April

I hurry to Sarafyna's holding cell. Something is very wrong. Finally, finally, Rune has left. The sage breathing down our necks is gone. He seemed irritated and resigned when he left. Whatever he wanted from our prisoner, he clearly didn't get it. Considering the child is supposedly some sort of government higher-up, he waited here far longer than I would have thought reasonable. Far longer than I had expected. I was growing to worry he actually would get through to the girl.

Even when he did leave, I could feel his reluctance. Well, it's no surprise he failed. The girl lived alone in the Radiant Woods for years, I'm told. She is a stubborn one, nearly as stubborn as Lillith herself. It makes sense the two would form an unnatural relationship with each other. Rune leaving was a weight off my shoulders. We needed his help to capture her, but once that was done... he became a danger to us. It was for an hour, anyway. Until the guards on the woman's cell failed to check in at an appropriate time. It's not impossible one of them fell asleep. But the timing. The timing is too suspect.

I can't help but worry Rune has somehow taken her with him. I don't understand how his magic works, other than it being similar to the priests of the Collector. I've been growing more and more worried about this the longer he insisted upon staying in the kingdom. I knew he would have to leave eventually, but the more obvious his interest in Sarafyna became, the likelier it was he would try to take her with him. His interest certainly helps explain the extent to which they were willing to help us. But we need her. We need her to help us travel to Potestia and back. To truly be a kingdom. I am in no hurry for this, which is my greatest advantage over Lillith and Rune. But I need her to still be here if I want to persuade her over time.

I can hear some commotion in the center of town. All the guards we have are rushing to the same spot. I consider changing course but... Rebecca knows where I am going, she will deal with this. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it, the damn child got in my head. Every time I have visited Sarafyna for a month the hairs on the back of my neck have risen. A nameless anxiety grips me when I am alone in the room with her. It was all just bluster, I know that. But... 'time to scream' is what she had said. I just can't get it out of my head. I jump at shadows. I wake up covered in sweat. I feel so foolish. But I do, nevertheless, feel compelled to make sure she hasn't escaped.

I descend the stairs to the underground cell and gasp as I turn the corner. I was worried Rune had taken her with him. Now... Now I am forced to hope he has. The door has been... shredded like paper. The steel door. Even worse, whatever tore through it seems to have caught one of the guards as well. His body is now in three separate pieces, discarded in a pool of blood and twisted metal. Time to scream, she had said. Time to scream. I have to hope Rune did this before leaving. I spend a long moment deciding whether to flee now or to check if the cell is empty. I know someone has to, but all of my instincts tell me to turn and run as far as I can.

But I have to. I have to know. I don't know what is going on upstairs, but I have to check. If it is something serious, having Sarafyna loose will only make it worse. But we have been increasing her poison dosage steadily. She should be incapacitated. I have to trust she has been incapacitated. I have to look. I take one step forward, then another. A little at a time I move. I grimace as I take my first step in the blood. There is dirt and gristle floating in it and I am soon to lose my lunch. But I do eventually make it to the door and peer inside.

It looks empty. Completely black and cold. No sign of movement whatsoever. I sigh in relief. Rune took her. He killed that guard. She is probably long gone, by now. I am safe. It's fine. I am safe. Time to scream. The words echo in my head and my heart beats faster. The hall around me goes black as well and I take a sharp breath. There is a flicker of white in the corner of my eyes and I jerk to look in the direction I had come from. I can't see anything, the entire hall is now pitch black. That doesn't make sense. The stairs aren't far, and it is daylight outside. Some light should be making it down here, even if all the torches went out at once.

Then I see it. A smile. It is wide, brilliantly white, and it sticks out against the dark background. Like it is the only source of light. My breathing speeds up. There is another smile, this one with too many teeth. Another appears a moment later with razor sharp, pointed teeth. And another, and another. One even has mandibles like a massive spider. All of them seem to glow in a way I don't understand. Until they all start speaking at once. As they open I can see the light, and the stairs on the other side, through the mouths. As the light reaches me, I see what I am facing. It is like a wall of flesh, covered with strange seams where I think it may open in some way. The speaking mouths are the only vaguely human feature about it. Well, them and the auburn hairs dispersed throughout.

