To her regal maliciousness, the Steel Maiden,
As God wills it, I hold the half-elf Tiffania Westwood as my captive, upon the Isle of Wights.
I intend to take the life of Tiffania Westwood and claim her inheritance of the Founder's gift for my own.
You will not be able to defeat me when I bear half of Brimir's power, and you only hold a quarter. If you desire to claim Brimir's power, you will face me - and may the better man win. But if you in craven cowardice refuse to face me, then I will be unstoppable.
If you need further incentive to seek my death, I too hold your sworn necromancer, whose identity I know. I will use her fate to hurt you in every way if you do not come to where I wait.
With all the grace and sincerity you are due,
Brimir's Rightful Heir
"This is a trap," Jessica said, looking down at the blood-splattered letter addressed to the Steel Maiden which had been found among the possessions of an Albionese officer. The children had made him reveal its location. They had ways of making people talk. Ways that had even turned Jessica's stomach. They were greatly distressed at the prospect of something happening to Tiffania, and so they had shared their attachment issues and separation anxiety with the rest of the world.
"This? A trap?" Louise stared down at the gold-leafed invitation, leaning on her knuckles. "Tell me something I don't know."
"The One Hundred and Nineteenth Infernal War took place between 5000 and 5006, and was started by the assassination of Archduke Flauros at the millennial anniversary celebrations in Dis."
"I… beg your pardon?"
"That was something you didn't know."
Louise scowled at her. "Jessica."
"Come on, boss, you're way too tense. Just trying to bring some levity to the situation."
"Levitate in your own time." She turned the invitation over again, trying to look for more meaning in it. "He left an invitation. He actually left an invitation for the Steel Maiden to find. That arrogant dog! He thinks so little of me! To treat me with such a lack of respect—"
"Doesn't a fancy invitation count as respect?"
Louise had to concede that it was a very fancy invitation, but, "No! If he was showing proper respect, he should be hiding from me! Running back to Gallia!"
Jessica leaned over, the fireplace lighting her face, and rested her hand on Louise's shoulder. "Lou. Cut the crap. You're scared."
"Of course I am!" Louise blurted out. "He has Henrietta! He has all the cards stacked in his favour. He's older than me, more experienced than me, and he's basically set up this entire situation so I can't win. But I have to fight him now, on gr-ground he's set up and rigged in his favour, or else I'll never beat him! Of course I'm scared as… as sugar!"
"Lou…"
"I… I have to beat him at his own game. When he knows that." Louise hugged herself. "How am I meant to do that? I'm not even twenty yet." Her glowing eyes met Jessica's. "I've been doing this for years. Isn't this stupid? I… I…" She gasped for breath.
She felt a big, hot, clawed demonic hand on hers. "Dark gods, I'm glad I just do the fashion," Jessica murmured, pulling her into a hug. "No, it's not fair. And I don't know how you keep on doing it. But-"
"Too tight-" Louise gasped, turning red in the face.
"Oh. Right. Demonic strength. Yeah. But… I mean." She rested her brow on Louise's. "We don't have a choice, do we? We have to do this. For Henrietta. Because she's our friend. And-"
"I can't let her die. I won't," Louise whispered. She rested there, overwhelmed by Jessica's warmth and overwhelming presence. "I… I need some air. I need to think."
"Do you want me to come with you?" Jessica asked, unentangling from her.
"No, I just… I need to think. Because you're right." Louise sighed, hands balling into fists. "I don't have a choice. And never have."
It was raining outside. Of course it was, because Albion was like that and doubly so when it was ascending through a cloud and thus the world's most lazy raindrops decided to avoid a long fall. The rain and the thick fog clung to Louise until she lit a fire in her palm. It didn't stop her getting wet, but it kept her warm and the sizzle of the fog burning away was satisfying.
"All right, all right, all right," she said, pacing back and forth through the moss-covered, rain-sodden forest. The air tasted of rot and leafmould, and the water pounding off her helmet left her feeling somewhat like a drum. "I need to free Henrietta. I… I guess I have to stop him killing Tiffania or else he'll get even more powerful. Those two steps are more important than killing him, but," she balled her hand into a fist, thinking of that wretched invitation, "I really, really want to kill him."
