Waking, she found herself strapped down onto a long table in the middle of the lich's sitting room, a place she had come to see as a safe place for herself in the lich's rooms. She had to note that the lich was just as talented at binding her down as the elf had been, except for her fingers. But the table under her was metal, and she could not scratch her way through it.
Letting out a huff of frustration, she stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she was going to do from there. Distantly, she had a vague recollection that they had plans for dinner with the king at some point in the recent past that they had blown off without a thought. A small twinge of amusement went through her at the thought of Alaric's rage over not being able to touch her when Epharis was around.
At least she was able to lift her head, turning it to see what was around her. To her surprise, she was not the only one in the room. To her right, there were three men bound and gagged and sitting against the wall. They were all conscious, and they looked right back at her.
"Well, this can't be good..." she said to the men, leading one to snort and roll his eyes.
Looking to the other side, she found a smaller table covered in various tools of the trade, alchemical compounds, and that amulet that she still could not place.
It was the lich's return that made the amulet's origin click into place. A dawning horror fell upon her.
"No. No, no, no!" she strained against the bindings, the leather groaning but refusing to give.
Her sudden alarm had set the men to terror, for if she was alarmed, it was likely they needed to be as well.
"Calm yourself, everything is going to be okay." He sounded wrong, as though he were convincing himself as much as her.
"You can't do this, Epharis, not this."
He was going to turn her into a lich, just like him.
"It is the only way to protect you." Turning to the table, he picked up the amulet and crossed to the men who were struggling valiantly to get away. But the lich had already begun his work, placing the amulet around the first man's neck and drawing a knife from the sleeve of his robe.
"Please, Epharis think about this. You know this rarely works, you know what will happen, we do not even know if this works on mythical beings. Please stop and think. There are other ways." Twisting her wrist in the strap, she was able to start attacking the leather with her nail, but even as the first one snapped, her inability to lift her forearm off the table blocked any other attempt.
Cursing him, she tried to think of how else she could escape.
"This is the only way, Etani," he said, drawing a strange arcane rune on the man's forehead in what she could smell to be her own blood.
The man was crying, too frightened to try to move, though his fellow sacrifices were doing their best to escape.
Realising she had no other option, she traced the line of her body and what she was able to reach with her hands bound like that.
She curled her wrist under and stabbed her nail deep into her palm. Blood began to flow, oozing slowly and then faster as she found the vein she was looking for.
Death was an easy escape.
Jaw set in determination, she used her nail to dig and scrape across her palm, cutting veins and then cutting them again when they healed. She had not fed since her time in the cellar and that made her healing weaker. Concentrating, she focused on keeping her heart rate as fast as possible, which was not entirely difficult given the circumstances.
To her side she could hear the murmured words, sobbing, and then an unearthly keening.
Looking around in alarm, the man went limp, eyes still open and empty while the amulet glowed a soft blue-white and the lich lifted it over his head, turning to the second man.
His struggles and attempts to dodge the lich's hands bought her a few precious seconds as she worked, keeping the veins open with blood pooling under her and dripping off the table.
She had to wonder at the insanity of the entire situation, the string of events that had taken place since her arrival and now, suicide to escape becoming a lich by a man who had run out of ideas on how to keep her alive. Why he was so intent, she would never know.
The man began to scream as the amulet fell around his neck, the murmuring starting up again as the arcane symbol was again drawn.
Her head was beginning to hurt, she felt somewhat lightheaded, but it was not enough. She would not bleed out fast enough.
Cursing her ill-luck, she started up on the strap on her still-trapped hand, deciding that speed trumped discretion at that point.
The leather snapped, and Epharis turned at the sound. His growl of anger sounded loud, but he could not stop his work.
Whimpering, she set to work on her second palm even as the lich raced to finish his incantation that stripped the second man of his soul, leaving him to slump forward.
Turning to her, he moved to bind up her hands tightly with a strip of gauze.
He stared down at her. "You mustn't do that. I am doing this for your own good, Etani. You have to trust me," he said, his fingers tracing her jaw.
"Please, Epharis. Why are you doing this?" Tears had begun to form tracks down into her hairline, wiped away by a gentle finger.
"I cannot lose you," he said simply. Ensuring that her fingers were wrapped tight enough that she could barely bend them, he returned to his work.
It clicked then; that look of cold tenderness in his eyes, the fury at seeing what Drizdan had been about to do to her, his determination at getting her back.
Was it possible the lich loved her? Was it possible that a lich could love?
Her mind reeled, her palms healed over, and she was out of ways to try to escape.
