Black Witch
Black Witch
Loud screams and panicked shouts greeted Aslan the moment he stepped into the banquet hall.
Figuring out what was happening didn't take long.
'It'll be Rowena's magic.'
Aslan broke into a run, recalling the full range of Rowena's magical quirks. Rumel, despite the dress, was faster off the mark, her legs carrying her ahead of him.
He was heading for the staircase that led down into the banquet hall, passing through the corridor beyond the wide-flung doors, when something burst from around the turns of the spiral staircases on either side.
Guards. One had a mace, the other a halberd.
They wore chain hauberks under plate breastplates and came at him with fire in their eyes. Aslan dropped his stance and accelerated.
"Wait, stop! We're—!"
Rumel raised a protest, probably hoping to talk them down. The guard ignored her and brought his halberd straight down.
The heavy axe-blade came down with vicious force, enough to split a man's head open. A lifetime of drill made the attack weighty, but it never came close to touching Aslan.
He lifted his arm, Wings of Stymphalos and all, and extended it.
A shriek of metal on metal. Sparks sprayed through the air, and in their light the guard's bewildered face was briefly visible. A violet tint swam in his eyes.
Aslan watched the halberd skid across the feathers of the Stymphalos wing, then drove his elbow upward.
A crack. The halberd slammed into the marble floor and sent stone chips flying. At the same instant, the elbow connected with the underside of the guard's jaw and his eyes rolled back.
Aslan didn't bother checking whether the man was unconscious. He snatched up the fallen halberd and swung it.
A heavy whoosh, then a hard clang.
"Guh—!"
The halberd smashed into the mace, and the guard holding it reeled.
He was good, but he wasn't good enough to take a blow from a Master who had thrown his entire body weight into it.
Aslan was already closing the distance. He abandoned the halberd, lunged, and grabbed the guard by the throat. Chain links tore with a grinding screech.
A brutal crash. Once he had a grip, the only thing left was to slam him down. Aslan drove the guard into the marble. Stone fragments jumped, and the man crumpled, eyes rolling back.
Two guards down, out cold. Rumel was staring at him, eyes wide.
"Lord Aslan... is this really all right...?"
She wore a troubled expression as she watched him strip the guards of their weapons. He glanced at her.
"There aren't any other options."
It was a flat answer.
"These men are under the influence of Illusion School magic. Extremely high-level illusion magic. Strong enough that even Lady Anna couldn't break it, never mind me."
So we knock them out. He added the unspoken conclusion, took the mace in his left hand, and kicked the halberd up toward Rumel.
She caught it as if mesmerized. He spoke again.
"This spell will keep going until the caster is found and killed or driven beyond a certain radius. Lady Rumel, subdue everyone in the banquet hall who's suffering from the illusion. I'll handle everything else."
Everything else. Something in Rumel's instincts told her that the greater danger lay in those words. Her brown eyes trembled faintly as she looked at him. He met her gaze.
"Then let me go with—"
He shook his head. His right hand came to rest on her shoulder, the fabric of her dress translucent where it lay over her skin.
"That would put you in danger. I may not have accepted your feelings, but Lady Rumel, you are my comrade. You're too valuable to die here. I can't put you in that position."
The earnestness in his voice made her eyes glisten. She had no choice but to close her mouth. It didn't take long for a flicker of defiance to join the look she gave him.
"If you die first, I'm following you. So—"
"...I'll keep that in mind. I'll do my best not to die."
Aslan answered with a smile, and she finally managed a small one in return. She headed deeper into the banquet hall; he took the spiral staircase up to the second floor of the palace.
An oppressive silence hung over the stairs. At the top, more guards came into view. Two of them, eyes glowing violet, started violently the moment they saw him.
One was foaming at the mouth. The other screamed something unintelligible and charged. Aslan tossed the mace once and caught it again as he moved forward.
Moonlight filtered dimly into the long corridor. Edged weapons dense with killing intent came rushing toward him.
A hard clang. A spear-tip aimed at his head, knocked aside with the mace in his left hand. The spear flew wide, and its wielder staggered.
