"My mother is dead." Michael says in a too-quiet voice.
He cannot hide the trembling if he could, and he's ever grateful for Danika's support – literal and rhetorical – as he feels himself stumble a bit.
"And now, I've been reborn, my darling."
"No –" he chokes, even as he discreetly reaches for one of the daggers strapped at his waist. Should he even risk trying to fight? With half a thought she could have those razor-sharp claws seizing his mind again. He does his best to control his breathing – refusing to allow the shift of fear in his scent. "My mother would never do this. Would never say these things."
The Fae Queen – as he's resorted to calling her; seemingly more fitting than Midnight Beauty – folds her hands in front. Her hair continues to undulate on phantom wind, the skirt of her dress rippling like ink in water. Both move with an unrushed serenity, moving as one, yet following their own waltz.
"I did what I could for you. And for us. I might not have been able to save your father, but I am here to save you." She extends a moon-white hand towards them. Danika gives a low growl in warning.
Michael shakes his head, his heart crushing at tears well in his eyes. "You're lying."
"Look inside your memories, my darling. I am your mother. You are my son."
"I – I can't be. Even if it was true, I'm not like you. I'm not Fae, I can't be."
A cold, joyless laugh. Enough so she tips her head back, exposing the long column of her neck. He should've taken the shot, but fear of that gripping darkness has him remaining still. Danika's hand – which had been secured around his waist – briefly squeezes his side. Confirmation he made the right choice. He can't let his emotions get the better of his judgment. She's still offering answers, he can't afford to lose that, no matter how deeply those claws seem to reach inside his mind.
"My dear, I am not Fae, though I bear the beauty and longevity of one. I told you, I am no more a Fae than I am a cambion, or an elf or a troll. I just, am."
Michael manages to steady himself, finally easing himself off Danika. The shifter palms a knife in her hand, an asp ready to strike.
"My mother wasn't magical. My father" – he chokes – "maybe; I've never asked before."
"I might not have been able to do much for either of you before, but that all changed."
She lifts her pale hand, her taloned nails gleaming.
Faster than he can react, a streak of that familiar darkness shoots before him, but this time, he's ready.
Michael whirls, swiping his leg and an arc of fire blazes before him. The darkness hisses upon contact. He didn't know if it was real or in his mind – the sound like a cat baring fangs.
The two forces collide, Michael preparing himself for the impact, that is, until he looks down and finds the darkness has spared a small circle of space for him. The alabaster stone of the temple shines like a beacon beneath his feet, while all around him is once again blanketed in by that impenetrable fog.
Then all he hears is screaming.
High-pitched shrieking and pleading. Bones snapping, blood splattering like rain, cloth ripping, and screaming, screaming, screaming—
Michael squeezes his eyes shut so hard it hurts. Squeezes them shut so hard he is shaking.
Another plunder into his memories; another layer she's trying to peel back, just like she did in the square.
But then, he realizes –
"DANIKA!" Michael bellows.
Another scream answers in return.
Somewhere within the blackness, Danika is being tortured. Slaughtered.
Oh gods. Caiden would never forgive him if Danika –
If Danika . . .
If he brought them here just to get them killed –
Michael clenches his fist as he takes a step out of the circle, stumbling blindly through the black fog, trying to follow the screams through the cacophony of chaos.
"Danika?" Michael calls, but his voice comes out as a croaks. The only hope he has is the screaming means that Danika is still alive. "Danika?"
Blackness.
The coppery tang of blood, and that festering odor, slams into him.
Then there are warm, rough hands on him, dragging him away, and the woman's voice at his ear, saying, "Don't look."
The screaming is still erupting behind them.
"No! Danika!" he bellows, his throat scratching raw as he drives his elbow into what he thinks is the woman's ribs.
The jab lands home and those hands loosen, Michael seizing his chance to grab her fumbling wrists and yank her down has he drove his head up.
He revels in the pain as the crown of his head makes contact with what he can only assume is her nose.
