To Rule The Zones, 16/?. NC-17. (original) (raw)

Title: To Rule The Zones (Edge of Dawn Sequel)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: The Wizard of Oz belongs to Frank Baum and all of the modifications belong to SciFi.
Rating: NC-17 for language and lovingly rendered sex.
Pairing: DG/Cain, Azkadellia/OMCx2
Warnings: This takes place after the SciFi movie and after my story "The Edge of Dawn." This does refer to events occurring within that story, so you need to read that one first.
Summary: DG wanted to start a war with Lurlaine in the Mirror Zone. Little did she realize that it would lead to a war in the OZ as well...

Prior chapters can be found here.

When the golems smashed through the palace in the heart of the Dawn Sanctuary, Queen Lurlaine couldn't help but notice what was going on. The skirmishes at the periphery of her realm were easy to ignore, but this was not.

Ozma was locked safely in her room, fast asleep. She would stay that way for days yet; the foolish girl had lost her locket somewhere years ago, and it had contained a fragment of her original soul. Without it, her regenerative powers were much slower than it used to be, so that she slept for days on end after Lurlaine siphoned off her magic instead of bouncing back by the next day. It was just as well; Lurlaine no longer had to try to entertain her addled niece or put up with her nattering about idiotic things.

Lurlaine's lips curled as she took in the skirmishes all around the borders of the Sanctuary, all the different creatures rising up at once to fight. There were trolls and Wheelers and Nightwalkers and various clans of humanoid descent fighting her fairies, and the shadows in her land seemed thicker and more ominous somehow. They will not frighten me, she thought, moving away from the window.

The fact that creatures had made it this close to her home was troubling. The shifting regions usually kept anyone from making any coordinated attacks. These skirmishes were all well coordinated, all orchestrated and were cutting a swath through her forces. Her forces had grown soft over the millennia, too confident that fear of Lurlaine would keep them all safe from outsiders. Even Lurlaine had grown somewhat soft; the last outsiders to the Sanctuary had been Ozma's guests a hundred or so years before, and they had done absolutely nothing.

Seers had said that arrogance and missing the details in things would lead to her undoing. A shiny bauble lost in time will be the final key to destroying your kingdom, the seer had said before Lurlaine had her eyes put out. You won't even know it's gone until the end comes for you, the seer had continued, and then Lurlaine had ordered her tongue cut out.

Lurlaine had killed the seer after that point, had drawn in the woman's entire life force and magic, wrapping it around herself. Lurlaine knew the truth in the words, knew with absolute certainty that the woman hadn't lied or distorted the truth the way some seers did.

Lurlaine's rule was about to end.

***

Large chunks of the central palace were demolished, and Lissa drew back her lips in a grimace of a smile. Azkadellia's storm clouds cast thick shadows over it, and she let the Nightwalkers head forward, glutting themselves on the blood and marrow and flesh of the fae coming forward out of the palace. On other sides of the palace, the Wheelers, trolls, and humanoid clans were closing in and heading for the areas already destroyed by the rampaging golems. They were stupid creatures, still stomping and moving around without clear purpose. But they destroyed very well, and immense parts of the palace were without protection. They couldn't feel pain from fire, arrow or sword, and the golems kept walking about in large, lazy circles, flattening everything in their path. The Unseelie forces knew to keep out of the way, could see the circles for what they were. Most of the Seelie forces couldn't see past their own little swatches of space, and didn't have the advantage of knowing the full plan.

They were closing in on the palace, all of them, and Lissa found herself close to the leader of the Thieves' Guild. "Page," she hissed. "Where are your men?"

Partly covered in blood, the thief turned to look at her. "The forest we passed through... There were creatures that came down and ate us. The Shadow Brigade said they were mobats, but no mobat, no matter how feral, could do something like that."

Lissa nodded. "We'll need your men inside the palace."

"But the Lady Delia..."

Really, the man's infatuation with her was silly. "Is mated to her satisfaction, fool," Lissa snapped, shaking her head. "We need your men inside, killing the guards that remain. We need you to do what you do best: be a thief."

