Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"... Identify yourself"

"It's me … Sunny."

"Your affiliation?"

"... Evacuation Army, I guess. Army Command, special envoy."

Nephis frowned, but a distant and urgent sound tore her attention away.

"Cassie!" 

Spreading her beautiful white wings, she gave him one last look — not of camaraderie nor of shared history, but of detached concern — the kind reserved for a lost soul babbling nonsense in a storm.

Having decided that this interrogation wasn't well worth her time — considering the pressing circumstances surrounding them — she dashed away, leaving Sunny alone.

'Be careful … of what you wish for.'

The initial elation of losing his [Fated] attribute faded, slowly replaced by the crushing weight of its unforeseen implication.

The Shadow Bond formed between him and Nephis was — … no … the bonds formed with Nephis, Cassie, Effie, Kai, Jet and everyone else he held dear were shattered.

He slowly came to the chilling conclusion that his existence had been erased from the world.

Despite his mind reeling with an avalanche of possible consequences he would eventually need to face from this harrowing realisation, a vivid fragment of Cassie's conversation with him aboard Ananke's ketch echoed louder than the rest of his thoughts:

"... The Well of Wishes."

"Come … come on! You can't possibly be serious! You don't believe that it's true, do you?!"

"It might not be true for anyone else. But it's true for you, Sunny. If you reach the Estuary … your wish to be free will come true. Free of your bond, free to live your life the way you want. Free of fate itself."

"But, Sunny … you can't have both. You can reach the Estuary from here, but once the Nightmare is over, your chance will be gone. The moment Nephis destroys the First Seeker, your chance would have slipped away."

She smiled bitterly and raised the Guiding Light, offering it to him. "That was what you were truly angry about, wasn't it? That I took the choice away from you."

Cassie pushed the sacred relic into his hands and took a step back. "Well, here it is. Instead of an empty apology. I am giving the choice back to you. You can leave and rush to the Estuary … the Guiding Light will show you the way through the mists of the Source, as long as you don't give another True Name to it. Once you reach the Estuary, use the Mirror of Truth and push to its heart. There … you will find your freedom."

She turned away, lingered for a moment, and then added in a quiet voice:

"But … I hope that you make a different choice. That you will stay with us, despite everything. Nephis, I, and the others … are we so terrible? Is it really that unbearable, to share a bond, if it's based on trust? I think you know by now that it's not. What is unbearable is not having been given a choice about forming that bond, and now, even though the connection between you and her will remain the same … it will be there because you have chosen for it to exist. So … you decide. That right is yours, again."

⋮

⋮

"So, Sunny … you must decide. I've given the choice back to you. Now, it's in your hands." 

With that, she took a few steps and jumped out of the ketch, landing on the icy shore. The Echo of Torment dissolved into a whirlwind of sparks, leaving Sunny alone in the boat.

Cassie then turned and looked at him expectantly.

Her face was both scared and hopeful.

Cassie, the quiet and unassuming Cassie, who painstakingly engineered the confluence of events since Chained Isles, had given him a choice — a right to choose.

It was her attempt to atone for her mistake, made long ago when they were lost kids on the Forgotten Shore, albeit a choice shrouded with vague and frustrating premonitory warnings woven from the best of her oracular ability.

'Freedom, freedom …'

He remembered that this word was a phantom sweetness on his tongue, as he alone navigated towards the perilous Estuary. His feeling back then was a stark contrast to the bitter reality that — the Sunny they thought they had known decided to abandon Nephis, Cassie, Kai, Jet, and Effie with her newborn child.

Jet had once told him that there was no freedom in this world. That the only freedom there was, was the freedom to choose his own chains … and Sunny came to agree with her, over time. By choosing to stay with the cohort, he would be choosing his own chains. In a sense, that would make him free, as well. But, but …

In the end, he had chosen the Well of Wishes to bury his shackles of fate — to be finally free from its hideous torment.

Now, having successfully claimed it — this elusive liberation.

A severing not just from fate, but from … everything.

Being forgotten.

As he crumpled to the icy ground, Sunny's mind churned, tracing the chronological thread that had led him — against unyielding odds and insurmountable obstacles — to this exact brutal end.

A bizarre blend of self-admiration for his own resilience and crushing despair warred within him — bitterly acknowledging the journey he had taken to navigate such a treacherous path.

A grotesque smile split his unsightly face like a jagged chasm, yet tears streamed uncontrollably from his eyes.

Taking a shallow breath, he whispered madly: "... I'm free"

'But at what cost?'

That was when the cold truly set in.

Sunny wanted to be free from his fate, so he didn't deserve it.

[Mirror of Truth]

Memory Description:

Weaver was known as the master of lies, while Ariel was known as the keeper of truths. The two were not close and rarely met, which was why Ariel was surprised to find Weaver staring at his pyramid one day.

"Isn't it beautiful, this tomb of mine? Have you come to admire it?" Ariel said.

After a moment of silence, Weaver responded.

"I have not known that you've built a tomb, nor have I ever seen it. How would I know to admire it? I just happened to be here by chance. Now that I've seen it, my heart is untouched. I feel nothing."

Then, Weaver asked.

"But you seem to feel too much, Demon of Dread. Your face is unsightly. You are smiling, but there are tears streaming from your eyes. Why?"

Ariel laughed, "I'm not sure."

He laughed and cried as he looked at the tomb, saying, "I built it to bury the truth. Truth is the most hideous thing in the world, Weaver, and knowing it is a cruel torment. I mean to bury the truths that I cannot endure at the heart of this tomb, and be free of them forever."

Weaver remained silent.

After a while, Weaver spoke.

"It seems to me that you already did. And you already are."

With that, the Demon of Fate turned and walked away without looking back.

Walking away, Weaver whispered.

"... You wanted to be free of the truth, so you didn't deserve it."

Chapter Text

Winter had arrived in NQSC, hushing the world beneath a blanket of white that piled up gently with the arrival of a steady and silent snowfall.

In a semi-affluent neighbourhood filled with rows of terraced houses, a young girl walked home.

Her tidy black hair was dusted with snow, and she was bundled in thick winter clothes that shielded her pale body from the cold.

Clutching the straps of her bag, she moved in near-silence — nothing stirred but the sound of her boots pressing into fresh snow.

Her gaze drifted past an abandoned house, its porch sealed with thick, garish strips of government-issued barricade tape.

A breathtaking man stood in front of it, staring at the decaying facade.

The man was cradling a cup of plant-based coffee — a rare luxury these days, ever since the crisis in Antarctica had disrupted the waking world's supply chains, sending commodity prices into chaos.

Moving closer, she noticed his resemblance to her — black hair, pale skin — yet refined into something otherworldly.

His raven-black hair possessed a lustrous shade she couldn't name, one that instantly made her own tidy hair seem like a faded charcoal sketch in comparison.

His uncovered porcelain skin — bared to the cold — was tinged with a flawless, disgustingly smooth alabaster hue that made a mockery of her own meticulous skincare routine.

'And he's a guy ...' She thought with a pang of indignant jealousy.

He had a face sculpted and angled with such deliberate, breathtaking perfection that it was almost offensive to look at.

Because it belonged not to a quiet, snowy, mundane street built for middle-class convenience — but to the hallowed halls of a grand marble temple — a fitting art piece chiselled by an enamoured craftsman.

While her own cheeks stung from the biting cold, the man seemed completely unbothered — dressed in nothing more than a black long-sleeved shirt and a simple pair of ashen trousers.

The way his clothes clung to him suggested bespoke craftsmanship, tailored just for his frame.

Both shirt and trousers pushed softly against his skin — teasing that, underneath the fabric, the man possessed an athletic muscularity.

Not the overly-beefy physique of a bodybuilder, but the long, graceful lines of a dancer with the right amount of bulk — hinting at a tightly coiled, latent power beneath the surface.

Every movement he made possessed a fluid, confident ease, making even a simple action — like drinking a cup of coffee — look elegant.

As the girl drew closer, the tranquil, melancholic scene before her seemed to shift and rearrange itself in her eyes.

It was as if she were viewing a living painting, but one where the rules were reversed.

The quiet street, terraced houses, and falling snow blurred — muting into a soft-focus background, leaving only the man and the shadows surrounding him rendered in sharp, almost unnatural detail.

The light near him acted as a selective artist, casting aside the mundane world to the periphery and focusing all of its celestial attention on its true subject — the man and his shadows.

The living shadows surrounding this hauntingly beautiful man seemed to possess a mystical quality — as if they ardently wished to venerate him.

They pooled and deepened in harmony to accentuate his facial features while simultaneously imbuing his arresting onyx eyes with a dramatic, brooding depth.

They crept and clung to his sacred form like devoted acolytes — striving to emphasise his perfection, leaving no lines or angles unadorned.

Even the soft snow, spiralling in lazy orbits, seemed to hold a reverence for him.

They danced in an invisible vortex around his form, but never quite daring to land on him — save for a few impertinent flakes.

'An Awakened … h ... he's gorgeous!'

Her eyes locked onto the man with an intensity she knew was impolite, but she simply couldn't look away.

"Still bitter." The man uttered, lowering his coffee cup. His melodious voice laced with a deep, resonant masculine rumble that seemed too powerful for such a simple complaint.

His face grimaced slightly, lip curled as the aftertaste rudely settled on his tongue.

"Ah … well, having it unsweetened is an acquired taste after all."

The young girl chimed in, now at a distance close enough to hear him.

She stopped and smiled bashfully at the man, hoping to strike up a conversation.

His enchanting beauty was the sort that would make you forget your own name, and her teenage insecurities screamed at her to turn back lest she embarrass herself in front of this divine hunk.

And yet, an inexplicable pull — a strange sense of familiarity — urged her forward, overriding her natural stranger-danger caution.

The young gentleman returned a polite smile.

It was a small gesture, but enough to steal air from her lungs, making her increasingly self-aware.

Despite the frigid cold, a flush of heat burned on her cheeks, betraying her awkwardness.

"I know. It's just that … drinking this brand of coffee is a personal ritual for me ... In preparation for significant life events."

"A significant life event? Are you planning to move to the Dream Realm too?" she squeaked, her excitement bubbling over.

"My family is moving to Ravenheart in a few months! Daddy got himself a promotion, and he'll be the government liaison for the Song Domain's bureau. I can't wait!" she added, slipping in a casual brag.

"Yes, the Dream Realm. Thinking of getting myself a place in Bastion ... eventually."

"Oh …" The single word fell from her lips, the excitement visibly draining from her voice.

Bastion, so far away.

The fleeting, impossible fantasy of seeing this man again shattered like a thin sheet of ice.

His polite smile remained, and she felt her heart give a painful little flutter in her chest.

A few moments of silence passed before he gestured with his cup towards the abandoned building. "I'm here to reminisce before I depart, hence the coffee. I used to live he … in this area long ago. Say, do you know what happened to this house? Why the ugly tape?"

His question snapped her back to the present.

"Oh, that." she replied, straightening up slightly. "The government seized it. It was like a second home for Neph ... I mean, Princess Nephis and her friends." A touch of pride entered her voice, hoping that being on a nickname basis with such an important figure of humanity will raise the stranger's impression on her. "I used to pop over there regularly. You know, before the whole Antarctica debacle."

The man tilted his head slightly, his polite smile unwavering. "A property associated with the famous Valor's adopted princess, seized? That seemed ... complicated. I would have thought her name alone would offer it some protection."

His observation was the perfect opening. "That's the strange part!" The girl leaned in, thrilled to be the keeper of such a juicy mystery. "It wasn't HER house. No one knows who the rightful owner is. The government searched every record and database they have — nothing. It's like the house doesn't officially exist."

"A ghost property," the man murmured, his gaze drifting to the peeling paint on the window frame. "How did the authorities handle such a puzzle?"

"They were stumped!" she confirmed eagerly. "Their mails requesting for information just kept piling up in the mailbox, left completely unanswered. They even sent officers to visit from time to time, hoping to meet the owner." 

"Daddy chatted with one of the officers during one of their check-ups, you see … Due to local property abandonment law, they couldn't just outright seize it until a certain amount of time has passed."

"Bureaucratic limbo." the man murmured, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.

"Exactly!" she said, pleased he was following along. "Anyway, then daddy told them that Changing Star and her friends used it as a second home, of sorts."

"So, out of respect, the local council waited for them to return from their Third Nightmare before approaching them to deal with the situation." 

Her focus snapped back to him. "And then they did come back! Well, some of them, at least. One day, while I was away, mummy told me she saw Effie and Cassie … oops … I meant, Saint Raised by Wolves and Lady Cassia visited the house. They were in there for hours before coming over to our house for a chat."

She leaned in again, the story reaching its peak. "They talked to my parents about our family's move to Ravenheart … and then they asked about ME." She let the end of her sentence hang in the air for a moment, the significance of it colouring her tone.

'At least they still remember her.' The man thought to himself.

She paused, her gaze drifting toward the brightly lit window of her house as if to gather her thoughts. It was a small but necessary respite from his overwhelming presence.

"They too, were asking mummy if she knew anything about the original owner. Weirdly enough, they couldn't remember it themselves." she continued, her excitement mellowing. "But no one around here remembers. I guess with the big move to the Dream Realm, people have bigger things on their minds ... immigration papers and all that."

"Next thing we know, the tape went up." She shrugged, indicating that she had shared all she knew regarding this matter.

The man turned his gaze to the house. The girl, for her part, resumed her unabashed ogling, but he seemed oblivious, his expression vacant as he stared wistfully.

'So no one cared to stay ... That makes sense. They have their new positions, new lives … mostly away from each other … Since they have no need for this place any more, Neph must have let it go after assuring the government she won't make a fuss if they seized it.'

"Rain! It's getting dark, come inside!" A voice called out from the residence next door. Through the large window, a woman's silhouette was visible, peering out into the dusk. From her angle, obscured by the glare of the interior lights, her adopted daughter appeared to be talking to a shadowy figure wreathed in an umbra that seemed to swallow the gloom.

Rain turned to shout back, "Coming, mummy!"

In that brief moment of distraction, a tenebrous serpent slithered from her shadow. Simultaneously, a sliver of the man's shadow detached itself. It was not a menacing shape — but a lively, playful one that glided surreptitiously across the snow. It slipped into the girl's own shadow and nestled within it, as if it belonged there all along.

When Rain turned back, there was nothing. The man, his coffee cup, the unnatural atmosphere around him — all of it had simply vanished. 

She blinked, scanning the empty space.

As she walked towards her front door, she remained oblivious to the gift he had left behind. Had the lighting been better, she might have noticed her shadow was no longer entirely her own. It now clung to her heels with a new, deeper hue — a shade that was, against all logical reason — cheerful.

Chapter Text

A gentle breeze, cool and damp, rustled through the lakeside trees, caressing Lady Cassia's face as she made her way along the path skirting the great lake's edge.

Across the water, the iconic Bastion castle rose from the lake's centre — a grandiose and magnificent fortress of grey stone that seemed plucked from a fairy-tale. Its many towers were adorned with vermilion flags that fluttered majestically in the wind.

High above the tallest of those towers, a vast, tranquil floating island orbited calmly around the fortress with an enchanted flying ship currently moored to its ground. From its earth rose a great pagoda of pristine, creamed-coloured stone that was just beginning to catch the first golden rays of the sun.

The Citadel of Princess Nephis served as a silent, supporting counterpart to the colossal ancient fortress beneath it, complementing and aggrandising the ancient majesty of her father's Citadel.

In recent years, its princess and her warriors had been sent to defend remote human enclaves on countless occasions, their fame and renown growing with each victory. The Ivory Tower — once a tourist attraction — was slowly becoming a potent symbol of hope for all those besieged by Nightmare Creatures in King Anvil's domain.

However, it was more than a symbol for Cassie, it was home. Or to be precise, the well-appointed First Mate's cabin of the enchanted ship — Chain Breaker — was her home. Yet, her destination this morning lay far from it, at the end of an unfamiliar street, in search of a café cum Memory boutique.

Her Transcendence since her Third Nightmare had gifted her the terrifying power to read and alter memories. This ability had not gone unnoticed, and the high command of Clan Valor had issued two strict commands to Princess Nephis regarding her blind confidante.

The first was to ensure Lady Cassia's new-found power was kept as a military secret — its existence privy only to the highest echelon of Clan Valor and its vassal clans.

The second was that she needed to be at their immediate disposal for any interrogation or any critical, ad-hoc information gathering work that Valor required.

Such spontaneous requests were becoming more and more frequent — as spies, saboteurs, and dissidents from both Sword and Song Domains grew more and more active while the silent preparations for war rumbled on.

Thus, she had to formally step down as Princess Nephis's right-hand woman — a demanding position that had once required her to manage the daily operational needs of the Fire Keepers.

That mantle had now been passed to Master Shim, the healer — who was next in the chain of command anyway.

Back on the Forgotten Shore, he had been one of Gemma's Pathfinders. He had also taken charge as the unofficial leader of The Fire Keeper during Cassie's Second Nightmare, and had led a cohort of Fire Keepers to challenge a nightmare seed before the Battle of the Black Skull, returning as a Master.

Given his impressive résumé, when Cassie announced that she would be moving to a new position shortly after returning from Antarctica, Shim was unanimously voted in to replace her.

Her new position was no less demanding, but it did offer her much more breathing room and free time than almost anyone else.

Now, Lady Cassia served as the left hand of Princess Nephis — one that moved in shadows, focusing on strategy, covert intelligence, and the discreet needs of their fledgling faction.

This clandestine visit was one such need, as Nephis required an independent war gear supplier for the coming insurrection — one utterly free from Anvil of Valor.

To Valor, a clan with a deep-seated martial and technological bias, archetypal of a kingdom descended from The War God, Lady Cassia was not considered a serious threat in her own right.

However, in the cold war preceding the inevitable conflict, information was the most valuable of assets, and her unique abilities were enough to earn her the respectable title of Seneschal.

Chapter Text

After the Battle of Black Skull in Antarctica, a great political schism had fractured the Sword Domain.

Princess Morgan's failures there, compounded by her inability to dispose of the estranged son of Valor — Prince Mordret — stood in sharp contrast to Princess Nephis's Transcendence and her astounding feat of killing Saint Dire Fang as a mere Ascended, even with the help of another.

This contrast had profoundly altered King Anvil's view of his two daughters.

In the beginning, for her failures, Princess Morgan was quietly disfavoured. The king's disapproval was subtle but a constant one.

It was a veto on a key military appointment she had long championed.

It was a last-minute rejection of a pet project, its funding suddenly reallocated to Princess Nephis's Fire Keepers for "morale-boosting banners".

It was the deliberate provisioning of fewer resources than were reasonable, forcing her allies to make do with less while the allocated shipments were diverted elsewhere, usually to the Fire Keepers or one of Princess Nephis' loyalists.

