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Masks protected both ways. They protected one from others, and they protected others from oneself. That was how it was for her anyway.
Algol wore a mask ever since she was a toddler. A cute little mask, designed and painted by Gran. A mask charmed to grow up with her, to keep her petrifying gaze from turning others into stone forever.
Mother and Gran made her promise she'd never, ever take it off in front of others. Algol agreed, even though every day she hated the mask and the fate she inherited. A useless power that singled her out from all the other kids in the Sacred Forest. A curse that would force her to live in isolation.
When she had a bad day, Gran would say she was the most beautiful of the realm, like her mother once was. But there was no point in being beautiful if she had a mask on her face every moment of every day of her life. No one would ever know, and no one would believe it even if she told them because she couldn't prove it without putting them in danger.
Her mother wasn't beautiful anymore.
There were two bleeding empty holes where her eyes once were and her soft pale pink hair had transformed into vicious snakes. At least, Algol could say that Mother's beauty hadn't truly died. It had lived on through her.
No one else in the sacred forest wore a mask, and almost everyone seemed to mind that she did. They stared, they dared her to take it off. The alpacas didn't seem to mind, though, which was a relief. She'd be tempted more than once to take it off and say "see? I am actually pretty!". But Mother would reply that if they found out, they'd take that beauty away, just like they did to her.
Gods were vain, Gran would say next. They were more powerful than any other being in the Universe, but that didn't stop them from being jealous of mortals who, according to them, dared to compare to them. Gods felt no remorse when tearing happiness away from mortals. Hubris, they'd call it. A made up sin to justify injustice.
People thought Mother was a monster. But how could her mother, so kind, so caring, snakes and all, be a monster? Even the snakes on her head were nice to Algol. Well, there was one that wasn't, but Algol was sure that particular one was bad at feelings. It'd squint suspiciously at everyone that went closer to Mother, but its bites never truly hurt.
Time passed and Algol grew up learning witchcraft from Gran and riding broomsticks and alpacas. Then, one day, she met someone.
Perseus was a hero. She should have seen it coming, because that was what heroes did. They slayed monsters. And Algol had passed enough time away from the population of the Sacred Forest to have forgotten that to them, Mother was one.
But Perseus was nice to her. And why would Algol question his motives? It had been so long since anyone spoke to her like she was just herself, and not something strange. Finally there was someone there complimenting her magic, her riding skills, finding her interesting. Perseus and Algol sparred sometimes. He gave her fighting tips. She gave him an alpaca yarn hat, grey with a bright orange pompom on top.
Algol was happy to have found a friend and wanted her family to meet him too so she led him through the wards that guarded her house so Mother and Gran could meet him too.
It took her several seconds to understand what was going on after she saw him unseathe his sword and chop Mother's head off with it. The way her headless body fell, first to its knees and then to its side. The unanimous hissing of all the snakes at once. The blood on Perseus's sword, as he moved forward and grabbed the head and held it high, like a trophy. Algol watched the scene, petrified. It felt like a movie, a play. Something that couldn't really be happening.
Something that couldn't really be happening to her.
Perseus was a hero. She should have seen it coming. Perseus was never interested in Algol, nor in her magic, nor in her alpacas, nor in her gifts. Perseus just wanted to add one more line to his list of exploits.
Algol promised her mother she would never take off her mask. But her mother was dead. Grabbing the mask that had accompanied her all her life, she pulled it from her face and let it fall to the ground.
"Perseus," she called, and he turned and looked at her, and Mother's head slipped from his hand as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in awe.
And then he was stone, forever staring, forever marveling at her beauty. Algol turned her back on him and ran to grab Mother's head. The snakes were still moving, though less and less.
"Don't go... Don't leave me..."
Tears streamed down her face. Mother was dead, but if they survived, if they stayed...
They didn't. In the end, they closed their eyes and remained motionless. Algol screamed, and clutched the head. She screamed and screamed and screamed again, and that was how Gran found her when she left the house. Without her mask, clutching the decapitated head, a stone man staring raptly at her. It didn't happen often when Gran hugged her, but at that moment, she kneeled in front of Algol and wrapped her in her arms, tight and strong.
Algol didn't know how long she cried for, refusing to let go of her mother's head, but it was a long time. At some point, she lost consciousness, and when she woke up, she was in her bed, covered with the blanket made of pink alpaca wool. Her head was spinning, her mouth was pasty, and her stomach empty, but she had no desire to get up. There was a cup of tea on the nightstand. Not the typical pink tea everyone drank. Gran probably put something else in it, maybe lavender or sage.
Mother was dead, she reminded herself. Dead because of her. Because she'd let her hunger to be seen, to be accepted, make her a fool. A tool.
When Gran entered the room, Algol didn't even look at her. A flame of anger ignited in her chest as she realized she didn't have to guess who it was. It could no longer be her mother. Now it was just the two of them.
"We have to bury her," Gran said. "You have to say goodbye."