The man's helmet was off. His body tipped wildly, and Aslan's fist shot into the gap.
A wet crunch. Molars flew from the guard's mouth. Aslan ignored him clutching his jaw on the way down and fixed his eyes on the next one charging in.
The man's face was a mess of confusion and fury. Reading it, Aslan began to form an idea of what kind of magic Rowena was using.
There was discipline in their attacks. They were fighting the way they had been trained to fight. That much was obvious.
Axe-blade swinging for his head. Aslan tapped the flat of it aside with the mace, snapped his wrist, and swung laterally. The metal head thudded into the guard's shoulder. The weapon dropped. The man's expression flooded with pain and terror.
This wasn't the kind of illusion that stripped away reason or stole the intellect. Aslan grabbed the weaponless, terrified guard by the scruff of the neck and yanked him forward.
Then a knee strike. It connected squarely with the man's face, and he crumpled. Aslan glanced at the fallen guards and crossed the long corridor, thoughts settling into order.
The Black Witch Rowena's signature school was Illusion.
She could wield other magic. Other spells, all of them horrifyingly powerful. But Illusion was where she truly excelled.
In that school, she outclassed even Anna by a wide margin.
There was effectively no chance Aslan could break an illusion cast by that woman. The best options were to find her and kill her, or force her to retreat and dispel it on her own.
So he had two paths.
Find Rowena and kill her before his companions or allies took casualties.
Or find Angie.
He stepped past the downed guards, running through the places Rowena might be.
She'd deliberately left the talisman behind. The guards outside the palace didn't seem affected. Taken together, it pointed toward one conclusion: Rowena wanted a private meeting with Aslan.
She would be waiting somewhere for exactly that.
If he knew Rowena at all, she would be.
And in this palace, there was only one place perfectly suited for a private audience.
He had just lifted his head to look toward the upper floors when a scream reached him.
A girl's high-pitched shriek. Pure shock. The sound pulled his head back down. At the far end of the corridor, someone was running toward him.
Even at a distance, the figure was unmistakable — platinum-blonde hair streaming behind her.
A girl in ornate clothing whose pale sapphire eyes shone vividly even in the uncertain moonlight.
For an instant, Aslan worried that she, too, had fallen to the illusion.
"Ah, Aslan—?!"
The girl stopped short, calling his name. The concern faded. She was unaffected. He allowed himself a brief smile and stepped forward. The little Emperor threw out a panicked hand.
"Stay back, stay back! Don't come closer! Run! Right now, that child is—!"
Her outstretched arm, the desperation in her voice — it made him pause. That child? She wasn't asking to be protected. She was telling him to flee.
Before he could puzzle it out, a vibration rumbled through the ceiling overhead.
A deep, rhythmic pounding. Something splitting. A weight driving into stone with catastrophic force. The whole building shook.
Aslan grimaced. The Emperor went white and sprinted toward him.
That child. The one she would call 'that child.'
The thought connected.
A cataclysmic crash. The ceiling of the second floor collapsed, and an enormous slab of stone came plummeting down.
It landed exactly where the Emperor had been standing an instant before — a chunk of marble massive enough to be called a boulder. And someone was riding it down.
The impact sent vibrations rippling outward. A thick plume of white marble-dust billowed up. Through it, a face emerged. Unmistakably familiar.
Angela Tail.
Last Descendant of the Ancient God.
A girl with the strength of a giant, regeneration surpassing a troll's, and agility to rival a beast of prey.
She landed amid the swirling dust, scarlet hair flying. Her eyes opened with a wet gleam. Aslan gripped his mace and studied her closely.
Her dress was torn — or rather, had acquired a side-slit that hadn't been there before. The long sleeves that once covered her forearms were now shredded nearly to her shoulders. The hem was shorter, too.
Beneath the shortened, slit, and shredded skirt, the lines of her body told the story plain enough: she had grown.
'Growth spurt, then.'
A trivial observation drifting past. What really caught his eye were the boots. Dragon-leather boots — the ones they'd brought from the City of Mages.
At the sight of them, he let out a small, involuntary laugh.
