Chapter 36: We Are Finally Free

Hello, lovelies! Hope you’re having a great day! Don’t forget that you can buy the official ebooks for “A Dream of Summer Rain” and “Magical Girl Exorcist Squad: Love Thy Enemy” via Itch right now!

https://helena-heissner.itch.io/a-dream-of-summer-rain

https://helena-heissner.itch.io/magical-girl-exorcist-squad

Additionally, I have a whole new series up as well! Be sure to check out the first chapter here, free admission:

https://helenaheissner.substack.com/p/love-during-robot-fighting-time-chapter

***

Thirty Years Ago

Alistair held his infant daughter to his chest as he rested his head in his wife’s lap. She was already pregnant again, and with his ear on her belly he could hear the growing child kicking against the womb. Another fighter. Good.

Morganna sat nearby, entertaining young Arthur with a dangling pair of keys. They all sat by the hearth on the first floor of Castle Albrecht, rebuilt with the generous funds of House Koenig. Outside, snow fell gently across the Alaskan landscape. It was good to be home, good to be with family.

“Have you thought of any names yet?” Caroline said, stroking his hair. The baby girl on his chest pawed playfully at his face, a few months old and still without a name.

“Guinevere,” Alistair said. “And perhaps Tristan for the one yet unborn. May as well keep up the theme naming.”

“I like it,” Caroline said. “Guinevere Albrecht. She has your eyes.”

“They all do,” Alistair said, beaming proudly as his children.

An explosion ruptured beneath them. Guinevere rolled over the side of his chest, and he just barely caught her before she hit the floor. Arthur started crying, while Morganna began glaring at the year-old boy. She was already developing a cruel streak- she reminded him of his own older sister. He would have to take efforts to stamp that out of her- physically, if need be.

But that wasn’t important just now. He handed Guinevere to Caroline, then told his family to stay put while he investigated.

He went out the door, towards the entrance to the dungeon down the hall. He found it a mess of splinters and shrapnel. He summoned forth his Star and it floated downstairs, revealing only an empty dungeon.

Then it shot back up the stairs and launched directly behind him, up the stairs towards the armory. Hanover’s swords- the Midnight Iron blades he’d carried when he was captured. Alistair chased the Star all up three flights, and when he arrived at the steel door, the armory was under attack by a water drill drawn from the falling snow through a shattered window. A tall figure awash with blue Starlight guided it, slicing a passageway through the steel and then kicking the door in.

Alistair bristled, then drew upon his Light to wake the dead. He couldn’t risk killing this man, not when there was still so much to do with him, so much usage he hadn’t fulfilled yet. They still hadn’t found the Dark Lord, even after all these years of searching. Alistair would have to settle for subduing the Chosen One.

Without even looking back, the Chosen One waved his hands and spoke a half-dozen words in Igbo. The water drill fell apart, but a fresh wave of snow melted and launched through the empty window and slammed into Alistair. Gallons and gallons of water rushed into him, pinning him to the ground and stripping him of breath and forcing pressure into his ears.

Then it stopped. The assault ceased, and Bryant Hanover, the Chosen One, loomed over him and put a sword to his throat. He was a tall man with a wild mane of nappy hair that was beginning to gray, and a beard that had lost even more color. His sapphire Star orbited him, his eyes were solid with blue light, and a thin film of Starlight engulfed the rest of his skin. He held two broadswords in hand, black-bladed and golden-hilted, and he had death in his eyes. “Beg. Or perhaps pray,” the Chosen One said. “It won’t save your life, but it might save your soul.”

Alistair froze. He wasn’t strong enough. This man was simply more powerful than him. He had no idea how Hanover escaped, no idea how any of this was happening. And yet it was; all his life’s work, his mission, was about to come to an end. His chest throbbed, and old bruises on his back, ones put there by his father, by his sister, stung as fresh as they had upon delivery.

A fireball the size of a small truck barreled towards the Chosen One from the hallway entrance. He snapped his fingers and snuffed it out.

