Black Witch

Aslan saw Rowena. For the first time since he slit her throat eight years ago.

Beyond the drifting veil, a scar marked her neck. A clean scar, carved by his own hand.

And seeing that wound, Aslan couldn't glare at her. Couldn't condemn her, couldn't raise his voice. He wasn't numb enough for that.

The memories he'd built with Rowena seized him by the ankles, and what settled on his face was anguish. The best expression he could manage. He stared at her, unable to wipe it away.

Half-lidded eyes. A languid, drowsy air. Sensual features and expressions that fit that languor like a glove. A straight nose, thin crimson lips. He couldn't speak a word until those lips parted.

"Does it hurt?"

A voice so soft it was almost sticky. He jolted back to himself at the sound and found Rowena studying his face, feature by feature.

Their gazes tangled. Rowena's violet eyes crinkled into a smile, as if drawing curtains across them.

"How do I look?"

The pained expression didn't leave his face as he answered. He meant to sound curt, but his voice melted. Enough for her to see right through his clumsy attempt at distance.

Instead of replying, Rowena lifted her hand from the railing and slowly drew back the veil over her face.

Their eyes met. Violet eyes, glistening with dark amusement and pleasure.

"You look like you're in so much pain."

That pleasure spread from her eyes to the corners of her mouth, a deep smile curling there. She let out a soft laugh, her lips tracing a crescent, then spoke as if with relief.

"Good."

He didn't need to ask what was good about it.

"It hurts because of me, doesn't it?"

She knew exactly where his pain came from, and it satisfied her. Satisfied her that even his suffering belonged to her.

Aslan smiled bitterly, with no intention of confirming it. It was the same bitter smile he always wore, but to Rowena it was something special.

"Yes. That's a pained face."

She had been staring at him with what looked like pleasant contentment. Then, abruptly, she spread her arms wide. The motion lifted her chest slightly.

Aslan watched. She smiled.

"If it hurts, do you want me to hold you?"

Like before.

"Hold you tight, stroke your back all night until you fall asleep?"

The words were kind. Enough that Aslan, without meaning to, found himself picturing it.

He lowered his eyes and let out a hollow laugh. In the hollow echoes of that laugh, acrid memories drifted up.

Back when Beryl hadn't yet burned, when he and Rowena lived together, he used to wake in the middle of the night wracked by violent pain. The side effect of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overusing equalization. The symptom had faded now that his pain receptors were deadened by even more equalization, but back then it had been frequent.

Searing pain like his whole body was being torn apart. Swept up in a tempest of agony, he'd felt like a splinter of a boat adrift on the sea. Nowhere to lean. Everything turning hazy in the boiling hurt.

Every time she saw him suffering like that, Rowena would always speak with that same unhurried ease.

'Does it hurt a lot? Want me to hold you?'

And with drowsy, half-lidded eyes, she would tenderly soothe him through the night.

It had rarely actually helped, but in that inhuman devotion, Aslan had found something human.

He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, running over the memory. Looking at Rowena, still tilted her head at him, he smiled through a grimace.

Rowena hadn't changed. From the day he slit her throat eight years ago until now, she stood here unchanged.

"You don't need it? If you don't... could you still hold me? Since we haven't seen each other in so long?"

A bright smile followed the words.

In that subtle petulance, he caught a glimpse of a woman who, despite her contempt for humanity, was lonely.

All of it was the Rowena he missed, the one he could only revisit in memory.

His teal eyes, thinned out with something like longing, hid behind their lids. He forced a pained smile. A hollow laugh worn on an anguished face. Somewhere between a spreading laugh and a groan, he pressed his fingers to his brow and shut his eyes tight.

"Damn it..."

Rowena lowered her arms as if she already had her answer. She rested both hands on the railing and turned her head away.

"That's a shame."

Her eyes, gazing out into the distance, caught none of the falling moonlight and turned dull. The silence rose quickly between them.

The wind made the tower moan. Below, the grasses of the wide hanging garden swayed with it. Rowena's hair and veil swayed too. Watching those drifting strands, Aslan spoke first.

"Rowena. Why did you come here?"

She slowly turned her head back toward him. Her face, blank of expression, was like a doll's.

"To see Hyeon-u. To propose something to Hyeon-u."

A proposal.

He knew what it would be. So his question came from a different angle.

