Monday October 13th 2014

Cesare closed the door to the Serpens Lacum, eyeing the pack that waited at the bottom of the stairs. Anastasia had humiliated Blaez by hugging Cesare in front of the school. Kali and Elizabeth had gleefully punked him in front of the school and his parents. And if his guess was right, Anastasia had come to Cesare instead of staying with Blaez. It would make even the most even-tempered wolf see red and no one would call Blaez even tempered.

Seeing the pack smirking up at him wasn’t a surprise. Thoughts flickered through his mind as he took the steps down, plans and scenarios, probabilities and possibilities—all converging on this moment. He was armed with his gun, knife, and more lethal tricks.

They surrounded him as soon as he was off the stairs, his own dishonor guard. “You should leave. No one wants you here. The only thing your good for the laughs we get from your face,” a dark-haired wolf said.

“You smell like shit, you 're disgusting. The girls laugh at you behind your back, the little shit puppy chasing after tail.” That one came from behind him.

“You’re a loser. Your family didn't want you, and no one here can stand you. Leave, save us the trouble of having to cut you.”

“Everyone's heard what she says about you. A mutt, that's what she calls you. An animal she suffers through because it's useful. A thing not worth its name.” Cesare walked with his head down, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Each word was a grasping, sweaty hand with wiggling, fat fingers probing at the foundations of his self-confidence.

“They're using you because you're nothing. Not worth caring about. Garbage, that’s all you are and all you’ll ever be.” The others laughed along with the sadist.

“You don’t have friends, no one sits with you because no one can stand your stench. Because you’re not worth it. Your shit, the best of you, ran down your mother's leg. Do the the right thing, kill yourself.”

They grinned as they left him at the foot of the school stairs. “See you tomorrow, shit bag.” They threw the taunt back with malicious glee.

Cesare shivered as the plan hit him at once. He had to hand it to Blaez; it was inspired. They were only words, but words have killed more than any weapon. They start wars and end them. They inspire greatness and atrocity in equal measure. He could bleed with the best of them, but could he eat their hate as breakfast day in and day out?

The question never left him, no matter the class, their words slithering in the void around his conciousness. But on seeing the cluster of students around the entrance, Cesare slowed. It was never good when rats clustered around a kill. Sliding into the group, he was just another body in blue as he knifed his way through the crowd.

Anastasia and Blaez argued at the bottom of the steps under the eyes of the school. Facing off, they glared at each other. Consumed in their argument they didn’t notice or care that the school watched with baited breath.

“… didn’t have to go to him! I wanted to be with you!” Blaez growled, low and mean.

“I had to talk to him.” Anastasia’s words scorched the air with anger.

“And that was more important than being with your boyfriend! Just like every day! You go off and ... train!” Blaez spat out.

Anastasia narrowed her eyes. “What are you implying?”

“You spend more time with him than me. When we do get together, you spend your time talking about him,” Blaez bit off.

“You know he’s important to me. I would've died without his help,” Anastasia said.

Blaez shook his head with a snarl. “I’m so tired of hearing about how great he is. That's all you talk about, how smart he is and how much he’s helping you. I said, I’d train you. All you have to do is ask.”

“You can't do what he does.” A low, base growl prowled through air with naked threat. “I'm not saying you’re not dangerous, but your idea of training is wrestling with your pack. That’s worthless to me,” Anastasia said flatly. She wasn’t trying to smooth this over, they’d gone beyond that.

“Yeah, you and my parents all sing the homeless fuck's praises. It's enough to make me puke,” Blaez said.

“Never call him names in front of me.” Heat radiated around Anastasia, crimson hair rustling with murderous desire. Her body shifted, one leg sliding forward, the other anchoring her stance. Light and ready, she’d risen onto the balls of her feet.

The wolf stepped back with his hands out to his sides. “I'm sorry. It's just ... you have to see it! My girl keeps talking about another guy! It's hard to take ...”

“And it won't change. He's my friend, and he's training me. I'm more powerful now than I’ve ever been, and I mean to get stronger. You knew that when we started going out.” Anastasia wasn’t giving an inch.

“I didn't think it meant I'd be competing with another guy.”

“You’re not. I'm with you. I keep telling you that. I spend my weekends with you. I eat with you. I kiss you. Cesare’s a friend and only a friend. I'm with you. But right now, I'm really wondering why.” Anastasia was done pulling her punches. “And if I find out you’re behind your pack’s behavior … We. Are. Done. You get that, Blaez? I find out you’re lying to me and I’ll have your fucking hide.”

