The light wars against the darkness and I tread in the world between. The robed warriors speak of some distant truth while protecting the weak and innocent, they stand as heroes in this world where the dead try to steal away the living. I want to stand beside them, but I do not belong.

I walk among the dead, as I always have.

Belle, the girl I tried to save is now lying still and cold on the ground near to me. She is dead, but at the same time, I’m not quite sure that she’s fully passed either. The vampires, as she called them, still have a will of their own. A soul, or something imitating one, without the protections against necromancy that a normal person would have.

I’m not certain, but perhaps somewhere inside her, that soul is still lingering. Maybe under the right conditions, she could come back.

I stretch my fingers out as my magics stir at the ready, but I do not reach for her.

Air shudders from my lungs as I’m dragged back to that day so very long ago when I was lying on the forest floor, clinging to the body of my mother. I can still see myself through her eyes. I can still remember what it was like to feed my æther through her, to run strings through her body and mind.

Crow cries out in the night, and I stumble over Belle’s body, returning to the battle line. The knight is recovering and looking to break up the defences that are still holding against the undead. I cannot let him have Anna and Olive, but I can’t fight him anymore.

I can’t win, even if I give my all to this battle.

The vampires aren’t pursuing me as they had before and I’ve recovered my swords, but if all goes well then I won’t need them. I can’t save everyone, but I might be able to save my friends.

From the darkness, I step into the light, welcomed by the warriors still battling against illusions. Their strength is waning, and they will not last much longer. We will not last much longer.

“Do you need healing?” a young man calls for me pressing against the mass of flesh to get to me. “Here a recovery potion for your æther veins, you’ll need that at least.”

“I… thank you,” I’m planning to abandon them all to make my own escape. It feels wrong to accept his charity, but only the living get to regret things like this. I will take from them before I abandon them.

I drink the sour solution, a different flavour from what I’m used to. It’s instantly soothing to my burning æther veins, enough to give me a second wind. If I can escape this part of town and find Theo and the others we can leave this city behind. We can be safe again.

“Come this way,” the man pulls me along by the hand, the mass of panicked people is so thick that I can hardly even see as he pulls me through. “Merry wants to talk with you.”

“I need to find my friends,” I say, shaking my head.

“Then he’ll know where they are.”

I quiet my complaints and push aside the people in my way as we find the man. He’s not that difficult to locate, standing beside the massive mass of mud and thread that is still trying to stand.

“Those girls were working on the legs,” a young wizard, covered in mud complains to the robed warrior with the ugly face. “It’ll take us too long to rediscover the æther channels that they’ve made, it’s already a project too much for us, with this setback…”

“Be at peace, do what you can with what time we can find for you,” Merry says, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You do not wish to give up yet, do you? It is better to fight with everything we have, no matter the outcome, right?”

“Are you sure that you’re not a servant of some other god?” the man whispers. “The truth here seems to me like we’re all going to die horrible deaths.”

“The lady of truth has only aided me in seeing the truth of myself, I am not here as her servant. I am here because I truly wish for a better world, and I wish to work toward building that world. Her path has only guided me to the point that I understand that about myself. The truth is that I want to fight and survive.

“What of you? Who are you truly? What do you truly want and wish for today, and what will you do to get it?”

The man stands a little taller, his feet set a little firmer, looking over the golem that the mages here have built together. He says nothing but his stance says enough for him. Even if the knight were to stand in his path, the man would still step forward to fight against his fate.

“Where are Olive and Anna?” I ask Merry. They should be here with the golem. I don’t know where else they would be.

“They were taken away,” Merry says. “A villain has managed to steal them away through the shadows.”

“They’re gone?” I ask, stumbling back a step and staring into the crowd. When I fail to find them, I pry apart the darkness around Crow to seek them out wherever they might be.

If the vampires have taken them…

Their images flutter through my mind, turning white and slowly flaking away into fine ash. The friction is softer than a feather, as it slips through my fingers.

Again.

I thought that maybe I’d have more time.

The air escapes my lungs, but as I stare down at the ground, I feel no tears in my eyes. Even my heart is beating in cold resignation.

I couldn’t save anyone.

I’m stronger than I was, but I’m still too weak.

“Are you well?” Merry asks, standing straight as he turns his eyes outward. I’m too short to see, but with Crow’s eyes I can make out the shining knight cutting down the first few dozen warriors that try to keep him busy. The slaughter has begun again.

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“I can’t beat him,” I say, shaking my head.

The darkness at the edges of the world calls to me. If I’m fast, I can escape this place alone.

I can leave all this behind.

My feet don’t move from this spot. I glare through the backs of the worried people, at the knight that has beaten me. He’s not the one who took away Anna and Olive, but he is still responsible.

There’s a chance that they’re still out there, made into puppets for the vampires who are here. I will not let that happen. I will not let my friends be enslaved by these villains.

I will find them, and save them, even if it means turning them to ash.

Drawing my two swords I push through the tide of people, making my way to a fight that I cannot win. I buy enough time to find my friends, then I’ll run and escape. Like I escaped back then.

Overhead, Crow flies about, seeking the familiar faces of my friends, stolen away by some strange undead magic.

The knight stands over corpses, but that’s only to my advantage. I seed them with my power, pushing myself instantly to my limit and riding the edge of burning out as my many undead hands and feet pull at the unsuspecting knight. I slam my swords down on either side of his helmet while he’s swiping away my puppet’s arms.

Crow flies overhead, looking for a hint that might show me where my friends were taken. They were stolen by the shadows, so I look in every dark corner hoping to see them, but I cannot find a single body littering the streets.

The knight swipes out at me, stomping on the undead limbs I use to grasp him. He panics and the force he uses is almost too much for me to throw aside.

