A stray laugh slipped out like a silver bell and snapped Aphelia back. She gave an awkward smile, let the Thunder Rune drift from her fingers, and turned to Wende.
“So... Wende, when you said I was late, what did you mean?”
Wende’s face dimmed like a clouded moon. Before she could answer, she lunged and drove Aphelia to the ground like a falling hawk.
From the dark, a gust like a scythe rushed her back. A nearby trunk, thick as two arms clasped, was cleaved in a blink, splinters hailing white.
If not for Wende, she would’ve met that horror head-on, weak as a candle in wind.
“Careful, Aphelia!”
Wende stayed atop her; a pale-azure Rune burst like shattering ice and became a spear of thunderlight, lancing for the shadow like a storm-tossed pike.
Only then did Aphelia realize what pressed to her face—a soft warmth like spring clouds.
As Wende moved, that warm fullness brushed her cheeks; heat rushed up like rising dawn, and Aphelia’s breath hitched like a hooked fish.
“Come on, Aphelia, up—huh? You’re bleeding. Are you hurt?”
“Ah? N-no, I’m fine. What is that thing?”
Another gust knifed down from above, cold as river ice, and they jerked back like startled deer, dodging by a hair.
“Damn it!”
Wende snapped two dusky-blue Runes like sling stones at the shadow. Then she seized Aphelia’s arm and bolted for the forest’s deeper night.
The shadow hurled wind again, sharp as a charging gale. It struck empty space; a sealed wall of ice rose instead, a perfect barricade under the black boughs.
“Hah... Wende, what is it?”
“A Frost Giant—Asgard’s old enemy—chasing us here like winter wolves.”
Before they could breathe, ice lances fanned for their vitals like a flock of fangs.
“Thun—”
Wende barely formed the Rune when a Crimson Flame unfurled, thick as a shield wall, and stood before them like a red tide.
“You’ve covered me long enough. Let me swing once.”
Crimson Flame crawled over Aphelia’s hands like blooming peonies; as the icicles screamed in, the barrier spread like a banner. The spikes steamed to nothing at its skin.
Wende stared at the Crimson Flame, a flicker of shock like sheet lightning. A memory stirred, then stilled, and her Rune cracked into a longbow of Thunder.
She loosed into the dark; bolts of thunderlight burst in the gloom, ash-blue arcs lighting the forest like noon.
Their foe stepped out of shadow. A giant, several meters tall, with ice-hard skin and a hulking frame; his ruined face a monster’s mask, a warhammer pendulum-heavy in hand.
Wende’s three thunder arrows left no mark, fading like sparks on snow.
She ran through the trees like a gust, snatching Flame Runes from the air. She drew and nocked, set to sting the Frost Giant again.
“Wende, behind you!”
As the flaming arrow bent to go, a huge shadow tore through brush behind her; a blood-slick blade flashed for her neck like a red comet.
Aphelia lunged first, heart beating like a startled fawn, but she forgot—aside from the Crimson Flame, she was ordinary now.
Spikes of ice erupted like teeth from soil. Unsteady with flame, she stumbled back in panic, a leaf in squall.
In that heartbeat, the heavy blade ripped the air like thunder and fell on the slender body like falling night.
All she saw was red, lacquer spilled across the world. The golden-haired archer crashed like a torn leaf to earth.
The blade-wielding giant turned, his gaze hinging on Aphelia’s flame like a predator sighting prey.
In that instant, the scarlet figure in memory overlapped the blonde, old blood washing into new.
“Bastaaard!”
Her roar rolled like a burning wave, yet the two giants didn’t care; their quarry was Wende, and a gnat like Aphelia wasn’t worth a glance.
Crimson Flame surged with her, and she struck on instinct like a spark to tinder, but now she could do nothing.
The cold blade swept again, winter forged in iron. Under brute strength, the Crimson Flame split in two like torn silk.
Her body followed, cleanly cleaved; blood soaked the earth like sudden rain.
The giant treated it like swatting grass. He didn’t look at Aphelia’s corpse; he slung Wende’s headless body over his back like a sack.
“Bastard—stop!”
Aphelia clawed his calf with both hands, Crimson Flame flaring for a heartbeat like a dying star, then guttering out.
The giant yelped in a harsh tongue, booted her remaining half aside like driftwood, and strode to confer with the Frost Giant.
Despair and helplessness rolled in like a black tide. Pain and fear gnawed like rats at bone.
When was the last time she tasted this ash?
As blood ran out, her sight blurred like rain on glass. Memory dragged her to the mountains of the Abyss, to sinew peeled and bone laid bare like white branches.
Back then... Violet—ah, Violet died, a flower crushed in frost.
The enemy then was just as overwhelming; she was just as small, a moth before a torch. Why didn’t I go with her then?
Why make me swallow this fire again?
“Waaaaaah!”
With her scream, Crimson Flame erupted from her torn body like a volcano, turning the world around into a raging sea of fire.
That helplessness, that despair—never again, not once more.
If anyone will lend me strength—devil or god—pour it all into me, like wine into a cracked cup.
The purgatory in memory rose at her call, fury as its wick; it poured down like a god’s wrath, set to burn the world to ash.
Anger, anger, anger.
With pain and fire packing her heart, the body woven by Primordial Soil shifted in secret; an unspeakable power seeped out like night mist and merged into the crimson sea.
After the first storm, a dead hush fell, cold as a grave.
As the fire-sea took shape, her slim silhouette twisted in the flames, blurring like heat-haze, and vanished from the giants’ eyes. Only a pool of blood remained, a seal on her passing.
Seeing her vanish, the giants didn’t relax; at the birth of that flame, they chose to leap away like startled cats.
They were nothing like their size promised; their battle sense was knife-sharp, and they moved like springing tigers.
The ground cupped inward with a sudden hollow. As they jumped, the air popped like seedpods, and their huge bodies rose in one defiant bound, nearly clearing the grove.
Boom.
They crashed down in flying dirt, but not on damp loam or golden field—only into a hissing sea of fire, a red desert.
Flame at their feet ate their skin like lye. They tried to retreat, but the fire ran to the horizon; every step dragged like a dream.
The blade giant grew frantic, ignoring his comrade’s bark. He hacked at the Crimson Flame, slashing a sea that wouldn’t part, a madness without shore.
It felt as if the world had turned inside out, sky and earth traded like masks.
Then, a change.
From the endless fire, a warped silhouette rose behind the blade wielder like a mirage made flesh. The whole field shuddered; a keen blade burst through his chest like dawn through fog.
With that twisted flare, the blade giant crashed down, a felled pillar.
The Frost Giant gathered to charge, to crush the thief of breath, but he stopped. His hands around the hammer trembled on their own, leaves in wind.
Through the warped firelight, he saw eyes like a hell-born hungry ghost—eyes that devoured life, a world where only rage and despair lived.
From the Crimson Flame, an unnameable hungry ghost was born, nameless as night.
The blaze became a cage, bars of heat. The ghost stepped forth, hoisted the blade giant high like a broken banner, and stared in challenge at the hammer-bearing Frost Giant.