“I'm not! How many times do I have to tell you that?!” Fear made his voice passionate, even believable, if you didn’t know the truth. Or if you didn't want to know the truth. “They’re leaving him alone like you wanted. I wish you'd do the same!”

They faced each other across a few feet that had turned into a war zone. They’d cut deeper, more viciously than either had planned. That’s the problem with anger. Instead of making your point, you end up carving your name into their face. Only those you love know how to hurt you. Only they knew how to sink the knife in so deep you can’t ever pull it out, can’t ever heal from the cut.

Blaez stalked off without another word, a lightning bolt of rage looking for a victim. Anastasia watched her boyfriend leave until he was out of sight. Shaking her head, she gave the greedy crowd a scowl, eyes widening on seeing Cesare watching from the top. “You heard?”

“Just the last little bit,” Cesare said.

He walked down the stairs, falling into step with her as the harem came from the shadows of the trees to join them. They’d been sent away while Anastasia fought with her boyfriend. They moved instantly to cut Cesare from her. A sharp, annoyed gesture from their mistress left him where he was—right beside her.

“He says he has nothing to do with the pack. That if they’re doing something he doesn't know about it.” Anastasia’s words smoked with anger.

“He's lying,” Cesare said.

“One of you is. At this point, I'm not willing to cut him ... or you, out of my life. Not until I know for sure.”

And that was that. Either way, someone she trusted was lying to her, and she wasn’t in a hurry to have her heart broken. And he wasn’t in a hurry to break it. He’d love to see her skin Blaez from her life, but Cesare didn’t want to see her hurt to get there.

Anastasia handed him a letter. “It came to me by mistake. I made sure that any future ones will come to you. Although, unlike me, they’ll drop them by your dorm room.”

“You get them delivered?” Cesare questioned.

“A perk of being the Lady of Ruin,” she said wearily, but with a grin she couldn’t hide.

“How's that working for you?” An almost reverential quiet had swept the place when she’d walked into the cafeteria this morning.

She grinned, a triumphant joy lighting her face. “Well, it's different. It's like the school has turned into my harem, mail delivery, special lunches, even letting me cut in line at the bathroom.” Seeing his look, she continued, “You’re a guy, you don’t get how huge that is. Trust me, one of my all-time awesome moments was when the girls stepped aside and let me have a stall without having to dance in line. People complain about fame, but right now, it's pretty fucking amazing.”

“Enjoy it. You worked your ass for it,” Cesare said as he shared a smile with the akatharton.

Beautiful people are more likely to go to college, be socially adept and have fulfilling relationships and careers. What an ugly person bleeds for is given to the beautiful as if ordained by god. Anastasia was already breathtaking, powerful, influential, wealthy, and horrifically lethal, to have those blessings sheathed in fame … it must be like being a living god.

Cesare,

I’m on my plane flying back, and instead of working, I’m writing a letter to a boy. The last time I wrote a letter to a handsome man, the Khan of the Eternal Blue Sky was burning the world to ash. I think you would have enjoyed the truth of that time. There was a sense that anything was possible and all you needed was a good sword and a strong brother to watch your back. Even in this poisoned land of plenty, they only give lip service to that ideal.

Well, I didn’t write to underline how old I am. I can’t stop thinking about you and wondering what you would have made of that time. And I wonder how you feel about me, if I was in your dreams, if you’re thinking about me. It was the one thing you didn’t tell me. You gave all the reasons why we wouldn’t work, but when I walked away, did you want to stop me? I know you don’t want to talk to me but staring at the dark clouds passing under my plane, I can’t help but hope you won’t throw this letter away.

I wanted to turn back. As soon as I left you, I wanted to turn back—to postpone, if only for a day, going back alone. To talk and try … something, anything to convince you. Too much? I can only tell you the truth. I feel more alone than ever after meeting you. I'm not sure if I should kiss you for that or burn you to ash.

I wonder who you are and where you came from. I watch the world pass under me and wonder if you have a love in your past that keeps you up at night, or friends that have gone and left nothing but an echo in your heart.

I’d planned to take Anastasia home with me. Darkness forgive me, it all changed after I met you. I gave up on believing in people before the sands of Set rose into an empire. The ones you believe in are the first to hurt you, they carve out the price of your love in flesh. Faith is a poison that kills everything it touches.

