The Destructive Adventures of the Lovers-Chapter 56: Five Masked and One Ruler

The flames murmured gently as the five closed in on them, their faces obscured by the dark glowing fire. Nightness stretched out around them, dark and immobile, its far-off sounds. The forest, ata cold, unseen force.

"I don't believe yet we were able to fight off so many of those goblins," Matt muttered, stirring the fire with a burnt branch, its lights a rubic glint of a thousand minute, alert gazes. "I can barely make it sound believable."

"But we did," Margo repeated, her fingers tightening around the Death Blade hilt. She looked at Ella, who sat alone among their group, her icy blue eyes gleaming with the firelight. "You okay? You were distracted there."

Ella's body shifted uncomfortably, her gaze fluttering out into the darkness beyond the fire. "I saw. something. Someone. A mask. Watching."

Gabriel frowned. "You sure?"

"I'm not," she panted, her lips fogging the cold air. "But it felt real. Too real."

They dropped into a taut silence, the only noises is the crackle of the fire and the distant groaning of the Mara Tree, its limbs curved like outstretched arms at night.

Later, separately, they fell into restless sleep, the weight of their travels crushing them into darkness.

Ella's visions exploded forth suddenly, pulling her into a chilling, bleak environment. She was in an enormous, foggy room, walls of serrated ice, the air colder than burning ice. The others were with her, breathing shallow, shaking breaths. They were not alone.

There were five figures that stood before them, faces obscured behind cracked, bone-white masks. The one in the middle bore an enormous, rusty scythe whose blade was smeared with freshly dried, black blood that ran at its base, saturating the icy ground.

The statues stood still, their expressionless faces on the five invaders as if measuring their very soul. Ella's heart raced in her chest, each thudding vibration in the locked stillness. She attempted to call out, but a trembling, trembling whisper was what escaped.

"Who. who are you?"

The central one leaned forward, the scythe whining across the ice with a shrill, metallic shriek. The noise seared into her brain, laying waste to it. She was going to scream, was going to struggle, but her legs were nailed to the ground.

And then she sensed it—a fierce presence behind them, an icy cold that cut deeper than ice. The air thickened, heavy on her lungs, so that every breath was a struggle.

She spun slowly, her heart dropping as a terror figure emerged from the shadows. The Ice Queen, her gown billowing like icewind, her eyes two shards of blue flame, slicing through shadows. Her cold breath curled around Ella's cheeks, freezing her tears before they hit.

The Queen's pale, thin lips opened, and a whisper colder than death slid into Ella's mind.

"You cannot escape."

Ella's body convulsed into wakefulness, her breathing ragged and erratic, her heart pounding against her ribcage. She blinked, the others stirring with her, their eyes staring wide with the same communal fear. Matt's hands gripped his chest, his fingers tugging at his shirt, his gasps rough, desperate bursts.

"Did. did you all." Lila stuttered, her small body trembling. "Did you see them too?"

Gabriel clenched his jaw. "The ones with masks. and the Ice Queen."

Margo shivered, sword in her grasp. "It did happen. I felt it."

Ella gasped for air, her thoughts confused. "We need to leave. This place. Something is looking at us."

They strained to stand, their bodies protesting from fighting, but at seeing the clearing in front of them, a different fear gripped their hearts.

Their horses had vanished.

"No." Matt gasped, his fists balled. "They were here."

They yelled into the darkness, calling their horses, but the woods absorbed their cries, the trees grim and unthinking, their branches creaking with a sadistic joy.

"They're gone," Margo growled, her knuckles white on the blade of her knife. "We'll have to hike."

Without uttering a word, they turned away from the dead fire, their boots crunching on the frost-covered ground, the cold morning air burning their lungs.

Behind them, the Mara Tree groaned to itself, its twisted branches creaking like parched bones, the distant echoes of masked laughter lingering in the air.

Back to where the Antartics had camped. Martha sent Phoebie to bring Phoebie in the kingdom she ruled over.

The wind was a scream of ice as Phoebie ran, silver hair streaming out behind her like an ice flag. Cold wrote itself into existence, crisping under her feet, glazing the mud to glass. She breathed a thin mist, joining with the storm gathering at her heels, its wandering snow already working itself into the far-off kingdom.

The colossal gates of the Holy Land towered above her, their iron bars thick and impenetrable. The guards on the wall stood still, eyes tightening as the form of the Ice Queen's enforcer stepped out of the mist, her enormous ice sword slung over her shoulder, its crystalline blade shining like a fragment of frozen death.

