Curselock

Chapter 156: Archon

Ignoring his bloodied nose, Leland slipped out of his blanket and to his knees. As subtly as he could, he pulled his grimoire from his hand, allowing it to silently flip pages. Was he preparing for battle? He didn’t know. Only that the gesture felt comfortable, that it felt reasonable to prepare for the worst.

From how the trio had set up for the night, the Princess was closest to the oddity. When Isobel followed Leland’s lead and prepared, Sybil did her best to slump away, finding the woods suddenly terrifying. She pushed herself backward, her vision locked onto nothing but trees and grass. Eventually she arrived beside the Huntress, the only guard left from her original protection detail.

Solace.

For a brief moment, Sybil saw the woods for what they truly were, woods. Fleeting terror left with the wind, reverting the jagged branches and monster-infested land to that of lame trees. ]

The feeling lasted for all of a moment, being snatched away by the snap of a twig.

The Huntress spun, bow appearing in her hand already nocked. The arrow flew silently, morphing from tipped point to wide net.

She missed.

Or rather, there was nothing there.

“Kid?” she muttered, not trusting a whisper to be quite enough.

It was then Sybil’s naked fears returned. She had shed her mask, she had walked along with the powerful, she had run and trained to fill their ranks. But she had not seen combat. She had not seen battle, not truly. She did not know of the dangers outside the castle walls, only the faint idea they existed from readings and stories. How did one battle something invisible?

Sybil’s eyes caught a glimmer. Ruby? Scarlet? No, she recognized it as blood. Dripping with the speed of a gaunt wound and draining Leland dry, blood fell like rain. She saw his eyes tremble, a pain overloading his mind and controlling his senses. He ground his teeth, veins bulging across his forehead and nape.

But yet he acted. Slowly, shakily, with the preamble of a beaten mare, Leland’s open palm drifted to his tome, to the open page. His head went weak, wobbling, but his hand touched magic. Violet light shone from the page for but a moment, bringing with it the flurry of contractual power. A halo formed, along with it the necessity of vision.

Leland’s eyes went lavender and for a moment he stared off into the woods with limited breath. His skin adapted to the hue of his eyes, along with the pain of suffocation.

Then, like the starting horn of a joust, his chest heaved out air and he screeched, “There!”

Isobel acted instantly, following Leland’s thrown out hand for guidance. An arrow, this one the color of the setting sun, launched with the speed of fear. It flew a short distance, boldly letting loose a blistering golden light, before being frozen in place.

Isobel said the only thing she could, “What—”

The word was cut off with a mold of cracked air. Around the arrow, pressure built until fragments of reality bent and buckled. One by one, singular strands of feather peeled from the arrow’s fletching, each hovering slightly askew. Next the wooden husk disintegrated, forming into a pale culmination of dust. Lastly was the arrow’s tip, blinding with enough magical energy to level the intended section of woods. The gold was muted and muzzled, left to nothing more than the flame of a candle.

A low tone hummed through the camp.

“Archon,” Leland spat, his hands shaking, both desperately trying to pull a red potion to his lips. He sipped, a warmth suddenly fending off the frozen spikes in his mind.

Sybil sucked in a gasp. “W-what do we do!?”

It was Isobel who answered. “Nothing.”

And like that they sat, powerless. For the Huntress, doing nothing was the hardest. How long had it been since the last time she held no hand in a matter? Since she had sat like a dullard, waiting to die? She fiddled with the string of her bow, internally going over her inventory of different weapons and abilities.

Leland wasn’t much different. While he didn’t fiddle with his toys, he did think over plans of action. He was used to being the weakest, which oddly calmed him. He wasn’t getting out of this with fighting, that much was for sure.

Sybil, however, was always the weakest. But she was also the most protected. Seeing the Huntress’ attacks fail, however, left her the most likely to suddenly die. No fighting back, no hamstrung notion of throwing punches or casting spells. Just like when the Witch and Harbinger took her, she would be left to her own devices, hoping that someone powerful enough pulled her away.

A pain burned across her face, marking the work of the Witch. Sadistic, tortuous, a pain marking who she was. What she was. A Princess, yes, but one befitting the Boneforged Monarch. Powerless, yes, but defenseless? No.