He grits his teeth at the sound of cartilage cracking.
Another elbow to her stomach and a swift kick to accompany it, Michael is free, and is sprinting through the darkness to gods know where.
At this point, he'd be happy if he were to ram into a tree. Just something to prove to him that he is still in the real world, that this is just an illusion and he'll be able to find Danika and leave this place. Wherever they run will be sanctuary.
The screaming stops.
Only the patter of his feet now echo in his ears. In the seemingly never-ending darkness.
Michael stops running.
"Danika?" The word is a raw, broken sound.
Silence.
Suffocating silence.
He is pulling away from his body. Inch by inch. Like a tide ebbing from the shore.
"DanikaDanikaDanika –"
Then, trickling to his ears like a mountain stream, whispers begin to mingle in the darkness. The world is awash with fog and darkness and voices.
All around him are whispering, laughing, otherworldly voices.
"I couldn't do anything then. But I can do something now." The woman speaks. Her voice echoes as if they were in a cave. He can't tell if he thought it, or if she said it out loud.
Suddenly the ground shatters beneath him.
He falls through, and the scream within him breaks loose at last.
He crosses his arms over his face, shielding his eyes from the jagged shards of illusionary glass that wink around him in the blackness, threatening to shred him.
He topples until he slows to a steady drift, riding along the current of infinity. He feels it wrap around him like a swaddle, aimlessly guiding him. Unrushed.
Glass rains like lethal confetti, a shard embedding itself in his shoulder, another slicing his ankle. He opens his eyes to find the darkness churning, witnessing the ebb and flow of the black. Above him, a shattered stained-glass skylight opens to reveal the swirl of a storm-ridden sky. Ash floats through the opening left by his fall.
Still no sign or sound of Danika.
This woman, she's trying to unsettle him. Plunder him through different scenarios to confuse him, to lure him into some kind of unraveling madness; to abandon hope that he's even in his world anymore.
In a fit of panic, Michael lifts his hand to his face. Still somehow able to see himself in this darkness, his heart settles as he finds the scar trailing from his knuckle to his wrist.
It's enough of a reprieve to get his thoughts back on track. To try and focus on finding Danika.
Even as he fears the worst, he pushes aside his grief. There will be time to mourn later.
Every one of the restraints he'd locked into place after he'd rampaged through that death camp snaps free.
An icy, endless rage sweeps through him, wiping away everything except the plan that he can see with brutal clarity. The killing calm, one of his commanders had once called it. Even they had never realized just how calm Michael could get when he went over the edge.
He rights himself, planting his feet firmly on the ground. Somewhere within him, surprise sparks that there even is a ground, but it's quickly swallowed by that hardened silence within him. His own darkness swallowing it whole.
He yanks the shard from his shoulder, biting back the pain, blocking out the sound of shredding fabric and skin. He chucks it aside, feeling the blood permeate his armor. But he ignores it.
He begins to walk, but he takes no more than fifteen paces before the darkness opens beneath his feet, revealing hardwood floors and an ornate rug in dire need of sweeping.
Blocking his face from an anticipated attack, Michael squeezes his eyes shut as light begins to streak through the dark.
Then the smell of roast duck breaches his nose, mixing with freshly chopped wood and lavender soap. The fire burning on the hearth to his right warms his side.
Blinking against the sudden contrast, Michael finds himself back home.
Back at the little cabin in the woods – his home.
Whole and rich with life.
And there, seated in the two rocking chairs as they always did in the evenings, are his mother and father.
His father's golden-brown hair is tousled from the autumn winds, the color seeping into his beard – which though he kept trimmed and even, never bothered to shave altogether. His callus hands permanently stained with years of work, his fingernails still housing dirt no matter how many times he washed his hands.
His deep blue eyes – Michael's eyes – flicker across the pages of the newest book his mother had bought from the store. Some new Danish author she thought would intrigue him. He sits back relaxed in his chair, one foot planted on the ground while the other rested on his knee. He wore a shirt of beige, tucked into brown trousers.
