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Love the Girl Who Holds the World in a Paper Cup, Drink It up (3)

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She didn’t break her neck in the fall. The webbing should have protected her, cushioned the impact at least a little. But now she was trapped like an insect. The web was so tight that she could barely move her arms, let alone swing her sword.

Her affinity wouldn’t help her get out of this one, then.

But she couldn’t stay here. She had to get out fast.

Charlotte was inside the palace, but he had fallen in through a hole. The spider machine could follow her and shoot a jet of blue fire at her while she was trapped, which would doom her to die burning alive.

In fact, that was most likely.

It was a tactic, to say the least, commonly used for such things. Trap or someone or something in the web, which was designed to conduct blue fire, and then shoot.

She didn’t want to die like that.

She didn’t want to die in any way, but such a painful death would be too much.

Charlotte gritted her teeth. It was too soon to give up. She could still get out of here. She could still make it.

She couldn’t move her arms much, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t break free. Only total paralysis meant her defeat. Moving the sword up and down, slowly and awkwardly, she cut through the web that enveloped her.

Even if it was only a piece. A piece was enough for her.

She just had to regain some freedom of movement, enough to cut a portal and get out of it before the spider arrived.

And it would come.

She could hear it. The footsteps, each one like an earthquake. The mechanical spider was getting closer. And when it saw her, it would be all over.

It was close. Very close.

Shit, shit, shit.

She wished she were Desmond. Those machines didn’t have eyes, they just saw heat signatures. If she were Desmond, she could simply kill herself by biting her tongue. The machine, when it saw her dead, would ignore her and soon return to the fight.

But she wasn’t Desmond.

She couldn’t use such a convenient trick.

A few threads snapped. A little, a little, just a little more. All she needed was…

More steps. She saw a cloud of dust rise up right in front of her, blocking her view, which was almost something to be grateful for. She hadn’t really noticed it at the moment, had only been paying attention to herself.

But beyond the hole, away from the palace, there was nothing but destruction, misery and death.

Her kingdom, which she had sworn to protect, lay in ruins.

Her people, likewise.

So that cloud of dust that kept her from seeing the depth of her failure was almost to be welcomed. It didn’t last long, though.

The spider poked its head into the hole. It had found her.

Oh, shit.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!

More broken threads. If she had time, she could free herself naturally, simply by breaking the web that bound her with the sword.

But she didn’t have time.

The princess didn’t even have seconds.

The spider spat fire at her.

Charlotte cut an entry portal below her, and the exit portal anywhere, but far away. She did it as fast as she could.

She did it as fast as she could, but she didn’t get away.

She entered the portal and came out the other side, away from the web, away from the creature that had thrown it.

But not from the flames.

She smelled burning flesh… and realized that that smell wasn’t coming from the countless victims of the flames out there, but that she herself was burning.

Charlotte shrieked.

——

He was being shot, but he didn’t even realize it. The sensation of blood rushing into his mouth and down his throat consumed his consciousness. He knew vaguely that something was changing inside him as he did it, but only vaguely.

Even if he was fully aware of it, Desmond had a feeling he wouldn’t care.

For the blood was filling him in more ways than one. Of warmth, of power, and of something… for which he had no words.

Maybe neither he nor anyone else had words for ‘it’.

Maybe it was something new, inside him, that he was incubating. Or giving birth to.

In any case, Desmond drank the Imperial soldier dry. And then he threw it on the ground, discarding it as if it were a garbage bag.

“He doesn’t even flinch.”

“Is this the monster we’ve been told about?”

The monster. Yes, many people called him that, he was sure.

And with good reason.

Not all the soldiers knew the whole story, about him and Abigail, the pursuit of immortality and all that. But it seemed that even ordinary soldiers like these had heard enough.

Maybe it had been that way forever. Maybe it had changed, spread more widely, since Desmond stormed the capital of the beasts.

I guess this is an eye for an eye. He had never thought of it that way. Although that didn’t change anything, of course.

Should it, should it matter to him?

Desmond was still on his knees, staring at the corpse beneath him. Now he slowly rose to his feet as the Imperial soldiers reloaded.

His body was riddled with bullet holes, but he felt no pain.

He felt his back opening, and though he should have felt pain, though that was the normal, sane thing to feel, what he felt was pleasure. Sexual pleasure.

Desmond smiled, full of pleasure, as his wings spread.

“Open fire! We have to kill that monster!

Kill? No one can kill me.

The Empire soldiers, completely focused on him, opened fire again. Not everyone had finished loading their weapons, but they weren’t going to just stand there and wait for the moment.

There was a limit to everything, especially the time that fear and surprise could buy him.

Desmond didn’t flinch. He didn’t move from his spot an inch.

What he did do was tear off the piece of glass he had plunged into the neck of the enemy he had sucked dry.

For it was stained with blood.

Desmond licked the blood on the glass as he was shot.

A bullet shattered the glass, breaking it into a thousand pieces that scattered across the floor. Very small pieces. In any case, the important thing here was that the drops of blood had fallen to the floor as well.

Desmond felt irritation. Not anger, just mild irritation.

Desmond stretched a hand forward as bullets whizzed past, over or through him. With a naturalness that belied that he had only done it once before, he clenched his hand into a fist and one of the soldiers literally exploded.

He lifted his head to watch how the blood, gore and chunks of flesh flew up to reach the sky.

There was something funny about that, so Desmond burst out laughing.

He had no idea why it was so funny, but hey, there was nothing wrong with it. After all, laughter was the best medicine, wasn’t it?

He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard, or laughed in general. Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all. Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all. He walked towards the group of soldiers. Slowly but surely. As if he had all the time in the world.

He had a feeling he was forgetting something.

But it couldn’t be that important if he had forgotten at a time like this.

Or maybe it was important, very important, but it was gone along with the fear of death. Of bullets whistling near him. To the darkness and the silence, and the forgetfulness.

Desmond was strong again, after all. If anyone wanted to stop him, let them try.

Not even death could stop him.

Ah, how could he not feel this good?

“It’s not working!” someone shouted.

“Shut your mouth and keep shooting! If he bleeds, you can…!”

He didn’t get to finish.

Because then Desmond flapped his wings. The air released by the movement knocked many soldiers to the ground, or at least knocked off balance. Many others had their feet pulled off the ground and were blown back to where they had come from.

Even then some were saved by shooting a rope hook at the walls.

But not all. It would have been a pity if that attack had been more or less futile, and it wasn’t.

Desmond distinctly heard a few burst as they hit the ground.

Ah, music to my ears.

But all good things had to come to an end, or else it would get boring anyway. With this in mind, Desmond broke into a run towards the soldiers, who had been retreating, but without stopping firing.

It was time to stop playing games.

Desmond arrived in the middle of the group. He moved his hands as if he had a grip on a sword; only then, when he didn’t even cut the air, did he realize that his hands were empty.

The first thing that crossed his mind was to summon the sword to his hand, as usual.

But he wasn’t sure it would work.

Desmond should have recovered, but… He wasn’t sure. And if he tried and failed, it was going to affect him. Fortunately, he didn’t have to mess around. He had two good weapons right here.

In fact, they were part of his body.

The wings. Desmond grabbed one of the Imperial soldiers, slammed him to the ground.

The soldier grunted, but he didn’t let go of the rifle he held.

Instead he pointed it at him and opened fire.

Challenging him even in his last moments. For all the good it did him. Desmond slammed him to the ground again, this time harder, bursting his head like a melon.

Satisfying.

With these wings on his back, he needed nothing more than to make sweeping movements to send gusts of wind that deflected the bullets. And, as usual, getting in the middle of the enemy group wasn’t a disadvantage, even if it seemed like one.

They had to worry about not hitting their comrades. He had no such concern.

And the bullets couldn’t do much to him.

It wasn’t too big a group, the one that had broken through on this side. A little more than two dozen people. Something, but not much.

He had to be able to finish quickly.

Something interrupted his killing spree.

Darkness, out of the corner of his eye. His first thought was that his wings had moved without his consent, somehow, or he had reacted instinctively without realizing it.

It was neither.

The darkness he detected turned out to be an amorphous mass.

That crashed into one of the soldiers, sending him flying, spinning in the air, through the hole that had once been one of the windows.

In another context, it would have been comical.

For some reason, however, Desmond no longer felt like laughing. He wished, though it was unlikely, that soldier would be spared.

Not because he had suddenly begun to sympathize with the enemy or because he had lost his mind.

What he wanted was for him to be saved, but not entirely. That he would be left, for example, with broken legs. At the mercy of the people of this city. Of the poor souls to whom those sons of bitches had brought so much suffering, today and in the days to come. Months, years.

He deserved it. It would be like poetic justice, that he died at the hands of the people.

In any case. He looked around, searching for where the darkness had come from that threw the soldier, and not him for some reason.

And there he saw Christina. And Amy, next to her, both crouched down.

He stared at them with wide eyes, wide-eyed, dumbfounded. Feeling the blood of that enemy running down his chin, down to his neck.

Wrong. It was wrong.

How could he have forgotten something so important? That he wasn’t fighting for himself, not anymore, but for the people he cared about.

Desmond turned to the soldiers.

He called his sword, and it came quickly to his hand. Just like old times, he thought. Although it hadn’t been too long since the poisoning, it had seemed like an eternity.

Not every day, but every second he had had to endure that weakness. That inability.

But now, everything had changed again. Now he could protect them. Protect his own happiness.

That was what power was all about, control. That was all it was good for. I won’t let them take my happiness away again.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

That’s what it had been about all along, hadn’t it? He was a fool who took too long to realize what really mattered.

He went on the attack.

One, two, three, four.

It seemed like one was going down with every passing second, with every breath he took.

Desmond grabbed one of the soldiers and, staring him square in the eye, plunged the sword into his chest until only the handle was visible. The soldier spat blood over his face.

He bravely resisted the urge to bring a hand to the bloodstains, to scoop some up and drink more.

Instead, what he did was twirl the son of a bitch, who was still alive, albeit barely.

Spinning him around to get enough momentum to launch him.

In mid-air, Christina’s shadows chased the miserable son of a bitch. They entered his mouth and eyes, even. This was new… And unpleasant to watch, frankly. Enemy or not. It gave him a bit of a fright.

The soldier fell in the midst of his own.

Then… The darkness that had been inside him exploded. It quickly spread to those closest to the fallen soldier. Those who didn’t have time to flee, or didn’t know how to react, suffered the same fate.

Desmond saw them fall to their knees, choking on the darkness that had entered their throats. They were fighting for their lives, still. But there was nothing they could do.

