Michael hurtles through the streets, sheathing his bloodied dagger to help give him room to pump his arms and gain speed. The demon-woman scurrying through the shadows.
He spits a mouthful of blood and saliva onto the cobblestone, aware of his breathing.
He thinks he hears someone behind him, calling his name, but he doesn't stop. Doesn't look back.
When he burst through the front doors of the castle, people yelped and shrieked and cowered. He knew he probably looked like absolute hell, if the paled complexion of Prince Alvin was any indication.
He only made sure to adjust his mask as he barreled through the crowd, his cape a wave of ebony behind him.
People are screaming all around him, mothers grabbing children, ducking into their houses and shops as he follows the thumping of the creature's feet. Michael sprints down the street, following the screams, the reek –
His breath tears into his lungs as he hurtles into the alley, dodging piles of trash and parked bicycles. The demon had only gotten a head start. He can try and cut it off –
Where is it, where is it?
Michael clears the alley, careening into the Central Square, the street full of fleeing people and ducking behind any cover they can find. Michael leaps over the stand of fresh fruit, weaving through the people who aren't fast enough, every movement as smooth as the day they'd been trained into him. Leap, twirl, duck – his body doesn't fail him. Not as he follows the creature's rotting stench towards the outskirts of town.
Good.
Now no one can see him chop it limb from limb.
A snarl and roar rent the air ahead.
The buildings slowly dissipate into trees and a single road, the only signs of life coming from the light of the scarce homes sprinkled along the mountainside. His legs burn as he follows it up an inclined hill.
He never loses sight of the creature, doesn't dare to. Using the moonlight as a guide, his eyes catch the slightest movement, fearing if he were to let the creature escape into the shadows, it would be lost forever.
But that doesn't mean he isn't aware of the creature's plan.
They're away from the kingdom now, the buildings having disappeared; nothing but green trees and a vague dirt road created from the many footsteps that walked along the trail.
It's leading him, somewhere. And Michael doesn't know if he should be relieved or suspicious.
Both.
The creature is leaping from left to right, right to left; Michael wishing he had brought his bow. He would kill the thing instantly with an arrow straight between the eyes, powerful limbs or not.
The ground raced by beneath Michael's pounding feet, the chilled summer air stinging his lungs. As he runs, he can feel his body enter that uncomfortable place of being warm on the inside but cold with sweat on the outside. He knew he'd pay later for not having warmed up or anything before launching straight into a full sprint.
Through the smattering of clouds, three early night stars shine in the deepening blue, but it isn't completely dark yet.
The demon is getting farther and farther ahead, Michael's heart sinking to his stomach.
No, he can't lose it –!
Rows of trees and thick underbrush emerge on either side of him. The farther into the woods he runs, the denser the surrounding forest grows. Overhead, the interlocking patchwork of hanging boughs work to transform his pathway into a darkening tunnel. Through the lacework of limbs, thick clouds inch by. Darkness creeps in around him, spreading its fingers through the trees, working to smear them into a single black blur.
Michael frowns, at last admitting to himself that something has felt funny since he entered the forest. Only now, he can place his finger on what.
He slows his run to a jog, listening to the lonely, hollow clap of his feet.
Quiet.
Everything around him stood really still and really . . . quiet.
The demon escaped him!
How?!
It only gained five feet on him!
He glances over his shoulder at the darkening stretch of trail behind him. Black, like a ribbon of ink.
The breeze that had greeted him outside the forest has vanished somewhere between there and here, and he looks up now to find the tree limbs motionless, their leaves immobile.
Taking in his surroundings, he finds himself at the entrance of some ruined building. Moss and leaves and vines have long since reclaimed the weathered stones, enveloping them in a blanket of green until only certain areas of white catch the eye.
Quickly Michael gathers a bundle of twigs, tying them off at the middle. With skilled hands, he lights one end of the sticks. Holding it aloft, he begins to see the layout of the crumbled ruins.
Given the size and structure, Michael could only assume it was some kind of ancient temple. Only slabs of broken stone remain to show where the temple had stood. A few oblong stones – pillars – are tossed about as if a hand has scattered them. A pile of them indicate what might've been a tower.
He runs his fingers along the stone, shivering from a warm yet dull hum that traverses up his fingers.
Even in daylight, the stones would be noticeable, here under the icy veil of the moon, they seem to breathe with an ethereal presence.
On cue, the clouds separate, and a thick ray of light opens and spreads across the courtyard, making the pale stones and sleet seem to glow. He immediately retracts his hands as he expects the stones to burn him.
