One could come to the conclusion that someone is having a particularly heinous argument on the dance floor if it wasn’t for the fact that so many people are screaming.

And it isn’t a simple rising of the voice either.

Trivask’s heart beats painfully against her ribs as agonizing screeches are pulled from the depths of once delighted souls. The building trembles, barely withstanding the waves of despair writhing from those trapped within its walls.

Now frantic, Trivask pushes through the balcony door and witnesses firsthand what the formal has turned into. “It’s a massacre.” From the shadows offered by the corner, Trivask’s eyes travel through the room. The freshly waxed dance floor has been coated with a healthy layer of blood. The west wall hosts a hole three men wide and two men tall.

The room has been darkened with shadows. She immediately reaches between her legs, no longer caring for modesty, and pulls the dagger attached to her thigh strap out.

“Someone, ple-” The words turn into gurgles. Trivask stares as a woman that once wore a pale blue dress is torn straight down the middle of her body. Her eyes, try as they might, can’t find the culprit.

The candles had been blown out, and no gas lamps are to be seen. It’s too dark for her to make out facial features, but even so, Trivask can hear all of the horrors that are being committed in the dark.

The sound of flesh parting, the muffled screams of people being trampled to death, the panicked panting of persons that have no idea which way to run. The sounds bounce around in her head, almost overwhelming all of her other senses. Her neck heats, shocking her into action. Grabbing the arm of a man desperate to escape the carnage, Trivask yells, “Where is the Lord?!” He pulls, his shoes slipping against the floor.

The man’s head shakes as he screams back, “I-I don’t know. Let me go!” She tsks as she drops the man’s arm and moves onto the next person, her shoes sliding in puddles of blood. The servant begs that she let him go as well, but she has to find Alijah.

For some reason, she can no longer feel his presence. It’s like he’s unconscious… dead to her. “The Lord! Where is he?!” She receives no valuable information on this attempt or the next. But eventually, one of the screaming patrons finally manages to tell her something useful.

Alijah had stepped out moments before the side of the building fell in. He went to discuss business with a woman clad in green finery and with hair the color of rubies. She lets out a breath she was holding and decides that since her Lord is in no immediate danger, it might be good for her to at least attempt to save some parts of his manor.

Trivask shifts, her body momentarily coating itself completely in mist before the sleek black creature emerges. With the change comes the ability to see the absolute bloodbath laid out before her. She watches as the leg of a man is torn clean off by what seems to be an invisible foe.

People are dying all around her, but with no opponent in sight, Trivask isn’t sure what to do. So she prowls low to the ground, moving around leaking corpses and sliding through puddles of bodily fluids, her nose burning all the while.

It doesn’t take long for her to spot someone that she recognizes. Backed into a corner, Regon crouches with a small dagger in hand. His face and legs are covered in blood, his pants legs torn, but he stands strong. Trivask goes to him.

The man kicks out at her as she licks his wounds, immediately assuming that she is the enemy. It takes mere seconds, but the full picture comes to her soon enough. The man swipes at her, but she dodges as pictures flash in her head. During a waltz, the west side of the room was blown to bits. Stone and crystal and screams chucked about.

The explosion resulted in all of the lights blowing out and chaos ensued. From what she can gleam of his memories, Regon believes the people killing everyone are shadow walkers. That means she’ll be of no use in this form.

Trivask shifts, her body growing in height and her muscles growing in strength. She’s never encountered creatures with the ability to control shadows, so she has no clue what their target range is. “Do you know anything about shadow walkers?” The ground shakes beneath her feet, as someone screams for their mother.

“Trivask?” Regon turns toward her voice, still not able to fully see her. She tsks, lunging for his head. Trivask presses her fingers into his temples to keep him from moving as she spits into his eyes. “Wh-” Regon blinks. She knows he can see her clearly now.

“Focus! What do you know about the enemy?” He blinks again, looking down to his hands. She’s tempted to hit him, if only to get through to the man. This isn’t a situation in which wasting seconds is optional.

“Uh- um-” He swallows. Then something hits him. “They have to be here.” Regon stands up taller. “They have to be in the ballroom, within the shadows. They have to stand in the shadows they control.”

She nods. This is actually good information. She believes that they won’t move from their hiding places until everyone is dead. “We have to light up the room. Regon, find the kitchens. There should be matches in there. Go!” He stares at her, his eyes wide. “Go now!”

“O-okay!” He drops low, skirting around bodies as he travels to the exit that no one else seems to see.

