Damsel Knight by Sam Austin

something's not right. He’s too solid, too real. Non-existent sunshine lights up his face like it would on one of their bright summer days at the stone house. Her mother had hated moving even the short distance away from their roundhouse to the city, but she loved the way the stone house captured the sun as much as they did. Around her the darkness wraps so completely that she can’t see her hands.
    “What are you?” She whispers, her lungs tight with cold and fear.
    He frowns at her, puzzled. “Why, I’m your father Bon. Now, how about we see if we can drag that beautiful mother of yours out of the kitchen? She’ll work herself to the grave, dutiful thing that she is.”
    No she won’t, Bonnie thinks. But she’ll die all the same. When he reaches out his hand to her she remembers how comforting his large callused hands felt wrapped around her small ones. How safe she always felt in his arms. She wants to take that hand, and go with him to see her mother again. She’d throw a fit over her clothes and hair, and scrub the mud from her until her skin was scoured pink, but she’d do it out of love.
    Instead she takes a deep breath and draws her sword. It’s light for its great size, enough to hold and even swing it one handed for short periods, but she holds it in two. It makes it easier to pretend her hands aren’t shaking.
    The thing pretending to be her father laughs. “Do you want to play swords now? We should wait until your mother is at her sewing. You know what she’s like when she gets a project into her head. We shan’t see her for hours, and when we do she’ll have more pretty dresses for you to wear.”
    She raises herself to her feet, levels the point of the sword at the thing’s neck. “What I want is my friends back. Give them to me unharmed and you might keep your life intact.”
    The thing’s mouth twists into something too sharp for a smile. “Life?” He stands up, brushing non-existent dust off the red tunic and blue trousers her mother had sewn her father. His blue eyes fade until they are balls of mist. The merry tone drops from his voice, and it becomes something different - higher and stranger, but with enough of her father’s sound to make her cringe. “What do you know about life? Taker of life is what you are Bonnie Ceana. Tell me. Why did you open the door? He told you not to. He told you never under any circumstance to open the door, yet you did. You opened the door, like you opened the box years before. You did this!”
    All at once the front of his tunic is torn. The gash spreads dark over the red of the cloth, and the cloak around his shoulders is as pale a pink as any she’s seen. Blood drips from his mouth, torso, and cloak. Whenever a drop hits the forest floor, it hisses and vanishes.
    Bonnie stumbles back a step, both hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. Her heart pounds in her chest. For a moment she wants to do nothing more than drop her sword and run, but she can’t do that. Neven is out there, so is the princess. Neither of them have a sword to defend themselves.
    “Give me my friends,” she says again, trying to keep her voice from shaking as much as her hands. “Or-”
    “Or you’ll take my life?” The sharp smile twists into something unnatural. Its features blur, becoming less recognisable. The cloak is gone, the clothes replaced by something shapeless. It laughs, and for a moment it’s her father’s laughter, then Neven’s, then Ness’s, then the twin’s childish tones, until it becomes all of them warped together.
    She swipes the sword through the thing’s middle, almost falling when the blade passes through with no resistance. The thing turns from shapeless human to mist, then that wisps away. She spins, but there’s nothing around her but black.
    Her breath comes in frozen bursts, more out of emotion than exertion. It took her father’s face. It knew things she’d never told anyone. How could it know those things? And more importantly,