Shal-Rin's Tent Park Square, Third Ring

Tharia blinked. A man walking out of a pillar of fire shouldn’t look that healthy. Yet here he was, not only holding her weapon but the fingers on his left hand were doing an odd sort of dance with glowing symbols appearing above them.

“Introduce me to my mother?” Tharia echoed before her brain had caught up with her mouth. Don’t poke the insane bear, she thought. Well, there she poked it. Shal-rin stepped forward and casually brushed off the last of the flames. He didn’t give an immediate reply so Tharia looked to her side and behind her. Ravid was frozen by shock. The young boy had his mind blown out by what he saw. Annabelle, on the other hand, was also coming her way. She hadn’t yet summoned a weapon. There was a good chance Shal-rin didn’t know about that. Maybe Annabelle could salvage the situation. Ideally before the rest of the camp came looking why the sky had just been on fire. Tharia turned around again, put her arms against her waist again and puffed out her flat chest to appear bigger.

“My mother is dead”, she said with a wrinkle of her nose, “You know that. Unless you mean you’re going to... oh, right. Can we talk about this? Can’t blame a girl for trying, right?”

None of her social masks worked. Shal-rin suddenly opened his eyes wide. A violet flash of energy shimmered like swirling lights inside them. The next moment, Tharia found herself on the ground, glowing lines of silver had wrapped her body up into an uncomfortable position. The lines turned into ropes as the spell cooled down. Hands, wrist, legs and even her neck were all bound together in a most demeaning fashion.

“I’m not into that kind of play, you know?” Tharia tried to snark.

“Fairy, stop”, came Annabelle’s voice. Her voice sounded heavy like something was constricting her as well. Tharia tried to turn around but the ropes wouldn’t let her. She could only lie on the ground and watch up at Shal-rin.

“You’ve made my life easier, little Verholden girl”, the man said and brushed a hand along his chin, “Do you know the power behind a name?”

Tharia pulled on her ropes but they didn’t budge an inch. Shal-rin knelt down beside her.

“It’s the kind of power that compels parents, to send away their daughters to die. When I came here, each week a black carriage would appear. Those frail girls would form a line. Short girls, modest of the chest or starved to look like it, their hair cut and dyed black”, Shal-rin let out a sigh and shook his head, “Each week, one girl would enter the carriage in tears and no one would speak her name henceforth.”

Shal-rin stood back up again and turned around. Those girls he had described, that same description could apply to her as well. Tharia saw movement outside of the tent - people were coming. The mage continued his monologue in the meantime.

“I went and asked, fathers, don’t you love your children? Mothers, how can you give them away? They looked at me like I was mad and spoke one word only”, he turned around and looked at Tharia.

“Verholden”, Tharia finished for him and he smiled in response.

“Absolutely. Ah, girl I just can’t stay mad at you. Let me apologize for my outburst earlier.”

“So you’ll let us go?” Tharia asked with a hopeful tone but the mage shook his head.

“You’re such a funny woman. Of course not. It was naive of you to believe me yesterday, to begin with. But I’m grateful to you. Before your attack, I wasn’t sure whether I could go through with the plan”, he said with a raised finger, “Your backstab put my mind at ease. We two, we think alike. So you won’t begrudge me when I use you as bait. You and your mother are the two things your brother really wants to get back.”

Tharia saw the front of the tent open and within seconds, several armed men and women had entered. They held their sharp weapons towards her and the other two. Shal-rin put weight on her staff as if he needed the support to stand. She realized not a single visible trace of magic remained on him. Seems like he was hiding his talent from them. That was something she could use, yet just as she opened her mouth, Shal-rin spoke with a loud voice.

“She’s a Verholden witch, quick, stuff her mouth before she can bewitch you as she tried with me!”

In front of the Main Tent Park Square, Third Ring

Tharia was in a particularly bad mood. She hadn’t slept all night. The ropes were so tight that even the slightest motion would cut into her skin and even though the spark inside healed those cuts, it also prevented her from finding a comfortable position. Not that there was any place to lie down anyway. The cage she was in was just large enough to hold her while standing. So all night, she had been on her feet.

Her situation was particularly bleak. Sisi was in the hands of that cursed mage. Ravid had been beaten nigh death. His only luck was that the people thought he had come under a spell from the wicked Verholden witch. The worst of it all was that she had no idea where her love was. When morning finally came, she was fuming, angry, exhausted, tired and in pain. She heard movement behind her. Judging by how heavy those steps were, Shal-rin was on the move again and indeed, the large figure came into view. He shot her an angry glance and continued on his path.

She noticed that the man looked much smaller than before. Almost human. That meant he had found a way to substitute more of the arcane. Tharia wanted to scream at the people to notice these details, but they were too busy celebrating him as a hero. He stepped on a crate some way away and then held a large horn to his lips. The loud sound shook Tharia on the inside. She saw a small glint of light and realized the man was using some sort of magic to amplify the sounds.

