Lord of the Night

And just like before, she knows what it is.

It is herself. Held aloft by a beast of smoke and shadow. Dressed in rags, hair cut and unkempt — and in some distant part of herself she recognises changes that have already been wrought, and realises that this scene, this awful tableau created before her, must be almost upon her.

But there is more to occur yet.

Her reflection's arm is gone. She bleeds like an endless river. She tries to see the monster that holds her up and it is indistinct... but already she knows what it is.

The Night Lord carries her into the squalling snow on wings of darkness and smoke, and it seems to her that for an instant there are shapes below it — bright-knuckled beasts that reach out with claw and tentacle to snare him — but he is too fast. He is too agile.

He is gone, and her doppelganger with him, and Mita is left to tumble from her impossible vantage down into the dark, where hate and anger boils around her. She has seen all of this too. She has experienced all of this before.

Except...

Except this time the trance-vision is different. This time there is no hag. No fat-bellied witch tumbling down on contrails of blood and fire, and she thinks to herself:

That was the indicator of another event, then, something that has already occurred...

The Night Lord's arrival. The hag was his vessel. Her bloated belly ruptured and spilled-out the prize that he had come to claim. That is the way of the furor arcanum: half truths and twisted versions of reality.

This time is different. This time Mita's fall from on high is interrupted. This time she is caught in mid-air, buoyed up by a steely eagle, lifted in its wake like a leaf in the pull of an engine. This time she is there to witness the endgame.

The eagle returns her to the peak of the metal mountain. It circles and swoops, and fixes beady eyes upon the turrets of the city's crown, where it has business to attend. It can sense something it wants inside. It tilts wings of jetair and fuel towards the monolith, and races down to shatter its beak across the steely surface.

And then the horizon is no longer dark. The endless night is on fire.

And the sky fills, from edge to edge, with the shrieks of hawks and the blood of the ignorant.

Mita awoke in the elevator with a gasp, thick bile pooling in her mouth. She spat and choked, clutching at her belly.

The pater donum descended on her like a pleasant breeze, a cloying luxury that tweaked inside every muscle and every bone. Her tutors had taught her to relish it, to enjoy the one luxury her curse'gift would ever bestow upon her. But not so now: seated and nauseous within the cramped elevator, the pater donum could give her no comfort.