And his mother, she sat across from him, her chair more active as she carefully rocks back and forth, that gentle lullaby – the one he knew word for word – emanating from her closed lips in a hum that washed over him like a fresh cup of tea. The dress she wore was a soft coral, off-setting her stunning sea-green eyes, her raven-black hair pulled back by a simple comb his father had given her for Christmas one year.
And the little bundle she held in her arms . . .
The little hand that reaches up to touch the locket resting at the base of her chest . . .
It was an agony.
An agony, to see his parents, young and strong and wise. Sitting together in that comfortable silence that they all shared – never a need to talk, to give voice to the air.
And the cabin –
It was perfect. Everything exactly as he remembers it, right down to the little gouges in the wall from when he first started training with a blade.
Michael is shaking—shaking so badly he thought his skin would ripple off his bones. "How dare you." He growls to nothing. It is not entirely human. "What gives you the right to invade my mind and steal this memory from my childhood?"
"It's not your memory, Michael." The woman's voice echoes, only now, it's a gentleness that speaks to that grief-stricken boy he tucked so deeply into his heart. Michael turns and finds the apparition of his mother now staring at him. His father still oblivious, the bundle in his mother's arms silent. "It's mine."
She lowers her arms, and the little bundle vanishes – simply fading into nothing, slow and as soft as an exhale – his father following shortly after. She stands, the skirt of her dress rippling with the movement.
He'd somehow forgotten the exact features of his mother's face, but . . . there they were. As she approaches, Michael takes a hesitant step back. He catches his reflection in the window looking out towards the front yard.
He briefly diverts his attention, to see what might be out there. He expected blackness, but actually, it was their front yard. Even the stump where his father always chopped wood.
The same stump where he was –
Michael blinks and swallows, and something silvery catches his eye. Taking the risk, he looks back and peers through the glass to find a figure doubled over in the grass. Wild blooms circle around her, almost wrong compared to the dirtied armor she wore. And the way the sunlight reflects off the rainbow colors of her hair –
"Danika!" he exclaims, pressing his free hand against the glass.
As if hearing him, something seems to recede, making his friend appearing clearer, more solid.
She kneels in the glass, palms flat against the dirt ground. Her skin looks paler than before, her wide citrine eyes staring into nothing, an expression of pure, undiluted horror. Tears slowly stream down her cheeks, but she doesn't wipe them. Almost, entranced.
Michael whirls to his mother – or, the demon disguised as his mother. "What did you do to her?" he demands, angling his dagger.
"She's safe enough, for now. I needed to keep her distracted while we, talk."
"We have nothing to talk about."
"Don't we?"
"No. Whatever you are – whoever you are – you are not my mother. I watched my father die; I heard my mother scream to me as she was beheaded next. There's no way she's alive."
His heart aches with every word. The illusion is seducing him into questioning his instincts. Even now, it feels like there's stones in his throat. Here he has a chance to reconnect; a chance to peek into the life he once knew before everything went to shit.
But his instincts pull his attention every which way, telling him that this world is wrong, and he needs to get out now.
"Please, Michael." the woman whispers. He didn't realize his gaze had dropped. Blinking his focus, he looks up and finds the apparition of his mother standing a foot before him. "Just listen. Let me show you."
"Why should I believe anything you say? You've been threatening the lives of Arendelle's royalty, for fun."
The apparition folds her hands together, placing them over her heart. "It is something I cannot explain. Just let me show you."
She attempts to take a step closer, but Michael draws the sword cleverly hidden flush with his spine in his suit. He looks down the blade into those sea-green eyes, her softened features, her cheeks which always seemed to have the slightest touch of color to them.
Some part of him screams to run, but whether it be his need for answers, or because he selfishly – and so desperately – wants to see his mother again, Michael growls. "You've got one minute."
The apparition nods and turns her head to her right. She extends her hand and the memory of his home shifts; they phase through the front door into the yard, that single instance shifting their surroundings, and the front yard is suddenly engulfed with flames.
