NOVEL NEXT Chapter 166 - Demoness in Pain II: I Want...
"Astoria?!" Auron threatened to lower his pistols, as confused as he was scared. "Something is wrong with her!"
"Silverthorn…" the blood elf called, unable to come to terms with the woman's abnormal behavior. So much confusion that even his bloody sword began to blend with the feeling of defeat felt by Astoria's greatsword, descending until it grazed the ashes on the ground and burned them even more. "What happened?"
Dozens of theories ran through Tristessa's head regarding Margules: her diabolical nature, her religious love story with the Angel of Rebirth depicted in Lucahn's book, her transcendental relationship with pain and lust. None of these theories had been previously analyzed or reasoned with the use of her [Divinity of the Dark Room], never having considered Endrel or Margules as variables in that deadly game of shadows.
A fatal, beginner's mistake that could lead to the death of them all.
"Touched by my mother's love, your Queen now belongs to me." The Dullahan walked past the silver-haired crestfallen woman. Steadily, aware that she was no longer a threat in this state of emotional surrender. Confirming that it was not in her nature to eliminate those who weren't an obstacle between her and her goal. "An essential piece on the board, sacrificed in vain… Can you defeat me without her? Will the coin fall in my favor again?"
She said this with anger, a coldness worthy of the frostbite she spread over the ashes when she stepped on them. She ignored the presence of those two men as if they posed no danger to her… A decision with a certain logic behind it, having fought them in previous loops and never tasted defeat.
"Don't you dare, you…!"
"Firan!"
Before Auron could unleash a new rain of bullets, Severus conjured a fireball that struck the dark knightess' back; the shadows that made up her cloak fought against the flames, and she groaned in fresh pain. He didn't even wait for his enemy to turn around and rushed toward her to clash swords, just as he had at the end of that failed loop.
That doomed past where everyone Tristessa cared about met the worst possible end.
"I don't sense any dark thaumaturgy affecting Astoria! I can't do anything; you two will have to help her!" the blood elf yelled at them, his novice slashes meeting the firm but weakened resistance of the Dullahan's curved blade. "I don't have much time left...! Sycoma!"
With his thaumaturgy, Severus pushed the enemy away from the center of the courtyard. She shielded herself with her sword to resist the invisible force, but without the means to avoid being sent flying backward through the air. She turned into a torrent of shadows as soon as she touched the ground, moving as fast as she could to close the gap on her Nemesis, who was running toward Astoria. But the elf was prepared to do anything to avoid that.
"I am your rival now and I demand that you respect me, Dullahan!" he warned, pointing his cane at the cloud of shadows that had become the spectral horse, carrying its rider to its destination. "Attractor!"
The gravity glyph Severus cast caused the shadow horse to let out a neigh of surprise, sending both it and its rider down to the ground, in that quasi-state between gaseous and material darkness. But it also issued a new warning about the limit the blood elf was about to surpass: the crystal at the top of his cane suffered another fracture. The last one before shattering, leaving his soul exposed to the side effects of thaumaturgy if he performed it.
Something Severus didn't mind at all.
"YAAAAH!" He yelled, leaping towards the shadow horse and severing its head with a single slash from his boiling blood sword, causing it to collapse and dissolve into the tornado of Discord like a forsaken soul. Then it was the Dullahan's turn, who, with one knee on the ground, was forced to quickly stand and block a new downward slash aimed at the top of her torso, the dark hole in her neck.
"The movements of your pieces are more precise than before, my Nemesis…" The Dullahan addressed Tristessa, aware that she could hear her through the connection they shared. Her dark ethereal voice, inviting Madness, now denoted weakness. It was also reflected in her efforts to defend herself, failing to the point where Severus managed to graze her hip with his sword, melting her armor and causing shadows to flow that mimicked the nature of blood. "Ah, the pain! Mistress of Agony, Demoness in Pain! My mother, Margules, pity my suffering!"
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"Shut your mouth, she-devil!"
Wanting to silence that voice attacking his mind, Severus tried to lash out at the head that continued to relentlessly spew Discord. The Dullahan dodged him, even choosing to continue compromising the integrity of her armor and receive more grievous wounds rather than risk her own head getting damage.
