On the Dark Island

When Bila landed on the island she pulled a key out of her pocket. She waved it in the air and an arch of sparks formed. Out of it stepped her friends. The sassy, green-haired Hedera; the haughty, silver Elmas; the strong and silent Kurus; and the caring Jorgo.

"You were right about the darkness here." Jorgo said.

"It's seriously messing with my energies." Hedera said. "Maybe we can leave, this seems more like a job for the astrids anyway and I made this amazing-"

"Will you shut up." Elmas said flatly. "Although, I must admit, I'm not looking forward to fighting demons. The ugly things have nothing to lose."

Bila was waving the golden hand around. "Let's just get this over with." It pulled against her and stuck itself into a rotting lean-to. "Looks like we're going to a new dimension. Are all of you ready?"

"Definitely not." Hedera said.

"Too bad." Bila flourished her hands and said, "Ortaya çıkartmak."

Sparks fell to the ground and revealed a door made of black glass. Bila opened it and stepped inside, followed by her friends.


At Fablehaven

Yesterday morning Warren, Hugo, Vanessa and Dale had all gone out because of complaints from the fairies and dryads that one of the snow spirits were being oddly aggressive lately. Even though Seth asked approximately twenty-five times if he could join them his mother insisted he stay home and Warren had told him it had most likely been a simple misunderstanding. But it had been over day and there was no word from any of them. Despite his grandparents assuring them there was nothing to worry about Seth had a feeling that something wasn't right. So that night when everyone was asleep he got out of bed, still fully dressed, grabbed hid daggers, bow, arrows and a map to the preserve. He slipped out of the room and made his way to where the map said the frost spirit lived.

He knew he was in the right place when he reached an area of the forest with a small hut. Unlike the rest of the woods it was covered in snow. There was the sound of a woman crying coming from inside. Seth immediately rushed to the door. When he was inside it was hard to see with only the moonlight coming in through the window but there was a pale young woman with raven-colored hair hunched over. When Seth got closer to her she turned around with tears in her eyes. She was holding a baby with big grey eyes in her arms.

"Please." The woman begged, holding out the little boy. "Please, please get him to safety."

Seth was almost ensnared by the woman, but he had took the time that day to read up on the snow spirits living at the preserve and this one was assuredly a Yuki-onna. When Seth backed away from her she realized her act had failed. The baby turned into snow and her skin went from deathly pale to transparent. The interior of the hut started to glow blue and Seth was able to see that everything inside was covered in ice and...in the corner there were ice sculptures, but they weren't sculptures. Warren, Dale, Vanessa, Hugo, hamadryads and fairies all encapsulated in ice.

"Don't you think you'd look good in ice?" the woman asked.

"I'm good, thanks." Seth said. It was definitely getting colder. Seth was really regretting not bringing another jacket. But maybe this could be resolved without violence. "Do you mind if I borrow your...um, statues for a little bit?"

"No." She said coldly. Literally. As she said the word she blew out a cold wind at Seth, knocking him back against the wall. His shadow grabbed his hand and lifted him up to his feet. The snow spirit put her hands forward and a blast of cold blew at him. Seth slipped into his shadow and reappeared at the other side of the room. "Stop moving." she said, freezing the ground around Seth. He pulled out his bow and shot two arrows back to back. The spirit blew another cold wind, freezing the arrows together in a ball of ice and throwing it at Seth. He ducked under it and rolled the the ground, sliding along the ice around him to go faster as the ball of ice exploded into needles. The needles flew toward Seth who slashed them out of the air with his daggers. As he did that the spirit stalked toward him and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close to her. She grabbed his neck with one bitingly cold hand. It was like she was pulling the life out of him as she froze his skin and blood. He tried to pull away from her but her hands had fused to his skin. He reached for one of his daggers and slashed at her arm as fast as he could, slicing off her hand. The freezing stopped and the snow spirits hand fell to the ground before turning to snow and fusing with her arm. The Yuki-onna bared her teeth and floated into the air. "You shouldn't have done that." she said, her hands coated in frost as she threw an icicle at Seth the size of a javelin. He grabbed his bow and shot it, shattering the ice in midair but the spirit shot more. After Seth ran out of arrows he used his bow to block them. The spirit shot a larger shard of ice that snapped Seth's bow in half when he used it to block his chest. He whipped out his daggers and tried to take a step toward her before she shot an icicle at his leg. He jumped back and found himself against the wall. The spirit smiled and flew down towards him, launching a blast of cold wind at him. When it hit him the wind turned into ice, freezing him to the wall. The Yuki-onna landed in front of him and constructed a knife made of ice. She gripped his shoulder, slowly freezing him. "Do you want to know something?" She put the knife against his chest. "You'll feel this inside your chest even while you're frozen. You'll eternally be on the precipice between life and death, unable to know the peace of either." As she started to push the knife into his chest Seth started to pull against the ice but there was no way to escape and it was getting harder to move with her still freezing his shoulder. He couldn't die this way. Just thinking about what that would to to his family scared him more than anything he'd ever felt. He willed his shadow to do anything it could to help him as the snow spirit gleefully sliced into him. He closed his eyes and all of a sudden he stopped feeling the knife or the biting cold consuming him where the spirit had held his shoulder. He opened his eyes and his shadow was grabbing the spirit's arms. His shadow grew and enveloped the Yuki-onna in a veil of darkness. Seth was still stuck to the wall, shivering, but the cold gradually grew more tolerable. Was that because he was dying? His shadow retreated back behind him and the snow spirit was on the ground. She stood back up and grabbed her knife from the ground, quickly dropping it. The reason why was clear. She was no longer transparent and made of ice, she was the pale woman with dark hair that Seth had seen when she walked in and she was shaking from the cold. The spirit looked down at herself with disbelief and when her eyes fell onto Seth it turned to shock, then fear. Seth looked down at himself and he saw that his arms were invisible beneath his jacket. In fact he started to notice that despite the sub-zero temperatures not changing he was starting to feel hot. And his see-through hands were so cold you could see frost on his transparent fingers. The spirit charged at him, lashing out with her nails. Seth grabbed her arm and he felt an instinct take over. He felt the heat inside the spirit's body and he started to consume it, stealing her life until there was nothing left to leech.