That made Algol peek out from under the blanket. Gran always complained about her chattiness, well, now she had nothing to complain about. When Algol pushed back the blanket and sat on the edge of the bed, Gran was already gone. Algol drank the tea. She was right, it had lavender in it and a blessing. The aftertaste of magic was mixed with it. She was too distraught to think about what the spell could be, but at least it helped her get up and change her clothes.
Algol had never worn that black dress before, and she never did again. When she stepped outside, Gran and Nettle, Mother's favourite alpaca had already dug a hole in the corner of the garden. Mother was already in the open coffin, surrounded by colorful flowers. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious, for Gran to have done all that alone.
Before closing the coffin, Algol took the handkerchief from her pocket and wiped one last time the streaks of dried blood that occasionally dripped from Mother's eyesockets. After doing so, she folded the handkerchief and placed it among the flowers. It was odd to think she wouldn't need it anymore. Then she took her mother's cold hand and squeezed it, stroking the head of each and every one of the snakes.
Together, Gran and Algol placed the lid on the coffin, then poured dirt on top with their bare hands. Handful by handful. As if it were a ritual.
The pile of earth gradually shrank, and the hole filled in. Then Gran left, and she stayed. Each one of them processed their grief in their own way, it seemed. Algol lay down on the turned earth and cried and screamed for hours until she finally fell asleep.
She was freezing cold when she woke up, shivering and covered in dew. Her blackened hands still smelled of earth. Algol refused to leave where she was. She knew full well that her stubbornness wouldn't be rewarded, but it hurt to leave her mother's side.
It was the statue that made her stand up. Algol had even forgotten it was there.
That look, the look of a man captivated by the beauty before him, made her want to throw up. Algol had recently fantasized about being stared at like that by someone. But not that man. Not her mother's murderer to do it. Algol took a running start and pushed the statue until she managed to topple it. Then she kicked it, but it didn't do much. The next thing she did was take out her wand and cast spell after spell, but it didn't damage the stone. Panting from the effort, Algol fetched her grandmother's magic staff, which shot out a beam of reddish light that scorched the grass around the statue, opened a crater in the ground, and scared the alpacas. Some opened a portal and fled in terror to another dimension.
The statue remained intact and Algol screamed and screamed and kicked it.
"You won't achieve anything like this, kid," said Gran, coming out of the house when she noticed the ruckus. "This isn't ordinary rock; it's magically generated rock. It's indestructible."
"I don't want it to exist," Algol replied.
Gran readjusted the strange glasses she always wore, created by her to filter the petrifying power of April's eyes. "We can throw it into space, where it'll wander for all eternity."
"I don't want it to exist," Algol repeated.
"Come in, the bean stew is almost ready," Gran said, and as she headed back into the house, she added, "Wash your hands before coming to the table."
It was a silent meal. The first meal without Mother. The two of them ate, facing each other, in the most awkward silence Algol had ever experienced.
"If it's any consolation," Gran said, breaking the ice, "being trapped in that spell is the worst fate anyone could face. That man will be there forever, for the spell is almost impossible to break."
Algol's heart gave an unpleasant squeeze. "Almost," she murmured. "Then there is a way."
"There is a way, yes," said Gran. "But that way is so arduous and requires paying such a high price, that I doubt anyone would want to try it. Not even for a fallen hero."
As she chewed, Algol pushed the food around with her spoon. Yes. What Gran said is true. The chances of anyone wanting to unpetrify Perseus were almost zero, but there was a chance, however small, that one day someone might want to try. Then Perseus would walk off as if nothing had happened, carrying on with his life, while Mother's bones degraded beneath the ground.
"Gran, what would that price be?" Algol asked, and took another spoonful.
"One would have to shed blood, kill stars, and take their cores," said Gran. "But those stars give light to different worlds. If they are destroyed, the worlds that depend on their light would wither with them."
As she finished her meal, Algol schemed. Leaving Perseus like that may be a fate crueler than death, but for her, it was nothing more than unfinished business. Would someone, someday, when the legend of how Perseus killed Medusa and perished is told, try to awaken him? It was a question no one could answer. Algol needed closure. She needed to unpetrify him.
Kill him for good.
The story of Perseus wouldn't end like that. Algol wouldn't allow it. This wasn't the story of how a brave hero brought about his own downfall after defeating the monster. This was the story of how a mother was murdered, and he was the villain in it.
Algol finished her meal, put on her mask, and stood up. "Thanks for the food, Gran."
"Come on, eat at least half a plate more. You haven't eaten anything these days, you're going to be skin and bones at this rate," said Gran.
"I have something to do," she replied and went outside.
There were stars swarming everywhere in the Sacred Forest. Taurus, the Sleepwalker, gathered more than thirty and now she sleeped while said stars worshipped her and offered sacrifices as if she were a goddess. Algol never paid much attention to them, only that even the least of them were powerful. It was going to be hard for her to kill them, and she may never even complete her mission, but she couldn't not try.