In fact, it would only hasten their own death that way.

In any case, Christina had already taken care of a few of them. They weren’t dead yet. But they would be.

So Desmond focused his attention on the remaining ones.

“It’s a monster! There’s nothing we can do!” shouted a soldier, beside himself.

True, Desmond thought coldly.

“Run!” shouted another, and followed his own advice. Immediately. Without waiting for the others to react, of course.

They ran, too, a second or two later.

It was a wise decision.

But it was too late. There had been just over two dozen. Right now there were only six left. Desmond gave a wry smile.

He swung his sword at the nearest one and hit. The sword pierced him from behind, coming out the other side. The force of the impact knocked him to the ground.

But Desmond had summoned the sword back to his hand even before said soldier hit the ground.

He could be seen with a large hole in his chest and choking miserably on his own blood.

Desmond threw the sword again.

This time, it cut off the head of an enemy soldier, sending it flying off while dripping blood. He hadn’t aimed for the head, fearing to miss; he had aimed for the torso, as with the other one, to increase the odds. But he had been lucky, in a way. Instant death.

And more terrifying than the previous one, because the fleeing companions were sprayed by the blood, saw the head fly past them.

Desmond brought his sword back, ready to throw it a third time.

Too late.

They rounded the corner, disappearing from sight. Good. It was… acceptable.

It was over quickly, as he said. The enemies…

And so was the rush that had pushed him so far. The ground suddenly got closer. Not until his head hit the ground did Desmond realize it was because he was falling.

Why?

I’m supposed to… I’m supposed to… I’m supposed to… I…

But he couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Desmond!”

He heard them running toward him.

Desmond stood up a little, pushing himself up with his hands resting on the floor. He put a hand to his mouth.

When he pulled it away, he saw that it was covered in blood.

The high had passed.

Now came the fall.

The question was how far he would fall. Or if there would be a stop in the first place.

Beyond death.

Vomiting blood was never a good sign and he had bullet wounds all over his body. Many had closed in the course of the fight. But, still, if his body had failed him again….

Then it was quite possible that this was it.

The beginning of the end.

It was frightening, of course. But mostly he felt confused. He couldn’t process what was happening.

He had asked the gods to guide him, he had done as he was asked.

And it seemed to have worked. But now this.

Why?

Had there been a change of plans up there?

The thought, all too possible, made him shudder.

It had taken him so much time and effort to consider himself worthy of being happy, of having a normal life, of being loved.

How had he so easily convinced himself that he was someone special? That the gods had plans for him?

Maybe they had, but by now they must have seen the truth.

That he was undeserving. So…

The girls finally made it to where he was. They had broken into a run, but it seemed to him that it had taken them a veritable eternity to get there.

As if an hour had passed in every second, as his mind wrestled with itself.

Amy crouched down beside him, kneeling on the ground.

“I’ll give you a hand,” she said.

Christina said nothing. Instead she just stood there looking at him, silent. Which was more than he could bear. Her silence, and what floated in her eyes.

Desmond turned his head away before she realized it.

What he felt, what had pushed him to avoid her gaze, was…shame? Yes. He knew her friends had seen him slit that soldier’s throat, just to drink and drink, until he was dry.

He still had blood on his lips, on his chin and some stains on his neck. Lines of blood running.

Hard to forget, in other words.

Desmond had done what he had to do and it had worked, even if it hadn’t lasted. So he had no regrets. Being honest, he couldn’t say that, no matter how much she looked at him that way. But…

He had to admit that he had acted like a wild animal.

What he saw in her eyes was a normal reaction to what he had forced them to witness. The shame that twisted his insides was also most normal.

Leaning on Amy, the three of them walked away from there, leaving that massacre behind.

He was actually justifying himself beyond all reason. What needed to be done? Desmond hadn’t been dying and even if he hadn’t done that monstrous thing, Christina and Amy could have taken care of the soldiers.

Or not even that.

They could have simply run away, passed them by.

A confrontation… it hadn’t really been necessary. He had forced them to expose themselves to unnecessary danger, closer, for longer.

That was all the more reason to feel ashamed and now….”

“Hostiles, finish them off!” A voice boomed.

Desmond turned his head back, seeing a group of soldiers halfway up the stairs leading to the floor above. They had caught them.

They should have been on the move from the beginning. They hadn’t done it because of him, because of their bloodlust. Now it was too late to avoid the consequences.

They upped the pace and the soldiers opened fire.

Desmond tensed as the bullets passed close, dangerously close.

Just one of those dozens of bullets would be enough to end his friends’ lives. If they were hit in the head, goodbye. They couldn’t come back, just like him.

Of course, that was a fact of life. Something they had faced constantly since they had known each other.

If they couldn’t bear to risk their lives, they’d never have become soldiers in the first place.

Desmond had entered the academy before even discovering the power Abigail had gifted him. He had been prepared to die. The same went for them; he wasn’t going to infantilize them; they had made their own decisions.

But…

But he had a feeling it didn’t carry the weight it deserved to the fact that it was so easy, so painfully easy, for it all to end for them. One stray bullet.

It didn’t take more than a stray bullet.

Maybe it was the loss of blood, maybe he was talking nonsense. But all he could think about right now was:

This is fucking crazy.

Of course, they had ways to defend themselves from the bullet blasts.

Darkness, ice blocks, positioned in between.

But…

They went down the stairs. That was surprising, to say the least. That is, they had started from the second floor, gone back up, and now they were going down again?

“Now we’re going down?”

“Change of plans. Trust me.”

“I trust you… with my life…”

“Don’t start talking like that. We have to move on.”

It took him a few seconds to realize what she meant. Desmond hadn’t meant to sound fatalistic, however. Quite the opposite, really. It was or, well, at least should have been a statement of his absolute confidence. No more, no less.

They arrived back on the second floor.

In the lobby a fierce battle was raging between the Albion army and the invading soldiers of the Empire. There had already been a few casualties.

He would like to say only between soldiers. But, of course, that was not the case.

The Empire saw no difference between combatants and non-combatants. And what else could one expect? We do the same thing to them, after all.

But it was no time to dwell on that sort of thing. Or to think about anything at all.

Nor about guilt, he would say. But he didn’t feel a twinge of guilt.

Maybe it would come later, not being worried about his life. Maybe.

They continued on their way. Despite the fierce battle, they didn’t manage to go unnoticed. Nothing could be easy.

“Catch them!”

They sent two groups after them. They began to run, firing at them without ceasing, simultaneously. While some unloaded all the ammunition in their guns on them, the others reloaded and so on.

Christina opened a door. She wanted them to get in there.

They closed the door behind them, blocking it with the piece of wood. That would hold. Not for too long, though.

But by then they would have…

Nothing. It was a dead end. For some reason, Christina had headed for the prison in the basement. And there was no way out. No windows or doors, except for the one they had just entered.

He couldn’t believe he had screwed up to such an extent. There had to be an explanation.

“What are we doing?” Desmond asked.

“I don’t understand either,” Amy said.

“I’m going to get you out of here. But first, help me turn off the lights.”

That’s what they did.

Well, that’s what Amy did. He couldn’t do much more than stand, and with help, which was plenty. Plus, she formed a wall of ice behind them, to catch any bullets coming through the door before they got out of here. Or whatever.

After all the lights were out, Christina walked to the center of the room.

She slammed the shadows into the floor. Opening a huge hole.

It was as if she had used a rock drill, but more efficient. Clearly.

“Inside,” Christina said.

“I see. Are you sure this will work?”

“I’ve never done it before. But it shouldn’t be a problem. And it seems safer than going through a war zone.”

She was right about that.

It was worth a try. The gunshots and pounding on the door reminded him that the faster they got going, the better. That they were running out of time.

What was the worst that could happen?

Not being buried alive. With Christina’s magic, there was no chance of that happening.

Desmond glanced sideways at Amy, who didn’t seem too sure either.

The soldiers burst into the cells and found the place completely empty.

“Where did they go?”

——

No, she wasn’t burning, the realization penetrated even the haze of fear in which her mind was drowning. What was burning was her jacket. Only her jacket, at least for the moment.

Charlotte took it off only to discard it later.

She would like to say she did it calmly, minimizing the risks, but there was no calm. Only fear.

Fear of being so close to dying, and in one of the possible ways. At this moment, certainly, she couldn’t think of anything worse. But she couldn’t think in general. Her mind had gone completely blank.

As was to be expected.

She threw the jacket away.

She didn’t have time to check if she was all right, if she was done, because she wasn’t out of danger. The shadow of the mechanical spider still loomed over her.

It could still kill her easily.

By spitting more fire, or squashing her like an insect.

Charlotte used her affinity, taking herself across the hallway, through the door someone had left open. She heard what passed behind her.

Crumbling. A shower of debris.

Probably. She didn’t need to move her head to check. That rumble was enough.

So she had tried to crush it with a leg. The son of a bitch.

Charlotte gritted her teeth, biting her tongue hard at the same time. She couldn’t help but imagine the leg crushing her. Reducing her to mush, to nothing more than a mass of blood staining the leg and spilling out of it onto the floor.

A trail formed by the blood of a foolish girl, who’d stepped into something that was too big for her….

Charlotte shook her head firmly.

No. No. No. No.

The girl glanced down at herself. If anything other than her jacket was on fire, anyone would say she would have noticed it immediately, the pain or the burning smell.

But adrenaline might have kept her from feeling the pain, and she had been focused on saving her own neck. Not on the possible smells.

Maybe it was silly, but she felt the need to check, at least.

… She was fine.

Not a spark on her body, or her clothes.

I would be dead by now, if it had spread that far, she thought. Charlotte took a deep breath.

Charlotte pressed her back against the wall, stretching her neck back, and closed her eyes. Trying to catch her breath. She hadn’t done much. But she couldn’t breathe properly.

The fear, again. If she didn’t control herself, it would eventually get her killed anyway.

Should I fight?, she wondered.

By that she wasn’t talking in general, of course, but about the spiders the Imperials had dropped on her city. Get out there and finish them off, before they could do any more damage… or die trying.

The latter was certain. If she went out there, they would kill her. She couldn’t deal with the spiders. Not on her own. She had to admit her limits. She was so scared she didn’t want to go out there, even if she had a good chance. But that didn’t take away from the truth of her words.

She walked over to the window, resting a hand on the glass. From there she could see… troops. Troops burst into the palace, through the windows, including a small one in the basement, and through the fire.

Either way.

