Northern Alaska- 20 Years Ago

Snow surged from the sky like blood from a gaping wound, and wind shattered around the castle and the mountains like a maelstrom of broken glass. Castle Albrecht stood between two mountains, and climbed to half their height. Ten stories tall, with four spires arranged around the center in the four cardinal directions. The cylindrical spires reached into the air with their conical tops, adding another dozen feet to the castle’s considerable height. Built from black diamond and obsidian, Castle Albrecht had stood in its current location for two hundred years, and if her father had his way, it would stand for another two thousand.

At the top floor of the Eastern Spire, looking out over the coniferous expanse, Gwen sat on the floor with her legs crossed as snow fell from the sky and blood froze on the floor. The corpse sat in an indent, between the three siblings and their father. Gwen looked to her left, to her older brother Arthur, with his shaggy white hair and tall, slender frame; and to her right, to her older sister Morganna with her snowy, hip-length tresses that fell beautifully from her delicate head, framing her perfect face. Ahead of them was the body of a man Father had found starving in the forest, tranquilized and placed in the chamber so that they could watch him bleed. 

Alistair Albrecht stood in front of the window with his arms folded. He was a tall, imposing man, built lean and tight, with long white hair parted to his left. His gray eyes had sunk deep into his sockets, and he looked at his young children with impatience. Behind him was the uncovered window, through which the frigid reaches of the Alaskan wilderness revealed itself. Snowflakes danced into the room, melting on the ground but not on the corpse. The corpse sat stationary and cold, with wide-open eyes aimed at the ceiling. Gwen couldn’t help but stare.

“Well,” Alistair said. “I’m waiting. Now show me.”

Morganna, the eldest, went first. She held out her hand, and she spoke the German for ‘Gather ye blood, gather ye life, gather ye death.’ A droplet of blood leaked from the man’s slit wrist, floated up from its source and hung in the air, followed by a dozen more. They pooled together, and Morganna closed her fist. The blood sculpted and crystalized, and when it was over a solid letter ‘M’ hung in the air. 

Alistair nodded silently, then gestured to Arthur. He repeated the procedure, but rather than a letter, he sculpted a snowflake the size of his hand, an intricate lattice of blood-crystal.

“Excellent,” Alistair said. Gwen supposed that he must’ve meant it, even if his face and his tone did nothing to indicate that. “Your turn, Guinevere.”

Gwen nodded. She closed her eyes and breathed in, let the Stardust in the room fill her up, held it in her heart, channeled it into her hands, released it and fired it towards the blood. She spoke the words, and she clasped her hand. When she released her grip, the blood had formed into a long, thin needle. Alistair regarded it with curiosity, poked it, pricked his finger on the razor-sharp edge as Gwen said, “Blut meines vater.” A splash of Alistair’s own blood was drawn from his finger into the needle, enlarging it into a dagger. 

Finally, Alistair Albrecht smiled. It was a mere smirk, but it was more than Gwen had seen from her father in some time. “Very good. You’re all dismissed for the day. Be sure to finish your chores before sundown, or no dinner.”

With that, the Prince of Necromancers began to leave, his long black cloak sliding over the smooth crystal surface of the room. 

“Wait,” Gwen said. Morganna shot her a glare. 

“What, girl?” Alistair said, stopping but not turning to face her.

“Where’s Tristan?”

“Your mother didn’t care to waste time with him today when she’d rather occupy herself with the younger children,” Alistair said. “So I sent him to collect firewood for the afternoon.”

“By himself?” Arthur said, gathering himself onto his feet. He’d grown four inches in the past year- at the rate he was going, he’d catch up to Father within a few years. 

“He’s more than capable,” Alistair said. And then Father left. 

As soon as he did, Morganna reached over and struck Gwen in the chest with a closed-fisted punch. “Quit showing me up!” Morganna said. 

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said. 

“You always say that, and yet you never seem to mean it.” Morganna’s eyes went wide and her teeth were bared.