Epharis had moved on to the third man who seemed to have come to the realisation that there was nothing he could do; instead, his chin was lifted high, determined to die without showing fear. Tears still fell, but he was not going to go out a coward.
The amulet was moved to him, her blood drew the symbol on his forehead, and the lich spoke the words. The man was looking at her and she stared back at him, an odd understanding coming between them.
She had never felt sorry for a human before, but in that moment, she felt pity for him. He was dying to keep her alive.
Her eyes slid shut even as the life left him, his body going limp.
Epharis lifted the amulet from the man and moved to her, standing at the top of the table by her head.
Opening her eyes to look up at him, she saw nothing but grim determination on his face.
Lifting her head gently, he placed the amulet around her neck and slid her hair free of the chain; the other necklace, the collar, was removed without comment. He placed the amulet gently between her breasts where it would remain for eternity.
Her breathing had become slow and even once more, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The blood under her was used to draw a symbol against her forehead, his fingers tender on her skin.
"Epharis, I don't want to die," she whispered, giving him a moment of pause.
"You won't. I know what I'm doing," he said slowly, leaning down to place a gentle kiss against her temple.
Closing her eyes, she parted her lips obediently as he placed a leather gag into her mouth.
"So, you don't bite your tongue off," he whispered, stepping back and holding his hands out to rest on either side of her face.
Biting down hard on the gag, she was struggling to keep herself from hyperventilating as the realisation sunk in that there was absolutely nothing she could do about her situation.
Whimpering, she could do little more than look up at him as he began to murmur, his voice low and echoing in her ears. Her skin began to crawl, and she shivered in horror.
Inside her, she could feel something moving. Something that was not ever supposed to move. A cold trickle that started somewhere around where his cold fingertips pressed against her skin,
his fingers splayed wide. Each point of contact crept into her flesh, burrowing down into her brain and neck.
She was gasping, the cold freezing her skin and leaving her brain feeling numb. Biting down harder on the gag, she did her best not to scream as the tendrils of ice dug and pushed, spreading out through her system and encircling her racing heart. It felt as though it were going to explode inside of her chest.
The lich's voice rose in a scream, the sensation of otherness filling her, and then the first exploratory finger touched her heart. It was almost curious in the way it extended a tiny finger to brush her. It was the oddest sensation she had ever felt.
She was having none of it, swiping at it in her mind and pushing it back from herself a fraction.
But then it touched again from somewhere behind her. Turning on it, she swiped again, but it was already gone, dancing back and reaching again.
It was playing with her, this darkness and icy magic. It wanted to see how she would respond, it wanted to play before consuming her. But there was a troubling edge that the creature seemed to emit, the little licks of taste were wrong. She was wrong.
Manifestation of the thing took only an instant, and it stood there in her mind's eye. It was the shape and height of a child, amorphous and yet still shaped. It had no hands or feet, the limbs ending in curves.
"You are not human?" The voice was high, sweet and so very much like a child that she recoiled impulsively.
"No, I am fae," she thought to the thing.
The thing poked at her.
"Not human? Why then?"
"The lich wants to change me." She tried to draw back, but the thing poked again, seeming to stretch in a way no creature should.
"Lich wants change? Lich King Epharis? Why no change human?" Everything the thing said was a question, but she did not have an answer. Instead, she thought over her relationship with the lich.
"Ah, Lich loves? Lich cannot love?"
The pitch of its voice was making her head ache, but it seemed more curious than ever.
"I do not know," she finally replied. "What are you?"
"We are demon? Power of all lich to possess another? We come for essence?"
"You can't have it," she retorted.
"We take essence? Essence feeds us?" The voice was as sweet and gentle as ever, frustrating her all the more. "You do not fear us?
"No, I can protect myself," she said, but was not entirely sure if that was still the case.
"We take essence, it feeds us now? We hunger." Those last words were said in a feral snarl and it stabbed at her.
There was no dodging it; instead, she exerted her own will to shove the thing back, even as it found her and ruptured her thin protective layer.
That touch was enough to set her entire being ablaze, and the thing poured itself inside her, filling her with the cold emptiness.
Forming a self there, she looked around and found a small glowing blue figure behind her. She knew instinctively that it was herself, small. and whimpering.
Hushing it, she moved to cradle it in her arms. It had been damaged, blue light leaking out of a spot on its arm.
Patting the spot gently, she looked around to try to make out anything that would be helpful.
Nothing appeared to her as it would have done in her mind. But this was not her mind, this was her soul house. The place in which the purest, most naked essence of herself hid. This was the part of the human she crashed through to get to the soul. The glowing figure was her soul.
