Chapter 11

Edalynn Clawthorne woke up in chains, hanging from her ankles, in the belly of the Conformatorium. Around the momentary thought of ‘ah, must be Tuesday’, a hazy recollection of everything that had happened to her today came back...

And with it came the strangest lurch in her chest.

She blinked and squirmed a bit in the chains restraining her. Her brow furrowed, while she looked around the chamber she was restrained in. There were two coven guards standing by the bars, both holding staves that they had crossed over the bars, as if she was going to burst through at any second. She noticed, also, that each of the corners of the chamber had snarling gargoyles carved in them, holding enchanted orbs in their mouths that looked ready to unleash one heck of a curse at her, should she try any funny business.

Despite this, she couldn’t stop the huge smile spreading across her features.

“What a wonderful way to wake up,” she said, sighing cheerfully as she stretched in her chains. “Hey you two, sleep well?”

“I dunno, my bunk bed was kinda unco-”

“Steve!”

The other guard cut the first one off.

“What? She asked?” Steve shrugged.

“You can’t just talk to her, she’s the Owl Lady,” the non-Steve said.

“Well, she’s not casting any spells, so, like...” Steve shrugged. “You’re not casting any spells, right, Owl Lady?”

“Not even one, Steve,” Eda said, cheerfully. “But I could, if I wanted too.”

The two coven guards exchanged a nervous glance at one another.

“You see! Your Emperor seems to have yanked my curse right outta me,” Eda said, nodding. “Makes sense, it was giving me my cool... harpy powers.” She waggled her eyebrows in time with the words. “It was a hot look. But it did kind of mess with my magic a little – and that’s gone. Which means the moment I figure out how to circumvent those petrification orbs, I’m going to bust right outta here.”

“Fat chance,” the non-Steve said.

“Uh, are you gonna beat us up if you do?” Steve asked.

“Not you, Steve, you seem cool,” Eda said, nodding at him. “You though?” She glowered at not-Steve.

“Hey, I’m cool!” Not-Steve said.

“Name a cool thing you’ve done,” Eda said.

“Uh...” Not-Steve paused. “I once disobeyed the Golden Guard, she ordered me to pick up a locker room and instead, I had Steve do it.”

“That wasn’t cool, man,” Steve said, his voice still holding a hint of bitterness.

“That’s just delegating!” Eda said. “I hate delegating. It’s almost as bad as organizing. Or worse? Hierarchies.” She shuddered. “Ugh.”

“Well, hey, hierarchies can be useful, organizationally speaking,” Steve said, leaning on his staff. “What if you need to make decisions rapidly in a crisis circumstances and have no time for democratic processes to guide you out of them? Having an emergency leader in that situation is just common sense.”

“You’re really losing the cool points, Steve,” Eda said, sighing. “What you do in a crisis is just whatever and it all works out.”

“That’s not workable!” Steve said, sounding frustrated.

“It’s worked out well for me so far,” Eda said.

On cue, the orbs all hummed, whirred, then went dead, the magical light within them dying as if someone had severed the connections from gargoyle to whatever power source was shunting magic into them.

“Case in point!” Eda said, then snapped her fingers. Her chains fell off her and she dropped, flipped, and landed, both palms glittering with golden light. She swept one hand up and the stone floor underneath Steve turned into a pair of winding snakes with the head of a certain horrifying owl tube. They swept around his body as her other hand dropped down and the ceiling tiles dropped straight down and transformed into a metal cage that closed tight around the other guard. Their staves went clattering to the ground and Eda picked both up in her hands, her grin wild and feral. The immediate impulse to run out and start blasting was overpowering – but she was stopped.

Not by common sense, long term planning, worries about Adora, or anything else absurd like that.

No, she was stopped because a hand grasped her arm and yanked her back. Eda yelped, cartwheeling her arms and bonking a robed figure on the head – said robed figure having emerged from a secret door that had opened silently in the corner of the cell.

“Ow!” The figure groaned, rubbing their head.

Eda froze. She dropped the staves, then turned ... and grabbed onto the hood of the figure, tossing it back.

