From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 177
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
"I know how hard it is to trust a secret like yours to anyone," Millie said. "You were protecting someone very important to you. It was an impossible choice."
Ursula pulled away to look Millie in the eye. "You really do understand."
"Aye. They left you alive to shame you, didn't they?"
Ursula nodded.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of. All right? Nothing. You're still here, and so is Gertrud. You can still work to help Helga change things. It takes as much bravery to get back up after you've been knocked down as it does to stand. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes," Ursula said shakily.
"Good. The only shame in a mistake is not learning from it."
Advice Millie was bound and determined to follow herself, as soon as she figured out what to do next.
On the fourth floor of the dormitory the air had gone very still, as though the elements themselves knew not to intrude on the witches who called it home. Not now. Perhaps not ever again.
Victoria's heart had been rent into so many pieces she no longer felt anything, not even Elise, as they remained together on the floor after she had thrashed herself off the bed crying Selene's name. Still encased in witchscale, her hand continued to clutch the heart stone as she flit in and out of consciousness.
The news of the massacre and Selene's kidnapping had been shattering, leaving Ivy a shambling husk as she paced about in front of Elise's window, casting hopeful glances outside at any sound that could portend the miraculous return of her oldest friend.
But there would be no miracles today.
Elise shifted against Victoria, muttering something in French that would have been barely intelligible even if she were fluent.
Victoria held her closer, hoping the movement would be enough without being able to feel pressure. "I have you. You're safe. Ivy and the others are safe. Rest."
It would have been simple enough to levitate them both back onto the bed without any physical effort, but comfort was so far down the list of priorities that it would have been almost disrespectful to give it any sort of concern.
A soft knock on the door preceded Pretoria entering. "How is she?"
"Unchanged," Victoria said softly.
Pretoria nodded, as if it were no surprise. "The Furies have been taken care of, Ivy. Don't worry about it."
"Thank you," the elder witch replied without taking her attention off the airfield.
Taking Elise's reading chair, Pretoria sat down heavily. "The news just broke on the radio. Sketchy on details, of course…" She swiped her nose with the back of a sleeve. "I wish there was something we could do."
"We are here for each other. That is not nothing," Victoria said. "But I understand the sentiment. Are many of the girls returned?"
"Typical Saturday. I don't know how many of them pay attention to the news while they're out and about, but one of them is going to hear about it. We're going to have to tell them something soon," Pretoria said. "And about Alex. Vick, I need you to explain to me why we haven't gone after her with our hair on fire."
"I will inform the girls about Niamh, it is my responsibility," Victoria said. She looked from Pretoria to Ivy to Elise. "But so are you. I believe Alex left of her own choice. That, and present circumstances, are why I have not pursued her. I would ask that you follow suit, for her sake."
Ivy and Pretoria both regarded Victoria as if she had gone insane.
"I know how it sounds." Victoria set her cheek atop Elise's head, grateful for at least being able to feel her hair above the witchscale. She was still present, still human. "So I need you both to trust me right now. My sole priority is Elise, and what has already or may yet be happening to Millie, Katya and Selene. Alex requires extensive explanation, and I will not split my focus, nor abandon my Coven-mates to do so."
Pretoria shifted uncomfortably, flicking her attention between Victoria and Elise. Though she had never developed a Coven of her own, Pretoria had been around Victoria and Katya's enough to understand how deeply such a declaration was felt. A touch on the shoulder from Ivy confirmed it.
"Just tell me she's okay," Pretoria said.
"If I am correct, she is more than 'okay'. If I'm not, then I will answer to Katya."
Either way, it was going to be true, Victoria thought. What was already one of the darkest days in EVE's history wasn't yet over, and even when it finally ended and Katya returned home, Victoria was going to have to make it worse.
She couldn't be wrong.
"Tonight we stay together, wait for news and take questions as they come, if the girls have any. The morning will bring clarity, one way or another."
"What makes you so certain?" Pretoria asked.
"Because if Selene is not recovered alive before then, we will be able to see what happens to Germany from here."
As nightfall approached, the house no longer felt like a crime scene. Already it felt like a hallowed place, removed from time even though only a few hours had passed since the massacre. The stillness within was unnatural, as if the blood of the dead had consecrated itself by absorbing every sign of life.
Yet it still reeked of death.
The bodies had all been removed, save one. Candles burned instead of witchlights, the flickering yellow flames casting false movement on Niamh's still features as she lay on a bed upstairs.
Katya shifted in a seat beside it. The blood on her clothes had dried, leaving them stiff. Niamh's blood. She couldn't bring herself to change. Not yet. Until they got word of what might have happened to Selene, Katya was unwilling to take even the first step of moving on from this waking nightmare.
Millie was sat with her elbows on her knees, hands dangling. Her copper mane hung between her legs, hiding her face, but her shoulders were rising and falling in great swells as she was tossed about by the emotions buffeting her. "The only reason I came on this trip was to protect you. But when the moment arrived, I saved Helga. Niamh had to do my job, and now she's dead. Killed by a bullet I wouldn't have even noticed. You would both be alive."
