Chapter Text
Eda looked around the empty Owl House- Luz was at Hexside, King was taking a nap in the tower, and Hooty was trying to catch and eat bugs. She carefully grabbed a bubbling concoction from the shelf and held her hands against the black iron pot, gazing inside the bubbling stew into the Emperor’s Castle, the home of Emperor Belos and his base of operations for the self-named coven and followers.
She’d peer almost obsessively into it from time to time, looking for Raine Whispers. She had not known their fate on that frightful twilight evening when both were prepared to die for the cause of stopping Belos, but she had to believe they were still alive at this point. After all, a Coven leader rising against the command of Belos was a big story and an perfect example to keep future rebellions from forming out of fear- yet nothing at all.
Curiously, Raine was still absent from other meetings of Coven Leaders that were at least publicized- people had speculated that she was merely out of the picture due to her stage fright while the more “insightful” proposed that she was either merely invisible or working for some sort of deep state to imprison challengers to Belos’ rule.
Eda and her former rebellion members were the only ones who had any idea of the truth, but they wouldn’t be singing for a while locked up in the Conformatorium, and Eda had no interest in talking about Raine to anyone. Especially not to her adopted son or daughter- they didn’t need to know details.
Eda stirred the pot to look frantically for Raine, moving the gazer towards a hall she had not seen before, past the petrified wild witches and demons that had met their stony end not too long ago before she nearly met her own. As she went down the ghastly hall past the posed examples of wild witches and demons that had merely challenged Belos with their ways of life, she found a door marked with a triangle with two circles next to it.
She pushed through by dipping her fingers into Lilith’s concoction and pushed inside. The room was barely bigger than a storage closet, but she heard breathing in the bleak darkness of the room. As she swirled the potion with her fingers, she suddenly came face to face with a Raine-shaped object in the room, breathing with red thorns protruding from the mass.
“No… Raine?” asked Eda in a desperate breath. She couldn’t feel her grip over the miniature cauldron release.
Eda was in shock and felt suddenly like she was short of breath, dropping the potion to the floor. It rattled about as it tipped over, spilling the image across the floor before fading away into black iridescent gunk. She collected herself for a moment as she tried to collect some of the liquid, but it was far too late- the potion itself was about a month old at this point, it was a miracle it had held itself up for this long.
She kept her eyes wide open, shaky breaths and twitching of hands that were going to fall off if she didn’t fasten them in place soon. If that was Raine, and there was a very strong possibility it was, she would not be doing her due diligence as a friend, at the very least, to not go over and grab them for herself and attempt to free them from the bond.
However, she wasn’t going to endanger anyone but herself- although she wasn’t exactly very knowledgeable about the ins and out of the Emperor’s Castle herself. She knew someone that was though, and she wouldn’t mind getting them involved as long as they knew to keep their mouths shut about this.
“Hooty, I’m going out for a pack of milks or whatever!” Eda said as she opened up the door, grabbing her staff and Owlbert in hand as she swung it over her shoulder. She snatched a crow out of the sky. She came up with a rather flimsy excuse for Luz and King in case this turned out to be a longer adventure.
“Oh, okay! Hey, Eda, I found a cool bug, want to see me eat it?” Hooty asked.
“Uh… not right now.” chuckled Eda. “It can wait, probably.” She quickly took to the skies on her staff, as Hooty stayed on the door with his cool bug. He then swallowed it whole.
“Yummy, yummy!” Hooty obnoxiously shouted, which was the last thing Eda heard from the Owl House as she took off.
Lilith swept around the porch of the old Clawthorne family home. Admittedly, she was craving a little adventure at this point, but being home with mom and dad and actually given some attention for once was nice. She could communicate with Hooty through letters and all was pretty well.
A crow with a set of indents across its belly landed on the fence. “Hey, Lily. Look up at the roof.” Rang out Eda’s voice from its beak.