As he walks deeper into the ruins, he keeps a hand on his dagger, waiting for the demon to pounce.
He has not forgotten about him.
Up here, there are no sounds of the forest that is just to his left. To his right, the large expanse of Arendelle, with its castle wall and its town cresting along the shorelines.
Michael crosses the cracked floor of a possible courtyard, pulling off the hood of his black cloak. Having enough confidence to pull down his mask as well. Keeping his arms loose at sides, within reach of his daggers, he walks to the epicenter, almost feeling, uneasy with the stilled silence.
He suddenly pauses as the hair on his arm rises. His eyes flick to the torch and he watches in stilled fear as the flame bends forward, pointing to a darkness that seems blacker than the rest. Whispers lay beneath the breeze, speaking to him in foreign, forgotten languages.
He comes to a wall with a decent portion of its middle curtained by the leaves as if ready for a show. He can see carvings shadowed along the wall from the makeshift torch.
The images on the wall flickers in the light. It depicts a forest. A forest, and –
Fae. It was impossible to mistake those ungodly beautiful faces and perfect bodies. They lounge and dance naked around a fire and play music, content to bask in their immortality and ethereal beauty.
This place is old – far older than the castle itself. But what are pictures of witches doing far out here?
Even with their eyes washed away, their very presence seems, palpable. Not unwelcoming, but observing.
But something else feels wrong and it isn't just the stillness.
A vague flicker of feeling; like something in his stomach, or similar to the chills of the cold.
Since he has stopped running, the air around him has seemed to compress, to grow denser. He can't explain it, but it feels as through the night itself, unnatural in its calmness, has begun to move in on him, to close in tight.
His nerves prickle.
Something has been flickering oddly in response, as though the whispered prayers of long-forgotten worshipers are still being heard, giving power. If he were to admit it, he can almost feel the echoes of the power that had dwelled here long ago. That heat licking its way up his neck, down his spine, as if some piece of the temple's patron still curls around here.
A hiss has Michael drawing his dagger in seconds. He looks all around him but doesn't see any movement. Then a voice like velvet midnight drawls, "I can see why you wear the mask. A face like that could stop women's hearts."
Then from the shadows steps a woman of unfathomable beauty.
A pale, triangular face with sharp cheekbones, a pert nose, and round violet eyes – cold and sparkling with a remarkable, penetrating gaze. Her locks of curly, raven black hair fall in a cascade of curls on her pretty, shapely shoulders. On her long, slender neck hangs a silver locket sparkling with a multitude of tiny diamonds embedded in it.
He has never seen a face like that before.
It is a face of rage and fury. The face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction, and death.
The shadows seem to recede from her, a pilgrimage of phantom hands, revealing a long silk dress the color of tanzanite. The seductive, heart-shaped bodice and gentle half-mast shoulders cling to her full figure, the skirt decorated with embroidered lace as it trains behind her, pooling on the steps like liquid.
"Something wrong, dear? The blood seems to have rushed from your face." Her voice is resonant and mildly derisive.
"Who are you?" Michael asks in a surprisingly steady tone.
As she moves with a natural, unforced grace, Michael debates whether or not he was encountering the goddess of this forgotten temple.
Those eyes conceal wisdom and imperiousness. "I am Wind." She hums. "I am Rain. I am Bone and Dust and Darkness. My name is a snippet of a half-forgotten song."
Michael lowers his dagger, but spins it out for a better grip, and to be able to cut this woman from nose to navel should she lunge. "Cryptic clues won't get you anywhere." He growls.
He keeps his eyes on the woman as she circles around him. He holds the torch towards her, almost expecting her to hiss and cower. Instead, it almost illuminates her pale skin, some silver halo around her head. Another blink and its gone.
Another blink and it's there. Michael lowers the torch, shaking his head.
"I have no name," she purrs. "I am the wraith that moves in the mist. Unseen and unheard."
"You sent that demon after the Queen and Princess." Michael states, following her as she continues to walk in a circle around him.
"Indeed."
"Why?"
"Because playing assassin was growing dull." She says as she picks at her nails, filed to look like claws.
Michael blinks, the only sign of his surprise. "You're the leader of the Inferno Assassins?"
"Leader, creator . . . titles don't matter now. I've grown bored of them. Useless pieces of shit." She growls, yet her hand delicately traces an invisible pattern one the dirt dusted stone.
The way she speaks about, as though they were nothing more than toys . . .
She says with a sarcastic sigh. "But what is it that they say? If you want something done, do it yourself."
Even the birds and insects do not utter a too-loud sound now. The treetops sway ever-so-slightly in the cold breeze.
