The servant’s quarters were an odd place, even for Ophelia’s strange, cavernous mansion. The network of vines that connected the lights met with other, thicker bundles, clinging to the walls of the twisted, rocky cave system with cloying moss and greedily grasping root-structures. The wild mess all seemed to lead to one final cave ‘room’- their destination.

Every so often, they twitched like exposed nerves, though Saila was sure it was just a trick of the odd, magical light.

“Here we are, young Saila, the servant’s quarters; the home of those fine, hardworking folk that run my fine demeure. Are you excited?”

A part of her- the part that still worried for Noble, the part that told her everything was off- said no. But she buried that down deep; Noble was fine, and whatever Pavan did to impede him couldn’t matter that much. Her hand absentmindedly went to the back of her neck, scratching at a faint tingling, prickly sensation.

Ophelia sashayed into the room with a gentle, congenial greeting.

Saila followed- and just about pitched over. Her nose wrinkled at the sudden, heady stench. The air here was thick with the rotting fragrance of vegetation gone sour, a rare but unforgettable stink of so much flavour and texture turned to pungent warning.

And, distinctly, behind it; decaying meat.

It took her a minute to connect the dots.

Scattered about the ‘servant’s quarters’, resting in dense, composting plant-matter, was a series of festering corpses. Vines knitted across their exposed bones; roots gripped tight at niblets of flesh that refused to drip from the bone. Wildflowers grew from makeshift pots- one from an eye socket, another from a hairline crack in the shoulder, another from an exposed kneecap.

Some were missing skulls, some ribs, some legs and arms.

Each was adorned with the ruined remnants of Trestarian military uniforms.

And everyone was connected to those crawling, wire-y vines.

One of the vines twitched.

The arm of the man- woman- who could say, twitched in turn.

“Oh don’t be shy, young Saila,” Ophelia said, as though the display before her was a normal, everyday occurrence. “I know they are a bit rough around the edges, but they’re a gentle sort. Come, come, introduce yourself.”

She urged her forward, beckoning with a curling hand.

The plant-life dress suddenly felt tight- get it off get it off get it- but Saila did not budge.

Just nerves.

The sudden shock of what she saw, none of Ophelia’s violet glow.

With a shivering step, Saila approached the particular corpse Ophelia had stopped before. What meat remained was diseased, off-colour, the stench virulent and thick. Most of its bones were intact- only the skull was gone- and held within the ribcage, nestled within a messy tangle of vines and flowers, was what had to be a heart. It was pulsating in a faint badump-thump pattern, the vines shifting with each beat.

Saila stared wide, her eyes aching. Only now did she realize she hadn’t blinked since walking in here- no matter how much the stench stung her eyes.

“What… is all this?” she managed, barely above a whisper. A measured tone, the only voice she could muster.

“These are our servants- this one, specifically, is Renault. How are you doing old friend? I’ve a surprise for you- a daughter! Just like I’ve always dreamed.”

Saila couldn’t take her eyes off the headless corpse- couldn’t stop the memory of the doddering stool with the mass of plant-life under it that in retrospect oh so happened to be skull sized.

“What did you…?”

“Do to him?” Ophelia completed, with a laugh. “Ohoho, he was a little ill, and my darling taught me a method to cure him. Fix what’s broken, mend what’s torn. It was part of setting this all up. He’s doing quite wonderfully now, don’t you think?”

Ophelia sidled close to her, close enough the living perfume of her dress mixed with the corpse-stink, and jabbed Saila in the shoulder lightly.

“Do introduce yourself, dear. Renault is ever so glad to meet you in person, after all.”

To close to close to close to-!

“U- uh, I’m- I’m Saila?!” All but squeaking it out.

Please don’t respond please don’t respond please don’t res-

The corpse- his corpse- twitched. Curling, sand-brown leaves swirled about his exposed spine, just below where his skull should have been.

“He… lo…”

Barely a voice. More a shuffling, crinkling, rattling whisper, as the leaves served as a make-shift throat.

But clear enough that reality finally struck, like a smoking bullet.

They weren’t dead.

Act and thought, one then the other.

Saila shoulder checked Ophelia, hand flashing out to grab her matches.

Everything here has to burn!

“Oh Saila what are you-!”

Fingers touched wood- dead, hard, familiar, her matchbox.

Touched, but not grasped. It slipped from her fingers as the surface of Ophelia’s dress shifted to keep it from her, a faint glimmer of violet dancing across it.

I’m… so close…

Saila fell to her knees, the sudden movement and her bone-deep fear making her legs like butter in the noonday sun.

With horrid grace, Ophelia twisted and righted herself- Saila’s shoulder check had taken her by surprise, but was not enough to knock her down.