Worse, he would assign Princess Nephis to judge the annual competition for radical Memories and Echoes designs — a public spectacle where Clan Valor's Forgemasters and apprentices alike vied for recognition — an honour that tradition and protocol demanded be reserved for Princess Morgan.

Or he would order the Elders to grant a priceless Memory to a Fire Keeper captain for a minor victory, while ignoring a major strategic success achieved by Morgan's own forces a week prior.

Perhaps the most blatant slight came during a military exercise in the Bastion's garrison square. From a high observation gallery in an adjoining tower, King Anvil stood beside Princess Nephis, not to observe the soldiers, but to stare past them, his gaze fixed on Princess Morgan with an icy disdain that was impossible for the assembled commanders to ignore.

This campaign of quiet humiliation was a slow-acting poison. It turned father against daughters and biological sister against adopted sister, carving perfidious fissures through the court that forced all the pillars of the Sword Domain — the Clan Elders and vassal lords and ladies — to choose sides in this silent, bitter war.

Conversely, for Princess Nephis, her Fire Keepers, and the few vassal clans who had shown her genuine warmth since her adoption, their status was elevated immensely — placing them barely below the Elders of Clan Valor.

The Elders, Anvil's chosen inner circle — comprised a diverse membership ranging from powerless Dormants to nigh-omnipotent Saints — proving that influence was not solely measured by strength.

The esteemed council of Clan Valor — a gathering of the realm's most pre-eminent figures — included the Sword Domain's mightiest warriors, influential bureaucrats, eminent scholars, revered Mandarins, venerated Forgemasters, distinguished military engineers, and his personal retinue and honour guards.

The Fire Keepers, a small band of fifty, were designated as an elite unit of Clan Valor after their return from Antarctica. They were given the privileges of equipping themselves with choice selections of Clan Valor's armouries, set aside for its vassals.

In return, however, they were expected to earn their keep — by being sent to some of the fiercest and most prestigious campaigns across the Sword Domain — earning glories and accolades over the years, in Changing Star's name.

What shocked Princess Morgan was not the cruelty itself — she, more than anyone, understood the necessity of a hard hand.

She understood punishment. She did not understand sabotage.

Her father's disapproval was not the cold fire of a king chastising a flawed heir. It felt akin to the spiteful chipping of a rival.

When he stripped her of funding for a project, it felt less like a strategic reallocation and more like he was prying loose a piece of the very identity he had forged for her.

Every word of praise for Nephis was not an honour for her sister, but a personal taunt aimed directly at her.

This bewildering betrayal wounded her far more deeply than any physical trial. The princess raised for war found herself in a battle she couldn't comprehend, and the confusion quickly began to fester.

For Princess Nephis, the king's favour was a constant, low-grade hum of suspicion. She had lived a life where every kindness had a price, and this change in attitude, this seemingly superficial generosity terrified her.

Still, for her Fire Keepers' sake, she graciously accepted the Memories, the Echoes, and the accompanying resources — but spent nights with other Utility Aspect Fire Keepers examining each gift for a hidden enchantment or a deliberate weakness.

None were ever found, save for Anvil's Insignias branded upon them — the only enchantment being that they could not be turned against him.

She accepted the praise in court but watched the king's eyes, trying to see past the performance to the intent beneath.

Each gift, each word of praise, was a chess piece he placed on the board, and she could not yet see the checkmate he was planning.

It forced her to play a dual role — the grateful daughter in public, and the wary, calculating strategist in private — a cognitive dissonance that she knew she shouldn't complain about — but was utterly exhausting to maintain.

Despite Anvil's blatant favouritism towards her, she continued to maintain a lukewarm and formal relationship with him — which suited the king just fine.

But for her faction, this unexpected generosity was a poison of its own, a gilded cage that dulled their resolve.

How do you plot the downfall of a man who, just yesterday, had personally ordered a venerated Forgemaster — an Elder and a Spellsmith to boot — to oversee the fitting of your lieutenant with a masterwork vambrace?

What stirs in you when the king commands a grand parade in your honour — after a brutal campaign — forcing Clan Valor's Elders to sing your praises declaring the Fire Keepers as "the true sons and daughters of Valor" before the watching realm?

And how do you find the heart to sharpen a blade against a king who grants your followers not just spoils, but land, security, favourable tax rates, and a future they never dared dream of in the Sword Domain?

To Nephis, perhaps this may be the true genius of his favour — a form of psychological warfare — making their planned betrayal feel not just treacherous, but deeply dishonourable.

Every gift was a golden chain, every word of praise was a stone weighing down their conscience.

Forcing Cassie, Shim, and her to exhaust themselves using every trick in the book over the years — to ensure their subordinates' loyalty would not waver come the time to strike.

Once, when Nephis had finally gathered the courage to ask her father in private about his change in attitude, he had merely grunted brusquely in reply.

His attention fixed on the glowing billet of steel on his anvil. He did not even pause his hammerings, forcing her to raise her voice over the ringing blows.

Finally, he stopped, but only to dip the steel in the quench, hissing steam momentarily obscuring his face.

Through the vapour, he dismissed her. "Do not bother me with worthless questions. I am forging a sword."

The political schism was so profound because it inverted years of established order.

For years, Princess Nephis and her Fire Keepers were little more than gutter-born outcasts. As followers of a fallen royalty's daughter, they were openly despised and barely tolerated.

To see them now, being honoured in the halls of power, was to see wolves at the king's table.

On the other hand, Princess Morgan had always been the heart of Bastion's court.

Raised as a true war princess, she had been known for her own brand of casual cruelty — a sharp word that cut a courtier to the quick, a brutal training regimen that weeded out the weak. She was her father's daughter, forged in his image.

Or so everyone believed.

Quietly, two major factions formed around both princesses, born of loyalty or of opportunism, while a third neutral bloc of vassal clans simply tried to stay out of the line of fire.

The Sword Domain vassal clans, ever attuned to the scent of power and opportunism, reacted with the swift, brutal pragmatism of survivors.

Lords and ladies who had once allowed their men and women to spit on the ground the Fire Keepers walked on now sent them casks of their finest wine to curry their favour.

When her Fire Keepers travelled, city gates were held open past curfew, and the best suites in every inn were suddenly "unavailable" to other travellers.

Local lords and ladies would insist on hosting lavish banquets in their honour, feasts that were once reserved only for the King's inner circle.

Supplicants who had previously looked through Princess Nephis as if she were made of glass now bowed low, their eyes full of feigned reverence, eager to catch her eye.

They saw the king's favour not as a sign of love or justice, but as a declaration of who could bestow fortune or consign a house to obscurity.

Yesterday's pariah was today's rising star, and their loyalty, as always, was for sale to the highest bidder.

And those who had once hitched their wagon to Princess Morgan now found themselves in an awkward position, their overtures suddenly clumsy and their praises ringing hollow.

For those vassal clans who wished to maintain neutrality, it was an exhausting performance in itself.

Vassal lords and ladies sent carefully equivalent gifts to both Princess Morgan and Princess Nephis on feast days.

Their emissaries learnt to speak in pleasantries and hypotheticals, their reports to the King meticulously scrubbed of any opinion.

When a captain from Princess Morgan's faction and a Fire Keeper got into a tavern brawl, the local lord refused to investigate who started it and sent compensation to both princesses with identical letters of apology.

They were wary of the shifting tensions and were walking a razor's edge, knowing that backing the wrong daughter could mean the end of their line.

Having watched both the king and his biological daughter grow up, many in the inner circle were deeply conflicted in their loyalties.

Amongst the Elders, only a quiet few harboured secret satisfaction — a touch of schadenfreude — at Morgan's downfall.

The rest — whether they shared a warm bond with Morgan or found her less than endearing due to her past as a ruthless war princess — still saw the king's harsh treatment of her and blatant favoritism towards his adopted daughter as a grave error.

They had watched their king raise Princess Morgan to be a blade, celebrating her sharpness and her unyielding will. To now see him actively trying to blunt her edge and undermine her was incomprehensible.

It was like watching a master blacksmith spend a lifetime forging a legendary sword, only to then take a common hammer, trying to shatter it.

In due time, they settled on a secret agreement, a pact born of shared anxiety.

The consensus was to treat Princess Nephis with neutral courtesy, laced with the occasional favours befitting of a king's adopted daughter and her tight-knit elite group.

In practice, this meant a polite but distant nod in the corridors — never a warm smile.

It meant answering her direct questions with precise, clipped answers — offering no additional conversation.

It meant that if she attended a feast, they would toast her health along with all the others, but their eyes would be fixed on their goblets, their voices carefully monotone.

Each interaction was a tightrope walk, a performance of respect without demonstrating allegiance.

Predictably, they knew such a glaring political drama would not go unnoticed by the spies of Song — and it had not.

To Ki Song, her daughters, and her spymasters, this was not a mere family squabble — but a self-inflicted wound they could gleefully salt.

And Cassie had a front-row seat to the unfolding chaos.

As Clan Valor's Seneschal, Lady Cassia was now a key part of Valor's larger intelligence apparatus — a position that was both officially sanctioned and marked by intricate political nuance.

She made no effort to hide her allegiance to Princess Nephis, but her unique talents offered a living, breathing alternative to the priceless Memories capable of similar feats — artefacts too rare and jealously guarded to be used on anything but the most dire of threats.

However, she was not alone in her craft as the Sword Domain possessed many practitioners of Utility Aspect, leading to a wary but professional collaboration of differing loyalties — an elite corp of specialists, drawn directly from Clan Valor or its many vassal clans.

This clandestine roster included diviners, memory and dream manipulators, illusionists, forensic investigators, truth-seers, interrogators, cryptologists, Memory-lockpickers, ward-breakers, breaching specialists, shapeshifters, empaths, somnambulists, torturers, and many other rare Utility Aspect holders.

She and her colleagues were often assigned to joint operations, where their teamwork was a fragile truce that could either blossom into true camaraderie or devolve into reluctant, begrudging professionalism — all depending on the day.

The Queen of Worms' directive was simple. "Feed the fire, not the flames."

This meant their agents embedded in the Sword Domain were not to start rebellions, but to subtly amplify the existing discord.

Once, she had personally sifted through the terrified memories of a young quartermaster loyal to Princess Morgan's faction — a man accused of deliberately misrouting supplies meant for Fire Keepers. He hadn't been a traitor, but a pawn. Cassie had watched the memory of a shadowy figure in a tavern corner, feeding the boy lies about Nephis's greed and stoking his resentment until a small act of protest felt like righteous rebellion. The manipulator's face belonged to no known member of the Sword Domain.

On another occasion, a rumour was started in exclusive establishments and mundane taverns alike — that the king planned to legitimise Nephis as his heir — ensuring it reached the ears of the king's inner circle. The inquiry, headed by an Elder who volunteered, took Cassie and her colleagues months of painstaking investigation to trace the origin to a group of Song saboteurs. The culprits had long since vanished, but the damage was done — for a rumour, once spoken, could not be truly unsaid.

Or they would strike at logistics by forging a requisition order using a near-perfect copy of a seal from a clan loyal to Princess Morgan to divert a shipment of supplies. When the shipment inevitably went missing, the blame fell squarely on Princess Morgan's desperate faction, painting them as thieves and further proving their untrustworthiness in everyone's eyes — until Cassie and her colleagues' interrogation of the caravan master revealed the memory of the forged document, and the face of the woman who gave it to him — another ghost loyal to the Song.

Ki Song's goal was to make reconciliation impossible — to turn the cracks in the House of Valor into unbridgeable chasms.

Yet, these damning incidents never swayed Anvil. The Valor Elders' advice, feverishly offered behind closed doors, was always dismissed, his own inscrutable purpose hidden behind a wall of cold silence.

Eventually, their repeated attempts were silenced forever when one day, an infamous Saint known for his wry humour — believing a carefully aimed barb of humour could succeed where sober counsel had failed, deployed his masterpiece — a joke he had polished for weeks about the folly of a master smith who praises the keen edge of a captured foreign blade while overlooking the proven strength of the heirloom sword he forged with his own hands.

The king took the analogy as a direct challenge to his judgment, his face hardening as he turned Saint Jest's clumsy metaphor into Princess Morgan's ensuing grim reality.

The next day, Anvil abandoned all subtlety and made the shocking order of condemning his own biological daughter, in front of a royal audience of Clan Valor and its vassal clans — ordering Morgan to redeem herself in True Bastion's forest by challenging a Nightmare Seed there.

It was a suicide order, as the forest of True Bastion was a Death Zone.

A crushing stillness fell over the throne room as the tangible weight of his Sovereign's Will forbade any word of protest, a pressure so intense that it was almost visible to all present.

Saint Not So Funny Anymore looked as though he had been turned to stone, his face a mask of horror. The rest of The Elders wildly differed in their reactions, but all were at a loss for words — their silence, a testament to their powerlessness.

Even Nephis and her Fire Keepers, who stood to gain the most, were stunned into inaction — the sheer brutality of the decree sucking the air from their lungs.

This was the first time in her adulthood, in front of an audience, Morgan displayed a crack in her composure.

"Fa … Fath …" The word fractured on her tongue.

"Da … Daddy …"

She struggled to whisper, the name a raw plea from a childhood she thought long buried.

Hot and traitorous tears welled, rolling down her cheeks and blurring the image of the man on the throne.

"Please ... the forest … True Bastion ... alone ... that is a death sentence … What cri … crime … have I done to deserve this?"

"Crime?" Anvil's grunt was amplified by a fresh exertion of his Sovereign's Will — even those in Nephis's faction who might have felt a flicker of triumph dared not celebrate.

His voice a low rumble.

"There is no crime. There is only failure. You failed in Antarctica. You failed to dispose of Mordret, despite every resource I provided you. The House of Valor does not reward failures. It scours failures away."

It was then that hope died in Morgan's eyes, replaced by a dawning, absolute horror.

'I am your blood … Your daughter …' The thought — a silent scream.

But the dismissal was absolute. A cold certainty settled in her soul.

This was the same man who had ordered her to hunt down and kill her own brother. Of course, he — too — would not hesitate to discard a daughter.

She had once been a faithful weapon in his hand against Mordret — and now, having failed — she was simply a broken one in his eyes.

She was not a daughter being disciplined, she was a faulty tool being sent back to the forge, with no guarantee of survival.

After the royal audience, hushed whispers about Princess Morgan's fate and Princess Nephis's indisputable ascension filled the castle's halls.

Behind the king's back, the faction loyal to Princess Morgan worked frantically to control the fallout, but a decree so public and brutal could not be contained.

In the days that followed, a pervasive fear reshaped the castle's corridors. It showed in the averted eyes when Princess Morgan passed.

Servants would suddenly kneel to scrub an invisible stain from the floorboard or find a vase that needed rearranging with meticulous care.

Nobles would abruptly halt to admire a tapestry as if it held the secrets of the world or launch into a hushed, intense debate about the quality of the ceiling's stonework.

All to avoid acknowledging her presence.

Haunted by his blunder, Saint Not So Funny Anymore would launch into clumsy, effusive praise of Princess Morgan's minor accomplishments at every given opportunity. His defences were so clownish it only magnified the king's stony silence, a constant, grim reminder of his failure.

Before her departure, many of the guilt-stricken nobles sought her out in secret — their offerings were not gifts of confidence but acts of frantic atonement.

An old general pressed a tactical Memory into her hand, whispering, "Forgive an old man's cowardice." without meeting her gaze.

A matron who had known her since birth offered an Echo of unparalleled defensive power, her own hand trembling. "May this guard you better than ... we have" she said, her voice cracking on the last word.

The pattern repeated itself and more — a silent parade of shames and apologies.

Some, driven by a deeper desperation, dared to share forbidden knowledge — secrets that Warden and Anvil had ordered never to be uttered again — secrets held by living liabilities, prominent members too indispensable to execute — who were instead sworn to take the knowledge to their graves.

Consequences be damned!

Each gift, each whisper, was an unspoken apology, a desperate attempt to buy solace for a betrayal they were allowing to happen.

This quiet support, and the secrets she now held — offered a small comfort in the knowledge that despite her ever-thinning faction, some loyalty remained.

Despite that, Princess Morgan's position did not change even after she returned two years later as a Saint.

She had done the impossible by challenging a Third Nightmare alone.

It was a feat worthy of legend, worthy to be recorded in the annals of history.

Now, she returned, coming not for praise, but for acknowledgement.

"I have returned," she stated, her voice calm and resonant with the power of her new rank, the air around her humming with glints of her newfound energy.

"As you commanded. A Saint."

The king coldly acknowledged her return, his tone flat, as if commenting on a satisfactory piece of smithing.

"Good," he said, before informing her, "I have already sent word to the House of Night proposing a marriage. The alliance would benefit us. You will be a suitable bride for one of their sons."

Morgan was no stranger to political marriage, she was royalty, it was an inevitability she and others of her station had been groomed for all their lives.

However, the timing left a sour taste in her mouth, it was a galling insult.

She had returned a legend, expecting, if not an apology, then at least a reckoning. Instead, she was being appraised and peddled like a prize to be bartered.

This was not a reward. It was the next stage of her disposal.

The king's decision sent another shockwave throughout the inner halls of Bastion and Ravenheart.

Even his enemy, Ki Song and her daughters, who had eyes and ears in the throne room, were left flabbergasted.

They had long considered Morgan a dangerous thorn, a ruthless war dog to be feared and respected. But to see her so utterly devalued by her own father, to be forged into a legendary weapon only to be offered up as a common bartering chip, struck a different chord.

In her private court, they watched the events unfold through a grandiose scrying mirror — an Echo bound to the eye of a senior spy — its polished surface shimmering with stolen sights and sounds.

A rare look of pity crossed Ki Song's face.

She turned to her own daughters.

"Men like him ..." She said, her voice quiet but sharp as glass. "... see us only as swords or wombs. Remember this. Love is a currency they are too poor to afford. Never let it determine your worth."

For a brief moment, Morgan was not the enemy.

She was just another daughter being sacrificed on the altar of her father's ambition, a sight that any mother with daughters of her own could not witness without a flicker of chilling solidarity.

When Morgan confronted him privately in his smithy, Anvil was hammering at his anvil, the mighty clangs of his work echoing through the hall.

He finished a sequence of blows before plunging the glowing metal into a quench, the violent hiss filling the silence.

He turned, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of a leather-gloved hand.

Anvil spared her a look as she barged in, his eyes analytical, assessing her as he would a new sword.

"A marriage?" She asked, her voice dangerously level.

"I return a Saint from a Death Zone, and my reward is to be traded like livestock?"

"It is a good trade," Anvil stated, turning from her to pick up a different blade, running a thumb along its edge.

"The House of Night will be a powerful ally for the upcoming war. Your Ascension makes you a worthy prize."