Cannibalism was a sin, but no one with a minimum authority in the Sacred Forest seemed willing to put a stop to such a dubious custom. What did it matter if she killed a few stars? The Sleepwalker was too busy sleeping to enforce the law.
Algol spent her time spying and practising spells. She gathered information on every lesser star. The next step was choosing a victim. One that wouldn't give her much trouble. After much watch, she found it. HR 1099 was an inconspicuous star, with dull orange hair. It was small and solitary. It rarely stayed for parties, and no one came to visit the hut where she lived. If Algol killed her, no one would miss her. There weren't even planets orbiting her. It was possible that a part of Algol still wanted to minimize the pain caused to others by HR 1099's absence.
That would stop mattering to her in the future as the kill count increased.
HR 1099 had gone to a ceremony honoring "our goddess." The instruments were still playing in the distance when she returned home. Algol followed her and waited a while to make sure no one else was about to show up. Then she burst into her hut. HR 1099 had just put her teacup down on its saucer and looked at her with wide eyes.
"Do you want something?" HR 1099 asked.
The house was tidy, but full of trinkets. Bookshelves overflowing with books, a violin and two dusty saxophones. Algol pulled out her wand.
"I came to kill you," she said, forcing herself to sound confident, nonchalant, and HR 1099's eyes widened even further for a couple of seconds. "Any last words?"
"Would you like a cup of tea? It's been many cycles since anyone visited me," HR 1099 replied.
That caught Algol off guard, who blinked and lowered her wand. "I just said I'm coming to kill you, and you're offering me tea?"
HR 1099 simply pointed to the empty armchair. "Come on, sit down. The least you can do is explain what I've done to you," she said, pulling a cup and saucer from the shelf under the table and filling it with tea.
The plan wasn't going as Algol had intended, but she sat down anyway and stared at the ruby-pink liquid in her cup. There was something about HR 1099's calmness in the face of her threat that unsettled her insides. As if she was about to fall into a trap. Algol had no idea what her next move might be.
"It's not personal," she said, and decided to taste the tea. She doubted it was poisoned, and if it was, Gran had antidotes for almost everything. "I need star cores. Let's just say it's for the greater good."
"So, one of those spells you witches cast," HR 1099 said. "It must be a very powerful one."
"The way a story is told is important," Algol replied, and glanced at the bookshelves. "I see you like to read."
HR 1099 shrugged. "I've started them all, but I haven't finished most of them. There comes a time when they all stop mattering," she said casually. "I heard about your mother. I'm sorry for your loss."
Algol didn't feel as eager to kill her anymore. She wondered if that had been her strategy all along. Next time, she told herself, she'd attack head on.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"This realm is going to hell in a basket," said HR 1099, and sighed. "The Sleepwalker sleeps while cannibalism becomes a branch of gastronomy. You can't even buy cookies or desserts anymore because they're most likely made from the remains of farmers. Aldebaran and El Nath are doing nothing to stop this, and I'd even say they're part of the problem."
"Yeah, Gran is always complaining about the same thing," said Algol, and after finishing her tea in a long gulp, she stood up. "Well, I'm leaving. I can come visit you any other day."
"Are you leaving? I thought you were going to kill me," replied HR 1099.
"I've changed my mind," said Algol and headed for the door. "I'll find another star I can actually dislike."
"Wait."
An orange glow made Algol turn around. HR 1099 was there, her hand poked into a wound in her abdomen that emanated light. Algol's heart leaped as she retraced her steps.
"What are you doing, you foolish star?"
"Maybe this is what it takes to be remembered," she said simply, and placed a star core in Algol's hands, small and warm as candlelight.
"I don't want it," Algol protested, but HR 1099 grabbed her hands and kept them close around the core. Then she fell back onto the sofa, her eyes and hair glow slowly fading.
"I hope you write the story you're trying to tell."
Algol didn't have time to react, because in that instant, reality distorted, centrifuged, and a force, as if gravity had multiplied, pushed her to the floor. A Supernova. She had heard of them before, but Algol wasn't ready for what it truly was. Stars didn't die peacefully, they still needed to rip the world apart, distort reality and even time itself.
When her vision cleared, she was still in HR 1099's house, but something looked different. There weren't as many books, and there was no dust, but it was much colder. When she blinked, she saw HR 1099 at the table, smiling and talking to two other stars over tea. The vision soon faded. Algol tried to get up, but the pressure was too much. She scrambled across the floor as best she could when a saxophone melody broke the silence. An alto saxophone, a baritone saxophone, and a violin. HR 1099 was there, playing the violin with those other two girls. The pressure seemed to increase as the image dissolved. Algol grunted and struggled to get up.
When she hit the table, one of the cups on it fell and shattered on the floor.
The pressure ended. The temperature rose. Algol lay on the floor, panting, shivering. Her whole body ached. A few more seconds, and the pressure could have crushed her too. She'd have to practice that if she wanted to face more stars. The core in her hand returned her warmth. Algol sat up. The armchair where HR 1099 was sitting was now covered in dust that glowed orange. The cup was broken at her feet. For some reason, Algol took it with her.