It wasn’t enough to set fire to the building. Now that they had them trapped, they intended to come in and slaughter them.

She could save them. She had to save them.

And, after that…

She couldn’t even think of such a near future. Little by little, step by step. Maybe… Maybe she would die and then she wouldn’t have to think about it, anyway.

Charlotte noticed her lips tracing a smile.

A bitter smile, of pure mockery at herself.

Okay, she had made a decision. The time had come to get moving.

The first step was almost too much. Charlotte fell forward, had to lean on the railing to keep her balance.

Her ankle. The damn ankle.

The webbing had ensured she’d survived the fall, ironically. But it hadn’t stopped her from twisting her ankle. At least this was something she could fix on her own.

Charlotte bent down and placed a hand on the injured ankle, which was soon covered by a blue light.

The light that gave off her magical energy.

Like any soldier, royals were expected to know this basic healing spell, in order to heal minor wounds and stay alive until a real healer could tend to them, in the most extreme cases.

In less than ten seconds she was healed. Charlotte pressed on, sword drawn, ready (or at least as ready as she could be) for anyone who came her way.

So far she hadn’t encountered anyone, though. Neither friend nor foe.

That soon changed. Well, not exactly, as it was hard to say she had met ‘anyone’. Everywhere she looked, wherever she looked, what she saw was nothing but pieces of flesh.

The walls were colored such a deep red that it looked fake.

That it looked, or at least gave him that impression, like a pin.

That it looked like, or at least gave her that impression, paint instead of blood.

She would say the most overwhelming thing. But as intense as it was, even though it made her legs shake and made her want to vomit, the smell was but a shadow behind this brutality.

“What the hell happened here? Gods. They’re all Imperials, but… Gods.”

She’d have to stop and count the pieces to know how many people had died here, so mangled had the bodies been.

And yes. As she’d said, they were Imperials.

But, all the same, seeing this made her guts churn. It was simply too much.

It was as if they had been torn apart by an animal. A big one.

Desmond?

That was the first thing she thought of, naturally, with hope fluttering faintly in her heart, like the wings of a butterfly. But there was no indication that this carnage had been committed by a single person.

Besides, there was no reason for it to be Desmond, even if he had been here.

The last time she’d seen him he’d barely been able to get out of bed on his own, let alone kill all these soldiers. There was the hope that he would recover, certainly.

But it couldn’t have happened in such a short time. From one moment to the next.

Not having an explanation towards this sight was even creepier if anything. She had chills, she realized.

Charlotte shook her head and continued to move forward, following the sounds of battle. She didn’t know what she was getting into. But she knew she was getting close to people who needed her help. That would have to be enough.

She made it all the way to the second floor without meeting anyone along the way, friend or foe. Every second was eternal. Every second, her heart seemed to beat harder. Painfully.

It would almost be a relief if an enemy were to come upon her, so that she could be relieved of that tension.

Walking through her castle, so different from what it normally was.

Broken, ruined, violated.

With the only signs of life being the gunshots that rang out in the distance, and the magic that was cast in response. A cacophony that she imagined wouldn’t be much different from what could be heard in the depths of hell.

Of course nothing could last, so at last she found what she had been looking for.

Charlotte crouched behind the railing, putting both hands on it and peering over it.

A big battle was raging in the lobby.

Big in terms of scale. It didn’t look good for them, at all. Many had already fallen. Soldiers… and complete innocents, who couldn’t even defend themselves.

Her heart ached.

So many people had died today because of him, and so many more would die before it was all over.

Hundreds. Thousands, easily.

Her heart ached as if it had already exploded in her chest.

To make matters worse. She was no expert on war tactics or the battlefield, but even to her untrained eyes it seemed pretty obvious that they were losing the battle. In spite of everything.

“I have to do something,” she told herself that, and it was no lie.

But she couldn’t bring herself to stand up anyway. Reveal herself and join the battle. Because she was as sure she would die as she had been when contemplating whether she should fight the spiders.

And she didn’t want to die.

She didn’t want to die, but was she willing to survive at any cost? To turn away and not look back? To leave so many people to what fate had in store for them, when she could have done something for them?

Not when they were surely waiting for her. When they were counting on her.

She was afraid.

She was very afraid.

But she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself if she turned her back on her subjects in their greatest time of need since she had been named princess.

This is what I’ve been educated and trained for all my life, right?

Time to prove she was worth it, she supposed.

Charlotte took a deep breath, steeling herself with what little courage she had. She had no choice but to do this, not really. That helped. Not too much, though.

She stood up. Her legs were shaking.

She hoped it wouldn’t be too noticeable. Well, it wouldn’t change the outcome, probably.

Not even the fact that she had it all against her. That they would see her as weak, that they would see her as scared, because it was true. But, gods, give me the strength to do this.

“Hey, you sons of bitches!”

Charlotte shouted in a successful attempt to draw attention to herself. She would have brought it anyway, just waiting for someone to see her; she was the priority target, after all. But she had already waited more than long enough.

She had wasted too much time already.

Yes. In the interest of not wasting time, Charlotte immediately began swinging her sword, cutting portals.

The first two had an immediate and devastating effect. One of the Imperial soldiers fell screeching terribly, from the back of his throat, as if the skin was being ripped from his entire body.

It was no wonder.

For his legs were gone. Not as if they had been cut off, no, but cleanly, from one instant to the next. Which wouldn’t spare him the pain.

Or the horror of suddenly lying in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood.

He was screaming and howling like an animal in a trap, fighting for his freedom.

But he was only killing himself faster, that way.

Good. It was a hidden blessing, because there was no salvation anymore. So… then he’d suffer less.

She felt surprisingly calm, all things considered. Granted, he was her enemy, but still… seeing someone maimed, writhing on the ground, agonized….

That was horrible. And it should have shaken her. Right?

But she didn’t feel anything.

Of course she didn’t. It was hard… to feel anything for those sons of bitches with all the corpses she’d seen lying around. Combatants and non-combatants, without discriminating, without hesitation.

If they hadn’t felt anything, why should she?

As brutal as it was.

However…

Many turned their guns on her, taking aim. Forgetting about the soldiers she was fighting. Fewer and fewer.

That action made her react.

Charlotte used her affinity to cut off two of those rifles, but that was as far as she got. She wasn’t fast enough, far from it, to disarm the enemies before the inevitable. Or kill them, which would be the same thing.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She had to take cover from the hail of bullets.

Or try to.

She pulled back, but wasn’t fast enough. She thought she had, at first. But no.

Why?

Because a chunk of her left hand was gone, along with three of her fingers.

Charlotte looked up at the ceiling through the hole in her hand.

Blood was falling and falling.

She brought her other hand to this one, squeezing as if to stop the bleeding, as if she could stop it, as if it would do anything besides increase the searing pain.

“Oh, shit,” she mumbled in a strange way, as if she had just realized what had happened.

One of the fingers was still dangling precariously in her hand, from a few strips of flesh…like a…like a sausage…..

She felt like throwing up.

If Charlotte had anything in her stomach to throw up, she would have certainly done so, vomiting all over herself. Imagining that didn’t help her nausea at all.

“The princess! Get her!”

It wasn’t the voice of one of the soldiers sending others to protect her.

The voice that rose was one of the Imperials, ordering her execution. As she had thought from the beginning, they had no intention of capturing her or using her as a hostage.

They simply wanted her head on a pike.

She heard them running up the stairs.

Running up to finish the job.

They would be here, sooner rather than later. She couldn’t stand still. Charlotte began to crawl backwards, trying to put as much distance between herself and the soldiers as possible.

She crawled along the ground, not getting up.

Not because she didn’t want to, or because she had judged that to be best, for some reason. Less risky.

But because she couldn’t, plain and simple. Couldn’t.

Her hand hurt too much. The pain hadn’t paralyzed her, but it had rendered her useless. It was only a hand; her legs were fine. But she still couldn’t get up. The pain was too much.

Too much.

She had believed… that she had been prepared for this all her life. Even though she wasn’t supposed to risk her life, because she was irreplaceable, she had believed she was prepared if she ever had to find herself in a situation like this.

How stupid she had been.

She was skilled with a sword, she had one of the most powerful affinities in the entire world.

But she wasn’t prepared.

Nothing could have prepared her for this pain.

She realized, too late, that fact. And that none of her instructors had ever seriously tried to harm her. Because she was the princess, after all. How could they dare put a member of royalty through that?

Even if it was the best thing for her.

She hadn’t been allowed to have a childhood. But, at the same time… they had protected her too much. The worst of both worlds.

And this was the result.

The soldiers reached the top of the stairs. It seemed to her that it had been a long time since she had heard them run up the stairs.

They spotted her easily, for she had not had time to get very far.

They turned their guns on her. In the bottomless darkness of the guns Charlotte saw her own death.

“She is already wounded!” one of the soldiers shouted.

Wounded, but not defeated. Not yet.

She gritted her teeth.

Before they pulled the triggers, Charlotte gathered some strength. Enough to throw herself to the side. Taking cover behind a pillar, bullets flying close to her. Dangerously close. But far enough away.

I’m so scared, she thought.

She brought, unconsciously, her mangled hand to her chest. Her heart was pounding by now. She could feel it almost as if it were in her hand.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte recognized that voice, even in the midst of the cacophony of the battle that had not yet ended.

The one that spoke as soon as they reached the top of the stairs.

The one who pointed out that she was wounded, weakened. That same soldier. What was he talking about?

“It’s just… It’s just… Just a girl…” Another soldier.

His voice was shaking and he himself sounded like a child. Small and stupid.

A child? She had never been just a child, though she would have liked to live like that. Like a normal person. No responsibilities, no guilt…

And living parents.

But she was the way she was, and this was her life. A child?

I am a warrior.

“We’ve killed enough children to get this far. Do you not understand your position? Do you not understand what’s at stake?”

“I…”

“You’re lucky. If it were anyone else, I’d have you executed right here.”

Had that soldier interfered in your favor? By grabbing the rifle of the first one to fire, twisting the weapon and thus deflecting the trajectory of the bullets? Of course, there was more than one soldier, so that act would not have changed. But if he had reacted

Of course, there was more than one soldier, so that act wouldn’t have changed anything. But if he had reacted instinctively… before he could think about it….

Yes, she supposed it was possible. Or he had simply refused to open fire. That was also possible.

And more believable.

He could swallow that the soldier had had a moment’s hesitation rather than he had committed an act of rebellion. Although, seeing how the other had reacted, it was clear that the Imperial army saw the two as being one and the same.