"You saved Helga. If you and Niamh had switched places, it's likely they would have both been killed. Am I worth that? Niamh and Germany's future?" Katya didn't shake her head so much as snap it back and forth in violent denial. "I already know the answer."
"Horseshit. Don't you dare start talking like that," Millie said, eyes a baleful green as they bore into Katya across the body of her dead mentor. "She was willing to be branded, scarred, tortured, beaten and stabbed for the sake of complete strangers for centuries, and you want to talk about how you aren't worthy of what she did for you? She adored you, and knew the risks in coming here. She died doing what she was good at, for the sake of a friend. We should all be so lucky to go that way."
To that, Katya had no response but to bunch up her trousers in her fists and shake with the injustice of the fact that Millie was right.
"Kat… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."
"You needn't apologise. It has been a day of impossible choices."
Millie shook her head, her face vanishing behind her hair again. "This is Inga all over again," she said quietly, her voice muffled. "I jumped on someone and lived. She died. It's the same goddamn thing."
Somehow, Katya found the energy to stand, and she went to Millie's side. "That's what your Manifest is for. So you can live to do it again."
"While everyone around me is killed. Since I Manifested, I've only had two… partners… in this, and they're both dead."
Katya swallowed, a loud, obtrusive sound in the reverent stillness. "Don't think like that. None of us are strangers to losing loved ones. It's…" she blew out a long breath of exhaustion and resignation, "…a familiar cycle."
"Aye. It is that."
Millie sat up straighter, her swollen green eyes locked on the body before her. "She was more a mother than the woman who birthed me. And a friend. She showed me my potential. Made me live up to it." The ghost of a smile knew brief life on her lips before it returned to the aether. "Pushed me to tell Elise how I felt about her. I don't have her without Niamh. I'm not… me… without her. God, Kat, what am I going to do now?"
Tears struggled against Millie's self-discipline, holding tenaciously to the corners of her eyes, the emeralds within softening with doubt.
Katya had given in to her tears hours ago, and let slip enough for both of them. "Get Selene back. Grieve. Go home to your wife. Live. In that order. Can you feel her?"
"Aye. She's here," Millie said, fingers curled around her heart stone. "And I'm there, as much as I can be."
"Exactly. Hold on to her. We have each other still. I swear I will make my life worthy of her sacrifice, Millie. And I know you will, too."
A long silence stretched, the silence that only appeared in the presence of the dead. The stillness that comes with reverence gripped the two who yet lived as they each contemplated the deeds and years of the one who did not.
"I knew this day could come. I thought I was ready," Millie said.
Katya shook her head. "We're never ready."
"400 years… in a split second." Millie drew in a long, shuddering breath. "And all the others cut short, too."
At least three more civilians had succumbed to their injuries since they'd returned, and Katya was sure that number would climb. For as much as she was given to fretting over the coming centuries of her life, the speed with which everything had happened was sobering; a prism that refracted all of her concerns into horrifying new shades, and made her resent more than ever the years that her mental captivity had continued long after she'd escaped the physical one. She had done her very best, but it was still stolen time.
Katya knew only too well that stress and grief twisted thinking in strange, unpredictable ways, while at the same time lending them a clarity that never seemed to come at any other moment. Niamh's sacrifice could not be in vain, and Katya would live up to her word.
From the open window there came the rustle of feathers, and Millie looked up to the oak tree just outside. "Oh, look. Vickie's here."
Katya turned to see in the branch closest to them a sleek raven, shining black eyes peering at them with keen intelligence. It barely blinked, regarding the witches a moment before it croaked once and hopped onto the windowsill.
When it looked at Niamh, it inclined its head in what eerily resembled a bow. Though Katya knew the association ravens had with death, she made no move to shoo it away. It wasn't waiting for anything, only seeming to want nothing more than to join them.
When Helga appeared in the doorway, it didn't so much as flinch, regarding the interloper with what Katya instinctively read as approval.
Helga, for her part, treated the black bird like she'd expected it to be there. Though the light from the candles was dim, Katya would have sworn she looked at it when she addressed the room. "We have confirmed where Selene was taken." The breath she drew was ragged with emotion her Manifest was powerless to hide. "As we feared, she is being held at Badensburg, along with Gertrud and possibly one other witch. But they won't stay there for long. Hitler is far from his power base, and has suffered grievously," Helga finished with a twisted amalgam of satisfaction and revulsion.
As far as Katya was concerned, the price had been too high for mere 'suffering'.
"Then if we want her back, we have to go now," Millie said, pushing herself to her feet with every ounce of weight those words implied.
Green fire smouldered in Helga's eyes, burning away all trace of doubt, leaving behind crystals forged from pure, righteous determination. "Yes. We do. We will. For the ones we lost today, and the ones that evil place has already taken. By the grace of God, the Red Knight and the Firebird, it will have no-one else."
Katya shared a look with Millie. "You're going with us?"
With every bit of presence Helga could summon, she looked Millie straight in the eye. "No. For the sake of the movement, I cannot."