“Huh?” asked Lilith, who looked around confusingly, very mystified by why Eda would try to send a crow all the way out here, moving her gaze to the roof where Eda jumped off her staff with Owlbert perched in flight, quickly getting into place and smoothly sliding onto her side and pointing a finger gun at Lilith.
“Witch.” Edalyn said, before jumping off the roof and joining her sister down on the porch.
“Sister! Wait, what do you want?” Lilith said excitedly before dropping her enthusiasm like a bag of luggage.
“What, I can’t visit my sister from time to time?” asked Eda in a very non-committal act, circling around her as she walked, grabbing her staff as it rolled off the roof and stomping it into the ground.
“Our relationship is better, but not that good.” grumbled Lilith, knowing that Eda needed something. “Just tell me what it is so I can at least pretend to help you with it.”
“Oh, excellente, I can’t keep that act going on for too long,” teased Eda as she swung around her staff playfully before standing to attention. “I need your help to break into the Emperor’s Castle and helping me get to a room within the petrification hall.”
“Oh lord, Eda…” grumbled Lilith. “Was the scrying potion you never used once during my time at the Owl House not enough for you?”
“No, no, I used it a lot after you were gone, trust me. Something… came up that required uh, liberal usage of it. Became almost an obsession of mine. Anyway, you mind helping your sister?” asked Eda.
“I suppose…” Lilith started before stopping herself to say something else. “I want you to show me how to do that Harpy form though.”
“Before or after the mission?” Eda asked. “We might not have that much time…”
“Just whenever it’s a good time, I guess,” grumbled Lililth. “Look, do we have a deal or not?”
“It’s not a deal, Lily, I’m just asking for your help!” Eda replied before holding out her hand as Lilith uplifted an eyebrow. “I suppose we have a deal.”
“Great, let me pack my things and we’ll go!” Lilith said before running into the house. Eda stood outside, admiring her nails painted in a toxin loaded mix of nail polish, creating a unique marbled look of green and black across the nail.
“Mmm… yeah, these babies are looking fine…” Eda said to herself before Lilith emerged from the house nary half a minute later carrying a binder, her white staff with raven, a notebook with a variety of pens strewn through her hair, and brandishing a training wand on her left hip. “Woah, Lily, are you sure we’re gonna need all that?”
“Yes. The binder was taken from your house- it was completely filled with these useless cards of creatures that resembled Palismans from the human realm- complete and utter junk- I filled that up with spells.” Lilith said in one breath as she pulled up the binder, showing Eda the variety of spell casting papers she had put inside. She had learned a lot more from Luz than Eda did and had apparently done her own research- Lilith was always working, it seemed. “This training wand will allow us to do a limited number of spells from the magic we grew up learning- I still have phantom knowledge of how to do some spells I haven’t cracked from the glyph system.”
“Okay… we really need this much fire power going in?” asked Eda.
“And this notebook, that’s in case we run out of spells from the training wand and the binder, and well, I’m going to need to fly too, even if you brought Owlbert. In case that gets compromised.” Lilith continued, apparently overlooking Eda’s words.
“Well, I feel adequately underprepared, but that’s why you overcompensate, right, Lily?” asked Eda as she leaned against a pillar on the patio. “Say, where’s mom and dad?”
“I already left a note that I already pre-wrote in case you asked me to do something like this, so we’re good to go. They’re out shopping, they can trust me to be alone at the house unlike you.” Lilith explained, poking her sister in the rib playfully.
“You get bored often?” asked Eda, dazed by her sister’s preparedness.
“Yep!” Lilith said as she clicked the roof of her tongue, sending her raven palisman to grab a bag to sling over her shoulder. “Let’s go, sister.”
Eda perched her staff below her and she and her sister took flight to the looming castle far away in the distance.
As they approached the Emperor’s Castle, Lilith suddenly began to descend, with Eda following her close behind. “They’ll see us a mile away if we keep flying this high- keep low to the ground, use the invisibility glyph if you have to.” Lilith said as she passed one out from her binder. Eda grabbed the glyph and while not using it, hung onto it tight.