She'd loved those boots so much she'd worn traveling gear under a ballgown to a banquet.
He suppressed the smile as Angie lifted her head and fixed her eyes on him. Golden eyes — the kind that reminded you of a predator. Meeting them, he sighed under his breath.
He'd hoped she wouldn't be affected. That hope was clearly dead.
Those gold eyes had a violet sheen, and the goodwill they normally held was absent. All that remained was raw killing intent. He caught the faintest glint of reason still swimming beneath it and sighed again.
"Why'd it have to be you."
Of all people. Why Angie.
But the more he thought about it, the more inevitable it felt. Fighting Spirit was the stat that typically protected against magic. Aslan's was high enough to shield him. Angie's Magic Power, Luck, and Fighting Spirit were all 1.
And if the caster was Rowena, it wasn't even slightly surprising.
The fact that some reason remained was the only silver lining. Aslan stepped forward, rolling the mace in his hand. His right hand pulled a single feather from the Wings of Stymphalos.
"Your Majesty, are you injured?"
"I-I'm not hurt yet."
"Then get behind me. I'll protect you."
The Emperor nodded and hurried behind him. Angie bent her knees. Aslan didn't miss the tell.
"Purity."
At the murmured word, the dagger transformed into a greatsword blazing with white fire. The Emperor looked back over her shoulder at the same moment Angie's form vanished.
Dust erupted from where she had been. Gone. Her target was obvious. He didn't need precognition. He'd spent too many years watching Angie to be wrong.
And Angie had spent just as long watching him. If reason still held, there was a way to weaken the magic's grip.
He bumped the Emperor aside with his shoulder and raised Purity — the relic of the Ancient Gods, unbreakable as long as his Fighting Spirit held.
He brought it up to shield the Emperor. Something invisible collided with the blade.
A thunderous, ringing crash.
The Emperor screamed, knocked off her feet by his shoulder. Purity was driven backward. Angie's fist filled the space where it had been, pounding against the flat of the blade.
The sheer force of the impact shoved Purity aside. Aslan didn't resist it. He flowed with the strike, spinning with the momentum. When he came around, he saw the girl paused mid-punch.
She was winding up a second blow. If that one connected, it would kill him. Before the overwhelming violence could land, he rotated his body and swung the mace.
A sharp crack. Centrifugal force added speed; the Master's precise technique delivered the power. A lump of metal slammed into the side of Angie's head.
The squared edge of the mace split her scalp. A thin line of blood ran down — not even a handful.
No real damage. An ordinary mace, deliberately pulled back, couldn't meaningfully hurt her. But his target was never her skull.
It was her perception.
Her head rocked sideways. The precision blow rattled her brain. Angie's body listed, then dropped to one knee.
"...Huh?"
Her voice slipped out, confused. Her eyes widened, trembling.
Slowly, she lifted her head and looked up at him. The violet taint still swam in her eyes, but the hostility was draining away.
Watching it happen, Aslan understood the shape of the magic Rowena had used. It wasn't the kind that stole the intellect and puppeted the body. It was the kind that warped what you saw, heard, felt. Illusion that left reason intact and showed only false images.
Which meant breaking it was simple.
You just had to make the mind feel a truth that contradicted what the eyes were showing.
A truth solid enough to override sight and sound.
And for this girl, the most resonant truth was technique.
The kind of technique that made possible the things her overwhelming strength and ferocity never could. The inhuman skills of a Master. His skills.
Her eyes wavered faintly as that understanding took hold. Aslan reached out.
When his hand touched the top of her head, her shoulders flinched. She looked up at him. Deep suspicion clouded her pupils. He took note of it and gently stroked her hair.
Warmth soaked into her crown as his fingers combed through her hair and brushed against her cheek. At the tenderness of the touch, Angie closed her eyes.
She stayed like that for a moment, as if savoring the sensation. Then she slowly lifted her own hand and laid it over his. Her voice came out a little thick, softened by affection.
"Aslan...?"
When she opened her eyes again, there was no violet left in that gold.
"Hey, Angie."
Her suspicion cleared. Aslan smiled at her.
"Feel like helping me out?"