Slowly she approached Talvi who took her hand with the epitome of grace, whispering only that he desired to understand her every word before clasping her tightly to him, kissing her deeply, fervently, a passionate embrace she could deny herself no longer. Hungrily she returned his kiss, her heart aching for him more fiercely than she could bear, a whimper of longing, which his bemused eyes understood, and a whimper of loss to come, which he could barely fathom.
Soren chuckled softly, only sensing a Power giving in to her basest hungers, having no true concept of what love was. Somehow Jess knew this, had known exactly the role to play. “Ah, my queen. At last you awaken to your true self. For all your guises of righteousness, playing such games of virtue out of whim and boredom to stave off the ennui of endless death, when the opportunity to free yourself of the chains of mortality is presented, of course you shall spring for it. Of course! And damn the consequences! Your realm but the searing hot furnace blazing forth in self-annihilation that shall catapult you to glory and power beyond any your foes could hope or dream of. Truly, a masterful play, my dear Jezabelle. A masterful ending to a brilliant game that has laid so many of your foes low!”
He then sneered contemptuously at the block of ice toward the back of the massive chamber, and Jess was suddenly struck with the realization that this vast tower did not serve simply as the grandest of viewing rooms, displaying the realm in all its wonder through the shattered glass windows on all sides. It was, in fact, a throne room of sorts.
Jess could only imagine the terrible and beautiful magics the Faerie Queen even now gazing down upon them must have at her disposal, to view and lead the realm entire from this magnificent seat of power. Yet the queen, exquisite in all her regalia, staring forth with eyes that Jess felt pierce her very soul with a pain so terrible it left her breathless, was frozen upon her golden throne, encased in ice cursed with the weight and fury of Father Winter himself.
"And so you see, my dear Jezabelle, the queen of this realm is no threat to us at all!" Soren chuckled then, gesturing toward Talvi. "I shall let my prince explain how fortuitous events turned in such a manner as to allow us the upper hand against our greatest foe."
Talvi sighed then, nodding solemnly. "It is true, my beloved Jess. The Faerie Queen herself, my mother, had consigned me to this curse of mortality, so that for all my power and accomplishments, I would still be consigned to decrepitude, rot, and decay, just like the turning of seasons, all to perpetuate the sad lie our realm has become."
Mistaking Jess’s shiver for something else, he gently caressed her hand. “Fear not, my love, for the twisted magics that allowed her to make such a mockery of my soul were easily turned against her, our Soren at last finding the way! Indeed, it was this quest which inspired him to explore and master foolishly forbidden directions of arcane manipulation. And after years of bitter trial and error, at last, at last! We found the secret.”
Talvi's voice turned husky, even as he caressed Jess's cheeks. "As the queen is the heart of our realm, having Claimance upon all forces natural and arcane, the secret was to manipulate the forces in play with magics of a different dimension entirely! For all that I had my reservations, Soren assured me of its safety, as long as we exercised caution, and by all that is pure and true, it worked!"
Talvi gave Jess a fierce, triumphant hug. "We did it, my Jess. With the help of our guests from the realm of mundus, so desiring to be the perfect consorts to my court and divest themselves of their flaws and imperfections, we were able at last to shatter the forced union of life and death itself! With the grace of your blissfully happy schoolgirls, Soren was able to use his arts to manipulate the fate strands of my mother's curse, and we were able to freeze the seasons in their place. All so that I may embrace eternal summer, and Mother remain frozen forever within the hoarfrost of eternal winter."
Jess gazed demurely at her feet, not daring to meet her lover's gaze at that moment. "But my love, what if she escapes?"
Soren’s confident chuckle echoed discordantly through the vast chambers. “You need have no fear on that account, my dear Jezabelle. The very souls we are soon to sacrifice anchor the seasons in their place, our Talvi being the linchpin. So long as your lover’s heart beats, the queen will be consigned to her fate, for eternity!”