“Caroline, no!” Alistair called.

“I’m sorry, lover, but this creature needs to be put back in his cage,” Caroline said, drawing closer. Still holding Guinevere in her arms, both Arthur and Morganna close behind. Hanover balked, his expression one of outrage and disgust. Perfect- Caroline was a brilliant woman: she’d known the children would give Hanover pause. “Now step away from my husband.”

Hanover gathered his jaw, and said, “I’m going to go far away now. Pray that you don’t encounter me or these swords ever again.”

And with that, he swung his blade and carved a hole into the skin of reality. He leaped through it, and the portal vanished with him. And Alistair was left on the floor, screaming as his children wept and his wife tried in vain to comfort him.

***

Present Day

The winding path led through a forest of silver bark flecked with shining sparks of violet. The many conifers wore needles of verdant and cerulean, bending forward in the wintry wind like hands gesturing her forward into the alien night. The path snaked through and up into the foothills that gathered around the dip before the rising central crest of the island. She wondered how big this place actually was- it was hard to tell, given that she couldn’t even figure out how long it took to get from the station at the shore to the center. When it was always night and the moon and stars didn’t move, the forward progress of time became something of a dubious notion. That should be how I know this is a dream, Isabella thought. Time is an illusion here, everything is happening all at once and always will be. Nothing means anything.

The trees yielded to a circle of foothills before the dip. The scents of pine and bark and her own wet clothes mixed together inside her nostrils, and she was pulled out of the deepening tunnel inside her mind. Not dreaming. You don’t smell things in dreams. Which means that place before wasn’t a dream either. Where was that? It looked like somewhere near Boston, but it clearly wasn’t. And the Other One? Maybe she’s… Maybe she’s what Lacy could be? A version of her that goes bad? That takes up with the elves and decides to help with the invasion?

Her own gravity sped the descent through the dip. The fox darted past her on her left, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. The fox trotted happily up the hill towards the castle, looking back every few minutes to make sure Isabella kept within eyeshot. See, it does stuff like this, but then the next minute it’s back to acting like a dumb animal. How much of that is legit? How much awareness does it even have of its behavior? Why is it doing any of this fucking shit?

She ascended the hill, and the castle, Lacy called it the Castle of Midnight, stood like the remnants of broken dams stacked on top of each other and reforged into a new structure. She reached for the diamond wolf’s head, and pushed in.

The relief of the heat was immediate and sublime. She needed to warm herself, and to do so without going into shock. She padded through the library, ignoring the fox on the first rung of the spiral staircase, and went into the saltwater hot springs beneath the castle. She stripped off her wet clothes and lowered herself slowly into the warm water; the cold was gently peeled off of her and replaced with a blissful warmth.

Lacy said that the knight in gold, the Chosen One, would wait for her here. She said that in her dreams, she comes here and takes her full power, and she opens the gates to the Elvenlands and leads them to the earth. Then the Knight follows her back and defeats her. But why does the Knight need to start here? Can’t the Knight start on earth and wait for her there? Maybe it’s so I have an opportunity to beat her here, or to do something to stop her before she can bring the invasion to the earth. Or maybe I wasn’t supposed to get World-Carver as early as I did. Maybe I was supposed to wait for her here.

When her fingers felt normal again, she walked back up the stone stairs naked and greeted the castle as such. She stalked up the stairs, past the fox, until she reached the fourth floor and found her old room in exactly the same state as when she’d left. The hormones had changed her shape in the intervening years, but the clothes in the wardrobe still fit. She selected a long, slinky skirt of golden yellow, black leggings, a white blouse, and a fur coat that looked like something she’d seen wealthy socialites wear in old movies. She did her hair with the brush on the mantle, and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t hate her reflection the way she used to, but she still wasn’t its biggest fan. “You always knew this would happen,” she said to her reflection. “You didn’t complete your mission, and so this place took you back. He took you back.”