“ ... Raine!?”

The green haired, brown skinned witchling rubbed their head, wincing at the bulge growing on their brow. Despite having not seen them for years, their features had been burned into Eda’s memories. You didn’t easily forget someone like Raine Whispers – doubly so when the last time you had talked...

Eda pushed her guilt back down, while Raine smiled, sheepishly at her.

“Edalynn,” they said, softly. “We need to get going before anyone notices you’re gone and the orbs have been cut.”

“I-” Eda stopped herself, then smiled, slightly. She had questions – millions of them, actually. When she had last talked to Raine, they had been ready to join the Bard Coven and give up wild magic forever. They had the small symbol of the Bard Coven’s membership on their wrist – visible as the robes slipped back with a gesture of their hand. But despite serving Belos, it seemed that there were boundaries that even Raine couldn’t see crossed. Eda allowed herself to be drawn into the secret passage, which shut with a grinding creak behind her.

“It’s good to see you again,” Eda whispered in the darkness.

“Thanks,” Raine said, then chuckled a bit dryly. “Not that you can exactly see me in here. Heh.”

The two went deeper into the darkness of the Conformatorium – but soon, Eda could feel that they were heading down, and under something vast and rushing. A river was flowing overhead. She threw the mental map of Bonesburrough up in her mind, and whispered. “We’re heading for the castle?”

“Yeah,” Raine said. “I ... I meant to tell you, Eda. I’ve been working against Belos all this time.”

“I knew it!” Eda laughed and then bonked her head directly into a pipe. She heard a soft hiss from Raine.

“Sorry, forgot, there’s a-”

“A pipe there, I know.”

There was a short pause.

“I forgot how much more it hurts to run your head into things when your head doesn’t just fall off.”

Raine chuckled.

Then.

“Wait, what?”

Catra came to wakefulness – just in time to be plunged into a nightmare. Belos was leaning over her, but his face was a horror. Glistening and dripping, skull-like, leering. He leaned over her and his voice was soft. “You’ve served your purpose.”

Catra was twelve again. She was running through the forest, terrified of every shadow, cold and whimpering. She squirmed against the chains, but her wrists were trapped – and then Belos’ fingers pressed to her ribs – and slid into her skin. They grew and lengthened like tongues, like vines, plunging under her skin and straining against her as if she was made of paper. She gasped and felt something deep inside of her creak, then strain, then break as she couldn’t even bring the air in to scream. She clenched her teeth, her back arching as blackness flooded her vision.

The Belos-horror was becoming a distant figure, at the end of a tunnel.

And there was a light, a glorious, heavenly light.

It was funny, Catra always assumed that Heaven was bullshit – and that if it was real, it would be whites and blues and golds.

Not purple and red.

Her vision snapped to normal with a wet squelching noise. Black muck splattered her face and some of what had been stolen slipped back into her, surging like water in her body. She collapsed back onto the stone slab, gasping for air, as she felt black ichor and bits of gore drip down her face, off her shoulders, dangling from her ear. She blinked several times.

Belos, his face shocked, his jaw hanging open, gaped down at the hand that had punched through his rotting chest and now held a glistening black lump that might have been his heart. The hand was black fingered and had claws tipped with white bone. Standing behind him, her eyes a furnace of blazing gold on black sclera, was Adora.

It was strange seeing Adora like this – transformed, as she had been before, but ... different. She didn’t have the hat or the cape, instead, she wore something that was like her favorite jacket, done in strident purple and dark black, with gleaming onyx buttons. It was as if she had taken the Titan-Ra form and made it her own glorious self.

She held Belos’ heart between her fingers, her arm emerging from his chest like a jack in the box.

“Let. Her. Go.” She snarled.

Belos’ fingers withdrew from Catra’s arms and she felt the pain of their emergence. Scars puckered her skin now – reddish marks from where he had plunged into her. He lifted his hands – and Adora withdrew her arm and released his heart in his chest, where flesh flowed and knitted again.

Catra groaned. “Adora...” she whispered.