"Why did you use magic?"

A soft question. Rowena grinned, as if this tenderness delighted her.

"If I didn't, Hyeon-u wouldn't come, would you? Because Hyeon-u is a good boy."

Aslan's smile vanished. Rowena's lips curled higher, enjoying the shift in his expression.

"If it's not about stopping me, if stopping me isn't the cheapest way to deal with it... you just wouldn't come, would you?"

The wind stilled. The veil draped itself across her face again. Only her somber voice filled the space it left.

"If stopping me means you hurt the people around you, you'd rather avoid me entirely. Because Hyeon-u is a good boy like that."

So that's why I used magic.

She didn't say the words aloud, but they became her voice, echoing through his head.

He knew Rowena well. And she knew him just as well.

She was right. More than he wanted to see Rowena, he didn't want to bring harm to anyone around him. So the way things were now—harm already done by her, and stopping her the only way to end it—if it hadn't been that, he would have chosen avoidance. Chosen to flee.

He silently acknowledged the truth in her words and looked at Rowena's face as the crisp wind unveiled it again.

No answer was required. She already knew the answer. What she wanted to hear wasn't some easy affirmation from him anyway.

When he closed his mouth, Rowena examined his face again and smiled softly. A quiet smile floating through the sorrowful silence, pale as clouds drifting across the night sky.

The two, once lovers, had been gazing at each other for a long while when someone finally spoke.

"Do you really have to stand so far away?"

It was the woman. She wore a plaintive look ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and crossed one leg over the other.

Long, pale legs. The thin silk dress hid them as they folded. And without meaning to, Aslan found himself staring at the way she crossed her legs.

Of course memory was waiting just beyond that image, tickling him. On cold nights, winter nights when the snow fell so thick it turned the sky gray, he and Rowena had always lain tangled together. Blankets rustling down, sheets crumpling. If you traced the hands that crumpled those sheets, you would find some kind of aching tenderness melting into Rowena's drowsy face. Legs he had held and soothed to ease that ache. Those long, pale legs.

Looking at those legs hidden in the dress, he pictured it. And in the long silence, his thoughts bled through.

Rowena, of course, noticed. She smiled, seductive and satisfied.

"You could come a little closer. Or..."

She lifted the hem of her dress, just slightly, exposing her ankle. An ankle so clean, so flawless, the word translucent fit it.

"Want to?"

What she meant was obvious. What would happen if he said yes was just as obvious. It would be pleasant in the moment, but he wouldn't be able to live with the aftermath. Aslan grimaced and shook his head.

Though the depth of his hesitation seemed to please her.

Rowena let go of the hem. Somehow she was already standing on the railing.

The wind whipped her hair wildly. Her black, fine hair scattering had an almost dreamlike quality to it. The moon was at her back, so shadow fell over that dreamlike scene with a sinister edge. In that shadow, only her pair of violet eyes shone vividly.

Then her elegant lips parted. Aslan knew the proposal that would follow.

"Leave behind all those friends Hyeon-u is traveling with now. Just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the two of us, going away together."

And it was exactly what he'd expected.

"Hyeon-u."

She said his name with affection. A sweet voice full of love, even as her eyes shone with something ominous.

"Let's be together, like before."

Aslan had to clench his fist against the sound of that voice.

"Let's love each other like before, fall asleep leaning on each other's warmth, wake up to each other's thoughts. If we do that... I'll give you anything."

There was no lie in her words. He could tell this was her true heart.

"A tempting offer."

It was so tempting that the words came out on their own.

But.

Rowena just smiled gently and said nothing more.

Even though there was something left unsaid.

The man and woman met each other's eyes. The wind died. The veil over Rowena's face, for all its darkness, couldn't obscure her eyes. Those deeply glinting violet eyes were murky.

Aslan knew Rowena. As much as Rowena knew Aslan.

In the game, Rowena had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been the High Priest of the Abyss.

The Abyss was a special kind of evil god, even among evil gods. Not a world but a separate dimension, a dimension with will but without self or reason. That was why.

A dimension with no intellect, no ego. Because of that, the Abyss was the most powerful evil god after the Veil of Compassion. A monster that collapsed worlds by filling them with its mass. An aberrant evil that devoured knowledge and souls. A thing beyond compare to whale-gods who swam through and devoured time.