"What am I stealing, then?" he sneered at her, tucking one of his knives back into his belt. "A trinket of some kind? A shiny bauble for your table?"

"With any luck," Lissa replied haughtily, "Lurlaine herself."

Lissa didn't wait for Page's reply, but went back toward her own people. She wasn't expecting Page to do anything that she herself wasn't willing to do. They had a castle to destroy and a Queen to depose.

***

Azkadellia certainly understood the protective urges that Callan and Della had toward her, but really, it was silly after a certain point. Here they were, the three of them alone in a pink travel bubble, and they were lecturing her on how to defend herself. They seem to have forgotten the Longcoat and Resistance fighters the Sorceress had taken in, that she had their skills at her disposal as well as the magic from her other selves. But she also understood their protective urges, the feeling that they were useless in the Mirror Zone. So she let them lecture her, nodding in all the right places and making all the appreciative noises they needed to hear. They plucked the memories to the forefront, at least. She didn't think that Lurlaine would do anything on a physical level, but she was prepared for it.

The castle was in ruins, smoking in some places and strewn with bodies in others. Some part of her nearly broke to see it. Our home, her other Practitioner selves moaned in dismay. That was our home once upon a time, we lived there. I still remember where my rooms were.

Thousands of years of history, demolished carelessly in less than day.

They arrived near the Ventra, though none of that mattered now. The forces had been an eerily effective ring around the Dawn Sanctuary, closing in tighter and tighter until they had come upon the castle itself. Many of the forces were inside, neck and neck with the palace guard.

I call you, Lurlaine of the Dawn Sanctuary, Azkadellia began in the Old Speech, feeling the magic move through her and around her. Both of her tin men stepped back instinctively as an invisible wind seemed to ruffle through her. I call on you, Lurlaine, sister of Elaine, daughter of Titania, granddaughter of Ataio. I call on you, and you must answer me.

It was a furious thing, the pull of magic in her blood. She thought it would boil in her veins, rendering her dead on the spot. But the Practitioners within her exulted at the feel of it, the sheer sensation of unadulterated magic. We are home, they sang inside her head. At last, at last, we are where we belong.

A bubble seemed to rise from the smoking ruins of the castle. Instead of pink it was a pale lavender, just a shade more blue than the lavender of Azkadellia's mother's eyes. Her heart seized at the sight of it for an impossible moment. Mother? she thought, but pushed it aside. It was silly. Her mother wasn't here. Her mother was just where she belonged, back in the OZ with DG at her side. Azkadellia was the one that didn't belong there anymore.

The bubble dissolved when it touched the ground in front of Azkadellia. Lurlaine was standing there, swathed in her full glory. Azkadellia could feel her deep anger and resentment as if it was a physical thing; the tin men each took a further step back instinctively. It was only their tie to Azkadellia that kept them from running in abject fear.

Azkadellia looked at Lurlaine in displeasure. "Your glamour won't work on me, Lurlaine," she said, annoyed. She could feel Callan and Della's terror in the back of her mind, and she reached out and yanked on the terrible glamour enchanting Lurlaine's visage.

It slid from her easily, something that Lurlaine hadn't expected.

Now Lurlaine looked like herself. Before, she seemed otherworldly, eerily fae. She had long blonde hair that flowed in a straight wave from her head to her waist, held back by an ornate gold filigree crown. Her crystal blue eyes held no expression. She wore a simple white gown belted at the waist with a thick gold belt encrusted with jewels, and seemed impossibly young. Now her hair didn't seem to shine as bright, her blue eyes not as sharp and she didn't seem quite as young as she had before. There was nothing specific to point to, nothing more than a feeling, but she wasn't quite as eerie as before. Her expression was not as flat as it was before. There was almost a glimmer of fear in her eyes.

"Who are you?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "What are you?"

Cliara. Aliana. Azkadellia. Three-in-one.

But Azkadellia smiled without mirth, her expression one of barely controlled fury. "I am Lady Delia of the Silver Enclave. I've come for Ozma."

