Solana’s first thought upon waking up was to claw through Maude’s stomach and tear it out of her face. Her second thought was to wonder why the Empress was looking at her with an inscrutable expression on her face. Her third thought was to wonder why the Empress was standing behind Maude, waiting for her to wake up.

But she didn’t do either of them.

Instead the moment she felt the paralysis dissipate, she became a blur. The next moment, she had the Outsider smashed against the wall on the opposite side, her hand clawing around his throat. It didn’t matter that the others were already preparing to throw power at her. She’d survive. She always did. But now, she needed to kill this loud-mouthed bastard for trying to corrupt her pure devotion to her vaulted Mistress. She clenched her clawed fingers slowly around his throat, wanting to see the desperation growing in his eyes as he—

Solana froze.

Those eyes. There was no desperation in them. Anger, rage, fury, focus, annoyance, yes, but there was also patience and a cold calm. They weren’t the eyes of someone that had been outplayed and seen their friend perish inside her very body only for someone else to take her place. They weren’t the eyes of someone stripped of all hope and options, or ones of a person that was still fighting against fate with all their might.

Solana didn’t like that look. But she shouldn’t dally. Outsider or not, his neck was in her grasp. Just one twist and he’d die. No amount of lifeforce or mana would reattach a torn head back. It didn’t matter what Maude could do to her now, or what new bizarre power the blasted man could pull out of his sleeve. For she had him.

She had him! She had him! She had him. She had him. She had him! So why? Why was she suddenly filled with terror as if she was the one that had been cornered?

“What did you do, Outsider?”

Brown eyes looked at her. Brown eyes were flecks of green in them. It was only then that she discovered that no matter how much she clenched, she had yet to feel his skin on hers. Like there was an infinitely thin layer of something that maintained a firm boundary between her palm and his neck.

“You aren’t very good at this, are you?” He asked.

Was it instinct? Maybe her paranoia enhanced her senses. Or maybe she had just been plain lucky. All she knew was that her body moved before she realized something was wrong.

And then her chest exploded with shards of crimson.

…

…

…

“Stupid woman never bothered to wonder why her Boss was standing next to her enemy in the first place.” She heard the Empress say.

Solana blearily opened her eyes, only to find herself on the floor, with that accursed metal entwined around her waist. Just like during the Anomaly Guardian’s attack on her territory earlier, the accursed metal was draining every bit of mana she was able to conjure. No, no that wasn’t it. It was like it was preventing her from conjuring mana in the first place.

This… this was impossible!

She glanced at her sides, and found her hands extended out, with boulder-sized daggers of Everfrost impaled through her palms and her legs into the floor, trapping her completely. Any amount of lifeforce she’d conjure would be instantly gobbled up by the frost shard. Without lifeforce and mana, she was completely at their mercy.

And in front of her, standing with an odd gleam on his face, was Lukas Aguilar.

Solana glared at him, turning around to see Maude sitting to her right on a stone pedestal. Her Empress— she looked around, but found her nowhere. Had she deserted her because she was so weak? Was this her punishment? Had she—”URK!”

Raw agony tore through her right breast as another shard of crimson exploded out of it.

And then her Empress— no, Tanya walked from behind her and stood next to the Outsider. What was happening? Why had the Empress morphed herself to look like the girl? Solana couldn’t even imagine a situation where the Outsider could have made the Empress accept defeat. It was such a hilariously impossible outcome that it wasn’t funny.

“My Queen,” she gushed, purple blood dripping from her mouth. “Why are you—”

“I’m not your Empress, you stupid bint!” yelled Tanya. “I’m Tanya, the one you tricked and almost killed because of your delusions.”

“Tanya!” Solana gasped, gobsmacked. “But—”

Before she could finish that sentence, Tanya strode up to her, and grasped her chin tightly. The hatred in her eyes reminded her of a blizzard. No matter what she did, she was unable to get away from her death-grip, her fingers as cold as ice, reminding her of the master she served.

“Look into my eyes, bitch.”

Solana recoiled. Trapped and unable to use her powers, she could only try to hold herself as a whirling sensation took over her existence, and she found herself dragged into a vicious maelstrom that wanted to pull her inwards. She tried to resist but the pressure was too great, too intense. A nauseating confusion filled her mind and then —

Light inundated her world.

…

…

…

She woke up in fright.

That— that couldn’t have been true, could it? She had just seen things from the girl’s perspective, trapped in that world of darkness, staring outside through Tanya’s eyes, watching herself talk to Lukas Aguilar, while the Empress maintained her silence. Just as she remembered, she had viciously attacked the Outsider to keep his trouble-stirring mouth from speaking any further black lies only for the traitor to paralyze her with her wicked abilities. And then…

And then…

“That… that can’t be right,” she croaked.

She looked up and met Aguilar’s eyes. He stared back at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. She gritted her teeth, marshaling her own thoughts and defenses. “That can’t be right, you hear me?”

