The Ruler's Rift

The Other Side of Snow

Celeste couldn't visit Nova or Lucy in her current state. Her home tugged at her, opening its arms like a grandmother and offering the warmest of comforts. It had no ulterior motives like Nova and no desperation like Lucy.

In a burst of magic, Celeste stepped foot into snow. Moonlight rained down above from twin crescents; the pale glow felt powerful on the demon's horns - a strange yet noticeable difference. She buttoned her cloak tight as bitter wind attacked.

"It feels different here..." she muttered into the blizzard. Dark impulses weighed heavier than before, as if her sense for magic had amplified. Celeste huffed; a cloud like smoke puffing into the winter. She looked down at the blank snow which surely hid treasures under its canvas. Although the outer realm of Mystearlia glittered with beautiful white, the inside promised far more tempting secrets.

Somehow, she knew what to do. Only the most bloodthirsty demons were welcome in the depths.

Her eyes lit up with magic. The energy spiraled up her horns, tuned to perfect potency. Hair and cloak billowing in the unforgiving wind, Celeste raised her hand out to the world.

Rumbles shot through the land. Mystearlia groaned like a hungry stomach. A wound split upon the ground before Celeste - a tunnel into the unknown. The sorceress looked down into the scab she'd opened in her world. Its depths hid under a veil of darkness, and nothing more than cold, icy dirt looked back.

Celeste lowered her hand whilst magic flickered out. She marched to the open wound, no wider than a door but surely deeper than any ocean. She couldn't explain. One way or another, the demon bore no doubts descending the tunnel. Frosty soil crunched under her boots as she walked deeper, the narrow beam of light from the surface dimming with each step. Every wall was composed of mere dirt, an icy sheen coating all as it should. Cold prospered in snow and soil for countless footsteps.

For an hour did Celeste plunge, in a primal trance, until warmth flecked her skin. Not welcoming heat from a campfire but moist, suffocating heat from bodies and labor - it saturated the deep, dark tube she trekked. It billowed from below. Where many would fear, Celeste desired. She went farther, lighting her hand with magic.

The demon bit her lip and licked her teeth as she descended. Hotter and stuffier did the tunnel become. Dirt traded frost for moisture. The loose and crumbly earth that had crunched under the mage's boots now squished. She looked down and, with the glow of her magic, saw hints of red among the soil. Kicking up the ground brought more liquid out. The world bled.

But the planet didn't dwell on small wounds. It hurried its child in, and Celeste listened. Hours melted together until a golden-red glow shone from the deep. Cautious but eager, Celeste went to it - a gluttonous moth to delicious flame.

Out the mouth of the tunnel, Celeste stepped into an oven. She opened her eyes to the heat and her lungs to the burning of flesh and steel. The expanse before her stretched farther than her eyes allowed. It may as well have been its own world. Caverns so wide and deep bore stalactites larger than skyscrapers. Molten liquid, golden like riches and red like blood, veined through the earthy mesas and caves.

Celeste knew no words here. Her mind comprehended no more than evil and temptations. Each breath she took reeked of countless lives. Different bloods marbled in the pits which glowed like fire. Celeste approached the edge and looked down. Far into the crevices bubbled lakes of blood. It had been heated to a molten consistency, churning and brewing, and Celeste fought every urge to bathe in it. "This place..." She finally muttered. Her pathetic rasp battled against the roar of Mystearlia to be heard.

Blue eyes scanned the right of the underground furnace. There, buried in the veins of magma, hung corpses. Many were crumbled bones but several wore the remains of their skin.

She knew that was the mere introduction. Buried in the dirt lay thousands or millions of bodies, and the pits of blood and magma held even more beneath their surface.

Why did she love it so much? She trembled with uncertainty and joy, then turned her gaze to the left of the impossibly huge caverns. These depths were more than nature. Tall monoliths and temples proved that. Structures that towered, dwarfed all, fused into the masses of dirt and flesh. Regal yet grim, they depicted torture and pleasure like sisters. Piles of skeletons acted as foothills for several such structures, and Celeste made her way to them.

She reached the mountains of bones and her arrogant posture wilted. The skulls bore horns and fangs. Many lay woven together as if in some lewd act at death.

Tears came, yet instantly turned to steam. "No..." Celeste whispered. A lie would have been more comforting. She truly was the last one. Not even here did Mystearlians survive the Boofbamians' machine.

She collapsed at the edge of the bones. They could not speak to their demonic sister. Yet if they had, they would understand her. They'd empathize with her hunger and they would relish in lust and gluttony as she did. They wouldn't judge. They weren't pathetic, gullible wastes of skin. She blinked out more steam.

As if there remained any hope for the skeletons, Celeste leaned down and touched her horn to the small horn of one skull. She felt not a spark of magic in the keratin or the bone. Death had taken them epochs ago.

Celeste spent so much time admiring the horns of the fallen Mystearlians, small as they may be compared to her own, that she only just noticed their spines. Her eyes widened, for bony growths were fused to vertebra between the shoulder blades. Each skeleton's growths varied in disfigurement, but they shared a horrifying trait.

They all were the front of a skull.

Despite the heat, Celeste's insides froze. Some growths had two eye sockets, others only one. Some boasted a twisted jaw and various teeth, but they all were some mutated form of a skull's face. The cranium itself was absent, but cheekbones, brow ridges, eye sockets, jaw and teeth - there they lay, fused into the spine.

With facial bones present, Celeste trembled. Every one of these Mystearlians, in their life, had a twisted face upon their back.

Celeste looked out at the sea of burning blood; oily and hotter than any sun to be sure. Memories bubbled up inside her, memories of her aunt tormenting her and using her for her infernal power. How just and joyful it'd be to push Amber into the melting pot. The thought of her drowning and boiling brought a fanged grin to Celeste's face. "I'm the queen and she would treat me like that..." she whispered.

No, she was but a princess then, and she would remain such until her coronation. She stood tall and proud, beholding the fire and flesh. Hot, orange light illuminated her devilishly beautiful features. She wanted to restore this forgotten hell. Someday, people would writhe in the blood, roast in the flames, and they would contort against themselves in the ground like rabbits sealed in a burrow.