The glimmer of fear became full blown alarm. "That's impossible!" Lurlaine said, holding her hands out in a warding gesture. A whirlwind of air shot out, but it died down mere inches away from Azkadellia's face. "This cannot be!"

Azkadellia slammed her ebony walking staff down to the ground in front of her, the emerald at its top shining in the dim light from the overcast sky. Lurlaine flinched at the sight of it, hands still caught in that same warding sign. No wind came forth, not even a faint fluttering breeze to ruffle Azkadellia's hair.

The Practitioners caught within her laughed at Lurlaine's disquiet. Oh, how the mighty have fallen indeed, Cliara whispered with awful glee. Make her hurt, Aliana whispered in a voice like broken glass. Make her feel what we did.

There was something awful in Azkadellia's eyes, and Lurlaine shook her head at it. "Lady Delia is dead. She and the rest of the Silver Enclave are all dead. You're in imposter!"

The emerald seemed to glow, and Azkadellia's eyes carried the weight of magic throughout the millennia. It was a terrible kind of knowledge; her eyes were old, old, impossibly old even though the face containing them were young. They were the eyes of a creature that saw the rise and fall of entire civilazations, the eyes of a creature that brought death and destruction to a world for the sheer malicious joy of it.

"Your lies end this day, Lurlaine, false queen of the Dawn. This was not your land to rule, and those were not your people to kill," Azkadellia said, her voice ringing clear through the stillness around the two Practitioners.

Lurlaine's lips curled into something like a sneer. She was afraid, but she would not simply stand aside. "You'd have me stand aside for an idiot child?" she scoffed. "This land is better for me ruling it. I've brought peace and prosperity and order, and she simply flits through the harmony I've created."

"You bought that peace with the blood of your kin and the innocent," Azkadellia intoned, feeling the magic rising within her. It was almost a presence in its own right, as if at any moment her physical body would fly apart and her magic would be let loose upon the world around her. She could feel Callan and Della's fear and concern and love in the back of her mind. That grounded her, that kept her from losing control. That control was tenuous, and it was as if she was holding on by her fingernails.

"There were no innocents," Lurlaine hurled back, fingers moving to create hand signs. "There were only traitors to the crown!"

Weaving. She was trying to weave magic around Azkadellia.

But the threads couldn't move past the ebony staff and the glow of its emerald. Ine'che had given the staff to Azkadellia, knowing only it was a defensive staff. She had thought it would help her walk around the castle, had thought it would keep her safe in the OZ. But emerald magic was ancient, powerful magic, and it also defended Azkadellia from thread magic.

"You were a traitor to your people and a traitor to your family. You have let greed and pride rule you, and you have stolen lives that were not yours to take." Azkadellia could feel the magic push against her skin, as if she was glowing from the inside out. Perhaps she was, by the look of abject horror on Lurlaine's face.

"This is not your place to condemn me!" Lurlaine snarled at Azkadellia. "One imposter cannot name me one, and you cannot destroy me!"

"I name you, Lurlaine of the Dawn, youngest daughter of Titania," Azkadellia began. The locket around her neck burned with a cold fire, and it was slowly lifting up and out of her bodice. The burnished gold was glowing, the O and Z clearly inscribed on its surface. "I name you as traitor to blood, stealing the very life from Ozma and condemning your cousins to a fate worse than death." Azkadellia felt her hand lift, pointing at Lurlaine in the very center of her forehead as the fairy queen stared at her locket in horror. "And for the third time, I name you Lurlaine of the Dawn, daughter of Titania. I name you as the orchestrator in the deaths of countless souls, fae and mortal alike, the direct cause of destruction against the innocent people of the very land your mother gave her life to save."

Lurlaine seemed so helpless on her own, no glamour swathing her figure or guards to back her up. The quiet menace that DG had experienced had been completely replaced by fear. "What are you?" she whispered, eyes welling up with tears. "Please, tell me. What are you?"

Three times she asked, and that compelled her to answer.

