Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  Violet sprinted past the silk entrance of her tent, red in the face, and very much trying to eradicate all memory of the evening. She fell into a seat by her bedside — a quaint reading desk she occupied late in the night, whenever Violet faced trouble sleeping — and promptly buried her face into her arms.

  She was so cruel. Why did she have to insist on leading Remus on, only to refute his feelings each time they submerged to the surface? What kind of twisted person did that? His validation, easy promises of reassurances, and gentle gestures were all gifts offered without expected return, and yet she couldn’t help but feel like she was using him.

  Violet exhaled, her entire body sagging with the movement. That flame in her chest, that quiet fire she tried to stamp out, raged more fiercely than ever.

  She loved Remus. As much as she tried to suppress the emotions, there was something so damn alluring about the rakish young man. The way he held her when she was upset, how angelic his voice sounded when she couldn’t see reason, and how his fierce blue eyes could see right through her tough exterior. Those wards and barriers she had put up so long ago, ancient coping mechanisms developed when her own flesh and blood were corrupted right under her nose. All of them were useless against the keenness of his eyes, each layer torn away like the thinnest sheets of paper.

  Remus saw what Violet was most terrified of: her pure, authentic self, warts and all. Who she was when the arbitrary labels of Unbounded and human were forgotten and discarded.

  And, somehow, the man still regarded Violet as if she was beautiful.

  Violet felt almost bombarded, as if the universe were pointing out thousands of reasons why they should be together. Their fates were interlinked: Violet helped with Remus’ every trial and tribulation, and the man returned the favour tenfold. Remus tried to suppress it, but Violet could sense the warmth of her own fire echoed in him: two halves of one fragmented whole. It would make logical sense if they got together, and Violet’s heart ached for it.

  But those voices in her head. The book she now clutched with shaking hands. The diary of a young girl named Violet. Those were two very good reasons to stay in her lane.

  Not exactly sure what she was planning on doing, Violet drew the chair back from the desk. A deafening creak grated against her eardrums. It was a foreboding sound, the warning cry from the room cautioning her to stay far, far away from the contents of those terrible pages.

  Violet sat down shakily, and opened the dusty tomb. She blew against its surface, removing a layer of grey, and . . . simply froze. Her every muscle and impulse felt petrified. Where bone and skin had comprised her form only moments ago, she found nothing but cold, unmoving stone.

  She couldn’t do this.

  Violet winced, sighed again, and moved to put the book away. She had a small wooden box she could hide the diary inside, never having to look at it again. Violet’s fingers had barely grazed its oak surface, when, for some reason, his words sang in her mind.

  You didn’t steal anything Violet. You’re not the actions that have been done to you. You're not.

  Violet balled her fists. How could she . . . how could she possibly believe that?

  But Remus’ words didn’t cease. Whatever you read in that journal, it doesn’t change a thing. You’re still you. Not that Unbounded, not that girl, but you! Violet.

  Slowly, so slow, it was like she was trying not to notice what she was doing, Violet put the box away. The stone of her statue body cracked, and Violet’s living hands pulled the diary closer.

  And, to me, at least . . .

  The cover was a doorway to another world, and Violet opened it.

  . . . that’s amazing

  All that fear, all of that nauseating panic: simply gone. Violet dissociated from her past, from her very identity. All the universe went null, until nothing existed but her awareness in this confined space in time. No expectations, no overwhelming shame. Only a few lines of ink written down on a page.

  If I’m ever going to overcome my past. Violet gulped. I’m going to have to confront it.

  Violet swallowed her pride, and read the first line.

  Nothing in this world can be more frustrating than living in a family of clowns.

  She paused. Not quite the heartfelt opening she had expected. Her eyes roved down the rest of the yellowed page.

  Unbounded this, finances that — not once has my father cared to ask how I feel about all this, about if I want to fight for the gods’ damned Celestial War. Why the hell should I care about the business of a few glorified sky people? Why should I care for a cause I’m forced to partake in? A battle where I don’t possess the agency to pick up a blade, and make the conscious decision to fight myself, isn’t a battle that should be waged at all. And yet all of humanity is up-in-arms about a conflict that doesn’t even concern them! Maybe that’s the irony of this all. Humanity believes that we’re fighting for ourselves, that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel if we continue to push forward, but who will be there to reap the rewards of our sacrifice? Gods. We’re their pawns with no stake in this existential fight, and yet we have no choice but to dance to their deranged tune. It’s enough to drive a girl mad.

  Violet blinked, reread the page, and blinked again.

  She hadn’t expected the human Violet to be quite so . . . sophisticated. The girl could barely have been a teenager when she was taken away, subject to Nova’s dark machinations, and yet she wrote with the rage and passion indicative of Descent’s most sage scholars. Perhaps she worded things a little more bluntly than some academics would have, but Violet found her respect for the girl expanding with each sentence.