"You smell like cosmic ghosts," Gran said without looking at her, as she weeded the garden.
Algol looked down at her stardust-covered hands, and at the core between them.
"Sorry, Gran," she said simply.
"Take a bath before you go to bed."
Algol took a bath, put on clean clothes, and fixed the cup with homemade glue. HR 1099 was the one who decided to end her own life, but Algol knew that if she hadn't visited her, she would still be alive. Her hands were stained.
Of all the stars Algol killed, HR 1099 was always the one she remembered most.
The Peacekeepers never came to get her. Nor did anyone seemed to be commenting on the Supernova that occurred every time a star died, which they had to feel when HR 1099 died.
Maybe they were too drunk to notice.
Anyway, that only benefitted her. In fact, Algol had already chosen her next victim. Alzirr, a scholar who had come from the Dioskouroi Library to document the events taking place in the Sacred Forest. A diplomat, so to speak. Algol wondered if he had noticed the incident.
Algol wasn't going to let the Supernova catch her off guard again. After she knew what she was up against, she trained. She wasn't going to be immune to the immense pressure of those unstable little realms, but at least she would be able to navigate them well enough to make it out alive.
Alzirr was handsome. He had navy blue hair and light blue skin, and wore white-framed glasses. One of the times Aldebaran broke up with Taurus the Sleepwalker was because she saw Taurus talking too much to Alzirr. He remained professional, and only attended parties and ceremonies to document events. The best part, and the reason Algol chose him: he was a nerd with no fighting skills. If he disappeared, everyone would think he had gone back to his Library.
When she felt ready, Algol left the house and located Alzirr. The two crossed paths. He bid her good afternoon, and she responded. There was a split second of regret, of her mind telling her not to do it, that she was still on time to change her mind. Algol squashed that thought, then she took a deep breath, pulled out Gran's magic staff, and attacked him. Alzirr didn't even have time to scream before he fell to the ground with a see-through hole in his back.
His body convulsed as Algol approached. Then she dragged him off the path and hid him in the backyard of a house. There was a trail of silvery-blue stardust leading to it. Algol ran to clean it up, but just then the Supernova unfurled and swept her away.
Algol detected movement and was startled to stand up, only to realize it was her own reflection. She was in a maze of mirrors. Typical of a star at the service of Gemini the Doppelgänger. Her first time in a Supernova had been HR 1099 who ripped the star core off her body before dying. Now, the core was still there, somewhere, and Algol had to find it before the Supernova crushed her like a grape.
She ran, and searched for the place where the star core might be. As she moved, she noticed that her reflection in the mirror didn't match her movements. In some of them, it moved on its own. The reflection would take off the mask, and watch her with a hollow smile. In others, the mask morphed into something grotesque.
Algol shivered and took her eyes off the mirrors to focus on the path ahead, only to see what appeared to be Alzirr's ghost emerge from one mirror and enter another.
The mirror images became more disturbing, as if hundreds of Algol clones were staring at her, judging. The temperature dropped further, the pressure increased. Perhaps Alzirr's ghost was trying to end her in a last-ditch effort.
Then she saw a golden mirror. Algol shattered it with a blow of her staff, and the entire dimension shattered with it. Alzirr's star core glimmered among the shards. Algol grabbed it, and when she fell to the ground, she was in the Sacred Forest again.
Going home, she felt strange. Her magenta clothes were covered in silvery indigo stardust. Instead of going inside, Algol went to Mother's grave and sat on the grass, hugging her knees. There was too much on her mind, more than she could process. It was a long time before Gran.appeared and found her staring at Alzirr's star core.
"So you're finally going to do it. You're going to unpetrify Perseus," she said, perhaps with some concern.
"I couldn't rest easy until I knew he no longer existed in this world."
Gran just nodded. "Take off those stardust-covered shoes before you go into the house. I scrubbed half an hour ago, and I'm not going to scrub again," she said, leaving her alone.
Unlike HR 1099, people noticed Alzirr's Supernova. The earthquake was felt throughout the area, and the next morning many farmers woke up horrified to find their windows covered in stardust.
Algol went to the market the next day to open Gran's witchcraft stall while she was on a trip and found everyone talking about it.
"Did you see? A star exploded last night, just like that!" the greengrocer at the stall next door said to a crowd of customers gathered around to share the gossip.
"Oh yeah, that nice guy who came from the Dioskouroi Library. Maybe he collapsed on himself," said a cow. "That's what happens to red giants. One day you're fine and the next, boom."
"What a pity, he was so handsome and kind," another customer said and sighed.
"Are you sure Alzirr was a red giant? He didn't look like one," someone else replied.
"Maybe he was burning his helium too fast."
"Wow, rude. He literally just died and you're already judging his lifestyle choices?"
Algol pretended to feed the cake eating plants, giving each one a small piece of red velvet with cream cheese while listening to their conversation. When the regulars approached her to have their palms read and bring up the subject, she always said, "Things happen," and left it at that.
