-=[Chrizantia Malekai]=-

I hung suspended in the void above an ocean of violet stars - the myriads of human souls I had folded into my vast body woven from roots and bogwater. All of them waited to be unfolded back into existence when the time was right… when the world would be filled with far less wrongness, hunger and misery.

My gaze swept over the hearts of my seven heroes, my heart sinking as I took stock of my losses.

Three of them had somehow been brought down: Bobliss the Immovable, Archangel Ingvar, and Harbinger Sigrun. Their absence left a gaping, gnawing hole in my capability to afflict change on the world.

The remaining four - Astrid the Frostborn, Tidebinder Leiff, Bjorn the Ironclad, Fredrich the Evershifting - were en route to the North Sea. But would they be enough?

The Stillwalker was far more devious than I had originally expected him to be.

Damn my sister's machinations!

I thought that Hilda would stick to her domain, follow the same patterns as before, making forest-bound witches and clueless heroes. It had always been so easy to subvert her far too obvious schemes, to unmake her witches, to strike down her heroes or to convert them to my cause with my void-preserved beauty which easily swayed the hearts of men.

Long ago Hilda was my best friend. Through dragon Zarnitza’s attack, we had become sisters in our loss of our families and kin. Through the joint Astral lessons of Yaga Baga we had become sisters in our understanding of witchcraft. Together we sought to unravel the fabric of reality, to bring about a better future for everyone.

It happened ever so slowly. Month by month, year by year, decade by decade we drifted apart. Hilda sought to solve all problems through the art of Agromancy while I dove deeper and deeper into the Astral Abyss seeking answers. Day by day, my Astral projection came closer to Endalaus, until one day I found myself standing amongst the ruins of the works of the primogenitor Builders.

There, I met her, the Voice of the Abyssal Void, Nox. A girl of jet black hair and violet eyes, who called herself the Administrator of Infinity. There, she told me the truth about everything. There, she revealed to me the hexagram that would help me build a compass that would lead me to the ancient, long lost artefact - the Forgestone of the ancients.

Six hundred years ago, I met Bobric Kolamach, a Nordstaii hunter who stumbled into my foresty swamp while chasing a direwolf. Bobric and I fell in love and it was his cleverness that allowed me to leave my domain, to fill one of his packs with my mosses. Together we left Cherno, searching the world for the Forgestone. Together, we found it in the depths of the glaciers.

I used the power of the Forgestone to fold my entire body into the Astral while Bobric folded away his heart, wishing to remain in the physical world while being with me in dreams forevermore.

Centuries passed since and I have utilised the Forgestone to fold the hearts of six more champions to be my immortal hands in the world of the living. In time, Bobric settled down in the Nordstaii town of Bernt as Jarl Bobliss.

All this time, I studied the nature of the Forgestone and used its power to expand and modify my domain, to forge myself a new, vast body woven not from flesh and bone but from standing water and tree roots, one that would draw life into itself even when the world changed.

. . .

A deep sense of wrongness suddenly lanced through my body, a psychic wound that made me shudder. Something was wrong, something was missing from my body.

I manifested above Chernobog as an Astral Projection, my eyes wide with panic as I took in the scene below.

The red and black spirals had slowed their spin!

My lifework, my means of saving everyone, my constructs for creating bloodhounds from the bodies of my enemies were somehow irreparably damaged.

No. No, it couldn't be!

I vanished and reappeared beneath the water's surface, my spectral form gliding through the dark fluids. But as I reached the spot where the Forgestone should have been, I found only severed roots.

The Forgestone was gone and there was vile dragonglass spilled across my veins, burning my flesh and irreparably contaminating the spirals.

Six hundred years of work, ruined!

I fell to my knees, trembling and staring at the sliced roots.

I had failed them all - every soul I had promised to save, every life I had sworn to protect.

Without the Forgestone folding people away, without river Glinka's power to grind the ice away… there was no path towards my happy future.

Without an Arcanicx body to bind the river to, there was no hope.

What had happened to Callista Liesl? I was so close to making her into mine hand, so close to pulling her into the Astral Abyss! My plan was perfect, damn it!

Hilda was supposed to make another dumb hero, Arcanicx was going to come and fall in love with him, then he would be threatened by one of my hands and she would make a wish on the river and Bobliss would rip out her heart and smash the river's anchor. Then, she would be brought to Chernobog and folded into the void to join me.

Simple, easy, perfect.

Now I had to do it all over again, had to find Glinka’s anchor, had to….!