In any case, whatever the explanation, it wouldn’t repeat.

Charlotte couldn’t count on that.

And even if it did repeat itself, well. It wouldn’t help much.

They were firing on the pillar she was hiding behind, wearing it down bit by bit. It was only a matter of time before a bullet went through the stone and hit her. Of time, and also of enough ammunition, of course.

But they wouldn’t wait until then.

The sound of gunfire must have been masking the sound of footsteps, but it was only natural that they were approaching the pillar, planning to surround her.

Got to get moving before it was too late.

Charlotte tried to heal the hand. A basic spell like that wouldn’t make her fingers grow back or anything, but she at least hoped it would help with the pain.

To no avail.

The hole didn’t close and it didn’t ease her pain one bit. At least the bleeding stopped, though. It was something. Not much, but something. Her vision was blurry from tears. She blinked to clear it.

Charlotte stood up on shaky legs, preparing to go on the attack again. She had barely killed anyone and she was already in this state.

It wouldn’t make a difference. It wouldn’t turn the tables.

… But that was no excuse to stop fighting.

Before it was too late, Charlotte took the initiative. Diving to the side, she rolled across the floor.

She stepped over a table and ducked behind it, narrowly avoiding the gunfire. There was no more contemplation. Nothing about: she’s just a kid.

None of them’s pulse trembled for a moment.

Of course not. It was to be expected.

“You can run, but not hide,” a woman’s voice, nearby. One of the Imperial soldiers sent to kill her.

She was right, of course.

Hiding wasn’t going to work. Charlotte had made up her mind to fight, and that hadn’t changed. Her goal was simply to buy some time. Simply. To think about how best to do this.

Even if it was just a few extra seconds. Maybe she wouldn’t have to think at all and the cavalry would arrive.

No, they were probably busy with themselves.

Probably couldn’t count on help of any kind. Neither from the soldiers who were fighting in the lobby, nor from Desmond and the others. She’d brought them here precisely because of this, Desmond and that immortal woman.

Because Albion was losing the war.

Because at any moment the roof could come down on them. But, when she needed them most, they were gone. A… No, it wasn’t irony, not exactly. But fucking bitter all the same.

Christina looked up, saw cracks in the ceiling. Her heart skipped a beat, but they weren’t right above her. She was out of danger.

In that sense, at least.

That woman had wasted time taunting her… Because she thought she was a child, inside and out. That she could goad her into making a mistake like that.

She was surprised, frankly, that they hadn’t tried to convince her that they didn’t want to kill her.

That nothing would happen to her if she surrendered.

Anyway. Now Charlotte would prove to her how wrong she’d been about her.

She had a fucking plan that worked without having to expose herself too much. Ideally, she wouldn’t have to expose herself at all.

More shooting.

At this rate, her ears were going to explode. Something rolled across the table and landed next to her. A grenade.

She waited a few seconds, heart pounding. How easy it would be for this to go wrong. For it to end up exploding in her hand.

Charlotte caught it and threw it with all her might, but not to return it. She threw it upwards.

Into the cracks.

The explosion caused a chunk of the ceiling to collapse right on top of them.

Four of the seven soldiers were buried. If they didn’t die directly, crushed by the weight of the debris, then they would soon be dead anyway.

Taking advantage of the surprise and horror, the seconds it would give her, Christina jumped over the table.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she broke into a run.

Almost frictionless between being in the air and running.

She swung her sword.

One of the surviving soldiers lost an arm, his scream rose into the air and was lost along with the many others and the general cacophony that reigned over this hell.

The soldier, suddenly finding himself without an arm, staggered forward. He almost fell himself. And he also almost dropped his weapon.

But only almost.

Before they knew it, Charlotte was in their midst.

Screaming from the bottom of her heart, as if to bury her fear in a place where she could never find it again.

——

The three advanced with surprising speed through the underground.

Christina pushed aside any obstacle or shattered it with her shadows, with contentious ease. It was indeed as if they had a huge rock drill on their side.

He had worried that the soldiers coming after them would catch them in the tunnel, trapped like rats, and fill them with bullets.

He had worried about a lot of things, to tell the truth. But mostly about that.

It looked like it wasn’t going to be a problem, though. Not at this speed. They’d be more than far enough away by now, in fact. Probably.

Which didn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that they were out of danger.

Christina seemed confident that she could do this, even though she’d never even tried. But Desmond was worried about….

Well, that they would end up buried. It wasn’t hard to imagine that possibility.

Especially with dirt and other grime constantly falling on them as they passed.

Especially with the pain, fatigue and numbness he felt, as the strength left his body.

He didn’t want to die.

He didn’t want to die in any way.

But what a horrible fate it would be to be buried alive, along with the people he cared about most. Along with almost all of them.

Almost.

Abigail was out there, somewhere.

Fighting, like they were fighting. But in reverse.

While they were trying to get away from the palace, she was surely headed for the palace. To join them.

Yes.

He had to call her to warn her of that. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

Desmond took a deep breath. Gathering his breath.

“Abigail. “Amy gasped, as if an enemy might ambush them in a place like this. Well. Not that it was completely impossible, but he saw it as unlikely; they’d have to find out they were here in the first place. “Abigail, can you hear me?”

Yes. He heard Abigail’s voice inside his head. You don’t sound good.

That was because he wasn’t. But, more importantly…

“You’re on your way to the palace. But we’re already getting farther away.”

Okay. Where are you?

“Uh, well. Hard to say exactly. We’re fleeing underground.”

They weren’t that far from the surface world, though. He could hear the footsteps of marching soldiers. He could hear gunfire, explosions.

And something metallic he was pretty sure was one or more of those bipedal machines the Empire had used against them long, long ago.

When they attacked that training camp. Forcing it to end violently and prematurely.

But it’s not like he could see what was outside.

What street he was on, none of that.

Christina moved as if she didn’t doubt where she was moving to, as if she could see everything perfectly. For some reason. But they were stumbling around in the dark.

Even she, whose affinity was darkness. That was the truth.

That sounds dangerous, Abigail said. Okay. You don’t even know where you are now. So… I guess I’d better stay outside, wait for you.

“I…” I don’t know.

“Tell her she can follow if she wants to,” Christina said, “That if she comes within my range, I’ll know it’s her and I can guide her. If she’s willing to take the risk.”

Yes. There was a risk that she might get lost along the way.

Not to mention the more important risk of going through a war zone. And on top of that for what might as well be for nothing.

Anyway.

Desmond repeated what Christina had told him, so that Abigail could make the decision herself.

He would leave it up to her.

He had no right to tell her no, to forbid anything.

And, anyway, he was too fucked up to think about anything. Honestly. Even breathing was becoming an effort for him.

And not just because he was underground, with dirt falling everywhere, gradually running out of oxygen.

Breathing had been an effort for quite a while now.

Ever since, well, his blood rush had run out.

Abigail didn’t think much of it.

You may have to emerge before you reach the outskirts of the city. So I’ll be on the way.

“Okay.”

Desmond, take care of yourself.

“Yeah.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her he couldn’t take care of himself, and that might as well not matter anyway. “I promise.”

If I have to die…

I at least want to see her one more time.

Desmond made up his mind. This couldn’t be the first time he’d broken a promise to her. He wouldn’t stand for it.

The three of them continued their way along the ground, and Abigail along the surface, simultaneously.

——

She killed the three survivors. It was very easy and quick. It made her feel like she was on top of the world.

But her head cooled soon after, realizing that this had only just begun.

The battle down the stairs was continuing and they were losing. By a lot.

Her soldiers… they had run out of civilians to protect. They were all dead. Or they were so pale and covered in blood that she couldn’t tell who was still alive, though that wouldn’t last long in such a state anyway.

Now that they no longer had to defend anyone, they were fighting better.

More free.

But too late. The damage had already been done.

This wasn’t all their strength, far from it. But still seeing this didn’t exactly fill her with hope for the near future.

He didn’t like the shape of things to come at all.

Charlotte jumped.

Over the stairs, down.

But she didn’t quite land.

She cut a portal in front of her leap, and the exit portal she created in front of the biggest threat in the lobby. The thing that had decided the outcome of the battle, surely.

Charlotte appeared behind one of those bipedal machines, a relatively recent addition to the Empire’s forces.

It must have had an official name, but Albion was unaware of it, so she could only refer to them as bipedal machines.

Anyway, something that would soon be nothing more than scrap metal didn’t need a special name.

Charlotte appeared underneath the bipedal machine.

She thrust the sword upward, while at the same time wrapping the blade in a super”thin portal. She’d developed this tactic with the intention of hiding her true affinity, to have it as an ace up her sleeve.

That idea went to shit when she had to use it publicly to rescue Abigail and Desmond from the Imperial army. But it could be useful in other ways. Like for example this one.

The blade grazed the underside of the machine. With the movement, Charlotte took the opportunity to cut a portal right next to it. She repeated it again and again, first with the blade, then creating a portal on the side. The metal fell in pieces next to her, leaving the machine’s pilot and controls exposed. Instead of her being able to create portals, to someone uninformed it would be as if she had made her blade sharper.

It was a man, she noticed absently.

Older than her, but not much older. None of them were. It wasn’t old men who fought wars after all.

His eyes were wide, looking down between his legs.

When he saw her, at first his expression was tinged with fear. As if he had seen a demon. But then the fear was mostly buried by rage.

Rage.

As if it had been her who had attacked his capital. Killed everyone who stood in front of her, soldiers and innocents alike.

As if it had been her who had started this instead of defending herself.

As if that man, being here, doing this… As if the son of a bitch really believed he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Charlotte stepped into the bipedal machine, whatever name it had, through the hole she’d made.

The pilot’s paralysis broke right there.

He tried to reach for a gun that was perched on top of the controls of this thing. For cases like this, she figured. And he succeeded.

That is, he grabbed it in time.

The enemy soldier pulled the trigger once, twice, three times.

But the bullets didn’t even come close to her. Instead, they hit the ‘glass’ that enveloped the cockpit, embedding themselves hard. She heard the cracks expand.

All the shots missed, no, they were deflected, because Charlotte was faster than he was.

Just a second, or less than a second, faster. But fast enough.

She plunged the sword into his neck, killing him. Pulling the trigger was the last thing he was able to do in his agony. A useless thing.

Even his last act in this world was full of spite. Until the last moment, until the last breath.

Like… Well, like everyone.

Every soldier.

And the Azure Empire itself. They were all the same, deep down. Animals.

