The Lover's Cost

Exposure

Heather scampered into the dungeon, ordered all the guards to leave, and dashed past every cell and prisoner until she found the gold she sought. The elder sister lay on the cold, stone floor of her cell, a magic sigil locking the bars which caged her. When Heather approached, she weakly sat up and stared with wide, chocolate eyes.

"Don't say anything!" Heather warned before the prisoner even could. Sweating and panting, Heather recalled her knowledge of the arcane and hurriedly put her fingers to the sigils, turning and shifting them like gears, adding her own magic into them to unlock the seal.

With a satisfying pop and a burst of mystic sparks, the sigils shattered. Heather tore the barred door open. "Get out of here while you can!" She shouted.

"Why are you doing this?" Asked the Frostylian, getting to her feet with a groan.

Heather squeezed her eyes shut, thinking that herself. No turning back now; she had to do this. "Don't ask questions, just run!" Ordered the young mage.

Amber smashed the window and bolted through the snow outside, running far away from the palace. Heather watched for a moment as her chance to learn so much fluttered away like a dying ember.

She made her choice, committed to her envy, and continued with her machination. A flash of green carried her back to the lovers, who parted from a kiss upon her arrival. "Mistress!" Heather screamed. "Your sister escaped! What are we going to do!?"

"What!?" Shrieked the queen, anger erupting in her eyes. They looked strained, glassy, and as if they yearned to channel dark energy.

Cassius firmly took the reaper's shoulders. "Go to your quarters. The guards and I will handle this," he declared.

Growling in frustration, Violet took a deep breath. "Fine...I won't make the same mistake again," she said, turning and heading down the hall.

She was gone. Her beautiful gaze would not bear witness. Heather looked to Cassius as he said, "Where has the prisoner been spotted? I'll alert the high guard." He already walked past Heather, as if he expected her to answer immediately.

When she granted him only silence, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Well?" He asked, impatience oozing from his tone.

"Every day you breathe hurts me," Heather hissed. "She was finally beginning to see last night, but you think you can smooth talk your way into her heart again."

"Put your damn jealousy aside for ten seconds!" Cassius shouted. "There are more important matters at hand right now!"

"No!" Heather tackled the man and whisked him away the moment they touched. The advisor and student tumbled into fresh snow through a burst of green. Heather scrambled off of him and got to her feet, panting in the caterwauling wind. The land stretched flat to the horizon, where mountains reached high but could not hide the distant, foggy silhouette of the palace beyond. Trees, white and tall and spindly, spread from the frozen ground like dead hands.

Cassius spit blood into the snow; his face had slammed into the ground from the impact. "What are you doing? You'll only cause more trouble down the line," He snarled, straightening to his full height.

"I failed last time," Heather explained, "and I planned on waiting longer before I tried again. But I can't. Not after what I just saw."

"Hmph. Rash behavior like that will be your downfa –"

A blaze of green crashed into Cassius and sent him far into the snow. His words muted, Heather took her turn to speak. "I'm going to save her from you!" She yelled, determination and love erupting in each word.

The young mage charged forth and unleashed a shower of magic blasts, punches, jabs, and anything else she could throw at him. They fell into a tangle, a fleshy, fighting knot rolling through the endless fields of white. Heather worked up a sweat in the cold, avoiding bolts of red and the thrusts of horns.

In a veil of scattering snow and screams, Heather fought to murder Cassius. He had to die. He had to. His slimy hands and snake-like words touched and manipulated the mistress to a disgusting degree. Dolls should be treated with care, care that Heather knew she could provide. With a roar, Heather tackled Cassius into the snow and pinned him hard, throwing punch after punch. Over and over her fist hit his face; a crunch and a crack and a slam. "Stay away from her! Stay away from her!" The demands were howls, drowned by feral shrieks.

Blood sprayed into the snow but the roach wouldn't die. Anger shot through Heather's heart at his egregious tenacity. She thrusted her palm forth to dig her hands into his rotten eyes, but he grasped her wrist and flipped her, launching them into a tumble which ended in her soaring into the air and then falling into the ice.

"Every time I think you can't get any stupider," Cassius spat, rising and spitting out crimson. Heather shakily attempted to get on her hands and knees, but wind had been forced from her lungs. Without strength or breath she lay under the thumb of his insults. "You throw a good punch for such puny arms. Your spells have been improving, too. Yet even though you think you see so much of me, you see so little of your precious, dear Violet."

"Don't say her name," growled Heather as her palms, raw and bleeding, scrambled against the gritty ice to push herself to her hands and knees. She panted like a beast, magic churning and oozing and changing within her soul.

"It's ironic, really," continued the advisor. Red, ethereal swords conjured around him, bristling with crimson energy which scattered diamond-shaped embers. Each magical blade pointed at the fallen Heather. "So much of your puny effort, and for what? Haha! Even if you kill me, the reaper would never love a failure like you."

Heather whipped around and opened her hand. A pitch-black beam intercepted the red swords and shot Cassius's face. He spun and crashed into the snow, red magic scattering to the wind. And, though focused and fast, the blast left Heather's eyes soaked in dark bubbles and her blood poisoned.

Pain, like a skewer piercing her heart, shocked Heather into a daze. It differed from the dark magic's previous aches. Abrupt, sharp, steely – this carried deadly purpose. It administered a sickly warning in Heather's memory until ghoulish shrieks snapped her from her trance.

Coughing and growling, Cassius staggered up, his body covered in a shimmering, red sheen. A translucent film of magic wrapped him, and its edges frayed, dissipating into particles which abandoned his panicking form. "No! How did you...!?"

Heather's glassy eyes widened at the scene. The man snarled and screamed profanities at her, infuriated by what she'd done. His black lips curved back like an angry wolf's, his sharp teeth flashed with vicious intent, and between them lashed a fiendish tongue. Long and red, its pink swirls flaunted like a warning.

"What the hell!?" Heather gasped, stepping back until she saw a final, damning change. Her fearful, confused demeanor sharpened into determination when the teeth around his neck came into view.

He survived her onslaught again – but he'd never call her a failure, never get in the way, after this.

With a shout of indignation, Heather whisked him away as she had brought him here. Throwing herself into him, she grabbed him like a linebacker and warped him straight into the mistress's bedroom.