Morganna launched her fist towards Gwen’s face, but Arthur caught the punch before it could connect. He’d overshot Morganna in both height and weight in the past year, and she’d found herself unable to bully him the same as she had before: a recent attempt of her’s to put him in his place had resulted in her losing her final baby tooth. Soon after that, Morganna had found herself unable to strike any of her younger sibling’s any longer, for fear of incurring Arthur’s considerable wrath. Gwen supposed the only thing more hideous than a fourteen year old’s wounded pride was a thirteen year old’s justified hatred; her twelve year old fear was small and pathetic in itcomparison.

Arthur squeezed his older sister’s wrist, his eyes bulging with rage. “Say you’re sorry.”

Morganna sneered. 

“I said apologize to Gwen,” Arthur said, squeezing tighter. 

Morganna said nothing. Her face was impassive. 

Gwen recounted, then, all the times in their childhood that Morganna had struck Arthur. She supposed that Arthur likely did the same as he delivered a slap across Morganna’s face. It connected with her cheek and eye, and she hissed as it stung her flesh in the cold, gray air of the room. Arthur let go of Morganna’s wrist, and she fell to the ground. Gwen leapt up and hurried out of her way, just in time for Arthur to kick Morganna in the ribs.

“Come on, Gwen,” Arthur said. “Let’s go. Morgan would clearly rather be alone.”

“It’s Morganna,” their eldest sibling said from the floor, clutching her side. 

“Nobody cares, you stupid cunt,” Arthur said. Gwen covered her mouth to keep her smile a secret. Arthur had decided he was stronger than Morganna, and Gwen was glad to find he was right. She clung to her older brother as they left the Eastern Spire. 

She followed Arthur down the spiraling staircase, brushing her long white hair out of her eyes as she went. Windows carved into the wall and plated with clear glass revealed the outside world, the driving snow blanketing the potter’s field that stood before the coniferous forest. Father would bury the new corpse in an unmarked grave before day’s end- once they did, any remnants of the ghost would vanish: a necromancer’s burial would destroy all claim the spirit had on the body, force it towards whichever afterlife it believed in rather than allowing it to cling to the world in its trauma. The corpse belonged to them, and that made necromancy much easier. It would preserve the corpse as well thanks to their father’s magic, and in a few years he would start showing them how to animate it.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asked, tossling her hair. 

“Yeah, I think so,” Gwen said, rubbing her chest just above her heart. “Thanks.”

“No problem, shorty,” Arthur said with a warm smile. “What do you wanna do now?”

“We should go find Tristan.”

“But he’s off getting wood.”

“Yeah, and I heard on the radio that there was gonna be a blizzard this evening,” Gwen said. “I don’t think he should be out there alone.”

Arthur stopped a step from the bottom of the spire. Ahead of them was the overpass that connected the spires with the main building, a darkened, claustrophobic tunnel illuminated by a few lanterns that hung from the ceiling. “I don’t know. Mom and Dad would be pissed.”

“Please. He’s out there all alone,” Gwen said, looking at the back of her older brother’s head.

Arthur’s shoulders tensed, then he exhaled and relaxed them. “Alright. Get your parka and your bowie, and let’s go.”

She nodded, and she ran through the cold, dark underpass and came out beneath a high ceiling. The main building was much warmer than the spires, heated by the boiling lake beneath the earth. It was almost swampy compared to the biting cold of the rest of her world. She ran past the library, the first room on right when entering from the Eastern Spire. It was the only room in the whole castle that was as tall as the entire thing: it had its own stairwell that carried you up each of the ten stories. It was accessible from each floor of the castle, but walled off into its own section, all the knowledge of 1500 years of House Albrecht’s prominence in the Sovereignty. 

On the first story, her mother instructed Gwen’s younger siblings- Elaine, age nine, and Iseult, age four- in the ways of oneiromancy. Their mother was the heiress to House Koenig, another of the Five Grand Houses of the Sovereignty, in their case specializing in matters of the psychic variety. Baby Percival rocked back and forth in the cradle next to their mother as she wove a shared dream around the girls. A green aurora washed over the library, while small imps called mara sat on the girls chests’ while they laid flat on their backs, keeping them within the realm of the subconscious so that their mother could lead them through the dream world and show them how to manipulate it. The only way out was to either find the mara within the dream and kill it, or to release a burst of Stardust big enough to shatter the illusion. Silently, Gwen stalked past her family members and ran to the west, into the room she shared with Morganna and Elaine and Iseult. She grabbed her knife and her coat, and she ran outside to join Arthur. 