But I believed you when you told me my daughter could win. Against all odds, I believed you and I should know better. A wendigo is nothing to play with. You looked me in the eye and told me she’d be fine, that you’d give your own life to save her. That was the moment I fell for you, a young man I barely knew, who my daughter is hopelessly in love with.

As you stood there holding my daughter, melting pieces of wendigo strewn across the field, I couldn’t help being jealous. I wished it could be me in your arms. They say every mother’s jealous of her daughter, a constant reminder that the reaper is dogging her steps. Their bodies wrinkle with age, breasts sag and butts get bigger. Gravity, the eternal enemy of women takes its due while her daughter grows more beautiful by the day. I’ve never felt that way ... until I watched your eyes sparkle as you held her.

I think this is good for a first letter. I’ve included a package of envelopes for you to send your letters to me. I hope you’ll send one soon.

Kali.

Anastasia gave him a dry look as he lowered the letter. “I told you she wouldn't let it slide.”

“She makes it seem like we didn’t even have that conversation, like I didn’t tell her I wasn’t interested.” Cesare read the letter again. He was sure he’d laid it out for her, and yet she’d written him a love letter as if it hadn’t happened.

“It’s a lost cause for her to fight you on that point. Once you set your mind to something, you don’t back down and all the fighting in the world doesn’t change it. My mom’s like that too. She can’t win that argument so she'll fight where she can win.” Anastasia flicked the paper with one finger. “She’s changing the fight. If she can’t win playing blackjack, she’ll give poker a shot.”

He’d lost track of time as he worked Anastasia on her speed drills. They both looked up as ravens flooded the sky. The flock cawed raucously, filing the air with death’s call. They spun into a spiral of flashing beaks, talons shredding the air with impudent rage. Cesare slung his bag across his back with his eyes on the flock. They’d only come for him if something had happened to Elizabeth.

“Cesare! Call if you need me!” The words caught him as he flew out of the training area. After the hours of working with Tamlin, his body was more machine than meat. The forest rushed by in a blur of green, ground devoured under an effortless loup more wolf than man.

The only sounds were his whistling breaths and the flapping of harsh wings as the ravens kept pace with him. Black blades flowed through the trees, dark shadows with cruel eyes, coarse feathers cutting air. An ebony wave of deaths beloved filled the sky, voids in the sky, they mocked the day with sin born feathers.

Leaping the school stairs three at a time, Cesare hit the doors with a resounding crash that threw them open. Two ravens kept pace with him. Diving and banking, they took the corners with acrobatic ease. Students dove out of their way after one look at his face and the two malevolent birds at his side. Malicious caws were the reward for those few who weren’t fast enough. The ravens lead, unsurprisingly, to Elizabeth's class door.

He wrenched the door open. His eyes frantically searched for an enemy, knife clutched in one hand … but the room was empty, except for Elizabeth. She was kneeling on the ground, shattered pottery and bits of plants clutched in her hands. Dirt formed a layer of soil across everything, mounds of it dotting the floor where pots were crushed underfoot. The corpses of her plants were piled high on her desk, their green flesh torn and shredded by spiteful hands. They’d used the hard oak to shatter the pots, shards of earth red poked out of the mass of green like bones showing through skinned meat.

Elizabeth leapt to her feet, swarming into his arms, she buried her face in his chest as she cried with great, gasping sobs. Plants in form and function, nothing to cry over for the world that passed through her doors, but they were the only friends she had. When your own people loathed you, when their eyes cut with ruthless hunger and their words degraded with venomous ease, you find other ways to earn acceptance.

They’d been part of her life for decades, grown from seeds when she was a kid, taken with her when she went to college, brought back to school when she was accepted at Primrose. She’d watered them, trimmed them, repotted them when they’d grown too big, and always, she’d talked to them. They’d heard her pain, seen her tears, and loved a woman that no one had. Her green friends had filled the void the world had carved in her soul, soothing the ache of being thrown away.

Elizabeth’s classroom had been turned into a graveyard of her best friends. Tears streaked her face, red eyes stripped of strength, leaving only a child who’d lost her best friends in an orgy of violence. “I'll get the soil and pots from the cottage. You gather up the ones we can use for cuttings. If we work quick, we can save them.”

Her body tensed, the shock of coming back to see her friends ripped apart, shunted aside as she realized she could save them. “I’ll get them ready.”

