'You can finally take revenge,' a voice boomed inside her. 'Destroy all the evil—'
'And everyone else who didn't deserve this fate?' The other one, the voice of reason asked.
Stella had no answer or any sensible thought of her own.
She didn't even know where she was, looking at the world from above.
Not flying, but—standing above creation itself, watching it waste away underneath.
"What am I doing?" she whispered, even as she dropped gigantic icicles. They crushed skeletal buildings down below. As if someone else did it—she could only scream in protest.
Her voice was strange, too.
It had no echoes—nothing to bounce against in the sky.
Everything was hollow, herself included, but the question didn't hang in the air for long.
'You wipe them off the face of this world,' the first voice reminded. 'The murderers of your family. The corrupt Church, the people who sided with them.'
'Not like that would bring your parents back—'
No. There was nothing that could do that.
They burned to ashes before her eyes, and she couldn't do anything.
She tried, she rampaged—but all it did was tire her out.
When she woke up, their murderer took her in. And while she didn't understand what happened back then, or even now, she knew one thing. It was all pointless.
'It's not. You can destroy Otto as well,' the angry voice offered.
'Look how many you have killed already. They had nothing to do with your suffering,' the other replied as she recognized the place. Halaima—or what remained of it.
It was very different now, white, frozen over, barren, and ruined.
All that by her hands alone.
"No," she screamed again, holding her head.
With all the voices arguing, two main ones had risen above the rest.
Her rage and the reason.
Yes. Those voices were a part of her. Not the spirits promising guidance.
Her own grief and regret.
"I didn't want to kill. Not even Otto," she cried out, reaching for the ground. It was far away now, shrinking with every second, and all the people down there looked like ants.
Which meant—there were people down there.
'They no longer qualify as such,' her anger snickered. Its laughter was laden with schadenfreude. 'Yes, you gave them a spark and the ability to move, but that's it.'
"What?" she demanded, her heart beating faster than ever. "That's impossible."
'You tried to undo the damage you have caused,' the other voice tried to calm her.
'It worked out great, if you ask me,' the rage laughed instead. It was clear that even her own thoughts mocked her. All the while, she had no recollection of anything.
Or any idea how to stop.
The ice kept creeping up around her, and she threw the frozen crystals away with all her hatred. Buildings crumbled, people died while screaming—or in complete silence, frozen.
She raised their fallen bodies, but couldn't give their lives back.
How long had this cycle gone on? How did she stop it?
"You need to calm down," a new voice joined the cacophony, more tangible than the rest. It didn't come from her twisted, broken mind. "Only when you find peace will the cycle stop."
Stella spun around on her precarious ice tower to see a familiar face.
Konrad Ostfeld, the Prodigy.
Her first reaction—or of whatever moved her limbs—was to strike him down with an icicle.
She hated him more than anything.
A man coming from nowhere, having nobody, and now he was a noble, loved by the people.
He caused her master so many headaches. How did he dare to stand against the same Church that crushed her will? How could he gain everything she had lost?
The icicle must've missed, the silhouette remaining.
She prepared for the inevitable, but no strike ever came. He didn't seem angry, either.
Despite all the hurt she had caused him.
"I'm not here to punish," he said, as if reading her mind.
And when she blinked, she was no longer on her tower of ice.
She was in a room—familiar, cozy, but vague—filled with children's toys.
Laughter. Warmth. A mother who didn't look like hers at all—no, she looked exactly like her.
Still, it was all somehow comforting. Something drowned out the voices inside her head.
A white noise that made her sleepy.
"I completely lost my mind," she sighed into the strange scene. She hugged the she-mother and a father who also looked too much like her. He had a beard and short blonde hair.
Ridiculous. His father never had one, and looked so much different, but—
She accepted their comfort, for now.
Until the angry voice returned.
'He's playing with you,' it boomed. 'It's an illusion so he can sneak up on you.'
That much was obvious; it was Konrad's speciality after all.
But she was going to die anyway. Might as well die with a family he created for her.
Stella Nord, the Church's executioner, the destroyer of Halaima.
The Inquisitor's unwanted servant. A necromancer.
If they ever found out in the capital, they would've sent a bishop to finish her off. There was no escape. She sank way too deep, and she didn't want to reach for the surface anymore.
'The spirits always had a role for you,' the voice she thought was her reason claimed.
"Who cares about them?" she screamed, lashing out one last time, and her flying icicles destroyed the illusion. The comfort was gone. The cold returned, and she was back in the sky.
Below her was a world that had no place for her, but still wanted to use her.
"Who ever cared about me?" she cried, grasping at nothing, trying to bring the illusion back.
But it was too late. Like with those dead soldiers.
She might've moved them like they were dolls, but whatever she destroyed was gone for good. What if she even killed the Prodigy in her blind rage? She didn't see him anymore.
There was a broken pillar near her, made of earth and crumbling.
A dull piece of armor that she recognized as adamantite.
Wasn't Konrad wearing something like that? It was now falling from the sky, so—
"I killed him, too," she sniffled. "He might've been my last chance for—"
"For what?" his voice asked, and she spun again.
"R-redemption," Stella muttered. How crazy could she get?
She faced the Prodigy of Haiten himself, leaping across from another pillar.
'Fight him, he's going to—'
She shut the voices down, reaching towards him. She helped him steady himself, almost pulling Konrad into a hug. She felt his warmth again, less intense than before, but still there.
Like when he broke her bracelet.
"I don't have the power to redeem anyone," he said, taking her hand with force. With actual weight. He was real, not an illusion, no matter how surreal this seemed. "But I promise to help."
That's when Stella noticed it. The cold beyond his warmth, creeping up.
Strings, crystallized, biting into her wrists.
And the familiar dread when she recognized the silver bracelet.
Another betrayal? Or her judgment? She couldn't fight against it now, even if she wanted to—
But Konrad's voice remained steady.
"There," he whispered, holding her. "Now you should be back in control. Everything's all right."