"A prize." She repeated, the word tasting like ash. "Not a daughter."

He finally turned to the whetstone, the rhythmic, grating scrape of steel on stone filling the air. It was a sound of sharpening, but also of wearing away.

"The House of Valor needs strong swords, not sentimental daughters. You will do your duty."

"I see." She uttered. These two words were colder than the winter winds at the snowy caps of the Hollow Mountains.

There were no more questions.

There was no confusion left.

She finally understood.

In her father's eyes, she was not a daughter to be cherished, but a tool to be used, reforged, and now, sold away.

She gave him a slight, mocking bow, turned on her heel, and walked away.

She left him to the fire and steel he so clearly loved more than her, the sound of the whetstone scraping away the last of her filial devotion.

Throughout this new ordeal, having learnt their lesson, no one dared approach the king to ask him to reconsider.

Instead, now burdened with even more guilt, those responsible for her predicament offered Princess Morgan any form of support they could — hoping to secure her a chance at a comfortable and happy marriage.

A Song's wartime slur, one first seeded years ago by a remarkably clumsy Song saboteur — whose efforts had been laughed at even by his own side — now found a grim new audience in the hushed whispers of taverns, marketplaces, and noble keeps alike.

The question was the same everywhere.

What father sends his daughter to her death and when she accomplishes the impossible — treats her victory not as a triumph, but as an increase in her bargaining price?

The outlandish accusation of him being a Skinwalker no longer seemed impossible.

After all, a Skinwalker impersonating their king was far easier to fathom than their king becoming a monster.

In times of such profound uncertainty, all eyes in Bastion, reluctantly turned to The House of Night, awaiting its reply.

Chapter Text

The House of Night deliberated on the marriage proposal for weeks before nominating Saint Aether as a potential groom for Princess Morgan.

The move left Bastion's court deeply unsettled, caught between interpreting it as genius or insult. It was a calculated political decision.

After all, The House of Night had no desire to be drawn into Clan Valor's family drama and had wished to maintain neutrality in the coming war.

Nominating Saint Aether, a known playboy, was an unvoiced rejection, dooming the pre-marital discussions before they even began.

Morgan knew Aether well. Back when she held her father's favour, her spies had kept tabs on every person of importance.

The promising champion of the House of Night was famous for his romantic exploits, leaving a legendary trail of spurned lovers and scandalous rumours in his wake. He was the subject of many a B-rated drama in the Waking World — his vulnerability to honey-traps from other factions landing him in frequent trouble.

If not for his raw promise, he would have been harshly disciplined ages ago. Instead, the leaders of his clan treated his many indiscretions with a strained and frustrated indulgence — offering little more than token censures.

Upper-class etiquette demanded that during talks of a potential marriage, both parties were expected to bare their cards, save for their most personally guarded secrets — such as one's Flaw.

Throughout the ordeal, both parties would spare no expense on truth-telling enchantments or interrogators who possessed Aspects that could detect lies.

After all, Cassie knew the sterile theatre of political marriages intimately — she had been attending several such discussions. Her presence was requested many times by families who maintained close ties with Princess Nephis — either from old loyalties or quiet opportunism.

They solicited her services to peer through the veils of polite deception and to ensure their children weren't being sold a gilded lie.

In these opulent rooms, her position afforded her a unique authority. As Valor's valued advisor and Nephis's closest confidante — her fidus Achates — she was granted a privilege unheard of for most specialists — the right to walk away with her memories intact.

The old guard and clans loyal to Princess Morgan's faction would never trust her with such secrets, but Princess Nephis's allies saw her as an extension of the rising star they had hitched their wagons to.

Privately, Lady Cassia found the practice deeply unpalatable.

This cold transaction of power and bloodlines was a language utterly alien to her, a dialect of the nobility she had never learned.

Despite her current standing, she was raised middle-class and her youth was spent not amongst the very nobles she now called peers, learning the grim arithmetic of dynastic duty.

Instead, her teenage years had been filled with cheap, tear-jerking romance dramas — entertainment meant for the masses, the kind devoured by common folks.

These were stories of chance encounters and defiant love, stories of heartbreaking sacrifices and happily-ever-afters earned with tears, as well as stories of the simple, foolish bargains of the heart.

From them, she had sincerely internalised and truly believed a union should be built on genuine affection, not on the cold calculus of strengthening one's power.

She kept this opinion locked away though, lest she suffered mockery from her peers. It was a silent, personal rebellion against the world she now inhabited.

Ironically, she herself was a frequent subject of these very calculations.

As one of the most beautiful Saints in the Sword Domain — with a quiet, arresting grace that turned heads in court — her name was often mentioned in proposals sent to Princess Nephis.

Ambitious patriarchs and matriarchs, aiming to seek an alliance with the highly favoured Fire Keepers, would petition Princess Nephis for the hand of her blind Seneschal.

But she always, always, was the second choice.

In the martial society of Valor, where strength and prestige were measured in sword arms, strategic genius, or military engineering. A blind seer, no matter how powerful her Aspect, was seen as a fragile treasure rather than a cornerstone for a powerful house.

Lady Cassia was an exquisite asset, yes, but not a warrior.

And so, the pattern became sickeningly familiar.

A noble house would first approach Princess Nephis — offering their finest son, and sometimes even their daughter — for her hand.

And when Nephis, with her unfailingly polite but firm refusals, turned them down, they would pivot.

The very next day, a revised proposal would arrive, this time asking for the honour of an alliance with her closest friend.

She loved Nephis like a sister, fiercely and loyally. Yet, every time this happened, she couldn't suppress a complicated and bitter pang in her heart.

It wasn't indignation, not truly, because Nephis had done nothing wrong.

It wasn't a single emotion, but a tangled knot of fierce loyalty, burning shame, and the cold, sharp sting of envy.

Deeper still was a quiet, corrosive resentment for The Sword Domain itself — a culture that measured her worth only as a secondary objective.
She would look at Nephis — truly look, with the unique senses that her blindness had sharpened — and see what all the suitors saw — the perfect union of blade and bloodline.

Nephis possessed not just staggering beauty, but the brawn of a peerless warrior and her noble heritage of Immortal Flame and Clan Valor — she was royalty before and after her adoption.

Her preternaturally white hair, a mark of the Spell, only added to her exotic allure, suggesting that the Spell — now woven into the very bedrock of the civilised world — seemed to favour its Changing Star.

She was the sun, drawing every orbit. Cassie, for all her power and beauty, was merely a moon, shining with reflected light.

Nephis, in her own way, tried to shield her from it. She would present the proposals with careful omissions, speaking of a "prominent family who deeply admires our faction" never mentioning their initial, failed bid for her own hand.

But Cassie always knew.

She was too perceptive, too attuned to the subtle shifts in tone, the hesitations, the whispers she overheard from servants and courtiers.

She would piece together the truth from the fragments Nephis tried to hide, and the knowledge was a constant, dull ache.

It was the sting of being an afterthought, the humiliation of knowing you were the contingency plan.

And as much as she loved her friend and saviour, that rebellious knowledge carved out a tiny, shadowed space in her heart.

The memory of the Forgotten Shore was the anchor of her devotion, as it was Nephis — a fierce, half-starved girl herself, who had stood over the naked, helpless, blind teenager Cassie had been — offering Cassie her armour and choosing to face the horrors of the Shore unprotected so that the trembling, defenceless seer would not.

It was Nephis who had promised they would endure a hostile and unfamiliar land.

It was the promise, whispered against the monstrous sounds of the cruel waves, that they would survive.

How then, could resentment find purchase in a heart so completely owned by gratitude?

This guilt only made the pain worse.

No one likes being the second choice, after all.

And being always considered the second choice next to someone she cherished, Cassie was slowly beginning to fear, that it was a quiet poison for which there was no antidote.

For Princess Morgan, it came as no surprise when Saint Aether rejected the proposal mid-way during one of the meetings of the two families.

It wasn't hard to guess why. She always wore specially enchanted gloves, and a few discreet reports from House of Night spies operating undercover in the Sword Domain had already had their suspicion about her Flaw — that her touch caused objects to become fragile and easily damaged.

Any prospect of physical intimacy was, therefore — impossible. Besides, as one of the most promising Saints of the House of Night, he had a wealth of other, less complicated, partners to choose from.

Saint Aether's rejection was a wound far deeper than any political setback. It was a public verdict on her womanhood, delivered with the casual cruelty of a bored socialite.

It confirmed the hushed whispers now circulating freely through the court — that the great War Princess was, in some fundamental, intimate way:

Flawed.

Unworthy.

The brief, desperate hope that marriage might offer a silver lining to her constant disgrace was extinguished, leaving only the bitter sting of humiliation.

Her Flaw, which she had once amusingly considered a boon — a hidden dagger she wielded with pride, had finally turned in her hand. She had been forged to be a sword, and at that moment, she truly learnt the bitter irony that even the finest blade can cut its own wielder.

With no other avenue to turn to, she obediently resumed her duties as the Sword Princess and Valor's military strategist, albeit with a hollowed-out enthusiasm — with less respect, less authority, less favour, less support, and less autonomy.

She had no choice.

After all, she realised she knew no other way to live.

And so she silently suffered.

Enduring not only her father's unyielding contempt but also the relentless opportunism of her sister — who, over the years, slowly built the courage to take every chance to undermine and humiliate her — a galling reversal of the roles they had once played — an irony she was in no position to appreciate.

Chapter Text

This fractured political landscape in the halls of power in Bastion, this uneasy equilibrium — held for a time.

It ended weeks ago, as Princess Morgan was ordered by her father to travel alone to meet the Hermit Shadow Saint of Godgrave.

The Lord of Shadows was an unknown player who had recently appeared on the chessboard — a mysterious figure who had materialised in the Death Zone between the Sword and Song Domains.

Morgan's mission was to secure his allegiance — after determining he was not a pawn of Asterion.

If he had truly survived there alone, he was immensely powerful.

It came to no surprise that both Domains now coveted his loyalty, their eyes were already set on Godgrave long ago as the next theatre of war after Antarctica.

It was implicitly understood what this mission entailed. She was to survive another Death Zone and, should the Lord of Shadow find her to his fancy, offer herself to him.

The loyalty of those who had watched her grow up finally began to show signs of fracture, unable to fathom what possessed the king to so callously offer his daughter to an unknown, monstrous power.

However, just a week ago, everything changed with a single, sealed dispatch.

It came from Valor's spies embedded in Song Domain, carrying shocking news of her estranged brother, Mordret.

The latest reports confirmed that the hermit Saint had managed to defeat a vessel of that monster — elevating the mysterious Saint and Shadow Clan's reputation to legendary status in everyone's eyes.

It now seemed clear to all — that the last scion of the missing Shadow God's lineage belonged to him — after all, who else was fit to challenge one of the War God's own?

To Anvil, this news also revealed a critical move by his rival.

The decision by Ki Song to send Mordret — his estranged boy, her adopted son — to entice the Lord of Shadow did not go unnoticed by him.

For all her philosophical pronouncements on the nature of conflict — believing that if someone is forced to fight, they have already lost — it seemed Ki Song's maternal instinct trumped her principles.

Sending her precious daughters to an unknown entity was a line she would not cross — she would rather betray her own philosophy before risking her sweet daughters.

After the news broke, Anvil spent days in solitary contemplation before making his decision.

Shortly thereafter, before his royal court, he made a public mockery of the queen, knowing full well that her spies and her thralls — and by extension her — were there to witness it.

Once his tirade of questioning her determination was over, he made a new order — one to prove that he possessed a stronger will than her.

Instead of sending Morgan alone — Nephis, now the darling princess of the Sword Domain's public and his apparent favourite — was to accompany her.

Both Sword Sisters were now tasked with braving the Death Zone, with the goal of having one of them unite the Shadow God's lineage with the War God's.

This was a sudden, terrifying turn of fortune for Nephis.

And unintendedly made Morgan secretly despised her more.

Although she won't show it, because she did not want to provoke her sister to find more excuses to antagonise her — and more importantly, she now had competition.

The failed marriage debacle had shattered her confidence, and so the initial directive to meet the Lord of Shadow had filled her with dread, not joy.

To a strategist, an unknown variable of this magnitude was anathema.

Her primary concern had been pragmatic — if this Lord of Shadows was Asterion's pawn, the mission was not a diplomatic overture but yet another suicide mission, given the Dreamspawn's terrifying power.

Beyond that lay a more personal fear — that this mysterious saint might be a cruel tyrant, eager to exploit her precarious position and desperation — something she was intimately and ironically — familiar with, given that she herself had often taken advantage of others.

Despite that, she managed to entertain a dangerous sliver of hope, lodged in her heart — because the fragmented reports painted a picture not of a monster — or at least, not a simple one.

For what monster, after all, would guide lost Sleepers back to civilisation throughout their winter solstice journey — even while terrifying them along the way?

A Saint, perhaps on the verge of Sovereignty — not just in Rank, but in spirit — the kind that bows to no throne, no god, no fate.

The sheer audacity of his Citadel's location only raised his worth in her eyes. In him, she saw, with bated breath, hoping — not another jailor, but the faint possibility of an equal — an alliance forged in strength, not a transaction brokered by her father's contempt.

Still, an unknown variable remained a terrifying prospect.

For all she knew, he might laugh at her face before killing her for the mere suggestion of a union.

But everything changed when the news arrived that The Lord of Shadow had defeated her brother — the same brother who had defeated her, mocked her and humiliated her resolve during the Battle of Black Skull — the same Mortred that even her father, a Supreme, struggled to keep a tight rein on.

A giddy, possessive thrill shot through her as she vicariously rejoiced his victory.

Perhaps this Lord of Shadow may hold more promises than the debauchee Saint — that manchild Aether.

She immediately forgot her previous aversion to The Lord of Shadow and her Flaw — subconsciously hoping that a man this powerful would value her prowess over superficial sexual compatibility.

The hardened war princess would find herself playing out potential conversations in her mind as she prepared for her travel, childishly fantasising a future in his Shadow Clan.

She replayed and rehearsed how she would best present her talents, her resources, her accomplishments and most importantly — her solitary triumph in True Bastion — as a dowry of strength, proving herself a worthy consort for the Lord of Shadow.

And now, her sister — through no fault of her own, not really — was a direct threat to the only future Morgan had ever dared to actually want.

For a fleeting, venomous moment, she contemplated sabotage.

Anything could happen in a Death Zone, after all.

An accident. A tragic misstep.

But she eventually dismissed that thought.

A battle between two Saints with the Aspect of the Sun God and War God would be a ruinous affair.

Even if she won, she would not emerge unscathed, and ending up wounded and alone in a Death Zone was its own form of death sentence.

No, she would have to win this contest on its own terms.

For Nephis, however, the king's amended decree was a masterwork of sabotage — even if unintended — throwing a wrench in her planned insurrection.

Her plans were proceeding smoothly — too smooth — as she had taken the opportunity to use Anvil's favouritism to spread her nascent Domains to many believers while undermining her enemies.

But an alliance, a marriage, to a wild card Saint would chain her to an unknown quantity, complicating every step of her rebellion.

Was this hermit a potential ally she would be forced to betray?

Or was he another of Anvil's traps, designed to expose her true intentions?

Would he be loyal to her, or to the Sovereign who granted her to him?

Proximity to a husband would make concealing her treacherous plans nearly impossible.

This mission felt like being thrown into a locked arena with a beast, with no way of knowing whose side the beast was truly on.

Trusting him was a risk.

Alienating him was a risk.

The path forward had suddenly become a swamp of impossible choices.

Nephis rarely asked her adopted father to "spoil" her, unless necessary, given the awkward, tenuous relationship between them.

But this is one of those rare moments where she begged her father to reconsider.

Everyone held their breath during the ordeal, unsure on how to react.

Anvil did not raise his voice.

He lowered it.

A dangerous smile curled on his regal countenance that was more terrifying than any shout.

His voice was soft, a chilling counterpoint to the pressure that began to bleed into the room.

"Reconsider?" he murmured, the word a silken threat.

"Dearest daughter, I have given you everything.

Status, power, and purpose.

And now, on this one simple task, you plead?"

He leaned forward, rising slow from his throne with practiced intimidation, his eyes piercing into the petrified princess.

"On a task any other daughters of Valor would seize as an honour?

Perhaps the whispers are true.

Perhaps the rot of your fallen house runs too deep.

You were born a royalty, but did Broken Sword and Smile of Heaven allow you to stuff your head with the dreadful romance of mundanes' daughters?

Taught you to covet for creature comforts?

Or were the lessons of your birth so steeped in sentiment that you have forgotten a throne is forged from will, not from wishes?"

It was a display of monarchical fury that would be recounted in hushed tones for generations.

He straightened to his full, imposing height as his Sovereign's Will descended upon the throne room — not as a wave, but as a suffocating pressure that carried the weight of a mountain.

Space itself seemed to stutter.

The sharp lines of the throne room's architecture blurred.

Motes of impossible colour danced in the air.

The aberrant air grew thick. Tasting of burnt steel and hot iron.

The world did not break, it flickered — as though reality itself were a fragile tapestry whose threads were being violently pulled taut by the King's fury.

Mundane courtiers collapsed, their faces pale as they gasped for breath that would not come. Some wept, fainted, vomited, or were seized by panic attacks.

The stronger Awakened — the knights and council members — fared little better, forced to one or both knees as they fought to salvage some shred of dignity, unlike the courtiers.

Only those who had achieved Sainthood remained standing, and only through sheer force of will.

Their knuckles turned white as they gripped the hilt of their weapons searching for some small, solid semblance of comfort, their attunement to the world forcefully suppressed, their knees trembling, sweat beading on their brows as they fought against the instinct to embarass themselves.

It was a Will that didn't just command — it sought to dissolve one's essence, to unspool the souls of those who defied it.

And into this maelstrom of unravelling reality, his voice cut through the shared torture, a quiet venom that was now the most solid thing in the room.

"Do not mistake my generosity for weakness, princess.

You will go. The two of you, and no one else.

Your little band of Fire Keepers stays here, under my watch.

Let's consider them ... motivation."

He let that sink in, the silence stretching for a long moment. He did not continue until he saw the flicker of comprehension — and horror — in Nephis's eyes.

"Seduce him. Subjugate him. Or kill him.

The means are of no consequence to me.

Your success, however ... does.

Failure is not an option I will entertain.

And don't you two dare return until the task is done.

Now, remove yourselves from my sight."

Prior to the present time, the fractured political landscape of The Sword Domain had settled into a workable, if tense, equilibrium.

All parties — Anvil, his inner council, Morgan's faction, Nephis's faction, the neutral bloc of vassal clans, the secret cells loyal to the Song Domain, the House of Night, or the waking world's government — had over the years, slowly and steadily found their place on the board.

It could not last.