Had the raven been the Raven, the room would have been instantly encased in frost, but the intensity with which Millie looked at Helga almost accomplished the same thing.
But the German diva was used to public judgment, and acknowledged Millie's with an incline of her head. Then she went to the window and guided their attention to the street.
Outside, behind a wall of flowers and candles, was an army.
"The people of Germany will."
Millie hadn't had much opportunity to venture very deeply into EVE's library, but she could still say with certainty that there had never before been an occasion where witches had led a torch-bearing mob.
Until today.
Nazi tactics had left many Germans fearful and willing to let the winds of change blow by as they would, but the attack at the rally had finally filled the sails of the peaceful majority and sent them into the streets. The tempest that had blown up swept through the quiet tourist town, gaining strength as it moved, fed house by house, block by block, changing it into a locus for something that Millie could feel without needing to be able to speak a word of German. Though she and Kat were foreigners, their blood had stained the streets of their city as well, and it was all of their blood being held captive.
"They are not who we are," Ursula said. Clear-eyed and determined, she walked with conviction between Millie and Kat. "They have shamed all of Germany for long enough, and I will be complicit no more. Niamh will be remembered alongside Ilse and every other German who was murdered today."
Millie blinked away the prickles at the corners of her eyes. Ursula had been outed in the most tragic way possible, and now wore her love for Gertrud plainly on her face as she led the force that would take her back. She was unarmed aside from her voice, but for women having been robbed of even that for so long, it was more powerful than any blade or firearm.
She had found her bravery.
"Thank you," Millie said.
Helga had stayed behind to protect her sisters and the APP, and because someone running in peaceful opposition to the NSDAP was probably better served politically by not joining a mob against them, especially when there would have been overwhelming cries that she lead it.
Kat walked in silence, her face set as though it had been carved that way. Her thoughts were unreadable, while Millie's were a jumble.
Her fury had transcended shouting, crying or throwing things. It was a white-hot ball of energy so dense that it kept her from doing much of anything other than putting one foot in front of the other, taking her closer and closer to the ones who had killed Niamh. Despite there being a plan, she had no idea how she would react if she so much as caught a glimpse of anyone who had been at the massacre. Niamh had taught Millie to not react rashly, to temper her temper.
But Niamh was gone. And so could Selene easily be if Millie failed to act. Or acted the wrong way. The idea that both of them could be taken on the same day by the same people, right out from under Millie's nose, was a thought she couldn't bear to contemplate. She was the guardian, the protector. To lose two people who meant so much, who had shaped and guided her into the woman she was, and cousins to one another at that, was something she didn't know if she could ever recover from.
Then there was Kat. Millie's primary responsibility, now marching to lay siege to a castle full of violent fascists. The second-most powerful witch in the world, maybe history, whose limits were unknown because they'd never been tested. If a witch was nothing without her feelings, then they were everything with them, and the ones coursing through Millie and Kat now were enough to make the night itself cower away to let them pass in the light of their own making.
Millie clutched her heart stone and felt it warm to her touch. Elise was there, in the back of her mind, which meant Millie was in the back of Elise's. She was trying to stay calm, to not give her beloved reason to worry more than she already was. Elise knew Millie better than anyone, including what she might do without anyone to hold her back. As much as she could, she tried to convey to Elise that she was holding her back. Elise had long ago quenched much of Millie's hot-headedness, the kinds of reactions that led to broken ribs and the scar on her shoulder.
Millie was the product of over a thousand years of life experience and the deepest, most profound bond it was possible to have with another human being, and tonight would draw on every second of it. She owed it to those who had formed her and to those she loved that she got it right.
Selene would go home, and so would Kat. That was all that mattered, and so with a silent whisper to her wife, Millie kept her eyes forward and her head up as she marched forth into the night.
Built into the top of a hill nestled amongst the tall, dark pines of the Black Forest, Badensburg was a castle from a fairy tale. Compact and vertical, a single, stout tower was surrounded by lower, angular buildings meant to shrug off the heaviest of snowfalls. Nestled behind a high wall, the only entrance that Katya could see was a door of weathered metal over twice her own height. It let out onto a stone bridge that spanned from the base of the castle over a ravine to the top of the next hill. Had she come upon it another time, she might have called it picturesque, even purchased a postcard to send home to Vita.
Tonight it was a nightmare version from another world.
From the highest walls dripped blood-red banners emblazoned with swastikas. Lit by orange, sulphuric light, the entire complex looked like it was burning from within, a baleful, hellish vision that spoke of just who was occupying a structure that would have otherwise have spent its life hosting weddings.
Katya and most of the crowd came to a less substantial gate at the end of the bridge, while the rest fanned out over the surrounding hills to make their presence, and numbers, known. After nearly 2,000 years, the Black Forest once again echoed with the sound of the German people come to put an end to tyranny.
Then, it had been the legions of Rome. Now it was a knot of thugs in a stolen castle.
"You're sure they're all in there?" Katya asked Ursula. Inasmuch as an impromptu crowd bent on mob justice could have a leader, she'd made herself one in the name of the woman she loved.
