\hypertarget{villainous-interlude-exeunt}{%
\section{Villainous Interlude:
Exeunt}\label{villainous-interlude-exeunt}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``If Creation is not mine, what need is there to be a Creation at
all?''}

-- Dread Empress Triumphant, First and Only of Her Name
\end{quote}

``They think they have us cornered,'' Fasili said.

There was laughter in that tone, the intonation he used in Mtethwa
implying mocking irony -- he'd inflected the word for `think' with the
same sound as the one for `fool'. Winds were whipping at the city wildly
as it rose into the sky, the power Akua had called ripping Liesse from
solid ground and casting it up. The aftermath of the ritual she'd called
on still burned in her bones, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. It was
the largest working she'd ever undertaken, dwarfing even the two Lesser
Breaches she'd made in her lifetime, and it had been exhilarating. The
traces of that monstrous sorcery would permeate the region for decades
to come, long after every trace of the fae currently trampling it were
gone. Standing atop the highest bastion of the city gates, the Diabolist
and her mortal second-in-command were watching the army of Summer
splayed below. A host of legend, she conceded as she studied the
glittering ranks. But she had one as well and it would not come out the
lesser of this strife.

There were two princes and a princess among the ranks of the enemy, the
strongest hand the Summer Court could play without sending its own Queen
into battle. One of those stood head and shoulders above the others: the
same princess who'd forced Diabolist to trigger her ritual early when
she'd begun melting the ramparts with brute force. Given the cascading
nature of the wards woven into the walls, if she'd been left at it much
longer the entire outer rampart would have crumbled along with most of
the dark-skinned aristocrat's army. No matter. Akua had planned to use
the ritual as soon as the enemy made their move anyway, though she'd
expected an assault of thousands and not a single fae. The highest caste
of the Fair Folk was nothing to sneer at, she acknowledged. Among all
the entities she could call on nothing but a handful of obscenely
ancient devils could match their power. She had three of these summoned,
as it happened, a perfectly symmetrical match. The Gods Below sometimes
saw fit to hand gifts to their most faithful, and who else but she could
still claim that title?

``The harvest has been plentiful,'' Diabolist said. ``Let us reap the
benefits in full.''

The ritual array for turning Liesse into a flying fortress-city was not
the one she'd been building for all these months, of course. A ritual so
straightforward would not have required Akua to sink all the resources
at her disposal into the city. No, all she'd done was activate a
secondary array, one she'd originally designed as a security measure in
case the Legions of Terror came calling too early. It was the reason
she'd allowed all those refugees from the south behind her walls, even
if like rodents they ate up her granaries: hey could serve as acceptable
fuel in a pinch. Ultimately, that had proved unnecessary. She'd managed
to acquire a Duchess of Summer with her traps before needing to retreat
and the fae noble had been more than enough for the purpose. Diabolist
preferred this outcome, as it happened. Keeping the city full of
refugees should stay Foundling's hand when the hour of reckoning came.
And if didn't? Well, there were always uses for such large quantities of
lifeblood.

The High Lords of Praes knew how to turn massacre into power better than
anyone else, living or dead.

What had finally driven the fae to attack, she wondered? Was it taking a
Duchess? The reaction seemed too delayed for that, weeks passing before
the attack came. Until recently they'd been content to fight her in the
plains of the south, rightfully wary of the wards protecting her
stronghold. Akua's instincts were that Foundling had a hand in this, but
the latest news had her in Laure crucifying fools. The Diabolist had had
to resist the urge to roll her eyes, when she'd heard resistance had
been attempted after Squire had entered the city. As if the likes of
Satang Motherless and Murad Kalbid had it in them to thwart the likes of
Catherine Foundling. Akua's enemy had flaws, but she was a power worthy
of the Name she had claimed and growing more Praesi by the year. A pair
of castoffs from the Wasteland were nothing more than dust in the face
of that. More interesting was the way Squire had been able to travel so
quickly. Given Foundling's recent journey in the realm of the fae, Akua
was inclined to believe she was carving paths through Arcadia to move
faster than Creation permitted.

A fascinating notion that, one that while not unknown -- the Calamities
had done the same on occasion and there were records of heroes doing so
as well -- had never been used on this scale before. It was one thing
for a handful of Named to hurry through the outskirts of Arcadia, quite
another for an army to march through the territory of the Courts.
Whatever had happened in Winter after Squire wandered inside its
boundaries, she'd gained great power there. Measures would have to be
taken so she couldn't pull the same trick on the Diabolist, but that was
a notion for later. Today, after all, Akua Sahelian was going to war.
The phrase, even as an idle thought, set her blood aflame. It felt
\emph{right}. It felt like she was finally touching upon what she had
always been meant to be, unsheathing a blade for the first time after
years of forging it. Liesse reached the height it was meant to and then
ceased ascending, stabilizing in its flight. Beneath her the wings of
the fae coming for her head lit up the field and the winged cavalry
began its charge upwards. Clarions sounded, piercing the afternoon
afternoon air like blades. The call of Summer. From the walls of Liesse,
a hundred hide drums began to beat. Doom, doom, doom they announced.
\emph{Praes is at war. Tremble, any who stand in its way.}

``Lord Fasili,'' she said. ``Take command of the army. I will be joining
the fray.''