When he was done the woman was a statue like the ones his friends were turned into, frozen all the way through. The absorption of the spirit's body heat left Seth feeling powerful, a sort of exhilarating thrill like he'd never felt before. He looked in amazement as he felt the slice in his chest and the damage caused from the cold heal themselves. Seth turned back to where the Yuki-onna's victims were on display. He wondered what happened. His shadow had attacked the snow spirit, then she was rendered powerless and now...Seth pointed his hand at the floor and tried to remember and replicate the instinctive need to freeze and consume he'd felt when he'd frozen the snow spirit. He felt the air around him chill and a cold wind shot at the ground from his hand, solidifying when it touched the floor into a column of ice. So, it seemed, he had ice powers now. His curiosity satisfied, he focused on his friends, each frozen solid. He concentrated, digging into himself to get his new ice powers to thaw them back into their normal selves. Despite his efforts nothing seemed to work. He tried imagining hot things, commanding his abilities to absorb the ice, having his shadow try to fix them and even asking them if this was just some sort of prank. He put a hand on Hugo and sighed. As he did he felt the heat he'd absorbed from the snow spirit trying to slip from his body and return to the golem.

"That's it." Seth thought out loud as he realized. "I must have the Yuki-onna's powers now. If I absorbed the heat in her body that must mean I have whatever she leeched from her victims."

Seth allowed the heat begging to return to be released and blue lights flew to each of the frozen beings. Almost instantly the ice turned back to flesh and everyone took a collective breath. The ice on the ground melted and the temperature returned to normal levels.

Warren blinked. "What happened? Seth, is that you? What are you doing here?"

"Making a daring rescue." Seth said with a winning smile.

"Why are you invisible-" Vanessa started.

Everything started to get much colder. Seth felt his teeth chatter and his skin turned back to normal, losing the transparency it had before. He tried a step and he collapsed to the floor, everything going black.


On the Dark Island

The door led to a throne room. The throne, the floor, the ceiling, the doors and the guards positioned by them were all made of black glass. The room was big enough for a large-scale battle, Bila noted. The ceilings were high enough for aerial combat if you were careful enough not to hit the giant chandelier.

The door behind the raised platform that an ornate throne stood on opened. Out stepped a tall man with pale skin, dark hair and purple eyes. There was no mistaking it. This was Demrus. The Deceiver himself. He casually strode in and sat on the throne.

"Hello." He said happily. "I'm glad you could make it."

"I am too." Bila said. "Now I don't have to do any searching around before I kill you."

"Why would you want to kill me?" Demrus asked, laughing slightly as if it was the most absurd idea he'd ever heard in his life.

"You're kidding right?" Bila asked.

"Not at all. Have I done something wrong?" He seemed alarmed.

"Did he?" Elmas asked.

"For starters you're using your powers on us right now." Bila said.

Demrus's eyes went wide. "I would never." He turned to Hedera. "Do you feel like I'm influencing you?"

"Not at all." Hedera said.

"Then why are you here?" Demrus asked. "You're not just visiting?"

"No, Bila said we're under orders to kill you." Hedera said.

"Oh, goodness." He exclaimed. "Did you want to come here?" He asked Jorgo, making eye contact.

"I...stopping you will prevent you from summoning your mother." Jorgo said uncertainly. "It will save the world."

"No, no, no." Demrus said. "I don't intend to summon my mother. I just want to help you."

"Really?" Elmas asked.

"Yes." Demrus said, swallowing hard.

This needs to stop before it gets out of hand. Bila thought. She let her power rise to the surface. Her eyes glowed brighter and fire danced in them.

"I've had a lot of time to reflect during my imprisonment." Demrus said. He looked at the ground and sighed. His voice cracked when he said, "I want to be better than I was before. I want to atone. And this is the first step."

"You gave power to thousands of dark creatures." Kurus said. "Do you know how many people that could've killed?"

"I swear I didn't mean to." Demrus said. "I didn't know my powers would affect them this way. That's why I've locked myself away here. I thought distance would stop the darkness in me from spreading to them."

"That's so sad." Hedera said.

"It is. I want to be better than I was before, but it seems all I'll ever be is the god who misused his power." Demrus said heartrendingly. He cleared his throat, looking Hedera, Kurus, Elmas and Jorgo each in the eye before saying. "That's besides the point, though. What you need to know is that I'm not manipulating you. But I fear someone else is."

Here it comes. Bila thought, clenching her fists as sparks fell from her hands.

"Who?" Hedera asked.

"I think I know." Elmas said. Of course she would be the first to. Bila thought.

"Yes." Demrus said. He pointed at Bila. "Her."

Her friends immediately turned on her.

Bila's eyes were glowing as bright as the sun now. The sparks at her hands fell more and more, until they started smoking and turned to fire. Because now, against a god, wasn't the time for sparks. It was the time for fire. Her whole body coated itself in flames now as she lifted into the air. Her skin went from flesh to a white-hot blazing inferno. The form of the goddess inside her. Amora, love, beauty and protection incarnate.