Cesare sprinted to the cottage, loading up the wheelbarrow with pots, soil and any odds and ends he thought he’d need. The students watched him take the stuff up the stairs with greedy eyes. They knew something had happened, but they didn’t know what. Vultures eager for the latest bits of rotting flesh they could strip from the violated.

Elizabeth separated the plants from the loose dirt and pot shards. The healthy ones went into the pots Cesare brought up. They trimmed the shredded plants into cuttings and set them in cups water. There were dozens to go through. While she worked on her friends, Cesare grabbed a broom and cleaned up. Bare foot prints marked the path the gang had taken as they destroyed the room. Whoever had done it hadn’t worn shoes … just like the gladiators.

“I've given them the best chance I can,” she said with a sad look at the pots. Big and small, they covered her desk and the surrounding area, an island of normal in the ransacked office. They’d left the school equipment alone, targeting the parts of the room Elizabeth had made her own.

Elizabeth looked around, lost and unsure. She’d spent thousands of hours in this room, days and nights lost in teaching. It was the one place where people had to see her. The one place where they couldn’t ignore or dismiss her. Her decades of learning had earned her this room, the three Master’s Degrees she’d won proved she was worth being here. It had been the proof that she’d made it. That all those people who’d tried to break her had failed. Now it was only another part of her life smeared in others hate.

“You have all those wrought iron spikes, right?” She gave him a blank look. “The ones you keep in the back of the cottage, with the leaves and ravens on them. I thought you told me you wanted to redecorate with them. Well, let’s do that.”

Elizabeth stared at him for a long, silent minute. “That would take all night.”

“Won't be the first time you stayed up late getting sweaty with a guy.” Cesare teased.

“Actually, yeah it will.” She looked at him. “Are you sure you want ...”

Cesare handed her the broom. “Finish cleaning up here. I'll get the stuff.” He walked out before she could talk herself out of it.

They were hidden in a forgotten corner of the cottage. Only his fingerprints broke the thick blanket of dust coating the tops of the boxes. The wrought iron pieces were black as night, metal twisted into a creature mirroring natural wood, with one end threaded into a long screw. The other ends were fashioned into hooks that transformed into full-sized ravens sitting on the tip. Leaves split off from the contoured iron, metal branches graced by the glory of deaths chosen.

Cesare piled the iron into the middle of the room, making trip after trip until he had them all up in the room along with the tools he’d need to get them set into stone. Elizabeth gave the reciprocating saw a questioning look. “You’re going to grow the trees and form their branches into a canopy, right? Where are you going to expand the roots?”

Elizabeth answered with a look at the open windows. “That's great in summer and fall, but what about winter? Do you want your plants fighting drafts all winter? I can carve out a hole in the wall, frame it up nice and pretty, then all you need to do is expand the roots to seal it up. Easier on the plants and you.”

She watched with dark eyes threaded with shadows, fingers caressing one of her injured friends. “Thank you.” A lifetime of hope lived in those two words, an eternity of wishing someone was there when you had no one.

“Thank me when it's done,” Cesare said wryly.

Elizabeth took a seat in the middle of the room. Consumed in her trance, she summoned the one-pointed mind needed to control the earth. There would be no time to rethink a choice or change a pattern. What was grown would have to be. Ruthless will wedded to precise vision, this was the difference between strong and godly.

Most of the room was stone, but the wall where the windows sat was wood, the leftovers from a long ago renovation. He cut the hole and framed it with two-by-fours. Some quick trim work and a stain got it as finished as it would get tonight.

Cesare drilled out the guiding holes for the iron hooks into the stone walls, screwing the heavy sculptures into the bones of the school. Dark slowly came over the room, the light fading as he worked. Elizabeth meditated until even the sunset was a memory and the moon slivered the wreckage of the room.

He gave his work one more look over. The screws were tight, the framed hole ready, and the area around her was clean in case she needed to move around. They’d only get one chance at this, and there was no point in waking her until the foundation was ready for her to build on. His voice echoed with dark caverns and endless black seas. “Elizabeth.”

She flowed to her feet, power birthed in madness darkened her eyes, the raw energy of creation swelled as she raised her hands. Monstrous forces of the deep dimpled the surface of reality with their passing, abominations rising from the insanity of the beyond. Sawdust swirled along the floor, collecting into alien patterns twisted with crazed need. Cesare’s mind flinched away from the mysteries they paraded into the clean light of the moon. Leaves rustled in the eldritch wind of forgotten places.