She’d left the body practically decapitated. The head hung from the shoulders only by a few strips of skin and flesh, grotesquely. It looked like a doll broken by a child’s tantrum.

She could feel the soldier’s blood, which had splashed on her face, her lips. She spat to the side. Her eyes stung. For some reason, her eyes stung.

She threw the nearly decapitated body through the hole she herself had come through.

Next, she got behind the controls of this thing.

“Okay. What do I do now?”

It hadn’t been a conscious decision. An impulse, really. But when push came to shove, she didn’t know what to do. There were simply too many levers, buttons and strange lights.

Charlotte didn’t even know where to start.

Which was to be expected, of course.

The pilots of these things surely received exhaustive training. She couldn’t expect to plant her ass in the seat and drive it like it was nothing on her first time.

At least she’d gotten the machine to stop firing. She wasn’t going to be satisfied with that, though.

She had to try something, at least. Anything at all. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Her mind gave her the answer quickly: Self-destruct sequence activated.

Charlotte shook her head.

No. This thing probably didn’t have any of that.

She wouldn’t be able to move it well, but she should at least be able to shoot enemies from this position. Right?

Charlotte took a deep breath.

Charlotte tried… everything. Pressing buttons and moving levers at random, seeing what they did, hoping to get lucky, because that was all she could do.

She also paid attention to the lights; in case they changed color. That could mean many things. But there were no changes.

In the end she did get lucky.

She found a lever that made one of the cannons (each of these machines had two, one on each side) move a little. Charlotte pursed her lips and pushed the lever, turning said cannon toward the enemies.

No one had attacked her yet.

As if they hadn’t noticed what she had done, taking control of the machine, in the midst of this chaos. Which might seem silly, but was perfectly possible.

Or as if they had bigger concerns. For the moment.

For the moment, she had time to learn.

“Good,” she said to herself.

That was covered, but only the first step of two. Charlotte looked for a way to shoot.

After a fruitless and frustrating time, she noticed that there was something strange about the lever she was holding, almost entirely covered by her hand. Something like a groove. She reached in with her fingers and pulled upwards, opening a kind of lid.

Underneath which was a red button.

Charlotte pressed it without hesitation, though part of her mind whispered that there it was, the self-destruct sequence she had feared.

It wasn’t that, however.

A few bullets shot out of the barrel.

Not many, though, because Charlotte pulled her finger back quickly. As if surprised. Though this was exactly what she had expected and wanted.

She hadn’t hit anyone. The bullets had been lost in the air.

No one had been hit. The bullets were lost in the air.

“It’s all right. I can do this. I can really do this,” she whispered, trying to build up her courage. Everything had gone well so far. Better than she’d dared to dream.

But that was only for the moment.

She was well aware that things could go wrong in the blink of an eye.

She’d do whatever it took to prevent that from happening, of course.

The same lever to control the cannon and to fire it. An efficient design that made things easier for her. If that lever was good for that, then the one on the left?

She verified that it was a lever of the same type. With that groove, that part that could be opened. She had to use her mangled hand for that, which rekindled the pain. But it was worth it. She could take it.

She moved the other cannon in the direction of the enemy soldiers as well.

Charlotte opened fire with both cannons at the same time. The bursts of bullets were heavy as a downpour. They tore many soldiers to shreds, even through the diverse cover.

Tables lying on the ground, improvised cover.

Debris that had fallen.

Or natural terrain features. No matter if they were out in the open or hiding while reloading or licking their wounds, they dropped like flies under that attack.

The Imperial soldiers finally noticed her.

They ran, trying to get to safety. To disappear from her line of fire, even if it meant losing ground. Sure enough, they moved assuming, just in case, that she could manage to move the machine, despite her lack of training. Just to be on the safe side.

But it wasn’t true. Shooting was simple, as for movement, she wouldn’t even know where to begin as she had said before. So many tries, pushing all the buttons and pulling all those levers, and this thing hadn’t even budged. It hadn’t even moved a bit.

No, she wasn’t going to achieve that.

Which meant her line of fire had a major blind spot.

But she was doing damage. Contributing to turning the tables.

“A little poetic justice, motherfuckers!” Charlotte shouted needlessly, when no one would hear her.

Her expression on the ‘glass’ covering the booth showed a crooked smile.

She remembered that this was wrong, that she didn’t have to enjoy it. But it was hard for her to give a shit. Because it’s not like her reaction had been unprovoked.

They had come to her home to destroy everything and everyone.

Spread misery, not just today, but for months and even years to come. That is, of course, assuming they won this fight. Or at least survived.

After all that, why should she feel guilty?

How could she not enjoy it, even a little? It was only natural to enjoy crushing the enemy.

Just as the Imperial soldiers, so surely, had enjoyed it. Enjoyed killing even people who couldn’t defend themselves.

Yes, how could you not enjoy it?

Charlotte kept firing the cannons. Smashing pieces of cover, breaking pillars, shrinking the debris scattered around the room.

Some soldiers fired back at her. Brave ones.

Against the weapons of this bipedal machine, bullets could tear their entire bodies apart before they even had time to blink. Every second out of cover took great courage, she was willing to admit.

Although the cover didn’t help them much either.

They were dropping like flies and besides that it was nice to see them losing ground. In turn, her own were gaining ground.

But not all of them. Some stayed behind, with her.

Taking cover behind the bipedal machine as best they could, but still, of course, continuing the fight.

Everything was going well.

But, as expected, things went awry. Without warning.

To be more precise, the cannons stopped firing.

“Out of ammo? You’ve got to be kidding me.

She noticed that the cannons were billowing black smoke, after that, but she didn’t have time to jump to conclusions. Taking advantage of the respite, one of the soldiers stood up. He pulled a grenade from his belt and threw it. With great force.

It hit the glass. Charlotte watched it roll through the glass. Her heart had stopped. It wasn’t an expression; it had really stopped.

The grenade exploded before she knew how to react.

The next time she opened her eyes, Charlotte found herself on the floor. Lying on the floor, on a bed of broken glass. Only they weren’t exactly glass. Those shards came from the ‘glass’ that protected the cockpit of the bipedal machine.

She saw it on the floor behind her; behind her, billowing smoke and flames.

She saw the scattered glass.

Charlotte realized she must have lost consciousness after the explosion. She had no way of knowing for how long.

But one thing she did know. That the fierce battle was still going on around her.

She realized, too late, that her hands were empty.

She looked around frantically.

Where? Where was the sword?

She saw it nowhere. It was out of her sight, at least. Maybe the explosive had sent it too far away.

Or maybe it had just ended up buried under the wrecked bipedal machine, which was on fire.

One way or another, she was sure it hadn’t broken. Her family’s sword couldn’t have been broken here.

She had no proof, but she was convinced all the same.

Most of her conviction didn’t come from ‘trivial’ things like family ties, but because she refused to accept that she had been left without a weapon in the middle of a war zone. Too scared to accept that.

She tried to get up. Tried was truly the key word, as she ended up on the ground a second later.

She wasn’t even able to stand for a few seconds.

What hurt?

It would be easier to answer what didn’t hurt. She supposed she should be thankful she hadn’t died in the explosion, really.

She couldn’t stand up, but she could still move. She had to.

Crawl away from here, go somewhere relatively safe.

Where she wouldn’t be an easy target. She just needed a little time to catch her breath, rest, and get back to the battle.

Charlotte crawled along the ground.

Towards the fallen bipedal machine. As if it was still a safe place. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only had it been rendered useless by the explosion, not only was the cockpit completely exposed, the entire machine was on fire.

But it was still the safest place here, she had to admit.

Just not inside.

She’d crawl in the back. Away from the flames, but behind that thing. Enemy gunfire wouldn’t be able to penetrate its armor. She was confident of that.

And then…

Then nothing.

Because she couldn’t even get that far. She felt a stomp and for a brief moment allowed herself to think that someone had come to help her, that he was just being rude.

Then she was turned around with a foot and found herself face to face with an Imperial soldier. And his weapon.

The barrel of the gun consumed her entire field of vision.

“Don’t do it,” Charlotte pleaded, as if he would listen to her.

Charlotte then raised her hands in front of her head, as if that could stop a bullet, let alone a shotgun blast.

She couldn’t protect herself. The sword was out of her reach and …. and not.

The only thing she could count on was someone helping her, but they were too busy surviving, even after the help she had given them.

As soon as the bipedal machine fell, the Imperial soldiers resumed the offensive aggressively, without hesitation.

Even if someone noticed her….

She doubted very much they would be able to interfere in time.

So this is how my life ends, Charlotte thought. She couldn’t console herself by saying she had lived a long life. Or a good one, for that matter. There were so many things she wished she had done.

So many regrets, small and big.

But now it was too late.

Too late.

Behind the soldier who held Charlotte’s life in his hands were three windows.

All three windows exploded, and through them came people covered in black cloaks. With golden masks covering their faces.

She hadn’t expected them to come.

That they would actually be there for the kingdom when they were truly needed, instead of making plays to gain more power. But she’d been wrong. Here they were.

The cavalry had arrived.

——

They continued to move forward. Through the darkness, through the soil, the dirt. It was indeed beginning to seem that this road had no end.

That it was going to be their final destination, one way or another.

“We’re running out of air,” Amy said, and boy, did it show in her voice.

Desmond felt kind of dizzy, as if he might lose consciousness at any moment. So it was because of that. The shortness of breath, not the blood loss.

“I know,” Christina replied, “But there’s a lot of… soldiers… and one of those things upstairs. Hang in there a little longer.”

Ah.

Right, should have thought of that earlier.

It’s not as if they’re just stumbling around in the dark. Moving in an unknown direction, hoping for the best, with the odds stacked against them.

Christina’s affinity range allowed her to sense the soldiers above them.

So, to get to the outskirts of the city, all she had to do was to keep making way until she didn’t sense anyone within range.

Good. She’d thought better of it than he guessed.

But it might not matter anyway. At this rate, they might have to get out before they reached the outskirts, as Abigail had warned him.

Getting out breathing hard, in the middle of a war zone, and the animals that were wreaking havoc and destruction.

He didn’t want to think about that.

He focused on moving forward.

Somewhere ahead”

“There she is. Abigail,” said Christina. So she had come within range of her magic, at last. Good. He had started to get seriously worried.

The next thing he thought was… No, he felt an urgent need to get out there and fight by her side.

To support her, not to leave her alone.

And he had to experience again, like a loop, the bitter reminder that he couldn’t do that. That he was useless now. At best.

At worst, he was a dead man.

“Don’t wa… waste oxygen. I’ll tell her whatever it takes.”

