Chapter Text
The witch was flanked by two women, cloaked and garbed, each with an empty void where a face should have resided.
“That is how I would see such a task accomplished, my dear Ranni,” Queen Marika the Eternal, God-empress of the Golden Order, softly spoke, addressing only the witch. Her tone was almost whimsical, as if she was discussing what could be done, not what should be done.
Marika was clad in a grey shift, ornaments and gilded edges of pure gold accentuating her power. Her flawless skin and golden tiara rested easily atop her flowing platinum locks. The Eternal Queen seemed to savor each word that flowed from her full lips.
Ranni the Witch, by contrast was clad in a flowing robe that left little to the imagination. Her features, and her fair red hair, hidden under the wide-brimmed hat that she had favored as of late. Marika approved in a distant way of her step-daughter, it could be an invaluable means of hiding one’s expression. Especially when one did skulk about as Ranni did.
Marika leaned forward one dainty hand and lifted the brim of Ranni’s hat just enough so she could see the witch’s face. Ranni’s face was pale as stricken snow, making her own red locks stand out so much more fervently on her perfect heart-shaped face.
“Dearest stepmother, thou wouldst sanction such a cardinal sin?” Ranni replied, her voice strangely hesitant.
Marika softly smiled, her expression almost beatific in the dim twilight luminescence of the Erdtree that lit her balcony and released the brim of Ranni’s hat, stepping away. The lead hound of the Golden Order swelled within Marika, at once anxious and suddenly very aware of Marika. She felt her other half pushing slightly but not insistently against her will and Marika’s smile twitched.
“I would not,” Marika replied, her tone just as saccharine as before, “If it was to happen… well then it could be used… to benefit… the Golden Order.”
The leal hound within her chest subsided, drifting again within Marika’s mind.
Ranni, her golden eyes fixed on her fellow Empyrean, slowly, ever so slowly, nodded. She raised both her pale hands and steepled them together, seemingly in thought, regarding her stepmother.
“If I was to accomplish such a deed,” Ranni spoke conversationally, turning toward the Erdtree as it towered unaware of the treachery in its boughs, “A demigod shall die most truly.”
Marika’s lips twitched toward a frown before she slowly nodded. The air was still and silent, and treachery grew within Marika’s heart.
“To escape obeisance?” Marika fairly whispered, almost as if she was considering the question. Marika tilted her head, her golden tiara askew, her very image a picture of consideration.
Then Marika stepped around Ranni, almost circling her like the great lion, Serosh, had once stalked his prey under the pale moon. Then the Queen of all that was in the Lands Between, leaned forward from behind Ranni, her head under Ranni’s hat, and whispered in the pale redhead’s ear three simple words.
“So be it.”
Ranni stepped forward, the fur cloak of a snow witch swirling as she did so, and stalked toward the door to the balcony. She stopped before lifting her hand toward the latch.
“By thy leave, stepmother?” Ranni asked her tones dulcet sweet.
Marika lifted a hand in dismissal and Ranni unlatched the door pausing but a moment before stepping into a dark hallway.
“I only ask,” Ranni murmured, “When the time cometh, that thou trust my judgment.”
The witch glanced back at Marika, who slowly inclined her head in acquiescence. Ranni nodded in turn, her wide-brimmed hat hiding her eyes, and then turned and left.
Ranni’s steps, deliberately loud, soon faded into the still silence of a sleeping city. Marika spared a glance toward Leyndell. The golden rooftops and spires. The silver armor of the night watchmen, so far below. The flickering flames of torches and lamps lit the golden streets. Above all the stone corpse of the greatest enemy Leyndell had ever locked horns against, the Ancient Dragon Gransax. An eternal monument to the will and power, the iron grip of the Golden Order upon all creation.
An iron grip on all but one, and soon to be many more.
“Alecto. Tiche.” Marika spoke, still staring at the city at large. Now her gaze followed the gleaming bark of the great Erdtree, which had in times past been the Holy Crucible of all creation. Before a Will Beyond had sent a Golden Beast… and rose a wretched Numen woman to godhead. Before that lowly Numen knew that shackles, whether of gold or of cold iron were the same.