Flames and screaming and the familiar voices of those men.
Michael feels his stomach drop, and somewhere deep within himself registers fear, but that consuming silence, that killing calm prevents him from acknowledging it.
Danika still kneels within her circle, her gaze still staring intently at nothing. Haunted, bleak.
Michael watches as the flames slowly consume his home, the men in black armor hauling his beaten and bloodied father out of the front door. His hands tied behind his back, sweat mixing with the soot and dried blood. Toward the center of the yard, his mother is howling like a hellcat. His younger self kneeling next to her, their hands tied as well, and his eyes only stare at his father.
"I couldn't do anything." His mother's apparition speaks. "And I hated myself for it."
The men shove his father to the grass, his father adjusting himself to turn and look at them. Sapphire meets sapphire, and his father tells him to stay calm. Even through the red stains of his teeth, even with the black eye swelling shut, his father still gently smiles with assurance.
Michael remembers shaking so badly he thought he would shatter himself into a million pieces.
The memory flashes, bits and pieces of stilled images: the men interrogating his father, beating him when he didn't give them the answer they wanted; his mother still thrashing; a broad hand on Michael's shoulder, keeping him rooted in place; the men hauling his father to the stump; two hold him down while the other draws his sword, and –
Michael looks away.
He bites his tongue as he hears steel meet flesh, bone crashing with a sickening slosh.
Then his mother is screaming.
"I wanted to rip them to shreds. To kill them for what they'd done." Says the woman at his side. "For putting you through such trauma, for burning our home, for taking the love of my life." She lowers her head. "I had been studying dark magic at the time."
Michael snaps his head to her, his brows narrowing.
"I hated being a helpless little housewife, even with the basic self-defense your father provided. I wanted to be strong, to be able to protect myself. Magic seemed like the only option. I had placed some runes around the house, as protection. And I would meditate and study late at night, so not to disturb you or your father. Though not as beneficial as learning from a master, I thought I did pretty well."
Screaming draws their attention back to the scene before them. His younger self already having run off into the woods after his mother had broken free. The men have readjusted their grip on her, one fondling her breast with a greasy smile.
Then, Michael is struck dumb at what he sees.
His mother – sweet and kind and gentle and loving – shoves herself to her feet, lifting the men holding her down.
She roars to the heavens and when she looks to the men – looks to Michael – he feels his knees buckle when he finds her eyes wholly black.
She throws one man across the yard like a stone. The other she slams into the ground before digging her nails into his eyes. His scream is enough to turn Michael's insides watery. Then her fingers dig into the back of his skull and Michael feels his heart skip as she watches his mother snap the man's neck.
The sound like the sharp twang of a harp string.
His mother stares at the men, her face splattered with the one's blood, her dress stained, her eyes as black and as cold as the space between stars. The tattered skirt of her dress wafts in the evening breeze.
Death incarnate.
Their attention went to her. Then rose over her shoulder. Her head.
Absolute, unfiltered terror fills their faces. At what stood behind her.
Michael sees it too, and trembles.
The remaining men call her vial disgusting things and charge.
She strode over to them, letting them look her in the eye. Letting them see that she was the greatest threat to ever be reckoned with.
Death, devourer of worlds.
Then she is a whirlwind of flesh and grace. Her hand has shoved through the throat of one man, puncturing it wholly. Still he gives a garbled scream as his mother slashes his eyes into ribbons with her other hand, his throat shredded seconds later. He collapses face-first into the mud.
As for the rest, it was over before it really started. The mercenary got in two hits, both met with those bloodstained hands, suddenly as strong as steel. And then she knocks him out cold with a swift blow to the head.
So fast—unspeakably fast and graceful. A wraith moving through the mist.
Blood runs down his mother's hands, her forearms. Even though the man hasn't moved, she snaps his neck with a brutal crunch. Then she plunges her hand into his back, into his body.
Flesh tears, revealing a white column of bone – his spine – which she grips, her nails shredding deep, and breaks in two.
