I Only Summon Villainesses

The summons didn’t come.

That was the worst part. They lined the whole rim of the pass above us, a ring of crouched and waiting shapes stark against the grey sky, and they simply held there, the way a held breath holds, because Altharion had not yet told them otherwise. He stood at the center of them with his hands folded behind his back, and he was in no hurry at all.

’He wants to talk. Of course he wants to talk.’

I’d noticed that about him already. The ones who were truly dangerous never rushed.

"You walked all this way in," Altharion called down, pleasant as ever. "I half expected that incompetent spirit to balk at the bridge. But no — straight in, straight through my welcome, and now look at you. All four, tucked so neatly into one little stone pocket."

He tilted his head.

"It’s almost like someone wanted you here."

"You’ll have to do better than a hole in the ground, fool." Kassie’s greatsword rested against her shoulder, easy, but I knew the set of her stance well enough by now to know easy was a lie. "I’ve died in better traps than this."

"Oh, I’m counting on the holes in the ground being a disappointment."

He smiled wider.

"They’re not for you, Tyrant Empress. They’re for him."

And he looked, very deliberately, at me.

The whole pass seemed to go quiet around that look. I felt the weight of it land between my shoulder blades and stay there.

’...Me. Why is it always me.’

"He has nothing to do with whatever rot you’re trying to achieve," Ilse said sharply. She’d stepped a little in front of me without seeming to notice she’d done it. "Leave the boy out of it, Altharion."

"The boy..."

Altharion repeated, tasting the word like he found it funny.

"Countess, the boy walked into the North with a villainess on his shoulder and proceeded to undo three of our knots in under a week. Made me kill your beautiful Lord Nightmare. The reception at the bridge. And now, he’s making you wreck my army of summons that’s supposed to back you up. You those guys don’t feel good about your behavior."

He spread one hand toward the field behind us, the frozen field, the wreckage of everything Kassie and Brunhilde had just torn apart. "He keeps not dying. People are noticing. You know how the ones above feel about being noticed."

’Those guys...’

There it was. There was something certainly between Altharion and Ilse that she wasn’t letting me on. I didn’t ask what it was. I had the feeling that asking was exactly what he wanted.

Beside me, Brunhilde had not spoken once.

She was looking up at Altharion, and the frost was rising off her again — not in the controlled spires of the battle, but in a slow, seeping cold that crawled out across the stone underfoot and turned the air white where she breathed. Her face was perfectly still. That was what told me. Kassie wore her fury where you could see it; Brunhilde buried hers, and the deeper she buried it, the worse it was.

"Ah."

Altharion’s gaze drifted down to her at last, and his smile did something subtle and awful.

"There she is. I wondered when you’d stop sulking."

"You killed Nightmare." Brunhilde’s voice came out so quiet I almost lost it under the wind. "You dragged his head through the dirt by the ear."

"I did."

Altharion agreed, without a flicker of shame.

"He fought beautifully. You’d have been proud. He even said your name at the end, which I thought was sentimental of him."

He sighed.

"Millennia of companionship, Brunhilde. The Spirit World and back. And you couldn’t be bothered to be there for the last of your ride. But I’ll overlook that and focus on the fact that I did it to protect this guy."

The stone under Brunhilde’s feet split with a sound like a gunshot, frost driving down into the crack.

"Brunhilde." Ilse’s voice was iron. "Not. Yet."

The summon barely held. I could see what it cost her — the tendons standing out in her hand around the sheathed katana, the whole field of frost trembling at the edges, all that grief and rage dammed up behind a binding she could not break and a command she had to obey. For one second I felt something I had no business feeling for a Calamity who could end me with a flick of her wrist.

I felt sorry for her.

"You see, that’s the trouble with summons," Altharion said lightly, to no one and everyone. "Such enormous power. Such tiny leashes. One little Countess says notyet, and the storm just... waits."

He looked back to me, and the harmlessness in his face peeled back just enough to show the thing underneath.

"It made me wonder. What kind of leash does a villainess like the Tyrant Empress sit on? What does her summoner have to be, to hold something like that?"

His head tilted.

"And then I find out it’s you. A boy who keeps not dying. Funny, isn’t it."

Kassie laughed. It was not a kind sound.

"You’re afraid of him," she said, delighted.

"Look at you. All these toys on the wall and all this talk, and you’re standing up there because you’re afraid to find out what happens if you come down here."

For the first time, Altharion’s smile thinned.

Just for a moment. But I caught it, and so did Kassie, and so — I realized — had Brunhilde, because the frost at her feet stopped trembling and went very, very calm. The calm of something that had just decided.

"I’m not stalling," Altharion said. The pleasantness came back over his face like water closing over a stone, smooth and total.

"I’m being polite. I came to give you a chance to hand the boy over and walk back across that bridge with your pride and your fossil intact."

He unfolded his hands from behind his back.

"But I can already see you’re not going to take it."

He lifted one finger.

Above him, all along the rim of the pass, the ring of waiting summons rose as one and leaned out over the edge, and the held breath of the whole mountain finally, finally began to let go.

"Such a shame," Altharion said softly. "I did so want to do this the boring way."

Kassie’s grin split wide beneath her helm. Beside her, Brunhilde’s hand finally closed around the hilt of her blade.

"Ilse," Brunhilde said, without looking back. "When you give the word."

A long breath. Then the Countess, grim and quiet:

"...Now."