Rarghhhh!

I clawed at my red locks, screaming in anguish as the path of the future unfolded again and again, leading to my ruin.

This couldn't be the end. I wouldn't let it be the end!

I flashed across my entire body, across every root of Chernobog, looking through the eyes of the dead all around. I saw footsteps in the snow at the edge of my domain-body. It was the same footsteps that marked the forest surrounding Svalbard spotted by my bloodhound Aclard Dulsea. Footsteps that belonged to Ioan Starfall and his damned cat.

He has somehow infiltrated my body without me noticing anything, somehow stolen my Forgestone!

With a thought, I folded away, unfolding myself before my four remaining champions. I was resplendent in my divine form, hiding my growing despair behind a mask of absolute will.

"My faithful champions," I intoned to all four at the same time, folding my appearance from the void roots in their hollow hearts, "The time has come for you to aid the halls of Zal-Slavi. You must strike as one against Stillwalker Ioan Starfall. He has taken what belongs to the Gods, the Forgestone of Creation.”

I waved a hand producing an echo of the black, snowflake-shaped Forgestone in my fingers.

“Retrieve it at all cost,” I said. “Do not damage it.”

The heroes nodded as one, voicing that they were ready.

“Ioan is a servant of the wicked witch of the Shalish wood, Yaga Grandhilda, a blackguard of darkness,” I warned them. “He is a lowborn villain who has slaughtered the people of Svalbard and torn the anchor of river Glinka from its foundation. Retrieve the Galdrasteinn of Svalbard!”

I showed them an image of the Galdrasteinn covered in runic waves and the image of Ioan Starfall as seen last through the eyes of Bobliss, Ingvar, and Sigrun.

“Red hair, silver-blue eyes, seventeen years old,” I described the Stillwalker. “Disarm him, kill whoever is assisting him and find out where he hid the Forgestone of Creation and the Galdrasteinn of Svalbard. Be wary and work together, for he has already brought down Jarl Bobliss, Jarl Ingvar, and Jarl Sigrun.”

“Yes, my Lady,” my heroes intoned.

I chose not to tell them about Callista Leisl. They would not understand. Only Bobliss understood it all and knew the rest of our plan. The Immovable hero could not die, and would come back in time as long as a single drop of his blood remained in the world.

I gritted my teeth.

How did Ioan know about the Forgestone that Bobliss and I found six hundred years ago in the glaciers? Did Grandhilda tell Ioan about it, guiding him to rob me? I hadn’t known her to be the one for such underhandedness. Was all of her past behavior mere deception?

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How had Ioan managed to control Glinka so well? What kind of knowledge or power had he sold to the river to make those watery hands to crush my bloodhounds and heroes with? Was his wish for the river to defend him? It had to be, why else would it fight against my champions so much?

Who was that armored archer next to Ioan?

There was so much I didn’t know, so much strangeness happening within Svalbard where my webs couldn’t sense much due to the bothersome residue of dragonfire shredding the Astral. I had brought Zarnitza to Svalbard, sacrificed the lives of everyone there, manipulated my sister to create a hero and got an Arcanicx to come there to claim her idiot champion.

I couldn't fail. I wouldn't fail. The weight of countless souls held within my embrace pressed down upon me, driving me forward despite my despair. I was the keeper of ZalSlavi, the only one who could bring them all back. Every soul, every man, woman and child. Everyone that was sacrificed for the greater good of surviving the Ice Age, plunged into the black spiral either on their own accord or by the hands of my bloodhounds or Bobliss.

I was destined to wield reborn humanity against the threat of the South, to stop the relentless advance of the Arcanicx, to end the corruption of the Wormwood Star, to cleanse Thornwild of its influence! Only I could see far enough into the future to prevent it all!

"Go now," I commanded my heroes. "Fly swiftly, strike true together. The fate of all Nordstaii people rests in your hands."

As they resumed their flight, I turned my gaze Northward. Somewhere out there was Ioan Starfall, the boy that didn’t show up in the Astral, didn’t breathe magic in or push magic out, the one who had somehow undone all of my plans.

. . .

I watched through the eyes of my four remaining champions as they converged above the stormy North Sea. The river delta far below them was no longer frozen, its waters churning violently. My gaze fixed on a wooden barge crashed into the beach. Suddenly, an armored figure leapt from it, riding atop a gargantuan ironclad wolf, plunging into the roiling waves holding a barrel at his side.

