Chương 51: I’m All Aglow

Cinderella danced with the prince, and she was beautiful. Hollow puppet as Drizella was, even she could enjoy the sight.

"Ah, just look at her," sighed Suzy.

"Our Cinderelly, so, so beautiful. And look how happy she is." Drizella agreed. She also knew that if anything were going to go terribly wrong tonight, it would happen soon. She returned to the servants' back room and armed herself with a fresh tray of macarons parisiens. Then she spotted Juliette, standing alone by a far wall, apart from the rest, quietly surveying the room. Drizella made her way over.

"A macaron, m'lady?" she offered.

"Oh, gladly, I adore..." Juliette caught a small gasp as she recognized her.

"It's... it's you."

"Yes," said Drizella. Why was everyone so surprised to see her? She held the tray out.

"A macaron?" Juliette took one, looked her over, and gave a small smile and a nod.

"All those things I said, about how a time looper dies within the loop, dead from the inside, a hollow husk that yearns for nothing but the end of its own existing. Looking at you now, it seems I truly exaggerate."

"You weren't far off the mark," Drizella replied drily.

"But I manage."

"Oh." Juliette's smile faded.

"I... I suppose you do."

"Where do things stand?" Drizella asked. Juliette kept her voice low.

"Inside the hall, no one suspicious but that Amélie girl. Outside, Victor and James are walking the perimeter, keeping watch. They came on one soldier out there, one of Caroline and Josef's men. They meant to take him alive. It came to shots instead, and they put him down." Her mouth tightened.

"Which is no good to us. We still don't know how many of them there are. And now they know we're here, and that we've men of our own. And of course, they know we've beaten them to the prince."

"What now?" Drizella asked.

"Still, right now, there's little left they can do " Juliette said.

"They might kill Cinderella and hope to try again with Amélie in time. But the prince is famous for wanting no wife at all. The king has spent years trying to marry him off, and if Cinderella, his new love, were to die horribly tonight, I cannot imagine him willing to try again any time soon."

"You think they'll do nothing, then?" Drizella asked. Juliette glanced away.

"I think there's not much left they can do."

"Revenge," Drizella said. Juliette looked at her for a long moment.

"Yes," she said at last.

"That they can. We'll keep watch. You should too."

"That's all?" Drizella asked. Juliette narrowed her eyes.

"We'll do everything in our power to see Cinderella safely through the day." She sighed.

"Could you convince her to call it a night with the prince, to slip away somewhere secure?"

"No." Drizella said. Cinderella should have the whole day. This was what had made the prince want to marry her in the first place: the dance, the romantic walk in the garden after. This was Cinderella's happy ending, and she must have all of it. And besides, there was no secure place for them, not from people like the Julian group. Juliette would be little help. Drizella would have to take the matter into her own hands. She turned.

"W-wait," Juliette called.

"What are you thinking?" But Drizella ignored her. She moved through the crowd, reading the faces. Something was off somewhere. She only had to find it. Yes, there, the guard at the inner palace door. There had been a short, plump guard there before, forever flirting with one of the maids. In his place now stood a tall, stiff, dull-looking man who wore his post far too seriously. Drizella knew the palace guards' faces well enough by now. This was not one of them. This was an enemy.

She set her macaron tray aside and walked toward him, and with a few quick steps went right past him and through the door. She wanted him to follow, to try and stop her trespassing. But he did not. That was right. She was a maid now. So she turned back and slapped him across the face, hard.

"What, what is the meaning of this?" he spat, his face going red with anger. He lunged, but she was already gone, farther in. Now he followed. Drizella knew her way about the palace well, and chose one of the nearby guest rooms, small, empty and out of the way. No one would hear a shot. By the time the guard came through the door, she already had a pistol leveled at his face. He looked startled for a moment, then he smiled.

"Now, now. You're not going to..." Drizella dropped her aim to his thigh. CRACK. She fired. The bullet tore brutally through his thigh muscle, sending a spray of dark blood across the polished floorboards. His eyes bulged in shock as he let out a guttural groan of agony Drizella lunged forward and drove her fist directly into his face. The strike bruised her own fragile hand severely, but she didn't care. The massive man collapsed in a heap, bleeding heavily from a ruined nose, sliced lips, and a gaping leg wound.

