"Then do it, what are you waiting for? You claim to have me under your power, so kill me."
Brit almost did as he said, lifting the blade until its tip was level with her eyes. No, this wasn't right either. To strike him down with her weapon would be yet another manifestation of wrath. The wild quivering of his eyes confirmed what she suspected. He was eager. He wanted her to strike.
Britomart let the blade fall to the ground. The clang as it collided with the tile floor reverberated as another great peal of thunder cracked through the room, their sounds one and the same. The thunder shook the entire chamber. Bits of stone and tile fell from some of the surrounding columns, and Brit realized that the shaking was more than just thunder. It was more like an earthquake.
Her gaze met Wrath’s and she could make out the whites of his eyes, shaking in terror. He feared her, truly feared her as he had never known fear before. Under normal circumstances, Brit would have relished in his discomfort, she would have basked in it. She would have shouted in triumph at causing her enemy to quake before her. Before it had been her anger, her rage that had inspired fear in the hearts of men. But this was different, Wrath did not fear her for her rage, he feared her for her genuine lack of it.
And so her reaction differed. She did not delight in her success, instead she remained calm. The fight was not over, and it would not be until all of the Sins were vanquished, and Una was rescued.
"You have not defeated me," said Wrath, his face growing red. It was as though he had sensed her thoughts, her unequivocal knowledge that she had won. "No one can defeat me. I am the strongest of the Seven.”
He lunged for her, reaching his hands forward to grasp at her throat. With barely any effort at all, she intercepted his hands in hers.
For several heartbeats she held him, almost surprised at how feeble his strength was. It cost her nothing to keep his grip steady.
"This is impossible," said Wrath, clearly straining with all his might against her hold.
"No," said Brit in a hushed tone. "Though I may have thought so once. It is plain to see that restraint is every bit as important as strength. I must learn to be bold, but not too bold."
With a final thrust, Wrath threw his entire weight into one last attack.
Brit let him go, dodging and allowing his momentum to let him fly past her. Then, using bare strength alone, she wrapped one arm around his neck and the other around his ribs. With all her might, she began to crush him.
The trembling in the chamber grew more ferocious, and the amount of falling debris increased. Wrath gasped for air, yet none came as Britomart squeezed the life out of the Deadly Sin. His struggling sent the pair of them falling backward to the ground, but Brit did not ease up. The wind accelerated, blowing past them as Wrath's face grew purple, and his motion slowed.
With a sudden jolt, the wooden door in front of them burst outward, as a torrent of wind forced it forward. Brit allowed the wind to sweep around her, finally relaxing as Wrath moved no more.
Something passed out of the Sin, something almost tangible but incorporeal, like a shadow. Wrath’s power had fled, retreating back into the depths of the Shadow Realm. With any luck, no one would ever embody that malevolent spirit again.
Brit rose to her feet. The torrent and earthquake had ceased, and she could have heard a pin drop from miles away. The door still lay open just a few yards away.
Brit squared her shoulders. There was still more to do here. Somewhere Belphoebe’s sister lay helpless, and only Britomart could save her now. Then she could turn her attention back to escaping the Shadow Realm and finding Una.
30
Magic delved into Una’s mind, figuratively dissecting it and extracting her most precious commodity: her power.
Through the thin tube that remained lodged in her arm, blood and magic poured out of her body and into that of her false self, her copy. Una could feel it, her power diminishing, redirected and syphoned away. Dizziness washed over her, and numbness continued to spread from the point where Duessa had injected her with the glowing, green potion. It would be mere minutes before she lost consciousness completely. Death would soon follow.
But she held on. She could not, would not give up no matter how bad she had messed up. She would not give Duessa the satisfaction of begging for her life. She would continue, until her breath gave out, to fight what was happening to her. The Faerie Queen had known that Duessa could use Una for ill, even without her consent. And Una had been foolish to ignore the warning, even though Gloriana’s methods had been far too extreme.
Yet if she could reverse what Duessa had already done, she would.
She tried to move her right arm, the one with the tube sticking out of it. Numbness hadn’t taken that side of her yet, and she could still struggle. But the restraints holding her to the stone table were far too strong, and Una would wager there were magical restraints as well.
She reached for her magic, but felt it lash back at her, just as Duessa said it would. Pain lanced through her forehead and she nearly passed out. No, she had to hold on.
A scream flew through the room, coming from Una’s false copy. She strained herself just enough to turn her head so she could better see the girl. The false Una was also restrained, but her back was arched, and she thrashed about as if in excruciating pain. Duessa remained by her side, ensuring the tube did not come out of her body, that Una’s blood would continue to flow into her.
“It will all be over soon,” Duessa cooed.
She had to act now, while Duessa was distracted. There was no better window of opportunity to escape. Una summoned all her strength to pull her right hand out of its restraints. But the hand did not budge. It had already succumbed to the numbness.
Una’s eyes widened but her head would barely respond either. A quick check of her fingers and toes informed her that they too were either gone or nearly so. She could barely move a muscle.
No! She had to find a way out. This could not be the end.