The fox’s footsteps heralded its arrival, and it had a piece of paper in its mouth. It deposited the slip at her feet, and the paper read, When the snowfall ceases for the morning, meet me on the roof so that we may converse.

She crumpled the paper in her hands, the coarse texture sliding over her calloused skin. She sat cold and quiet at the vanity, applying makeup, tongues of flame whispering from the hearth. She stared out the window and waited, barely feeling her body outside the agony in her chest.

The snow slowed, and then finally, it stopped. There was a morning here after all.

She sheathed World-Carver, attached the scabbard to her side, and headed for the roof. She trawled up the spiral stairs, and when she reached the top, a giant was waiting for her.

He stood over ten feet tall, with skin as white as milk and smooth as an ocean unspooled by doldrums. His face was an inverted oval, sharpened into a steep edge at the chin, framed by a curtain of straight-falling black hair. His ears were even sharper than his chin, and utterly massive. His eyes were the same as always: black sclera, with brown irises and white pupils. He was a lean, tight creature, long and proportionate. He wore a wolf’s pelt around his chest, from a canine that must have been the size of a small car: the white fur blended perfectly into the snowy landscape behind him, like he wore the maw of winter itself around his shoulders. No, no it was more than that: he was the winter itself, coalescing between the sky and the ground, taking shape as a single entity barely contained in his massive frame. Deer antlers erupted from his forehead, sharp at every edge and corner and glowing white. “Hello,” the Elf-King said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Isabella Ramirez.”

Isabella drew World-Carver, steadied her stance and planted her feet. It was an extension of herself, through which the icey rage of the Pale flowed electrically.

The Elf-King held his hands up, flat-palmed. “I didn’t bring my sword. You wouldn’t attack an unarmed man, would you?”

Isabella’s eyebrow twitched, and she pulled back her sword for a tight swing. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Whyever wouldn’t you?” The Elf-King reached inside his fur coat.

Isabella pivoted out of the swinging stance and instead thrust with World-Carver.

The Elf-King shifted, dodged the strike, and retrieved a thermos and two porcelain mugs from his inner pocket. “Would you like some coffee? I brewed it myself, infused with mocha and just a pinch of sea salt. It’s still hot, if that helps at all.”

Isabella lowered her sword and blinked rapidly, attempting to parse the information she’d been presented with. “I know better than to accept food from the Fae.”

“The Fae?” the Elf-King said, struggling to swallow a swell of raucous laughter, “Isabella Ramirez, when the Fae first awakened on your earth, I was already a grown man. They are younger siblings- no, not even that- they’re infant cousins to me and mine, several generations removed. They’re dwarves to us. They are of your earth, and I am of the Elvenlands.”

“The Elven Lands?”

“Elvenlands. All one word. Like Newfoundland.”

“How- never mind. So what is this place, anyway? Your vacation house?”

“No. I don’t come here very often. I was born here, however. I remember it from the halcyon days of my youth. But now I see only painful memories and empty promises, and the destruction of my family’s legacy. My parents helped build this castle, you know.”

The mass of the structure beneath her feet, the depths to which it plunged and the heights to which it once rose, echoed in Isabella’s mind. “What happened to it then?”

“We were struck down for our hubris and insanity.” The Elf-King poured piping hot coffee into his red porcelain mug which was inscribed with the words ‘Father of the Millenium.’ Isabella balked. “You like it? One of my daughters made it for me.”

Isabella wrinkled her nose.

“I have many children, and their many, many children are my family. But on earth, only one remains: Lacy O’Sullivan. The gentlest of all my daughters.”

“She’d disagree with that.”

“Which part?”

“BOTH!”

“How do you know that? You don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

“You’ve never even met her!”

“Not as such. But I’ve seen her, in the light and in the dark. I know her heart.”

“No you don’t.”

“Why are you so quick to defend her?”

“Because you can’t force her to do anything- you can’t get her to end the world for you.”

“Yes, I’m well-aware of that. That she would take my side was always something of an outside chance. She’s been kicked by her own family too many times to ever consider trusting me. That's why I sent you after her.”