And maybe she shouldn't. If she killed him, that'd probably mean she gained his power as one of the cursed heirs of Brimir. Twice the power. But she remembered that brief period when she had been free of being an heir of the Void. She had felt peace like she hadn't known before. She had been happy and more confident in herself and she hadn't been crippled by self-doubt and bursts of snarling rage and terror at the thought of telling Henrietta how she felt.
How bad would it be to hold twice the twisted blessing within her? She shuddered to think about it.
And yet, the power. Oh, it sang to her so sweetly. She needed it. It was better in her hands. She would use that power much more wisely than that obnoxious Gallian - or Tiffania for that matter. She would be able to restore Henrietta to the throne. And more. King Joseph had been behind so many of the calamitous events which had struck the world recently. But he was mad - everyone said it - and Gallian on top of that. Louise was neither.
She shouldn't. But either she killed him, or he killed her. And he would be far, far worse than she would.
Louise had already taken back the cursed power from her sister, to free her from it. Would she have to take on more of it to spare the world from the mad king of Gallia?
This was what she had been caught between as she paced up and down in a rain-sodden mire, growing ever damper without any revelation. And she couldn't go back until she had an answer. Because if she went back, everyone would expect her to know what she was doing and the only reason she wasn't the youngest person involved in this current enterprise was the fact that Tiffania was using literal children as underlings and was she the only one who realised that this was more than a little messed up?
More water sluiced down the back of her neck as she batted a clinging lump of dark green vegetation out of the way. But ahead of her, she could see the orange glow of a fire through the trees. Making her way towards it cautiously, she tried to avoid standing on fallen branches and completely failed.
"Who's out there? My demons will eat you!" a childish piping voice called out.
"It's me, Magda," Louise yelled back, intensifying the ball of pink flame in her hand just in case the little girl got any ideas. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the vegetation writhing and moving with malicious intent.
"Oh! Don't eat her!" the little girl called back.
Louise made her way over to the firelight, which turned out to be coming from an overgrown cave entrance. Blasphemous scrawlings covered the inside, and the ground had been prepared as a ritual circle. Leering demons bound into toys turned their button eyes on her, reflecting the firelight. There was a hint of architecture to the rearward recesses of the gloomy space.
"I am very afraid that if I ask this question, I will get an answer, but," Louise paused, then reluctantly continued, "as one of the two adults in the area who isn't an elf, I do have to ask - what are you doing, Magda?"
"Playing hide and seek!"
Louise considered this. She had been vaguely aware of the children running around inside the ruins, but she hadn't seen any at all as she walked through the forest. "And what are you doing all the way out here?"
"No one said we had to stay inside the place when we were hiding. So I decided to come out here!" Magda said brightly. "They'll be looking for me in one of the buildings, but I found a little cave here and I summoned demons to keep me warm!" Magda looked up at her. "I guess you can come hide with me if they're also looking for you," she said generously. "Because the minnies wouldn't like it if you caught a cold."
"The min… oh, the minions."
"Yeah."
It was raining, so Louise decided that maybe it was for the best that she got somewhere dry. Magda wasn't wrong. It would be awful if she caught a cold on top of everything else. Clanking slightly, she set herself down, then rose again to wring out her outer layers. "Urgh," she groaned. "Jessica is going to yell at me if the armour starts rusting."
"I could bind her so she can't shout at you," Magda contributed helpfully.
"No, that's really not necessary."
"Yes it is! You took me on a fun trip! And I don't want you to be shouted at," the little girl said.
It was oddly reasonable, as long as you ignored all the context. "I'll live," Louise said, warming her hands in front of the fire. "How did you even manage to light this when all the wood is wet and… it was demons, wasn't it?"
"Yep!" Madga said, her gap-tooth grin showing her complete lack of understanding that there could be a problem which was not solved through the use of demons. She pointed at a smouldering rag doll. "Piramania made it. With a hole to the Abyss."
"I see," Louise said, because she had been on a trip with Magda before and nothing about that surprised her. "Thank you for letting me get out of the rain."
"'S okay. I was getting bored anyway."
"Oh, we don't want that," Louise said quickly.
"Yeah!" Madga grabbed a soaking wet branch. "Wanna burn more things?"
Burning things did sound nice. "Very well."
"There's more branches at the back! They're a bit drier. I like coming here because no one knows to find it. Also, the statues speak to me. They're minnies too."
"That's nice, and-" Louise blinked. "What?"
"Their voices are all hissy and croaky. I don't know what they say," Magda imparted.