"I had planned to look for you, but you were always so fast. Like a stag bounding through the plans. I didn't know you'd gone or if you'd ever come back – I didn't know what to think. But then, after seeing what I'd done, I quickly came to realize that you'd be better off without me." The apparition folds her arms, bowing her chin. "What kind of son wants to see his mother as a murderer? I didn't think you'd ever look at me the same way again. Regardless, I tried to find you; I tried to follow the trail you'd left, my heart breaking at the thought of the panic that went through you. Being so young."
She pauses swallowing.
"But then the trail ended at the ravine, towards the waterfall . . . and I feared the worst. I don't know how long I'd spent searching that water for you. I didn't feel any pain from its icy cold, didn't feel the wet of my dress clinging to my legs. All I cared about was trying to find you, and when I didn't . . . I just remember sitting there by the river – crying and wailing and slowly losing myself to this, darkness, growing inside of me. But there was some other voice in me telling me that the men might have reinforcements, that they might come looking for me. So I forced myself to move. To drink. To eat. To bathe. It was just a slow pace of taking that next step. I scrounged up whatever was left in the cabin; anything I could use or sell. Anything. It bought me a new dress and pity from an inn keeper who let me stay in one of the back rooms without rent. Sometimes she would let me do small chores for an allowance."
Michael's gut twists. He remembers that plunge; remembers trying to cross it. The cold bite of the water as it dragged at him with phantom hands. He remembers clinging to a rock, a tree, a log. He remembers feeling so cold he'd gone numb, but that was still second pain to the loss that had already cleaved his heart. The rebel soldiers found him half-dead; calling it a miracle he even survived, and it was one of the reasons they even took him in.
But his mother –
He never knew . . . never thought . . .
"I never told your father. I was scared what he might think of me; that he would try to disown me, or take you away because he was scared of me, or didn't see me fit to be your mother. So late every night I would read, and study, and meditate, and train – mentally. This newfound darkness was something more than just a physical blow, it specialized in opening the minds of others to me. And I used that to see if anyone had seen you, encountered you. And when I finally found someone, when I learned you had been picked up by the rebels . . . I was so heartbroken, but so, relieved and happy too . . . You had been given a place to sleep, meals every day, perhaps even some new friends –"
"But at the cost of my humanity." He interjects. His mother whirls to him, her hair slowly beginning to elevate as if gravity did not exist. "I never knew –" he croaks. "I didn't know you survived, I just . . . thought . . . If I'd have known you were alive, maybe if I had just hoped more, I could've looked harder –" he clenches his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I joined the rebellion because of you and father. I wanted that king's head on a pike for what he did to you – to us. I lost so much of myself throughout all those years."
His mother coos him, a soft shushing as she approaches. She moves so quickly, so quietly that he barely has time to register it before her cold hand is placed upon his cheek. Though her skin feels like ice, it doesn't burn, nor does it make his fingers grow numb. It's a cold that dawdles but, is soft like midnight-velvet.
And it feels whole.
The moment feels real. She feels real.
"That is not your fault, my dear. I told you, I didn't want you to find me. I thought you'd be better off without me. I had no home, no money, nothing beyond a broken, hardened heart."
As the last words leave her mouth, her form begins to shift.
It was like a fog vanished from her face, her features sharpening, her limbs becoming longer and more graceful. Her skin begins to pale, evident of never seeing sunlight, or perhaps to show a light had gone out in her.
And her eyes – her eyes faded from that lovely, glittering sea-green to a familiar and glowing amethyst.
Michael's heart stops beating. He doesn't think he's breathing. There is such silence in his head. Silver gleams in his eyes, but he blinks them away.
A soft, gentle fog begins to settle on his mind. Comforting. Welcoming. A shimmering veil that has his stiff limbs relaxing, his guard lowering dangerously.
"You're alive." The words are a broken croak. Tightened by the roiling emotions bleeding from his heart.