The epoch-making debut of the enigmatic Hermit Saint of Godgrave was the unbalancing weight dropped upon the world's political scales.

The gears of fate, rusted by years of uneasy peace, finally ground into motion — with a shudder that promised to shake the foundations of the world.

Chapter Text

Since Cassie and the rest of the Fire Keepers were under a polite quarantine, forbidden to leave Bastion until Nephis and Morgan returned, they had plenty of free time. 

The days stretched, long and empty.

This enforced idleness was only compounded by recent events.

Following Ki Song's spectacular failure to court the Lord of Shadows, her spies' espionage activities within the Sword Domain had quieted down with unnerving abruptness.

Their focus had shifted from active sabotage to passive reconnaissance — a theatre of operations where Cassie's current skills were hardly required.

It left her with little to do but watch, wait, and think.

While she walked to her destination, Cassie muttered to herself.

"I really need to make a decision soon. That prize pool for the bet is getting too ridiculous to ignore."

A few days after both princesses had left, a naughty discussion began to circulate among the mundane courtiers and Sleepers — a distraction from the shared trauma of witnessing the king's fury.

Whom would the Lord of Shadows — the enigmatic Hermit Saint of Godgrave — choose as his consort?

Princess Nephis or Princess Morgan?

The idea caught fire.

It soon crystallised into a scandalous betting pool.

What started as whispers in common rooms soon drew in the Awakened.

Once Masters began placing their bets, it was inevitable that a few Saints, amused by the audacity of it all, decided to play along.

The prize pool swelled.

A few days after the betting pool's inception, the common hall — secretly repurposed for illicit bookmaking — was alive with hushed wagers.

That all stopped the moment a revered Elder from the king's inner circle walked in.

A palpable silence fell over the room.

The nervous Master in charge of bookmaking on that day nearly dropped to his knees to beg for forgiveness, but the matronly dame simply smiled — and placed a formidable sum on Princess Morgan — and departed as quietly as she had arrived.

That single act broke the final dam.

Whispers intensified and spread like wildfire, and the prize pool grew to a size that was both terrifying and tantalising.

The scale of the wager soon demanded a more sophisticated approach.

A council of Utility Aspect Saints and Masters was formed to oversee the operation.

One team was responsible for overall security and operational processes.

Another team, specialising in cypher-based Aspects, worked with several Forgemasters to design an anonymous ledger system.

A third team oversaw the construction and maintenance of a specially crafted spatial Memory to hold the prize pool.

The system they created was thoughtful designed. Bets were placed, but the identity of each bettor was obscured, linked only to a unique, untraceable glyph.

Only the final winner would be able to claim the prize, their identity forever shielded from reprisal or envy — unless they decided to brag about it.

It was this promise of absolute anonymity that heightened its irresistibility. Soon, each and every Elder in the king's inner circle had a horse in the race.

The options for the wager also deepened in complexity.

Beyond the two princesses, a third option was added — "Neither".

This was for the pragmatists who suspected the Lord of Shadows was already spoken for, or simply had no interest in the political marriages of the Great Clans to begin with.

Then, Saint Jest, in a fit of what he called "comedic foresight", insisted on a fourth option — "Both".

This was met with disgust and annoyance, as polygamy was a deep-seated taboo that clashed with the strict marital customs of both realms.

And yet, the outrageous suggestion drew a surprising number of bets from the more lecherous or chaos-inclined members of the populace.

The ship war, as everyone called it — was now serious business.

It spilled from the hidden halls of the royal court into taverns and training yards alike, as commoners began their own betting pools too.

Furious brawls erupted over tankards of ale in common taverns.

At noble banquets, the conflict was meant to be more civilised, but polite conversation often devolved into a minefield of veiled insults and barbed insinuations.

Occasionally, tempers would flare, and a challenge would be issued — leading to duels, which would sometimes boil over into a chaotic, free-for-all, full-blown battle royale that saw the highborns scrapping in the dirt with no more dignity than a commoner.

Loyalty itself was weaponised.

A noble seen being too friendly with the opposing faction might be accused of hedging their bets — their devotion to their chosen princess vehemently questioned.

More than a few cynics cleverly justified their positions. It became a common, if bleak, refrain amongst bettors — "If my princess is to lose her heart to him, I may as well win a fortune to mend my own."

For them, betting on the other side was an insurance policy against emotional devastation.

There were also those who weaponised this viral bet by taking the opportunity to earn a quick buck. Market stalls in the common areas began selling crude tokens of allegiance.

You could buy a splinter of sun-bleached wood tied with a silver ribbon for "Team Nephis", or a polished metal marked with a vermilion sigil for "Team Morgan".

These trinkets became a quick way to gauge a stranger's loyalties at a glance, and merchants happily fanned the flames of the rivalry to sell their wares.

Enterprising tavern keepers capitalised on the frenzy.

One night might be a "Morgan's Monday," offering a bottle of spiced alcohol to anyone who could belt out a bawdy ballad in her honour — songs that praised not just her victories, but the dangerous curve of her smile and the steel in her gaze.

The next might be a "Friday's Flame" featuring fiery brandy and holding recitals of verse, where aspiring poets would share odes to Princess Nephis's grace.

Of course, reverence rarely survived the third drink.

The anthems would become jeering shanties, the odes would sour into scurrilous ditties, and the nights would invariably end not in applause, but in the crash of fists on tables and the splintering of chairs.

With little real information to go on, omens and portents became a form of currency.

Bets were swayed by the smallest things.

A soldier might move his coin to Princess Nephis simply because a sun-kissed bird landed on Bastion spire.

A courtier might double down on Princess Morgan after dreaming of a red moon.

Diviners with even a sliver of talent were hounded for predictions, often giving vague, crowd-pleasing answers — that only fuelled the speculation further.

A Master with a minor truth-sensing Aspect was caught charging people to "sense" the honesty of rumours.

Another with an emotional resonance Aspect would gauge the "harmony" of both princesses' names — a judgment that conveniently changed depending on who was paying for her drinks.

In the training yards, the debates were less about charm and more about combat synergy.

Supporters of Princess Nephis argued that her radiant flame would be the perfect complement to the hermit Saint's shadows.

Princess Morgan's supporters shot back that for all his skill in a fight, the Saint could not lead an army — and that was what she brought to the table.

Amongst the scholars, the arguments took on a more academic tone. They debated historical precedents, citing past alliances formed by marriage.

Some even argued from a perspective of pseudo-psychological-personality profiling.

"The Lord of Shadows is a creature of deep trauma and isolation ...", one might posit.

"He requires an anchor — a single point of absolute trust in a world of intrigue.

The unwavering warmth of Princess Nephis offers that — a bright beacon that doesn't scheme or calculate.

It simply is.

Her presence would simplify his world, providing a sanctuary from the paranoia his power invites.

In contrast, Princess Morgan's cunning — however valuable, represents another layer of complexity — most men would prefer not to entertain."

Others would retort.

"Nonsense.

If he is a traumatised man who secluded himself and single-handedly forged himself into a deadly weapon, he must have secretly yearned for genuine understanding.

He will not trust unwavering warmth.

A naivety, he could not afford.

What he understands is shared struggle.

Princess Morgan now spends her life walking on eggshells around a tyrannical father and sister, learning to read every shift in mood, every silent threat.

She knows the difference between a quiet moment and the calm before a storm.

She wouldn't try to "heal" the Lord of Shadows' trauma with sunshine and smiles.

She would recognize his silence for what it was — a language she herself has been forced to learn. 

She'd just get it.

You fundamentally misunderstand the nature of a shadow.

A shadow is not drawn to a brighter sun — it is only defined by it, and ultimately erased by it.

He does not need a "beacon" like Princess Nephis, which would only highlight his own darkness by contrast.

He needs a mirror.

Princess Morgan — cast out, betrayed by her father, forced to become a weapon to survive — she is his mirror.

That's a level of empathy Princess Nephis couldn't possibly offer, because right now, she's the one causing the pain.

In her, he would not see a cure, but a reflection of his own soul.

That is not healing — it is validation, and for a man like him, validation is far more precious."

Meanwhile, the "Neither" camp developed an air of insufferable intellectual superiority.

They would often stand at the edge of heated debates, sipping their drinks with a knowing smirk, occasionally interjecting with comments such as:

"It doesn't matter if one princess is offered to that monster, or both of them. The only real wager is whether he'll kill them before or after he's done laughing in their faces."

"Imagine thinking a man who has the competency to live in a Death Zone alone needs a wife chosen by you losers"

"It's adorable how you all think this is a two-horse race. As if Queen Song doesn't have other more agreeable, prettier daughters waiting in line."

"That man clawed his way to the top just to find some peace, and now every Legacy Clan in both realms is trying to leash him with a pretty face. He doesn't want a queen, he wants everyone to fucking leave him alone."

At the same time, the small but vocal "Team Both" faction reveled in the chaos they sowed.

They would cheer for both sides in a brawl and often placed their own minuscule side-bets on which princess would be the first to complain of exhaustion after consummating the alliance.

Their favourite pastime was starting raucous tavern arguments, weaponising the sisters' well-known rivalry for maximum effect.

They would loudly ask Princess Nephis's supporters if their princess, having already taken her sister's place in the king's favour, was "possibly charitable enough to share a bed with Princess Morgan".

Then, they would turn to Princess Morgan's camp with mock pity, suggesting that their princess, being "so used to second place these days", might actually find the arrangement comfortable.

Their taunts grew cruder as the nights wore on and the beer flowed freely.

"You're all idiots!" A "Team Both" supporter would shout, laughing into his mug.

"It isn't about love. Those two princesses hate each other's guts. And that's the best part!"

He'd lean in, lowering his voice.

"Just think about it. Every night in bed would be a fucking war!

A contest to see which princess could ride him harder, suck him deeper!

All just to shove it in the other one's face.

And you know what? If that Lord of Shadows has half a brain, he'll see it too.

He'll just order them to work out all that vicious, twisted spite on each other while watching.

Can you imagine that kind of hate-fucking?

That's not just a political marriage.

That's the best damn spectator sport in both worlds!"

A moment of silence would usually follow as the image settled in, before they would sigh together with genuine envy.

"That Lord of Shadows ... lucky bastard."

Chapter Text

Far to the west, the royal court of Ki Song projected a sterile air of dignified disapproval.

Official statements were issued, decrying the wager as "a vulgar spectacle disrespectful to both Great Clans".

Behind this facade of propriety, they positioned themselves as the mature party, while Bastion appeared content to let its subjects indulge in base gossip.

This condemnation was, naturally, followed by a formal ban on the practice within their domain — a ban enforced with calculated leniency.

Their leadership recognised that the wager served two unspoken purposes — the quiet churn of coin stimulated the economy, and it provided an invaluable social pressure valve, allowing the populace to vent their passions on a matter that left the true structures of power untouched.

But privately, they were the most active participants.

To them, the wager was not a game of chance but a new front in the cold war.

Song's spies would do more than merely bet — they would actively attempt to manipulate the odds.

The betting pool itself was a tool, and its anonymity a lock they would dedicate immense resources to picking.

Every bet was a data point.

Which lesser clans were betting heavily on whom, revealing hidden allegiances?

Was there a sudden influx of capital on 'Neither', signalling that a third power was making a play?

Yet Bastion's counter-intelligence was not idle.

Their own operatives, as Cassie knew from her colleagues' chatter, moved to muddy the waters by amplifying existing discord and planting false leads.

The goal was to bury Song's analysts in fabricated intelligence, frustrating them, making them chase ghosts, and rendering it all but impossible to separate truth from the overwhelming chaos.

A quiet watch was placed on anyone showing an unusually strong interest in the ledger's secrets, turning Song's own methods of observation back against them.

Amidst all the madness, only four people remained oblivious — the two princesses, Anvil, and the Lord of Shadows himself.

The princesses had departed long before the commotion started.

And after giving his orders, Anvil had secluded himself in his forge to focus on sword making, informing his inner circle that he would not hold court until a masterpiece was complete.

He had ordered the Elders to make decisions in his stead and to send for him only when there is pertinent news from Godgrave, or when Ki Song is besieging Bastion — an arrangement his inner circle happily obliged.

Through it all, Cassie remained undecided, caught in a three-way war within her own mind.

Her middle-class upbringing had instilled in her a deep-seated belief that the practice of arranged marriages was a farce.

Because of this, she hoped for Nephis's freedom above all.

But she knew this was her own bias, a romantic ideal Nephis might not share.

For her friend, it might be that marriage was never about love — it was about power, and this was a contest Nephis might fully intend to win.

This urged her to bet on "Neither".

Yet, the cold, calculating logic of the cynics was seductive — betting on Princess Morgan offered a highly probable way to recoup a loss if the worst were to happen.

But a third, more potent fear held her back. What if Nephis found out?

What would she think, knowing her closest friend had so little faith in her allure, in her ability to win any contest she put her mind to?

How could she, of all people, doubt her? She, who had a front-row seat to the way every bachelor in the Sword Domain vied for Nephis's attention while Cassie simply stood in her shadow?

For Nephis to learn that Cassie had bet against her… the thought was unbearable. The potential winnings meant nothing compared to the sting of that imagined betrayal.

And so, Cassie watched the chaos unfold, the massive, anonymous prize growing daily, her own mind a battlefield of conflicting loyalties.

This internal war was a dangerous distraction. Her focus should have been on the street ahead, on the mission at hand.

Their mission remained — wait until the Queen of Worms and the King of Swords exhaust themselves in their war, and then stab both in the back.

A clean, brutal betrayal.

One of the many obstacles they faced was equipment.

Their finest pieces were enchanted with Anvil's Will, making them instruments they could never turn against their master.

This necessitated a new arsenal from an independent supplier they could trust. It was this task — finding that supplier — that had brought her here, while Nephis travelled with Morgan to Godgrave.

It was Cassie's task to find one while Nephis travelled with Morgan to Godgrave.

Cassie forced her attention back to the physical act of walking.

Etiquette in the Dream Realm dictated that a prim and proper lady, unless clad in heavy armour or Waking World attire, should walk with her hands clasped at her navel.

It was a rule she ignored out of necessity — her right arm swung with a rhythmic grace that spoke of practicality over posture, while her left hand rested on the familiar, cool hilt of Quiet Dancer.

To follow the rules would be to walk completely blind.

This street was unknown to her. Had she walked it even once before, its every crack and cobblestone would be perfectly preserved in her mind — a flawless map rendered by the eidetic memory her Aspect had bestowed upon her.

Here, on this unfamiliar ground and with hardly a soul about at this hour whose senses she could borrow — she was truly blind.

And so, she let her Echo see for her.

The connection was habitual, seamless.

As her fingers touched the hilt, her link to Quiet Dancer deepened.

The world resolved itself not as a visual image, but as a unique sensory map.

The Echo had no sight, no hearing, no sense of smell. It did, however, perceive its surroundings with fine precision — sensing shapes and, especially — motion.

Through it, Cassie perceived a ghostly cartography of the world around her.

It was like navigating a wireframe sketch of reality, rendered without colour, texture, or light.

She felt the unyielding plane of the street, the softer, shifting mass of an overgrown verge, and the solid block-like presence of the row of houses lining the path.

When she finally reached the end of the street, her senses mapped the form of a cottage — it was a simple, sturdy shape.

Near the ground, she discerned the presence of smaller, complex shapes — ceramic pots, filled with the soft, rustling forms of what appeared to be herbs and flowers, their scents mingling faintly in the air.

A flat plane hanging from two points — the sign — fluttered faintly, a subtle ripple in her perception.

She could not perceive the inscription, but she knew it by heart based on her intelligence dossier — "Sunny's Brilliant Emporium: Café & Memory Boutique".

As her senses mapped the entrance, she discerned the solid form of a door and, mounted upon it, a small, dense metallic shape — a bell, waiting to announce her arrival.

"Sunny ... Sunless ... Sunny ... why does that name sound so familiar." She muttered to herself, the name striking a faint, dissonant chord of familiarity.

This was it. She could not see the brown of the bricks or the colour of the tiles, but she could feel the solid, dependable presence of the place.

The intelligence dossier, typed and placed last on the list of Memory vendors, suggested that the Fire Keepers' Intelligence Division likely regarded Master Sunless's boutique as the least promising.

However, upon examining the remainder of the list, Cassie had determined that the other vendors either maintained strong affiliations with the main clan or with Nephis's rival factions — one of which she suspected to be a front for Song's spies — while the rest were overly mass-produced and of insufficient quality to satisfy their requirements.

It felt quiet. Secluded. And most importantly, unassuming and hopeful.

Then, her eyes widened.

'Wait ... this is an Echo ... An Ascended Devil!'

Chapter Text

Cassie’s Dormant Ability, her insight into living things — confirmed the impossible truth.

A shiver traced its way down her spine.

The intelligence dossier had missed this. Completely.

How could they not know?

Then again, without her senses, it was just a building. A clever, terrifying deception.

'A complete intelligence failure. They couldn't have known. The report painted him as a minor artisan ... they were dangerously wrong.'

Her mind raced, pulling fragments from the compiled file on every independent Memory shop in Bastion, hunting for anything she might have missed.

FIRE KEEPERS INTELLIGENCE DOSSIER

[BEGINNING OF FILE FRAGMENT]

Establishment Name: Sunny's Brilliant Emporium: Café & Memory Boutique (Formal) / Eye Candy Café (Informal)
Owner's Name: Sunless (Formal) / Sunny (Informal)
Owner's Rank: Master / Ascended
Age: Exact date unknown. Est. mid-twenties
Sex: Male
Aspect Type: Utility

• Memory forging
• Suspected affinities related to shadows, given how shadows in his vicinity exhibit anomalous behaviour
• And/or ability to influence one's mood, suggesting Empath-like capabilities.

Known Business Associates:

• Saint Athena
• Awakened Aiko
• Awakened Telle of the White Feather

ASSESSMENT OF FACTIONAL ALIGNMENT

Very positive.

The subject's known network shows a strong positive correlation with our interests. No discernible ties to hostile or rival factions have been identified at this time.

He is currently assessed as a politically neutral but potentially "friendly" asset.

Subject's Relationship with Saint Raised by Wolves, Athena:

The subject maintains a strong connection to our friend. Effie officially supplies his establishment with produce from her Beast Farm.

The more significant data point, however, is her behaviour. She is a frequent patron and displays a level of warmth and unguarded friendship with the subject to a degree that is highly unusual.

Our observers note this rapport is comparable to the bond she shares exclusively with her core cohort from her Third Nightmare — Nephis, Kai, Jet, and you yourself, Cassie.

To be clear, this level of immediate trust is anomalous. Several Fire Keepers personnel who have maintained a close relationship with Effie since their Forgotten Shore days have noted that they are not afforded the same degree of casual intimacy, suggesting the subject possesses a remarkable, perhaps even unnatural, ability to disarm and inspire trust in powerful individuals.