Elizabeth conducted the force, sure and certain, her hands directed its current. Alive with power, the trees in the corner's shivered under her mind's eye, soil churning as they moved. Roots sprouted from the soil, questing tentacles crawling across the room, greedily hunting for the earth. They grew exponentially as they slithered across the floor, grasping for the holes in the wall. Desperate for the nourishing soil, they snaked down the outside of the building with eager need. Sinking deep into the earth, they thickened and roughened in texture, bark hardening along their lengths. With a last spurt of growth, they thickened enough to plug the hole in the wall. The roots shone with the warm glow of overflowing life as they drank deep of the Earth’s bounty.

Elizabeth opened her hands in command. Branches reached out across the ceiling, stretching for the iron spikes. Blind tendrils grasped tentatively onto the first hooks, wrapping around, growing thicker as they gained confidence. Shooting off from the first hooks, they picked up speed with each anchor they conquered. The four trees formed a connected whole around the room, interweaving with each other in a spiderweb of tendrils across the ceiling. Anchored and supported, she wove the tree’s branches and lives together, the four becoming one.

Elizabeth’s hair moved on unseen currents of power. Her eyes shone with forbidden lore as her hands caressed occult power that rushed to her bidding, tempting and cajoling it through the steps of a dance only she knew. The trees responded, warping under her power. Life spilled from them in a golden glow as Elizabeth saturated them with the ancient blood of lost gods.

Elizabeth juggled the forces with the sureness of a master, adding strength and mass slowly so as not to tear the wrought iron out of the stone. Nothing can match the power of life. It rips through the world, destroying everything in its path. Wood transformed, the shape of animals called out of the branches by Elizabeth’s vision. Claws gripped branches, leg muscles straining for purchase. Its body was a tight coil as it climbed the branch. Finally, the deadly face of a tiger appeared. Next to the tiger, the wood rose into the shape of Wunjo—the High Futhark rune for joy. The rune shone, reflecting no true light, twisting at the edges of sight like a double helix, it moved through dimensions beyond knowing, glittering with the light of those monstrous places.

Sweat streaked Elizabeth’s face as animals grew out of the wood. Crafted with singular, graceful beauty, they pulsed with the life of the wood. Runes flowed across the branches, beacons of hidden power, goggling eyes of long banished abominations.

Branches trailed down from the ceiling, curling around the frames of the windows and door. Runes birthed into existence, each one building on the power of the one before. As the final one was set, the runes flamed with rainbow brillance, colors searing reality with madness. The room pressurized with an ear popping sound as it sealed itself away from the world and the cancer of sanity.

Elizabeth slumped to the ground, wilting from exhaustion. She’d warned him earlier that she might pass out. It was hours later when she stirred against him. The long day, coupled with the intense concentration demanded to keep sane while manipulating forces antithetical to the physical dimension, had taken their toll. She blinked up at him from the cocoon of his arms. “You stayed?”

“Well, I wasn’t about to just leave you in a pile on the ground,” Cesare said. Besides, how many times did he get to hold his dream girl? Devoid of hard angles or tough muscle, she molded to his body perfectly. She was all softness and warmth, a living plushy that spoke of home and safety.

Elizabeth cuddled into his side. “You said I could thank you when it's done, well thank you.” She looked around the room in wonder. He’d put the plants into their new homes along the branches and shelves. The ceiling was hidden behind a tapestry of branches and leaves, hanging pots birthed blooming vines that trailed to the ground. Runes glowed with iridescent non-light, shedding their insanity on the animals grown from the wood. The room was as clean as he’d ever seen it. “I don't have the words to tell you how much this means to me. I’m beginning to see how Anastasia must feel.”

“No debts between friends.” The quiet words moved through the room, deepening the shadows, dimming even the moonlight that spilled through the windows.

“Don't make light of this. No one’s ever done anything like this for me. Don't make this seem like nothing when it means everything. I bought that iron because I wanted this. But I couldn't see myself making a sanctuary where I was hated.” Her words drifted off. “Like everything, you changed that. I could never have done this without you. I never would’ve wanted to do this without you. No, don't play this down. It’s the finest, sweetest gift I’ve ever received.”

“Viktor would have helped you.” Cesare was sure of that. If for nothing else, Viktor would have done it to score points.