``May you blot out their horizon forever, my lady,'' the Soninke
replied, bowing.

There was fervour in his eyes. He too understood what this battle stood
for: in this twilight of the Age of Wonders, the last true sons and
daughters of Praes had taken up arms\emph{. Oh, you poor fools of
Summer. Twilight is the coming of night, and night has ever been our
time.} \emph{We will own the dark and shape the day that comes after
it.} Adjusting her long crimson, Akua breathed in the wind and reached
for her Name. It was pulsing inside her still, like the blood in her
veins, as much a birth right as the rest. \textbf{Call}, she whispered
inside her mind, and as her aspect rose to the surface her mind unfolded
across miles. A small sliver of it inside every devil she had brought
into Creation, an iron shard inside their very being that shackled them
to her will. This was more than the mere bindings her ancestors had
managed. It was ownership in truth, the kind of tyranny that had once
been the sole province of those who climbed the Tower.

``Fly,'' she ordered, and every one of them heard the words. ``Scatter
all that opposes me.''

A full thousand \emph{walin-falme} spread their leather wings instantly.
Her harvest had been bountiful indeed: once she'd thought she would have
only four hundred to call on, but the revolving wards designed by her
father had allowed her to capture so many fae she'd managed over twice
that. The devils took flight eagerly, screaming promises of death in the
Dark Tongue. Diabolist could have called on a flying chariot to carry
her to war, but it would have only slowed her down: rising smoothly over
the edge of the rampart, she strode onto the afternoon sky. Beneath her
feet glass-like panels of force appeared and she strolled towards the
wave of enemies filling the air. Only one other person did the same: the
man who'd taught her this spell, her father. The first wave of fae
rising through the air reached him before they did her, but she was not
worried and for good reason. Without Papa so much as raising a hand, all
the enemies that came close to him started\ldots{} bubbling up under
their skin, before simply exploding in bursts of flame. Smiling at the
sight, Diabolist glanced at the insolent things headed for her. A swarm
of ivory and steel, flying pennants of red and gold. Doom, doom, doom
the drums sounded. A promise, an oath.

``Justice,'' the fae clamoured.

``Death,'' Diabolist replied, and granted it to them.

High Arcana runes light up around her, coming easier than they ever have
before, and the air in front of the enemy formed into a ball that
condensed for three heartbeats before detonating with a sound like
thunder. A hundred fae were swatted down like flies, their bright wings
winking out, and twice as many were tossed aside by the impact. Raw
power pumped through her veins, her very Name feeding on the sight of
her supremacy. The tide of fae swallowed her up as the enemy host headed
for the walls, while in the distance the winged cavalry charged straight
into her swarm of devils. The melee that ensued was brutal, cast iron in
furious eldritch hands smashing into the silvery arms of the Summer
Court's peerless knights. Diabolist paid it no further mind, as waves of
fae were falling upon her.

``Seven lanterns, lit and smothered,'' she incanted. ``I have spilled
blood and broken bone, known the desert sun and offered pure incense.''

High Arcana wove itself into her words, every syllable shaping the runes
according to her will as if she were painting with sorcery.

``Howl, hunger, hollow. Threefold is my will: obey, winds.''

When it came to wind sorcery, not even the finest of the Soninke could
match the Taghreb. A current of bone-dry wind formed at her back,
sweeping around her and gathering all the fae that had been approaching
her with it. Laughing, she quickened the sweep and broadened it until
the dozen soldiers she'd first caught became hundreds. The current of
air, full of flesh and steel, formed into a ball above her head when her
hands rose. Her fingers formed a fist and with a sick \emph{crunch}
metal and bodies alike shattered. Her veins burning at the power she
still held onto, Diabolist flicked down her hand and flung the ball into
the enemy ranks -- it carved a line through them, though killed precious
few.

``It seems mere soldiers are no match for the likes of you,'' a voice
spoke from ahead.

A pale woman with golden hair, her scale armour a different shade of
green in every scale, stared at her calmly. Sword in hand, she saluted
gallantly.

``I am the Countess of First Bloom,'' she introduced herself.