"I command ice and water and air," Azkadellia began, the words falling from her lips unbidden. She could feel the press of magic against her skin, and she felt close to bursting with it. Hold on, Cliara whispered. I've got you, Aliana crooned softly.

And there was Callan, struggling to rise from where he had fallen. You're not leaving me, Delia, he thought, unable to get the words past his lips. I'm not ready to let you go just yet. Della couldn't raise his head, couldn't see past the hazy glow surrounding them. Take her down, Delia, he told her, voice quiet and steady as if he was standing right beside her. Make the bitch pay and end this.

"I am Cliara and Aliana of the White Wave. I am Azkadellia of the Outer Zone. I am the Three-in-One and I condemn you for your crimes against your people."

Before Lurlaine could even react, Azkadellia reached forward and grasped Lurlaine tightly. Her hands closed around Lurlaine's dainty neck, thumbs pressed tight against her windpipe. The ebony staff hovered to Azkadellia's right, but Lurlaine couldn't reach out to touch it. Her fingers slid over empty air, and she reached up to try and draw Azkadellia's hands away from her throat. But her fingers couldn't find purchase, as if slipping over ice that held a thin sheen of moisture over it. Her lungs burned with the force of the breath she couldn't release, the magic swirling up tight within her that she couldn't use.

And then Azkadellia breathed in. Deeply.

The magic was ripped from her soul like a tangible thing, the floating locket pressed right up against her sternum and burning Lurlaine.

In horror, Lurlaine saw every last spell thread and soul ripped from its moorings within her, floating like a halo around Azkadellia's head. She dove in deeply, rending and shredding every last knot and loop and whorl, a flurry of threads in her wake.

Like a cloud, Ozma's magic hovered above them, growing larger and larger as Azkadella drove deeper down into Lurlaine's tattered soul. The locket continued to burn through Lurlaine, making an easy entry point for Azkadellia's lurid work.

When Lurlaine was reduced down to nothing – only Lurlaine, no magic, no extra bits of soul, nothing left but the virgin soul she had been born with – she felt like such a tiny insignificant thing, easily broken in Azkadellia's grip.

But Azkadellia let go and watched dispassionately as Lurlaine collapsed at her feet. The locket around her neck rose up to meet the swirling cloud that was Ozma's soul, collected several thousand times over. The loose, random bits of thread were gone; Azkadellia had effortlessly woven the lost pieces into herself even as she had shredded them out of Lurlaine. Some of the loose pieces knew that they belonged elsewhere, and floated on the magical winds to look for the original soul. Azkadellia let those go. But the lost bits, the fragile tattered pieces that belonged to dead bodies and fractured minds were kept.

Lurlaine looked up at Azkadellia, sobbing, hands at her mouth. "You can't leave me like this."

"You have no more magic. You can't harm anyone else now."

"You can't leave me like this!" Lurlaine screeched.

"You're mortal," Azkadellia murmured, feeling the strain of the old magic within her. She felt close to collapse herself, and it was only the solid presence of Callan and Della behind her that kept her upright. "You're like everyone else now. Not eternal, not all powerful. Mortal."

"This is not possible..."

Azkadellia could fell the magic start to subside, slowly, reluctantly. The others were all around, drawn in by the bright light and the glowing halo above her. They were watching Lurlaine with large eyes and silent mouths, gawking at her misery. Lurlaine had been stripped of her magic, and she could only guess that somewhere inside of her it lay coiled and waiting, ready to strike out at someone. There was nowhere else for it to go.

"This isn't your kingdom to break anymore," Azkadellia told Lurlaine with a heavy sigh. "It's over. It's finished."

Lurlaine had gotten to her feet, and now her once beautiful face was marred by the cruel twist to her lips as she regarded Azkadellia. "I won't allow this."

"You have no power any longer."

But Lurlaine charged forward, hands outstretched as if to circle them around Azkadellia's throat. She only got two steps forward; both Callan and Della shot her. Lurlaine looked down at herself, at the bright blooms of blood forming on the crisp white of her dress. She looked up in dismay at Azkadellia, at the locket floating above them. "That thing should never have been given away," she gasped. "I should have known. I should have gotten it back."