Another wave of dizziness caused the edges of her vision to blur. All she could see was the false Una, continuing to scream and tug at her restraints.
Something sounded behind Una, a door banging open. Duessa turned and for once she looked surprised. “How did…”
The Sin of Pride ducked as an object flew by the space her head had just occupied. It moved too fast for Una to get a good look, but whatever it was impacted with the wall on the far side and clattered to the stone floor. A weapon of some kind. Someone was attacking Duessa.
The Sin shot one of her arms forward and a beam of green light exploded from her palm. Una heard it impact against something hard, armor maybe. But there was no outcry or sound of someone falling from the impact of Duessa’s attack. A shield then.
There was a low whipping sound as another weapon flew through the air. This time it missed Duessa, instead colliding directly into one of the false Una’s restraints. Immediately the leather snapped, and the screaming girl pulled her hand loose. In a matter of seconds, she had used her free arm to remove the needle as well as the other restraints.
“No!” Duessa ceased her attack and instantly moved towards the girl who had hopped off the stone table with incredible speed and flew out of Una’s sight. Her screams carried out of the room and down the winding stairs that led to this chamber. Duessa hurried after, calling.
Someone cut Una’s bonds, though Una had lost all feeling in her limbs so as to make the restraints unnecessary. Yet she put all her mental fortitude into remaining conscious, to know who it was that rescued her.
A gentle hand removed the needle and tube from her arm, replacing it with a strip of cloth to stanch the blood flow. Though Una could not turn her head enough to see his face, she could see the symbol woven into a tunic covering chain mail armor: a bright, red cross.
“Everything is going to be alright, Una,” said George, before strong arms took hold of her body and lifted her off the stone table. Tears streamed down her face as she heard his voice, his soft-s
poken, loving, gentle, beautiful voice.
A dim red light filled the room, and something flashed at the edges of her vision. Suddenly they were not in Duessa’s tower, but in a place Una immediately recognized as the Shadow Realm. Screams echoed from all sides, and Una could vaguely make out the trees, standing stones, and general shape of the land roundabout, the same place she had visited earlier. The screams came from people, their hands extended towards her even as she was powerless to move, to go anywhere except wherever George carried her. Why had he elected to come here?
Yet the moment lasted no more than a few seconds, and another red flash made way to deep blue of night. The screams stopped, and silence fell on them both. George’s arms tightened in his hold of her. “I’ve got you, Una. I’ve got you.”
“George…” her mouth barely moved, and the effort of speaking caused her world to spin.
“Rest now.”
“Did Gloriana...send you...to kill me too?”
“No one is dying tonight, Una,” came his soothing tone. In truth, his voice was all she needed. She trusted him. Wherever her love had taken her, she knew she was safe in his embrace. Sighing as the tension in her mind and body melted away, she passed into a dreamless sleep.
After Britomart stepped out of the chamber where Wrath’s body still lay, she found herself in a familiar stone dungeon. It was, perhaps, larger than she remembered. The stone ceiling stretched high, with four great pillars in the corners of the room holding it up. A plain, wooden table stood on one side, while in the center was a thicker stone column, and chained to that column was a young girl.
Brit quickly stepped forward, rushing to the girl’s aid. As she drew closer, she couldn't help but clamp one hand over her mouth in horror. The girl had a large tear in her chest, surrounded by tattered and bloodied clothing. Yet even as Brit watched, she could see the girl breathing, albeit shallowly.
"Who are you?" said a voice to one side. Brit turned to look at the speaker who she had not noticed before, only to find a frail old man in a black cloak, so withered he might as well have been a ghost. In one hand he held a quill and in the other a beating heart. And on a table in front of him was a scroll of parchment. One look at the messy, red letters told Brit exactly what the old man was using as ink.
"What have you done here?" Brit asked, ignoring his question. "Is that…is that the girl's heart?" A second glance at the young woman's wound was enough to confirm it was. How was she still alive?
"How did you get here?" said the old man as though she had not spoken.
Brit, finally getting over the horror of the situation, stood a little straighter, enough that she towered over the old man. "You will release her immediately. I am taking her out of here."
"You dare defy the will of the Seven?"
"I defy anyone who would harm an innocent young woman like this," Brit shot back. "I ask again, what have you done to her?"
“Where is Wrath?" said the old man, looking one way then another. “I thought he would have returned by now.”
“Wrath is dead,” Brit said, growing impatient. "And if you do not want to join him, you will tell me what is going on. Now!"
A glimmer of fear struck the old man's eyes. No, not fear exactly. There was too much…resignation in his gaze. "I am already dead, for all that matters." He stared off into the distance with a forlorn expression. "I was once a powerful member of the Seven. Mammon was my name, and all the world desired me."
"Mammon," said Brit. "You are the Sin that Guyon defeated here in the Shadow Realm"
"None of us can ever truly die, though sometimes our power is eternally diminished, or severed completely from our host body. In such cases, our essence must once again be assigned to another."
"That is what you were trying to do to this poor girl, make her the new Sin of Greed."
