~Hey guys! I'm so sorry I've been absent lately, but I got swamped with a ton of work towards the end of my Spring Semester. Not to mention . . . I graduated! As of right now, my free time is tremendous, but I'm also trying to find a job. So I'll try to upload when I can, but I wanted to apologize for my unintended absence.
Hope you guys enjoy the new chapter!~
She's searching for him.
Winding through the flowers and the grass, her power wending like a dark snake, it searches and sniffs and hunts for him.
He can't move from his bed. Can't open his eyes to see, to flee.
He feels it come closer, slithering through the cracks of the castle door, crawling up the steps. Down the hallway.
He can't move his body. Can't open his eyes.
Darkness slides through the crack between his door and the wooden floor.
She will catch him, hold him down on this bed and rip from him everything he's ever had.
The darkness slithers to his bed, and he forces his eyes open to see it gather over him, a cloud with no shape, no form, but such wicked presence that he knew its name before it leaps.
He screams as that darkness pins him to the bed, and then there is nothing but the horrible weight of it filling his body, tearing him apart from the inside out –
A cold, black worm wriggling into his chest like a maggot, as if he were carrion.
A snake burrowing into his heart to sink its fangs in.
It's a kiss of venom, a death so permanent that every inch of him roars with defiance.
So cold.
Not the bite of a winter chill, or even the burn of solid ice, but something colder. Deeper.
The cold of gaps between the stars, the cold of a world before light.
He opens his mouth to scream again, when the pain rips his very self in two, but there is no sound. There is nothing in this place but darkness and agony and power –
Elsa jolts awake, her face leaking sweat. The heat nearly suffocates her as she gasps.
The room is warped with a blazing light. Golden and bright.
There's nothing for her to breathe, nothing but that thick searing air that burns her throat.
Terror and dread slices through her, ratcheting up her heartbeat.
Seconds later does she note the shifting of the bed.
And then that scream . . . a scream of pure terror –
Elsa whips her head to find Michael with his body arched, sobbing through grit teeth.
Bathed in golden fire. She's can't help but pause in awe and fear.
He is screaming, hands ripping at the sheets, and that fire burns and burns and burns without destroying the blankets, the room. Her.
It burns and writhes as if it were trying to devour him. She can't tell if it was a trick of the light, or the heat affecting her, but she could've sworn she saw spurts of darkness plume from the flames.
A searing pain blazes up Elsa's arm, a lick of the flames deadly heat. Elsa scrambles to the foot of the bed and blasts her magic out towards the fire. It hisses and recoils, only to return with a trickle and a huff.
Michael screams again, and a word appears in it. No.
He began shouting it, pleading. No, no, no.
Elsa casts her net wide, just as she did when his fire threatened to swallow the forest surrounding that ancient temple.
Michael arches, and that fire sucks in, as if a great inhale had been made, and is about to be exhaled, rupturing through the world –
Turquoise fire erupts, blasting outwards.
The windows of the room blow out.
Elsa screams as she throws herself over Michael, doing her best to cover her own head with her arm.
The roaring of rain fills the room. Thunder cracks, so loud her ears ring as lightning slices across the expanse of night. She can barely see the lights of Arendelle the rain is so thick.
The door to his rooms burst open seconds later, and Elsa peers over her shoulder in time to find Caiden rebounding off the archway and into the room, coming up short at what he beholds. Danika is at his side in seconds. Both of them are still in their night clothes – Danika only in a short, silk gown, Caiden only in his undershorts. Both are armed with a single dagger.
Night burst in, spearing through the flames to them, smothering Michael's fire in that darkness. As if dropping a star-kissed blanket.
Caiden, his shadows . . . This wasn't the suffocating, impenetrable blackness of Michael's mother, nor was it the silent, cradling darkness of Michael's own mind.
This was night. A blanket of stars and wind, an unexpected tranquility.
But Michael screams again, and this time it's a sound of pain.
Elsa lunges, climbing into his lap, straddling him between her hips as she cradles his face in her hands. "Michael!" she shouts, barely able to hear herself over the wind and fire. "Michael, wake up!"