“My word. Saila, I am not impressed with this roughhousing. I know you’re nervous-”

She’s an absolute psychopath! I gotta stop her somehow… Sparks danced across Saila’s teeth, instinct imitating the scorpion-cat. Matches or no she had to try.

The flame left her- along with her breath- as a curled violet vine slammed into her chest from out of nowhere, sending her rolling across the cave floor.

“Pavan no! That is my daughter,” Ophelia’s voice echoed, and the vine flinched, coiling back towards the not-a-corpse it had extended out from.

Saila coughed, trying to scrabble to her feet, body flared with pain from scrapes she’d taken in the fall, chest throbbing.

A manicured hand reached out- Ophelia’s, a gentle smile on her face as always.

“My apologies dear, I do so-”

Saila smacked it away, scooting backwards across the ground to put some distance- any distance, between the two.

“Get away from me!” she shouted. “When Noble finds me he’s gonna-”

Her threat was cut short by a hard cough, a wheeze for air.

“What did you say, young Saila…?” Ophelia asked, a sudden dreaminess in her tone.

“I said-!”

“You said Noble.”

“- Noble! Yeah, I-”

“Noble…” Ophelia repeated, enunciating with such tender focus and care it made Saila’s skin crawl. “You came here with… Noble?”

“Y- yeah. He’s, he’s pr- probably, looking for me right now!”

“Oh… ohoho…” she laughed- as she did, flowers started to bloom about her, fluttering in an unseen breeze. “Oh Noble… darling Noble, you’ve returned.”

The heat from Saila’s anger and dread turned to ice in an instant.

“Oh my Noble, my darling darling Noble…” her voice started echoing- from the cave or something else Saila had no damn clue- as she spun. The not-corpses shivered, as though they could sense it, the plant-life that clung to them shirking. The flowers radiating from Ophelia wilted, died, and bloomed anew, spiraling in the air till they- and she- went to her knees, inches away from Saila.

During the spinning, her opera mask had come off.

At this level, Saila could see Ophelia eye to eye.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

And she could see, ringed around both irises, a tattoo of teeth, smiling in her eyes.

“Oh… oh young Saila, why didn’t you mention his name? If I’d have known, I’d have run to him! Where is he now?”

“I- I mean, I don’t-”

Ophelia’s eyes, unblinking. They felt like teeth scratching at her skin, that sick feeling at the base of her neck growing heavier. Saila coughed, chest still aching.

Ophelia pouted, picked up her opera mask, and placed it back across her eyes.

“You don’t know. Its fine- Pavan did separate the two of you- though, shame on that Noble, not warning you. He is quite a prankster, but I must scold him for this one.”

She rose to her feet, and lightly stepped over to the one she’d been calling Pavan- and with a subtle movement and a spark of violet, one of the trails of her dress twisted up into a hooked vine, and slammed into the molding, mossy skull.

Grassy veins dug into the vine, pulsing.

“Let us see what your pets see, Pavan…”

In that brief moment, Saila saw an opportunity. Whatever she was doing was completely distracting her. She could do something, anything.

But she couldn’t move.

Ophelia’s monstrous creations, her eyes that left her tingling, her wild, deranged rambling, it was like being in a sandstorm. Buffeted at every angle, in every worst-spot. She knew Noble wasn’t her so-called darling - he couldn’t be, right?-, but her ravings left a splinter of doubt wedged between her ribs, no matter how impossible it was. Even if he wasn’t- he isn’t he isn’t he isn’t- the truth was, Saila could feel a creeping dread that Noble could be hurt or worse. She saw him fall- it was the last thing she saw.

She had to move. But Ophelia’s ferocity left Saila hesitant, and her aches and pains kept her still. She was too strong, too skilled, she couldn’t act- she could just wait. It stung- the heroes in her novels could rise to the occasion, seemed to do so every time it counted, but not her.

The world felt too real, too fast, too dangerous. She wanted it to stop- wanted to stop running, stop moving, stop feeling the heavy, burning haze that extended out from the base of her neck.

It was overwhelming.

There was no point to it.

The moment came and went. Ophelia’s vine pulled free from Pavan’s eye-socket, flecks of fiber and meat dripping off of it.

“Saila,” Ophelia said, voice wooden and rotten. “Didn’t you say you were brought here by… Noble?”

Saila nodded.

Ophelia’s body convulsed, and the entirety of her dress trail curled and rose, like a chorus of deadly, plant-life stingers.

“That thing is not my Noble,” she intoned. “Whatever it is, it’s destroying my dear Pavan’s precious pets. Know that when I return, you will be scolded most severely.”

With a wholly unnatural twist of her body, Ophelia turned on her heel and stormed out, wild brambles and spiked roots erupting from the ground in her wake.