“It’s okay, I’m here, Catra!” she said, grabbing onto one of the chains, snapping the links with a yank. Catra managed to get the words out, despite the fatigue and the aches.

“You ... dummy!”

Adora blinked at her, looking so adorably innocent and kissable.

Then Belos grabbed onto her by her jacket’s hem and threw her through two of the prison cells. The bars bent and exploded out of their moorings, stone powderedized, and the ceiling collapsed in one of them with a roar. Catra, her one hand free, tried to get herself up, but her other arm was still restrained, as were her legs. She groaned and laid back, her head throbbing. Through slitted eyes, she saw that whatever Belos had taken from her was still enough to keep him standing, even if he was still far from ... what was he?

Adora emerged from the rubble, with a split lip and a fiery look in her eyes. She spat to the side. “Why don’t you tell her what you really are? What did Luz call you? Philip?”

“Philip?” Catra croaked.

Belos chuckled. His voice sounded melodious, despite his body being a dripping, blue eyed horror. “She’s lying,” he said. “Catra, I was trying to heal you-”

“He was trying to use you as spare parts!” Adora said. “Catra! Look!”

She pointed and Catra tore her eyes from the ruined dungeon to where she was chained. Huh. There was, in fact, a plot of dirt and mud, surrounded by alchemical equipment – stuff she half recognized from her studies. And jutting from the back was ... bones. Human bones. Her throat worked, slowly. A lot of human bones.

“What ... is this?” Catra whispered.

“Gravewalker.”

The voice hissed from the wall – and Catra snapped her head around. A face, cast like a shadow, two dimensional and blocky, peered at her. Catra hated the desperate look in those flat eyes. They reminded her too much of looking into her mirror.

But the word made Catra’s stomach flip over. She looked down at her wrist, then shook her head. “I-I’m not a Gravewalker. Those are ... are constructs made by turning corpses into puppets – you make them think they’re a person by copying someone else’s brain, but they don’t have blood!” She said, fiercely. “They don’t have a bile sack or...” She hesitated, her hand going to her chest. “I...” In hazy memory, she could see herself looking down at her own slashed finger, in the library. There had been no blood.

The librarian had been attacked.

She had bled.

His blood.

She wasn’t a Gravewalker.

You’ve been cut before, remember what Belos used to do?

She wasn’t a Gravewalker.

He’d tell you to talk to him and then...

She wasn’t a Gravewalker.

None of your memories are in color. Not after you woke up here.

Belos sighed. “Very well,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Yes. You are a Gravewalker, Catra. But that’s no shame. You were to do a great service for your Emperor, who has given you ... so much.” His face sloughed slightly, as Adora growled. “I made you a Golden Guard. I gave you a home. A cause!”

“What did you do to my friend?” Adora stepped forward.

“Don’t you get it!?” Belos asked, turning to face Adora. “Catra is not your friend. She never was!”

He lashed the air with his arm.

“Kathleen Weaver died six years ago.” He laughed. “I found her! Cold as the grave. Dead of exposure and chill – and I made her into Catra. And look at what she’s done in this world, what she has done without you!” He pointed his finger at Adora.

Catra’s face felt cold.

“I...” She whispered.

Belos turned back to her. “Adora wants you to be chained to the past. She wants you to give up everything that you are – and what? To be that dead girl? That pathetic weakling? That abused child who ran off to die?” He stepped towards her. “Do you want to be that? To do that?”

“Catra...” Adora whispered.

Catra’s claw scraped along the earth, subtly. She ducked her head forward.

None of your memories are in color.

She finished the circle.

You’re...

Ice exploded up and slashed open her cuffs – and she leaped from the bedside, skidded ... and then stepped between Belos and Adora. She snatched a chunk of ice, then swept her hand along it, and the rune transformed it into her sword.

“Get away from my Emperor,” she snarled.

“Catra...” Adora whispered.

