Chapter 160: A Crack In Time

Maribelle Blackthorn stood frozen inches above the mud, locked in a suspended moment in time, held there by a dozen monks and mages, lead by two chanting kitsune, hurling non-stop incantations to keep her, Eris and Pip out of the fight.

And while the elven spellsword waited patiently for reality to resume for her, Vuvi’s reality had transformed into a world of pain.

Syraleth’s fist slowly closes as her magical tendrils crush Vuvi’s body amidst her shrieking howls of pain and the baroness’ cackles of delight.

"STOP!" Veena screams, her voice strained and cracking as she clutches her ribs, "That’s enough, Syraleth! PLEASE!"

"Oh, there’s more than enough to go around, princess." Syraleth grins, snatching Veena out of the mud with her magic, the fist in her other hand now closing in on Veena, crushing her body under its magical pressure as she screams helplessly, writhing in pain.

A hundred feet away, Eris’s eyes shift. Inching achingly toward the battlefield, unnoticed by anyone still upright, she begins to move. Painfully slow, straining with every last ounce of fractured will she has left, tendons and muscles straining, pulsing out along her frozen limbs like taut rope, body trembling against the temporal hold locking her mid-swing, mid-breath.

She starts, impossibly, to break free of their time-lock around her, a hair’s breadth of motion at a time, her scythe inching forward through air that should not, by any law of magic, allow it to move at all.

"My lady, please! I’m begging you!" one of the kitsune twins pleads, voice cracking with exhaustion and mental strain. "We’re losing strength and magic by the minute. We cannot hold these incantations much longer. If we don’t leave now—"

Syraleth’s heads snaps to the kitsune, causing her voice to falter before slowly resuming her chants.

The baroness groans, sneers down at Vuvi, and tosses her carelessly to the ground, where she collapses into a broken heap. She turns instead to Veena, hauling her forward until her throat hits Syraleth’s palm, and the baroness hauls her aloft, studying her with open disgust. "Where," she asks, "is your damn mother? I’d have expected the Demon Queen to make some effort to save her own daughter. But look what—"

A scream of pure fury suddenly tears across the battlefield, stopping Syraleth mid-sentence, her eyes go wide, her voice hitching as she whips around to find Eris straining visibly against the temporal hold, cracks of crimson light spidering through the frozen air around her as she tears apart reality to reach the Demon Queen’s daughter.

"LOCK HER DOWN!!!" Syraleth shrieks at the kitsune.

Their chanting surges louder, more desperate, both twins swaying on their feet with enormous effort of restraining the demon general known as the Reaper of Battlefields. One of the kitsune drops to her knees entirely, blood streaming from her nose, down over her lips. But then Eris freezes again, solid once more, mid-scream, the cracks of light around her sealing shut like a wound in reality closing over itself.

Syraleth exhales, relief flooding her face, as her shoulders drop slightly. She turns back to Veena with a slow, mocking shake of her head.

"I’m disappointed," she says. "I expected better from the Demon Queen than abandoning her own flesh and blood to suffer. Did she really think her generals would be enough to handle me? It’s an insult, if anything."

She drops Veena at her own feet without another glance, scoffing, and turns to leave. "Prepare the teleportation portals!" she calls to her followers.

Before they can, a different portal tears open high above the battlefield instead. Vast, crimson-rimmed, dwarfing every crude transportation-gate Syraleth’s illusion-casters had conjured all day.

A moment later, hundreds of soldiers plummet through it all at once in a single, thunderous wave, crashing down across the ruined fields in overlapping clouds of dust and turned earth.

A deafening silence follows the impact, then, one by one, they rise from the craters they’d made, eyes burning a deep, uniform crimson. Through the settling haze, armor gleaming, entirely, unmistakably real, the Demon Queen’s personal army steps forward in perfect formation.

Syraleth’s grin spreads wide, entirely delighted by the sudden, if late arrival. Then she looks up and finds Vexena drifting down through the portal on a slow, unhurried current of dark magic, fully armored in obsidian plate that seems to swallow the warm afternoon sunlight, her expression regal and unreadable.

And beside her, Virelle’s small hand clasped tight in hers.

The little demon princess sees the wreckage around her, gasps and cross her arms with visible frustration.

"We’re late!" Virelle scowls, small arms pinned firm against her chest, surveying the smoking ruin below with the exaggerated disapproval of a child who has been personally inconvenienced by an adult’s poor scheduling more than once. "I told you to hurry, Mama! You always do this!" she pouts.

Vexena says nothing at all, crimson eyes sweeping the destruction slowly, until they land on Veena, crumpled and bleeding at Syraleth’s feet.

She dissolves in a blink, there and gone in fraction of a second, startling Virelle badly enough to make her stumble through the air, still clutching at the empty space where her mother’s hand had been a heartbeat ago.

Vexena reappears directly in front of Syraleth, close enough that the heat rolling off her fury is nearly visible in the cool afternoon air.

"Your Grace." Syraleth greets her with a warm, easy smile, entirely unbothered. "I was starting to worry you wouldn’t show."

Vexena says nothing.

She simply stares, silent, for one long, terrible moment, gaze sliding slowly over the scattered, groaning bodies of her own people and Vuvi’s alike, before finally settling back on Syraleth’s beaming face.

"Have you... completely... lost your goddamned mind?!" she finally asks, voice level, almost gentle, like a breath held... just before all hell breaks loose.

Syraleth laughs, entirely too delighted, the sound utterly out of place against the smoking ruin surrounding them both.

"Lost my mind!?" she asks, like the question could almost be rhetorical. "Why yes! Entirely. Lost completely! To the Prince! I couldn’t help myself, honestly. And, you know, I do so enjoy the hunt... although," She glances around at the wreckage, the craters, the fallen soldiers, the bleeding, broken shapes of the team scattered across the field and shrugs, completely casual, almost proud of it. "I suppose I do tend to get a little too... enthusiastic."