He has also established a positive connection with Ling, who is reportedly very fond of his ice cream.

This represents a significant vector for positive sentiment. Ling will now only accept "Sunny's special ice cream" as a bribe for good behavior, giving the subject an almost alarming degree of influence over the family's domestic tranquility.

Effie has referred to this as "weaponised dessert" — a term we are officially adopting.

What is notable is his dynamic with Effie's husband. He maintains a genuinely amicable relationship with Master Sunless, and even tolerates his wife's open and often brazen flirting which, to be clear,

HAPPENS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER OWN HUSBAND!

FREQUENTLY!

THAT GAL HAS NO SHAME!

An operative’s log from last week noted Effie loudly declaring she was only "one good dessert away from stealing Sunny for herself".

Master Sunless didn't even look up from the coffee machine — he just let out a slow, deliberate sigh that conveyed a level of exhaustion usually reserved for veterans of decade-long wars.

Her husband then patted Master Sunless on the shoulder, and said, "don't worry, I'll protect you from her", before ordering another coffee.

The two men appear to have formed a mutual support group against her advances. It is a strangely wholesome dynamic.

The official line is that they bonded over their shared service in the Antarctica campaign as part of the First Evacuation Army.

However, that is where the trail goes cold. Violently so.

Trying to pull the subject's military file is like punching a wall. Everything is gone. Not just redacted — erased. It is a professional job, meticulous and absolute, and we can't find a single person who remembers him.

There are two possibilities.

• The first possibility, although the possibility is very small, an event of such significance occurred around Master Sunless — that a mass memory-wipe was performed on his surviving cohort, leaving only the highest echelons of military command aware of his true role in the Antarctica campaign.
  • You may wish to contact Jet for further leads given your shared history.

• The second being is that the subject was an operative within a clandestine unit, possibly involved in the redaction process himself to maintain his cover.
  • This is likely the case, as every attempt by Effie's husband to get him to open up was humorously deflected by nonsensical tall tales of his achievements, all of which we have compiled in a separate, and highly entertaining, sub-dossier.
  • [Refer to Sub-Dossier Addendum 7G-I: "Master Sunless's Fabricated Service History"]
  • It is reportedly the subject's only frustrating characteristic.

Subject's Relationship with Awakened Aiko:

Aiko's case is notable.

After her ex-business partner was declared MIA following the Antarctica campaign, she built a commercial empire based on tailored advice he gave before departing.

We have long suspected this was a case of insider trading, given her unknown ex-business partner was part of the First Evacuation Army and seemed to possess high-level, classified military information.

The precision of her subsequent financial manoeuvres prior to the start of the campaign only deepened these suspicions. Before the Antarctica disaster was publicly announced:

• Their establishment stocked up on as many Memories that provided either warmth or resistance against cold as possible.
• They also prepared a large number of Memories that could serve as a source of light to equip future customers for the harsh realities of polar nights.
• Every Soul Shard they had left was sold, ensuring that the large number of opening Gates — which would eventually flood the market with Soul Shards and crash their price — would not affect their overall business.

A former customer of hers — a math savant with a probability-based Aspect who, despite her gifts, still lost her savings to Aiko's gambling den and was forced to spend months living outside Gunlaug's castle walls — put it more bluntly:

"I know that shady bitch well!

She's not a genius! She just cheated!"

Our own attempts to build a profile on this mysterious ex-business partner were met with unusual dead ends and redacted records, suggesting a high level of operational security or a powerful benefactor.

When pressed, Aiko would deflect all inquiries with a frustratingly vague claim that her memory of him was "hazy".

Her fortune was solidified last year after the Waking World's court declared her ex-business partner legally deceased.

The ruling was purely procedural — based on the expiration of the statutory waiting period for MIA personnel — as there was no body, no will, and no workable intel to be found.

This action granted her full legal control of their joint business accounts and a truly staggering pool of assets.

This sudden, complete capitalisation was the launchpad for her current business enterprise, which now includes dominant ventures in commodity trading, inter-realm spatial transport, and the procurement of rare goods.

This brings us to the core contradiction. By all accounts, and from our personal dealings with her, Aiko is a person of legendary, almost monstrous avarice.

Some of us have known her all the way back on the Forgotten Shore and that woman would invoice her own mother for emotional support if she thought she could get away with it.

Her entire operational model is built on ruthless optimisation and maximising profit margins after all.

And yet, her dealings with the Master Sunless defy all logic.

She provides his small establishment with terms that border on financial self-sabotage.

This includes selling him rare components and restricted ingredients at acquisition cost and bumping an entire Clan's shipments to grant his café "hot-shot" priority on her inter-realm transport vessels.

Furthermore, she leverages her entire network to fulfill his custom procurement requests for his business — a level of service not extended to even her most valuable, high-volume clients.

On some occasions, she has even been observed working as an assistant in his establishment — an act that left our agents flabbergasted. Big yikes even from me!

For instance, she was observed working a four-hour shift as an assistant, and an agent on site logged her wiping down tables with a look of such profound self-loathing.

The Queen of Greed, Money, and Commerce — a woman who reportedly terrorises both her directors and Master Sunless over fractional profit losses — reduced to scrubbing coffee rings when she could be managing her own enterprise.

Our agent on duty reported the sight was so jarring he had to double-check he was not hallucinating. We are still not entirely convinced he wasn't.

To fully appreciate the scale of the anomaly, one only needs to look at the Memory Boutique room within Master Sunless's cottage.

The opulent displays, the strategic lighting designed to make steel glint like jewels, the sound-dampened, solemn atmosphere — it screams luxury. And it should.

It was entirely Aiko's design.

We have confirmed that she personally pitched the concept to Master Sunless, providing a detailed breakdown of how to market Memories as high-end goods to an affluent clientele.

Her rationale, which we verified, was ruthlessly logical — create an environment of extreme class to justify premium pricing — thereby maximising perceived value and, consequently — profit.

It was a masterclass in psychological marketing.

It was pure, uncut Aiko.

And that is precisely what makes her subsequent actions — so maddeningly illogical.

She meticulously designed a perfect, high-profit sales floor for him ... only to then supply the very premium components needed to forge his exclusive, high-margin Memories. She charges him a near-zero margin for the privilege, leaving herself with only a pittance for her troubles.

It is the equivalent of building a state-of-the-art vault and then handing over the keys and the combination. This is not a business strategy — it is a contradiction so profound it borders on insanity.

This behaviour is such a departure from her established psychological profile that we initially suspected blackmail or romantic obsession.

Fueled by MULTIPLE, CONCERNED, BORDERLINE-PLEADING REQUESTS FROM KAI, we facilitated an intervention — by convincing an old associate from her gambling den days — to confront Aiko on the matter.

But Aiko was adamant — she was not being blackmailed, nor did she hold any romantic interest in Master Sunless.

Aiko cited only an inexplicable "guilt and compulsion" to ensure his success, an urge she finds perplexing but cannot ignore.

The associate who pressed her reported that Aiko's exact words were

"Every time I approve his invoice, a part of my soul dies.

I look at the profit-loss statement and want to scream.

But if I don't ... it feels worse.

Make it make sense!"

She then reportedly spent ten minutes calculating the theoretical monetary value of her own guilt.

This points to a potential mental influence of unknown nature and origin. Thus, it is hypothesised that the subject may possess a subtle Aspect capable of tailoring its effect to the target's psychology.

Regardless, after our interviews, our agents corroborated their opinions and concluded that there is certainly no romantic interest in Master Sunless — she only loves money.

KAI'S THREAT LEVEL HAS SUBSEQUENTLY BEEN DOWNGRADED FROM "IMMINENT ANXIETY-INDUCED ANEURYSM" TO "MILDLY OBSESSIVE GRATITUDE".

Note:

"Mildly Obsessive Gratitude" manifested as multiple, aggressively large gift baskets delivered to our Ivory Tower's Intelligence Division Office with a card that just said "THANK YOU" in all caps. Their sheer size was, frankly, a little alarming.

We are keeping Kai on a watchlist, just in case.

Subject's Relationship with Awakened Telle of White Feather:

Young Telle is a frequent, near-daily patron. Her official business with the establishment — a commission for an exquisitely enchanted greaves she ordered for herself — was concluded months ago. The greaves were delivered, the payment was rendered, and by all accounts, the transaction was a resounding success.

However, as the primary agent writing this file, and a friend of Tyris, I can assess with high confidence that the commission itself was merely a pretext.

Since its conclusion, her visits have not ceased.

They have, in fact, increased in both frequency and duration, shifting from a clear objective to a pattern consistent with A PROFOUND TEENAGE CRUSH, fueled by the owner's reputation as an "eye candy".

Field observations from multiple operatives have logged the following behavioural pattern.

The Birthday Gambit

Recently, Telle requested a new commission from Master Sunless as a birthday present for her father, Roan.

However, Roan's birthday is many months away, and the turnover time for a commission of this type would typically take only a few weeks.

[SUPERVISOR'S NOTE: My husband and I can personally attest Roan's birthday is nowhere near.]

You have to admire the forward planning. Truly.

Strategic Loitering

Telle will typically secure a table that offers a clear line of sight to the counter where Master Sunless works, while simultaneously being partially obscured from his view.

She has been observed nursing a single cup of coffee for periods exceeding ninety minutes. One operative timed her taking approximately twenty minutes between individual sips.

When Master Sunless approaches her section of the café, the frequency of sips increases by an estimated 250% — presumably to appear natural.

Gosh, so cute!

Forced Intellectual Engagement

Her attempts at conversation are a primary indicator.

Despite having no previously documented interest in Memory forging, she has been observed asking Master Sunless technically nonsensical questions engineered solely to prolong interaction.

As her mother's tea partner, I once steered the conversation toward her daughter's hobbies and found out that Telle is a typical Valor Legacy girl — pretty dresses and swords interest her far more than Memory forging and military engineering.

Ah, to be young and awkward again.

Proximal Awkwardness

Her non-verbal cues are telling.

When the subject is occupied across the room, Telle is often observed staring in his direction with an unguarded, contemplative expression.

When he moves towards her table, she will invariably become intensely engrossed in a mundane object — studying the wood grain of her table, meticulously organising her sugar packets, or inspecting her own fingernails — until he is directly addressing her. It's both painful and adorable to witness.

That girl has ... no game.

"Forgotten" Items

On six separate occasions in the last two weeks, she has departed only to return minutes later, claiming to have "forgotten" a mundane item.

Once a glove, twice a single coin, thrice a handkerchief.

Each instance provided a secondary opportunity for a brief, flustered interaction.

I am looking forward to seeing what she'll "forget" next.

But girl, too obvious! You are lucky that Master Sunless is as dense as an anime protagonist.

Fencing Lessons

A week ago, during tea with Tyris, she mentioned that her daughter needed extra pocket money to hire a "private fencing tutor" in preparation for her Second Nightmare — a decision which pleased her mother greatly.

I have not yet seen fit to inform Tyris that these "private fencing sessions" primarily take place over coffee and waffles at Master Sunless's café, or that the funds for said fencing tutor appear to have been immediately repurposed into a strategic courtship budget.

Operatives have noted that on days Telle is scheduled for "fencing lessons", her attire shifts significantly.

She usually favours combat-ready attire, which is practical for a Legacy girl like her.

However, on "lesson" days, she has been logged wearing a series of new, fashionable dresses from a high-end Bastion boutique — as if she believes the path to a man's heart is paved with expensive fabrics and crippling debt.

It is clear that she is not dressing for comfort — she is dressing for a specific audience of one.

Recently, this strategy has escalated to include an olfactory component.

On "dress days," she now arrives in a cloud of perfume so potent it could be classified as a psychological warfare agent.

The scent is expensive — fancy notes of what one female agent identified as "peony, plum, pear, and panic" — and appears to be applied with the subtlety of a flashbang.

It's a classic rookie mistake — if a little is good, a lot must be better.

The strategic deployment of a particularly fetching sundress last Tuesday, combined with this new scent, coincided with a seven minutes long conversation about the optimal temperature for brewing tea — a full-spectrum sensory assault.

Master Sunless, a man who likely handles ingredients that smell like burnt spacetime for a living, has shown no discernible reaction.

It is unclear if he is immune, oblivious, or simply too polite to acknowledge that a section of his café now smells like a panicked fruit garden.

In a nutshell, this is perfect blackmail material on young Telle, and none of you losers reading this report had better use it.

IT'S MINE! I WORKED HARD FOR IT!

Verdict

Young Telle's pattern of behaviour is transparent and aligns perfectly with the informal "Eye Candy Café" moniker.

While it presents zero security threat, it is a significant data point illustrating the subject's potent, and seemingly effortless, personal charisma.

NOTE:

The colloquialism "Eye Candy Café" was apparently started by our shameless friend Effie, and has been widely adopted by patrons in Bastion — especially female patrons, and sometimes male.

Subsequent field research, conducted to verify the moniker's accuracy, confirms the title is justified.

Consensus among our female field agents was immediate and unanimous.

Male operatives have also corroborated this assessment, albeit with notably less enthusiasm, except for [REDACTED BY FIELD AGENT'S SUPERVISOR].

CONCLUSION:

However, as a dual-purpose establishment, its Memory forging operation appears to be a secondary venture.

UNFORTUNATELY, from what we can gather, the Memories Master Sunless produces, while noted for being perfectly suited to their wielder, are NOT CONSIDERED POTENT ENOUGH FOR OUR STRATEGIC NEEDS.

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!!! HOWEVER !!!

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Gurl, I am saying this — as your friend, and as the primary agent who just spent weeks working with these jokers — to compile a dossier that basically doubles as a dating profile for your potential future husband.

Look, Cassie. You're brilliant at your job, but let's be honest, your love life is a total disaster.

And I'm not just speaking for myself. I am speaking on behalf of the entire Fire Keepers Intelligence Division — us poor, long-suffering, thankfully partnered souls — who have to listen to you bemoan your disastrous love life during our operational briefings — which have now functionally been repurposed as your personal group therapy sessions.

We've heard more about your terrible marriage proposals than about spies' movements in the Sword Domain.

The grand, cosmic future has become a "hopeless blur" for every seer and diviner — yet somehow, you, "~ THE GREAT LADY CASSIA ™ ~", managed to punch through all that noise — the only seer we know of who has managed to find a single, crystal-clear, stable vision in all the chaos.

Right ...

And what was this crucial glimpse into the future that fate chose to grant you?

Oh, that's right, your signature tragic monologue — the one you can't resist performing for us captive audience every time we have a briefing — you, alone, in a retirement cottage, surrounded by a frankly alarming number of cats.

And don't think for a second we missed it, asking about Bastion's legal pet ownership limits — during what was supposed to be a critical intelligence briefing with a table full of stone-faced Sword Domain bureaucrats.

We also know you don't take this stuff to Nephis.

You can't. Because with her, it's her.

It's always about the proposals from houses who see you as the brilliant, beautiful, powerful asset  — who is somehow always the second name on the list, the consolation prize after they get turned down by our Changing Star.

And let's be real, she's never going to read this file anyway.

If you can't stab it, slash it, or set it on fire — she is not interested.

So it falls to us — your loyal and emotionally exhausted subordinates — to tell you the truth.

Look at this report!

Look at him!

He is not a political negotiation.

He wasn't a failed bid for Nephis.

He has no idea about factions or noble houses or who is the sun and who is the moon.

He's just ... a regular, handsome man.

I know what you're thinking, because you're "~ LADY CASSIA ™ ~" now. And he's "~ just a café owner ~".

Bestie, that's not a bug! That's the entire feature!

What have all those "proper" suitors from "great houses" ever brought you?

A line on a treaty?

The honour of being their second choice?

This man isn't offering you a title or a political alliance.

He's offering you coffee. And waffles. And a quiet corner table that isn't part of some grand, humiliating negotiation.

For once in your life, you wouldn't have to carry those ridiculous titles around and be "~ LADY CASSIA ™ ... THE SENESCHAL OF VALOR ™ ... THE BLIND BAD BITCH ™ AND LEFT-HAND WOMAN OF CHANGING STAR ™ ~" !!!

You could just be Cass to him. The girl who likes his smile.

So please, for the love of all the dead gods and daemons and for the collective sanity of our entire intelligence division — stop talking about that quiet retirement cottage full of cats!

And we have poured significant departmental resources into this and concluded that the man is — against all odds and observable evidence — a bachelor!

The man is single.

The man is around your age.

The background check is done.

The path is clear.

The universe has served this one up on a silver platter. For the sake of all that is Divine and Unholy, don't send it back to the kitchen!

He is charming, stable, runs a legitimate business, and is professionally verified to be an "eye candy".

He's pretty, you're pretty.

He is the bag!

[ Reading Recommendation — Sub-Dossier Addendum 7G-II: "Master Sunless's Potential Likes and Dislikes" — READ IT! I DIDN'T PREPARE IT IN BRAILLE FOR FUN! ]

Don't fumble it.

ADDENDUM

Additional log entry from primary field agent to file manager:

Also, I feel compelled to log this, but Cassie, please don't misuse this information.

Telle is a sweet girl, and I am very close to Tyris.

If I ever find out that you leaked this information — especially to Effie — and that she used it to tease that poor girl, I promise to the dead gods and daemons that even Nephis won't be able to heal what I will do to your sorry, blind ... ...

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[ THE PREVIOUS SEVEN PAGES, DETAILING GRAPHIC AND UNSETTLINGLY CREATIVE THREATS, HAVE BEEN REDACTED BY THE PRIMARY FIELD AGENT'S SUPERVISOR. ]

Supervisor's Comment:

Agent, your point is made. Loudly.

My husband and I are Roan's drinking buddies too.

Cassie, I know you outrank me.

BUT I DON'T CARE !!!

Because I'm the guy they send in for damage control !!!

Roan is a friend. Telle is a good kid.

I am not going to be the one fielding frantic calls from him, forced to explain why his daughter is on the verge of tears because you armed Effie with high-grade teasing material.

And frankly, having to placate a man that handsome is just emotionally taxing.

As for those redaction ... let's just say a supervisor is entitled to a certain amount of executive discretion.

Now, Cassie. Consider those seven pages of ... suggestions ... officially requisitioned.

They are now my property.

You won't make me read them for inspiration, will you?

I'm watching you, bitch!

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Also, go grab that bag!

[END OF FILE FRAGMENT]

Cassie recalled the intelligence dossier with a quiet smile and sighed.

But standing before this unassuming café, feeling the vibrant, living presence of an Ascended Devil masquerading as a building, she knew the report was worse than wrong — it was dangerously wrong.

The owner was obviously not a simple Memory forger and café owner.

She was in luck, hopefully ... but it was the kind of luck that could just as easily get one killed.