“Give up, Solana,” said Aguilar. There was no glint of victory in his tone, no malevolence, no determination, just an abject finality that carried a weight with it. That weight strained gravity, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t just ignore it. She tried bolstering her psionic defenses, but nothing happened. How was he doing this? Surely those weren’t her own thoughts? Surely this was an illusion, a psionic trap, surely…

“This is no trap, Solana,” said Lukas. “This is what happened. You rejecting it will not make it untrue.”

“But— but if —”

“The first time we conversed about the Legend, you told me three things, three signs that would help identify the Key. And you were right. I am the Key. Neither Asukan nor Yokai, but I hold power over both. I was the one that bound Tanya’s Everfrost, and in doing so, became the fulcrum for your plans. Me bringing Tanya here with me, you ensnaring her with your tales and promises and backstabbing her to bring back Queen Meynte, and all of that has now led to one ultimate conclusion.”

He took a step forward. “Tell me, What is it? What is that your vaunted Queen feared so much and yet, brought about by her own actions?”

Solana swallowed. “She unleashed Fimbulwinter.”

“Partly,” Tanya spat.

“Partly or not,” Lukas added, “she held the door open, and some of it came through. The corruption won’t go back. The bell won’t be unrung. I don’t know when or how, but Fimbulwinter will prevail, and when it does….”

“The end of the world,” Solana muttered.

“The world,” said Lukas, anger lacing his tone. “Not the Asukans. Not the yokai. The World. Every. Single. Thing. And it will all be your fault.”

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“But—” Solana tried. She had no words to say. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Queen was supposed to be the savior. She’d command our legion, and we would bring Oumagatoki upon the Asukans under the light of the Black Moon. You— you weren’t supposed to get the girl back!” She tried to pull away from her restraints and shook her head like a maniac. “You weren’t supposed to get the girl back!”

He sneered. “If you want to blame somebody, blame it on yourself. You chose to tell me the prophecy. You chose to trick me into getting Tanya there. You chose to fool her and use her as Meynte’s vessel. You chose to believe in your Queen’s crap despite me asking you to question things for yourself. You, Solana, you’re the reason why Maude took my side. Tanya has always run from her Asukan heritage. All she was looking for was some acceptance. When you told her about her yokai heritage, she got a closure that she had never found before. Had you told her the truth, had you not tricked her, you’d have gotten a yuki-onna that could very well become the next Glacier Queen. You fool, so long as I was beside her, Everfrost would have remained sealed away, unable to penetrate the barrier. You’d have gotten Meynte’s descendant and wielder of Ezzeron under your thumb. And I would have helped her.”

He spat in anger. “Instead look at what you did. That girl who could be your Champion, now hates you more than she ever did her monster of a grandfather. That girl who had always placed her heritage as worth more than her life, now wants nothing to do with it. I literally had to talk her out of killing you in the most agonizing ways. In your greed, in your lying, you’ve spurned your future, and it is all on you.”

Solana had enough.

“Sentimental tripe!” she sneered back, surprising the Outsider and the others. She might be the one captured, but she’d be damned if she had to listen to that tripe for a second longer. “Tricks? Betrayal? Promises? I told you before, Outsider. Yours is a child’s daydream compared to my commitment. For six hundred years I have followed this path, through every treacherous bend and twist, through every temptation to walk away. Friend, foe or family, there is none that’s more significant than my dream, and none so sacred that I will not violate to achieve it. So what if the Queen lied to me? She would have been an infinitely better candidate to fulfill our aspirations. She’d lead us yokai into a new age. She’d make us dominant again.”

“And what of me?” Tanya spat. “What did I do to deserve that?”

Solana shook her head and let out a low and quiet laugh. Then she looked up at the girl, contempt in her tone. “Deserve?” She threw her head back and cackled. “You think you get what you deserve? You think the yokai deserved to lose everything, hiding underneath this vast desert when we could have had the whole world?”

She all but purred. “Look at you, standing there, being all self-righteous about it. Crying like a baby at being deceived by someone you didn’t know. That Outsider saved you your rationality, protected you like a guard and was ready to fight me to keep you from destroying yourself. And what did you do, little girl? You trampled over his help and sat on the throne. That power that stems within you has a purpose. A purpose so far beyond your pathetic lives that you cannot even fathom it. And what would you have done with it? Hide it? Run away from it? Stuck to living the life of a fugitive or worse, a commoner?”

The girl flinched.

It made her smile.

“No. I couldn’t let that happen. Everfrost belongs to us. It belongs to the Queen of the End. And that is what I did. You are a weakling in mind and spirit. You could have sacrificed yourself for the yokai’s grand destiny, and let the Empress march in your stead. You’d have been glorified. Instead you chose to be a selfish little brat. Look at you, impaling me with your frost, trying to play the torturer when all you want is to hide under a rock and shut your eyes and cry.”

The stupid little girl took several steps back. She was shaking horribly. Afraid. Vulnerable.

Just a little more and she’d break.

