something. Eat.”

“No…”

“Eat… It’s the only reason I’m still alive. Not submitted. Not dead.”

Ona sensed pain and despair in the voice. Was the speaker witnessing what they did to her? Water… she shouldn’t drink it. But she was always thirsty. When they offered it, it felt like a blessing. A reprieve from torment. A touch of the goddess’s grace in an underworld of vile beings.

But the next time they gave her water, she felt the difference. The soft, spongy thing the caring woman had offered to her seemed to work. After a night of shallow sleep, her mind cleared. The drugged water no longer clouded her thoughts. She realized where she was.

She lay on a stone floor. Her skin was pale and bruised. Her clothes – a thin dress she didn’t remember ever wearing – were stained with blood. Her breath quickened. She inhaled and exhaled, trying to make sense of it. They… she met with that child, strange child with fevered eyes. And drank something. Drank something they called The Light.

It was a drug. They immobilized her mind, and her body to do… what? Was she…?

“Ona…”

The voice. Her heart quickened. The voice she heard every day here. The voice that saved her. The voice…

…she knew.

It was her.

The one she had searched for, for so long, so desperately. The one, she would do everything for, only to see her again, alive.

Her sister.

Isnan.

“Don’t move, Ona. They might be watching. They can’t hear us, but they see. They left me here with you because you were drugged. They…”

Ona closed her eyes, her muscles tensing.

“What… what were they doing to me?”

Her voice, thin as colas bread, must have sounded like a mouse’s squeak. She knew what they were doing. And Isnan… she had to watch.

“Ona, they want me to release my power. I–I was close to doing it, when they… but no. The goddess didn’t allow me, my power is locked, my abilities weaker every day. What they will do isn’t just to relief that mad being from whispers in his head. They will release the consuming shadows, hungry and cruel. If they escape him – the vessel that traps them – they’ll seek a new host.”

“Shadows…” Ona couldn’t fully grasp her sister’s words, but Isnan spoke quickly – urgently – both helpful and overwhelming.

“The Praetor. He’s possessed by the faery king. I hear Sindr’s emotions every time he visits us. I hear his pain – and I hear the shadows. And with them, him. The shadows are the fae king’s punishment, and they’ll flood the Arelt Valley and beyond the moment the Praetor dies.”

Ona dragged her knees high under her chin, both in protection before danger and her sister’s words. Isnan had tears in her eyes. Her kind sister, her beloved friend, had to watch as these men desecrate her. That and her defenselessness when they were hurting her, she was numbed, left to be abused by fanatics. Tears started to well in her eyes too. She didn’t remember – not fully – her own torment, but Isnan saw everything.

“Was… I willingly taking them?” Ona turned to her sister with pain painted on her face. “Did this water cause me to… receive them?”

Isnan’s pale face was ghastly, her pain palpable. It hung in the prison cell like a weight, thick and suffocating. It even had a scent – old rust and dust, decay and time. It would take a long while before either of them could heal from it. If they survived at all.

“No, Ona,” Isnan’s throat tightened as she spoke. “No, my dear.”

Silence settled over the cell, adding another layer to the dust-laden air. Isnan crawled toward Ona and began to speak to her, just as she had on the days before. Ona accepted it. Her sister’s hands – thin, sickly white – gently caressed her bruised skin.

Isnan had been here for months. Who knew what they had done to her? What horrors she now carried in her mind?

And what more awaits them now?

“What you gave me to clear my thoughts?” Ona murmured into Isnan’s arm. Her mind were sharper but she was exhausted by the days of starvation. She allowed Isnan to cradle her. So long she had to be tough, hard as stone. With Tiyan… with herself. But she was young and afraid. She wanted to drown in her sister’s arms.

“Mushrooms” Isnan whispered into her ear. “From the walls. They do not know what grows in their own prison, in this damp cage they sentenced us to. But I do. And I plan to use every gift from the goddess to get us out of here.”

“Will I feel as sick as after all mushrooms you ever prepared?” Ona tried to laugh, but coughed. A raw rasp escaped her throat and shook her body. The cell was too humid and cold, she was too famished and her health hung on a very thin thread. A memory of childhood glittered in her thoughts, weak and soft, like an additional loving touch.

“Yes” Isnan smiled. Pallid smile over even paler face. “You will. It’s almost like home. Mushrooms, and two witches…” she gazed at the entrance. Her jaws clenched tightly, her throat moved like she had a bile inside, skin stretched. “Almost like home.”

The lock gave way with a sharp crack as the key turned in the hole. The two sisters exchanged a glance, but Isnan kept her arms tightly wrapped around Ona’s frame. Ona… felt achingly powerless. She was too weak to protect them. Her bow, her spear, her knives – everything had been stripped from her. If they tried again…

“Isnan, I…”

She couldn’t finish. They had arrived.

Torches gleamed in their hands, the light stabbing at the sisters’ tired eyes. Isnan’s grip on Ona’s arm tightened.

And then came the Torch of Arelt, gleaming with a different kind of light.

He radiated shadow.

A torment of faery device.