“Your majesty?” the cold whisper of Alecto, Ringleader of Marika’s Black Knives, echoed in Marika’s ears. A sound so soft and sibilant that a breeze could have caused it. Even Alecto’s breath upon Marika’s ear was as cold as the death Ranni sought.
“Thee shalt offer thy service and that of thy sister’s services to Ranni the Witch. In all things act thou thusly, as if I myself have gives thee thy orders.” Marika whispered.
“So mote it be,” Alecto whispered.
“So mote it be,” Tiche, Alecto’s pureblood Numen daughter, echoed in whisper.
Soundless they had attended to Marika and soundless they left, not even a whisper of the wind betrayed the movements of the Black Knives in the dark. For fell deeds awaited and ever had the Black Knives been sworn to Marika, just as Marika commanded the last of the daughters of Numen.
“So it shall be,” Marika responded a touch too late, for the Knives had departed with not a soul to hear their passage.
It was on another such night that the cold voice of Alecto returned to Marika’s side, murmurs of kinslaying upon her phantasmal lips. Marika felt a jolt within her at the heresy that spouted from her most loyal confidant’s lips and only a mental murmur of ‘for the Golden Order,’ stopped the Order’s leal hound from rising up with froth upon his lips.
For it was the mother in Marika that answered the ringleader of her assassins, “It is only right I join thee for a deed so cursed, lest the blame lay upon thee for eternity.”
Alecto inclined her cowl, her features hidden by its magic. Another daughter stepped forward, the cowl and garb of a Black Knife held between cruel gloves, tipped with claws. Marika stood from her seat, dropping her stone tablet upon the carpet where it cracked just as the Golden Order it espoused was nigh on breaking.
Marika lifted her arms, and the Black Knives gloves, metal-tipped at they were, deftly removed the garments of a Queen. Marika’s deep plunging neckline and the loose grey shift she was clad in no obstacle for the assassins. Only the jewelry gave them pause, the fingers of Alecto stilling upon Marika’s golden tiara, almost touching the diadem set amidst its crown.
“Even the crown, Alecto dear,” Marika murmured, and the ringleader stripped the Queen of that as well.
The scentless perfume poured over her skin, a masterpiece of the Perfumer’s Guild, and supplied in treasured troves to Marika’s most leal servants. It ran down her flawless skin from head to toe, until it slipped beneath Marika’s stony skin concealing her scent from even the most watchful hounds.
The scale armor came next, placed over Marika delicate ivory skin, and fastened by the ever-careful hands of her fellow Numen women. Tightened until Marika let out a little gasp, and then loosened just enough. As silent as a midsummer grave the Black Knives worked around her, garbing her just as they did their other sisters.
Finally, the cowl and veil were offered to her, as ritual demanded, and Marika lifted them with her own gauntlet-scaled hands to affix the cowl to her head. Her face, known and deified the entire land over in statues and grand cloisters disappeared beneath sightless sorcery. Disappearing until the spell could be broken by her lifting the cowl once more.
Then Tiche affixed the veil, draping it over Marika, securing it in place with swift fingers that seemed not to feel the touch of gloves. Marika stilled then, not even the sound of her own breathing and heartbeat leaving the veil. All was still and silent for a longer moment. Each Black Knife’s cowl inclined toward her.
Then Alecto drew forth from beneath her cloaked veil a dagger, and Marika’s voice soundless to all caught within her throat at the perversion before her eyes. A dagger shaped in the way of death, besmirched with Death’s touch. The Rune of Death, a fragment lay before her holy eyes. Long ago, Marika had plucked it from the Elden Rune and bequeathed it to her half-brother to guard eternally, to remove death from all of Marika’s demesne.
Yet, here it was, clad in daggered form, the form of the dagger betraying its reality. With numb fingers, Marika stretched out her hands and carefully, ever mindful of the edge, plucked it from Alecto’s still fingers.
“My majesty,” Alecto whispered, her voice as still and quiet as the murmur of a wisp upon a gravestone.
Marika inclined her head, and Alecto turned on her heel, sight and sound absent from her motions. The spellcraft of the old Numens, embroidered in the deep roots, let Marika see her leal servants as they moved out of sound and sight, and she followed with but a touch of lesser skill.
The guards, the strength of Leyndell, knew not to guard against the hounds of Marika and so the Knives slipped past the towering sentinels and into the inner sanctum with nary a sound. Still and silent, each Numen crept, past torchlight and spell light.