"What is it?" Azkadellia asked, leaning on Callan heavily. Della was tightening her right hand around the ebony walking stick.

"The last piece of Ozma's original soul," Lurlaine whimpered, sinking to her knees. Her hands pushed at her chest, as if she could push the blood back into the holes there, as if she could reverse what was happening. "All she has left are conjured rags."

"It's time for her to take it all back," Azkadellia murmured. "It's her time now."

Lurlaine began to laugh. She could feel the press of the Shadow Brigade, the Unseelie Court and its allies from the Low Realms. She had thought them all too insignificant, too petty to be worth her time. She had courted the dragons and the griffins, the shapechangers and the elementals, all the powerful creatures. She hadn't thought ragtag idiots clinging to the edges of reality could do any real harm. She had thought that her magic would keep her safe, that the fear of her would keep anyone from trying a real rebellion.

She was wrong, horribly wrong, and her life was bleeding out through her clutched hands.

But the joke was on them if they thought Ozma could rule. The joke was on them if they thought that hazy cloud of magic in the air would help Ozma now. She was simply a figurehead, a puppet, nothing more than an empty doll to move about however the puppetmaster wanted to push her. She was nothing, a blank slate, little more than an idea.

Lurlaine looked up as the Low Realm leaders came closer. She saw the flash of Nightwalker teeth, thief's blades, rings on empty hands and the infected wound of a battle scarred troll. Other tribal leaders and the Shadow Brigade were behind them, waiting for their chance. Most might not last the night, if their wounds were anything to go by. But they were all going to outlive her, all going to surive at least the everlasting night that had descended on her dawning kingdom. She closed her eyes as the flashes came closer. She would not beg anymore; her cries would simply be something to mock further.

"We have to find Ozma," Azkadellia murmured, turning away from the sight of Lurlaine being ripped apart by her enemies.

She leaned heavily on her staff as she looked up at the floating locket within its hazy cloud of magic that Azkadellia had retrieved from Lurlaine. She couldn't understand why it wasn't looking for Ozma the way the other lost threads had looked for their owners. It simply floated there, as if confused, as if it wasn't sure what it should be doing next.

Something's not right, Cliara told her suddenly, sounding alarmed. I can't feel her at all, Aliana added. Where is our niece? Why can't we feel her?

Moving with energy she didn't feel, Azkadellia headed for the palace. Callan and Della were close at hand, watching carefully in case she collapsed from overexertion.

Without looking, she knew the cloud of Ozma's fragmented soul was following her as well.

Azkadellia didn't want to stop and think about why that might be. She had to find Ozma, had to figure out what had happened. Maybe Lurlaine had done something, maybe Lurlaine had altered or changed her somehow; not all magic could be reversed simply by killing the enchanter. Some spells had to be physically deconstructed by another Practitioner. Sometimes there had to be actual countercurses and further spellwork to do. It wasn't always as easy as unraveling a thread and pulling on it.

This way, Aliana whispered, guiding Azkadellia through the crumbling halls. I remember where her rooms were. They weren't too far from mine. She was always such a bright, shining child...

They all stopped short in front of the battered doorway. It looked as though a fire had raged through the suite. Cliara and Aliana screeched in horror, and Azkadellia reached out to open the door. The old magic was still present in her skin, and the door flaked to ash at her touch. It crumbled, flying apart in dark black dust motes. She pushed through the hazy cloud into the remnants of Ozma's suite.

"Lurlaine couldn't have done this," Della said, shaking his head. "Didn't you say she was important? That Ozma had to be alive?"

"Wait... Do you hear that?" Callan asked, cutting off Azkadellia's reply. He surged forward, dancing easily out of her grasp.

Yes, he moves just like a ghost, Cliara whispered. And he steps as lightly as one when he so chooses. There are no footprints in the ash.