I take a step back and trip, falling into the pool of blood, and retching as I panic and try to crawl away. As I desperately try to think of a way to escape this... horror, 'She will give you time to scream' are the only words I can come up with.

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Lillith

I am in the Kingdom of Endings. There are shocked, horrified, and mildly disgusted faces all around me. I'm a bit surprised myself. For one I am, notably, not dead. I'm fairly certain the staff was supposed to kill me. It killed Godfrey and my man's wish went decidedly unanswered. That thought re-ignites a confusing cocktail of emotions, and I decide catching up on my current situation is more important. It didn't kill me like it was supposed to. Well, either that or I am an incredibly lively corpse. Alright, a slightly more lively corpse than average. It's been a long day. Either way, my money is on 'I'm not dead', which is usually a safe bet for anyone capable of making it.

So the staff is apparently not always so deadly. Perhaps it is the relative size of my wish when compared to Godfrey's. He was trying to steal thousands of people from their homes, all across the continent. I just wanted a girlfriend. A specific girlfriend, and a pretty fucking amazing one, but still. It wasn't a big ask. Although, I suppose an argument could be made that mine was... sort of granted and his wasn't, which may constitute an actual greater ask on my side. Except, killing me wasn't the only unreliable result. I didn't want to come to the Kingdom of Endings. I was sacrificing my life in a battle of wills with an old friend and powerful enemy. I needed a strong but focused desire to push against his.

Actually visiting the Kingdom of Endings? I'm a pretty persuasive bitch sometimes but I don't think I could sell that as desirable, even to myself. No, I wanted to bring Sara home. The wish I was pushing with everything I had was for Sara to be brought to safety. I mean, I guess firing me at the Kingdom of Endings like a particularly attractive torpedo counts in a way but... I don't know. This is like the Ikea of genies. Wish granted, some assembly required. I guess I have to hope someone sets the relic aside for when I am back. I will either study it or give it a stern talking to about this 'quiet quitting' attitude. For now, people are responding to my presence.

About a dozen guards, some in uniform and others only holding weapons and armor over civilian clothes, circle around me. Spears, pikes, bows, and of course mana threaten me from all directions. I, on the other hand, am three-fifths the woman I once was and am standing on painful slabs of steel held in place by blood-greased braces. The guards part so one of the stewards can approach me. Rebecca gapes at me with wide eyes. They all have whisper spheres here, although I am not certain if my call made it here or not. I willed it to call every sphere in Potestia, and this may not count. Either way, she is clearly surprised to see me.

"Q-Queen Lillith, I see you have finally returned to us," she greets and I smirk.

"Happy to see me, I'm certain. Where is your friend?" I ask. The guards shift uncomfortably, mumbling to each other. I give them a glance but keep my focus on Rebecca.

"April is... seeing to a guest," she answers timidly. I tilt my head at her. "You don't look well, Queen Lillith. Are you certain you are in any shape for the, uh, conversation we were planning to have when you finally made it here? You look like you could use more than a little medical attention. Sarafyna is in good health, I trust? As long as you have her you will be alright. Right?" She is trying to hide a threat in that, which is pretty clear. But it worked a whole lot better from an unpassable distance.

"Thank you for your concern, Rebecca. I am feeling a little under the weather, but don't worry at all. I remain perfectly capable. If I might offer a bit of a suggestion of my own, I do think you should probably suck my dick," I respond with a saccharine smile. I turn to address the guards, all of whom seem confused about whether they should be pointing weapons at me or not. "Good news, everyone," I announce. "I have no way of knowing to what extent you were all involved in abducting, imprisoning, and hurting Sarafyna. The woman I am in love with. Rebecca here was involved directly, I know that much. And so Rebecca here is about to die. The good news is, while she tried to threaten someone I love very much, she tried to do it with subtlety. Which at least implies innocence on your part. In other words, I will allow everyone but her to run the fuck away from me while I end her."