Only two things existed in the Abyss. Uncountable darkness, and the unfortunate beings stained by it.

Rowena had, originally, been the very will of that Abyss.

Morality, conviction, humanity, values—these did not exist for her. To her, everything was equally worthless.

Even in her time with Aslan, she had been the same. She was Rowena the Black Witch. Even after becoming a priest who served the Twilight Flock, the power and favor of the Abyss remained with her. The essence of the Abyss was gluttony, and her essence never changed, no matter how her religion or her humanity shifted.

She ate what she could not understand. Even knowing that consuming it would not make her understand.

Aslan pulled his gaze from her eyes and looked at the writhing shadow at her feet. There was only one thing she wouldn't eat. Only Lee Hyun-woo.

He closed his eyes, remembering what happened at Beryl.

"...What can you give me?"

Rowena paid no mind to his closed eyes. She laid a hand over her chest.

"I'll give you me."

"Then what do I lose?"

She didn't answer. Just smiled. As if to say, you already know.

As if to say, didn't you already see enough in that year we spent together?

Aslan gave a bitter smile, knowing the answer she didn't speak.

He lifted his head and looked at the sky. The night sky of Geladrion, overflowing with the Milky Way. Stars were scattered across it, and in that moment something was gliding through like a predator. The shadow of the Unfalling One, the evil god who devoured and tore through time. For all its beautiful form, harmless appearance, and indifference to humans, the Unfalling One was unmistakably an evil god. The moment it appeared in Geladrion, its current goal became to swallow the time of every living thing in this world.

To an evil god, humans had no value. Human thoughts, built up over lifetimes. Lives strung together. The will to transcend one's own nature. These were powerless. Irrelevant. There was no such thing as a great cause or justice.

Aslan considered himself an egotist. The reason he sought to kill evil gods. The reason he chased a near-impossible dream just to survive in this godforsaken world. It was pure selfishness.

Because he hated the sight of a world helplessly losing to evil gods. Of some human's noble will being trampled and defiled. He hated it so much he couldn't stomach it.

Aslan thought to himself: if he were one of those humans who had carried that noble will, he would desperately pray. For someone to change this world. And changing the world was something only Aslan could do. That was the only thing only he could do.

If that was true, there was no need to hesitate. He wasn't the kind of person to put off what he could do.

He slowly lowered his head. The teal eyes that had held the stars and caught the reflection of the evil god were burning now. The chaos he'd felt upon hearing Rowena was alive, the pain of finding the talisman—gone. He met Rowena's eyes and drew a single feather from the Wing of Stymphalos.

"Rowena."

"Hyeon-u."

"You know what I'm going to say."

Knowing that trying wouldn't stop him, Rowena gazed at him and spoke.

"Yeah. I know."

She drew back the hand she'd extended and smiled faintly.

"Still handsome."

And Aslan's world began to warp. The world reflected in those two vivid violet eyes twisted. The light in front of his eyes distorted. The ground beneath his feet buckled. The wind flowing over his skin changed direction and surged upward into the void.

The scent of burning filled his nose. Even his sense of taste, already so faint it barely existed, registered something sour. Every sense and perception twisted. Illusion magic made him stagger.

Through it all, Rowena smiled and lifted both sides of her dress, as if offering some noblewoman's curtsy. It made the shadow at her feet churn. Within the churning shape, monsters emerged from the shadow, dripping black ichor born of the Abyss. Aslan watched their forms blur and scatter. Even as a head-splitting dizziness gripped him, he calmly closed his eyes.

The world was violating him. His five senses turned their backs on him, turned their steps away. The pain was enough to make an ordinary person faint on the spot. But Aslan was no ordinary person. He clenched his teeth and endured with fighting spirit. Amid the sharp agony, the mental fortitude sharpened by fighting spirit kept him upright. Tentacles drifted hazily beneath his feet. In the turbulence of senses that couldn't tell if he was standing or lying down, he closed his eyes.

Only one sense was trustworthy. Luck. His sixth sense, honed to give him precognition, blazed vividly, and Aslan drew a dagger shaped like a feather, picturing it in his mind's eye. In the grip of illusion magic so twisted he couldn't even hear his own voice, only Aslan's voice rang out, transcending reason.

"Purity."

And a single human will blazed white.