Diabolist closed her eyes. She could feel the fae landing on the walls,
fighting her soldiers and drying in droves as wards and goblin steel
carved through them. Her mages snuffed out fae lives with streaks of
lightning and darkness, sending rituals old as Wolof into the throngs of
assailants. Streams of lesser devils poured out of summoning circles, a
storm of shrieks and claws that died as quick as they came into
existence but left behind bleeding limbs and tired hands. Deaths, so
many deaths, of both mortals and fae. Every one of them permeating
Creation with strands of power.

``In the name of my Queen, I consign you to death by the flames of
Summer,'' the Countess announced, irritated by the lack of response.

Diabolist smiled.

``I will teach you,'' she said. ``What fire truly is.''

\textbf{Claim}, she spoke silently. Her third aspect, and the one
worthiest of a ruler. In a heartbeat, all those strands of power
shivered and fell under her authority. The aristocrat gathered them to
her, siphoning them into the spell she'd begun crafting even as she
spoke.

``Burn, misbegotten creature,'' the Countess of First Bloom cried out.

Heat turned to fire, a torrent of bright golden flames pouring out
towards the Diabolist. She was a mighty thing, this Countess. But not
mightier than a thousand deaths made sorcery. Akua's silhouette was
wreathed in power, for a heartbeat, and then for a hundred feet in every
direction the sky turned into a nightmare of dark flame. Not quite
hellfire, but centuries of mages in Wolof had managed to craft the
closest thing to it a mortal could manage. A hundred grasping hands and
hungry maws of flame devoured the noble fae and any foolish soldier
who'd come too close to the struggle. The golden flames that had
arrogantly attempted to take her life were buried and smothered, the
hellish scene lasting for thirty heartbeats before disappearing in a
curtain of wisps. There was nothing left of the Countess, not even
blackened bones. The Diabolist stood alone in the sky, the fae soldiers
parting around her like a receding tide. She had not taken a second step
since first casting. Doom, doom, doom the drums sounded.

The walls were holding, by a thread. Her soldiers died like dogs under
fae spears and swords, but wherever Summer gained a foothold sorcery
scoured the walls clean. The casualties were brutal, but what did she
care when her dead men rose within moments to hold their blades again?
Her thousand devils had lost the clash against the winged knights, but
taken a toll: half her \emph{walin-falme} were gone, but so was a third
of Summer's most dangerous soldiers. Papa, bored with simply allowing
fae to die on his defences, had gone to toy with them. Now they were
fighting an enormous snake of green lightning, dispersing it with their
lances only to find it forming again behind them and having left a few
smoking corpses in its wake. It was only when a Duke went to duel him
that her father retreated to the walls, activating a set of wards to
force him back before joining the defence. The three greatest of her
devils were there as well, Diabolist saw. They towered above the rest,
but there was a reason they were not with the lesser devils she had
meant them to command: the same princess who'd almost collapsed her
walls had landed atop the rampart, and after burning clean any Praesi
who came close to her had begun to fight all three at the same time.

She was, the Diabolist realized with dismay, \emph{winning}. Of her
three great devils the one she could see most clearly was a massive
creature of rippling ebony muscle, two large sets of horns growing atop
his hairless head. Jenge Kubawa, he was called. The Lord of Despair, a
devil from the Twenty-Seventh Hell said to have once held back the
invading army of Aksum for a day on his own, in the days before the
Miezan. Akua watched the fae princess rip out one of his horns, shove it
into his throat and follow through with a burst of flame that burst
straight through his chest and out his back. She would have to go and
handle that situation. Still, that left the two princes unaccounted for,
which was even more worrying. Where were they -- ah.

``A praiseworthy resistance, for mortals,'' a man said contemptuously,
tone belying his words.

Two fae stood in the sky across her, neither of them using their wings.
Without even needing to exert their power the air around them warped
form the heat, idle mirages flickering at the corner of her vision. The
one who'd spoken was dark-skinned like a Soninke, though his pure white
hair lent him an unsightly appearance. He was, otherwise, beautiful --
and his armour of burnt stone was touched with red veins that made it
look like burning coal. Against his shoulder a spear of pure crystal
rested. The other one was pale and dark-haired, his perfectly-cropped
beard looking sharp enough to cut flesh. He wore no armour, only long
robes of woven sunlight and flame. His fingers delicately clasped around
a sword of pure gold, runes inscribed on the flat of the blade
ever-moving. She knew better than to look in any of their eyes. Doom,
doom, doom the drums went.

``I am the Prince of Deep Drought,'' the pale one said with a beautiful
smile. ``Would you be the Lady Diabolist?''

``A presumptuous question to ask, when half your party has not
introduced themselves,'' Akua replied.

The dark-skinned one sneered.

``I am the Prince of Burning Embers, mortal,'' he said.
``\emph{Kneel}.''

