Marcus pulled the princess to stand behind him as the man in black exited. He turned into a murder of crows that flooded out from the room through a far window.

  The crone hobbled away from the bed. "You got lucky once again, girl. But one day soon your luck will run out." The gnarled crook slammed into the stone floor. "And I excitedly await that moment."

  The princess stepped forward, still clutching Marcus's arm. "This is an esper memory."

  Marcus scanned his surroundings looking for threats. "What does that mean?"

  "Esper is that which comprises all things. And something that's not well understood is that for some reason, it can remember moments in the past." The princess stepped forward toward the bed. Then after a few steps, she stopped and motioned toward the fringes of the room. "See here?" The veil of darkness hung on the walls like drapery. "Beyond this place was not important to this moment and may as well not exist."

  Marcus crossed his arms and relaxed his posture, taking in the surroundings.

  "They don't know we're here." The princess gestured toward the crone slowly limping to leave the room. "Because we were never here when this happened." She walked over to the old woman and wagged her hand before the crone, completely ignored.

  With a sigh Marcus shook his head. "Why are we being showed this? Why now?"

  The crone stopped and then turned, walking over to a metal vat with curved glass on the front. She placed her hand on the window. "Don't take those words to heart child." She sighed whimsically. "I made you, perfect."

  Inside, a large bean-like silhouette bobbed, suspended.

  "I'll show him. The lady's return will be my doing, not his." The crone slid her bony hands from the glass and continued back toward the door.

  Marcus walked over to the vat and leaned down to see what was inside. Within the gently sloshing, viscous fluid was an infant tethered by the stomach to some kind of cord. He gasped and stumbled back. "What is this?"

  The princess came to his side and leaned down to get a better look. "Horrors are being created here."

  "Terrors are everywhere for those with eyes to see, child." The woman chained to the bed in the center of the room spoke with a delicate tone.

  The tingling in Marcus's hands and toes returned suddenly. With a yelp, the princess shot upright and latched onto Marcus's arm once again. Both spun in place to face the bed that was behind them.

  "Don't be disheartened by evil's presence." The woman bobbed an infant in her arms and was speaking to it.

  The princess exhaled sharply and then swallowed hard. "I don't know why that frightened me so."

  "There can be no light without shadow." The woman looked up at them. She continued to swaddle the baby in her arms.

  Marcus stepped forward. The princess loosened her grip on his arm, frozen in place. He approached the bed. As he drew closer, the woman looked up and tracked his movement.

  "Do you know her?" The princess's voice trembled.

  Marcus continued to advance. He stopped at the left side of the bed and leaned forward to get a better look. He'd never seen her before in his life, shook his head.

  "You don't know me." The chained woman locked eyes with him. "Fate has made it so."

  "But you know me." Marcus replied, the tingling in his limbs growing stronger.

  "Only in myth and legend." The woman replied. "And that you yet live will make my sacrifice all the more worthwhile."

  "Your sacrifice?" The princess stepped forward, clasping her hands.

  The woman turned to stare at the princess for a moment before a slight smile formed in the corners of her lips. "Yes, my actions have condemned me to die. But my life was forfeit long ago. This being my purpose, my final mission, I could not ask for a more fitting end."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "What mission, what purpose?" Marcus stood upright, suspicious.

  "They mean to resurrect the Queen of Sin." The woman replied. "To bring to bear upon the souls of man a thousand years of darkness." She bobbed the baby and then turned her attention to coo at it. “It seems my actions have foiled their little plot, at least for a while.”

  "Are one of these children her second coming?" The princess stepped closer to the bed, her arms trembling.

  The woman smiled and shook her head. "Much to their dismay, the ritual requires a very specific kind of man and woman to resurrect her." Perhaps that being the only dam that stops the flood.

  "What kind of people do they need?" Marcus crossed his arms.

  The chained woman looked at the princess. "They need the blood of royal lineage and the seed of the divine made corrupted."

  With a shaken gasp, the princess clenched her eyes shut and bowed her head. "That is why all of this is happening."

  "Is that you, are you the seed of the divine?" Marcus said.

  The chained woman chuckled. "No, I'm nowhere near such a being." She bobbed the child in her arms. "But he is."