The plan was to go for the next star when the interest on Alzirr's death died down, but it took a while. The Sacred Forest Gazette didn't seem to want to put the subject to rest. Every day they published the most bizarre interviews. Scorpio the Phoenix, when she visited the Sacred Forest, said that she "didn't know what had happened, but she was glad there was no one as attractive as Alzirr around his girlfriend anymore." That led to chaos. Aldebaran counterattacked with a statement in which she said that Scorpio was not Taurus's girlfriend, and that it was true that Taurus and Aldebaran were going through a rough patch in their relationship, but that didn't give Scorpio the right to say whatever she pleased.
The circus went on for a while, and Algol watched, amused but exasperated. Every time her eyes fell on the statue of Perseus, a bitter hatred like poison stabbed her in the gut.
Then came the funeral article, and Gemini the Doppelgänger spoke. "Alzirr is important to me. Sometimes he lives. Sometimes he dies. All we Indexers can do is record how things happen."
It was a strange eulogy. Algol read it and reread it and never quite understood it, though it wasn't as if the ramblings of an Indexer made any more sense to her than a language spoken in another galaxy. It made her feel oddly watched, oddly caught, and she wondered if it was aimed at her. But as long as no one knocked on the door, everything would be fine, and the wards were on, so only her and Gran could get in and out.
Eventually, the subject died, and one day, while trying to convince Gran to boost the power of the magic staff, she told her something else.
"You're going to have to get a lot of star cores if you plan to keep killing weak stars such as those," Gran said. "When you go for the next star, people will realize something is happening and that stars aren't dying naturally. You must go for a bigger shot if you want to accomplish your goal before you get caught."
Gran dipped the magic wand into the steaming cauldron, then a debris disk and some ruby shards. The liquid turned pink as she stirred, until the wand emerged, more powerful than before, and Algol took it. Truly, going for the most powerful star she could find might work. If she won, she might have time to go unpetrify Perseus and kill him before she was captured. Algol didn't care too much what happened to her life after that, but she had to accomplish her goal no matter what.
"Let me get you another disk and more ruby shards, Gran. I'll be right back," Algol said, and left the house.
Algol pondered the matter for a long time and concluded she only had two viable candidates: Aldebaran and El Nath, the brightest stars of the Sacred Forest. The right horn and the left horn. If she was going to do it, she'd better do it big. And why wouldn't they deserve it? Neither of them even paid taxes like ordinary people! Aldebaran was a fanatic. A kind of religious authority surrounding a sect whose object of worship was the Sleepwalker herself. El Nath was rich, privileged, and, above all, useless. He contributed nothing to society and only lived off it.
Algol decided to go after El Nath. Aldebaran lived a more public life, and there was the danger of having to deal with her followers as well. The Taurus cult was going strong those days. Even if not as dangerous, it would be hard to defeat El Nath. Algol's only chance was to catch him by surprise.
El Nath's mansion was by much the largest building in the Sacred Forest and stood out from the natural, ancient vibe like a sore thumb. Riding her mother's alpaca, it took Algol no effort to leap over the fence of El Nath's mansion and land in its perfectly manicured backyard. She told Nettle to wait there and carried on alone.
Algol wandered among statues, trees pruned into bizarre shapes, and large crystals protruding from the ground. She inspected the place, searching for the most discreet paths that would lead her to the mansion. Then, on the other side of a hedge, a cookie appeared. A gingerbread gardener with a pitchfork in his hand.
Shit.
She stared at his gumdrop eyes. He stared at her mask. The cookie screamed, and soon another cookie arrived, decorated with edible glitter, asking what was wrong. The second cookie was carrying a crystal polishing kit. So, El Nath's servants were cookies.
"What are you doing here, witch?" Said the gardener cookie, pointing the pitchfork at her.
Algol could even say she was amused by the pathetic but dedicated attempts of the little cookie to skewer her with the pitchfork while she blocked with her staff. She wasn't there to kill cookies. In fact, she had avoided eating cookies when she found out some of them contained bits of what used to be Sacred Forest citizens. That was what Gran told her anyway. Cookies baked with rests of farmers sometimes developed a consciousness.
True or not they probably weren't real, just remnants of something that used to be alive.
"I'm calling the guards right now!" The crystal polisher cookie said.
She panicked. The cookie left the bucket on the floor and ran. Algol followed and captured him. Her lip twisted and she hesitated, both enticed and disgusted by the sugary smell. She reminded herself, these were people once. Then the cookie tried to punch her, she bit his arm and was shocked at how good it tasted. A rich, sweet texture. A sensation almost as if she was eating someone's lifeforce.
Then she turned around and was still only a little grossed out as she devoured the gardener cookie.
Delicious.
Algol could finally understand why so many people in the Sacred Forest indulged in cookie cannibalism. El Nath probably ate one of his cookie servants from time to time, as a treat.