Staring at the Echo, Cassie decided she would need to scout the location over several days before risking contact.

Unfortunately for her, a deep, masculine voice behind her took her by surprise and made her yelp.

"Lady Cassia. You've been studying my humble abode for some time now. The café isn't quite open for the day, but for you, I would be delighted to make an exception."

Chapter Text

Godgrave.

It had once been a Divine's realm — the remains of the Sun God's world.

Now, there was only an achingly endless landscape stretched to an infinite horizon.

Above, a veiled sun burned through the clouds, bleaching the plain and subjecting it to a sweltering, relentless heat.

Against this filtered blaze, two silhouettes moved.

They rode with the steady, tireless gait of their mounts — artificial steel stallions tailored-fit for princesses, the finest Echoes crafted by renowned Valor enchanters.

But princesses they looked — no longer.

Their sun-bleached cloaks, once proud garments of the Sword Domain, were torn and rent.

The tattered robes had seen better days — shredded along seams and frayed edges, blotched with dried, oxidised, reddish-brown blood — the grim residue of countless harrowing encounters that left more scars than survivors.

It had been nearly four months since they last departed from the Sword Domain — four months since they had spoken a word that wasn't essential to survival.

Their journey to Godgrave began from the north-westernmost fortress in the Sword Domain, a Citadel controlled by a matriarch Saint, whose clan wisely played no favourites between the rival princesses — offering identical, lavish courtesies to both.

The moment they crossed the border into the Death Zone, however — a brutal and profound silence descended.

It was a quiet, unspoken agreement punctuated only by essential words — a truce born of necessity.

Far to the north, the horizon was broken by a landmark on a cyclopean scale — a titanic skull, half-buried in the misty slopes of the Hollow Mountains.

It was canted on its side, staring back with unsettling apathy at the two battered horsewomen through a single, cavernous eye socket.

That orbit was a perfect circle of absolute black, a wound in reality where light and hope went to die.

Still.

Profoundly foreboding.

The other eye socket, the forehead, and the entire left side of the cranium had been obliterated by some unimaginable blow.

Perhaps it happened thousands of years ago, when bone splinters the size of skyscrapers and shards as large as city blocks had rained down, forming mountain peaks of their own that stood jagged and stark against the clouds.

But the skull was only the beginning.

It was attached to a vast, white spine stretching southwest from the Hollow Mountains — the remains of an entire skeleton on a scale that beggared belief.

The distance from its shattered cranium down to the right knee joint, its southernmost intact point, was at least 5,000 kilometres.

At that joint, the lower leg had been cleanly severed, lost to time or the ashen sea beyond.

To grasp such a size was to grapple with madness.

Dream Realm exploratory notes — assuming humanoid proportions — estimated that this 5,000 kilometre stretch represented roughly ¾ of its full height.

If the dead titan had ever stood upright, its total height would have been nearly 6,700 kilometres. A Nightmare Creature that spanned approximately half the planet's diameter — almost twice as tall as the Moon is wide.

Just imagine, if it were to lie on its gaunt, skeletal back across the irrecoverable continent of North America — utterly forfeited to a ravenous Category Five Nightmare Gate — its colossal skull could rest on the dead beaches of Los Angeles and the ghost of its full length, before the legs were severed — would have stretched far beyond the now-lost New York City, before disappearing deep into the abyssal waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Or, if it were to lie on its massive back with its foreboding, sun-bleached skull resting over the United Kingdom — its towering ribcage would stretch eastward across the poisoned, irradiated expanse of continental Europe.

Its chest would span the blighted heartlands of Germany and Ukraine.

From there, its colossal legs would pass over the lifeless, black waters of the Caspian Sea, and its bony feet finally disappeared deep into the vast, silent steppes of Central Asia — somewhere beyond the borders of Mongolia.

Nephis rode in the lead — her sluggish eyes fixed on the titan's distant, hollow gaze, her own face a mask of detached exhaustion.

It was her usual state after overusing her Aspect — as if her humanity had been burned away, and needed time to restore itself.

Behind her, a constant presence in her wake — was Morgan.

Her head bowed low, her countenance a mask of pain as her steed moved with practiced care, easing the ride for its wounded rider.

The position spoke volumes. It was a gesture of deference and a deeply ingrained habit from the humiliating years since Nephis's meteoric rise and Morgan's catastrophic fall.

Though it exposed her back, Nephis felt no threat from her sister. Not anymore.

The initial suspicion that Morgan would try to backstab her had long faded into the oppressive silence of their expedition.

This envoy to the Nameless Temple — this gambit to court the Lord of Shadow — was the most perfect assassination opportunity either would ever get.

Truth be told, Nephis had considered it at length.

As the sole healer and nuker, she held all the cards.

Excising Morgan — a powerful and resentful asset of the Valor clan — would be a monumental victory for her planned insurrection.

It would be more than strategy — it would be justice.

The mistreatment she had endured under Morgan since joining the House of Valor — and the fall of her clan — were not bygone grievances.

They were a cold fire she tended daily, the same dark nectar that fuelled her crusade for the Immortal Flame Clan.

She knew she had already exploited Anvil’s favour ruthlessly over the years, systematically dismantling her sister’s power base and savouring her humiliation.

A knife in the back was simply the debt coming due.

But pragmatism, a trait she had learnt to value above principles due to their unfavourable circumstances, stayed her hand.

The thought of eliminating Morgan was postponed.

Not here. Not now.

The Death Zone had proved more hostile than she had cared to admit.

And her sister — she was forced to concede, was a painfully perfect asset.

Morgan's survival skills — honed in the unforgiving crucible of True Bastion — and her mastery of Memories and Echoes made her indispensable.

To attack her now, in the heart of this desolation, would be a death sentence for them both.

Morgan, for her part, harboured no illusions.

She too had entertained the fantasy, a recurring dream in her fitful, exhausted sleeps — a swift, silent blade driven between her sister’s shoulder blades.

One clean act to reclaim a sliver of her shattered glory.

But the temptation, this venomous whisper — was always silenced by the fresh memory of their last near-fatal encounter.

She remembered the agonising feeling of torn flesh and grievous injuries — wounds only Nephis's touch could reverse.

Even more, they had the misfortune of encountering monsters capable of regenerating with unholy speed, their wounds sealing in heartbeats.

Against such rapidly regenerating horrors, a battle of attrition was a guaranteed loss.

Their only chance was a nuke — a single, cataclysmic burst of devastation, meant either to obliterate the enemy in one decisive strike — or, failing that, to wound even the mightiest foes just enough to buy precious seconds.

When outright victory was impossible, it became their last resort — a blazing detonation to blind, stagger, and carve a narrow path to escape.

To attack the source of her healing — a weapon of instantaneous, cataclysmic power — would be a fool’s gambit.

A final, futile act of self-destruction in a land that offered no second chances.

Pragmatism — a trait brutally beaten into her through years of scraping by and losing more than she ever kept — always won out.

Morgan also gloomily remembered the priceless Memories and powerful Echoes she had sacrificed in True Bastion back then.

Bartering treasure after treasure just to purchase another fleeting day of survival — cherished gifts from those who had pitied Morgan following the aftermath of her father's fatal command.

Each loss had felt like carving away a piece of herself.

Now, only a few invaluable artefacts remained, which she rotated judiciously — their shrewd usage a constant, grim calculation.

Their shared ordeal had fostered a new, grudging respect — a sentiment hammered out over months of torment, a reluctant awe directed not toward one another, but toward the enigmatic Saint they had to cross a deadly world to find.

Back in the gilded safety of the Sword Domain, whispers of the Lord of Shadow had been just that — mythical tales spun for idle courtiers.

Here, under a harsh heaven, those whispers had coalesced into a chilling, palpable truth.

The legend was built on scattered, unbelievable fragments — each more unsettling than the last.

More impossibly, he held a Domain, an accomplishment unheard of for a Saint — a personal fiefdom carved from Godgrave itself.

It was an aggressive stain of absolute night, a thirsty shade that drank the deadly light from this unforgiving hellscape, leaving a wound of perpetual umbra upon the sun-bleached land.

The proof of his power was absolute, first evidenced by the fractured testimony of a panic-stricken Sleeper.

This unfortunate soul, fleeing frantically away from a Corrupted Beast — had accidentally stumbled towards the Saint's territory.

The predator had recoiled from the shadowy demarcation line with a primal dread — its hunt abandoned in the face of a greater terror.

The Saint materialised before the gibbering survivor, interrogated him, and then — impossibly — shepherded the broken man out of Godgrave himself, delivering him to the edge of civilisation as one might return a lost child.

His refusal to allow anchors in his Citadel forced any who sought sanctuary to make the pilgrimage on foot, trading the hope of an instant escape to the Waking World for the chilling guarantee of his personal protection — a statement of supreme arrogance.

Having endured the soul-crushing hostility of Godgrave for months, Nephis and Morgan knew that survival here demanded everything — rationing water until their tongues cracked with thirst, enduring a sun that blistered their skin, and holding their nerves together as horrors flickered at the edge of sight, threatening death with every shimmer of heat-haze.

The hope of an easy escape — a way out, some lifeline back to the Waking World — was a comfort both had quietly relied upon, even when each princess did not let the other see it.

They travelled toward a hermit Saint — who, by all accounts, had wilfully denied himself that same luxury.

In one of their rare, quiet exchanges during the journey — the absolute extremity of his chosen isolation finally pressed itself upon them — not just the strength of will it took to survive Godgrave — it was what he was willing to endure, and make others endure, simply for the luxury of being left alone.

"To refuse all anchors …" Nephis began, her voice raw.

"All so no one can come and go as they please? To make your home so unreachable, people have to cross a Death Zone just to knock at your door ..."

"Most men of power surround themselves with loyalists or sycophants." Morgan replied, rasping her dry throat.

"He does the opposite — does the near impossible — just to keep them away. All for a bit of solitude."

Nephis shook her head, a flicker of disbelief in her eyes. "We could do it. Escort some lost soul out of this hell by hand. It would be a nightmare, but we could."

"But to deliberately choose that path … all to be left alone … It’s madness! The sheer bloody-mindedness of it ..."

Morgan’s reply was quieter, but edged with a harsh respect. "No one chooses agony when comfort is an option … Yet he endures this, forces all others to endure it."

"Purely because he wants it ... he wills it."

Nephis gave a sardonic half-laugh. "H-ha! Most have to walk through hell because they have no choice. He does it because he prefers it."

"We are surviving because we must ..." Morgan feebly admitted at last.

"Ev ... even I never once truly chose it."

A moment of silence passed between them, filled only by the hisses of hot wind and the crunches of their Echoes’ hooves.

"It’s not strength alone." Nephis concluded.

"It’s something fiercer. Something that would burn every bridge back to humanity just for the principle of it. Something we might not understand."

That, they realised — was what set the Hermit Saint of Godgrave apart — not merely his strength.

But his refusal to compromise.

His utter disdain for the easier path.

Their conclusion was not unfounded.

Fragmented reports, penned by unnerved scribes, hinted at his Echoes of terrifying potency — yet no living soul had ever seen a human subordinate of his so-called Shadow Clan.

And it led to a prevailing, chilling theory — there was no Shadow Clan.

There was only the Lord of Shadows.

A singular, solitary, seclusive Saint — reigning a Domain in Godgrave — imperious enough to walk its cyclopean wastes at will.

That theory — and its staggering implications — unsettled even the Three Great Clans, planting a sliver of doubt in both princesses’ minds.

Why, they wondered — would someone who desired no servants wish to bind himself to another woman, no matter how powerful she might be?

In the primordial graveyard of a slain god, the ossified leviathan registered the Sword Sisters’ fleeting passage and unvoiced question with a lifeless indifference — a cosmic dispassion that made no distinction between them and a dying sun.

Offering no answer.

Chapter Text

A few more hours passed.

Suddenly, the oppressive light began to flicker.

Both sisters looked up.

High above, the roiling veil of clouds was thinning.

A tear formed, and through it, a sliver of raw, incandescent white sky began to bleed through.

The light was not just bright — it was hungry.

It was the gaze of heaven, and in Godgrave, that gaze was a death sentence.

To be caught moving under it was to be unwritten from existence, atomised into scattering ash.

Without a word, they dismounted and dismissed their stallions.

Morgan summoned an Awakened Memory of the Seventh Tier — a rough-hewn stone statue of a faceless star-nosed mole with seven small, beady eyes ringing its rugged snout.

At her silent command, the creature lowered its snout and attempted to tunnel into the earth. 

Reality warped — a modest-sized shimmering portal opened beside it, revealing a pocket of spatial darkness.

It was a cool, airy cave bathed in unnatural light by a small thicket of shimmering stalactites and stalagmites.

A sanctuary large enough for seven burly men to live comfortably in — its extra space stocked with premium military supplies carefully selected by Saint Gilead — that were now slowly running out as they slowly approached their destination.

Outside, the mole statue could not burrow.

The ground here was not soil, but the ossified, impenetrably hard plain of the skeleton’s sternum.

Instead, after a moment’s search, it located a hairline fissure in the vast breastbone and wedged its body inside to act as a static sentinel.

Its seven eyes would grant them an early warning across a seven-kilometre radius — a vital precaution, as even this stealthy Memory was not immune to the senses of a Great Nightmare Creature, should one wander too close.

This was another of Morgan's cherished Utility Memories despite its relatively low Rank — a survival tool gifted by a legendary old scout.

Famed for his survival ability in the wilds for long stretches, this First Generation Saint had earned his place on Warden’s inner council by spearheading the conquest of Bastion’s wilderness in the clan's early years.

The Memory had served the Elder well.

It had served Morgan just as well back in True Bastion — and now, it continued to shelter her from Godgrave's sky.

Inside the hidden cave, the fragile truce between the Sword Sisters was put into practice.

Nephis had recovered slightly from her trance.

Exhausted from overusing her Aspect in their previous harrowing encounter, she could only offer Morgan a meagre amount of healing to keep her alive as they continued to move south.

Just enough to ensure her survival, but not enough to relieve her of her pain — while they sought a safer region, or until the clouds unveiled the sun — forcing all living beings to stop moving or die.

Nephis moved to her sister's side, placing a hand on Morgan's shoulder with the detached air of a physician.

A frugal trickle of silver light flowed from her palm — the bare minimum she could manifest.

She hated it, but she needed Morgan.

Ironically, the campaign intended to create a broken princess had instead forged something far deadlier.

In her systematic crusade to isolate Morgan’s faction, she had stripped her sister of allies, wealth, and influence.

She had bled her sister’s power dry — leaving Morgan fewer loyalists to command, no vast armoury of Memories and Echoes to call upon, and an ever dwindling political capital left to spend.

Morgan was forced over the years to become what she was now — lean, brutally efficient — further honed by her grim baptism in True Bastion.

A survivor Nephis now desperately needed.

With a wince of self-reproach, she realised how deeply she had come to rely on others for logistical support.

Nephis was a weapon, a solo fighter whose fighting arts and Transcendent Abilities rendered most supplementary Memories and Echoes incompatible with her style.

As a consequence, she had outsourced such things — shelter, navigation, sustenance — to loyal retainers who accompanied her through thick and thin throughout the last four years — until now.

Here, in Godgrave, with her meagre survival kits hastily packed and gradually depleted, she was forced to confront her own uncomfortable dependency.

This dependency was no mere oversight, but a carefully engineered political reality.

Chapter Text

Once the king gave his order, shrewd Elders from Morgan’s faction acted swiftly to outmanoeuvre their rivals.

They seized upon the pretext of Anvil’s royal decree — that no Fire Keepers were to join the envoy — and interpreted it with a zealous, surgical strictness their sovereign had never intended.

Their goal was simple — to ensure Morgan would not become an expendable asset.

Her Fire Keepers — the very retainers from whom Nephis would have borrowed crucial survival tools — were politely sequestered by housing them in Bastion’s poshest lakeside resort.

They had been absent when Anvil held court meting out his order to both princesses — save for Cassie and Shim — and so were unaware of the decree’s fine print, making them easy prey.

Lured by the promise of a well-deserved respite from their relatively cramped quarters aboard Chain Breaker — and accustomed to the many rewards showered upon them over the years — they willingly walked into their gilded cage.

Once they wisened up, any request for a final farewell — a prime opportunity to pass along Memories and Echoes — was deflected with a masterclass in bureaucratic obstruction.

Excuses ranged from delicate travel protocols to the need for uninterrupted rest for the journey ahead.

Their luxurious prison was heavily guarded, with explicit orders that the Fire Keepers were to remain in comfortable confinement — until both princesses had crossed the border into Godgrave.

Nephis — anticipating treachery — had attempted to arm herself by purchasing her own set of Memories and Echoes.

But on the day of collection, it was not a merchant who greeted her, but a matronly Elder from Morgan's faction.

"My dear, there is no need. Saint Gilead has personally led a team to prepare a kit of the highest quality for your journey." She had insisted, gently returning her coin.

"You have your sister, no? You must rely on one another. Plus, the defensive Echo I gave her was one of the most coveted treasures in the Sword Domain. Nothing you could purchase would top that."

The Elder's smile never faltered while she continued.

"Besides, any custom requisitions worthy of your journey would take time to fulfil. We wouldn’t want the Song Domain to make their move while we tarry, yes?"

Nephis, ever cautious, had the foresight to not place all her eggs in one basket.

She too had placed identical purchasing orders with multiple other vendors — rush orders requesting only final adjustments to off-the-shelf Memories and Echoes.

It mattered not.

One by one, each business — always days later, just long enough to waste her time — returned her coin with smoothly worded, apologetic excuses. 

As Nephis, Cassie, and Shim would later learn, every establishments worth their salt in Bastion were tied to an industrial consortium, a network of Forgemasters overwhelmingly loyal to Morgan's faction.

Their suffocating influence was enough to render any efforts from Nephis's own camp futile.

Left with no other option, Nephis decided to force the issue.

Flanked by a silent legion of her faction's Elders and Awakened courtiers, she confronted the group from Morgan's camp — the very same group that had deceived her Fire Keepers in their opening gambit.

They stood before the marbled entrance of the resort, and their combined presence exerted a suffocating pressure that could make lesser men tremble.

The lakeside retreat — meant to serve Bastion’s most exclusive, high-net-worth, luxury clientele — had been turned into a political battlefield.

The grey-haired, gaunt, wizened Elder who stepped forward to meet Nephis was — impossibly unruffled.

He was one of the rare mundanes in Anvil's inner circle — a man whose power was not measured in soul cores or Aspects.

In a court steeped in the Spell’s power, his absolute lack of it was a distinction in itself — unnerving in its quiet certainty.

“Arrange an audience with my Fire Keepers. Immediately!” She said, her voice a command to the de facto leader of the group keeping watch on the Fire Keepers.