The guards at Godwyn’s sanctum were no obstacle. Daggers imbued with instant death, destined to be their last entered each armpit, sliding upward to catch and tear the heartstrings of mortal men, and each slumped and died, not even a choke to betray their passing. Marika stepped over the bodies and reached a hand upward, and with the authority of the queen undid the wards her son had woven.
Such was his love and adoration that even her Golden Son had not even dreamed that treachery came from his mother. Thus Marika entered Godwyn the Golden’s chambers. Slates of Golden truths, or Draconic sorcery lay scattered haphazardly. Golden seals and scrolls lay on the desk and shelves. The smallgarments of one of Godwyn’s draconic lovers, courtesy of a human facade, lay scattered in the main room. Marika’s lips did not twist.
Godwyn stood unaware. His back was to them and his form was nude. He splashed water upon his golden features, so reminiscent of good lord Godfrey, his greater sire, and then he looked into the mirror, studying his features for a moment.
In the mirror, Marika could see her own reflection, faceless for deeds that she could not face. Godwyn could not see them. Could not hear them. Could not smell them.
He glanced down.
Marika felt tears run hot on her cheeks, brimming from golden eyes, washing away her scentless perfume. She raised her dagger, wavering for a moment. All her Black Knives were still and silent, daggers grasped between scaled gauntlets, tense and coiled as bowstrings. They waited for Marika to realize the folly of what she was doing, Marika noted as preemptive grief and sorrow flooded her mind, and she sniffed, one hand starting to raise toward her face instinctually to wipe away the tears that gathered her.
A frown slipped across Godwyn’s face, and his lips opened. His eyes raised to the mirror once again.
Marika stabbed downward and the blade of Destined Death found purchase within Godwyn’s body. Marika’s daughter off-center by a touch, entered his right shoulder and Godwyn’s mouth opened in a soundless scream. Alecto’s dagger stabbed downward. Tiche following after. Again and again, the daggers slid downward, and Godwyn’s eyes rolled back into his head, revealing naught but the white of his eyes.
Golden tears ran down Marika’s cheeks, catching in her cowl. Her golden son lay broken at her feet, the pure fruit of Godfrey’s and her union. Now he lay sundered, the mark of the scorpion forming on his golden skin. The mark of death as Death had its due.
“For the Golden Order,” Marika whispered in irony and prayed the deception went unnoticed. The words tasted like ash and dust in Marika’s immaculate mouth.
She knelt then, and removed her gauntlet, tugging on the fingers until the garment pulled away. With feverish fingers, she felt along Godwyn’s body till she felt his pulse. Ah, so Ranni accomplished her task, Marika thought, and the thought itself was as bitter as the blood that stained Godwyn’s chambers. Slowly, Marika pulled her gauntlet back on.
Two dead demigods. One to die in flesh. One to die in spirit.
All so that the fingers would be tied.
Marika turned away, and left, the Black Knives tarrying but a moment. One would take the fall, as needs must, for none could suspect Marika’s involvement.
The Greater Will would have no choice.
To struggle unto eternity. Marika found such an interpretation fitting, yet knew that it could not last. It did not last. Her lesser half was slain, Radagon, last leal hound of the Golden Order, lay sundered, his essence returning to Marika’s at long last, mingling. Her twin sought to reform, his ego forming but it was dispersed before it fully formed.
Already the death knell of the Elden Beast was heard throughout the Lands Between. The Greater Will realized at long last that Marika was free, the Elden Rune cleaved from her flesh as fragments of her body shattered. One last martyrdom, Marika thought, with her hands outstretched but broken at the elbows, staring up at her own body. Only her lower half was garbed, the rest was broken stone, the same stone as the flesh of dragons.
She did not regret it, for all that she marveled. That a Tarnish of no renown could stand before the legends of ages past? Could triumph where all others failed. It was fate, greater than the Greater Will that had guided her hand, Marika mused, for it remained a mystery even to her why she had granted grace to such a wretch. So it was finished.
