Zelena had changed. Even in human form, her skin was now a florid green. Magic radiated from her aura like a slow leak of venom.
"Kneel and be silent." The witch's words struck like physical blows, felt through the link Belle shared with her husband, and she also felt the terrifying need to obey that convulsed him and sent him to the ground.
Zelena was the last person Belle had expected to see when she tumbled out of the void between the worlds, half a breath behind Rumple. Even as her husband was forced to his knees, Belle dug her feet into the layer of wet, decaying leaves they had landed on and stood up, one hand still holding Rumple's shoulder. She wasn't sure what had happened, how they had been torn away from the portal only to materialize in this dank forest, but then she saw the dagger in Zelena's right hand.
How? How did she...? Belle knew how zealously Rumple guarded his dagger, especially after what had happened with Gaston. She herself had woven strands of her own magic into the spells protecting it, patching up the weaknesses inherent in Rumple's dark magic. It should have been impossible for Zelena to break those spells, and even more impossible to do it undetected. The shock escaped her lips in a whispered, "It can't be..."
"Surprise, dearie!" Zelena chortled. "Wicked always finds a way." She waved the dagger in a flourish, and it was... it was not the dagger Belle knew. The blade was blackened as if stained from the inside by pure darkness, the inscribed name no longer easily visible.
But if it wasn't his dagger, not truly, then— Belle's fingers pressed into Rumple's shoulder. In a low voice she urged him, "Fight it, Rumple. It's not the real dagger. You can fight it. Please, Rumple, I know you can do it..." She felt him tremble under his touch. "Stand up. Just that. Stand up... you have to believe... she's trying to trick you."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken, dearie," came another, impossibly familiar voice.
If Belle was shocked before, now her blood ran utterly cold. A slight, shadow-cloaked figure stepped up next to Zelena with an aura of such roiling darkness that at first she couldn't even see his face — then it came into sudden focus and she knew him. "No..."
"Oh yes," said Rumplestiltskin — another Rumplestiltskin, one with no recognition or softness in his eyes when he looked at Belle. "That dagger is quite real — the definitive article, you might say!"
"Just as we are. The bitch queen can try to protect her precious 'chosen ones' all she likes, trying to hide you away, but destiny — or your own foolishness — has delivered you right to us," gloated Zelena.
"What are you talking about?" She means Nevethe, but Nevethe locked us out, thought Belle. Or... was the Queen actually trying to lock ZELENA out? Zelena's next words confirmed her fears.
"Instead of staying safe behind the walls around your world, you nibbled a hole and poked your silly little heads out... right into the jaws of fate."
"It's nothing to do with fate," retorted Belle, but her heart sank. She glanced at the other Rumplestiltskin. "I don't understand... how can his dagger command another Dark One when only one soul is tethered to the blade?"
"Because this dagger commands all the others," hissed the other. "Because out of all Rumplestiltskins, I have drawn deeper in the darkness than any other. I have mastered its roots..."
Belle felt Rumple shudder, heard the strain in his ragged breaths. "Rumple," she whispered. "We'll find a way. There's always..."
"No!" the other Dark One cut in. "There is nothing you can do for him. But there is much, much more we could do to him..."
Zelena laughed. She stepped forward, bending down to slide the tip of the dagger under Rumple's chin, forcing him to tilt his face upwards to one side until they could see the whites of his eyes. "What fun we'll have." She lowered her voice to coo in his ear, "You should have chosen me, pet," before releasing him, leaving a thin line of blood along his neck.
"Stop it!" cried Belle uselessly, hands clenched to stop herself from casting a spell that would only provoke the witch into hurting Rumple further. She dropped down by his side, offering the only comfort she could, holding him to her. "Why are you doing this? Why can't you just let it go?"
"Let go?" Zelena's eyes flashed in fury. "Let go of my birthright? Of everything that I've worked for? Everything that should be mine? That will be mine?" The hand holding the dagger gestured, and Rumplestiltskin cried out in pain, his body contorting, his fingers clawing at the forest floor even as Belle tried to soothe him. "Stop clinging, you disgusting little bookworm. Rumple, darling, get her off him."
The other Dark One lifted a hand. A wave of force tore Belle away from Rumplestiltskin, flinging her into the air before slamming her brutally into a tree. Only an instinctive flare of shielding magic saved Belle from a broken back.