“Hear ye, hear ye! Wake up, my family. The day has come to make this a better world”, he shouted as loud as he could and with that little spell, his voice carried far and wide. A smart girl would have listened to what he had to say, it might include some sort of information she could use. After a night on her feet, she wasn’t smart. She was angry. Her mind raced as strong hands suddenly picked up the cage with her inside.

She was easily carried over towards the pedestal where Shal-rin stood. By now, the entirety of the camp was up on their legs. They had formed long lines in front of the mage. She found herself pushed up and got a better view of just how many people he had. By her estimate, several hundred. Most of them too old, all of them untrained. A disorderly bunch.

“By now you’ve heard rumors about the wicked witch. It’s true, she wormed her way into our place and infested us from within. This woman”, Shal-rin said and pointed at her cage, “Brought us the Fogeater. Did you lose friends and family? Look no further, for she is guilty.”

Tharia didn’t even bother reacting. Her mouth was still gagged, her limbs tied up. She could do nothing but glare – but she put her best angry woman impression into that glare.

“Gaze upon her, should you require proof, here it is!” Shal-rin said and then reached into the cage. He grabbed her arm and then pulled up her sleeve. She tried to pull away from him but couldn’t.

“Look at it! Her skin, it moves with living demons!”

The crowd burst into panicked shouts as they looked at her. Out of the corner of her eye, Tharia saw that the images of the plants and skulls were indeed in motion. They hadn’t done that before. Either it was Shal-rin’s doing or it meant that her time was up. She hoped for the latter, her first act as a cosmic force would be to kill a certain man, even if it meant losing herself in the process. The young woman suddenly realized the one thing that was odd about the situation - apart from all the lying and having an entire army out for her blood of course. She was calm. Unnaturally calm.

“If you need further proof the Verholdens are the root of all evil in this world, look no further than her cohort. How many of you have dreamed of her since she came here?” Shal-rin leaned forward and showed a grimace, “Her lovely friend. She’s no human but a thing so brazen, it walked without a mask. Gaze upon who she really is!”

Annabelle. Tharia knew even before they put up the second cage. The woman inside the cage was dressed in an excessive white bridal gown. Her obscenely long silver-hair was open and flowed down her perfect shoulders, covering her in a silky curtain that reached all the way down to her bottom.

“Her name is Annabelle, also known as the Godqueen. The one lying demon that wooed our king and brought about the end of our world! This thing is the travel and bed companion – as you’ve all no doubt witnessed - of the wicked witch!”

Shal-rin basked in the reaction of the crowd. They were out for blood. People that had asked them to dance and dine with them now showed grimaces of utter hatred and contempt. Something foul hit her head from the side. She could neither dodge it nor see what it really was. The mage held up a hand again.

“What shall we do with them?” he said, his voice so quiet that no one should have heard it. Yet the crowd quickly picked up a chant.

“Kill them!” the crowd shouted with maniacal fervor.

The large man let the crowd work itself into a frenzy, Tharia couldn’t help but admire the cold cruelty of the man. He paced back and forth before suddenly holding up a hand again.

“People, I hear you. I do. But what say you - we use them in the coming battle? Let’s pit the wicked witch and the nightmare whore against the spawn of evil himself.”

The crowd erupted into applause and Tharia felt nauseous on the inside. A woman she hadn’t seen before brought Shal-rin a tablet with two glasses. A white liquid was in them. Shal-rin picked up one of the glasses and then walked over towards Tharia. He reached into the cage and pulled down the gag on her mouth.

“This is a serum of my people”, he shouted to the crowd, “The Turesai always had a way to ensure loyalty. It will make these beasts unable to rebel against our just cause!”

With a much lower voice and without amplification, he fixed her gaze and brought the glass up to her lips. It seemed like water, safe for the hundreds of white glowing dust particles in it. In a way, they looked like the golden dust Sisi used for combustion. When Shal-rin made her swallow the liquid, she understood fully well that her death was now a simple gesture away. She had been poisoned with the white dust of the half-dead sprite.

“You will die miserably”, she said into the grinning face of Shal-rin.

“So I hope, but I will end your family curse before I do. Only the death of every single one of your brood can stop centuries of madness. Your family has festered at the heart of the capital. Your blood brought my people to extinction. It’s time I return the favor”, he wrapped his arms around his waist and then raised his voice again, “Now this evil creature will vow undying allegiance to me – or die right here!”

He motioned for her to speak. She had a choice to make now. Silence and stubbornness would mean her body would instantly tear apart from the inside. Her pride was a small price to pay. Tharia’s shout was amplified by Shal-rin.

“This cursed sorceress pledges allegiance to the master known as Shal-rin.”

Why not play along with his nonsense. She was out of options anyway. One look into his eyes told her that he didn’t believe her either but the lie was good enough to convince the crowd. Shal-rin raised both his hands and bowed towards the crowd. No longer paying Tharia any attention, he then walked over towards Annabelle. She tried to catch her attention but the goddess was stubbornly staring straight ahead. Despite the situation, the human girl couldn’t help but admire how the gown brought out all the provocatively delicious details of her lover.

Annabelle stood completely still as Shal-rin removed her gag as well. She might as well not have been there when he poured the liquid into her mouth and forced her to drink all of it. When it was the turn of the goddess to speak, she instead turned towards Tharia.