As a puppet it was an easy thing to beat down a larger foe, even in this weak and fragile body. She was quick, without hesitation, and deadly. She had only to picture the movement, and the body performed it, efficiently. Her enemy lay on the ground, head twitching between confusion and pain, groaning, still trying to work out what was happening to him. Drizella would help him with that. She drew a second, loaded pistol and aimed it at his face, resting one foot on his wounded leg.

"I need to know where Caroline and Joseph are," she whispered to him.

"You will tell me." Drizella had not brought the truth-bone with her, nor any other fancy magic. But there were more mundane ways of making a man talk. He looked up at her and growled through the pain, all hate. That was not the expression she needed. So she willed the puppet to bear down with her heel on the wound in his leg. He screamed. Then she pressed the loaded pistol hard into his mouth." T e l l m e n o w." That did the trick. Now he truly believed her and the hate drained out of his face into plain terror.

A dark stain spread across the front of his breeches.

"Oh no, miss, don't kill me, please, I'll tell you," he croaked, trembling, his voice gone thin and weak.

"Josef, and Caroline too, and a few others, they're at the arbor, the little vine-covered bower on the west side of the garden. Joseph hired five of us. I'm from the 19th of the line, out of the Emperor's camp. We were only asked to patrol, and, in case, well..."

"Plans?"

"I don't know," he said, eyes brimming now.

"I saw the prince with the other girl, so I knew the plan had failed, but no new orders came. We were only waiting on word from Josef, truly, nothing more. Please, miss, I've a daughter at home. I beg you." Drizella stared down the barrel of her pistol, fixed squarely on her enemy's face. Just a simple twitch of her finger. Nothing was simpler than ending an enemy. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. She sighed.

Again, the tiny fragment of a soul disapproved of executing a surrendered man. And besides, if she blew his brains out at this range, the spray of it would ruin her maid's costume. With a quick motion she freed his pistol from his belt and threw it out the window, then reloaded her own and left the room.

"That... that was..." came the squeaking voice from her pocket.

"I was soo scared!" Drizella looked at Suzy but said nothing.

"How... how could you do such things?" she squeaked, not in accusation, but in a small, sad wonder.

"Is that... is that really you?" Drizella looked at Suzy for a moment.

"I don't know," she said honestly.

"You're going to fight again," Suzy said quietly.

"This Caroline and..."

"We could die," Drizella said flatly.

"I don't care. But you should." Suzy nodded soberly.

"But you think they mean to hurt Cinderelly?"

"Yes," Drizella said. Suzy nodded, resolved, and ducked back into her pocket. Drizella recovered her macaron tray, made her way out to the western side of the garden, and soon enough found the vine-covered arbor the guard had described. There she was. Caroline. Her striking red hair caught the moonlight, and she was wearing the exact same pretty velvet dress Drizella remembered from their previous encounter. Josef was there too, alongside another man dressed in a guard's uniform. Both armed with heavy muskets.

This was them. They were the ones who had worked with the demon Malakarthor. They hired the White Robes. They were the reason she was… like that. And the puppet felt an emotion again, the one that came easiest to her. She wanted to kill them. And if she was honest, it had little to do with protecting Cinderella. She kept watching them from behind the hedges, while pretending to busy herself with some little maid's task.

Caroline looked distressed, walking here and there, angry, talking to Joseph, who seemed to be trying to calm her. She set one of those little skeleton dolls on the table, the kind used to speak with someone far away, and nodded at it, and now and then shouted at it. Then she barked an order at the other man, and off he went. Now there were only two. This was her chance. She was too far off for a shot, and it was too dark besides. She had to get closer.

But there was no clever way to cross the open lawn to the arbor unseen. But she had her costume. She would simply walk up to them with her refreshment tray. If they let her near enough, she would shoot them. If they grew suspicious, she would run in, close the distance, and shoot them anyway. She was not afraid. Let them shoot her, she cared nothing for that, so long as they died. And even if a few of their hired men were still wandering about, they'd have no orders and no reason to fight.