"Close, my dear, but not quite. I still have my body, though it will take me centuries to reach the height of my power again. This girl is destined to become the next Sin of Lust."
With that, an all-too-familiar stench entered the room, the sickly-sweet yet overpowering smell of rotting roses. This time, Brit spied something she hadn't before. A shadowy form, incorporeal yet possessing substance of some kind, like a cloud of foul-smelling perfume, drifted into the room. As if sensing the new presence, the young woman began tugging on her restraints, feeble moans escaping her mouth. "No, no please, don't…"
"Get away from her," Brit growled at both the old man and the spectral form that could only be whatever remained of the Sin of Lust. Her voice was deathly cold, presenting a danger that not even Wrath had faced. Wrath’s crimes had been predictable, expected. But the work that was transpiring here was beyond reproach, beyond all comprehension. It must be put down.
A sword materialized in her hand once again, and this time Brit embraced it. Wrath was not here to use her anger against her. And even if he had been, her rage was not as it once was. She wasn't striking out in anger, but as a servant of justice.
The shell of a man took a step back, his eyes clearly fearful of her blade. Good. That meant there was more of him to destroy.
"No, you must not stop this. The work is nearly complete.”
"And it will never see the light of day again." Brit took three quick steps, driving her blade forward until it pierced the old man in the chest. As he gasped for air, his hand let slip the beating heart. Brit caught it in one hand before pushing Mammon backward, where he toppled to the ground. Brit let her sword fall with the old man, and its end quivered, sticking straight up as he collided with the floor.
Next, Brit took up the page upon the table where Mammon had written words using the young woman's own blood as ink. She could not understand the writing there, but she knew that whatever had happened, it needed to be reversed. She had to destroy this writing.
Even as she thought it, a light enveloped the room, coming from a torch that had miraculously appeared in Brit's free hand. With barely a thought, Brit directed the flames down on the parchment. It instantly caught flame, and as the blood runes burned, so too the scent of rose disappeared, as whatever was left of the Sin of Lust fled the room.
With the torch in one hand, and the heart in the other, Brit took a moment to breathe before hurrying to the young woman's side. Unsure what to do in a magical place such as this, she did the only thing that seemed to make sense, she lifted the heart to the great gash in the girl’s chest.
With the heart placed in the chest cavity, its sinews began to knit with the flesh surrounding it, and soon the wound began to close of its own accord. The young woman took one gasping breath.
"Amoret," said Brit. "Your name is Amoret, yes?"
The girl breathed heavily but managed a small nod.
"I am here to get you out. I am a friend of your sister."
"Belphoebe sent you?" said Amoret in a feeble tone.
“Not exactly but I suppose you could say so,” said Brit. Finding some keys in Mammon’s black cloak, she unchained Amoret from the stone pillar and gingerly helped her down. The young girl needed almost all of Brit’s support to stay upright.
"And now we must find a way out of this unforgivable place."
"There," said Amoret, pointing to a door at the far end of the chamber. "That is where they usually come from. I think it leads to the outside...." she cut off as a torrent of hacking coughs escaped her throat, and she clutched a hand to her chest. Clearly, she was unwell.
Brit idly wondered exactly how the Sins were able to just enter and exit the Shadow Realm through a simple door, but she shrugged off the question. This was a magical place after all, and it did not adhere to the same rules of the normal world. Hoisting Amoret onto her shoulder, Brit led the pair of them to the back of the stone chamber, opened the door, and stepped through.
31
Next, she was shielding her eyes with her hand, now free of the torch, as they exited back into the inner grounds of Castle Silene. The sun was at high noon and Brit had to blink several times before
she could see anything. It was an enormous contrast from the dark of the dungeon they had just left.
She glanced at Amoret at her side. The girl was still weak, her strawberry-blonde hair matted to her face with cold sweat, but there was no sign of the wound in her chest, and her clothes were more or less intact, though soiled.
“Where are we?” she asked, appearing to breathe easier, shifting her weight so that her legs could support her better. Brit maintained her grip around the young woman, however.
“This is the Castle Silene,” Brit replied. She scanned the area yet found no sign of life. “I was here before I entered the Shadow Realm, but it was crawling with demons and monsters when I left. My companions and I killed many.”
“I don’t see any bodies,” Amoret noted.
Brit blinked. Amoret was right. All of the corpses had been removed, and though she saw a few patches of what might have been blood, there was no further sign that any battle had taken place.
Brit glanced at the south end of the castle where there were clear signs of living quarters. Some had caved in, but others appeared like they were undisturbed.
“Let’s get you to some shelter, yes?” she said, pulling Amoret forward. “You need to rest.”
“As do you,” said Amoret.
Brit would not argue with that. They moved slowly, taking their time before they entered a courtyard adjacent to the living quarters. If they were lucky, they would find a room with a bed intact. Ahead, she spied an entrance to a long hallway that likely connected many of the larger rooms. And though the door had been blown open at some point in the past, it looked like the best place to start.
About a hundred yards away from the entrance, someone stepped out from inside the structure, pausing the moment he saw them. It was Guyon.
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