That’s when she understands what the intruders have done. She looks to where the arches of the ballroom are. “They can’t see it…” She waves her hands over her eyes, changing them back to normal.

Where the arches once stood, tall and proud, is a solid black wall. She swallows. Such power…

I have to have it.

The screams have lessened considerably, and Trivask is almost under the impression that nearly everyone has been killed. If she’s being honest, she doesn’t truly care of the lives lost here, so long as Alijah has made it out alive.

“ Ahhh! Nooo! ”

Her head snaps to the left. That sounds like- “Liontha!” She waves her hand over her eyes again and rubs her ears. Trivask runs from the safety of her wall, her eyes darting this way and that way as she desperately searches for her Little Lion. “Liontha! Where are you?!”

She slips, her body falling over a warm corpse. Her fingers wrap around the puffy tulle of an over-sized dress as she pulls herself forward. “Trinny !” She sees movement not ten feet from her.

A small body wrapped in a tiny pink dress is being pulled across the dance floor, her little hands begging for something to hold onto.

Trivask pushes herself up, her bare feet just barely planted on the ground. She runs for the girl as the shadows rush to claim her. The woman slides, slight friction burning her skin. Her arms wrap securely around the child as they collide. Together they tumble across the floor, just barely making it out of the path of a rampant wisp of darkness.

Liontha shivers in Trivask’s arms, and it takes all of Trivask’s willpower not to lash out when she sees blood staining the poor child’s golden hair.

Just as she begins to whisper to the girl that all will be okay, the air around her shifts. The smell of sulfur fills her nose. The space by her feet grows dark.

Liontha cries out, her body rumbling with fear that can hardly be contained.

Trivask’s eyes trail up, only to find that pesky spear of darkness hovering over them. It raises like a cobra preparing to strike. She looks around. If they run, the darkness will follow. “Close your eyes,” Trivask instructs the girl, her breath deepening. “Do as I say!” Liontha does with soft sobs falling from between her lips.

The woman rolls so that the child lays beneath her just as the shadow strikes. Her back arches as her muscles loosen, and her breath stops as the darkness travels through her flesh.

Blood, molten and runny falls from her stomach, its heat nearly burning the child beneath her. Trivask blinks, pushing the shadows from her eyes. She can’t feel her legs anymore. The darkness within her raises, lifting her body an inch off of the ground.

The woman pulls her weight down, attempting to make herself heavier. With lips that barely move, Trivask whispers, “I need you to run.” Liontha whimpers as the shadow curls around the woman’s draining abdomen. Trivask’s hands shudder when she touches the girl’s chin. It’s been painted in red. Screams fill her head with nonsense, and that pesky darkness threatens to overwhelm the rest of her senses.

“Listen to me Little Lion. Run for the exit. That’s all you have to do to save me.” The shadow tightens its grip on her. Trivask spits, the liquid landing solidly in the little girl’s eyes. Liontha screams, her hands rushing to her face.

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No longer able to hold herself down, the darkness snatches Trivask’s body up with a final harrowing, “Run!” bursting from her mouth.

Vision filled with nothing but the dark and body wracking with agony, Trivask is thrown into the air. The shadows whisk out, catching her leg. She’s a mouse held by its tail.

The woman grunts as the blood from her wound trails down her body, the hot liquid pooling at her chin only to fall over like a splash of water. The thing twists around her body, constricting, it’s a snake that’s about to strike.

Her temples pound, the skin on her head and neck heating to unbearable temperatures. Trivask’s nails lengthen and harden as she attempts to gain hold of the gaseous creature holding her captive.

Talons fall through the monster and dig into her own skin, carving rivers up her neck.

She doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be able to hold on. Her eyes open, but her left has been blinded by the onslaught of running blood sliding down her face and into her hair. Still she looks, her vision tunneling towards where she knows the ballroom arches to be.

But she can’t see.

A whimper falls from between her bruised lips as the shadow decides that it’s had enough of her. In one fell swoop, Trivask is thrown, her back cracking against the floor beneath her.

The woman coughs, nasty and wet, into her hand. The outside of her has become more liquid than solid. She swallows, as a chill begins to work its way up, starting at the tips of her numb toes.

“No… ” A groan forces itself out of her as she rolls onto her stomach. The chill reaches her knees. “No… Not yet.” Trivask is still hoping that by some miracle, Regon will return. He’ll have a lit torch wrapped between his hands. The man will yell out for her, then he will throw the torch and set the room ablaze, lighting up every foul enemy that would dare come into her home.