The weight of the order struck her like a blow, but Diabolist was
indifferent. The soul he was trying to command was far, far away. She
would not need it for some time yet.

``I am Akua Sahelian,'' she replied. ``You may yet survive, if you swear
yourself to me.''

The Prince of Deep Drought looked sympathetic.

``My lady, though my brother spoke uncouthly the sentiment was
correct,'' he said. ``This battle is lost. Sulia will destroy your
devils, your army will fail and you cannot hope to triumph against two
princes of Summer. Surrender to us, and make obeisance to our Queen. You
can find fulfilment in her service.''

``I cannot win, can I?'' the Diabolist asked.

``That is the truth,'' the Prince of Deep Drought agreed.

Akua smiled.

``I have two truths for you in return,'' she said. ``I am a villain, and
\emph{this is the first part of my plan}.''

Out of instinct, the two of them began moving. Too late.

``\textbf{Bind},'' Akua said, calling on her final aspect.

It was meant to force devils to her will, this power of hers, but fae
were not of Creation either. This and the sheer power of the entities
before her limited what she could accomplish, but in the end this lay at
the heart of her Name: to be the Diabolist was to hold power over
creatures foreign to the world. The Prince of Burning Embers jerked,
then the spear he held spun smoothly and went for his brother's throat.
The other prince's eyes widened and he called on fire, his assailant
evaded the flames without missing a beat as Akua willed him to do. The
fight that followed was swift and merciless. She'd picked the least
powerful of the two to bind, but he was clearly more used to combat: the
other was a superb swordsman, but relied more on sorcery and Diabolist's
puppet simply did not \emph{allow} him to use it. Twice she let the
Prince of Burning Embers take hits on purpose, in places that would
endanger his life but not his ability to continue using his spear. It
would make him easier to finish off afterwards. In the end, she did not
manage to kill the Prince of Deep Drought -- though the spear tore
through his stomach. Feeling her control slip, Diabolist raised an
eyebrow.

``Kill yourself,'' she ordered.

Eyes raging, the Prince of Burning Embers ran his own spear through his
heart even as his brother tried to stop him. Runes lit up around Akua as
she began using the massive power coming from the death of a Prince of
Summer to empower another spell, casually eyeing her remaining opponent.

``Shall we revisit the issue of victory, prince?'' she asked.

``\emph{Let's},'' a woman's voice said, and the panels of force that
served as Diabolist's shield shattered like glass.

Pain tore through Akua's side as fire claimed her flank, hastily put out
by a barked incantation that froze the entire section solid. Gods, how
could she not have felt the princess coming towards her? The woman's
hair was fire-red, her skin pale and her eyes a terrible thing to
behold. Like the heat of the sun made flesh, just being looked upon by
them was exhausting.

``I told you two not to get arrogant,'' Princess Sulia of High Noon
said. ``Mortals are trickier than Winter, this campaign has proved as
much.''

Diabolist steadied her breathing and healed the burned flesh on her
side. The flames had gone straight through the armour she wore beneath
her cloak, ignoring seven layers of enchantments -- five of which were
meant specifically to ward off fae.

``She \emph{seized} him, Sulia, how could even a Named -'' the other fae
began, but the princess cut him off.

``We have no stories here,'' she said. ``Except the ones they make. It
is madness, rampant madness. Order must be restored. To ashes, if needs
must.''

``Oh, I quite agree,'' Diabolist said. ``You have no place here. And
you've delayed my plans long enough.''

The Princess of High Noon eyed her, perfect face disdainful.

``I've no time to waste bantering with cattle, you'll simply have to-``

The fae royalty went still. Akua glanced at the other one -- the prince
was akin to a statue as well.

``Retreat,'' Sulia called suddenly, and the word echoed across the
entire battlefield. ``To Arcadia.''

The dark-skinned aristocrat raised an eyebrow.

``But we were only beginning to get acquainted,'' she said.

The Princess of High Noon bared her teeth.

``We will return, Diabolist,'' she said. ``We will finish this fight,
once Summer is no longer being invaded. You and your compatriot laid a
cunning trap, I will grant you this much.''

Not even a flicker of surprise touched Akua's face. A portal opened and
the two fae vanished in the blink of an eye, taking the corpse of the
prince before she could do anything. All across the battle gates into
Arcadia opened, the host of Summer disappearing through them without
warning or explanation. Within twenty heartbeats, there was no one left
in sight but her own army. There was a long moment of silence, then a
cheer that shook the heavens. The Diabolist remained where she stood,
before finally surrendering to a discreet bit of genuine laughter.

``Oh, Squire,'' she said almost fondly. ``You truly are the gift that
keeps on giving.''

Doom, doom, doom went the drums.