Some guards saw her coming through the window. Algol tried to give them the slip. She could easily take them on, but she wanted to save her strength for the fight that truly mattered. In the end, they found her in one of the mansion's drawing rooms. Real guards. Even El Nath could tell that cookies didn't make good guards. Algol fought them off and tried to save the piano in the room from the violence, but she was unsuccessful. Several waves of guards later, when it seemed no more guards were coming, someone else appeared. Cocoa-colored suit. Long wavy hair like honey, bull horns, milky white cape and a cane he didn't seem to need. El Nath. His elegant, regal pose vanished as soon as he took in the broken piano and the ruined room. For the inhabitants of the Sacred Forest, their musical instruments were precious and held great sentimental value.
"What have you done, you dirty witch?"
"Uh, hello El Nath. Sorry about that, I didn't mean to. I was just coming for your star core," Algol said.
El Nath snorted, shaking with fury, and his eyes turned red. Algol barely had time to conjure a shield when he stomped the ground so hard it caused a tremor. Walls cracked and the chandelier fell on top of her. It burst at Algol’s hastily raised shield. Her knees buckled under the pressure of the blow, but she forced herself up. Not enough purity to cushion the whole impact and a few shards of glass grazed her hands. At least she was only a bit bruised.
Algol pulled a magically warmed pink teapot from her pouch and drank a little. It made her feel better as she prepared to resist El Nath's tackle. The crushing force of the hit already felt like a Supernova, and she steeled herself for the true power of El Nath's Supernova, and for whether she would survive it.
El Nath was fighting to kill. Algol was fighting to stay alive, but at the same time, she watched for weak points, for any chance to land a fatal blow at the first opportunity. His attacks were mainly horn-shaped bursts of energy aimed to ram into her, and gravity manipulation to hurl objects at enemies. And the room was full of them.
Then a divan slammed into her and she hit the floor hard. Algol had used up all her drinks already, she only had a bottle of lemonade left. El Nath didn’t seem to have any drinks with him. She had done well to come prepared. Before trying to shove the divan off her, she uncorked her last drink and felt a lick of strength return to her.
Somewhere above her, she heard a dry laugh.
"Did you really believe a weak star like you could outshine me?"
He came closer, but Algol burst from under the divan, struck him square in the chest with her staff, and cast her most powerful spell. It pierced through El Nath and through the ceiling. The floor trembled almost as if it was vibrating, and a loud series of cracks let her know that part of the mansion was collapsing.
As she fell on her knees, panting, mask all scratched and ragged clothes, her eyes stung at the sheer amount of light coming off El Nath's wound.
"You... You blight..." He said, with venomous rage as he clutched his chest. "You... I... You..."
Algol wasn't even sorry. If they could kill to satiate their appetites, so could her for an important cause such as hers. Algol tried to drag herself up, shielding her eyes from the intense glow.
"All stars die one day," she said, unsure of whether El Nath was still alive to hear it or not over the rise in pressure and the cold. A cold so deep it hurt to breathe.
When she opened her eyes again, the room was blurring and twisting until the drawing room was whole again. The chandelier intact on the ceiling, the polished marble floor without a speck of dust on it. The piano played itself an eerie tune in a corner. Like a requiem. The crushing sensation was worse thiat time, as if the whole universe was pressing down on her.
Then she saw two ghostly figures. El Nath, young, smiling, dancing with someone else. These Supernovas always seemed to replay fragments of the stars more treasured moments. Algol wondered, when she died, what would her Supernova play.
She didn't have to look much to find the star core. It was embedded at the center of the chandelier above her head, shining bright. The pressure was nearly unbearable now. Her knees wanted to bend, but she didn't let them. She wouldn't be able to reach and if she couldn't get out, she'd die.
Algol refused to die.
The couple kept waltzing around her, appearing and disappearing. The music distorted, playing slower or faster at times. She grabbed her staff, and with a desperate, furious cry, she tossed it at the chandelier. It struck and the whole room cracked. Algol grabbed the core, hugged it against her chest and was violently kicked out of the crumbling Supernova. Back into the mansion ruins.
Algol lifted her mask a little to cough up a mixture of blood and stardust. The temperature was back to normal. The music was gone. She heard the panicked screams of cookies and she knew it wouldn't be long before the called the Peacekeepers. She promised herself they wouldn't catch her before she killed Perseus, so she ran. There was no mansion out, just ruins. She rode Nettle and ran.
Looking back, she made sure no one was following her. Algol didn't remember being that anxious but also that excited in her whole life. She could feel the power coming from the three star cores in her pouch. She nearly ran over a few citizens as she rode to the petrified statue of Perseus. His expression frozen in awe soon would be no more.
She rushedly unmounted Mother's alpaca and opened her pouch.
"I have them," she whispered to herself, as she rummaged through all the clutter. "I have the cores, I have the cores, I finally have them..."
She laid them at the base of the statue and channeled her magic. The star cores foated and spun around the statue. The statue glowed, hummed for a few seconds, then it all stopped. Algol tried harder, searched desperately for any cracks on the stone, for any change on the statue at all. Nothing.