Conjuring a fireball, Louise pulled herself to her feet. "Where are they?"
"I dump the wood on them," Madga said.
"Have you told anyone else?"
Madga poked the fire with a wet stick. "Why'd anyone care? All the caves around here have stuff like that."
Slowly exhaling, Louise pinched the bridge of her nose. Yes. Of course. People never told her things they thought were obvious. And she knew the truth that Albion had been the flying fortress of the First Overlord. So of course there would be scattered ancient ruins that dated back to this. Tiffania had been called to remnants of the power they shared, just like Louise had her own dungeon complex. "Then, Magda, I would like to see these statues. If you don't mind."
Wiping her nose, Magda pulled herself to her feet. "Okay!"
Louise moved some of the piled up old wood out of the way. In the light of her conjured fire, she gazed upon the ancient statues. Crumbling stone, dusty and damaged - but clearly minions. Nothing else had the same kind of scrawny strength. And there was something fundamentally minion-ish about them, despite their age. Maybe it was the edge of vaguely malevolent stupidity that still radiated with them. One of them seemed to be hitting itself in the head with a club.
"... and that one's called Stumpy because it doesn't have any arms and this one's called Blindy because it doesn't have a head and that one is Silly because he's fallen over."
"Yes, those are definitely minions," Louise said. She raised her flame, and paced to the back of the cave, where the ceiling had collapsed. There were the remnants of heavily worn stairs here, flooded with dark stagnant water. Eyeless white things wriggled here.
"Magda?"
"Uh huh?" Magda said, gathering sticks.
"I thought the ruins were just near Grantebrycge. The ones you led us through, yes. But this is… this is also similar. I know this architecture."
"Huh? What's arky-tech-ture?"
"... the way the stone is designed."
"Oh!" Madga tilted her head. "I mean, that's just what stuff is like. Underground's got building stuff like this."
"Hmm." Louise pursed her lips. So if the First Overlord turned all of Albion into a fortress, filled with tunnels and warrens…
"Let's burn things!" Madga said firmly.
"Yes. That's a good idea," Louise said absent-mindedly, her thoughts whirring in her mind.
Caves underground. Riddling through Albion. King Joseph was Gallian. A foreigner just like her. Setting up an entire plan. Trying to trap her in his game, just like the other children had wanted to trap Magda in their assumptions of how to play hide and seek. Trying to make a binary; she killed him, or he killed her.
"I don't have a choice," she repeated to herself. "I have to play him at his own game."
She pushed a dry branch into the flames, and watched as it caught alight.
"No. That's wrong. That's what he wants me to think." Louise smiled, a polite little smile that would absolutely terrify anyone who knew her father. "What all of this is set up to make me think." She slammed her left hand against the wall, stone crumbling under the coruscating power that crept from the gauntlet.
"I've always had a choice."
Louise was different when she got back from her walk. Jessica saw that immediately, and the more her friend and nominal employer expanded on her plan to the audience of elves and small children, the more obvious it became.
"Good on you, Lou," she whispered. Louise really did so much better when she got out of her own way.
"Did you say something?" Hooke said next to her.
She smiled at him, and squeezed his hand with her demonic one. "Just talking to myself, cutie," she said, just to make him blush. Which he did. It was very satisfying. And cute of him, of course.
She was so glad she'd maybe-sorta-in-the-best-possible-way bullied Louise into letting her come along. Not only had she gotten her hands on someone who didn't have any problems with the whole half-incubus thing, but she also got to play around with these Albionese steam-golems. Which opened a whole world of possibilities. Oh, she'd need to find a workaround for the fact she couldn't create the animating purple runes which they used, but that sounded like nothing that a little bit of demonic possession couldn't fix.
Louise had just finished describing an array of diversionary attacks - setting fire to the powder storage at the Bar Gate in South Hampton, sabotage at the docks in Dour, destruction of the pier at Bright Town and-
"What about me?" demanded Emerald the elf.
Leaning forwards, Louise rested her knuckles on the table before her. "Your mission is subtle, crucial, and utterly instrumental to our overall success. You will have to silently infiltrate Londinium, and target the Treasury. Wealth, treasure, but above all the Albionese Commonwealth must be deprived of all and any magical relics."
"Wait, isn't that just what she does anyway-" began Apostrophe.
"Shuddit shuddit shuddit," snapped Emerald. Hand to her chest, she lowered her head. "This is a hard task you set me, and I wish this burden had fallen on another, but in the name of our dark queen, I will follow your orders."