She assumed a fighting stance and swung World-Carver at the Elf-King’s neck.

For a second, the Elf-King simply… Ceased to be. By the time she’d finished her swing, he’d reappeared. It was as if she’d hacked through empty air, and only afterwards was that air filled. Isabella held the sword at the end of its arc, panting heavily, staring wide-eyed at the king as her destructive momentum threatened to drag her over the edge.

“A valiant attempt,” the Elf-King smiled.

Isabella swung again, to identical effect. And again. And again. And again.

“Watch your balance. There’s black ice on the ground. You don’t want to fall and break your neck.”

Isabella screamed and plunged the sword directly forward. The Elf-King performed his vanishing act again, and Isabella stumbled forward and toppled over the edge of the spire.

A massive hand gripped the train of her skirt, yanked her back up like a puppy held by the scruff in its mother’s teeth, and gently placed her back onto the snow-ridden floor.

Isabella’s gulped, attempting to swallow her fear and confusion and anxiety. Her teeth chattered as snowflakes melted on her face and the water soaked into her clothes. “Why did you- why did you save me?”
“Because it would be rather anticlimactic if you were to die right now,” the Elf-King said. “And that would upset me. Are you sure you wouldn’t like any coffee? I have sugar and artificial sweetener, if you’re concerned about the bitterness.”

“What is it that you want?” Isabella asked, dusting herself off and re-sheathing World-Carver.

“I already told you that.”

“No, I don’t mean your long-term plans. I mean short-term. Immediate. Why are you here right now? Why am I here? Why did you bring me here?”

The Elf-King cocked a massive black eyebrow. “To reprimand you for your failure. You had a mission. You knew the consequences of failure. And so I brought you back here. Took considerable effort, but here we are.”

“Why me? Why choose me for this in the first place? Why me, of all fucking people!?”

“In truth? Because you were already here.”

“... What?”

“You weren’t originally brought here by me. For whatever reason, you fell into the Pale. For whatever reason, the Pale made a claim on you. You are connected to this place, by some mysterious design. If I could pry the information out of that damnable fox, I would, but I cannot. I can simply… Pull on the thread. Drag you here. Keep you here. For as long as I want, until you give me what I want.”

“But why do you want it?! It doesn’t make any sense- why do you want me to kill Lacy!? You need her! Did you want me to fail?” Isabella’s eyes went wide and her arms went limp as the realization shot through her mind. “Oh God, you did, didn’t you? You wanted me to die provoking her, to push her towards you because she thinks she can’t trust anyone.”

“That was a desirable outcome, yes, though not the only one.”

“What are you… What do you mean by that?”

“If Lacy were to die, then the power of her Star would die with her. Unless, of course, her corpse were devoured. Perhaps by a certain King of the Ghouls, who wants the power for himself so that he might weaken the boundaries between worlds. Something about saving magic, I believe.”

“You… You’re on Alistair’s side,” Isabella said, the gears falling into place in her mind.

The Elf-King smirked. “I wouldn’t go quite that far. He’s certainly not on my side, after all. But his goal, and my goal… They are, at this moment, somewhat compatible. Especially with the Chosen One missing in action. Sometimes I regret helping him break out of that cage in Castle Albrecht- I feel it may have done more harm than good long term. But I digress. Now, if Alistair Albrecht were to weaken the barriers, it might just be enough for my forces to break through. And if he were to win Lacy to his side, well, that works too- the same end goal would still be reached. I doubt he’ll manage that, but his efforts of late have given me some hope.”

“No, no there’s no way-”

“She’s breaking. Like the glass that surrounds the worlds. Perhaps I will have another daughter to call my own. But it is no thanks to you, when you were too cowardly to perform or even attempt to perform a very simple task. Now I’m going to leave you here to rot. Enjoy oblivion, Isabella Ramirez.”

And then he was gone, dissolved into the darkness. Isabella dropped to her knees and stared up at the moons, and snow began to fall once more.