Jess grinned, screaming in her secret heart, yet for the nonce, allowing herself to be consumed by her role, to embrace the dark dream as if she really was some ancient queen who had once ruled an entire realm of existence, mastering the darkest of arts, a queen whom none would dare cross. Jess fought back the scream lodged in her throat. If embracing that side of herself would allow her to do what she must, so be it.
"Enough games, dear Soren," she hissed with a fierce smile after gently biting her lover's lips, licking away the blood, Talvi's surprised gasp and hungry growl as he held her close letting Jess know that her erstwhile lover would enjoy dark games of struggle and dominance in the bedroom just as he did devouring Jess with the gentle raptures of submission.
She knew better than to lie directly to a creature such as this, and did her absolute best not to think of the delightful throb of fangs she felt even now in her upper jaw, or the bittersweet ache upon her temples. Visor raised, her forehead she refused to touch at all. "If immortality is to be ours, and these subjects to witness our glory, how do we ignite the fires of our power to burn away the weakness of our blood? And what is your angle in this, dear Soren? If even one such as I would allow my cherished garden to be consumed for the sake of immortality, appeasing my own self-interest, I can only imagine you are doing this for reasons other than the goodness of your heart. I would know how you profit, Soren, lest you wish me to suspect foul play against Talvi and I both."
Talvi's eyes widened slightly with disappointment. "My dear Jess. Whatever our differences, you know how I love my court, and have treated every man with honor and loyalty. What Soren does for me is out of love for his prince, seeking only to grant me the birthright of all other faeries, so that I too might eternally stride through the mists of dream as you and I embrace a new world of our own making."
A smile then, to pierce Jess’s heart. With its aching adoration and sad naiveté regarding matters that were so blindingly obvious to Jess. Talvi nodded, having seen something in Jess’s eyes, the depths of her longing for him, that assured him.
"It is my dear Soren, after all, who gave me the inspiration and the courage to fight against the terrible fate which has crushed me with its weight, even in the first days of my Spring, when the world was fresh and new to me. To know that I, unlike all my brethren, must one day return to the earth and die, even as gentle Autumn is strangled by Winter's hoary grasp! Rot and decay, all my glory consigned to the grubs beneath our feet." Talvi gave a bitter shake of his head. "I refuse to be ground to dust by this cruel world's turning!" He then gestured to his gloating adviser, preening under his master's praise.
"It is my true friend Soren who strove to help me break free of that. To show me that somewhere in the great multiverse of possibility lies the means for me to cleave the chains of fate that bound me so tight. And you as well." He gently stroked Jess's full lips with his finger even as Jess growled softly, darting forward to lock her lips to his own once more in a fierce, hungry kiss.
Soren’s chuckle had turned from inhumanely malevolent to bemused, even indulgent. “My dear Jezabelle. I seek only that for which you will have no need, when you wrest hold of a fresh realm of mundus to reshape to your own whim and will. You and your lord shall take these loyal servants, epitomes of perfection that they are, upon this journey with you. Talvi has left me with the task of, shall we say, scouring this plane free of its remaining imperfections before consigning it to the Void, from which it sprang.”
Jess allowed her laughter to turn dark and throaty, licking the fangs she could no longer deny, even as her lips curved into the cruelest of smiles. “Ah, my dear Soren! A full plane’s harvest of ripe souls, imperfect fruit unworthy of your master’s perusal, r
ipe for the, shall we say, plucking? A mighty prize indeed, for dear Talvi’s counselor, who strives so hard to give my love and I a new realm to reforge into an image of our own choosing. No doubt flush with sweet fruit entirely innocent of the exquisite joy of surrendering their essence to their betters!”
Soren's mad laughter rang forth, gloating with sick satisfaction. "Ah, my dear Jezabelle. At last, worthy of your title! You understand. Yes, my queen. A realm's worth of imperfect souls to be consumed and burned away at a delicious pace, as I reforge this entire broken realm to an image worthy of its new master. Can you imagine the feast? Of justice, of course," he nodded, smirking, delighting in how unaware Talvi was of what was truly being said between Jess and himself. "And for you, my queen, the immortality eternally denied you, now at last yours to embrace, with your prince by your side! As strong and virile a consort as any queen below could desire. And a fresh realm of mundus to bring into our fold! So much exquisite pleasure and power for you to revel in! Billions of souls needing only your… guidance. To steer them all in directions most pleasing to your every whim."