Tears blurred her vision as she picked herself up. "Don't," she gasped, her voice sounding pathetically weak to her own ears. "Don't... Don't hurt him."
"If that's what you want... we can come to an agreement," said the other Dark One coldly. "If you give us what we want, pain is superfluous."
"What... what do you want?"
"Light. Light magic. Something you seem to have stumbled upon in your excessively charmed existence," sneered Zelena. "Something I can make far better use of than some chit of a princess."
"You want to use my magic? What for?" Belle's thoughts raced as she considered the possibilities. How much damage could Zelena do with access to light magic, that she couldn't already do with a Dark One at her disposal? With two Dark Ones? Belle's eyes went to Rumple. If Belle refused, how much suffering could Zelena inflict on him? What if she pretended to cooperate, then...
"The Wood Beyond. You will aid us in opening the way to Nevethe," said the other Dark One.
Dangerous, whispered a caution at the back of Belle's mind. Nevethe is the nexus of all the realms. It safeguards the magic of true love within its trees. You CAN'T let Zelena gain control of that power!
Seeing her hesitation, Zelena ran a finger along the blade of the dagger and whispered something. Rumplestiltskin screamed in agony.
"Stop it!"
Zelena held up a hand and snapped her fingers closed as she flicked them downwards sharply, like a conductor silencing a band, and the scream cut off just as sharply, leaving Rumple panting with his head hanging down in despair. "You agree, bookworm?"
"What if I don't?" She could hardly look at Rumple as she asked the question, not knowing which would be the worse betrayal. A multiverse dominated by Zelena hardly bore thinking about, and if Baelfire would suffer for it, it was something Rumple would try to prevent at any cost. But if that cost meant torture or worse, how could Belle look him in the eye, knowing that it was in her power to save him?
The other Dark One chuckled, a grim, humorless sound. "Then we stop wasting time with the two of you and find another, more cooperative Belle. It is mere sentimentality that my mistress chooses you before those others, as the one born to the same world as she was."
An accident of birth. So much for fate. Belle saw Rumple's defeated slump out of the corner of her eye. If she tried to be the hero today, it would only leave another Belle, another Rumple, to suffer in her place. She swallowed, making her decision.
"All right. I agree," she blurted out before she could change her mind.
Zelena practically glowed in triumph. And perhaps it was more sentimentality that had her take such joy in forcing Rumple into his shadow form — a mute, winged beast unable to speak up for himself. Her face twisted with spite as she stroked the dagger along his neck, causing him to cower away. "See what your bitch queen has made of you: a cringing beast of burden fit only to be a stepping stone on my way to ascension!"
The other Dark One bound Belle in chains of dark magic, setting her on Rumple's back before climbing up behind her. Beside them, Zelena shifted into her own Timer form, the green-winged creature Belle had seen on their first meeting.
Magic enveloped them. The ground dropped away and they were in the pure darkness of the shadow realm. Belle could feel the power being wrenched out of her, and she grasped desperately to stop the drain before it pulled away the fragile life growing inside her.
"No, please!" she begged the other Dark One, not knowing if her words could even be heard in this realm, not knowing if he would care even if he did hear — this Rumplestiltskin who had no memory of her, no warmth in his eyes when he saw her, not even the anger of the older Rumplestiltskin she had met before she married her Rumple. "My child... you'll kill my child if you take any more..."
Belle. A shiver of dismay from the shadow creature that was her husband. A hint of struggle, then, quickly subdued by the other Dark One in cold silence.
Whether he heard their plea and whether he was moved by it or whether it was that he had what he needed from them, the power drain ceased.
The walls of Nevethe were broken open. The sky flared overhead. The ground stretched out in every direction. They stood on the plain in the center of the Wood Beyond, in the shade of the largest and most ancient of its trees.
And their invasion had been foreseen.
Timers surrounded them, and among the Timers — an army of those other Rumplestiltskins, those other Belles, that until now had only been a threat or an outlandish theory. They were here.
"Zelena." The word dropped from the sky, from the two eyes like dust red moons that regarded them in weary condemnation. The Queen of the Wood Beyond, also called Nevethe.
Zelena only laughed the laugh of a maniac convinced of her own invincibility. "Did you miss me, dearies?"