  Marcus blinked, confused. "If you aren't, how is your child such a thing?"

  The woman looked up at him, her gaze piercing straight through Marcus. "This isn't my child; I simply bore him. Rescued him from the wretched, cruel fate of the others." She motioned with a wide angle from her left shoulder to right.

  Around her were 11 windowed capsules, all bearing silhouettes of infants in their individual windows.

  A sudden chill ran down Marcus's spine. "I don't understand." The words fell from his lips, shaken out by the unnerving feeling in his gut.

  The princess looked around and shook her head. "It can't be." She looked at the woman. "I thought it was just a rumor spread by bored aristocrats."

  Marcus blinked at the princess then returned his attention to the chained woman.

  "They're all the same child, created from strands of the dead." The chained woman cooed at the baby. "Even this one."

  "Clones." The princess gasped.

  The woman nodded. "Clones of the first human son born of the divine." She bobbed the baby, the slight smile on her face melted the longer she looked at the child.

  "Volesus, the first born of the Son of Stars and Daughter of the Twin Moons." The princess shuddered.

  A pained expression etched into the chained woman's face as she continued to stare at the baby. "I had to try and save one, it was the only thing I could do."

  "What does that mean?" Marcus looked to the princess, then to the chained woman.

  A surge of pain ran up from Marcus's limbs to his body as the numbness turned to a sharp, stinging sensation.

  The princess walked over to the side of the bed opposite from where Marcus stood and crouched down to look closer at the baby in her arms. Then she looked at him and her eyes widened.

  "I took this one in surrogate." The chained woman said. "To save him from such a terrible matter of birth." She looked to the vat situated at the far side of the bed.

  At the bottom of the cylinder was a label: *Scorpio*.

  "As handmaiden to the Daughter of the Twin Moons, it was my duty." The woman forced a smile when the baby looked up at her. "I regret not being able to save them all. That my weak and frail body couldn't take upon all of them, spare them from such a cruel fate."

  The princess stood upright, staring wide eyed at Marcus.

  "If you meet them, please tell them I'm sorry for failing them." The woman turned her attention to Marcus. "Their suffering is my fault."

  Marcus blinked. "How could one woman ever hope to bear twelve children at the same time?"

  The woman chuckled. "If fate were different, I could have stopped it all together."

  "I--" Marcus started but the slap of wood upon metal echoed, silencing him.

  "My, my, my," the crone stood in the doorway afar. "How interesting, one would dare pry upon such a tender moment."

  The princess gasped. She looked at the child in the chained woman's arms then to Marcus and rushed to stand close, between him and the crone afar. She thrust an arm out over the bed. "Your plot will be foiled, demon."

  The crone cackled. "If that were true, then the two things we so desperately need wouldn't be in the same place."

  Marcus lowered a hand on her arm to steady it and readied to stand in front of the princess, but her poise was stone-like. She was locked firmly in place, unmovable no matter how hard he tried.

  "You have no hope of victory." The princess spoke with booming authority.

  "Your father said the same thing.” The crone inched toward them. “Do you want to know how he died? I can tell you every excruciating, delightful detail. It was slow, I assure you."

  The princess breathed a wavering gasp. Continuing to advance, the crone cackled.

  "Hold onto her tight." The chained woman said. "Don't let her go. No matter what happens."

  Marcus looked down at the princess. With hesitation, he extended his arms out over her. Then he carefully embraced her, one arm over her shoulders, the other around her waist. He looked away, blushing.

  The crone continued her advance; the veil of darkness began to swirl around her crook.

  "All life begins and ends at a single point." The chained woman spoke, staring at the crone. Each of the torches in the room flickered. "May we walk together again in joyous reunion."

  A white light burst forth from the bed and flooded Marcus's vision and the pain subsided. Suddenly the princess was ripped from his arms and he tumbled head-over-heels. Finally, he stopped flipping and slid to a stop.

  "...on your feet." A familiar voice echoed in the distance.

  Marcus's ears rang for a moment before it subsided. He opened his eyes and the crack and whir of gunfire rang out overhead.

  "I said get on your feet. We are leaving." Arminius shouted, grabbing him by the shirt and yanking Marcus up as another volley of shots rang out.

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  Who is the child?