"Wait!" Stark Knight's ear-shattering roar came from within the gates as he strode forward, his red cloak whipping in the gathering wind. His sword unsheathed itself from its sheath, and his silver blade blazed forth into the pale cold light. He clanged step by step with his armor as he strode, and its sound was echoing with blood and steel. "Who ventures unwelcome into the Holy Land?"

Phoebie slowed, lips contorting in a cruel smile, eyes glinting. "Move aside, knight, or you will die."

Stark's jaw set. He indicated his men, and the knights dropped their spears, icy points bristling before her like a lethal fence. "You shall not pass. Go back to the frozen wastes you crawled out of."

Phoebie's eyes glimmered with sadistic pleasure. She lifted her sword, the icy surface catching the sunlight as she drove the blade into the earth. An avalanche of ice swept forward, shattering stones and blanketing the ground below the knights' feet in a sheet of ice. Spears creaked as the frost snaked up into the metal, shattering with the sound of dry bones breaking.

"Keep your position!" Stark bellowed, racing forward, sword singing with the motion as he swung at her. The two met, steel and ice, sparks and frost flashing with each strike.

Slash. Clang. Slash. Stark's sword sliced parabolas of silver through the air, each stroke matched by Phoebie's slashing, frost-capped sword. Her blows flashed like lightning, artificial, each stroke sending splinters of ice whizzing past Stark's head.

"You're a good swordsman for a man," Phoebie sneered, her own blade clashing against his, the jolt of the blow racing up his arm. "But you'll shatter, like all the others."

Stark ground his teeth together, his forehead sweating despite the cold. He pushed on, his own sword slashing across Phoebie's side, but the wound was immediately sealed by the ice, the hurt muffled into quiet.

Phoebie's smile spread. She plunged her knife in, the tip entering Stark's chest plate, the broken ice cutting through muscle. His eyes went wide, his mouth filled with blood as he fell over backwards, knife remaining in his chest.

Phoebie spun the sword and yanked it out, a spurt of blood flying above the snow-covered ground. Stark fell to his knees, his eyes fading over as he died.

"Pity," Phoebie gasped, moving aside of him, her breath misting the air as she bent and grasped his head. She tore it off with a revolting wrench, the spine snapping like frost-snap twigs. She cast the head away, observing it roll across the snow, a splashing line of blood behind.

The other knights stood, their faces pale, their swords shaking in their hands.

"Come then!" Phoebie taunted, arms spread wide, her cold sword running red. "Meet me, or flee like cowards!"

The knights retreated, their courage breaking like glass. One fled and another, and in a moment there were only a few, their fear hanging in the air.

As Phoebie stepped across the threshold, the wind at her back wailed, the initial snows of a colossal blizzard swirling down about her. She stood, looking back over her shoulder. "Tell your king," she said, her tone as cold as the frost creeping across the stones, "that the storm is coming."

Down the castle steps came King Vesh, his armor of gold glinting in the faint wintry light. Behind him came a flowing cloak as he thrust through the clustering horde, his sword hilt hand already poised.

Phoebie twirled, her eyes locking with his as the king reached the center of the courtyard. He plunged the point of his sword into the ground, the earth cracking beneath him as golden threads of raw power burst from the impact, slithering through the air and wrapping around Phoebie's limbs, tightening tighter with each passing second.

"Who are you?" Vesh's voice boomed out, his eyes as icy as the stone under his feet. "Why have you entered our lands?"

Phoebie clenched her teeth as the threads bit in, cutting into her skin, but her smile never wavered. "I am of the Frozen Wastes. I am here for your blood."

Vesh's eyes narrowed, his hold on the hilt of his blade tightening. "Then you have chosen your death."

Grinning fiercely, Phoebie tightened her muscles, the threads cracking like cobwebs, golden sparks flashing as she dispelled the magic. She pushed forward, her ice blade riving the air. Vesh deflected her blow with his own, their blades colliding in a silent shock that rang across the kingdom.

They stood there for an instant, their faces inches from each other, eyes burning with unspoken rage.

Then, in a sudden, brutal twist, Vesh's sword sliced across Phoebie's side, splattering a spray of frozen blood against the stones. She stumbled back, eyes wide, her breath in short, gasping puffs.

"Take her!" Vesh bellowed, his voice echoing through the square.

The other knights prodded along, their heart unflattering as they slammed the dazed Phoebie. She struggled, baring her teeth, but they drove her out together, boots scrambling on concrete as they dumped her into the raging river and its icy water smothered her screams in a torrent which swept her away out onto the black ice-woods.