She was no longer in the mood to play around, especially with Raine at stake. She was going to follow her sister’s every command even if it killed her- the Emperor’s Coven and the associated army was no longer playing around, especially under Belos’ direct eye. It felt like with each successive encounter, they were becoming rougher and rougher to deal with, more frantic to accomplish their mission.
It had been hardly a week since they attempted to raid their residence, and Eda was genuinely a bit terrified, especially given that one of the last times she really ran up against one of the Emperor’s forces, they had taken Raine.
Eda held onto the lute from out of her hair that she had been carrying with her since the last time she and Raine had played together, knowing something that Lilith didn’t know about the curse. Their curse, which was split across the both of them now- in conjunction with magical instruments could play discordant music that could disrupt and destroy magic, although at the cost of the user to some extent. Had Raine not stopped her from playing the rest of her requiem duet, she and Raine would have been ashes- and it would have been at least worth it to knock out two coven heads, technically three.
If things came to that- and Eda was anticipating such- she would play the requiem in full. Lilith could handle it if it went down to that. She wasn’t just bringing her along for the sake of using her old knowledge of the Emperor’s Castle and its inner workings- she was bringing her in case she needed to pass along that flame.
They touched ground as they came near the metal bridge, guarded by pointed guards with statuesque faces and carrying drowsing rods under their golden cloaks. Their bandaged hands opened and clenched rhythmically, their slate eyes unblinking. Eda knew they likely couldn’t see with those drowsing rods and the fact their costumes had no eyeholes, but that didn’t make them any less intimidating.
“Were… were they always here?” asked Eda, peering behind a broken rock that Lilith was pressed against.
“No… they’re new additions.” growled Lilith. “Not to worry though, they detect magic- I know this from my research. They’re known as Obrons and their drowsing rods are used to detect magic. We can easily distract them with a couple light glyphs.”
“Uh huh.” Eda stated, surprised they were already being met with new stuff at the Emperor’s Castle. Granted, the last time they were here was a school trip from Luz’s Hexside group and the public execution of herself, but she was surprised such guards were considered new.
Lilith quickly plucked a couple light spells from her binder, hissing as she held about five in her hand. “We’re going to need to move quick- they have no other senses except touch, so just don’t get in range of them to be touched,” Lilith snapped her fingers hard at Eda, demanding her attention. “Follow me, to the letter and number.”
“Got it, Lily.” Eda stated, following Lilith as she pushed herself off the remains of the rock, betokening Eda to follow her closely. Lilith patted quickly at a single light glyph, tossing it as far as she could, having attached a small rock with some string to make sure it wouldn’t float too crazily off from her projection. The glyph activated, although it was still a bit too close- both Lilith and Eda barely missed the rushing Obrons as they ran to crowd the light. They kept to the left, rushing hard towards the bridge which they were intending to fly over while invisible.
“I got an idea, Lily.” Eda stated quietly and calmly to the best of her ability even as her blood rushed through her whole body. “Just draw on the rock.”
“The surface area on that isn’t going to be good. Glyphs activate best on a flat surface.” Lilith said, watching as the Obrons snuffed out the light from a jaw that unfurled against the bandages wrapped around their torsos, their golden cloaks lifting up as their energy sapping mouths snuffed the light out completely. “Here we go, go right hard.” She tossed another paper and ran like mad towards the left as the Obrons tapped their drowsing rods, suddenly being drawn towards the light again, rushing towards it with speeds that Eda and Lilith could never hope to outrun.
Lilith huffed hard as she sprinted towards the edge, gripping her staff and making a run for it. She tossed out one more light glyph, casting it almost carelessly as Eda gripped her own staff and held onto her invisibility glyph. “You’re gonna have to hold your breath for a bit, just get prepared because you don’t get a second chance at this!” Lilith growled under her breath before taking in a breath and pressing the invisibility glyph against her chest and turning invisible.