She knew this isn't the same of when he shredded his sheets with flaming claws. That had been different – a memory rooting into his subconscious.
This . . . this is a fight for survival.
No, no, no.
Michael's fire rears again, and Caiden shoves a wave of blackness upon it. The entire castle shakes. Trembling at that fire. That power.
The rain pours heavy with a hiss, puddles already forming by the windows.
Elsa peers towards Caiden, bellowing at him to stop it, stop hurting him –
Caiden's darkness pushes down, and Michael's flames battle upwards, as if their two powers were swords clashing in battle, fighting for the advantage.
Terror materializes in Elsa's voice as she begins to sob to him. "Wake up, Michael. It's a dream. Wake up."
He still fights, and Caiden's power gathers again.
Elsa's breath saws in and out of her as panic starts to clench its fingers around her heart.
She grabs it by the throat and shoves it down, not allowing it a single inch of space. She remembers the breathing exercises, the steps he walked her through when she was tangled in her own emotions.
She blocks out the golden fire and darkest night battling around her.
Carefully she places her hands on either side of his face, feeling the tickling cold of her palms seep into his skin.
And she says with a steady calm, "Michael."
The golden fire flickers.
"Michael."
She could have sworn his consciousness, that power, shifts towards her. Just long enough.
A wave of Caiden's power gently crests over the flames. Banking it.
Caiden grows still, and Elsa watches as he takes his own steadying breaths, a wave ebbing from the shores.
Michael remains unmoving on the bed.
Elsa barley dares to breathe. She doesn't argue when Danika's hand wraps around her arm and carefully pulls her from the bed. The shifter hovers behind her as Caiden stalks closer to the bed.
Slowly, the flames recede. Vanishing in thin plumes of smoke, like nothing more than an extinguished candle.
Slowly, Michael's body relaxes.
And then his breathing evens out, his body going limp.
Elsa swallows, her heart pounding so heard she knew both can hear it as Caiden comes up beside her.
Shadows gather at his shoulders as he slowly exhales, and asks, "What happened?"
"I – I don't know." Elsa whispers. Gods, she is trembling like a leaf. Danika rubs her back, and Elsa has half a mind to settle into her. "We were just sleeping, and then I woke to this moistened, suffocating air, and –"
"Elsa?!" Anna's voice cries from down the hall. "Elsa!"
The queen sighs as she runs her fingers through her hair. As if she didn't have enough to deal with, calming her frantic sister wasn't something she wanted to do with her still trembling nerves.
Nevertheless, Anna appears in the doorway seconds later, Kristoff not too far behind her. Anna's hair is a shamble of auburn, Kristoff looking like he clamored into his pants according to the unmatching buttons.
"Anna –"
"What happened? Are you okay? What are you two doing here?" Her sister begins. Her arms already roving over Elsa's arms and neck and face.
"Anna –"
Suddenly Michael's eyes fly open with a gasp – peering vacantly towards the ceiling. Still dreaming, unseeing.
Elsa's own breath escapes her lips, followed by a yelp of fear as the sisters clamor away from him. In one smooth motion, Danika shoves the sisters behind her, dagger at the ready.
Something shifts in the air. It thins out, cresting and pressing in on the group before drifting towards Michael. As if being inhaled in a might breath.
Danika and Caiden seem to notice it, but Anna doesn't seem as tense as they do. Doesn't feel the very essence of magic flowing towards the man lying on the bed.
Michael's face turns expressionless. Cold as the gaps between the stars. And his eyes . . .
Elsa begins to tremble at what she beholds. A whimper escapes her as he slowly turns his head towards the group.
Where there were stunning orbs of sapphire, are now hardened into a cold core of gold. As opaque as the mineral itself. No hint of blue to be found.
"That's not Michael," Danika breathes.
A faint smile blossoms on his full mouth, born of cruelty and arrogance.
The creature that stares out through Michael's eyes furls his fingers into a fist. Light leaks through his clenched fingers.
Cold white light. Tendrils flicker — silver flame . . .
"Get away," Caiden warns her. "Get away and don't look."