His chortle was one of gloating satisfaction. “And your old broken realm, so tied as it is with your mortal doom, you need fret over no longer. Why limit yourself to such a small sampling of worn out souls, plucked of their ripest essence eons ago, when an entire universe of virgin territory awaits you?”
Jess’s smile was terrible and sad. “Why indeed?” She turned and nodded at the brilliant prismatic font of color flashing upon the liquid surface of the exquisitely crafted grand mirror, the only mirror in the entire palace, Jess sensed, that had not shattered to tiniest slivers, much as had all the priceless windows of glass and diamond, ruptured by the horrors whispered in tongues abyssal that evening. "And that, I assume, is the Mirror of Truth?"
Soren nodded. “Indeed it is. And the mortal children gazing upon us with such poise and decorum are our keys to opening it!” He gazed longingly at the artifact that seemed to resonate with a resilience and fortitude sufficient to withstand any siege, even the crushing weight of a burning star. Jess shivered, wondering how Angelica could have possibly managed to move an artifact that seemed anchored to the very heart of this world, let alone how it had returned, for Jess sensed that it was anchored to the very heart of Faerie.
Jess shook her head, realizing at that moment that it mattered not at all.
“It is a component of our enterprise.” Soren laughed softly then. “And I had almost obtained its full use, effortlessly! So close.” He sighed. “Sadly, the laws and covenants that bind this realm forbid the use of physical force and agony to compel one to surrender an object or right freely. But forcing one to face the horrors of their own mind, or better, the distorted image of themselves that in their heart of hearts they feel is truth, those torments come from within, and thus do not constitute compulsion!”
His grimace was fierce, and for a moment the porcelain facade of fae perfection cracked, allowing Jess to sense the foul stench of the rotting core that lay at the heart of the twisted hybrid before her, hideous amalgamation of faerie and demon both. Much to her alarm and shame, Jess found his stench of corruption oddly soothing in its familiarity. She dared not wonder why. "Yet the foolish bitch to whom I had given but one simple task failed to surrender her rights to me, and resists me even now!" Soren snarled. "The exquisite torment I shall give that loathsome mortal soul, when she finally buckles under our pressure. No matter, though,” he assured with a dark smile. “The souls of these children shall serve as a fitting breach for our magics.”
Soren waved his hand at the scores of perfectly poised former Academy students, each and every one of them the picture of flawlessness; exquisitely beautiful, features perfectly symmetrical, skin of porcelain smoothness, their every movement an utter compliment to their faerie consorts. It was only the tears streaming from otherwise vacant eyes, the blood trickling out of the occasional ear, that marred the visions of flawless beauty they had been made to portray.
“A feast of innocents who had never known a man's touch have surrendered their bodies in the heart of Faerie! In their desperate pursuit to please their paramours with perfection, they have lost sight of their very souls!” Soren's smile was bright with unholy glee.
“Indeed, we shall use the very flaws of their souls as the darkest sympathetic magic to crack the will of she who holds the final rights over the Mirror of Truth, and we shall warp it with our combined might into a Mirror of Dream! Whereupon it shall show the delights of fantasy and secret passions. Heightened with the terrible powers of the heirs to two realms, it can then be used by both you and your lover acting in concert, dear Jezabelle. We need but focus its powers upon a fresh realm of mundus, and the mirror can be used to warp it out of true! To twist it into a dream; dark, terrible, and beautiful, of your own forging! By blood and conquest, that realm shall be tied by the darkest strands of sympathetic power to the realms of hideous glory you and I both know so well, Jezabelle, and this is just the beginning!”
Jess nodded slowly. “I do believe I understand.”