The cloudy sky steadily darkened as the snowfall amplified over the tombstones. They walked quickly through the graveyard, and they entered the forest. Tristan, for his lack of magic, was often punished with manual labor. Just as often, he used that as an excuse to lose himself on the family property for hours at a time. Gwen envied him sometimes for his ability to do so, but she also knew he’d probably kill her if she said that to him. 

As the sky grew darker still, Arthur called out, “Tristan!”

“Tristan!” Gwen cried. 

Finally, over the screeching wind, they heard a high, familiar voice cry out, “Help!”

They found him after a few hundred yards, running from a beast. It had gray, cracked, stone-like skin and a long, sharp face. Its nose was a flat stump with wide nostrils, its eyes angry red-orange pools, its limbs long tendrils of springy muscle each punctuated by five digits with long, sharp claws. It was totally bald and totally naked, and its genitals had fallen off to leave only a blank mound. Its fangs bulged from its mouth, all closing in on a single circular point. A ghoul, who evidently hadn’t eaten in at least a year, was chasing their brother.

Gwen shrieked in terror, while Arthur planted his feet and breathed in deep. He held up his hand and shouted, “Tristan, get down!” Their brother jumped to the side and rolled with the fall, and Arthur aimed his flattened palm at the ghoul. “Toter engel!”

Arthur’s eyes glowed with white light, and so did his hands. The silhouette of an angel burst to life, twice Arthur’s size and with a massive wingspan. It flew towards the ghoul and slammed into it. The ghoul went limp and fell to the ground, face-first. 

Tristan, on his back a dozen yards off, looked at the ghoul in shock. Gwen watched Arthur breathe heavily as his arms went limp. Her eyes were drawn to the pulse of his neck, as it grew faster, faster, faster… 

… Slower. 

… It stopped. 

Arthur fell to his knees

Gwen and Tristan both screamed as they ran to their brother. His pulse was gone, and his body went cold rapidly. They stood there a while, trapped on their knees. The snow soaked through Gwen’s parka and chilled her to her bones. Every time she looked at her brother’s body, she expected him to get up and move, and he didn’t.

After a while, they realized they had to get moving again, or they would freeze to death. So Gwen consoled her sobbing little brother, and together they lifted and carried Arthur back to the castle. It was a cold, bleak walk among the tombstones. Snow pelted Gwen in the face, and she couldn’t feel her lips as they approached Castle Albrecht. 

Father stood in the doorway, waiting for them, his arms folded behind his back. 

“So weak,” he uttered. “Why did you have to be so very weak, my boy?”

After that, he took the body, and they never saw it again. Their mother said nothing on the subject save to tell Elaine and Iseult where Arthur was. 

Gwen sat with Tristan in the den, in front of the burning hearth, examining his gray eyes as they stared into the fire and registered nothing. Morganna came from behind and grabbed Tristan, threw him backwards, stepped on his chest. 

“You let him die,” Morganna said. “That was your fault- how could you let him die you stupid fucking brat!? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

She raised her fist to bring down upon him, but Gwen stopped her. She still had blood on her from the lesson earlier that day, and she breathed and channeled and gave it life, sharpened it into a point and shot it. 

The needle went through Morganna’s dominant right hand. She howled in pain as the crystalized blood went through one side of her fist and emerged out the other one. She reached for the needle, but Gwen let go of the spell and let the blood fall apart. Gwen tackled her older sister, raining blows down on her face viciously. She beat Morganna, refusing to stop even when Tristan begged her to, refused to stop even as Morganna began sobbing in pain as one of her front teeth fell out and the cartilage of her nose crunched and her delicate face swelled. Gwen recalled every time Morganna had ever struck her, ever spoken ill of her, ever belittled and blamed her, and every time these burning memories came to her she struck her sister with exponentially greater fury. She wanted to make Morganna as hideous on the outside as Gwen knew she was on the inside. She didn’t stop until her father came into the room and tore her away from her bloodied victim, and even then she didn’t stop struggling for freedom until her father took her into the basement and threw her to the floor. He kicked her in the stomach, knocked the wind from her. 