Caiden is indeed on his knees, head bowed, and eyes averted. Danika follows suit.
Elsa can't move, her feet cemented to the floor. Behind her, she can hear Anna drop to the floor. Her sister's hand is clasped around her wrist, but Elsa can't move when she feels that desperate tug.
For what gazes at the warriors and mortals assembled, what had filled her beloved's body . . . Elsa knew. Some primal, intrinsic part of her knew.
Not a god. Not a demon.
But an entity.
A truly immortal entity.
He flicks his eyes to her in question and confirmation.
Elsa trembles as the reverberations from the thunderhead rumble beneath her feet, up her legs.
And he says to her, in a voice that is deep and hollow, young and old, "Unleashed by destiny. Bound by blood. It is his spirit that ignited the fire and disturbed the sound of silence. He who is of life and death and rebirth."
It is a voice of chaos and disorder and lawlessness; of joy and despair entwined. And yet it robs her of warmth, of anything but primal, basic fear.
"I writhe in a prison of skin and bone. My words, like silent raindrops, fell, and echoed in the wells of silence. I long to dance among the flames; let them consume my soul so I might become a new creation."
Madness. This is madness incarnate. And for a moment, Elsa fears she might've lost her beloved.
The thought shoots a cold bolt through the queen's heart.
She takes a step forward.
Anna hisses her name behind her. Danika and Caiden dare to glance at her, their heads still bowed.
Those golden eyes trail over her body – not proprietary, but curious. Examining. Judging. Elsa has never felt so bare. She tries to keep herself steady, fisting her hands to hide their trembling.
"Hear me, Queen of Ice and Snow. The boy must return what was stolen. He must touch the sound of silence to bring forth the waters of music."
"Who are you?" she asks, her voice surprisingly steady. Being a queen felt laughable facing this entity.
It only answered with a laugh that scuttled along her bones. A quiet tinkling fills the room, and what Elsa thought was rain hitting the broken glass, is actually the glass itself as the window repairs itself shard by shard, as if a patient hand worked upon it.
Then Michael returns his gaze to the ceiling and his eyes snap shut.
Blissfully unconscious.
Elsa swallows, her heart pounding so hard she knew Danika and Caiden can hear it.
The two warriors behind her rise, Caiden inhaling sharply.
"What was that?" Anna asks in a shaking, quiet voice. As if she feared waking whatever that was that looked through Michael's eyes.
But Caiden just walks to the little sitting area and slumps into a chair. The cambion's hands are shaking – trembling so wildly that Elsa has no idea what to do. From the worry etched on Danika's face, neither did she.
The rest of them huddle into the room like sheep, following after Caiden, gathering around the fire, and to get away from whatever that being was.
"Was that . . ." Anna glances to the bed and the unconscious man atop it. "That was Michael's true power?"
"What was that?" Anna repeats, a little louder this time.
Danika sheathes her dagger at her hip, looking towards Elsa. Her citrine eyes nearly glow like a cat in the veiled moonlight. "That didn't feel like Michael's power."
"That wasn't Michael." Elsa near whimpers.
Caiden shakes his head. "No. That was . . . Ice so cold it burned. Ice and yet . . . fluid like flame. Or flame made of ice. And yet . . . it felt like something else. Like something clinging to his back or hovering over his shoulder. And it wasn't no damned god." His hands still shake as he runs them down his face. "Fuck."
"This must why his mother is after him." Danika says as she walks towards him, carefully and gently placing her fingertips on his shoulder. "He could kill her with that power." Her eyes meet Elsa's, and the queen tries not to flinch. "She'll try to manipulate him; try and seduce him into that darkness."
"Or kill him if he refuses. Which he likely will."
The shifter's voice quivers as she says with deathly quiet. "That power could bring kingdoms to their knees."
"What is his power?" Anna asks. Kristoff comes up behind her with a hand on the princess's shoulder.
Caiden's hands tremble as he gets to his feet and gazes at the sleeping man in the bed, fear – actual fear – clouding his beautiful features as he whispers, "Death. Death made flesh."
Thunder cracks in answer.