  Before she knew it, Violet flipped to the next page.

  This is all so frustrating! We need change, but change is the furthest thing out of our reach. There’s no changing this grim reality, and, as the days continue to pass by, the more I realise how truthful that fell realisation is.

  I feel so alone.

  Violet heard the voice of that younger girl as she scanned past the words, like a musical chord played in conjunction with her own heartstrings. A more melancholic melody, Violet did not know.

  I love my family so dearly, but none of them seem to understand. Can nobody see the madness of this Divine War? Or perhaps everybody is acutely aware of our terrible circumstances, but simply too terrified to point them out. Lest our predicament be made any more real.

  For the next twenty minutes, Violet skimmed through the dozens of pages. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find. Most of the entries were the daily writings of a standard young girl, an angsty outburst featured here and there for good measure. Violet could have easily overlooked them as the childish ramblings of a teenager, one just getting to grips with the more nasty parts of the world. But the way she wrote, so eloquently, meant that Violet couldn’t dismiss her, or herself, so easily.

  Her eyes, as if of their own accord, settled on one final passage.

  If only there was a way to end all of this. To escape this reality of bloodshed and mindless fighting. The war games of petty gods with pettier motivations.

  If only. A world of peace . . . none of my other girlish dreams have ever sounded more far-fetched.

  “Peace.” Violet repeated quietly in the gloom.

  What had she thought she was going to find? Opening this book had been a prospect of dire proportions to Violet, the emotional equivalent of uncovering a tomb full of vengeful spirits. The ghosts from her past she still found herself chasing. Or running away from.

  The reality was hard to pin down. Not quite underwhelming, but not the heartbreaking epiphanies she had been expecting either.

  Simply the thoughts of a girl. A very peculiar girl, but a girl nevertheless.

  A girl with attitude. A girl who seemed to quietly despise her family at times, loving them unceasingly all the while. At her core, a girl who desired nothing more in this world than peace.

  Now that was a sentiment Violet could get behind.

  Violet felt strangely numb, as though purged of all thoughts and feelings. Her eyelids sagged, and Violet was right on course to slip into bed when-

  A hurricane blasted against her tent.

  Violet grasped her bed’s headboard, the slanted cushioning of her tent now flickering back and forth, as if people were pulling and pushing against the silk material from outside. The tent was supported by wooden foundations and some mild scaffolding, hooked to a concrete base. It should have been able to withstand the harshest of weathers. It was the most robust a tent could possibly be. She would place her money on that fact.

  Violet had grown a love for the pop-up shelters after many a-night spent under their coverage. Perhaps that was simply Stockholm syndrome, but whatever the mechanism behind it, Violet had insisted on her home in Gold’s Bane being one. This was in lieu of the barracks: identical structures members from the Carpentry Clan were constantly erecting out of thin air.

  She had never felt truly at home in the Chaos Clan’s mansion, not since she began to suspect the worst. She appreciated the warmth and safety a standard building was certain to provide, but feeling ‘at home’ was another matter altogether.

  Those days travelling with Remus between their epic exploits. Hunkered up in tents that barely kept at bay wind or rain, cooking over sparked fires, and speaking of the dangers that may await them yet. Oddly, that was what made her feel most at home. Not a place or destination, but the feeling she was heading towards something, with people at her back she could trust. This tent provided a little of that feeling.

  Remus hadn’t been too keen on the idea at first, arguing that she deserved something more modern. Apparently, such a distinguished member of their rebellion — Violet thought the term infamous was a little more accurate — should be seen residing somewhere more befitting of her status. After some debate, Violet had almost given up hope on her little shred of comfort. It was one of Remus’ more considerate gestures when he had surprised her with the space she occupied now: irrefutably still a tent, but fitted with supports that made it as stable as any building.

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  In theory.

  In practice? Violet had to hold onto an iron beam in the centre of the room, her legs swept backwards by a fierce gale.

  What on the gods’ green earth was going on outside?

  Violet dropped to the ground as the pressure relented. Simultaneously, a blinding gold light flared. The dizziness and grating light combined in a terrible cocktail of sensory overload, and Violet dropped to her knees. When the dancing stars in her eyes finally disappeared, she jolted upwards, gaze meeting the last person she expected. Or Projection.

  “Blessing?” She spluttered. “What are you doing here?”

  Violet had to admit, conversing with any of her Projections was always a disconcerting experience. It was like being interrogated by a fragment of your soul. One who’s idiosyncrasies were exaggerated to an insane degree. Looking at oneself in the mirror was challenging at the best of times, and now Violet had to reconcile with nearly a dozen Projections, each an individual shard of that shattered mirror. All reflecting different aspects. Some good, some bad, and some downright ugly.