The basement was the hottest part of the castle save for the underground lake itself. A layer of diamond stood between the two sublevels, and the floor itself was warm to the touch. Only the torchlight above the entryway illuminated the level. A trapdoor yielding the way to the lake stood in the far-left corner.

As Gwen wheezed and groped for breath, Alistair loomed over her and said, “You’re upset about Arthur. So am I. Morganna is a useless, hateful fool, and Tristan is even weaker than she is. I understand your contempt for them. I share it. But this does not excuse your behavior.”

Gwen muttered. 

“What was that?” Alistair said, raising a foot again. 

Gwen twitched. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Alistair kicked her again, albeit not quite with as much force this time. “Siblings do not harm each other. You are kin, and you are at a level with each other. It is improper.”

“Doesn’t stop her.”

“I will deal with Morganna later.”

“You always say that,” Gwen spat. 

Alistair said nothing to this. He merely turned around and walked up the flight of stone stairs that lifted him from the basement floor to the doorway of the main level. He stood in the doorway, then looked down once more at his daughter. “You will learn. Eventually. That family comes above all else, and that strength holds a family together. Strength is all.”

The door fell shut, and Gwen was alone in the dark with her thoughts for the rest of the night. Even on the heated floor, she shook with cold misery as she waited for morning to come, nothing to keep her company but grief over her dead brother.

***

Dresden, Michigan- 8 Years Ago

Lacy knew better than to take apart her mother’s radio, so instead she pooled together loose change from the sidewalks and the school hallways, found a few crumpled, filthy bills in alleys, and waited for the the odd times her father sent her to buy groceries and said she could keep the change. When, after about a year of this, she finally had enough, she went down to the pawn shop three blocks from her school and bought an old radio. She brought it into her room, and she took out a screwdriver and opened it up. It was a kaleidoscope of wires and gears and screws, all having somewhere to go, something to link up to, some sort of purpose. Everything fit. She spent an hour taking it apart, and then another hour putting it back together again. She did it again and again, until finally she fell asleep on the floor of her room. 

She woke up the next day, and went to school with her fingers twitching, desperately missing the feeling of taking something apart. Putting it back together was alright as well, just a lot more stressful- but she had to put it back together to take it apart again, so at the very least it was an important part of the process. She pressed her face against the glass during the bus ride, having to sit on her hands to stop them from dancing around. When she got to school, she had to keep her hands on her lap in case she needed to write, and when she wasn’t writing she drummed her fingers on her desk. All the sounds coalesced as she sat beneath the low ceiling and obnoxious hum of the overhead light, the cramped, claustrophobic room compressing the noise of a dozen feet shifting on the floor, a handful of footsteps in the hallways, and fifteen cacophonous cardiac patterns. Only the heavy patter of autumnal rain offered a relieving rhythm to heal the afflictions of the school’s raucous timbre. 

Her teacher, a squat woman with dark hair and olive skin, spoke of the day’s lesson, while behind Lacy two girls chatted about some asinine subject. Their words were further intrusion into the confluence, offering only sour notes. They sat there, with their long nails and their long hair and their soft skin while she sat crammed into the middle, her flesh mutating into a prison of diminishing tolerability, the abomination between her legs proving increasingly difficult to ignore. She just wished she could shut them up. They were so pretty, and Lacy never would be. She hated them for that.  

Her fingers fidgeted frantically, and the girls at the back of the class went quiet. 

… No. No, not entirely quiet, just noticeably quieter. Lacy stole a glance to the back of the glass, where the girls looked distinctly confused as to why the volume had been lowered on their conversation. 

Lacy looked down at her lap. 

“Looking at something interesting, Liam?” the boy next to him said. A tall, blonde boy with messy hair and broad shoulders. He often said things to her. Generally rather insulting things like ‘asshole’ and ‘loser’ and ‘faggot.’ Lacy wished she knew his name- it would make it easier to formulate comebacks. 

“Enough,” their teacher said. “And Liam, stop fidgeting and pay attention.”

Lacy stared at the lecture once again, but she focused her mind on the frightened decrescendo behind her, and she lifted her fingers upwards and the girls’ volume rose once again. 