Solana turned to Lukas with a hungry shark-like smile. “You may have survived with your friend intact, Aguilar. You might even escape this day. But make no mistake, I cannot be killed. No matter what you do, I shall rise again and again and again and again until my vow to my kind remains unfulfilled. You might have thwarted the Empress this time, but I will find another. Someone that will become her vessel and return the Glacier Queen to this world. And when that happens, Aguilar, you will only wish you were dead.”

The Outsider didn’t clench his fists, didn’t grit his teeth. He didn’t even look angry.

Instead he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a crystal shard.

“Isn’t that—” Tanya began, her surprise evident.

“Featherglass,” said Lukas. “Eighty-one percent pure. Combined with seven point three percent vatuatil and around twelve percent trugaphene for stability. Excellent storage medium for spiritual and psychic information.”

And then he threw the shard on the floor. It shattered upon contact.

Solana stared at the shattered remains blankly. What was he trying to pull off? Another deception? Weariness and uncertainty began to flood her mind and heart, and she hated herself for it.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Oh that,” he answered in exaggeration. “That was me making your task a little lighter. You won’t have to carry on your shoulders anymore. You see, back in my world, we have a saying. When you build in silence, they won’t know what to attack. You got too carried away reacting to my words, never caring for why I had shifted from fighting your Empress to trying to convince you in the first place.”

An unsettling pit formed in her stomach.

“I admit, you did a wonderful job with the throne. A nigh indestructible piece of furniture is a perfect way to deceive someone. Destroy the throne, and Meynte’s memories would be gone forever. It took me some time to see through the lattices you built. Amazingly done, by the way. I’d probably have to bring this entire place down before I could get down to the real memory-storage facility.”

A shiver ran down her spine. He— he couldn’t have possibly —

“It was a perfect ploy. An indestructible throne that would appear as Meynte’s true abode, given how she possessed Tanya after she sat on it. A word of warning, never underestimate svartalfars. They can sense the composition way deeper than you think. They’d know what substances are part of it, and if any of them are memory-carriers.”

“What. Did. You. Do?” she growled.

“Oh,” he taunted. “You still didn’t get it, did you? I couldn’t get to the original memory-storage, so I crafted a new one. Crafted out of featherglass shards. Eighty-one percent pure. And when your dearest Empress deserted Tanya’s body, she didn’t return to the original storage. She returned to…”

Her eyes bulged out, her heart beating valiantly as she slowly looked down, at the shattered shards of featherglass lying on the floor. That— that was her Empress? The last chance for the yokai was… gone? She felt herself start to scream, but she grabbed onto it and coldly choked it to death. The pain rose in her, and she embraced it. Welcomed it. She watched the futures she had hoped slowly perish before her eyes. She let the pain burn away everything nonessential.

When she opened her eyes again, and looked up, the world had gone grayscale.

Except for the Outsider.

Lukas Aguilar was bathed in the color of blood.

For he would die.

Horribly.

Horribly.

The girl realized what was happening. She heard the brat try to warn the Outsider, who just watched her with his cocky smile.

He’d die.

He’d die horribly.

And she’d drink his blood, wear his skin and then kill the brat herself. No, not kill. She’d destroy her mind and turn her into a mindless slave that would unleash Everfrost into this world and —

“Tanya has Meynte’s skills.”

Solana blinked. His cold, rational tone felt like ice-cold water in her burning heart. It took her a moment to register his words, and another to actually comprehend the implications. She glanced at Tanya, who looked utterly unsure, and then back to the Outsider. “She… what?”

“Tanya has Meynte’s skills,” Lukas repeated. “Granted, not all of them. But some of them. Her ability to use the Haze. Her command over the Frost. Tanya isn’t Meynte, but the possession has definitely shortened the distance between them. So long as I am holding Everfrost back, Tanya has the chance to go to Niflheim, past the maelstrom of Hvergelmir and Ascend using Fimbulwinter. That which your Empress failed to achieve, Tanya can, with my help. And yours.”

“....Mine?” She croaked.

The Outsider crouched down to her eye-level. “I told you. She has the skills. Or at least, some of it. If you train Tanya in manipulating the Haze, if you help me help her get to Niflheim and Ascend, then your race, the yokai, still has a chance. And so will this world.”

“You…” Solana growled. “You think after all this I will—”

“I think that after all your betrayals, I am still willing to give you a chance, because I am a big believer in dealing with issues through conversation. Believe me, I’m a very rational person, until the moment where I am not. I think you’ve seen what happens when the latter comes to pass.”

He practically hissed the last sentence out.

“... I do.”

“Good,” he purred. “The way I look at it, you have two options. The first is of course, you swear a vow on your life to hunt me down and try to kill me in horrible and excruciating ways, even if it costs you your life. It will yield nothing except fueling your petty vengeance, and will most definitely end you six feet under the ground, and that’s if I’m feeling generous. The other option is that you accept my offer, help Tanya master her powers and aid her in every possible way to Ascend and take your beloved Queen’s place. This way your poor, ill-treated yokai race gets a fresh chance.”

He gave her a predatory grin. “So tell me, Solana, what will you choose?”