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The group does falter but no one runs right away. "You abandoned them, Lillith," Rebecca announces proudly. Or... proudly on the surface anyway. A tremor in her voice reveals she is less confident than she is pretending. "I have been caring for them in your absence. Providing them the leadership you denied. They won't abandon me now because of the wild claims of a delirious woman in need of medical attention. Queen or not." I give her another sweet look, like a southern housewife offering a home-cooked meal.

"I'm so sorry, I am actually talking to everyone else here right now. I'll kill you in a minute, don't worry. In the meantime, you really can just go ahead and suck my dick." Again I address the guards. "I have had a pretty shitty day. I feel like I've been through a garbage disposal. I had to watch someone I love die and felt relief about it. My mom thinks I'm a changeling, my dad tried to kill me, and you know what? I wasn't going to mention this but fuck it. I am currently in year eleven of my longest dry spell ever which only makes me crankier every day, and my girlfriend is chained up in a dungeon somewhere at this woman's command. The reason she is not already dead is because I am tired and I don't want any accidental collateral. So I am saying one more time, run while I kill your fucking boss."

"Lil-" Rebecca starts, but she is interrupted by a woman's agonized screaming. It cuts deep to the bone and instills a fear in everyone, even me, that abandons most after childhood. The shrieking continues until the woman creating it literally runs out of breath, her expression of pain threatening to suffocate her. This may be a relief if it frees her from whatever is causing her to create that noise. Rebecca looks at me with unadulterated terror and I sigh. I was hoping to spare Sara from this temptation.

"Well," I finally say. "It sounds like my girlfriend is free now. And I bet you are next on her list. You have two choices. You can wait here, and use these men as shields until she gets her, or you can let them go and I will handle it. But if you want my advice? Well. I kill quickly." At this, more than half the men around us turn, then run. Only a few remain, uncertainly holding their weapons in quivering hands and crowding around my target. I keep my eyes locked on hers. As the scream picks up again, Sara apparently having allowed her victim to catch her breath, Rebecca breaks and nods.

"G-go," she says. "It's alright, you can all go." That's all it takes. The remaining guards immediately flee. "Alright, they are gone. But please, before you do it, let me-" I crush her head with force mana and lift myself up to go in the direction of the screaming.

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Sarafyna

Rune is gone. Rune is finally gone. I felt his presence fade. And I am finally strong enough to control my body again. It is time to return to Annie. To help her heal. To heal alongside her. Escaping the cell was easy enough, without Rune watching and with my abilities back. They are more than back, actually. I am stronger than ever. More ready to fight than ever. I feel like I felt before Annie found me in the Radiant Woods. Angry. Tired. And I miss my home. My home with Annie I never managed to move into. I want to make these stewards pay like I want to make the priests pay.

So after I tear my way out of the cell, killing one guard with two claws and grabbing the other with a fleshy tentacle, dissolving him like a stone in acid, I wait. I wait and I watch. As I wait, I feel Annie. Fighting reality all on her own. I don't understand it, but I have to lend her my power. I wonder if she is fighting priests, nexus mages trying to kill her. It's no matter. She can draw life from me. I give her everything she needs, and it almost feels like she is tugging on me. Trying to pull me to her, but it feels dangerous. So I pull back instead, until the tension disappears and I can feel she is safe. I sigh in relief. I wish she would stop doing that, but I will see her soon.

It is maybe half an hour before a worried April comes storming down the stairs. I watch her through a dozen eyes as I slither across the ceiling, I watch as she hesitates to check on me or flee. I watch as she worries about her dirty shoes. I watch as she sighs in relief when she fails to find me. And I move. I drip from the ceiling like grease and make a curtain of flesh across the exit, throwing her into complete darkness. I am so furious. And I feel sick. Sick because I am angry and... sick because I am excited. I am looking forward to making her pay.

I can't help but smile. And smile again, and again, and again. Different mouths form across my body, all grinning at the woman before me. The woman who hurt me. The woman who left Annie without me. I can't help but smile with everything I am as she cowers before me. I open my mouths to speak. Only some of them are capable, but all of them move. They let the light behind me through and cast shadows of a thousand teeth on April's terrified face. She falls into the blood she was so reluctant to step in.

