“Alyssa? Alyssa!”

“Ah!”

Sister Alyssa opened her purple eyes, rubbing them softly as they took in the bright lights of a hall so familiar and the sight of both Sister Natasha and Sister Violet at her side. Class, whatever it was and had been, had ended, and the other devatas were on their way out.

“You fell asleep again, silly!” Sister Natasha chided gently with a smile. “Good thing the instructor wasn't paying attention during that lecture, or…”

“Yeah, you remember how Sister Eliza was caught last week?” Sister Violet added playfully. “Her name’s on the cleaning roster for this week, and the next as well!”

“Ah… did I? Was I…?”

“Yeah, you were!” Sister Natasha answered. “But, whatever! Let’s go get lunch!”

“Wait, hold on…”

Sister Alyssa frowned as she spoke, her elvish ears drooping slightly as she looked around. Her surroundings felt to her like home, and yet, there was strange sensation to it all.

“I shouldn’t be here, I was at…”

“Something’s wrong?” Sister Violet asked. “I mean… it’s not at all like you to fall asleep for such things to begin with, heh.”

“Yeah. I know, right?” Sister Natasha added. “To think that our top student, our rising star amongst the boys…”

“I’m serious! I was in this dark room, and there was this man with red eyes…”

“Someone’s been reading one too many trashy romance novels in their free time, eh?”

Sister Alyssa shook her head at Sister Natasha.

“It was such a strange dream…”

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all,” Sister Violet teased. “Maybe this is the dream.”

“Yeah!” Sister Natasha noted with a hint of amusement in her words. “And maybe we’re just figments of your imagination!”

Sister Alyssa turned to Sister Violet and frowned.

“I sure hope not! It was awful in there! So much pain, so much…”

She paused mid-sentence as she felt her chest suddenly tighten up. As tears, wet like half-frozen dew in the warmth of the morning sun, formed in her eyes.

“I can’t… I don’t want to go back, I…”

She closed her eyes and burst into tears. And then even more tears, as she felt Sister Violet and Sister Natasha embrace her.

“You can,” Sister Violet said quietly. “We… believe in you. You’re strong, like us!”

“Yeah! Whatever it is,” Sister Natasha added softly. “We’ll be there. Right as rain! Even if we’re not… think of us! It won’t be so bad in there, if you do.”

Sister Alyssa smiled, blinking the tears out of her eyes as she looked at both her friends in their hooded robes of white trimmed with gold and purple. Pulling her own hood over her head, she stood up to leave, her gaze upon the exit right before turning to address her friends one last time.

“Thank you… I’ll always remember your words…”

She placed a hand lightly upon her bosom, her smile turning wistful as she closed her eyes.

“Always…”

The prophecy, fulfilled…

Sister Alyssa opened her eyes once more to the darkness of the abbey’s cellar. The large iron table she now lay upon stung coldly upon her bare flesh, and she could hear her fellow “Sisters” chanting softly in unison, their words she recognised as Eldritch, the infernal tongue of the Hellbourne.

And then, came the words of Father Edwards.

“We, to whom the gods have forsaken…”

Sister Alyssa blinked furiously. Her limbs were free, and yet, she felt them ache with a fatigue that stung with the wetness of blood from etchings made and so keenly felt upon her skin. All as doom approached her, the anticipation in its harbingers’ eyes so visible in the candlelit darkness.

“Shall deliver unto ourselves, salvation…”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Father Edwards now as he walked into view alongside his acolytes, those ladies she had once regarded as fellow sisters in faith, to gather around her in a circle. They were still dressed in the holy vestments they had stolen from their rightful owners, and it sickened her to her very core as she thought of the foul stench of rotting flesh that once permeated the cellar, and the vermin skittering about in its darkness.

“Daemonlord! Bless this world once more with your presence! That we may walk alongside your deliverance, once more…”

That unease, soon turned to terror as she spied with both her purple eyes, the malicious gleam of a sharpened dagger in the hands of Father Edwards that he raised up high before her. She screamed as he plunged it right into her ribs, tears forming in her eyes as the sudden influx of pain jolted away the bleeding sensation lingering upon the skin of her naked limbs.

“Sceptre of the Hellbourne… partake of the Princess’s blood… as you did once the Emperor of elvenkind, ages past…”

She screamed again. The dagger’s edge had moved in deeper, cutting through the bones of her ribcage. And she could feel, so acutely, more and more of her blood spilling forth upon the table that was to be her resting place, a surface that grew warmer and warmer with her blood by every passing second.

“Be empowered once more, Hellbringer…”

She grit her teeth against the pain, her breath failing her as she tried to put her agony into voice. The blood pooling beneath her was so very warm, and she felt her back sink into it like a puddle as she watched Father Edwards bring forward an ornate sceptre towards her, his chants no longer of the mortal tongues but that of the Hellbourne. Even in her dying gaze it appeared to her so beautiful, its black shaft trimmed with gold and its head like a red flower bud, the horned spikes adorning its sides like the thorns of a rose. Like a dream, like it was calling to her wordlessly. That she would only reach out and grab it for herself as everything around her was turning black as death.

“Elicia… please…”

As Sister Alyssa uttered those words bloodily, she thought of her dream, of Sister Violet and Sister Natasha back home. A part of her wished they were here, if only for the sake of a little comfort. That they should know, what became of her. And yet, dare she even fathom it, perhaps it was better that they did not. Even if it meant dying like this, far from home, her friends and her beloved Elicia in the cold darkness of a faraway place, far from everything she ever loved and cherished.