The Elder bowed, his movements precise and unhurried.

“Princess, I cannot.” He replied, his tone one of finality, not apology.

“His Majesty’s decree was absolute. This is an envoy for his daughters, and his daughters alone.”

He looked up, his gaze steady. “His Majesty is in his forge, working on his masterpiece. He is not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever.”

“And? How is that in any way relevant?” Her voice dangerously low. “This is a matter pertaining to my retainers.”

“And it is out of respect for the King that I must refuse.” He countered, his voice dropping into a register of grave counsel.

“Princess, if you insist, you leave me no choice but to seek his clarification. I would have to interrupt his work.”

He paused, letting the silence hang in the air before delivering the final, veiled strike.

“I would be forced to speculate on why a farewell is so critical that it justifies interrupting the forging of a masterpiece."

“And I would have to wonder if, perhaps, you wished to discreetly use a spatial Memory to circumvent the spirit of his decree. After all ...” He finished, a hint of feigned regret in his voice.

"... one must be thorough when reporting a potential breach of a royal decree.”

The accusation was as clear as it was unspoken. He was threatening to paint her as a disobedient daughter attempting to smuggle out her Fire Keepers using a spatial Memory.

To insist further would be to prove him right in the King's eyes.

Nephis stared at him, fury building behind her eyes.

She had been perfectly, elegantly trapped.

She held his gaze for a long moment — then stepped closer.

“I will remember this.” Her voice dropping to a quiet menace that only he could hear.

She turned on her heel and walked away — her own faction trailing in her silent, wrathful wake.

Meanwhile, Nephis's faction was not about to let such a flagrant move go unanswered.

They retaliated with an overwhelming, suffocating gesture matching their rivals’ cunning.

In response to the lockdown of the Fire Keepers, a veritable legion of their own Saints and Masters formed a "special honour guard" for Princess Morgan.

It was a moving fortress of bodies — its members rotating amongst themselves in tireless shifts.

It was a cordon so vast and tightly woven that no one from her own faction could approach within shouting distance of the princess — without being politely but firmly intercepted.

The inevitable confrontation occurred as a group of Morgan’s supporters tried to breach the perimeter.

Two volunteers from Nephis's faction, on shift that day, stepped forward — blocking their path in response.

"A final word for Princess Morgan." The Saint from Morgan’s faction said with a small army behind his back, his voice tight with urgency. "Clan matters. It is of the utmost importance."

"Of course." Saint Helie replied — her tone disarmingly pleasant, her eyes as cold as a tomb. "Access for access."

"What is the meaning of this?" Demanded a Master — an Elder in the king's circle and the aunt of the Saint who had just spoken — her face harsh with indignation.

"Simple reciprocity." Replied Master Orum — Saint Helie's uncle and also an Elder in the king's circle — his voice haggard and his gaunt face impassive.

His own niece — a striking woman with beautiful features and long, flaxen, auburn hair — finished the thought for him, a charming but sly curve to her lips.

"Allow me to clarify. The moment Princess Nephis is granted her farewell with the Fire Keepers, this honour guard will dissolve. Then, you may proceed."

As she spoke, the true weight of their faction made itself known.

Behind the uncle-niece pair, the formidable figures of Saint Tyris and Saint Roan moved forward, their silent presence a far greater threat than any spoken word.

The challenge was absolute, a perfect mirror of their own tactics.

Faced with this stalemate, Morgan's faction had a difficult choice to make.

They were outnumbered.

Many of them were spread thin — some attempting to prevent Nephis from purchasing Memories and Echoes, others ensuring her Fire Keepers were kept away from her.

A well-supplied Morgan equipped with new Memories and Echoes tailored to deal with her new travel companion was an asset.

A self-sufficient Nephis, however, was a threat to the entire balance — making their own princess obsolete.

Securing Nephis's dependency on Morgan was the greater strategic imperative.

Thus, they were forced to withdraw.

From the heart of this human prison, Morgan watched the exchange from afar with an air of profound weariness.

To her, these were the predictable, tedious manoeuvres of a game she had long since grown tired of playing.

Her mind was already worlds away — fixed on the Lord of Shadows and his Shadow Clan.

She exhausted her brilliant mind that was built for warfare to strategise for the upcoming courtship rivalry instead — her way out from these byzantine court games.

With a quiet sigh, she turned and walked on.

For the next few days, the political infighting continued to escalate behind closed doors.

The charade of courtesy wore thin during a heated council meeting, the Elders’ chamber devolved into threats of exposing skeletons in each other's closets.

Until Princess Nephis herself, with a single sharp command, put a stop to it.

She would not show the weakness of needing her faction Elders' to fight her battles before the journey had even begun.

All the while, Princess Morgan simply kept quiet — a mask of weary indifference on her face that failed to conceal the faint, knowing glint in her tired eyes.

And so, in a bitter truce born of mutual obstruction, both factions achieved their primary goal — they had isolated the rival princess.

In doing so, they had unwittingly achieved the same for their own, leaving each just as vulnerable.

The two sisters would now face Godgrave with no one to rely upon but each other.

To ensure this fragile truce was honoured — a grand, absurd procession was arranged to accompany the sisters to the north-westernmost fortress in the Sword Domain.

Save for a neutral bloc — a coalition of lords and ladies who had gathered under the banner of Summer Knight — hoping to distance themselves from this quarrel.

Led by Sir Gilead, they had previously seized the opportunity to task themselves with the tedious job of preparing travel supplies for the two princesses — a monotonous chore disguised as the perfect excuse to ward off either faction from dragging them into their squabble.

Now, they were adamant about opting out of the farcical escort — citing the critical strategic need to maintain a core of high-level leadership in Bastion.

After all, they argued with impeccable logic — who could predict when their rival, Queen Ki Song of the Song Clan, might seize the opportunity of a distracted court to launch an attack?

Chapter Text

This amusing cavalcade of the Sword Domain's powerhouses returned to the Waking World together, placing their Gateway anchors — pre-prepared by their host — as a means of fast travel to their destination.

Surrounding Princess Morgan was a team led by Master Orum and his niece Saint Helie, alongside Saint Bliss, Saint Tyris, Saint Roan, and their daughter Awakened Telle of White Feather.

Surrounding Princess Nephis was an equally formidable group led by Saint Jest and Ascended Mercy of Dagonet, alongside Saint Sagramore, Saint Rivalen, and his son Ascended Tristan of Aegis Rose.

Their destination was a minor Citadel, an acropolis perched atop a mountain that housed what was considered a modest number of souls — currently, a mere nine million.

It was a fortress-city near the very edge of the untamed lands.

Its towering position on an elevated plateau of sacred ground was a natural deterrent to the Nightmare Hordes from Godgrave and the creatures that prowled the untamed lands of Bastion, hunting for stray souls to devour.

Over the years, it had withstood numerous assaults from Nightmare Creatures of Tyrant Rank and above — each leading hordes of lesser creatures.

Encircling the acropolis was a weathered stone wall, miles in length, reinforced by seven immense towers that seemed to grow from the mountain's bedrock.

The battlements of these walls and towers bristled with emplacements of ballistae, scorpions, mangonels, and many other marvels of military engineering.

This formidable arsenal was the work of the Citadel's owner — a renowned Spellsmith Saint who had bound this acropolis to her Soul Sea.

She had earned a place in the highest echelon of Valor's military engineers, and many of her creations were used across the Sword Domains — a testament to her valuable Utility Aspect.

In recognition of her service, Anvil had granted her sole dominion over this acropolis — a high city left behind by a long-lost civilisation of the Dream Realm.

It was now her personal fiefdom — a defiant jewel against the ever-encroaching Nightmare Creatures.

Within the shelter of the ramparts lay a beautiful city of white marble — a mosaic of structures left behind by previous inhabitants and new edifices built by Awakened with construction-based Utility Aspects.

The city stretched for miles, a vibrant metropolis of bustling settlements, all congregating around a central, sky-piercing palace whose own soaring spires clawed at the heavens.

This was the heart of the Citadel, a bastion of civilisation and beauty.

Yet this architectural splendour belied its primary function as one of the Sword Domain's many military bases.

It housed a populace of approximately two million mundanes, four million Awakened, and three million Ascended.

The Citadel was also a popular travel destination — sworn by many Valor Clans as the perfect vacation spot for sending their younger scions to battle the Nightmare Creatures stalking the wild forests beyond the city gates in preparation for their future Nightmares.

This influx contributed greatly to the city's prosperity, with countless businesses and establishments built to support the flourishing training industry.

This hands-on experience was supplemented by quarterly war parties — popular events led by the matriarch Saint and her husband to cull the ever-growing numbers of Nightmare Creatures.

Only a small contingent of forty-nine Saints resided within this minor Citadel.

The matriarch Spellsmith — a Second Generation Lesser Legacy — controlled the Citadel alongside her husband.

He had grown up in the outskirts of the Eastern Quadrant before marrying into her clan, clawing his way up to Sainthood by accompanying her through their winter solstice journey and all three Nightmares.

They had sworn a marriage oath during their Third Nightmare — a romantic vow made to boost their mutual resolve to survive the torturous trial the Spell subjected them to.

Amongst their allies were five other homeless Saints, sworn companions bound to the couple since their first winter solstice together.

This group consisted of a kuudere bachelor and a tsundere spinster — childhood friends from minor Lesser Legacy clans who were functionally inseparable.

Then there were two beautiful female Saints from the Waking World's Eastern Quadrant, whose parents were mundane citizens. They now lived together as "housemates".

Finally, there was another Saint from a minor Legacy Clan — a man of strange contradictions who possessed an almost aberrant physical strength and durability that seemed at odds with his true passion.

His Aspect was one of delicate artistry — he could create and control exquisite, lifelike humanoid dolls, and it was an open secret that he reserved all his affection for them, finding the cold perfection of his creations preferable to the messiness of human relationships.

The remaining forty-two homeless Saints were a recent addition — having sworn loyalty to her clan and subsequently decided to set down roots in this Citadel after successfully conquering their Third Nightmare during the Antarctica campaign.

It was speculated that besides the seven major Citadels, many more minor ones existed across the Dream Realm.

But humanity had yet to discover them, as exploration had taken a back seat in preparation for war.

After all, the prevailing theory amongst the historians of the Three Great Clans was that Godgrave was not the entirety of the Sun God’s Realm — a world belonging to such a being, they reasoned, should be many times larger than Earth.

Godgrave, they argued, was but a mere graveyard for one of the dead god’s favoured generals.

Thus, they believed that beyond the east of Bastion, south of the Stormsea, west of Ravenheart, and north of the Forgotten Shore, there must be other lands — fragments of the many realms of dead gods that had been successfully devoured by the Dream Realm.

The matriarch Saint of the Citadel was deeply displeased by the arrival of this political powder keg.

To maintain her neutrality, she made a decision that satisfied no one — she housed each princess in a different prestigious precinct, surrounded by the other’s supporters.

And politely rejected all secret requests and veiled threats for more favourable arrangements.

Her security arrangement was masterfully designed to enforce neutrality.

Her husband and her five trusted allies were placed in command of the Citadel's forces, all of whom had sworn their loyalty to her clan.

Three of these commanders were assigned to monitor Princess Nephis’s faction while simultaneously guarding Princess Morgan’s living quarters.

The other three were given the reverse duty — watching Princess Morgan’s faction while protecting Princess Nephis’s quarters.

This human watch was reinforced by an incorruptible second line of defence.

The doll-loving Saint populated the perimeter of both encampments with his humanoid constructs, creating an ever-vigilant cordon of guards — who felt no fatigue, could not be bribed, and registered every minute detail with cold, inhuman precision.

During their stay, this strict separation was absolute — both parties were given identical, lavish greetings by the matriarch Saint in her marbled palace, but always at a different time — ensuring the rival factions never crossed paths.

By design, both factions found themselves heavily outnumbered and reliant on the same neutral force for the safety of their respective leaders.

With strict orders to prevent any breach, a perfect stalemate was achieved.

The escort parties departed a few days later.

Their journey was less a procession and more a rolling wave of annihilation — as many took advantage of the combined powerhouses present in their war party to challenge Creatures of Corrupted and Great Ranks — hoping to obtain superior Memories and Echoes.

The sheer concentration of Ascended and Transcendent power scoured the land.

Countless Nightmare Creatures of Corrupted and Great Ranks — attracted by the heavy scent of an army of Ascended and Transcended, and driven by a ravenous hunger — foolishly delivered themselves to the slaughter.

They were not merely slain but obliterated, their monstrous forms unmade by overwhelming force before they could even register a threat.

The very air crackled tirelessly around the procession with energy — leaving a sterile, silent corridor hundreds of miles long in their wake.

For the matriarch, it was the saving grace of an unwanted situation — she would not need to lead a culling for at least seven years.

The procession — two groups moving and camping at a polite distance from one another — only ended at the border of Godgrave, where the green, verdant plains faded into a dried, thirsty, parched land.

A long, unnatural farewell ensued.

The princesses said their goodbyes without a single touch, kept apart by the very powerhouses assigned to protect them.

Once their silhouettes had vanished into the shimmering heat-haze, the two factions finally shed the pretence of their division — merging into a single, unified escort party of the Sword Domain — their mission complete.

Chapter Text

Back then, confident in her own strength, Nephis had dismissed the manoeuvres as petty.

Now, four months deep into this godforsaken wasteland, the harsh consequences of that prideful decision had come to collect their due.

The long years of command had made her complacent, a foolish oversight for someone who had once known the brutal solitude of a solo journey to claim a Nightmare Seed.

That humbling realisation forced her to channel power into the woman she would rather see dead, simply to gain access to Morgan's assets.

Morgan remained perfectly still, her eyes closed, but she was far too sharp not to notice the grudging nature of the healing.

It was a miserable pittance of power, just enough to knit the worst of her torn muscles and seal any life-threatening cuts.

But many of her numerous scars were left untouched and did nothing for her deep, aching fatigue.

She accepted it without complaint, for she had her own methods of balancing the scales.

From the cave ceiling hung jagged stalactites of shimmering crystals, glittering as if shot through with diamond dust and fractured starlight.

They met a forest of similar stalagmites rising from the floor, their sharp tips glowing with a faint, internal luminescence.

This magical thicket projected a restorative aura that did not heal the body, but soothed the mind.

Each crystal held a myriad of tiny, spectral sparks of colour — opalescent greens, golds, and garnets that shimmered in the gloom.

At the centre of this shimmering alcove, where the crystal growth was most dense, rested the focal point — a magnificent chaise longue, seemingly grown from the cave floor itself.

Unlike the jagged, glitter-flecked stalactites and stalagmites surrounding it, its crystal surface was smooth and elegantly curved.

It rose from a bed of sharp crystal spires, its disturbingly organic form perfectly shaped to cradle a reclining figure.

Morgan climbed atop the chaise longue, basking in the aura’s full potency for no more than a modicum of her essence in return — whilst Nephis received only the weakest, dissipating waves at the field's edge to soothe her own essence exhaustion — something she desperately needed after burning much of her humanity away.

It was a silent, bitter accounting — a transactional truce measured in degrees of effort and spite.

Morgan would provide exactly the support she had received — the absolute minimum required for survival, and not an ounce more.

This silent, bitter equilibrium suited them both.

Neither sister offered to renegotiate the terms — they would rather suffer in body than in pride.

In the magical cave, the blinding glare of Godgrave's sky was gone — replaced by an intimate, shared darkness.

They were alive because of each other — and for now, in the grave of a god, that was all that mattered.

As Morgan lay on the stone chaise longue, preparing to sleep, she examined her body.

It was covered with ugly wounds that her Transcendent Body was attempting to heal naturally — some were already forming rough scabs, scars, and raw, newly-knitted flesh.

'This won't do.’ She thought bitterly to herself. ‘I am in no shape to meet him like this. I do hope these will heal completely before then.'

They were supposedly only three days away from their destination.

This would be the last stretch of their journey to the Nameless Temple.

After examining her body, she dived into her Soul Sea to inspect one of her cherished Echoes — a Supreme Beast — that she had summoned during their last encounter.

It slumbered now in her Soul Sea, recovering from a battle just days ago.

It was a living diamond bulwark, a cresting ocean wave carved from sentient diamond.

While it could not attack, it could withstand immense punishment by selectively forming the optimal defensive crystalline lattice to receive incoming impacts.

The Echo could swell to nearly 7.7 metres high — almost twice the height of a typical giraffe — and over 777 metres wide — approximately 155 PTVs bumper-to-bumper — to provide a solid barricade at the cost of thinner defences and slower reaction times to form the massive crystalline barrier.

It was this Supreme Beast Echo — a gift from a matronly Elder of whom she was fond — that had recently saved them from a swarm of hungry Corrupted Beasts.

The last encounter had taken a heavy toll on both sisters.

Nephis, already exhausted from using her explosive power to take out a Great Beast with unholy regeneration — was forced to keep the hordes of lesser Nightmare Creatures at bay with shrewd use of her flames.

This left Morgan to handle another Corrupted Tyrant leading the horde — a foe that, while lacking unholy regeneration, had claws seething with a blighted pestilence.

Her precise and debilitating bladework eventually convinced the predator that both princesses were not worth the effort — while Nephis's solar fire held back the slavering pack on their right — and the diamond wave Echo pulsed and undulated to prevent their left flank from being overrun.

Now, the diamond wave Echo paid the price — healing its spiritual wounds in silence.

'And our supplies are running out.' She sighed, before drifting off to sleep on her crystal bed.

Both sisters slept for an entire day — utterly exhausted from their last battle.

Luckily, the sun remained shining — threatening to incinerate anything that dared to move.

Morgan was the first to awake.

She went straight to their supplies — and began to munch on dried military rations, washing them down with a jug of water.

Nephis woke a few moments later and walked to the crates.

She stared at the dwindling supplies for a moment before taking her share.

It was their silent custom — the first to take her rations ate where she stood, the one who followed was obliged to retreat to the far side of the cave.

Mealtimes were always solitary — a preference they both shared.

This time, however, Nephis did not walk away.

She stared at Morgan.

“Oh?” Morgan raised an eyebrow. “How unexpected. Do you need a breakfast companion?”

“Our supplies are low.” Nephis replied, ignoring the sarcasm.

“They should last another nine days.” Morgan countered. “The sun should be gone around the seventh day by then. As unpredictable as it is, this region seems to follow a pattern.”

“Good.” Nephis said, her voice flat. “Then there is no need to linger. This is the last time we use your cave. Once the sun recedes, we move. We will not stop again until we reach his Citadel. That is all.”

With her orders delivered, Nephis walked away to the other side of the cave to finish her meal in silence.

Morgan continued to stare into the distance. ‘Until the sun goes away, huh?’

She recalled a bleak theory she had read about it.