Within her helmet, Louise's eyes flared. "Good, good," she said.
The rest of the tasks followed with military precision. Hooke was to work with whatever assistance he needed to get as many golem shells as possible working for the minions to pilot as they had in Grantebrycge. The other elves were to sneak in with some of the remaining blues and help them resurrect as many minions as possible from Port's Mouth without being caught. And a few select children would accompany Louise with the aid of Madga's demonic servants, and be born to the underside of the Isle of Wights, where Tiffania and Henrietta were being kept.
"The underside?" Hooke asked, raising his voice above the hubbub and raising his hand. "Oh, you intend to use the old tunnels?"
"Yes."
"They will have fortified the gate entries - and any of the old structures. The Albigone advocates are fools, but even they are not that stupid. After all, they obsess over stopping people from the Continent getting up onto Albion."
"I am aware," Louise said. "But there are two elements here on our side. Firstly, the insertion might appear to be only a few people, but I will be keeping a horde of minions within the nowhere-realm and will unleash them once we are on the island. This will allow us to combine a small intrusion vanguard while also having an army of foul-smelling goblinoids piloting steam-powered golems once we are there."
"That are true," Maggat said with an approving nod. "I wanna have a go with one of them."
"And secondly, I can break any ward which might be blocking us. Put simply, I don't care how many defensive wards they put down or what ancient magics are set up to stop an invasion from below. We will cut through them."
"Also I have demons," Magda added. "Gonna get Fluffles to eat the faces of anyone who tries to stop us from getting Tifa back!"
"And also she has face-eating demons, of course. Three elements on our side."
Hooke nodded, lowering his hand. "Thank you. That answered my question."
Jessica waited while Louise continued on explaining more details of the plan. And waited. And waited some more. But the briefing went on without any mention of her, and she could feel the conspicuous absence grow and grow. She wanted to raise her hand and ask a question, but she wasn't prepared to do that. She wasn't going to look needy in front of everyone else, especially when word about that could get back to Izah'belya. And of course, when it came down to it, she was fairly confident in her ability to pressure Louise into giving in.
She knocked on Louise's door.
"Come in."
Louise had the maps of the Isle of Wights in front of her, pouring over them again. "How do you think it went?"
"I… wasn't sure why you sent Emerald to Londinium," Jessica admitted. "She's the smartest of the elves. Even if she can't stop herself stealing."
"And that is why I got her out of the way," Louise said, with a flick of her hair. "She might work out what's really going on."
"Oh, cool, cool, betrayal and other layers of plans," Jessica said, perking up. That was great! It meant that she wasn't going to tell everyone else what she wanted Jessica to do. "I noticed you didn't have anything for me. So what've you got?"
"You will be," Louise paused, "helping Hooke put the minion golems together."
"Cool, cool. And then-"
Louise placed her hand on Jessica's shoulder. "I know what you're asking. You're not going to be going in there with me," she said.
"You need me!"
"You're right."
"You can't keep me out of this just because you're scared of my dad!"
Louise looked up at her. "That's where you're wrong." She raised one finger. "Not about the father thing - though yes, yours is terrifying. But I'm not putting you here to keep you safe. I'm putting you here because there's something only you can do."
Louise explained her plan to Jessica with quiet words, conscious of the risk of being overheard by one of the children.
"Why?" Jessica asked, frowning. "But don't you want to-"
Louise smiled her sweetest smile. "Because it is something that the man who is behind all of this would never, ever do," she said. "And he has woven such a web for his goals, Jessica. But he thinks I'm just like him. And I'm not. And I can only defeat him if I can break his web."
"But the rewards—"
"Won't mean anything if I fail here." Louise exhaled, shoulders hunched in as she stared into the fire. "Practise your skills, Jessica. Grow more talented. Grow stronger. Finish your hellfire bombardier. Because in the end, this is going to depend on you."
"I… I hope you're not making a mistake," Jessica said, a quaver in her voice. "Surely I'd be better with my weapons to help you… to help…" She trailed off.
Louise's left hand gripped the wrist of her demon hand, the dark metal squeezing into the inhuman flesh. The sole gem socketed into the back gleamed blood red. And Jessica knew the fires of hell, but another flame burned in her friend's eyes.
"No," she said. "We do this my way. Or not at all."
