The sound of chains.
Hidden in the dark miasma, an angel and a demoness watched and rejoiced, their putrid and mechanical bodies closed with each other, their hands intertwined and locked up with the very same chains that they were using to drag Tristessa's soul through time itself.
"■ ■ ■ ■… ■ ■ ■"
The divine, impossible-to-understand voice of Endrel shook the astral plane in its entirety, and was more than enough to make her consort, Margules, to move her to bloody tears and rest her head against her chest, coupling the gears that protruded from her temple with those that formed part of the black heart of the Angel of Rebirth.
But no even for a second, those two lovers stopped pulling her chained soul, dragging her back to Life, sailing through the rivers of infinity.
The Darkness fragmented, and Tristessa's eyes saw the light again, acquiring specificity and finally becoming that stuffed Varg behind one of the display cases in the atrium of the former House of the Royal Hunters.
"Huh?! A Varg…?!" she thought, by reflex, and took a step back before realizing that the beast was dead. "What just…? I was…?"
Just by rummaging a little bit into the surface of her mind, Tristessa's bloodshot eyes widened upon the rush of fresh memories.
She had returned, once again, to that specific place and time in the world. Without resurrecting from within a lone giant she-wolf in the Sea of Trees. The sands of time flowing in reverse, violating the laws of physics, dragging the Universe and entropy back, with no apparent consequence other than the violent pulsations she felt in the mark on her chest.
Her Baptism in Ruins, etched into her skin and beyond, taking up more surface to the point of reaching her shoulders and covering her breasts, spreading dangerously.
"Ah…Uhh…" Tristessa opened her mouth, broken words never leaving her throat, her breathing ragged. "Eccch…kaff…
Of course, her body still wasn't comprehending that her head was attached to her neck once again, and therefore, that she was alive. All her vital functions returned in the blink of an eye, in a shock of electricity that painfully ran through her entire body and made her hands drop the tea tray she was holding.
The atrium was filled with the sound of breaking porcelain, shards scattering everywhere. But Tristessa cared little, didn't even register the disaster: she placed a trembling hand on her neck, feeling that everything was connected, intact, trying to convince her body that breathing was possible without interpreting her past-beheading like soul-rending pain.
In that conflict between timelines, her mind was connecting the present with the future-past that no longer existed, gathering information that, by its simple paradoxical nature, she shouldn't possess.
And yet, she remembered everything. The days lost drowning in her own misery, Gaal's death, Severus's appearance, and the attack on the house…
The Coven. That group of vile women whose only goal was to cause agony and disaster.
Everything she heard about them, about what the threat they represent, about what they're capable of… Now she knew that the stories were true. That monsters worse than vargs roamed the Sea of Trees, going around with absolute freedom to plan, gather intelligence and attack without warning.
And with terrifying effectiveness. Without caring at all about being struck by thunder, being shot and slashed to pieces, or dying.
"Those fucking bitches…"
Tristessa experienced anger like never before. Insane hatred, burning every cell in her body. Thinking of those lunatics, their unhinged laughter as they set fire to the house, as they fought Severus, as they sang and desecrated the bodies of…
"M-Miss? Are you all right?"
The memory of the butchered and defiled body of that chestnut-haired boy was very much alive in Tristessa's mind. Now Lucahn was there, complete, standing behind the field of porcelain splinters, holding his book to his chest and staring at her with wide, scared eyes. Without any memory of her, without any knowledge about her forbidden Divinity, and without knowing about the strangely conflictive name of her mother.
"Damn girl, that tea set was the only salvageable thing in this Gods-forsaken house. Do you have any idea how long we'll be without a cup of good tea until the blood elf comes and we beg him to bring us a new set?! Months, at best!"
Then there was the fresh memory of the dissected body of Tiara watching them from the kitchen. Now she was also very alive, and very visibly angry at the mess she have made. With no memory at all of all their discussions, about how much they hated each other.
And her belly, now swollen and full of life, hidden behind her dress and apron… While inside Tristessa's mind, within the darkest of corners, the unholy memory of that little life was…was…
"Blech!" Tristessa brought both hands to her stomach but couldn't stop herself from expelling what remained of her breakfast, soiling the display case and her shirt. The chills caused by those memories and her burning insides forced her to hug herself.
"Are you serious?! Damn you, I'll make you clean this whole mess up with your tongue!"
Tristessa wasn't listening, she didn't even see Tiara approaching out of the corner of her eye: her consciousness was focused exclusively on the atrocities she had witnessed, where her fury threatened to burn everything, just like the fire that had engulfed the Mercer-Archeos House...
But she felt cold. An ice storm emanating from the darkest corner of her dark soul. The implications of the future made her reason, a dreadful horror of what was going to happen, freezing her and her burning emotions.
A sense of Impending Doom.
"What do you have to say, stupid girl? Huh?!" Tiara questioned her, having passed over the sea of porcelain and looking down on her as if she was a disgusting insect that deserved to be crushed. "Speak!"
"…coming."
"What?"
Tristessa turned her head slowly to look back at the irate woman, who then expressed confusion at seeing indescribable terror reflected on her face.
"They… They're coming…"
Finding the ability to speak clearly, Tristessa let out everything she felt, everything that tormented her, with the horrifying memories still present, screaming at the top of her lungs and sobbing:
"THE COVEN! THEY WILL COME HERE AND KILL US ALL!"