And Saila sat there, her thoughts echoing as much as Ophelia’s words did.

Noble was okay. Noble was coming for her.

Something in Saila sparked. Her chest rumbled faintly, through the pain.

But Ophelia made the very ground tremble with a thought.

There was only so much he could do- and nothing she could manage, she was too scared to try breathing fire without her matches nearby. That was the long and short of it, she realized; she was afraid, even with Noble’s words. That this amber flame in her was proof she was a monster, and that truth would be laid bare if she did it unambiguously. What’d happen then- would she become like Ophelia? Dancing and raving, stuck in her own little world, obsessed with flames?

“He brought us a gift! A fire-show!”

It echoed through her, and the haze grew heavier.

Fear built, with firm foundations.

A stupid fear, but a natural one. A fear that rippled through her no matter how much she’d hid it. No matter how much she played at it, no matter her schemes at the clothes shop and her swinging around her brass stick in her dances- and trying to defend Noble, she was not some hero, no true performer of the arts. She was a kid. Noble was right to warn her off from that flower. Noble was right to worry about her. Noble was right to keep some things from her- and he does, oh how he does, doesn’t he? She shouldn’t have trusted him.

She should have stayed home.

Tears started. She felt something sharp get in her eye- dust or plant-flesh or earthen grit. She pushed a hand against her face to get it out. She wanted it to stop, wanted everything to stop, for just a-

OW! What the fu- her hand recoiled from her face. She felt blood dripping down the side of it.

A snaggly, half-formed fang of a splinter jutted out of her hand, like a rotted tooth.

Her chest started rumbling again, a roar building.

Stupid stupid STUPID

It burned in Saila’s head as much of the pain, as much as the aches and scrapes. It drowned out the thoughts and fears that hooked into her, the heavy tingling at the base of her neck.

Thoughts that were not hers.

The worries and the terrors of someone who wanted nothing but a solid footing, an infectious want for stability. It clung to her, seeding her brain with voices that were not her.

Cloying, like Ophelia’s floral scent.

Not all of it, of course; the fear to act was there, the fear that her flame was the spark of something terrifying inside her. Everything had truly been overwhelming- and like it or not, Ophelia was a terror, and Saila did not know how to fight.

A voice whispered, smoothly, with a smile at the edges, what’s the point?

Hers- and his- answered “Why shouldn’t I?”

Saila ripped the floral dress from her shoulders, shoved her hand into a bramble patch and ripped out the largest, most solid chunk of wood she could- damn the tears and jabs- and struck it against the length of her forearm.

Amber flames burst along the jagged kindling.

Noble was coming to save her.

She was coming to save Noble.

But first, she had to pay for her breakfast. It was quite good, after all.

A wispy, plant-spun voice managed a “thank you”, near muffled over the crackling flames, and then Saila was on her way.

###

Thunderous gunshots ripped through the air, three in total.

The target- a gentle wild rose jutting forth from the mangled carcass of a desert fox.

Three holes appeared in the sun-bleached white skull of the thing, bone and flower scattering.

The remnants of its jaw and teeth remained, firmly imbedded in his lower calf.

That and half a dozen other injuries that his system registered – from thorns in his left shoulder that made it hard to move to the sizzling pollen that was burning at his cloak to the bone-claws that left three gouges along his right arm, sparking with an occasional jolt of the magic coursing through him, slick with the concoction of chemicals that ran through his machine-veins.

And now, a limp-inducing set of fangs, like cheap jewelry.

None of it slowed his approach, as he jogged into a larger area of the cave, eyes scanning for further targets, lenses fogged with splattered plant-material.

… why does this look like a foyer?

It didn’t quite look right- smoothed stone paths curved inward in greeting instead of stairs that still held a bit of uneven sharpness to them, with half-finished moss carpeting and bannisters made of wood with decorative ivy hanging haphazardly, waiting for proper styling. It all led to a second-floor hallway that descended further into the dark.

Only some of the lights- strange bulbous cacti flowers- were glowing, given the place a gloomy, gold-and-shadow feel.

It felt incomplete, fractured, like the product of someone who was trying desperately to recreate from memory something they knew intimately, but made with materials that simply could not cut it.

Whatever the case it was enough to knock just a bit of human back into Noble.

Enough that when the woman clad in plant-life leapt from the upper floor down at him with a scream, he barely had time to register it.

Hooked vines whipped around his torso, their barbed tips catching his clothing, and flung him against a wall with a crack.

“Remove yourself from my home this INSTANT!” the woman shouted, with such an indignant fury in her voice that Noble almost felt he should apologize.