"Step away from those cores!"
Algol turned and saw Aldebaran dressed in her strawberries-and-cream temple outfit. The priestess of Taurus. Now the bull only had one horn.
"This isn't your business," Algol said.
"I knew you sorcers couldn't be left unchecked!" Aldebaran pointed at her. "Arrest the witch."
Algol tried to take off her mask, but the two Peacekeepers grabbed each of her arms before she could. A third one took the three star cores. Aldebaran examined them.
"Give them back!" Algol said, thrashing and kicking, even though she knew it was useless. "They belong to me!"
"So, it was you," Aldebaran said, picking up Alzirr's. "Lock her up now. She's dangerous."
Hundreds of inhabitants of the Sacred Forest watched as she was dragged away through the village's streets. She knew almost all of them. They looked confused, scared. They whisper: "She killed El Nath!" "That little thing killed El Nath!?" "She's murdered more stars, she's a star killer!"
If Algol wasn't as tired, she'd reply she wasn't the only killer there, but the only thing that was in her mind were the cores. The cores they took from her. The cores she worked so hard to get.
They threw her into a dark dungeon and then they sealed the door. It was total silence in there, except for her own breath. After examining the whole cell, she just sat, thinking of the cores, thinking of Perseus still existing.
No tears came out of her eyes. She wouldn't crack. Only Perseus would, when she managed to escape.
There was a trial. Which surprised Algol as she didn't expect to be treated that kindly. They took her to the Astrological Court. Libra the Just was there, perfectly calm, a bandage over her eyes. On either side sat Zubeneschamali, jet black hair and robes and pale skin and Zubenelgenubi, white hair and robes and black skin. Twin stars. The left and the right pans of the scales.
Algol, shackled by magic chains, stood on a platform at the base. The star cores of HR 1099, Alzirr, and El Nath floated in a glassy box on Libra's table, sealed away. She couldn't snatch them even if she tried. There were some Zodiacs among the crowd, some citizens from the Sacred Forest and some cookies.
The first to speak was Aldebaran.
"You see before you the danger we have long ignored! We've left sorcerers unchecked for too long! So many victims, and for what?" She pointed at the cores. "Just for them to harvest ingredients for their dark spells as they please. This is blasphemy against the Zodiacs themselves!"
Aldebaran never cared about the sacrifices, but this affected her. For Algol it was clear why she cared now.
"No more," Aldebaran carried on. "By the decree of Taurus the Sleepwalker, sorcery is now outlawed in the Sacred Forest. All witches have been arrested. Their spellbooks have been burned!"
Gran.
A knot formed in her stomach. Would she be okay? Algol preferred to think that she was. No one could break Gran's wards. If she had to let Peacekeepers in, she'd probably hide everything and pretend she was just an alpaca farmer. She'd be fine.
The first witness called was Taurus the Sleepwalker herself. She walked to the witness stand and took her seat. She looked like she'd like to be anywhere else but there.
"I actually felt HR 1099's life snuff out," she said, and looked at her star core. "Now I know why."
"I didn't kill her," Algol said and everyone looked at her.
There was a murmur through the crowd, then Zubenelgenubi spoke.
"Didn't you?"
"She killed herself. She gave me her core," Algol replied.
"Why would anyone do that?" Zubenelgenubi said.
That dumb star. Algol remembered her sad smile as she put the star core in her hands.
"I don't know. I was surprised myself."
A few in the crowd scoffed.
"Do you have any proof of this?" Zubeneschamali asked.
Algol shook her head. "I can't give proof. HR 1099 lived such a lonely life that no one else can confirm for sure whether she wanted to keep living, or whether she was fed up of existing."
This was the ugly truth. Everyone had stopped caring for her, even Taurus, who apparently noticed and said nothing.
Libra spoke. "Your testimony might as well be true, but it will only mitigate your sentence slightly. You were interested in her star core, and two more deaths followed. Whether the first core was given willingly does not negate the pattern of violence."
The scales tilted a little.
When they mentioned Alzirr, Algol heard murmurs of outrage from the crowd. They all spoke, one after the other, of how gentle and kind Alzirr was. Not even Gemini the Doppelgänger was that angry. She was just there, calmly scribbling on a notebook, even though Alzirr belonged to her realm.
Algol stared at Gemini. Gemini looked back as soon as she noticed and gave her a small, odd smile. Algol didn’t understand it, but she didn't care that much either.
There was no point in lying.
"I killed Alzirr," Algol said simply.
Murmurs transformed into angry shouts. Libra banged her gavel a few times and silence fell once more.
"Noted," said Libra, perfectly indifferent. The scales tilted. "Bring forth the witness for El Nath."
A cookie butler was led forward.
"I saw her!" He yelled, with his high-pitched, panicked voice. "I saw her trespassing! She ate the crystal polisher and the gardener! Then she killed my master and blew up the house!"
And they were so tasty, Algol nearly said. Instead she rolled her eyes behind her mask.