What could they do? What would they do? This, she wondered. The Codex Elicia spoke of an elysian paradise for her faithful, where by her blessing, all mankind would be sanctified forevermore in death. A part of her wondered still, if she could be a part of that paradise she herself had spoken of with such faith. Despite the shape of her ears, despite everything that had been said and done. That perhaps in this promised land, she would see them again when the time was right.

And yet, it seemed that death had stayed its hand. Even in the darkness of her consciousness as her eyes remained shut, she could feel so acutely the openness of her wounds and the sharpness of the ritual dagger within her flesh and blood, each wound and etching like scars upon her very soul as she lay awake, trapped in a waking dream.

“Impossible… the Hellbringer isn’t accepting her blood! Nothing’s happening!”

It was the voice of Father Edwards. She could hear his words so clearly even in this deathlike state. And then came the voices of his accomplices, wracked first with confusion, and soon enough, fear as they clamoured around her and at him.

“It can’t be… why is this? Master, we followed your instructions to the letter, and…”

“If the Central Church finds out what we’ve murdered their members, and if we don’t have our own Hellbourne servants at our side…”

“You promised us! If nothing happens… we’re just…”

Indeed, they were talking. Louder and louder, amongst each other and over each other as they tried in vain to make sense of it all, of what had been done to no avail. And then she felt the dagger slide out of her wound, making it bleed anew as she heard the sound of the beautiful sceptre fall beside her upon the iron table while Father Edwards’s laughter filled the room with mania.

“Isn’t it clear, you fools…? There isn’t enough blood for Aria!”

Lying silently upon the table, Sister Alyssa willed forth every remaining bit of strength within her into her eyelids, forcing them open. Stifling a bloodied gasp the best she could, she watched as Father Edwards eviscerated the accomplice closest to him with a single, arcing slash to her throat. And then the person next to her, one after another while those who remained fell into a collective panic, some fleeing while others tried in vain to struggle the blade out of his hands or call forth lesser magics to stop him. All of it to no avail, it seemed, for they fell one by one, their dying screams echoing maddeningly within the cellar as their blood seeped into the silver veil, causing it to glow stronger and stronger around her.

“Aria… great Aria… answer me… Daemonlord…”

She watched as he fell forward upon the bloodied floor, cackling to loudly to himself and uttering those very words over and over amidst the freshly slain corpses, faced away from her as what appeared like a portal materialised before him in flashing swirl of silver light cut from the very fabric of reality itself.

“Aria… you’ve answered…”

She could see it. The accursed sceptre remained close by, its fiendish beauty slicked in crimson as it called to her wordlessly. Within arm’s reach, as she grit her teeth, biting hard upon her tongue against the pain as she brought a scarred arm towards her chest, covering the gaping and bloody chasm left in the dagger’s wake with one bloody hand as she brought the bloodstained sceptre into the bloodied grasp of her other hand.

“Aria…”

With the sceptre in hand, Sister Alyssa forced herself off the table, her aching feet splashing softly upon the blood that by now, had coagulated upon the floor like an ichor. Father Edwards had yet to notice her, his eyes completely enraptured by the eldritch light before him. So enraptured, that he remained this way as she let out a bloodied gasp, raising the Hellbringer up high with all her might to bring to bear upon the back of his head.

“Die… die… damn you!”

It was only now, it seemed, that he had finally noticed when the initial blow drew blood, causing him to turn around to face her. A part of her wished she had stayed her hand if only momentarily to behold the expression on his face as she struck him over and over again with the Hellbringer, blood splattering all over her already bloody visage as she bashed his face into a bloody pulp. That soon enough, all that she had once adored remained unrecognisable, bludgeoned and dead upon the floor amidst everything else. As she too, collapsed just beside him, the sceptre falling out of her bloody hands as she let out one final gasp that felt like daggers cutting her chest from all directions within her.

“Elicia… help…”

She stopped mid-sentence, her voice silent like death. Her newfound strength had finally failed her, it seemed. She could feel it within her, in all its numbness as she lay face down upon the bloody mire, everything fading to silver before the glow of the eldritch light that remained before her. With such power, such beauty and grace as she looked up towards it.

“I don’t want it… to end… like… this…”

“Indeed. Why should it end this way?”

Sister Alyssa’s eyes widened momentarily. The voice coming from the light was like music resting so gently upon the tips of her ears. Its ladylike voice, so soft and so sweet like an angel’s lullaby upon her skin as she tried to make sense of its words.

“Elicia… is that…”

“You call to my fellow Daemonlord in vain, child. Look instead to your salvation, or forever hold your peace…”

With eyelids heavy with the promise of death, Sister Alyssa looked towards the Hellbringer from the corner of her eye. Now, as it lay drenched amidst the corpses and blood so close to her, its jewelled head was glowing in shades of white light. White and silver like the portal’s glow, whose voice soothed her like a panacea of hope.

“Take it… claim your destiny and fulfil the prophecy…”

Mustering up what little remained of her strength while her consciousness rapidly slipped before her very eyes, Sister Alyssa reached for the Hellbringer, her bloodied fingers wrapping themselves around its shaft as her purple eyes closed themselves shut forever, the beautiful voice’s laughter loud and clear throughout the darkness of the cellar and her fading thoughts.

“You, my beloved Hellbringer…”

This, as it was, as it had to be. The prophecy, fulfilled.