"You can do it, Sev!" Tristessa silently cried, her heart blossoming with equal parts of admiration and fear as she watched him struggle. Knowing that his novice skill at swordsmanship had proven to be one of the reasons for his damnation in a now nonexistent past. But in this present, it may be one of the reasons for their victory. "Come on, Auron!"
"I won't leave the elf alone for long. You see it's only a matter of time before he's out of the fight, right?"
"Yes, that's why we must be quick and help Astoria!"
As she reached the Imperial knightess, Tristessa witnessed what she had nearly died for in the underground cistern of Entrana, at the hands of that same woman. Astoria was crying, stifling sobs of deep distress, trembling like a child lost in the middle of nowhere on the coldest winter night. Her eyes had fallen victim to that whisper of doom that only she heard, sinking them into the darkness of hopelessness, shedding lines of blood the same way the Consort of Endrel had done since time immemorial.
"Astoria… What did that damn succubus do to you?" was the first thing Tristessa asked, gently placing a hand on her cold, hard pauldron to attract her attention. To no avail, failing to even make her acknowledge her presence. "Astoria?"
"Silverthorn, react! Blackguard…! Lady!" Auron's insistence led him to bend one knee and make eye contact that way. He took her free hand, and she reacted right away, squeezing tightly, making the gunslinger resist with a grimace of pain. A strong and desperate grasp, as if she had finally found human contact despite having those two people in front of her. "Succubus, you said? What are you talking about, Tristessa?"
"…"
The girl didn't respond, and she wasn't going to. For fear of making a fatal mistake, rationalized from the side where only she could see Endrel and Margules. If the same logic that [Dark Resurrection] obeyed was the same for the Servants of the Chaos God, then under no circumstances could she reveal the truth. She couldn't risk rolling the dice with them bloody and Madness-induced end of that loop as a possible outcome.
"W-what did I do to make you all hate me?" Astoria's sudden wail made the two of them focus on her. Her lower jaw trembled like the rest of her body, the anguish overwhelming her impossible to contain. "Why do you hate me? Why?!"
"We don't hate you!" Tristessa contradicted her instantly, guided by her past, nonexistent experiences. "Isn't that so, Auron?"
"Of course not. It's true we barely know each other by sight, but I never thought ill of you, lady."
"You lie… I know those looks. The way you talk behind my back… Whore, Blackguard, impure, misbegotten, filthy… They fear that evil will come with me wherever I go. They abhor my presence. They ignore my words as if they were laced with poison."
Sobbing, Astoria began to weep tears of blood. Red lines flowed from the edges of her corrupted eyes and left trails on her cheeks. The red drops like fire and flames fell onto the interlocking of her hand with Auron's, much like the cursed blood from Severus's magical sword colliding with the Dullahan's curved blade.
"You judge me for crimes I didn't commit! Is that reason enough for you to hate me so much? Ever since I can remember... No, ever since I was born, you've judged me for what my great-great-grandmother did!"
"Those symptoms... Black eyes, and tears of blood..." Auron whispered, more to himself, but Tristessa had focused on something else.
Hearing that mention of the enigmatic Valthiel Silverthorn made her feel a halo of cold falling over her head and beyond, caressing her shoulders. The same implicit fear that came with names like that, or the Lord of Forbidden Knowledge, or the Dead End King. Names that held power and malice, instilling equal respect and terror in Nekromians, and after several days in that world, in Tristessa as well.
What were that woman's unforgivable sins? Catalysts of tragedy and pain, in service to the Shadow Queen. Unmentionable, with a preference for leaving them hidden beneath all the corpses of destroyed families, broken dreams, and calamities that plagued the land.
Harbingers of nightmares, Astoria hinted at as she raised her bloody, black gaze upward. In the direction of the Twin Moons, seeing something neither Tristessa nor Severus could.
"Do you think one day I'll glance at the [Dark Moon] and do everything she did? Why?! I-I just want…! I just…want…"
Eternal pain was reflected in those cursed eyes, the red color of their irises, almost hidden between the shadows cast upon them by Margules. Without looking at either of the two present there, she expressed what she felt, something that, in another context, someone as reserved as her would never have said out loud:
"I want love."