Belos fell to one knee. He clutches his chest – and Catra looked from him to Adora. His voice was weak. “Protect me, Catra ... my Golden Guard,” Belos wheezed, and Catra growled and then started to walk forward. She moved a bit wobbily, but with more and more strength, every second. Adora’s heart hammered and her brain whirled. She jerked her head back, evading the ice blade as Catra swung it at her head, the humming blade slicing into the wall to her left.

“Catra!” Adora said. “Please! You’re not just his creation-”

“No, I’m better than that!” Catra said, gritting her teeth. “I learned magic!” She swung her sword. “I became the Golden Guard – I did all of that!” she swung her sword again – and Adora, in desperation, held up her hand ... and a blade of purple steel flashed into existance in her palm. It was longer, thinner, less ornate than the blade she had born as Titan-Ra. Sparks of magic exploded as the two swords struck against one another.

“He was trying to use you to save himself!” Adora snarled, locking blades with Catra.

“You’re lying!” Catra shoved back. “You and your Owl Lady want to destroy everything he built – and for what? For some stupid freedom? You know what freedom is!?” she shoved hard enough that Adora stumbled. “It’s the chance for a little girl to go and die in a Connecticut winter storm!” She brought her sword flashing down and Adora lifted, blocked, then twisted aside and caught Catra in the stomach. She lifted her up, then slammed her down – but Catra writhed free at the last second. She rolled away, fetched up against some rubble, and stood.

Catra felt as if she should have been nearly fainting. Instead, rage kept her on her feet. It thrummed through her bones – rage at Adora, for trying to take her life. Rage at Kat, for burdening her with the memories of a weak, pathetic child. Rage at Belos, for not doing a good enough job in building her. Rage at the Boiling Isles for endlessly throwing complications at her, when she had a life she wanted to live.

Well.

She could fix some of that complications.

“He’s not actually a witch!” Adora said, her blade intersecting with Catra’s. “He’s a human-”

“Shut up!”

Sparks flew as Catra brought her sword down in an overhanded chop.

“He’s-”

Their swords met again, another chop. This time, Catra’s ice sword exploded with a spray of blue chips. Rather than give her a chance, she dove forward, darting between Adora’s thighs. She slashed with her claws, wildly, drawing flashes of bright red blood. She dug her claws into Adora’s shoulder blades.

“Auugh!”

“Hold her there!” Belos said.

He reached into his own chest cavity, and drew out a circlet. It glowed. It thrummed. It pulsed with energy.

Catra dug her claws in.

Adora lifted her hand up, smashing her forearm into Catra’s nose. Catra clung on, grunting as she felt something crunch in her face.

But Adora wasn’t trying to knock her off.

She hurled her sword at Belos like a lightning bolt. He lifted the circlet – and the sword hesitated not a moment, sweeping through the circlet, through his chest, and into the wall. He splattered against it, pinned there by the cross guard fetching up against his moldering ribs. The two halves of the circlet fell aside and he remained there, gaping in shock at the sword that was buried in his chest. His jaw dropped slowly down, unhinging, then clattering to the floor as the blue light in his eyes dimmed. Then flickered.

Then went out.

Catra and Adora stood there, panting.

“E-Emperor?” Catra whispered.

The ruin that had been Emperor Belos slumped, then splattered onto the ground.

There was nothing there but mold and worms.

Even the sword glittered, clean and pure – every bit of him had simply sloughed off of it, like water beading along wax paper.

Catra released Adora’s shoulders, dropped to the ground, then ran to the pile.

“Y-You killed him!” she whispered, looking up at Adora.

“H-He...” Adora whispered, her body shimmering, then flashing. She was replaced with her normal human self, falling to her knees, blood dripping down her back, soaking into her white shirt. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Catra growled and sprang to her feet as the two halves of the circlet hit the ground. One rolled half over, then clacked over, while the other simply rang as it bounced several times, before coming to a stop at the shoes of a normal teenage girl, who had simply materialized near the wall without anyone noticing. She was thin and short, with close cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and a thin notched scar over one eyebrow. She was dressed in a blue and white T-shirt, with shorts over the long, stretchy winter leggings worn by people in colder states. She had slip on white shoes.