The air grew tense with magic. Belle felt the hostility aimed at them — at Zelena — but she and Rumple were trapped with her. Belle looked around, seeing only a blur of horrifyingly familiar faces and more Timers than she had ever seen in one place before. She didn't dare halt her gaze long enough to see if Cogsworth and Lumiere were among them.
"You are an abomination," the Queen said flatly. "Be gone now, and for the sake of those you hold hostage, you may live a while longer."
"I might say the same to your pathetic army, but my Rumple looks a wee bit bored today," came Zelena's laughing reply. "Perhaps I'll let him off his leash to play..."
Belle wanted to cry out in protest. She didn't know how much of the Rumplestiltskin she knew remained in the Dark One that currently held her locked silent and unmoving as a statue, but her heart refused to believe any Rumple could be completely lost. Don't. Don't. Please, don't.
Zelena carried on with appalling confidence. All the things she would do to the Timers who had never truly seen her as one of them, though she had lived among them almost since the day she was born. All the ways they had failed her or looked down on her — all would be repaid with interest. So she said.
Behind Belle, the Dark One waited, rigid with approval or disapproval, she couldn't tell. When was the last time Zelena had allowed him the freedom of his own opinions? Or was he too broken to disagree with her, even without the constraint of the dagger? His voice had been so cold and his aura so dark that Belle hardly recognized him anymore. Was that to be the fate of her Rumple? No doubt Zelena would kill her once she was no longer of use.
Belle sat frozen, unable even to wipe away her tears. Under her, the shadow beast Rumple vibrated in distress, but was just as unable to break free of the magic binding him.
It was not a flashy, explosive battle with spells flying, but more of a dense push of magic, two wills colliding, seeking domination. The lines of force moved slowly, even as small, quick feints probed for weakness. Belle didn't understand how Zelena had even a hope of victory: even counting the magic she harnessed from Belle and two Dark Ones added to her own power, on the other side stood all the power of Nevethe. Hadn't Rumple always said that true love was the most powerful magic of all? The Wood Beyond's magic was true love's magic, channeled and focused through its trees.
That magic had created gods out of Titans.
That magic bound the realms together.
"What can defeat true love?" Belle had no voice to speak the words aloud, but it seemed the other Dark One heard them anyway.
"Love is a disease," he said from behind her. "Love is a weapon, but any weapon can be broken." Then he raised his voice to penetrate to every corner of the Wood Beyond. "Hear me, you who are lost in your delusion. I bring enlightenment. And that is darkness!"
"No..." Belle's lips shaped denial, but she felt her vision dim.
"In darkness there is no illusion, only truth. Love is a lie, a chain that binds your will. Today I have come to free you."
Free? Not while Zelena held the dagger, thought Belle. But when had she fallen silent? Since when did someone like Zelena let anyone else upstage her? Belle turned her gaze with an effort to see Zelena with her arm upraised, the dagger's blade catching the light like a banner. Whatever intention Zelena had come to the Wood with, it had been overwritten by the tendrils of darkness crawling over her hands, her arms, her face. Blank darkness oozed from her eyes and mouth, halting whatever commands she might have issued. Black lines webbed over the bright green of her skin, their ends running into the ground.
Darkness radiated from the dagger, carrying a compulsion no Dark One could resist. And one by one, the Rumplestiltskins standing with the Timers stopped fighting. They opened themselves to the call that only they could hear. Belle sensed it as the Dark One behind her turned them to his purpose.
Darkness is not more powerful than true love! Belle refused to believe that. Rumple!
But the balance had tilted, and not in Nevethe's favor. For the first time, Belle saw fear in the faded Queen.
"We will not fall to you," said Nevethe.
"Everything falls," said the darkest of the Dark Ones. "All things, no matter their size, no matter their age — all things fall, are always falling, always failing."
No, no, no, Belle protested, words trapped inside her own head. It doesn't matter if we're falling if we fall together. Rumple!
Belle.
She wasn't sure if she imagined it, but she held onto that scrap of hope with all her heart. It's not a lie. I love you and that's not a lie. We have to fight him...
But the Timers were screaming. Leaves withered on branches. Wood cracked open, split by darkness and bleeding light.
Nevethe was falling. Nevethe was failing.