She nodded with a quiet laugh. “Yes, he would’ve but only to get me in bed.”

Cesare ran his hand down her hair. “Sleep. I'll wake you in a few hours so you can go back to your apartment and wash.”

Closing her eyes, she snuggled into his body with a contented sigh. “I should feel guilty for taking your night from you. But tonight, I’m taking something for myself.” She fell asleep after only a few minutes. He’d stay the night with her like this, pretending that a woman like her could love a guy like him, pretending that being loved wasn’t an illusion that would die with the coming of the sun. The moon graced him with dreams that had long since withered and died under truths scalpel.

They parted on the run, both of them having to rush to get ready for school. He managed a quick shower and some breakfast before sprinting to class. Even after spending the night in the room, the reality hit him hard. Elizabeth had birthed a towering power that lived between realities, a Blade of Damocles. Its shadow sheathed anyone entering her sanctuary, an etheric weight distorting space, pressing cruelly down on the soul with eager malice. Eternally patient, it waited for the call to maim and kill.

The earthy smell of loam and turned earth filled the air. An ancient scent long since killed, the smell of the dawn of days when the world was young and man only a perverse dream of mad gods. Air so pure and sweet it burned with vitality filled his lungs. Outside the world, she had birthed a place beyond the hooked chains of reality. A sanctuary that belonged to her, stitched flesh to flesh with the forgotten days of endless forests.

The branches shone with threads of gold graced by leaves of vibrant green, uncaring that autumn dominated the land. Here, the season moved to Elizabeth’s whim. His fingers traced lightly along a branch, carefully following the shape of a rune grown out of its flesh. Cesare felt its alien shape warping under his fingers, even if he couldn’t pin it down with his eyes. A chill burrowed into his bones. The rune throbbed with life, alien and unknowable to Cesare, but life nonetheless.

“I want to attune you to my wards.” Layered with meaning, her words were more than syllables strung with air. She met him by the tree closest to the door, taking his hand, she cut along the palm. Nine drops of blood disappeared into the bark as it drank greedily of his life.

Blood of iron and water

Stricken with sorrow and pain

Creatures of the Futhark

Recognize this offering

Take its essence

Know its warp and weft

Open the doors and answer to its call

A fey force rippled through the room at her words, colliding with the walls it came back twisted with alien thought. Tendrils of cold thought caressed over his body, wrapping around thought, seeking bones and blood.

“What does that mean?” Cesare asked.

Still holding his hand, her fingers caressed lightly over his. “This place is now a Sanctuarium Virtutis, a place of power and a sanctuary for me … us. Here my power is at its zenith. The branches, vines, and flowers are conduits that feed into me. Attackers will find themselves attacked, while the wards shield us from harm. Only you’re keyed into its matrix of protections.”

This place had been violated by the malice of others. They’d killed what little safety she’d felt in the school. She was offering Cesare a weapon that could tear her soul apart, trusting that he wouldn’t use it.

“I won't disappoint you.” His fingers tightened around hers.

She smiled with old eyes. “Oh, you will. We all do. We always disappoint those we care for. I expect it, and so should you, it’s how we deal with it afterwards that matters.”

Cesare shared a smile with the Chthonic as he took his seat. It would be interesting to see how the students dealt with the change. The first kid flinched back, shuddering as he recoiled into the hall. Terror spread on every whisper that slipped from his lips. No one was willing to face Elizabeth’s gauntlet of terror, it was one thing to see a gun and another to have it pointed between your eyes.

Draped in savage bloodlust with a reputation that made even monsters step lightly, Alexandra sliced through the crowd. She paused with animal stillness just inside the room. Her nostrils flared as she smelled the air, sweeping the room with narrowed eyes, she picked out the rune’s grown on living wood. She could feel the occult power against her skin, could hear the alien chorus that pulsed underneath the skin of sound. Her tongue flickered across her lips, tasting the earthiness in the air. She gave Elizabeth a nod of acknowledgment before walking to her desk.

Anastasia walked insolently down the corridor Alexandra had cut in the scavengers. Her harem followed worshipfully behind her, a crawling reverence oozed through their eyes. When it shattered, there would be hell to pay.

With the dam broken by the powerful, the rest trickled in. Pale-faced children that had seen the abomination that lurked under the bed, they clustered together in terror of the teacher they’d shit on. The room was a world that knew only one goddess, here Elizabeth ruled supreme.