A strange, pulsing bit of air pushes against his ears. A high-pitched ringing wending itself into his head.
The grip on his dagger tightens. "Why?"
"There's a magic that sings in the blood, young warrior."
"What could you gain from killing the Snow Queen?"
The woman suddenly laughs – like the caw of a crow – as she turns to him. "The Queen? Why would I want someone whose as delicate as her power? The queen may seem strong on the outside, but inside, she's a terrified little child. Cracks under the first signs of pressure."
"You don't know what she's capable of." Michael growls.
"Oh, yes I do. And more importantly, so does she." She traces another symbol on a different stone adjacent to where she started. "But this isn't really about her, Michael."
He tries to hide his shiver as she says his name. How does she even know his name? To the rest of the world, he's nothing – a nobody. The rebels never spoke his name outside their camps; they only and always called him by –
"You're a difficult man to find, you know. But what else can I expect from a man whose battle name was, The Reaper."
Michael's insides turn to liquid.
He hasn't heard that name in years.
It was a name that would strike fear in the hearts of many. When walking through several of the towns he's toured, they would always whisper his name when mentioned. Whether during the day, or late at night, many would look to the shadows in fear of summoning him if they were to speak of him. His specialty was stealth, and Death was always his gift.
Each of the rebels had been given a moniker – either earned or self-created – as means to keep their true names hidden. It made it easier for them because it prevented authorities from hunting down every Michael or Caiden or Danika in the kingdom to see if they were tied to the rebels.
Besides, who would want to try and find someone whose name was known as, The Reaper, The Wraith, and The Huntress.
Michael often tries not to think about the trail of bloodshed and carnage that paved the way to his name. The amount of times he slit people's throats until it became muscle memory; the way he would toy with his targets by slipping from shadow to shadow, hiding in the thinnest sliver of it.
But if she's able to pin his alias to him . . . what else does she know?
"Who are you?" he repeats, but his voice quakes.
Another cruel, spiderlike smile, then she says slowly, as if she savored every word. "Like calls to like, Michael."
On cue, the clouds seem to part, the moonlight opening wide like the shadow of a door into a lit hallway. It spreads across the central yard, and wall, illuminating the stones in a light like that of a dying star.
Michael steps back, suddenly cold.
He drops his torch, nearly pissing himself.
What he thought were images . . . he was sorely mistaken.
They are runes.
Ancient runes.
They trace along the walls in large, separate circles. What he thought were trees were more runes that still look like trees, only smaller and more detailed marks lie within as he steps underneath them at the center of the room. Then the Fae, the forest – all revealed to be combined ancient runes that make a larger picture. It looks more like the inside of the mind of a mentally disturbed person.
Suddenly, everything is tight, and the air has grown thin.
Cold sweat slithers down his spine as he peers around the covered wall and floor beneath him.
He looks to the woman. She smiles, and it is not a thing of beauty.
Spewing a stream of truly despicable curses, Michael goes to take a step back to leave this room and sprint the many stairs back up to the normality of the castle above.
However, a sharp pain in his ankle makes his release a strangled cry as he falls to one knee. A large and sharp spike had erected from the ground and gouged a long line up his calf; piercing through his pants and boots, releasing a thick stream of his blood.
He's already scrambling back before his brain could click together what was going to happen.
But still his blood pools onto the floor and greenish lights spring up from the middle to illuminate more runes. He watches his blood soak into the floor, into the marks before that eerie light slowly grows outwards until each mark has made the shape of a square within a circle.
A deep rumbling vibrates the foundation of the temple ruins. Michael stumbles back and hits tailbone hits the stone with a hard thump.
Scrambling for his daggers, Michael cuts off the sleeve of his cloak to press and tie his bleeding leg. But still more blood leaks onto the marks and gets sucked into the void like wraiths on the wind. Like it's feeding the marks.
A bright light begins to ripple across the marks.
"No. No, no, no!" Michael pleads, but he doesn't dare wipe it away, remembering what a rebel mage said about the marks having a thousand different meanings.
Suddenly his joints lock up, as if they had been frozen from the inside. He can feel the icy grip as it forces his arms to his sides, his feet seemingly planted to the stones beneath him. he cans till turn his head as far as it'll go, still fist his hands, but his arms and legs and feet are stuck.
This isn't like Elsa's ice.
No, this feels like the cold grip of invisible hands rendering him vulnerable.
His spine tingles, his nerves prickle. Along his neck and arms, all hairs rise to stand on end as he feels a hot breath behind him.