I charge in again before I can even think, jumping and spinning in the air to scissor my blades around his limp arm which is slowly regaining power. He lifts his good hand and spreads searing pain through my guts as he punches me with his hilt. I fly back into the crowd, barely able to see through the dark specks gathered through my gaze.

“Woah, careful there,” Merry catches me. The ugly robed man. The powerful warrior. The hero.

He smiles, his contorted face conveying confidence that I don’t feel in myself. I feel only the frost of winters long past as I stand up again, the last of my puppets turned to nothing but ash.

I lift my swords and dive into the fight again.

It is mindless. My body moves too fast for my mind to keep up, and the knight is faster still. I hurt in places more than ever before, but here there is still light, and the fires that burn through me aren’t yet overwhelming. Without any more puppets to string, there’s nothing to waste my æther on but body strengthening, and my body can only accept so much of that magic.

Crow, out in the night, searches through the darkness for the shapes of my lost friends, and I almost trip when I see them.

A terrible battle rages but it’s not something that I can understand. Darkness moves as if a monster itself, a snake, a wolf, a dragon, or shifting limbs that reveal nothing real at all. It shifts about itself reflecting only lies as it runs through the undead that surrounds the most dangerous of their kind. At her back is another, the one that helped me against the knight. Tina, that’s what Belle called her.

She is one of them.

A low growl fills my lungs, the vibrations bringing life back to the numb extremities of my flesh.

Anna is cold and pale, not moving at all, but she and Olive are both fresh with blood. Olive is struggling to drag the unmoving Anna away, but there are so many vampires around them, and too many look at them with hunger.

I swoop Crow in, landing on Anna’s body, cawing loudly and glaring at the undead that would dare to see her as food. They will not have her. They will not take my friends away.

Anna’s lips are moving, stained in blood but pale with death. Is she going to attack Olive? Is she already one of them?

Behind me, the titan of mud is shifting and moving, slowly rising. The mages are shouting out their surprise and shock while struggling to control the massive creation.

“Enough!” the knight shouts, cutting across hard enough that I almost fail to deflect the blow. He strikes again, tossing me back, thrusting at me while I’m still recovering. His eyes glow as he glares at me, “They had their chance to get to you, it’s time for you to die.”

“Yes,” Merry reaches out, grasping the magic that extends the sword and dispelling it with a wave of the hand. “I agree. That is enough.”

The massive golem is struggling to balance on its feet, taking another step. It needs ten seconds.

The knight slashes out at Merry, who simply lifts a hand to catch the metal blade. Even the steel itself refuses to hurt the man, it stops in its path, as if it weren’t swung at all. As if it were perfectly still.

It’s like what the old elvish man did to my sword, but different. It feels so much different.

“Tell me, Sir,” Merry says, lifting his chin, unbothered by the violence. “Is this what you truly wish for? Did you train those countless years just to kill innocent men, women, and children on these grounds here? No. You did not. Lay down your sword.”

“Shut up!” the knight grunts, slashing again.

Again, Merry catches it with an open hand.

“Sir, we must all be truthful, at least to ourselves. It is a weakness unlike any other to lie to oneself. It is a pain on one’s own soul.”

“I told you to shut up!” The knight rages, slashing out again.

I find my feet, as I see the line of blood on the robed warrior’s hand. He’s not strong enough to keep this up.

“Lay down your sword and follow me, Sir,” Merry says, offering out his hand. “I will show you the way to find your own path in this madness. The truth of yourself, not some foreign lie forced upon you by undeserving kings and nobles.”

“Just die, you stupid bastards!” The knight slashes out one more time.

I grab Merry by the back of his robes and tear him back, pulling him to the ground. The sword whistles over our heads, just as Anna’s golem takes its first step. It lumbers forwards, its tremendous weight crumbling the legs underneath it, but that’s fine.

It’s already in place.

The knight roars as the mass of mud collapses over him. Burying him in a pile as tall as a house. Threads that weave throughout the mud golem unravel all at once, I’m sure that they’re sewing him in, trapping him in a firmer grasp.

I don’t think it’ll be enough to kill him, but it gives us time to escape.

The vampires that were watching all pause, turning away to stare out into the night. Something has startled them. The battle between the vampires, near Anna and Olive, glows with the light of fire. Something is happening, but whatever it is, it’s a distraction for us.

Some stare at us hungrily, but many others scatter, rushing out into the night.

“Protect Pharisa!” They raise a cry, rushing from us.

I don’t pause for even a second.

Running through the same darkness and leaping over the wall at the edge of the estate, I find Anna and Olive in a dark street. Olive is still alive, and Anna’s eyes flicker faintly open.

Flushing them with my healing magics, my breath is stolen away when Anna steals control of the magic, guiding it to where it’s needed. Their colour doesn’t fully return, but they are looking less like the undead.

“We need to go,” I say grabbing them both, throwing Anna over my right-hand side shoulder, and carrying Olive under my left arm.

“Syr?!” They scream at once, but I’m already sprinting and I don’t have the breath to spare in a reply.

The knight could free himself any second, and the vampires could come back after that.

We need to be gone.

We need to be fast.

I charge down the streets, my two friends settling down after a minute, but I don’t stop. My legs and lungs burn, but I can’t stop. Not until we make it to the light. The light will save us.

They won’t follow us into the light.

In the distance, the bands still play, people are still singing and a thousand feet are thumping away in dance.

I rush through into the light granted by the streetlights and I finally collapse against the hard stone ground. The stars are difficult to see in the sky above, but they are still there even hidden by the lights around us.

A roar bursts from the darkness that we left behind. The earth itself trembles, and the distant city quiets to listen. Clumps of sodden earth, weaved through with threads of fabric, rain down around us. The roar grows louder still, like a storm approaching us fast.

“Run!” I shout to Anna and Olive, gripping my swords and staring into the darkness.