Azkadellia followed without answering them. There was really no need to say anything. She stopped short when she crashed into Callan's back, and held onto him for balance. She could feel Della wedged tight against her, trying to see over their shoulders. And over their heads, the little cloud of Ozma's soul floated, centered around the little golden locket that she had once given DG and Azkadellia had meant to return.

Ozma was sitting in the middle of the burnt out room, unharmed. Her clothes were tattered cinders clinging to her form, and her hair was singed in places. There was the smell of ash and smoke and burnt flesh, but Ozma sat there with a blank expression on her face. She turned to face the three of them, eyes open and expectant. "Is my Auntie with you? Is it time for my potions yet? I don't feel altogether well."

"I've come to return something," Azkadellia managed to choke out. "Your—"

"Oh! That's right. I gave things away. I always gave such nice presents. I couldn't possibly ask for any of them back. That's what makes them presents."

Panic clutched at Azkadellia's heart even as the Practitioners within her mind shrank back in shock. This was not the Ozma that they knew. This didn't make sense to them at all. "Ozma," Azkadellia began slowly. "My sister had a locket of yours, and I have it now. But it's yours, and I'm here to return it to you. And I have your magic to return."

"Oh, but that's silly. I gave away all my magic to Dorothy."

They were simple words, spoken with the open faith of a young child. Azkadellia couldn't understand why she was so horrified by them. "But I'm giving it back to you."

"Oh, no. I don't want it anymore," Ozma said with an easy smile. "Auntie has such a hard time with her magic sometimes, and it doesn't look like fun at all. Oh, no. I gave it all away to Dorothy Gale. She can keep it."

"You gave my greatest-greatgrandmother some of your magic. You still have..."

Ozma's eyes sharpened almost dangerously for a fraction of a second, just enough to still Azkadellia's tongue. "I gave away all my magic," she said, her voice saccharine sweet and sickly sounding. "All the girls of Dorothy Gale's line have magic now. They will always have magic," she insisted, standing up. The burnt shreds of the fine gown she had been wearing fell away, revealing smooth skin. It didn't look like she had been sitting in the midst of a fire, but had simply gotten up from a bath. The suite, however, looked as though it had been caught by dragon fire, which seared through all the protective wards placed into the stones. Ozma smiled at the three of them, though her smile seemed vacuous and terrible all at once. "I have no magic. I gave all my magic to the girls of Dorothy Gale's line. And they will always have my magic, now and forever and ever. I will wander and travel and make wonderful friends, but they are the ones that will have the magic and the duties and the power and the trouble that goes with it."

Azkadellia could feel the magic in the room rise as Ozma spoke, could feel the determination in the vacant-looking girl. The sensation was almost as if she was drowning in magic, as if she was about to be utterly consumed by it.

And then the sensation snapped like a rubber band.

The world seemed to right itself at once, though Azkadellia could feel the press of magic still behind her eyes. "What have you done?" she whispered.

Without looking, she knew that the cloud hovering above her was gone. It had split, half of it disappearing from the Mirror Zone entirely. Somehow, she knew that half of it had gone straight to the OZ, straight to DG.

The other half had infused her, and she was wearing Ozma's locket.

Ozma smiled and went to the burnt out wardrobe across from the ruined bed. She opened the door and retrieved an intact dress from amongst the wreckage. She dressed quickly and efficiently, not seeming to care that three total strangers were in her room. "Well, no one seems to have any sense, you know. Some things will never change. Some things have to." She turned so that her back faced Callan. "Lace me up, please? I can't reach."

At a loss for what else to do, Callan pulled the laces tight and tied the corset back to the dress in a simple bow. "There. All done."

Ozma turned around, smiling. "Indeed, I am. I feel much better now, thank you. I hadn't been feeling very well recently. But now I'm ready to go traveling again."

She passed the three of them easily, and disappeared into the empty hallways of the castle.

"Delia? What the fuck just happened?" Callan blurted abruptly.

"I... I think she just abdicated."

Della picked up the locket, lying heavily around Azkadellia's neck. "I think she just made you Queen of the Dawn Sanctuary instead of her."

***
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