The image of Saila being ripped from his sight said otherwise. He stood, took aim, and fired in a single motion.

A singular golden light glowed on her chest, and a sheen flickered across his vision- a shield spell of some sort, woven into her flower-bed clothes. It slowed her approach, but sent the bullet into the wall.

Vines lashed out from her dress, violet and sharp.

Two more shots screamed out.

One hit the faintly shimmering light dancing around her, aimed at her lower torso- the second at her forehead, and she ducked it.

Only one at a time. Good to know. Noble noted, as the vines snagged and tossed him again.

The impact was a heavy one, and he fell to the ground with a heavier thud.

“I don’t want to kill you. My-”

Noble flicked open his revolver, reloaded, and fired four times.

“-daughter would be so sad to see you break.” Her shield shimmered, her vines thrashing wildly to catch the other three. The bullets were deflected, but the vines themselves were severed.

The woman grimaced. A violet light rose from the vines, regrowing and retwisting- and the severed parts floating into the air, shifting and blooming into floating flowers.

“I see you’ve decided to continue your unmitigated harassment. Very well- I shall escort you from the premises myself.”

Violet light danced, vines flailed, and the floating flowers pulsed and burst, blasts of pollen screaming out like an operatic crescendo. Noble ducked and weaved, trying to take aim- each time he lined her up with the business end of his long-nose, another shot forced him to move, another lashing vine threatened to spear him.

He had to get close- her floral armour and the magic spell she shielded herself with meant distance would hinder more than help. Sneaking a bullet in, between the eyes or in the throat, that was it.

But how to approach a thresher? Even considering it, feinting in to test the waters, led to one of the brutal whips hitting home, sending black-silver debris scattering.

As she corralled him towards the way he came, he saw the war of attrition he was losing, and took the risk.

He stepped forward, full confidence, and was met with hooks and spears- jabbing into his side and arms, one finding his right elbow to pull down his aim, another piercing straight through his left calve- a stroke of grim fortune, it freed him from the jabbing pain of fox teeth.

An errant shot of sizzling pollen struck the shoulder riddled with thorns, and it burned down his arm, rippling across his nerves as it snuck into his wounds.

“You’ve made a mistake, gunslinger,” she said with a gentle sort of anger.

At this distance he could smell her breath.

Perhaps he had. He gambled pretty hard on this one- assuming she’d stay true to her mad word of escorting him out instead of killing him outright.

But it worked.

With a sudden movement he slammed her in the face with a left hook that shattered her opera mask and sent her reeling- her shield really couldn’t protect her at this distance, a second gamble. As she fell back, the vines left him to try and cushion her, save the one firmly speared through his leg.

Any satisfaction was undercut by the hairline crack that opened along his bicep on impact. His left arm loosely flopped to his side, fingers twitching.

Noble spent a single shot to sever the last vine impeding him, his breathing harsh and echoing. He took aim and-

His third gamble.

Machine-strength or not, his injuries slew him down.

Or maybe she was just a special talent, in her life before this one.

The woman swooned from the impact of his left hook, but did not fall. She twisted with it, vines curling, and kicked at him with a rose-stemmed heel, aimed square for his face.

It took all his effort to dodged to the side, the spiked heel whipping by so fast it blew off his slouched hat.

A rapid bouquet of kicks sped towards him, each one slicing at the edges, sparks and shards flying. He could barely move, let alone aim at her. He could protect his head, but only just- and even then, his filtration mask took a few scrapes and scratches.

Dozens of strategies filled his rattled brain.

None reached even half way to completion before the plant-clad woman stopped her assault- for a moment he could think, for a moment he could inhale- and then delivered a resounding kick to the chest that sent him stumbling backward, her heel-spike breaking on impact.

His impaled leg buckled beneath him, and he crumbled to his knees, lifting his right arm in desperate defense.

Violet vines lifted, hooks barred and barbarous.

“NOBLE!”

Saila’s voice echoed so clear and crystal he thought it had been in his mind.

On the second floor of this woman’s makeshift foyer, carrying a burning torch, was the little lady in the flesh.

“Young Saila…?” the woman said, turning from him, violence forgotten.

Saila was injured. He could see it even from this distance. She held her torch out before her like an oversized match.

“Ophelia stop or… or I’ll-!”

He also saw, in the folds of the woman’s gown, a familiar wooden box.

His heart beat.

His arm clicked into place with machine-precision, aimed, and-

No that’s-

A single thunderous shot rang out.

A shimmer of gold appeared, trying to reach the bullet in time.

Blood and plant and flecks of flesh and match-box wood and scattered matches and burning, oh so much burning as the gunfire tore through it all.

The matches lit at bullet speed.

The fire devoured her, hungry and cruel.

######