A slow nod. And an even slower response. "I'm alive. As much as I can be. Getting these abilities was no easy task. You're not the only one who had to lose themselves to get what they wanted."
"Mother?" he whispers, taking a step towards her.
"One day, I opened a portal and was met with a horrid sight of a hellish, other world. The word radiated such power and ferocity that I couldn't help but find myself drawn to it. Then there was this, thing, that seemed to notice my opening, and it made to step through. I managed to stop it, and my strength in will seemed to, impress it." She folds her hands over her heart. "It growled at me for being foolish but wanted to strike a deal with me: I would let it use my body to explore our world, and in turn, I got to use its powers to my own accord. I was so broken and angry that I couldn't say yes fast enough." She shivers. "I could still feel the sensation as I felt it enter –"
"So you're, possessed?"
His mother cringes. "Of a sort. Sometimes it takes control, sometimes I let it. When the world was too hard for me to bear, I would retreat within myself and let it see through my eyes. And though I've gained better control over it, it still overwhelms me with its constant whispering and urges." She pauses, sighing. "I realized you would never accept me if you saw what I had let myself become."
"You truly think your own son would be so shallow?"
"I couldn't take the chance. After everything you've already been through, after the things I've done – for survival or for greed – I didn't want to put you through more hurt and suffering; especially if, gods forbid, the demon command I turn on you. I scoured the minds of every place the rebels had been spotted, and whenever I saw your face, my heart would elevate, but crack. You were growing up so fast, but becoming so strong. I knew what they would do to you. What training you would receive. But it was better than dead. And if you could survive, if you could grow up strong, if you had the chance to reach adulthood, I thought perhaps you could give those people who had wished and dreamed of a better world . . . at least give them a chance."
Darkness fades to the gray light of dawn.
"The king –"
"He was a tyrannical bastard who needed to die."
"I killed him for you."
"And he deserved it, my dear. Whether or not you killed for your father and I, that king deserved to die. And now our kingdom prospers. He didn't die an innocent man."
Something in his chest is caving in on itself. Some part of him he'd thought long gone.
She raises her other hand and drifts it agonizingly slow towards Michael's face. He shivers, loose strands of her hair tickling his cheek in spiderweb wisps. Though it dies away, dissipating like a sigh, it leaves him frigid in its wake. He lets the tears stream from his eyes as he buries into her palm.
Michael takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Why didn't you tell me—from the start?"
"You were barely climbing out of war," his mother says. "Hardly holding yourself together, trying so hard to pretend that you were still strong and whole. There was only so much I could do to guide you, nudge you along. But now, now I am here. And I have found you; I can help you with your magic, help you control it."
"Where did it even come from? I know there were a few healers on father's side but, nothing compared to this."
His mother shushes him, caressing his face in a way that makes his skin tingle.
That shimmering veil becoming more distinct, opaquer. "I'm afraid that is a story for another time. For now, may . . . may I hold you?"
Michael hesitates. Grasping his mother's cold hands and lowering them from his face. He says softly, "Mother, this isn't right. Dark Magic is dangerous."
"Is it dark, or is it simply misunderstood, like you?"
"What are you –?"
"True, the magic I've gained is very powerful. There are those who fear power, so they call it dark. But for people like us, such distinctions don't exist. Without this magic, I could never truly protect myself. Or you. Now it's the same spells I'm using to break myself from this cursed thing. Without them, I'm still trapped within my own mind. And you're still alone."
His mother wraps her arms around herself and says, "Is that what you want, my sweet? To be alone?"
Michael's heart cracks. He reins in a sob. "No."
Again that cold hand against his skin. "My sweet boy. I can show you how to become whole again. Please, just come and rest in my embrace."
Her voice lilts through the air, through his mind like the lullaby she would sing him to sleep with.
Just let go.
It's like his instincts – that killing calm – has been muffled.
He is, relaxed. More than he has been in years.
Give into it.
Perhaps he could stay in this darkness. Perhaps there is peace in the infinity of the world where he can be safe.
Perhaps . . .
And then he hears it.