“I will never lower myself to the level of a human”, Annabelle said with pride in her voice, “But I will follow my love wherever she goes.”

This time, the crowd didn’t know how to react. Well, Tharia did. She shouted as loud as she could.

“I love you too!”

That simple gesture took a lot of wind out of Shal-rin's show. His anger visibly flared as his jaw clenched and his fingers formed to fists. After a moment, he turned around towards his army.

“With this, we can finally stomp out the sickness at the heart of the world. Now, we go to war!” he shouted.

The Schauhof of the Verholden Manor Edge of the Third Ring

When a bad morning turns worse, it might have something to do with a frail girl walking at the front of an army, accompanied by the beat of drums. Tharia couldn’t help but suppress a laugh.

Out of all things to wear into battle, Shal-rin had insisted she wore thin purple robes that reached all the way down to just below her knees. There was a wide-rim hat on her head and it looked absolutely ridiculous with its many symbols. Her bare feet touched the snow and only the spark inside of her kept her from freezing. The result was a subtle blue glow that everyone could see and that only added to her otherworldly appearance.

And if not for her, the woman dressed in white right next to her made the battle even more surreal. Whenever Tharia tried to get close to Annabelle, the chain around her neck was yanked and she found herself thrown to the ground by the force of it. The one to wield the chain was none other than Ravid. One look was all it took to realize the young boy was broken.

His face was beaten black and blue, he had been scribbled with words that were supposed to protect from possession and his clothes were adorned with charms and talismans. At first glance, it seemed odd that he was allowed to be up front as well. But on second glance it was obvious he was here to die. He had neither an armor nor a weapon of his own. By the look on his face, he was fine with that outcome. She just wished he wouldn’t yank the chain so hard. It actually hurt a lot when he did that. Annabelle too was chained up at the neck. Like her, she couldn’t get close and they exchanged occasional pained glances, whispering words of love towards each other.

When the drums suddenly stopped, Tharia took in her surroundings and sighed. This was the Schauhof of her family. At the height of Valarn, thousands of foreign merchants and local craftsmen would meet and greet under the large glass dome. It had been a beautiful sight once with flowers growing up the hundreds of pillars that held up the construction. The end of days had made short work of the glass and all that remained was an absurdly large place of rubble in the middle of the capital. It was large enough to fit several thousand people.

Tharia just hoped the snow was thick enough that she wouldn’t step into shards. She cringed at the thought. It took a considerable while until the last of the soldiers had reached the Schauhof and it was then that Shal-rin appeared on the battlefield. His body was widely visible, as he had people carry him to the front. A strange rumbling in the distance drew her attention away from him.

The large gates of the Verholden Manor opened on their own. When she was little, she had always been afraid of the manor. In her eyes, no single building should ever be considered a city of its own but their manor was. It had everything, from their own water supply and fields, down to a small clinic in which she had spent many years before she was locked away in the country-side estate.

As the black metal gate opened with loud screeching, a single person stood between the gates. Her body flared up in pain at the sheer sight of him. She knew that man. His face was the perfect mask of innocence, framed by golden locks and clear blue eyes. He was well grown and managed to look both elegant yet also strong. Tharia bit her lip until blood ran down her chin and when she noticed it drop on her robes, she bit harder. The pain kept her mind focussed. Everything else around her had become unimportant. She soon noticed she was shivering all over, the blood had mixed with something else: Tears.

Tharia tried to recall what the man was called that had broken her body and mind. She couldn’t remember it at all, just like the rest of her family names had disappeared from her memory. Every single one was repressed deep down below. The only reason she was still standing and not on the ground, drooling, crying, begging, was because she stopped seeing him as a human. He was an abstract object. Her brother. Tormentor. Monster, all these things. But not something that needed a name.

He looked directly at her from all the hundreds of meters away and Tharia suddenly fell to the ground. Her knees had given in. She was a shivering mess that couldn’t help but dry-heave. Her reaction was so intense, that even Shal-rin signaled his carriers to stop. All of the details suddenly came crashing down on Tharia. She saw all those eyes judging her. Trash. Tomboy. Worthless piece of shit. Can’t even stand. Serves her right. Garbage. Tharia pressed her hands against her ears and those words still inched their way into her mind. She should just die. Ridiculous. Who could love something like that?

“Fairy”, a voice rang out between all of that.

Dreg. That’s what she was. Her entire body burned in pain from long-repressed memories. Most of all burned the shame at what she was. A helpless heave of flesh. She had been every chance in the world as part of the strongest family squandered it all. Everything she touched, she broke apart.

“Let her go”, the voice of Shal-rin rang out and a moment later, Tharia felt soft hands wrap around her body moments later. She realized Annabelle was holding onto her but Tharia's mind was too far gone. She stared directly ahead, her eyes were fixated on a lone figure in the distance. If she was the wicked witch, then her brother was what the nightmares were afraid of. He too only had eyes for her. His unwavering gaze was framed by a sadistic grin.

End: Meet the Verholdens | Coming up: A facade cracking