Sometimes he forgot that Amy could have a conversation with Abigail from a great distance, just like he could. Better than him, even, without having to open her mouth.

… Sometimes Desmond forgot because, deep down inside, he wanted to forget.

Desmond didn’t like knowing that someone else had that connection with Abigail, even though he knew that the connection between them was much more special and that Amy was no obstacle.

Childish, but true.

Desmond nodded.

What the hell else was he going to do?

It was something that would benefit everyone. Including Abigail. No, not including, especially. Thought was faster than speech. The needed information would reach her sooner.

——

They had all been worried, he was fairly certain, about being forced to leave too soon because of the lack of air. Then the time came.

No words were exchanged, he wasn’t sure if it was too soon or too late.

Charlotte simply opened a hole above them, judging that they couldn’t go on, that even she was close to the edge, he imagined. And if she fell, they would be buried.

That he didn’t have to imagine. It was a fact.

They had so little air in their lungs that the three of them had to help each other out of that hole. Once outside, Desmond dropped to the ground.

Avidly breathing in every breath of clean air that entered his lungs.

He had almost drowned once, sinking to the bottom of the sea.

This had been something similar, only without a drop of water in sight. In many ways, it had been something even worse. He imagined it would be difficult before jumping in.

But he hadn’t imagined it would turn out to be something so overwhelming and terrifying.

I’m not going to go through this again in my life, he promised himself.

It would be bad luck to find himself in another situation where escaping like that was the best option. But he wasn’t famous for his good luck, exactly. So it was more than possible.

They hadn’t been shot at, he realized. They could hear gunfire, certainly, and big explosions, but in the distance. Were they safe at last?

Desmond went on all fours, only because he didn’t quite manage to get up.

He looked around.

Yes. They had arrived.

Yes. They had reached the outskirts of the city. They had made it, against all odds. But he felt no relief. What he felt was his soul falling at his feet, as he watched the proud capital of Albion crumble under the weight of war.

Gunfire, explosions.

Burning edifices, still standing. And those that were not.

Screams, rising in the air.

From far, far away, so far away that it might seem like another world. But not far enough that the wind couldn’t carry the echo of the suffering of thousands of innocents to them.

They had escaped that disaster. But not everyone had the same luck, nor the same means.

Desmond remembered, unsurprisingly, the day of his death and his rebirth.

He gritted his teeth.

Of course, nothing special had happened to his city. Countless people had suffered from the Empire’s attacks. Many people, far too many, had gone through what he had.

In fact it wasn’t even unusual that his city had been wiped off the map.

War had been and always would be that brutal and merciless. There was nothing special about it, but what else could it remind him of? The memories, like a waterfall, fell on him. They drowned him.

Increasing his sense of helplessness.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” Desmond muttered under his breath, unable to help himself, not even realizing it until the words came out of his throat.

“What do you say?” Amy asked, panting beside him.

Desmond didn’t answer her. He had noticed her response, of course, he wasn’t so distracted. But at the same time his attention was completely consumed by the city that lay broken, stretching to the horizon.

He had eyes only for the ravages of war, repeating itself again before his eyes. Nothing he could do.

As if he was still the same child who could do nothing but apologize for his helplessness. And because he had been chosen to be saved.

Would he always be… that same child?

Abigail’s arrival brought him out of his thoughts. She hadn’t been far behind them; Amy had led her well.

Abigail crouched down beside him.

He thought her first words to him since she’d left, that is, in person, would be something like: It’s good to see you. Or something like that. But no.

Her expression didn’t reflect joy or relief, either. Quite the opposite.

“There’s something… different,” she said heavily.

Desmond knew what she meant.

He knew what had shadowed her gaze even before she said anything, deep down. What else could it be?

He had told himself that something had changed then.

What was so strange about Abigail, of all people, noticing it at a glance?

And that she was so concerned about him?

“What happened while I was gone?” she continued.

“I…” Sincere. Had to be honest. “We were in a bad situation, so I asked the gods for help again. I asked them to tell me how to get strong again. And I asked them to tell me how to become strong again. And they responded with a vision.”

It was impossible not to notice that Abigail seemed more tense as he spoke. Now that he had started, he couldn’t stop.

And it was too late to make another decision.

“I drank… the blood of an enemy, as I saw. And it worked,” he added quickly, as if justifying himself. “For a while.”

What was he justifying?

What had he really done to himself?

“Oh, Desmond.” The way she pronounced his name said it all.

Desmond shrank in on himself, simultaneously embarrassed as a small child and scared of what might be happening to him now more than ever.

“What’s wrong with him?” Christina asked.

Silence. Abigail didn’t answer. Meanwhile, Amy struggled to her feet. She went forward and thought the girl would end up falling on her head. But she managed to regain her balance.

Then she helped Christina, who couldn’t take her eyes off Abigail, to get up.

“Yes… Is it really that bad?”

Desmond sensed a certain fear in them. Not just for him, but of him. They were used to seeing him brutalize his enemies, tear them apart with everything they had.

But drinking someone’s blood?

That was a different story. That was how a wild animal behaved, wasn’t it?

I understand that. But don’t look at me like that, please.

Abigail finally reacted.

“Vampires, werewolves, ghouls. Lots of legends of monsters no one’s ever seen, completely untrue. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Where was she going with that?

“You’re about to say they’re not fake.”

So why had no one seen any of these things, after so many thousands of years? More importantly, what exactly did this have to do with his situation?

Perhaps the answer was obvious, but he refused to see it.

“Not quite,” Abigail said. Another revelation that shook his worldview, and on the same day. “In ancient times there were many mages who drank the blood of others to gain power. Who even resorted to cannibalism. It really worked, it wasn’t some silly superstition or anything like that.”

Desmond felt a chill.

He thought he knew where this was going and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all, naturally.

“But in the end, it made them addicted to blood or flesh. It also transformed them physically. To a certain extent.”

He hadn’t been too far off the mark.

He had drunk from the first Imperial he picked up without hesitation, without a second thought, even with gusto. Why doubt a divine revelation?

But he should have thought better of it instead of getting carried away.

The gods were the same ones who had caused misery to fall on his city one day, for no reason at all. The same ones who had taken his family from him and killed him so that he could be born again.

They existed and cared about human beings, but they didn’t have a human perspective, they had a very different one. So they didn’t have the same priorities.

They had sent him that vision believing it was the best, yes.

But not for him.

What did they care if he tore himself apart or lost his humanity in the process, as long as he played his part?

It was a bleak prospect, something he had never considered. Because he had never had reason to consider it.

But it was painfully believable, he couldn’t lie. Too believable.

By contrast, Abigail was a goddess who had come down among them. She had a human heart.

She was the only goddess he should believe in.

“Genesis of those legends,” Amy pointed out.

He’d lost the thread of the conversation; it took him a few moments to realize what that response was all about. What it meant and what she had responded to in the first place.

“And the devastating consequences are the cause of all this being considered the stuff of ‘legends’. That information had to be buried or society would have jumped into the abyss with gusto, seeking to reach higher and higher. Some limits… are there for a reason.”

Silence fell over them. That was a grim reminder of how greedy and fragile humanity could be.

“That’s… fascinating,” Charlotte said, “but Desmond’s only drunk once. It’s all right as long as he stops, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Abigail replied, rather quickly, perhaps too quickly.

For some reason, he had the feeling that she wasn’t being entirely truthful, or at least that she was doubting.

Maybe it was just his imagination.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about. Good. We have enough problems as it is.”

“That’s right. That’s why I’m going to go fix a few.” She stood up. “Get Desmond out of here.”

She turned her back to him.

But, before she could walk away, Desmond grabbed her by the wrist. Squeezing with all his strength. His meager strength. He couldn’t stop her, but Abigail paused anyway and looked at him.

She was willing to listen to him.

Though he didn’t think she would heed him, honestly. But an idea had taken shape in his mind.

At this point, he knew he wasn’t going to back down.

“Wait a minute. If we have to run, let’s do it together.”

“You were right all along,” Abigail replied, which surprised him and caused him to get his hopes up, before he realized that she wasn’t referring to what he had just said, that it couldn’t be that. “I thought, in my arrogance, that we could carry on as we were. But nothing could be further from the truth. Because I am no longer alone. So I have to make sure that the capital is on its feet by the time the day is over.”

And that Charlotte would still have her head on her shoulders. Because without her they would have no support inside the capital. She hadn’t said it, but she didn’t have to.

She wasn’t going to change her mind, as she had hoped. Desmond licked his lips. Now it was time for a desperate move. He was also convinced he would fail, but he had to try.

“Then take me with you.”

“You’re in no condition to fight. In no condition for anything, apart from rest.”

It was a very reasonable answer, what anyone would think when they heard that. They would think it was madness. Suicide. But…

“But I can be. Lend me your strength,” Desmond pleaded.

Abigail stood very still and very quiet, like a statue. She was staring at him. She couldn’t believe what he had just said. Fuck, Desmond had thought about it, he had said it and he hardly believed it himself.

But this was the only way. At least the only one available to him.

That he couldn’t deny.

“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“Yes. Lend me your strength,” he repeated, more convinced than last time.

“Did you hear nothing of what she just told you?” That protest came from Christina. She seemed almost angry that he could be so stupid.

I’m sorry I worry you guys so much all the time, he thought.

He really didn’t deserve them.

He didn’t deserve any of this. But he would fight to keep them. He would give whatever it took.

“But if it’s okay once, a second time won’t kill me either. I won’t get addicted. It’s just… out of necessity.

Silence. Abigail removed her hand, but not to move away, instead she shifted in place, fidgeting. Thinking. That was a good sign.

She didn’t even think she’d bother to think about it.

She thought the refusal would have come from her without hesitation. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t to give him a concrete answer, but to pass the buck.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Always.” Why would he hesitate to protect the people he cared about? He wasn’t a heartless bastard.

“All right.”

“All right?” Christina repeated, incredulous. “Just like that?”

He hadn’t exactly expected that either. Was there a catch?

“Yes,” Abigail said shortly, leaving no room for further discussion. “Desmond.”

Abigail dropped to one knee on the floor and bent forward, far forward. Her hair, cascading, brushed across his cheeks and it reminded him of a moment he couldn’t place. Not right now.

But it did bring back the same bittersweet feelings as then. That much was clear to him.

Desmond watched as Abigail summoned the knife to her hand, as she had so many times before. Only this time she would use it in a very different way. Against herself, making a small cut on her neck.

Just a small cut. Not much blood came out.