Cold hands, as cold as death itself, lifted her head and Marika stared into the blue eyes of Radagon’s daughter. Her hair was no longer the red of the giants, whose essence Marika had absorbed at the behest of the Greater Will. No longer were her eyes the liquid gold of dragon-kin, now they were the blue of a mortal. Marika could see where the seams of doll and spirit met, hurriedly sewn together and she wondered who had done it, Ranni herself? Surely not Rennala.
Marika supposed it did not actually matter, after all the end of the line was there, and Marika found it was not so bitter.She had dreamed that she could twist the ending to her will, the moment the rotten edifice came toppling down, that she would be there as she had been at the end of the previous epoch, but this time it was not to be.
Marika gazed forward, her eyes fixed in place, yet she endured. For Ranni the Witch had not pierced Marika with the Rune of Destined Death. Marika could feel it within Ranni’s robes, the robes of the Snow Witch Renna, long deprived of life. So Marika thought, and the thought was not as bitter as she expected. The House of the Moon triumphs over the House of Gold. Rennala’s get triumphed over her purebred children.
Marika took some small solace that even if Ranni had won in the end, Marika did as well, since after all, was Ranni not of Marika’s lineage? Not of gold, but of red. Marika could have frowned, Marika could have smiled, instead, she felt indifference bubble within her heart, disparate as it was.
So be it.
Marika found, in death, that her mind still lingered, and so she was present as Ranni began to speak, those blue eyes conveying sympathy to the last, and Marika took some small solace that it had not all been in vain.
“To every living being and every living soul…” with the words of her daughter Ranni echoing in Marika’s ears, Marika finally surrendered her grip on the living and allowed herself to slip away. The Erdtree had no true hold upon her soul, for long ago when ships had sailed, Marika had sailed from distant Numen, lost across worlds, and to there she desired to return.
So Marika the Eternal, God-empress of the Golden Order, ended her thousand-year voyage at the same time as Ranni started hers.
That is… until new breath found her lungs.
Marika choked, air whistling into lungs that had not needed air for many a year. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and Marika twisted over. Cracked porcelain fingers digging into mulch. Green grass parted beneath her fingers and Marika marveled.
The loam and moss filled her other hands and Marika lifted fingers stained green to her face, savoring the scent of the dewy grass. Her feet rested in coarse river sand, tiny pebbles upon a small shore. Cold, very cold, water lapped at her feet. Marika cared not, for she was free.
The cold wind caressed her face, setting her blonde locks swaying in a winter breeze. Marika turned her face into it and inhaled, tasting the free air once more. It was sublime, and Marika felt golden tears form upon her fine features once again, even though her eyes were closed. Slowly, almost painfully she opened her eyes. A cold sea greeted her eyes, stretching toward the horizon. Ice floes floated here and there, pulled by the ebb and flow of the tide. Marika closed her lips and hummed thoughtfully, still utterly delighted.
The touch of grace lingered not within her breast. The ever-present ache of the Elden Runes imprisoned within her flesh was nowhere to be found, only echoes of divinity that touched her perfect flesh remained. Even then, Marika lifted a hand to her face, marveling at it, marveling at the cracks.
She could not feel Radagon. Could not feel the leal hound of the Golden Order eternally lambasting her for her treachery. Could not feel his perverse taint and dedication to the Order. Marika was free, well and truly free, beyond all measure, beyond all doubt. There was a gaping abscess where Radgon should be, a carved hole in her essence but Marika did not fret, for she was free.
Marika leaned back in the grass and stared up at the sky. It was fair and blue. The sun beamed down and its light was kind and wholesome. Marika spared a moment to luxuriate, to feel the sun on her skin and savor its warmth.
Slowly, the former God-empress struggled to her feet, her head swam with long-lost sensations. Thirst and hunger in equal measure gnawing at her stomach. Her grey dress was plunged down around her waist and with shaking hands she fixed her dress, stretching the fabric up until it covered her breasts and closed the clasp around the back of her neck. She took a step outward, feeling the grass beneath her bare feet for the first time in a very long time.
You are not welcome. Be gone.
Marika stilled, her mind racing. Her earlier exuberance faded away into wariness in the blink of an eye. What was this new devilry? What voice intruded upon her mind?
“Who are you?” Queen Marika asked, her tone quietly hesitant, so quiet even while the birds sang, and a nearby creek bubbled merrily.
Demonreach. Trespasser.