The first Queen of the Palemarrow Kingdom was said to bask in an ivory gray glow, one that radiated from her bone out her skin and into her streets. It was said that no lamp was ever lit in dawn’s pre-light and no candle ever burned in dusk’s ending twinkle, not while the First Queen was present. Castle walls or not, there was no darkness while the Queen was in the kingdom’s hearth.

All Palemarrows had received this birthright through the generations, but very few held the truth. Each glowed with the gray of dull metal, but few with the ivory of life. Those chosen held the First Queen’s gift, that of the Boneforged. That of being a Monarch.

Stress, embarrassment, fear, Sybil had glowed with raw emotion before, each for only moments at a time. But that was before she completed the ritual in the depths of Ruinsforth, where it was said the First Queen died. But now? Now she kindled a flame of impossible potential and of a limitless future.

If the prophecy was to be believed, that was.

Sybil tried not to think of that, however, it only made her sad.

“Stop glowing!” Isobel hissed, pivoting to block the light now pulsing from the Princess.

But Sybil didn’t wish to be shielded. For once in her life, she wished to be in the limelight. To be the limelight. If her death was to be today, it wouldn’t be because the Huntress and Leland failed to protect her. They needn’t become pincushions for her, not any longer. Her mother had no guard, and by birthright and sheer hubris, she wouldn’t either.

The awful light of the Archon Valley gleamed against the lustrous light beaming from Sybil. It was still gray, but hints of ivory peaked between her heartbeats.

Behind her, a faint impression loomed. Womanly, emotionless, highlighted in drastic woe, the Boneforged Monarch sought Sybil’s worry. Together the Monarch and Sybil stood, two taking the same as one.

“Reveal yourself.” The command was given not in Sybil’s lone voice but a duet of partners. As the Princess’ mouth moved, so did the impression of the Monarch’s. Yet, the voice fluttered from only the mortal, escaping her vocal cords like a two-headed snake’s hiss.

The Monarch then matched Sybil’s expression, tilted down eyebrows and a clenched jaw. The impression even adapted Sybil’s slight shaking, ruefully announcing feelings better to have kept hidden.

A hushed moment befell the woods for as long as it took Sybil to second guess herself. Sadly, this was a breath early as the woods began to fester.

Leland let out a resentful gak, his hand rushing to his eyes. He covered them, peeking through a gap in his fingers like a child trying to look under a door. The Huntress didn’t fare much better, turning away with a silent growl. She balanced on the balls of her feet, a ready spring in her knees.

But as the being continued to unravel itself, even someone as mighty as the Huntress started to have doubts.

Few reputable accounts had ever been published about what the Archons looked like, and even then they were all different. From vegetable peels and fruit cores plastered around a triangular being with thousands of spider eyes to a naked human with eyes made of gems or even a sentient waterfall, Archons themselves were experiments, or at least the ones who truly sought to learn.

The being before Sybil, Leland, and Isobel took the form of a veil. It did not walk, it did not move. It hovered, just above the ground, while the space around it moved. An illusion of moment, maybe, but just gazing upon the feat left the impression of broken rules. Whether rules of reality or not, the Archon was above them like a hammer to a mirror.

The veil arrived before Sybil, stopping as close as it could without touching the poor girl. It looked down at her shoulders from at least double her height, staring at the top of the Boneforged Monarch’s impression like a rock stares at the ocean.

It hummed, colorless music appearing from behind its veil, and twisting before its head. Texture took, mimicking the Monarch’s facial impression. Down to cheek bones and a slight nostril flare, the Archon stared at the Lord with identical eyes before humming again. This time the music implied color, turning to a dark shade coffee.

The Archon recreated Sybil’s face on the back of the Monarch’s before twisting both to be facing the same way.

Sybil saw her face and the Monarch’s become one, seamlessly fitting into one another like they were forged from the same mold. Like they shared the same face. Like they were mother and daughter.

She understood. The prophecy, the ritual, the Boneforged Monarch… why her mother had to die. She understood, all in that moment.

“I see… thank you,” she chambered on, the words hardly reaching Isobel despite their close proximity.

The Archon, still sharing Sybil and the Monarch’s face, bent space around its head, nodding. It then looked at Leland, space turning its head with slow gaunt. It spoke without moving its lips in a language long lost to the mortal realm. It was uncaring that Leland couldn’t understand, nor did it mind when he didn’t respond.

From there it evaporated, veil and all.