  As if she didn’t have enough trouble already understanding herself.

  The bundle of fire stepped aside at the tent’s open flap, waving merrily to Violet, and making room for their next guest.

  Apparently Violet was hosting a houseparty. Just one she wasn’t notified of herself . . .

  Refuge’s stone body contrasted against the remnants of light that still flickered in Violet’s eyes. Rivulets of purple were veins running through her stone body, like streams of amethyst cutting through a sculpture of carved rock.

  Blessing and Refuge. Violet’s heart, and her protective side, manifested as fully independent Unbounded. They had been especially useful for escorting missionaries to distant parts of Descent, rallying new forces to join the Talents of the Future. Of course, there was the downside of Violet having to split her own power, her store of bodily Infinity, in order to create the Projections. Two Projections likely wouldn’t have been too costly, but appearing now behind Refuge . . .

  The next two figures were far less humanoid than her first two Projections.

  Ferocity gave Violet a headache just looking at her. The Unbounded was a moving strobe light, like a sun squashed into a hunched back form, and dimmed just enough not to vaporise your eyes. It creeped around on all fours, and was one of her Projections that spoke very little. Usually, only a warcry when charging into battle. It unnerved Violet, and she was forced to wonder how reliably she could control such a feral creature. For now at least, Ferocity, Violet’s anger and pent-up rage manifested into bodily form, carried out her bidding with only a doggish resistance.

  Stepping into view, or perhaps crawling was the better description, was a bundle of chalky white limbs. Mystique manoeuvred around like a tarantula, scrambling from place to place and able to climb even the steepest of surfaces without trouble. Located at the centre of each palm was an amber eye.

  Violet had faced a similar Unbounded with Remus over a Rebirth ago, venturing through a cave system leading into the front lines. It made Violet’s stomach churn to see the monster echoed in herself, or at least in the product of herself. What did that say about her?

  “Alright.” Violet rubbed herself down, becoming increasingly concerned about the very vocal screams she was overhearing. “Is that all of you?”

  Ferocity stood panting in a dark corner of the room, ensuring it would never lack light again. Mystique crawled strangely along the supporting ceiling of the tent, hissing quietly like a disturbed cat. Refuge stood with her arms crossed, and Blessing was doing a little dance, bouncing on the balls of her feet like an excited puppy.

  Then another figure appeared at the tent’s flap. A spear of concentrated Infinity materialised in Violet’s grip, a blast of lightning outside providing the perfect ambiance for a fight to break out. But when she saw who was at the doorway, she let the weapon drop.

  The metal resounded against the stone foundations that lay beneath the silk carpeting. Violet put two hands to her mouth, doing her best not to tremble.

  A little girl stood at the doorway. With her long hazel hair, not yet tied at the side into braids, and two burning coals for eyes. Her lips were a thin line; utterly expressionless.

  The other Projections made way for the young apparition, who was the shortest of them all, barely reaching up to Violet’s own waist.

  The girl clutched onto a teddy-bear with one hand. The bear’s head was sagging at the side, ripped and torn to reveal its cotton flesh, now sinking slowly to the ground below.

  Violet let out a shriek. She couldn’t help it.

  The ghosts of her past had come calling. And now, the writer of that diary, the real Violet, whose body she was merely inhabiting, wanted vengeance. Violet had worked up a great debt by impersonating her all these years, and now the real mortal had come to collect the toll. The real Violet, who had never deserved to die.

  Violet had always scoffed at the idea that there might be an afterlife. There had never been enough evidence to convince her.

  But this ghost, this phantom of the night. It was all the proof in the world compiled in one flesh and blood body.

  Violet’s Mark revved into action. She wasn’t sure what she was about to do, maybe tear apart the tent and run until her legs couldn’t carry her any further, when all five Projections screamed out in tandem.

  “She’s one of us!”

  Violet paused. She laid her eyes on the mirror image of herself — albeit a far younger self — and it was like all the logic of the world returned at once. Combined into one slapping force that swept her across the face.

  How silly could she be? The real Violet was dead! Not here coming to greet her, barely looking like she’d aged a day. Violet had searched every last nook and cranny of the Chaos Clan manor: the bodies of the true members were reduced to ashes. Besides, the entity wasn’t nearly transparent enough to pass as a ghost. Neither did she suspect it was some kind of blood-sucking ghoul.

  Violet’s own body was of a genetic clone, produced by the Life Mark of Warlord Akuji. There wasn’t any ‘debt’ to be paid. Besides, if the real Violet were to ever rise from the dead as a revenge-hungry spirit, which she thought highly unlikely, Violet had already put Nova to rest. Enos was proving much more trickly to dispel, but seeing how even the gods were having trouble dealing with that devil, Violet cut herself some slack.

  So that left only one possibility, reciprocated by the rest of her Unbounded Council.