Suddenly his mouth was as dry as straw.

“This has to be the last time,” she whispered very low, so that only he could hear her. She could also have communicated it to him mentally, but he supposed Abigail had felt the need to say it out loud. So that he would hear her inflection, her feelings, so that this would be clear to him. “If you go on like this, the only solution will be for me to die for you. Do you understand? I want, if possible, to live a full life by your side. But I will not let you die or become a monster. Do you understand?”

She repeated again. Desmond nodded his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Not now.

He swallowed.

“Drink,” Abigail said.

It was like an order, but Desmond didn’t follow it. Not immediately. He stood watching the blood trickle down her neck toward her shoulder, as if mesmerized.

But then he suddenly threw himself upon her.

He put his lips to the wound and began to suck greedily.

——

Desmond stood up, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of one hand. He felt better already. Much better. Fuck, he felt like a new man.

He turned to Abigail.

Just the two of them alone, just like old times, so to speak. However it turned out, Christina and Amy had no business getting involved in this. They had done more than enough. They were already free.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Christina took a few steps forward. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Amy did the same. It was as if they had taken her words as a sign.

She should have expected them to react that way.

That they would need to be brought to their senses.

Desmond held up a hand, signaling them to stop.

“No. You should stay behind, find a place… as safe as possible.”

“We’re a team.” That was Christina’s response.

As if that said it all. And maybe it did. Still…

“I know, but you’ve done more than enough.”

Christina obviously didn’t think so. And she let him know it right away.

“I’m as strong as you are. Stronger, even.” Even if it hurt his pride a little, he couldn’t deny it. If she became his enemy, she could easily tear him apart.

The only obstacle to that would have been that he could come back to life again and again.

Try as many times as it took until he got it right.

Now that, well. It was up in the air at best. So yes, she was stronger. Though she was also less resilient, even now. There was no denying that either.

But it wasn’t the crux of the matter, not by a long shot.

“Even if you want to leave Amy behind, I….”

“That I’m afraid for your lives… is not the reason I don’t want you in the middle of it. Do you understand?”

She hadn’t understood. But she did now.

She really didn’t like that.

Christina gritted her teeth, completely furious. More furious than she had ever seen him. Not even on that night had she ever shown him an expression like that.

He was a little taken aback.

He hadn’t expected her to take it entirely well, but he had expected that knowing he was only saying it because he was worried about her state of mind, about what might happen to her in the midst of all that darkness and misery, would soften her a little.

No, nothing like that, quite the contrary.

He had improved quite a bit, but on many occasions he was as lost as ever, when it came to people.

Even those closest to him. Sadly.

Christina was so, so furious, for some reason, that it wasn’t hard to imagine her throwing herself at him.

Amy put a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down.

Christina reacted to that immediately, dropping her shoulders, though still furious. And very tense.

Of course she had reacted that fast.

Now I’m the odd one out, he thought with a hint of irony and bitterness. That was probably not something he could change.

Desmond had made his decision that night, and decisions had consequences. They were back together, but that didn’t change anything.

“He’s right,” Amy said. “We’ve done more than enough. We don’t owe anything to anyone…or anything.”

Christina forced herself to relax.

It didn’t work. Tension bubbled under the surface, especially in her eyes. Those beautiful ones, which had been the first thing he’d noticed about her.

Violet, one of the rarest colors in the world. Color that only the eyes of shadow magic users had.

Special and beautiful.

How those eyes have changed, he told himself. And it’s my fault.

He was like poison. He knew it.

Charlotte was still watching him intently, not taking her eyes off him, despite Amy’s hand on one shoulder and despite what Amy had told her.

Desmond wished he didn’t have her attention right now, though. That look was hard to bear.

Kinda surprised he hadn’t given in and looked away already.

“I won’t forgive you if you die,” Christina said, finally.

“I won’t die today.”

Of that, at least, he could be sure. Yes. He wouldn’t die. The gods had plans for him.

Plans, from what Abigail had told him, that might turn out to be worse than death. But he wouldn’t fall today, in this place.

That was the important thing. Little by little. All in good time.

They said their goodbyes.

Next, he and Abigail headed back to the capital, which was in its death throes.

There were two of those spiders circling the palace like a mosquito caught in their deadly web.

Even at this distance he didn’t need to strengthen his eyesight to see them, though it was strengthened anyway. That’s how big they were. There had been a time when he had feared them as if they were death itself.

Now they were heading straight for the palace, where there was not one but two of those things.

And, one way or another, he would have to deal with them for the battle to end. But right now there was not a shadow of fear in his heart.

Desmond wondered why.

He thought maybe it was because of this incredible power that coursed through his veins, now. The power of Abigail’s blood.

He understood why people could become addicted to that feeling and throw themselves into the abyss with a smile on their face. But he wouldn’t succumb. He would be strong. He would be strong to the end.

No matter what kind of end came his way.

“We have to get to the palace as soon as possible,” Abigail said, rushing to his side.

Desmond simply agreed, nodding his head.

Of course. The princess was most likely still in the palace. Dead or alive.

Desmond grimaced.

He didn’t like to think about it, but it was a possibility. They had run away without even thinking about the princess, investing enough time.

And if they were still in time to save her, well, she could slip through their fingers on the way to the palace.

It didn’t look good, on either front.

He supposed that they could be happy if they managed to save the capital, though not the princess, but they weren’t doing this for an altruistic reason.

The princess had to live or they would run out of allies.

It was as simple as that.

So… failure wasn’t an option.

Every second counted. That’s why they couldn’t waste time even with the soldiers that would inevitably cross their path, they had to run, run and keep running, without looking back for a second.

Desmond was aware of that.

He knew it was the ideal, the right thing to do. But it didn’t take him long to break that rule.

Because he noticed an Empire soldier heading towards a house. Standing in front of the door, only to kick it down and burst into the home.

He couldn’t see his face, from behind and with his helmet in the way to prevent him from catching even a small hint of his expression.

But it wasn’t hard to imagine him smiling as he did so.

Smiling as he went into a random house for the sole purpose of slaughtering innocents. People who couldn’t even defend themselves.

For pure pleasure, not for strategy.

If strategy was what dictated his moves, he would have gone after Albion’s army, not its citizens.

The blood burned in Desmond’s veins, begging him to tear him apart. Crying out for vengeance.

He gritted his teeth so hard they gnashed.

“Desmond?” Abigail’s voice… sounded to him as if it came from another world.

Very distant, like the times when he could only talk to her mentally, with miles and miles of distance separating them.

That far away.

She didn’t answer. Desmond just ran off.

“What the hell are you doing?”Abigail demanded.

A mistake. He knew he was making a big mistake. But, after everything that had happened to him…everything he’d gone through….

He couldn’t stand idly by while others went through what he had.

It wasn’t the same situation, his home had collapsed on top of their heads, burying them. But it was similar enough.

Desmond wasn’t some kind of hero. Nor was he under any illusions about it.

This too he was doing for himself, not for this family he didn’t even know. This too was his selfishness. Not an altruistic act.

Desmond stepped into the house, hearing Abigail’s quick footsteps not far behind him.

He heard screams further into the house. Screams of fear, not pain. But they still made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Especially since one of those voices was that of a small child, no doubt.

He kept moving forward, sword in hand, teeth gnashing.

Abigail, behind him, said nothing.

She had chased him, but she wasn’t going to stop him, it seemed. Well. She wouldn’t be able to even if she tried. Maybe she was hoping he’d come to his senses and she wouldn’t have to, even though he’d already come so far.

In that case, he would disappoint her.

once again.

Lately, he had gone against her wishes over and over again. That made him feel bad. Of course it did. It turned his stomach, but….

He really couldn’t help it. He simply couldn’t look away while this was going on.

He was aware of what it could cost him, but….

He wasn’t a very rational person. The consequences didn’t even seem real compared to the stark reality that was happening in front of his eyes. And that he would stop.

“Please,” someone pleaded. A woman.

The mother, he thought.

His stomach lurched.

“You should thank me for what I’m going to do now.” The cold voice of the Imperial soldier, signing his death sentence. “With every second you live, you will do nothing but suffer and make others suffer. This is… nothing more and nothing less than justice. Abominations.”

He had heard more than enough. And he had found them.

Desmond followed the voices, taking the most direct path possible. In a straight line, cutting through as many as three walls as if they were made of paper. He emerged from the last wall with a shower of dust and debris all around him.

This, of course, took the soldier completely by surprise.

It startled him.

That didn’t make him pull the trigger, killing the mother and the child trembling in his arms. What the soldier did was to turn toward the threatened woman, pointing his gun.

No. Not the soldier, but the soldiers. He hadn’t seen them enter or even heard them, but there were two other soldiers with that one.

Well. It didn’t change anything.

It didn’t even slightly complicate things for him.

Desmond screamed like a wild beast as he swung the sword. He cleaved the nearest one in half with a single blow, but he didn’t stop there.

Taking advantage of the momentum of the attack, he kept swinging.

Seizing the momentum of the attack, Desmond kept spinning, howling from the back of his throat.

He killed the second soldier before he could even pull the trigger.

The third opened fire. Out of his mind, without even taking aim. It was too LATE anyway.

Desmond struck downward.

Slicing the gun, causing it to fall to the ground in a thousand pieces.

But the next thing he did wasn’t giving him the same treatment as the others. He could have done that, to end this in a quicker and more efficient way. But he went further.

He sank his fingers into his neck.

Desmond lifted him up as if he were a child while he resisted with all his might, scrambling and kicking at him.

Then he slammed his head against the wall.

With such force that it burst like a ripe melon between his fingers.

He dropped it like the piece of garbage it was, then stared, for some reason, at the blood and other fluids in the palm of his hand. As if hypnotized.

Until Abigail snapped him out of his thoughts, coming through the hole he’d made in the wall.

Anyway, this was over.

Abigail looked at him, then to the side. Something in her posture, her expression, or both made Desmond look in that direction, too.

He saw what he should have guessed.

The mother and child were still there. Shivering in the corner.

The mother looked as scared of him as she did of the soldiers who had come to slaughter her and her family. He couldn’t blame her, after witnessing such a display of violence.

Although it hurt a little, he wasn’t going to lie.

I am not the monster here.

The boy’s gaze, on the other hand, reflected the complete opposite of his mother’s feelings. Still he didn’t like it.

He was looking at him funny, with something akin to admiration in his eyes.

Frankly, it made him uncomfortable.

“Hide. Keep yourselves safe,” Desmond said, and the family didn’t respond. Verbally or nonverbally. He couldn’t know if they had heard his words or if they would listen to him.