And then she will handle her business the right way.

Trivask shivers, her shoulders freezing.

Unfortunately for her, this is not a faerietale. Regon is either dead or in a situation that will ultimately lead to death, and Trivask isn’t far behind.

Her teeth chatter as her neck goes stiff.

Unable to see, Trivask doesn’t realize that the shadows have returned until they’ve settled over her convulsing form. The darkness weighs heavy on her, its shapeless mass sinking into her mouth and covering her nose.

She thrashes, yet her body is too stiff to contend with the blankets over her.

Her nose burns.

Surrounded by darkness, covered in blood, and shivering so hard her teeth feel like they’re about to knock loose, Trivask tries to hold herself together.

She tries to wait for the light to find her.

But it isn’t coming.

And if it wasn’t for the prepubescent roaring that bounced throughout the ballroom at that exact second, Trivask would have forced herself still until she suffocated.

But the signal from a Little Lion came, and she could finally find sweet unbridled release.

Light, pure as freshly fallen snow and cold as ice pours from her wounds, slashing through the bed of darkness suffocating her.

From her stomach, fluid rays of blue light cascade, pooling underneath her broken mortal body. Trivask finds the strength to dig her fingers into her gaping wound, ripping what remains of her flesh off chunk by chunk.

Screams tear from her body as the light expands. It leaks all over the floor, spreading like spilled milk. The light overtakes the bodies littering the ground, freezing them solid then vaporizing the hardened masses.

Trivask rises from her body, shining brighter than any star that’s stared into this realm. The shadows hiss the moment they come into contact with her light, pulling back like scolded hands.

Soon enough, all that can be seen is whiteness, so void and expansive that the daemons lurking in the corners fall to their knees, madness ready to wreck their souls and create soup with what remains.

Trivask moves, traveling to the first intruder that she sees. The man, now small and shivering beneath her cold brightness, places his head to the ground, lies ready to shoot from him.

But before he can beg her to spare him, Trivask moves, her light becoming razor thin as it travels down his mouth and into the very dark and foul pit of a man.

She fills him so deeply that he bursts, his insides becoming outsides.

Trivask seeks out the next shadow walker, and the next, and the next, until only one remains.

The woman, clad in black leather from head to toe, kneels before the celestial creature, her eyes nothing but blackened pits. “You will do,” A voice none would recognize as Trivask’s own, calls out from the crackling shapeless mass of energy.

The light dims, taking with it the deadly chill.

If there were anyone left to see her, they would likely call upon their gods to answer their questions. What creature could do this kind of damage? What creature could survive death?

As Trivask stands before the daemon, fingers grasping its chin tightly, she feels these questions swarming within it. Her anger rises, thumping against her now mortal flesh. Lips peeling back, she hisses, “You come into my home-”

Trivask kneels before the blind daemon as it whimpers in her arms, just as Liontha had. “You tear down my walls-” She leans in, her nostrils flaring at the nauseatingly sweet smell of fear and blood and death.

“You wound my vessel-” Her nails lengthen to deadly points, digging into skin and drawing blood. “Yet you have to audacity to sit before me like a wounded pup.” She draws back, taking a subtle lick of the blood now caking underneath her nails.

There’s a strange lack of awareness in this creature. It knows nothing of who’s manor this is, it knows nothing of why this attack was planned. It knows nothing. “Please…”

Trivask has heard enough lies to last her a millennium. “You’ve cost me everything!” She stands, taking the woman with her. Eyes darkening and pulse steadying, she roars, “Now you give me something in return!”

In a single swift yet brutal motion, Trivask strips the daemon of its head. She twists, stretching until the skin and muscles at the neck tear. Blood arches around her, spurting as she drops the body.

It doesn’t take long for her to open its head.

And it takes even less time for her to rip everything out of it, and devour the very soul within.

The bottoms of her feet slap against the thawing ice beneath her. Her breath is staggered as she leans against what remains of the crumbling walls. Body heavy like lead, she stalks towards the arches that are now visible to the naked eye.

Her knees creek and her hips pop with every step.

With nothing to cover her but frost and blood, she drops to the ground. Steps, light and unhurried, approach her body. “You did good, my gem.” Trivask gives a lazy smile as her Lord leans down, laying a heavy cloak over her body just before he sweeps her up.

“Very good indeed.”

Together they travel into the darkest depths of the manor so that Trivask may be treated and rewarded for the efforts she displayed tonight.