"You have power in you, Michael. More power than you realize." The woman walks around to his front and touches his chest, tracing a symbol there, too.
Michael could feel his head flee to the back of his ribcage, still pounding like a war drum.
But the woman's eyes are locked on his. "It sleeps," she whispers, tapping his heart. "In here."
Michael trembles like a leaf. The green lights still seep from the marks on the floor, illuminating her now figure, making her appear more ghostly now.
"When the time comes, when it awakens, do not be afraid." She removes her hand and gives him a sad smile. "When it is time, I will help you."
Slowly, that tingle he felt from the stones begins to grow. He looks to the runes. They're familiar; the style similar to that of the Ancient Nordic, but less, sharp.
As the woman steps back, the marks shift to glow a delicate blue. Soft and slow, pulsing like something breathing beneath it.
The hair on his neck rises as he clamps his eyes shut.
He thought his stomach had dropped, but suddenly against the blackness of his closed eyes, a thread of gold and orange shoots out as if released from a fishing line, and latches onto his heart. His chest even compresses as if something had been caught.
The thread turns into delicate links of a chain to his heart and slowly spreads its way out and threading into the runes at his feet, binding him to it.
Then something sparks in his head.
And something ancient and slumbering deep inside of him opens an eye.
A muscle in his back twinges and he swallows and breathes.
It's the one thing he keeps telling himself as he feels something shudder awake, filling up the spaces in him. It flows down his arms, snakes around his wrists, and then settles into his palm, his skin warming.
The world seems to shudder beneath him. Wait . . . or maybe he merely stumbles.
But that's impossible, he's so anchored to the ground, to the earth.
He tries to scream, but his throat is raw, burning. He can't move his body.
In a panic, he clamps down on the magic so hard it suffocates. But he ends up having a violent cough. There's a pounding in his head now – edged with pain. It is a knife slicing into his mind and body with each pulse.
Off, somewhere – he cannot tell what's up or down or right or left – he thinks he hears a shriek.
Then he feels that shift and the surge, the well opening beneath his stomach and filling with burning, relentless fire.
Magic, raw and unforgiving, ancient and burning, erupts out of him, punching through his wall and lashing down his spine so hard he screams.
No. No!
The well of power overflows inside of him. He's fumbling inside for that tether, but he is a maze, a labyrinth, the strings are all tangled, and –
"Michael!" a voice pleads.
He opens his eyes.
Blue fire erupts around him, Elsa yelling and the grass hissing. He blinks and his eyes ache as if he has sand in them. He falls onto the cold stone, gripping it, cracking it, as that wildfire reaches up, up into his throat. Whatever magic was holding has relinquished, or perhaps he overpowered it.
He is screaming or sobbing or not making any sound at all.
Its weight smothers him as he thrashes, seeking a surface or a bottom to push off from. Neither exists.
Michael vomits. There's flame in his mouth, in his throat, his eyes. Real flames. His bladder loosens just before he vomits a second time. Looking across from him, he sees the woman standing there, her form unaffected by the raging winds and whipping flames.
"Help me," he pleads as a wet warmth soaks his pants.
He can't breathe, can't breathe, can't –
But she only smiles, her hair beginning to float, as if gravity no longer exists. Her perfect, pale lips part to say, "When you're ready, come find me."
Then her form is swallowed by the flames, fading into nothing, as if she never existed.
The flames flood his throat again, surging into his body and melting him apart, he begins screaming noiselessly, begging it to halt –
Agony cleaves him in a pulse, a flash of blinding pain as it feels as though his skin is being ripped from their hold.
That mortal, human weight vanishes.
His vision jumps between crystal clarity and the muted eyesight of mortals, his teeth aching, ebb and flow, shifting as fast as a hummingbird's wings.
Strength courses through him, coating his bones like armor.
Invincible.
Immortal.
Unstoppable.
Immortal.
Michael tips his head back to the sky and roars.
A column of turquoise fire sparks around him. The magic at last unleashed.
"Michael!"
It is too much.
He is burning up from within. Each breath sends fire down his lungs, his veins. He cannot speak or move.
Another form pushes through the flames, haloed by a gentle light of arctic blue. Something in his brain registers female, this one with hair of sun-bleached yellow.
"MICHAEL!"
He shakes with tearless, panicked sobs. It hurts – it is endless and eternal and there is no dark part of him to hide from the flames.
He is burning alive beneath his skin.
"I'm sorry." Elsa hisses, swearing viciously, and the air vanishes.
Michael tries to move, but he has no air. Not as ice begins to harden across his throat.
No air for that inner fire.
Blackness sweeps in.