He had already done all he could do for them, anyway.

He turned his back on them. As he passed Abigail, she reminded him of another hard truth.

“You can’t do this in every house we see. Not if you want us to save Charlotte.”

“I know.” That was all he said in reply. All he could do.

Desmond shook his head as if mocking himself.

“I don’t even feel better.”

——

The cavalry had arrived, but Charlotte wasn’t out of danger yet. The shock would only last for a while. Then the soldier would turn around, pull the trigger, and end all her life and aspirations with a single bullet.

There was nothing she could do to defend herself, in this state.

Bruised, without her sword, without access to her affinity.

She didn’t have to.

A golden mask reached the soldier who had been about to execute her very, very quickly.

Because one of his own threw him like a ball.

Before the soldier knew it, he was on top of him. The golden mask disarmed him. He grabbed him, turned him over. And then slashed his neck from one end to the other, drawing a big smile.

He dropped the soldier at her feet. Charlotte looked at the blood pouring from the knife blade.

Then she stared into the soldier’s glassy eyes as he died choking on his own blood. She felt no guilt of any kind, but no satisfaction either.

-Are you all right?

Charlotte turned her head.

The golden mask who had rescued him had spoken to her. And she recognized that voice immediately. She would recognize it anywhere.

It was Richard’s voice. The man who had shattered the image of the perfect family that had helped her move forward all these years, with a single letter.

A secret her father had wanted to take to his grave.

But valuable enough…valuable enough to him, not to burn the letter. Getting rid of the evidence that could condemn him.

Richard reached out a hand to help her up.

Charlotte swatted it away from her, and looked up at him gritting her teeth, baring them all. He’d saved her, but she didn’t give a shit now. She wouldn’t hesitate to jump on him.

-Don’t touch me,” Charlotte spat her burning hatred.

She stood up unaided, as if spite had given her the strength to pull it off. Yes. That must have been it.

-I told you. We’re on the same side.

Charlotte frowned. She didn’t need to be reminded of that conversation. She’d mentally relived it ad nauseam every day since.

-For today,” she replied.

She could put aside such grudges for the good of the nation.

But only up to a point.

Once the invasion was taken care of, the golden masks wouldn’t just get in the way. They were like a cancer at the heart of her kingdom.

She had to remove it, no matter what. Before they caused any more damage.

And if she had to do it with her own hands? Oh well. She wouldn’t complain.

“I see,” Richard, the enemy, said. “It will have to be enough.”

Charlotte, still a little unsteady on her feet, looked around, watching the progress of the battle. With the arrival of the golden masks, the tables were turning again.

No, that was saying too much.

The palace was an important place, but only one place. There was a war beyond these walls that she had no idea about.

Even if they were winning here, out there her people were suffering. Dying.

And, most certainly, losing.

The blue fire that gave the Empire its name was still roaring loudly, like a dragon, still spreading, devouring everything it touched.

But Charlotte felt a chill, despite the hellish heat.

If only Desmond was all right…..

Where was the boy in the first place? And the witch who was always with him? Had he abandoned her? In her time of greatest need?

We are friends, aren’t we?

Besides… Besides, he still needs me.

“The flames are advancing.” Richard coughed loudly. “We need to get moving. Give your orders.”

They didn’t have much time left, true. On either side. It’s not as if the fire could distinguish between allies and enemies. It was nothing but fire, and Imperial meat was as good as Albionese meat.

“Start moving that over there,” Charlotte ordered, pointing a finger at the mangled bipedal machine.

“What?”

“If I say jump, you jump. You don’t need to know why.”

That’s how it should be, at least. She was his fucking queen in all but name.

Richard shrugged, taking her lightly. It was as if he wanted to piss her off. But at least he obeyed.

He didn’t ask his men to help him, as she had hoped.

He held out a hand, enveloping the bipedal machine in a yellow light. In a few seconds the machine disappeared. It was immediately replaced by a very confused Imperial soldier, who stumbled over his own feet as he suddenly shifted and almost fell to the ground.

Shortly after, he heard a loud bang. The machine landing, she was willing to bet. She didn’t turn around to check it out.

The soldier couldn’t recover from the confusion of the moment. At least not in time for it to do any good, which was the same thing in essence.

A tentacle of water came from behind. It wrapped around his legs and pulled, dragging him along.

The soldier screamed as if he had been thrown into a meat grinder even before the water tentacle did anything to him. And by something he meant slamming him to the ground to death.

Charlotte hadn’t gotten details on Richard’s affinity, even after exhaustive research.

So it was good to see it in action. Apparently it wasn’t one of those that were tricky. If he didn’t have to replace what he wanted to move with something or someone, he wouldn’t have brought that Imperial soldier to the place the machine had occupied.

The question was what its limits were.

But maybe she wouldn’t need to find that out, maybe she could kill him before it mattered.

In any case.

Charlotte walked over to where the machine had been. She bent down and picked up the sword, which had been there from the beginning, as she guessed.

Intact. Good.

It had been her father’s sword.

Her image of him… Of the family in general, had been damaged by the recent revelations. But it was her weapon, after all. It still meant something to her.

And she was used to it, as well as using her affinity through it.

Charlotte turned to her men. Her army.

“Soldiers, to me! Come on up!”

It was as if she was obeying Richard’s advice, which annoyed her, to tell the truth. But no one needed to tell her they had to move. The room was falling apart around them, the flames kept going, going, going.

Evidently they were running out of time.

And moving wouldn’t solve anything, but at least it would buy them some time.

Her own obeyed her without question. Some lingered, but only for a short time. And the reason was that they looked at the corpses of the people they were supposed to protect one last time.

Charlotte understood that. The guilt, the shame.

Besides, it was only for a few seconds.

The Imperial army, seeing them retreating, began to aggressively pursue them. As if they now had the advantage.

Even if you win in the end, I’ll make sure it costs you dearly, she screamed within herself.

——

There was no time to waste, as Abigail had reminded her as gently as possible, given the circumstances.

So they wouldn’t stop to help anyone else, but not because it wasn’t necessary.

As soon as they left that house through the back door, Desmond saw citizens in danger. And he heard screams, blood-chilling screams, not too far away either.

He couldn’t look away and move on.

Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to do something.

But he had priorities, so he did nothing. Abigail and he simply continued on their way to the palace.

The poor citizens, who could not defend themselves, weren’t the only ones they had to ignore. The Albion army was engaged in a fierce battle with the Imperial army throughout the city.

He shouldn’t feel as bad about abandoning people who could defend themselves to their fate, who had also chosen to be protectors of the kingdom, they knew what they were getting into.

But the truth is that it didn’t lessen his sense of guilt one bit.

The truth, too, was that it didn’t matter. Desmond could feel as guilty as he wanted, but in the end he would do what he had to do. For his own good.

Something had driven him to help that family, even though even then it had been very clear to him that he shouldn’t stop and every second counted.

Perhaps an attempt to redeem himself.

As he had said, the situation of those poor people had been surprisingly similar to his own that day. He had managed to save them, but he hadn’t even felt any better.

Now…

He had the power to stop this. Not to stop all the deaths, he wasn’t a god, but to save a large number of people.

As a child he had had no such power.

He hadn’t even been able to move under his own feet. He had only been dragged by his savior, who had chosen him out of all people for no particular reason. Pure chance had saved him that day… or perhaps divine intervention.

In any case, even though he was now powerful, powerful enough… he was doing nothing.

He was repeating the same thing he had done that day.

Desmond was going through this hell, trying to ignore the screams. The pleas for help.

He kept walking, seeking only to help himself.

Redemption?

There was nothing he could do to get that. As long as he lived he would continue to accumulate regrets.

Desmond thought absently that it was as if he had been condemned by the gods to relive that day ten years ago over and over again.

If that were the case, he would lose his family as he did then. Sooner or later.

The spiders circled around the palace slowly, as if they were real spiders that could not wait for prey to fall into their webs.

But they already had it more than trapped.

The palace was full of holes, falling apart. Wrapped in blue flames that continued their march, that had almost consumed it completely. And drowned under large pieces of spider’s web, which was designed for the purpose of conducting the blue fire.

-May it not be too late,” Desmond pleaded quietly.

Were the gods listening? Better question still: did they care?

——

In the middle of the battle, near the top floor, Charlotte felt the ceiling shaking. She braced herself and ran, thinking it was going to come down on them.

She was wrong.

Quite the opposite happened.

It didn’t fall, it went up. A piece of the palace was ripped off and thrown aside, leaving them exposed.

There was only one thing that could do something like that. Of course.

One of the spiders.

This was much worse than she had thought. The mechanical spider had removed all the obstacles, now it could crush them or spit more fire at them, before or after the spider webs.

Or keep tearing the palace apart like a toy, turning its ruins into everyone’s graves.

Charlotte didn’t want to die without a fight. She had come so far, refusing to give up. But now… She had nowhere to run. She didn’t know what to do.

Even if she ran down the stairs, through the Imperial soldiers, she would most likely end up dead. Shot in all directions, filled with holes.

It was as if they had reached the roof, all open ground, now.

But, even using her affinity, she couldn’t get very far. She could perhaps flee, but her soldiers were another story. Losing her army would sign her death warrant.

She couldn’t win the battle alone.

She was frozen.

Even if there was a good move, she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see a way forward.

This is over, she thought.

Her aides had filled her ears with stories of what they might do to her if they ever captured her. They wanted her dead, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun before then.

If she had to die anyway, better to die on her own terms.

Charlotte lowered her head, looking at the blade of her sword.

Beginning to accept her fate.

But then she noticed a black blur at the edges of her vision, a blur that appeared suddenly. Followed by a bestial battle cry.

——

Desmond landed on the head of the mechanical spider, thrusting the sword against the glass with all the strength in his body, charged with the energy of Abigail’s blood and rage.

He only succeeded in cracking the ‘crystal’, however.

A few cracks, nothing more.

Well, diverting attention away from the machine also counted as an achievement. Instead of raining fire on those still fighting inside the crumbling burning palace, the spider turned its attention to him, the new threat.

Several of its legs shot out to catch him.

Desmond charged his legs with power.

At the last moment, he unloaded it in a leap that carried him more than ten meters above the ground.

The sharp legs chased after him, trying to tear through him.

He dodged them in mid-air, spinning, spinning, spinning, along with his sword.

The spinning attack exploded the entire ‘crystal’ and practically split the spider in half. The two halves were connected by a few sparking wires and little else.