So long as she took Caroline and Joseph, Cinderella would likely be safe. She stepped out of cover, every inch the dutiful maid, tray held out before her, and walked toward them with confidence. Fifty paces away. Forty. They hadn't noticed her yet. Thirty now. A few more and she could shoot. Suddenly Caroline turned. With a flick of her wrist, she loosed a throwing knife. It caught the light as it spun — and THUD, buried itself in Drizella's thigh.

Drizella stopped for a moment, pulled the knife free, tossed it aside, and started to run at them. But she couldn't run. Not properly. The knife had torn something — a few things — inside her thigh, and she could only lurch forward in an awkward limp. But even so she had speed in her. She drew her pistol, aimed at Caroline, and fired. A miss.

"IT'S HER!" shrieked Caroline, eyes wide with panic.

"DRIZELLA! IT CAN'T BE! SHOOT HER!" Josef had his musket up and trained straight on her, and from this distance he would not miss. But then a blur, something small and very fast, went up Josef's arm. It ran along the wrist that held the musket and kicked the flintlock hammer backward into the safety position. When Josef squeezed the trigger, nothing happened. He stared, wide-eyed, at the little mouse in a dress that had spoiled his shot, snatched her up in one fist and flung her hard aside.

He thumbed the hammer back to full cock and brought the barrel up again, but it was too late. Drizella had him in her sights, and squeezed. The lead ball tore through the side of Josef's neck. He clapped a hand to it, but the blood came anyway, welling black between his fingers and down his collar, and he went down gurgling, choking on it. Drizella locked her empty eyes on Caroline and kept walking, slow now, limping. Caroline pulled out a small pistol, tried to aim, but her hand was shaking now.

Drizella drew her third loaded pistol in one smooth motion and fired. The bullet shattered Caroline's pistol hand. The woman screamed in agony, dropping her weapon as her fingers turned into a bloody mess. Drizella kept walking.

"NO! STAY AWAY!" Caroline shrieked, stumbling backward, tripped, and fell. She scrambled wildly in the dirt, throwing her good arm up in a pathetic attempt to shield herself. Drizella leaned over her, slowly drawing the long, vicious hunting knife from her belt.

"W… wait! Just a moment!" Caroline babbled, her eyes brimming with tears. She took a ragged breath to steady herself.

"Listen to me, please! Surely, I have things to tell you! Yes! Important things! You want to know them, surely! Surely you do! So… so… please, just… wait… just… for a moment…" The puppet possessed very few emotions. Unfortunately for Caroline, mercy was not one of them. And this time, there was no small voice in Drizella's head telling her to stop. Drizella bent over her and drove the knife into Caroline's side. Caroline screamed, eyes flung wide, still murmuring her pleas.

Drizella dragged the blade free, blood welling thick and dark over her fingers, and drove it in again, at the throat this time. Caroline gurgled, wheezed, and then went still. So that was that. Then — CRACK! Drizella felt a sudden, sharp sting in her left shoulder as a musket ball grazed her flesh. She turned her head slowly toward the noise and saw two soldiers from the Julian group advancing across the lawn. They were about forty paces away, reloading their muskets swiftly to finish the job.

Drizella had only unloaded pistols, a knife, and a useless, bleeding leg. So this time she had run out of tricks, and her odds looked slim. But it matter not. She had done what she came to do. She had most of the revenge she had wanted. It was truly fine for things to end here. Drizella stared at her attackers and smiled. At last, she would stop existing. The soldiers closed the distance, raising their muskets for the killing volley. CRACK!

One of the attackers collapsed face-first into the grass, a bullet hole between his shoulder blades. Thud! A throwing knife buried itself cleanly into the back of the second soldier's neck. He twitched violently for a second before collapsing dead beside his comrade. Victor and James stepped out from the shadows of the tree line and jogged over to her. Drizella sighed. More existing time, then.

"Drizella." Victor looked her over more closely.

"Are you okey?"

"Fine." James looked at Joseph's and Caroline's bodies, then grinned at her.

"Like... assassin!"

"Were there more of them?" Victor asked.

"No," Drizella said. Well, there was the guard she'd left breathing inside the palace, but she wasn't in a chatty mood. She went to where Josef had thrown Suzy and searched for her. She was sitting there, hugging herself, looking miserable, and looked up as Drizella came.