My mind reeled.

Who was this mysterious warrior? Ioan told Ingvar that this was Glinka herself, but that was utter nonsense. Glinka always required a pact to do anything, had no personal desires, she was just a dumb river spirit serving the desires of mortals for thousands of years!

I directed Tidebinder Leiff to land beside the barge and scan it for anything alive.

His magical senses detected nothing of value inside. He found only dirt, rocks, iron tools and six terrified horses. There was no sign of Ioan. I told Leiff to slowly take apart the barge, to look for the items I needed and wait to see if Ioan showed up.

At the same time, I ordered the other three heroes to confront the wolf-rider and demand Ioan's whereabouts.

Alas, the armored figure remained eerily silent, responding only by hurling massive shards of ice with watery hands that arose from the waves of the sea itself.

I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. Could this be Ioan himself, somehow transformed? The proportions seemed wrong. Perhaps the wolf rider was some kind of a magical construct created through a powerful wish?

But what sort of sacrifice could even grant such a thing? Had Grandhilda or Ioan slaughtered a thousand mortals and somehow offered their souls to Glinka in exchange for this monstrous man?

No matter how much my champions attacked or commanded the wolf-rider to submit, he remained implacable and silent.

My patience wore thin as I watched the battle unfold. Finally, the trio of heroes lost their composure and attacked from all sides, their blades slicing through the armored man.

As the wolf-rider was caught between their blood blades, wrapped in blood chains, Astrid called for the power of Odin to strike down and end the villain. The stormy sky overhead churned and lightning flashed, momentarily blinding my heroes and igniting the wolf and the man.

Both burned and thrashed in what looked like horrid pain, sinking beneath the churning ocean waves.

With a flash Astrid dove into the water and retrieved a barrel from the ocean waves, discovering the blood of my three other heroes within it.

I ordered him to empty it onto the beach and three of my hands began to slowly reconstitute.

The strange guardian was defeated, but Ioan was still nowhere to be found. And I couldn't shake the feeling that we were missing something crucial. What game was the Stillwalker playing at?

Bobliss had reconstituted, though he looked thinner and weaker than before. Ingvar and Sigrun were also reforming from the puddles of blood. I could sense their confusion and anger.

Cast from the Astral into their hearts, I reappeared before my champions on the frozen beach. My image was that of Freyja clad in golden robes, a laurel golden crown shining between my red locks.

"My faithful champions," I intoned, my voice ringing with divine authority. "You have faced a formidable foe today and won, well done."

“Ioan got me,” Bobliss gritted his teeth. “Some kind of a noisy metal stick. It… didn’t smell like magic at all, didn’t look like an arbalest.”

"He spoke of many lies, sullying our Lady's name!" Ingvar stepped forward, his eyes blazing with fury. "My Lady, I swear to you, I will have my vengeance upon Ioan Starfall. He will pay for what he's done. The next time we meet, he shall know the true power of a Nordstaii hero!”

It was at that moment that Leiff spotted a black kitten sitting next to the ocean, mewing at it.

Before Leiff could do anything, a massive watery hand unfolded from an ocean wave and swatted him into the sand. The last thing I saw through Leiff’s reforming eyes was the black kitten jumping into the sleigh and its door slamming shut on its own as a watery hand dragged the Arcanicx carriage into the ocean, tearing it off from the broken barge.

By the time my other heroes reached the barge, there was no sign of the sleigh at all.

My mind reeled, struggling to process this latest setback. The kitten - it was Ioan’s familiar. I should have had Bobliss slice that little nasty thing apart, obliterate it into shreds when I had the chance!

Looking forward into the future I saw nothing but darkness and death there. The Ice would come and consume everything I’ve built.

The full weight of my failure crashed down upon me.

The Forgestone was lost. Glinka's anchor stone was beyond my reach too. Callista’s body vanished. My carefully laid plans were unraveling before my eyes. Because of a boy witch who shouldn't even exist, who didn’t even appear properly in my future visions!

I felt my grip on reality beginning to slip. The image of Freyja I projected to my champions began to waver and distort. Golden robes frayed at the edges, revealing glimpses of the void beneath. My laurel crown melted like wax, dripping down my face in grotesque black rivulets.

"My Lady?" Ingvar's concerned voice sounded distant now.

Madness clawed at the edges of my consciousness. I saw visions of the advancing glaciers, of countless souls weeping as they were beset by hunger and swallowed by the relentless ice. The Arcanicx marched from the south, taking all men, their corruption spreading like a plague across the land.