"I hate this about myself, you know?" I ask her. "I don't want to want to hurt you. I don't want to picture what I am about to do to you as I try to sleep. I don't want to wonder if it is simply too far. But you... you locked me up again. I hate being trapped. I hate being alone. The terror that I'll never see my loved ones again. The taunting and the smirks from the people who took me from a time when I was happy. I can't bear it. I couldn't bear it once, and I can't bear it twice. The cruelty. The manipulation. The sickness. And you knew. You knew I had been through this before. That I was only able to cope with it because of the tools Annie taught me. You knew. You knew I relied on a feeling of absolute safety just to sleep. Just to avoid visiting that lonely hopelessness with every waking moment."

She is begging me for something. Pleading. Apologizing. She doesn't even see the blood anymore. She doesn't care. She just wants to be spared. Well. So did I. "And then there is Annie. Or, I'm sorry, Lillith," I continue. As I do, tendrils of flesh creep along the ground and wrap around her ankles, forcing a terrified whimper from her.

"I'm sorry, I just... I'm sorry, please..." she pleads.

"Lillith. A woman you knew I was in love with. Who needed me. That was the line you really shouldn't have crossed. She was in pain. She was dying. She was desperate, and she needed me. Over and over again she went to bed suffering. Over and over again she died. And she didn't have to. But you wanted to use me. You wanted to own me. You wanted me to help you like she was helping you. Because you wanted to be a little queen of a little kingdom." I drag her across the floor, and she rolls over, desperately trying to crawl away from me. I keep dragging. Teeth, nails, talons, and claws all sprout from the same place at the bottom of my curtain. Right where I am dragging her. They begin to click against each other and gnash with a wet squelching sound.

"I am going to make you hurt like you let her hurt," I growl as I drag. She starts to scream. I haven't even started and she screams like she is in more agony than I have ever been in. How dare she? How dare she act like this fear is anything like what she put me through? What she put Lillith through? As I slowly pull her she continues to struggle, screaming all the while. She screams until her voice goes hoarse and she flails so much she slams her own head against the cement floor. I pause for a moment, something itching at the back of my mind. No. She deserves this. She deserves it. She hurt Annie and me so much. And she did it for nothing.

I begin to pull again, and she finds her breath, continuing her desperate scream as she gets closer, and closer, and closer to an agonizing death. But it doesn't feel satisfying. It doesn't feel vindicating. Then she looks back at me, and I see blood running down her face, over her left eye. I pull a little more, until she is so close to the death I have prepared for her. The death that will make this whole kingdom regret hurting us. But the cut... I let out a frustrated scream, my voice joining hers... and I stop. I return to my actual body, filling in the dress I had been dragging along inside me. April is sobbing in front of me and I want to cry with frustration. Instead, I extend one arm toward her, in the shape of a massive crab claw, and sever her head in a single move.

Finally, I turn to ascend the stairs and find Annie at the top, staring down at me with watering eyes. And I feel so relieved I didn't follow through, at least all the way, with what I was going to do. I don't want Annie to see me like that. Enjoying someone's death. She looks like she is in so much pain. She looks so weary. So used up. So... beautiful. I run to her and wrap my arms around her, then pull her into a deep kiss. It tastes of blood, but I don't care. I am just happy to hold her again. To be free. She tries to hug me back, with her single remaining arm. Finding this lacking she instead runs her fingers through my hair and kisses me back.

It is... sweaty. It's bloody. It should be disgusting. It's the happiest I have ever been. "I love you, Annie," I say. "I love you so much. I missed you so much," I finally gush as soon as we come up for air.

"I love you too," she replies with the warmth of the sun after months underground. "Let's go home." I am about to agree when a dark worry clouds my mind.

"How... how did you get here? Did you meet... anyone strange?" I ask. I have half a feeling I know. That strange feeling from before. Like a rival nexus mage was trying to spend life she didn't have. The way I pulled her toward me when I felt it, and the rival mage seemed to agree with my intent. She glances at me with slightly narrowed eyes before deciding to take the question at face value and answer.

"No one in particular. It's a long story, and one I don't even understand. I'll tell you when we get back," she explains and I nod. It's the answer I needed. She didn't meet Rune. She didn't hear anything she shouldn't need to worry about.

"Alright. Let's go home."