Talvi, however, looked of a sudden alarmed. “Soren, what is this you speak of? I thought we had agreed we would proceed as gracefully as possible, to minimize the suffering those under us must feel, as we make the transition from mortality to eternity, and embrace a world of our own forging!”
Soren bowed low. “Of course, my prince. And it weighs upon all our hearts to have to sacrifice these three hundred souls for our cause. But consider. The girls gazing at us in exquisite perfection even now are so because they have been cleaved free of their flaws. We do naught but consign their tainted essence to a pristine cause that transcends the mortal coil itself! Indeed, my master, are we not doing them an honor of sorts?” Soren's lips wormed into a mockery of a smile that Talvi seemed strangely blind to. “Your court shall keep their porcelain dolls. It is only the twisted beasts which their warped souls have scurried into that we need to sacrifice... for the greater good.”
Talvi sighed and bowed his head. “You are right, of course, dear Soren. All imperfections that plague our court must be burned away to purify ourselves for the destiny to come. Yet let us take a moment in solemn reflection, and mourn the sacrifices that must be made.”
“Of course, my lord.” Soren bowed, giving Jess a lewd wink, she smirking and nodding in turn, even as her hand clenched fiercely, instantly stilled.
“Now, my dear Jezabelle, witness the next step as we begin the ritual of breaking, wherein I summon forth the lost souls which in the end can never stray too far from their empty shells.” With that Soren flashed a wicked smile, gesturing toward the hundreds of small mammals gazing at them all with terrified, all too human looking eyes. Imploring eyes that had been fixated upon Jess since she had first entered this realm.
Soren then turned to Talvi, bowing low. “Forgive me, my prince. For it is now that I must speak in tongues unworthy of your ear, to better compel these flawed souls to accept our bidding, as we use them for a purpose far more pristine than their base origins could ever comprehend.”
Talvi looked solemn but sighed, giving a slight nod of his head. “If you must, counselor.”
Jess slowly pivoted a hair closer to the mirror, sensing Soren's cautious closing of their distance. Ever the dark smile, yet never would he fully trust another. It was just one more aspect of understanding the battlefield, the strengths and weaknesses of one's opponent, how best to use the terrain to suit, much as Eloquin had taught Jess.
It did not take too much effort for Jess to mime curiosity compelling her to stride just a bit closer to the mirror, its shimmering, swirling surface rippling with manic frenzy. With but a slight shift in position, she and Soren were both in direct line of sight. Jess stopped then, approaching no closer, nodding for Soren to continue, putting him at ease.
Soren's grin turned fierce, smile stretching far too wide, at last showing his true nature. Jagged yellowed teeth, breath reeking of the grave. "And now I call to my bidd
ing those mortal souls, unworthy castoffs of perfect shells, claimed by no one, forsaken by all! Come to me, worthless maggots of ethereal whim! By the laws of sympathy and contagion, I summon you! By rights demonic and abyssal I claim you! I compel you by Fate's black chains, your reprieve of seven thousand years ended as of this very moment! Your eternal tormentors will once again feast upon your ethereal flesh, relishing your endless screams for all eternity! Come, maggots! Show your obeisance to your new master. I, Gordolon, master of Blackskull Fief, do mark you as mine!"
Soren's words caused Talvi's perfect host of courtiers to grimace and moan, many turning suddenly pale as waves of abyssal energies flooded the faerie chamber, the porcelain doll-like figures that were once academy students collapsing en masse, many spasming as they fell to the ground, gracelessly caught by their reeling paramours, blood trickling from every orifice as the awful inhuman words tore through the room with their hideous cacophony of death and discord.
Talvi himself grimaced, lips curled, his own true self rebelling against the foulness even he could sense to some degree. Jess and Twilight alone were completely unaffected. Jess, Twilight, and the hundreds of small creatures the terrible lord of Hell had attempted to bind and compel, eyes haunted by unspeakable horror, and desperate hope.
Abruptly, Soren’s gloating laugh broke off with a hiss, as he stared at the fragile souls completely unfazed by his blackest arts. “What foulness is this? These souls are forsaken! Reaved and cast off! How can they not be compelled?”
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