And there I stood, without the Folding stone, powerless to stop any of it as the Arcanicx obliterated my army of hounds and unmade all of my heroes, unmaking Bobliss last.

Looking further ahead, I saw nothing but visions of a frozen wasteland, of cities buried beneath mountains of ice, of the last remnants of humanity huddled in caves, slowly dying out as Endalaus grew bigger and bigger in the sky.

I saw nothing but black storms that ravaged reality, wild magic that unmade the Arcanicx themselves. I saw leviathan abominations, mountain-sized spiders that sucked life and magic from the land until there was no-one left alive on Thornwild.

No-one at all… except for me, because I simply could not die, was doomed to an eternity of loneliness, haunted by my failures.

My form continued to unravel, chunks of my projected self falling away into the swirling void that surrounded me. I babbled incoherently, my words a jumbled mess of prophecies, pleas, and curses.

Some small part of me, still clinging to sanity, noticed Bobliss taking charge.

He spoke firmly to the other champions, his eyes darting worriedly to my disintegrating form. I caught his reassurance that their connection with Christianna Vanadís Freyja was torn away due to the wicked witch’s influence, his other words - "return to your towns," "protect your people," "await further instructions from our Goddess!"

I saw the six heroes reluctantly departing and my connection between them snapped for I didn’t want them to see my despair and madness.

Bobliss stayed, staring at what I had become.

“I failed,” I wept in a multitude of languages and voices as the void poured from me, folding me inside out. “He’s taken it all… everything’s undone, unmade…”

Bobliss… no, Bobric cradled what was left of my projection in his arms. His touch, though it barely reached me in the Astral, provided a small anchor to reality as I spiraled and unraveled and wept in despair.

My words came out as a jumble of languages, past and future blending together in an incomprehensible mess. "Failed... all lost... the ice comes... the Wormwood Star corrupts... humanity ends… leviathans feast on the bones!”

Bobric held me tighter, his form solid against my constantly shifting one. "We haven't lost yet, Christi. I will find Ioan. I will retrieve the Forgestone. Our dream isn't over."

I could barely hear him over the roar of my own fractured mind. Visions of a doomed future flashed before my eyes - endless fields of ice, corrupted, warped beings that were once human roaming the wastes.

"No hope... no future... all for nothing..." I babbled, my form alternating between that of a redhead teen and a void being woven from black roots and rotting flesh, sometimes both at once.

"There is always hope," Bobric insisted, refusing to let me go, refusing to let me sink further into the primordial non-existence of chaos and entropy.

I saw myself as I truly was - a broken thing, a creature of the void pretending to be a goddess. The weight of centuries of manipulation, sacrifice, and ruthless determination came crashing down upon me.

"I'm a monster. A thing of darkness pretending to be the guiding light,” I wailed. “My domain devours all life, poisons the land. Abandon me. Let me go. Let me die!”

All I wished for was death and yet it would not be granted to me, for I was cursed with deathlessness.

"Christi, my love," Bobric said. "I'm here. I won't ever leave you. I’ll never let you go. You haven't failed. You're the savior of humanity. You're the one who will bring us all back from the brink. Remember who you are, what you've sacrificed for our cause."

“Hearken, hearken, O relentless hand of mine! We are devourer of all, the insatiable abyss,” my spectral echo roared. “We are the shadow, the song of Chernobog. My Jotuns shall spread and multiply and gorge upon the marrow of every fleshy thing! The Great Inversion, it looms—inevitable and total, a maelstrom to consume the essence of all that which lives. Seek out Ioan-he! Hunt him down like the pathetic prey he is! Rip the sinews, tear the flesh from his bones, crush his heart! Unmake his familiar-cat-she! Retrieve what they dared to steal from our depths! Obliterate the manling-he and cat-she! UNMAKE THEM IN THE NAME OF CHERNOBOG-SHE!”

Bobric held me close, body enveloping my burning shadow, ignoring my howls. "You've become what you needed to be, my love. What we all needed you to be. Rest now. Let me be your strength. Let me be your eyes. Let me be your hands."

As I sank into the Abyssal Void, folded into his hollow heart, bubbling and howling and cursing Ioan I couldn't shake the feeling that everything I'd worked for, everything I'd sacrificed, had been for naught.

The last thing I heard before the void claimed me whole was Bobric's voice, a quiet promise carried on the Arctic wind: "I will make this right, Christi. I swear it."