Eda followed suit, pressing all thoughts out of her head for the moment and just focused on clearing this jump, entrusting in Owlbert to get them across. She couldn’t really see Lilith, but as a heavy Coven Guard was socked in the head she knew Lilith was successful, aiming for the opposite guard who was running into the castle, huffing out in a heavy breath as she slammed her feet into the sucker.
The two guards were left dazed as Eda did a small fistbump with her sister, entering the castle quietly. Lilith suddenly jerked towards the wall, pressing her palms flat as someone was walking down, keeping herself just out of view. Eda crammed herself next to her, figuring the opposite side wouldn’t be better for keeping out of plain sight.
A small, red-skinned demon with bird-like feet grumbled to herself- Eda and Lilith both mutually knew her at this point to be Kikimora. She kept her arms behind her, clearly troubled by something, grunting out small little words that Lilith and Eda couldn’t make out. They watched as she continued to walk away, finally out of a distance that would catch her attention. Lilith turned her head towards Eda.
“Belos is aware of all things that goes on in his castle past this point- he won’t know we’re here until we do something that specifically catches his attention, but our very presence may trigger that.” Lilith explained to Eda, in a hushed tone. Eda nodded.
“Is it based off magic? Perhaps there’s a way to disrupt the spell utilizing a bard magic instrument?” Eda theorized, tugging at the lute in her hair.
“Whatever Belos channels, it’s… not quite magic,” Lilith shook her head as Eda retracted her hand. I suppose you remember that field inside King’s tower, right? On the island where he was born?”
“You think it’s the same thing?” asked Eda.
“I’ve seen my fair share of magic performed by the Emperor during my time here… it’s why I even thought he could break the curse…” Lilith grunted at her own past stupidity. “Whatever he’s channeling, it’s something very similar to the magic used at that tower…”
“Right, because it can’t just be some sort of advanced magic that we don’t know about because it wasn’t taught at Hexside?” asked Eda. “Belos purposefully created the coven system to control wild witches and the flow of magic, after all.”
“It’s possible… but even in my advanced research, the magic he is performing is far beyond what wild witches were performing to begin with. It was more akin to what we speculate The Titan was able to use… to create and manifest flesh and life from magic. Abomination magic is a mere shadow of this power.” Lilith explained.
“Alright, enough, history buff. How do you suppose we get through this without alerting attention?” asked Eda.
Lilith looked at the knocked-out guards and tilted her head. “Worth a shot.” Eda shook her shoulders as she went back with her sister.
Belos stood in front of the portal he had been building for months now, growling as he held the broken key. Why had the boy even bothered grabbing this broken thing? Yes, it had some Titan’s Blood, but not enough to travel to the Human Realm, which wasn’t even his goal. He dropped it softly into a basin, putting his hands against the edge and squeezing down tight as he felt his curse of mud overtake him, beginning to leak from his fingertips, growling fiercely as he suddenly got up and smashed his fists against the wall.
Mud splattered against the wall, creating cracks and fractures from the impacts, huffing from his sudden lapse of unbridled anger. He felt his fingers return back to normal flesh, although they felt even more sore around the joints of each individual finger than usual. Not only was he running out of time for the Day of Unity, but for his own form as well. Somehow it was continuing to get worse and worse for him.
He nodded it off like it was nothing as Panacea, head of the healing coven rushed into the room. “My emperor, are you alright?”
“I need a Palisman, stat,” he growled, mud flowing from his mask. “Hurry.”
“Yes, my liege.” Panacea replied, nodding her head. He hissed from under his helmet- while he understood that everyone knew he had been cursed a long time ago, it didn’t help to feel lesser in this state as he felt his body disgustingly shift and morph under his heavy cloak, the only thing keeping him together at times.
He had foregone the help of Kikimora and Hunter at this point- he was becoming dismissive of both. Kikimora was beginning to fail him far too often and Hunter seemed to want to do less and less with him since he had gone without permission to Eclipse Lake.