  This was another Projection.

  The creature reached out a hand, beckoning Violet to shake it. “I’m Repose. Your aspirations stuffed into skin and bone. I have come with some unfortunate news: we are all going to die in agony. Probably.”

  Out of all the forms a monster could possess, from a sinewy mess of tissue and bone, to undulating insects of goo, Violet found this child before her the most terrifying appearance of all.

  My deepest aspirations. Violet thought, pulling herself together for the tenth time that night. What a state she was in. Could that mean . . . her eyes turned back to the memoir on her beside.

  Contained in those pages were the wishes of a little girl. The longing that Violet now inherited. Or perhaps one she had always carried, but could never quite vocalise.

  The ultimate dream for world peace.

  Repose’s words finally landed. “Wait? Die?”

  The humanoid Unbounded nodded. Violet squirmed. Not even the fiends who were God-Graced equivalents, the few of which Violet had faced in battle, had so closely resembled a real person. A consequence of her Projections having a perfect model to work off of, apparently.

  “I’m afraid some of your old enemies are here, and, unless social etiquette has changed without my noticing, they do not appear friendly. Is setting fire to everything in sight a polite greeting in your culture?”

  The shrill noise of howling screams only became louder. Closer. Violet expanded her spiritual senses, every muscle bracing at what she saw.

  The Paladins. Edmar.

  They were more than outnumbered. They were outgunned, outmanoeuvred, and about to face absolute slaughter. Their rebellion had exhausted themselves by training since the crack of dawn, and that gods-forsaken tournament held by the champions — the fools had beaten themselves bloody!

  How long had the Paladins been waiting? How long had the whereabouts of Gold’s Bane been exposed? Violet dreaded to think . . .

  “Why are you all here?” Violet lent forward, her body bulging for a second as pearly white scales spread across her skin. Fiendish talons shot out of her fingertips. “We should be out there, fighting!”

  Violet sprinted towards the tent’s flap, only for multiple sets of hands to hold her in place.

  “Don’t leave now, silly!” Blessing said, her voice like the ringing of bells.

  “What are you doing?” Violet barked. “Don’t you dare try and stop me while people are out there dying!”

  Refuge’s ebony body stood imposingly in Violet’s way. No matter how Violet angled herself, the Projection wouldn’t move an inch. “Think now, master, is this really the pinnacle of your strategising? Dashing straight into battle, guns blazing?”

  “Well, genius.” Violet gritted her teeth, which were now long and pointy. “What do you suggest?

  All at once, a bony smile spread across the lips of each of her Projections.

  Freaky. Violet shivered. Which, considering how she must have looked, was pretty hypocritical.

  Then it hit Violet. She took a step back. “That technique . . . no, no.”

  “Yes.” Refuge bellowed deeply, her belly the heart of a fireplace. “It’s our only option.”

  Repose nodded, pressing the teddy tightly to her chest. “You know what we have to do Violet. There’s only one way we can make up for the difference in numbers.”

  “Creating all of you almost drained me down a few Ranks.” Violet reasoned. “I can’t afford to spread myself anymore thin. It would leave me vulnerable for the killing.”

  “Not if you use the hiding place, sillybilly.” Blessing intervened. “Nobody would be able to find you in that bunker. It's. Our. Little. Secret! You just have to retain enough of your Chaotic power to change locations. Simple.”

  Violet paused. Clever. Very clever. Violet was almost annoyed she hadn’t thought of it herself. Yet, in a way, she had. What were these Projections, after all, if not extensions of herself?

  “Alright.” Violet sighed. Sometimes, she felt like the entire world burdened her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Violet closed her eyes, and then, as if she were a sheet of paper, tore herself into a thousand pieces.

  She felt the power drain away from her. Years of gathering Infinity lost in seconds. It was surreal, to feel as weak as the most lowly Engorged once more. It made all the strength she had accumulated all the more significant. She was exposed in a way that was more than skin-deep. If anyone attacked her tent now, one well-placed blow would be enough to send her entire form scattering. Violet hated the feeling, like a gust of wind would send her scattering.

  This is only a temporary measure. She reminded herself. The rebellion is in danger . . . Remus is in danger. It’s all on my shoulders to make sure that neither breaks. I can’t let him die after doing that to him!

  Ferocity shook like a wet dog, tail wagging as the Projection dashed to a mat on the floor. Dragging it away, a trapdoor was exposed. A simple way of hiding the vacant room that awaited her beneath, but hidden well enough nonetheless.

  Blessing opened the door for Violet, who suddenly felt so terribly tired. Tiny weights must have been dangling from her eyelids, for she couldn’t for the life of her keep them up.

  As Violet crumpled into that dark expanse, a legion birthing out of her, she could only hope it would be enough.

  A bright purple light illuminated the tent.