“Wait, it’s back!” one girl said.

“Oh thank GOD!” the other girl exclaimed.

“You two! Enough!” their teacher shouted. “I’ll have no more interruptions in this class today, or it's extra homework for all of you.”

Lacy rested her head on her desk and smirked. 

“And sit up straight, Liam!” 

Lacy snapped into place, the jolt cutting her along with the false name.  

The bright piercing cry of the bell ended class. The teacher left the room first. Lacy gathered her things and ran for the door, but as she went into the doorframe, the boy who sat next to her hip-checked her and brought her to the ground. She landed in a heap as the other kids walked over her, until a hand appeared above her. 

Danny. 

She got up, not taking his hand. 

“You okay?” Danny asked. 

“Fine,” Lacy said, watching the back of the boy’s head as he walked away. “Do you know what that guy’s name is?”

“Jack, I think. Why?”

“This isn’t the first time he’s done this to me.”

“Yeah, dude, I know. He’s been pulling this all year. And the year before that, now that I think about it.”

“Hey, go on ahead without me.”

“No,” Danny said flatly. 

“Why not?”

“Because I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“You gonna stop me?”

“Only if you get out of control.”

“Fine, then,” Lacy said.

They followed Jack out the front door and around back, to the path that snaked through the woods behind their school and led into a meager residential area in the neighboring town of  Coldwater. They followed him under the heavy clouds as Jack went around walking free, acting like there were no consequences for his misbehavior. What the hell kind of parents did this idiot have, who let him get away with this. Her parents would beat the tar out of her for this kind of behavior.

Lacy began to close the gap between her and Jack as they plunged deeper and deeper into the woods. She reached out with her mind, gripped the soundwaves on all sides, and lowered the ones around Jack to an absolute zero. 

She kicked out the back of Jack’s knees, then tackled him. Then she turned him over and started beating him. She didn’t let him scream. If nobody could hear her, then nobody got to hear him. A smile blossomed on her face, hideous and yet intoxicating to Lacy, a siren’s call of destiny she could not ignore. She liked this. Liked how it felt. 

Shame and self-loathing burned inside her, as she pictured her father’s face in place of her own.

And yet she did not stop. 

“Dude,” Danny said, his voice cracking. “Maybe you should stop now?”

She ignored him.

“Dude, I think someone’s coming.”

She ignored him.

“LIAM!”

She brought the sound back just as she was yanked off of the boy. She looked up and saw one of their teachers. Lacy couldn’t remember their name.

Because they hadn’t been on school property by a few short inches, they couldn’t expel Lacy, or even suspend her. They could, however, call her parents. 

Her mother was dead silent the entire drive home. Silent, as always, like a goddamned statue; no matter what happened, this stupid asshole in her breathtaking lack of wisdom felt no need to say anything whatsoever. Lacy sat there, still brimming with adrenaline and rage. She could switch the sound off on her mother entirely for the rest of her life and nobody would notice a goddamned thing. There was no way it would make any difference. It never did. 

Siohban pulled Lacy inside by the arm. When they were in the kitchen, Lacy’s father appeared. He wasn’t carrying a bottle or can with him, but he had the usual stench on him. He put a hand on Lacy’s shoulder, causing her to cringe. Then he slapped her, open-palmed, and knocked her to the ground. She gave no response as he loomed over her. 

“Anything to say for yourself?” he asked. 

Lacy said nothing. 

“Of course you don’t. You never do, you and your mother both. It’s creepy, you know, how damn silent you both are all the time.”

He kneed her in the gut. She wheezed. 

“There he is. Listen here boy, I won’t let my son grow up to be a thug. I catch you fighting again, you’ll be sleeping in the garage for the night. We clear?”

Lacy said nothing.

“I said ARE WE CLEAR?!”

“Yes sir,” she whispered. 

“There we go. That wasn’t so hard. Now go to your room, think about what you’ve done.”

He pulled her off the ground, led her to her room. She went inside it, quietly, and closed the door behind her. And then she shut off the sound again, so she wouldn’t have to hear her father yelling at the television, wouldn’t have to hear herself sobbing, wouldn’t have to listen to the radio static that kept her mother company.