"Oh please," she said. "Don't act so shocked. Half of you in this room have eaten cookie people. It's trendy, isn't it? You just call it a sacrifice and make it legal."
"That's irrelevant to this trial," Zubenelgenubi said.
"Regardless," Zubeneschamali added, "you attacked El Nath on his own property and stole his star core. You do not deny this?"
"No," Algol said, shrugging.
"And you claim you did so out of... what?"
She could tell them. She could tell them that Perseus betrayed her and killed her mother but if she did, they might protect the statue. They would send guards or cast spells over it. They could even unpetrify him if they found out that was the real Perseus and not a statue. If keeping it to herself raised her chances of succeeding even by the slightest bit, then she would.
"Does it matter?" she said. "Believe whatever you want."
They gave her a weird look. It was clear they weren't used to that kind of defendant. The scales tilted further.
"Very well," Libra said at last. "You have admitted to murdering two stars and eating two cookies, as well as trespassing, annihilating life in seven planets orbiting El Nath and destruction of property. The matter of HR 1099 remains ambiguous, but the weight of your other crimes cannot be denied."
Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali, the twin plates of the scales, spoke: "Your acts have been weighed."
"You are hereby sentenced to the Astrological Prison until the end of your natural life," Libra said. "As for the star cores you collected, they will be thrown into the Praesepe, the Nursery of Stars, to be reborn someday."
Who would have thought that the infamous Astrological Prison would be in the Fortress of Dolls? Algol always imagined it on a lost meteor orbiting nothing, only reachable for those who know how to find it. Inmates being left stranded in the cosmic nothingness if they managed to escape.
And all that time, it had been in the damn Fortress of Dolls. Next to the Praesepe, to boot. Criminals serving life sentences and baby stars, what a mix.
Each prisoner there looked legendary. Algol passed their cells one by one as she was guided by the guards. A winged monster with fireballs for their many eyes, a giant being, chained and sealed with several spells, a pink plasma-like entity that floated around the cell. And there was Algol, a tiny thing dressed in dark magenta robes and a brand new hat with a ball of fluff from Mother's alpaca at the tip. Gran's last gift.
Some inmates laughed. Some were wary.
One sniffed the air. "Welcome, Demon Star," they said.
Demon Star. It didn'tsound bad.
At first, Algol thought they were getting a new prisoner. Finally something new in the endless monotony. She smelled fresh air, not the stale dust of the Astrological Prison. Sun-baked sand and salt water. Then, the most beautiful being she ever saw appeared before her. Algol was stunned for a few seconds.
"Hello, Demon Star. You don't know me yet, but I've seen you in my dreams."
Then, Algol finally recognized her. Pisces, the Redeemer. It couldn't be anyone else. A Zodiac. Algol didn't trust her. She wanted to ask what she saw in her dream, but she said nothing. She had been lied to, before.
The Redeemer took a glowing key and held it before the door of her cell. All the locks, physical and magical, opened. Algol's heart skipped a beat.
"I don't care what you've done. Just go."
Algol thought of her mission, but still she got up and moved to the back of her cell.
"Nobody would go to so much trouble for nothing," Algol said. "What do you want from me, Redeemer?"
"I've dreamed of The All. It was drowning eternally in a murky ocean. It yearns for the struggle to end," Pisces says. "You were there, riding a flying alpaca. And also someone I love.
"Then, why don't you go and pull it up yourself?"
She didn't seem offended. She just gave her a little smile. "I'm no fighter, and the moment of my death is approaching. This decision is yours to make. I'll release you regardless of what you choose."
Algol approached slowly but still wary. "So, what was I doing in this dream of yours?"
"I never remember what you do. Only that you are there when it matters the most."
Algol shook her head, not interested in being the savior of the Universe or anything like that. "You do realize that if you let me go I'll go back to killing stars, right?"
Pisces nodded. "The only thing I know is that you have to be free. There's a shipment of chocolate leaving for the Sacred Forest soon. Don't miss it."
Then she left.
Algol stood there, stunned. It was all too much to take in. It took her several long minutes to move. She gently pushed the door, as if afraid it wouldn't open. It did. She still didn't trust the Redeemer, but if the had another chance to finish her mission, she'd take it. Following the scent of sunlight, sand and salt, she left the Astrological Prison and went to find the docks of the Fortress of Dolls.
She had nearly forgotten the smell of the Sacred Forest. The ancient trees and the ruby crystals. The Giga Puddi street sellers.
The alpacas from the maze were not happy to see her though. After having to knock out a few, she crossed the wards to Gran's house. Finally home.
"About time you remembered to come back, missy!" Gran said, and Algol's eyes watered when she heard that voice. "You missed three potlucks and two turnip festivals."
Gran grabbed a bowl and filled it with stew from the pot. "Did they feed you anything decent in there? You look thin."
Algol smiled behind her mask. She could resume her killing spree tomorrow.
For now, she'd just sit down and enjoy grandma's food.