"Is it over?" she asked.

"Did we win?"

"Yes," said Drizella, and picked her up.

"Were you hurt in the fall?"

"I just, knocked my leg, but, it's alright now," said Suzy, rubbing at her little thigh.

"Thank you," Drizella said. She rarely said it, even when she was alive. But she likely would not have made it without Suzy.

"Let's go back," said Suzy, and hopped up onto her shoulder. Drizella turned to walk back toward the palace.

"Hold it!" Victor called, catching her by the arm. Drizella whipped her head around, glaring at him with vicious, hollow eyes. She didn't like being grabbed. Victor flinched from her gaze and let go, then gathered himself and shook out his hand.

"Your thigh's bleeding in streams, you fool. It needs binding. You may manage without a soul, but you still need blood in you." Drizella hesitated, and looked down at her thigh. Now that she did, she saw it properly: the deep, ragged mouth of the wound, her stocking and the hem of her dress gone dark and wet, more blood still welling up steadily. She did feel a little light-headed, once she took notice of it. If she kept losing blood at this rate she would faint before long.

So she sat, turned the injured leg toward him, drew the stocking down, and let Victor bind the wound. When he was done, Drizella stood up and began to limp back toward the dancing hall. The day was not over yet, and if nothing else, she would watch Cinderella dance a little more.

"Wait," James called, gesturing at her, still smiling.

"Blood. So, no... like lady!" Drizella looked down at herself. Yes: blood, gore, and bits of something worse. Hardly ladylike.

"Here. Wait." James said. He went off somewhere and reappeared soon enough with a bundle of clothes over his arm. Manservant's clothes.

"Look like man. Cute," said James. Drizella thought nothing of it. She undressed then and there, without a shred of self-consciousness, peeling off the ruined dress and stocking and pulling on the shirt and breeches, tucking and adjusting here and there while James and Victor turned to look at anything else. Dressed in her fresh uniform, Drizella limped her way back to the grand ballroom. Here everything was just as before, no bloody deaths, no ruin.

Perhaps someone had caught a muffled shot beneath the loud waltz, but had thought nothing of it. All was as it should be. Cinderella and the prince were still at it, and looked quite in love.

"Sooo beautiful!" Suzy sighed again.

"Cinderelly truly deserves it!"

"Yes," Drizella agreed. There was something mesmerizing in the way the two of them moved together, as though the rest of the hall had been arranged only to frame them. After a time they began to dance their way outward, out of the ballroom and into the garden, where things would turn more romantic still: the singing, the murmured talk, the kiss. This was an important part of Cinderella's happy ending. Out there they'd be beyond the reach of most of the palace guards, which was dangerous.

But Victor and James were still outside, watching, and, in truth, their enemies mostly lay dead. Still, better that Drizella keep an eye on her. She quietly followed the lovebirds toward the terrace doors. Suddenly, a massive, heavy red velvet curtain dropped directly in front of her, completely blocking her path. She glanced aside and saw the grand duke, no doubt seeing to the young lovers' privacy. He smiled smugly at her and set to polishing his monocle. Drizella ignored him and slipped through the curtain.

She found a broad stone pillar to slip behind, and watched from its shadow as the two danced on into the garden and began to sing together. Softly, and only for each other. ♪ So this is love… So this is what makes life divine… I'm all aglow… And now I know… The key to all heaven is mine... ♪ They walked hand in hand to the great fountain, then danced a little more. Then a slow, romantic walk across the bridge, and at last the two of them sat together on the low rim of a garden stair.

They had gone quiet now, looking into each other's eyes, the fountain murmuring behind them. The prince took her hand in both of his. They leaned in, slow, the last inch closing between them, eyes drifting shut. Then—"NO YOU DON'T, YOU UGLY TROLLOP!" Amélie burst from one of the bushes, all sticks and leaves, her dress torn, her eyes wild. She punched Cinderella squarely in the face and pressed a pistol to the prince's temple.

"You're coming with me!" she shrieked.

"As you should! We're in love, after all!" Drizella sighed. This seemed a slight deviation from the plan.