How she had been drawn down to that point, she had no idea. But there she was, her consciousness stuck next to her soul.
***
"Tsk-tsk. I did not think you would be able to get in this far," a voice said.
She turned to see what could only be a demon.
He was enormous, spikey, and covered in a thick black carapace. He had eyes that glowed red and his teeth all came to points. His voice was deep and gravelly, making her insides vibrate.
"Well, whose fault is that? You should never underestimate me."
"I'll keep that in mind, fae. Well, since we are here... I am Abraxas. And you are?"
Lifting a brow at the casualness of the situation, she gave a slight shrug.
"Etani," she said simply, knowing that demons, like fae, were able to control with a name.
"Etani? Interesting," he said with a note of real curiosity in his voice. "How did you come by the ability to enter here?"
"I do not know, I figured you brought me here." She pushed herself up, her hand defensively on her soul's shoulder.
"Not I. I have no interest in you being here. Your presence complicates matters." He pondered her for a long time, considering his options. "Nevertheless, your lich has decided to bring me here, sacrificed three souls to do it, no less."
Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and prepared herself for a fight. She was going to defend her soul against a demon.
"Don't do that, girl, you'll only damage your soul and you're going to need every shred of it if you want to remain sane after."
"Don't worry, you won't be successful, and I will remain myself," she said, moving to stand between him and her soul.
"No one survives without becoming a lich. You are one or you are dead." He was inching his way around her, trying to decide where to attack from.
"I'll be the exception." She sounded braver than she felt, and after everything she had been through, she was tired.
Smiling with shark-like teeth, he lunged forward, his arm transforming into a long, lethal-looking spike. The thing was easily a foot long and looked as though it could cut the very air with how sharp it was. She was not keen on letting it touch her. Ducking to the side, she lunged forward in turn as he was retreating and struck a blow into his side, tearing up her foot in the process.
Backing away to assess her strategy, she knew she had to draw him away from her soul, so with that in mind, she fell into a defensive posture, allowing him to come after her while she backed away and turned him.
She did not know what would happen if he struck her, and she was not willing to find out, but at least her foot healed like normal.
Managing to twist him around so his back was to her soul, she drew him further away until she felt she was in a better position to finally be able to retaliate.
She took advantage of his next attempt to cut her from navel to chin, spinning and using the momentum to lift her right leg and slam her foot into the side of his head. He grunted, falling sideways. Something had been knocked off in the blow, a large spike that she was quick to pick up. Finally, she had a weapon.
The demon turned on her, seeing the thing in her hand. He immediately went still, his eyes fury incarnate.
Turning, he saw the figure of her soul several metres behind him. Realising what she had been doing, he turned and pelted towards the figure like an arrow.
She was after him in only a second, but she knew that second was a second too late.
The demon reached her soul first and rather than slashing it, his hands sank into her core and sent her staggering, her image flickering as her soul's light dimmed.
Looking up finally, she could see the being had a face, eyes huge and oddly round ovals. It was crying, long streaks of glittering white making tracks on its visage.
"No! Do not surrender! Do not let him win! You cannot! You are Etania Daewen! You are the Celestrial fae mongrel princess and you will not give in to a low-rank demon! No matter what that damned lich says!" She dropped to her knees, realising that her consciousness was screaming at her soul to stand up to a demon. The pointlessness of it all sank in and she crumpled, unable to catch her breath even as her soul's light flickered.
"You're better than this..." she whispered to herself, agonizing over it all.
She could only just see her soul from her position, but its light barely illuminated the area. It was staring at her as though the demon poisoning her did not matter. Then it looked at the demon, and the demon blew backwards, light radiating out from the being.
It was the demon who sputtered, trying to crawl back towards the soul but unable to bear the light.
"I'll find my way back to you, and when I do, I will be stronger, I will take you," he managed to say before his darkness sputtered and went out.
Turning her attention to the soul, the being dimmed itself and approached, helping her to her feet. They both looked down to an inky black spot that had formed on its chest. The demon had caused permanent damage.
Lifting the spike, she offered it to her soul, the being taking it and smiling, that smile burning white though it had no tongue, teeth or mouth at all.
"You'll be okay," she breathed. "I'll find a way to fix this." Touching the spot against her soul's chest, she went rigid as words and memories flooded her and she found herself lying on her back having no knowledge of how she got there. Her soul was standing over her, its smile turned into a little 'o' of surprise, its oval eyes were wide. It made a dismissive gesture at her.
"Got it, time to go," she said only after she was able to sit up again, her mind reeling.
Her soul nodded and pointed to a door that had not been there before. Offering her soul a smile, she headed back out and her eyes flew open.