Godgrave’s sun, an unknown, mysterious author had posited, was perhaps not a typical fiery star like the one in our solar system, but perhaps another Terror — perhaps of the Divine or Unholy Rank.

And the cloud that was shielding the inhabitants living under its sky was perhaps a Nightmare Creature too, attempting to buy precious moments for its overlord to regenerate its flesh — the red moss, the vermilion grass that was always in a hurry to be born, grow, consume, and propagate before turning to ash.

For what natural terror, after all, would follow an unpredictable algorithm with only a mere few patterns made intelligible for mortals?

Perhaps they were constantly fighting a war overhead — a war to ensure that the unholy skeleton residing in this grave remained buried — forever cursed to regenerate and burn to its death again and again.

Forevermore.

The theory on Godgrave was put forth as a bold erratum — reopening a chilling mystery.

The erratum was attached to a paper on the Forgotten Shore — a work he claimed to have authored as a teenager.

It was a stunning claim, not least because the original paper's attribution had been mysteriously annulled — its young creator seemingly erased from history itself.

In that audacious erratum, the author corrected what he now called a youthful error — a claim made possible by the power he had since acquired.

He explained that as a mere Sleeper, he had mistaken the behaviour of the Dark Sea for a mere phenomenon of the Dream Realm — when, in truth, it was a Great Titan.

And this infamous, heretical academic published his series of treatises under a single pseudonym.

A pseudonym name that was at once famous, chilling and now — deeply controversial.

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Authored by: Mongrel

Chapter Text

Morgan examined her injuries again.

The Tyrant's claws left more than physical wounds — they imparted a festering blight that seeped beyond the flesh.

Her Transcendent Body struggled against the lingering venom, and in some places, the raw flesh had begun to ooze and fester.

‘Nine days here, and three days of travel. That gives me twelve days to get rid of these … ugly marks.’ She thought, a cold dread mixing with her fury.

‘He can't see me like this. He’ll look at me, then at her, and the choice will be obvious.’

‘I refuse to lose to her over something as pathetic as a wound that will not close in time. This body will not be able to cleanse them in time … not without help.’

Her jaw tightened. ‘Damn her. Damn it all.’

She hated this.

She had no choice.

Swallowing her pride, Morgan rose and walked towards her sister.

Nephis was eating her share in silence, but she raised an eyebrow as Morgan approached, not stopping at the chaise longue as she normally would.

A small, smug smile touched Nephis’s lips.

“Oh? How unexpected.” She said, her voice dripping with mock concern. “Do you need a breakfast companion?”

Her spirit slightly lifted, now that she was able to throw Morgan's insult minutes ago back at her.

“Didn't think you were the needy type, dear sister.”

“I propose a new arrangement.” Morgan said, her voice a carefully controlled monotone.

Struggling to make it sound less like she was asking for a favour and more like a business deal.

A perfect coping mechanism for her humiliation.

“You can have full use of the chaise longue for the next nine days. In return, you will heal my wounds. Properly this time. Not just the bare minimum.”

Nephis stared strangely at her for a long moment.

Nephis didn’t respond immediately.

She took another slow, deliberate bite of her ration, chewing thoughtfully.

While Morgan stood there — exposed and waiting.

She was savouring this shift in power, the exquisite pleasure of seeing her proud sister forced to bargain.

After swallowing, she finally looked up.

Her gaze flicked over Morgan’s festering wounds with a strange, calculating look.

A cruel smile began to form on her lips.

“Wait.” She said slowly.

“You want me to heal those?”

She gestured vaguely at a particularly nasty, pus-filled gash on Morgan's arm.

“Why on earth would you want me to do that? They’re perfect!”

She leaned back, her voice laced with condescending pity.

“They make you look weak. Ruined. Exactly the kind of pathetic state we need him to see. I thought you’d be grateful.”

Nephis leaned forward, her voice now a taunt.

“Don’t tell me you can’t stomach a few scars to avoid his bed. Or has your vanity finally become more important than your freedom, dear sister?”

But Nephis was blind to the truth.

Her own biases — wanting to return to ensure her Fire Keepers’ safety as soon as possible while ensuring she wasn't tied down to a husband — had coloured her perception of Morgan.

Leading her to assume they shared the same goal — avoiding the political marriage with the Lord of Shadow at all costs while hopefully securing his alliance with other offers.

Failing that — murder him and claim his Nameless Temple for their father.

To Nephis, using scars to guarantee their rejection was a bitter, cynical joke between them.

And she remained completely unaware that her sister had no intention of being cast aside.

Morgan flinched internally.

A hand — clenched into a fist, her nails biting into her palm.

Of course.

Her sister was completely blind to the truth.

Nephis saw this all as a twisted game they were playing together — a shared strategy to avoid the Lord of Shadow while securing his alliance.

She had no idea that Morgan was not avoiding him, but was desperate to be chosen.

‘To think it has come to this.’ Morgan thought, a fresh wave of bitterness washing over her.

‘Reduced to this. Pleading with the one person who despises me most. All for a chance to offer myself to a stranger.’

This was a game, all right.

But one Nephis didn't even know she was losing.

And Morgan would do anything to win — even if it meant sacrificing every last scrap of her pride.

For the next few days, their roles were inverted.

Nephis now lay upon the luminous chaise longue, basking in the full, sublime potency of the restorative aura.

Healing her tired mind and subsequently — her humanity.

True to the letter of their pact, Nephis provided the healing — gradually.

Each day, another layer of her power would wash over Morgan's wounds — knitting torn flesh and erasing the blighted affliction.

The festering stopped.

And clean, new skin began to form where ugly gashes had been.

From her crystal throne, Nephis watched the transaction with smug satisfaction.

She had once considered simply ordering Morgan to grant her access to this seat, but the Memory was intrinsically tied to her sister's Soul Sea.

It could only be activated by Morgan's essence. Nephis could not take it by force, and she had been unwilling to trade her pride by begging.

‘But this … this was so much better.’

The restoration was a balm to her soul.

Nurturing the human part of her she had burnt away.

Washing away the exhaustion the wasteland had inflicted upon her mind.

And the best part was that it had cost her little — almost next to nothing.

Morgan was the one who had come crawling — the one who had sacrificed her pride.

The irony was delicious.

Morgan, meanwhile — was relegated to the cave's edge, receiving only the faintest, most dissatisfying whispers of its power.

The absence of the restorative aura was a shock to her system — she was utterly unused to this discomfort.

She had long since grown to depend on its boon — it had been the one constant comfort that had seen her through the horrors of her Third Nightmare.

The very power that had ensured she was ready to face each new day in the True Bastion.

It had been her armour against madness, a crucial means of her survival.

And she had traded it away.

A self-inflicted wound traded for a chance at a different life.

Each shiver in the gloom was a prayer to a man she did not know.

A small price to pay for the hope of not being cast aside.

In the shared darkness of the cave, surrounded by the triumphant comfort of her sister — Morgan had never felt more alone.

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The cold of the stone floor was an alien feeling now.

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'I..Iht..is. .co .. cold...'

Morgan thought to herself.

The words in her mind feeling slow and brittle.

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A raw chill,

That seeped,

Into her bones,

And left her feeling,

Hollowed out.

It was a constant,

Maddening reminder,

Of what she had given up.

She huddled,

In the gloom.

Wrapping her arms,

Around herself,

Not just for warmth,

But to hold herself together.

She was offering up,

Everything.

All of this,

For a chance.

Her pride,

Her comfort,

Her very means,

Of survival.

On the,

Desperate,

Pathetic,

Hope,

That a stranger,

Might find her beautiful.

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While her sister slept soundly on the throne of her sacrifice.

Morgan was left,

With nothing,

But the cold,

And the bitter,

Devastating,

Knowledge,

Of how little,

She truly had.

To cope,

She anchored,

Her weary mind,

To a single,

Desperate hope.

A fantasy,

Polished,

Like a precious blade,

Against the ache,

In her mind,

And the sting,

Of her humiliation.

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His Nameless Temple.

A sanctuary of sacred stone and shadowed halls.

His cold shadows.

To shelter her from scorching heat and fiery stars.

His unnerving silence.

A balm after a lifetime of roaring commands and brittle praise.

His unshakeable strength.

A sure foundation on which she can rebuild and finally breathe.

His dreadful power.

A shield from this hollow world and its insidious lies.

His sovereign presence.

A promise of absolute peace and sweet relief.

His inscrutable gaze.

A void that accepts her Flaw and asks for nothing more.

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And her — his consort.

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She dared to imagine more.

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The merry laughter of adopted children.

Echoing through the temple halls.

The gentle task of combing tangled hair.

As they recount adventures great and small.

The serious business of building a blanket fortress.

A magical kingdom for them all.

The fantasy of reading them a story.

Until their weary eyelids start to fall.

The profound safety of tucking them in tight.

Gently closing their bedroom door.

The patient lessons to read and write.

Proudly showing they have learnt it all.

The careful tracing of their handprints.

Priceless treasures hung upon the wall.

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Their first words.

Mama and Papa.

Their small hands in hers.

Clinging tightly.

Their small weight against her.

Trusting and warm.

Their trusting eyes.

Asking for help.

Their fierce defence.

Of a favourite, broken toy.

Their earnest questions.

About a world they do not understand.

Their rambling stories.

Always taken seriously.

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To listen.

And acknowledge their small fears.

To check for monsters under the bed.

Declaring the coast is clear.

To pat their head.

Wiping away tears.

To be their source of comfort.

Not fear.

To praise a silly drawing.

Pretending it is a masterpiece.

To happily sing a song.

Terribly off-key.

To play hide and seek.

Pretending his shadows are scary.

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A hug.

Given for no reason at all.

A smile.

That reaches her eyes.

A hand.

That finds hers in the darkness.

A knowing glance.

Over their sleeping heads.

A secret whisper.

Only between them.

A simple question.

"Are you happy?"

A quiet.

"Yes"

In return.

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Being allowed.

To be imperfect.

Being the one.

They run to when they fall.

Being the gentle hand.

That cleans a wound.

Being not the one.

That causes them.

Being the quiet centre.

Of their world.

Being a shield.

Against the poison of comparison.

Being the mother.

She never had.

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And most importantly.

To never, ever play favourites.

Chapter Text

“Well? Has the sun receded?”

On the seventh day, Nephis approached Morgan — demanding a status update.

Her sister, still chewing a piece of dried beef jerky, sent a mental command to her tactical Memory.

A few seconds later, her eyes took on a hewn-stone texture as her faceless star-nosed mole replied — granting her a 360-degree panoramic vision through its seven beady eyes.

“It has.” Replied Morgan curtly after swallowing a small mouthful.

“We will move out in two days then. Whether we succeed or not in courting the Lord of Shadow, we will have to return to Bastion, as our means of return or of escape.” Her sister said simply before walking away, returning to meditate on her crystal chaise longue.

Morgan returned to her beef jerky, impassive and deep in thought.

Her mind felt blank, still fatigued from not receiving the full power of the chaise longue.

That night passed without incident.

However, the next evening, while they were deep in their meal — taken at a distance from one another — the cave shook.

Both sisters jolted from the sudden tremor.

“What’s happening?” Demanded Nephis.

Morgan’s eyes had already turned to an unnatural texture.

Using her Memory’s borrowed senses, she scanned across a seven-kilometre radius — the Memory’s limit.

But the enchanted senses of the star-nosed mole statue detected no movement.

She saw only clouds of smoke where her tactical Memory was hiding.

Then, with her own Transcendent senses, she spotted movement high in the clouds.

A fast-moving arrow had landed near the crevice where her Memory was hiding — barely missing it.

It exploded with a devastating shockwave, spreading like an invisible ripple of crushing force across the sun-bleached plain.

With a silent command, she compelled the Memory to bury itself deeper into the crevice, tucking in the star-like nose-eyes that jutted out from the surface.

Once her Memory was secure and its eyes could only see the clouds of dust and smoke above its hiding spot — Morgan’s awareness returned to the cave.

“That’s new. It seems like there are Nightmare archers who can shoot arrows this time. It seems there is a civilisation within this region. And I thought only wild beasts prowled these lands.”

“They are not.” Replied Nephis. “We are being ambushed by Ki Song's assassins.”

Morgan raised a brow. “It’s plausible. And how would you know for certain?”

“There were many attempts on my life when I was younger. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.” Nephis replied, staring hard at her sister.

She then scoffed at Morgan's expression. “I always survive. You and your father should know that better than anyone.”

Morgan stared back, wordlessly. ‘So she knew.’ She thought. ‘She probably knew it was he who sent the Han Li boy after her too.’

‘The question is, what was the king thinking? First, he sends the Han Li boy to kill her. Then, he welcomes her into our family. He truly is shameless.’ Morgan thought to herself.

“We will leave once your Memory is destroyed. Its destruction will eject us from this space, and we will head south.” Nephis ordered.

“Summon your weapon, your steed, your Memories, and your Echoes. Start eating and drinking your fill too. It will be a three-day trip.”

“I refuse.” Morgan countered, angered that she would have to sacrifice the cherished tactical Memory the old general had given her.

“My diamond wave Echo is still healing from our last battle. And why would I let my mole be destroyed? It is a valuable, one-of-a-kind tactical Memory. We can leave before it is destroyed.”

Nephis gave a mocking laugh before turning away and walking towards the supply boxes at the back of the cave.

Without turning, she said. “Oh, we can. Let’s wait until your ugly pet opens a magic portal for us to exit. I am sure our assassins will appreciate a bright, shimmering target letting them know where to aim next!”

She paused, then added. “Our arrangement still stands. I will feast at the chaise longue, and once I am done, I will heal you.”

‘Damn it!’ Morgan screamed internally.

She knew Nephis was right, but this Awakened Memory of the Seventh Tier was one of her favourites, despite its relatively low Rank.

And she couldn’t bear to let the old general know that it had perished.

‘It’s not ugly …’ She choked back a quiet sob in her mind, her bitterness momentarily replaced by a fierce, childish defensiveness. ‘... It’s cute.’

It was one thing of the few things in her life that listened without judgement — that obeyed without question.

A silent, steadfast companion in the unending nightmare.

It couldn't talk back, but it was her only confidant — the keeper of secrets she couldn't even admit to herself.

“Even you.” She muttered — the words a raw ache in her chest.

“I’m so sorry, little one.” She whispered to the faceless star-nosed mole that had kept her sane since True Bastion.

“I’m so sorry I have to let her break you.”

It had been her silent shield through the horrors of the True Bastion.

It had never failed her.

And now, she had to feed it to Nephis’s strategy.

Her gaze drifted across the cave — landing on Nephis.

Who sat serenely upon the luminous chaise longue.

That was the final, bitter irony.

The throne of her sister’s triumph — the very seat of her own humiliation — had been woven from the mole's own essence.

A gift from the servant for its master — now occupied by the one demanding its execution.

And Nephis had the gall to luxuriate upon it!

Even at this very moment!

She held on to that connection for a long, heartbreaking moment — memorising the feeling before she would be forced to let it be shattered forever.

With a final, bitter effort, she prepared a final farewell to the faceless stone statue — her one constant companion.

Waiting patiently to be destroyed for a cause it could never understand.

Chapter Text

“Missed.” Uttered Moonviel bitterly, her knuckles white on the bow.

She reached for another arrow from the quiver strapped to her slender frame.

Her white hair billowed silently in the gust from her released shot, caressing a face of delicate, enchanting beauty now marred by frustration. Her eyes, seeming to glimmer with the afterglow of the veiled sunlight, narrowed on the distant plume of dust.

Silent Stalker, clad in black hunting attire — wordlessly sent another of her arrows after the first without replying.

She too had sensed her sister’s arrow had narrowly missed the tiny target ten kilometres away.

Nearby, a tall young man with broad shoulders and an incredibly muscular physique drew his mighty bowstring taut.

He held the tension, his gaze tracking Silent Stalker’s arrow — his mind a canvas of wind speed, trajectory, and gravitational drop.

He was ready to unleash his own devastating shot if hers failed.

Dar of the Maharana clan looked mighty and confident — less a man and more a statue of an ancient war deity that had come to life.

A short distance behind them, Siord — an alluring woman with a strangely wicked half-smile playing on her lively face — stood guarding their archer formation with a bronze javelin, held loosely in one hand.

“Is it wise, Shan? Even with their legendary skill, it is still a tall order.” Asked a petite young woman with her pretty voice, tugging on the flowing cape of her elder sister’s blood-red armour.

There was a hint of innocence on her lovely face and a strange calmness in her large, glistening eyes.

She wore a dark robe, and heavy drops of blood dripped from her slick hand — staining the crimson fabric of her elder sister’s cape, but her elder sister didn't seem to mind.

“It is the safest option, Hel.” A soft voice replied.

It belonged to Seishan — a striking woman with strange, beautiful grey skin and a tantalising grace — an embodiment of nobility and regal poise.

Her beauty was breathtaking, seeming both inhuman and riveting.

“Changing Star has the ability to detonate everything in a city-wide radius. This distance is a safe compromise. If we can take her out here, it would be for the best.”

She continued in an exotic, alluring voice.

“The explosions will attract the Nightmare Creatures, regardless. We can lure them to their hiding spot to trap them. Once they are forced out, our archers will have an easier time. Keep holding on to me, Hel. I don’t want the beasts to be drawn to the scent of your blood.”

Her voice softened as she reached out to ruffle her younger sister’s hair.

“Besides … I like it when you are actively boosting my blood. It remains such a delightful experience.”

Her voice stayed warm, steady with affection as she went on.

“You’ve done well, divining their location and leading us here safely. Now hush, and trust your sisters and brothers to handle the rest.”

As the eldest princess in the group of Saints, she was naturally in charge.

“And what about me, dearest sister? Have I not been crucial in helping our little squad navigate this terrain?” An icy voice asked as soft footsteps approached from behind them.

“We would not be here ...” Seishan said, her tone laced with disdain. “... if you had successfully brought that hermit Saint to our side in the first place.”

Moonviel, who had been reaching for another arrow, paused and chimed in. “To think that a Divine Aspect bearer like you couldn’t handle a mere Saint.”

Mortred, who had been about to reply to Seishan’s harsh words, flinched internally at Moonviel’s follow-up.

“That was but a vessel of mine, defeated by a one-off party trick!” He protested.

“And I was sent alone. Mother could have sent some of you to court him! From the Sleepers’ accounts, we know he is a man! It was a stretch for mother to send a man, assuming he is interested in the same sex!” He ended with a mocking tone, not intending to hide his irritation.

Four pairs of eyes — Seishan’s and her sisters’ — turned to glare at him.

Moonveil and Silent Stalker had paused their bombardment — their killing rhythm broken by his whining.

Hel shrank behind her elder sister — the fabric of Seishan's cape twisting in her small fist.

Dar and Siord remained silent, suddenly becoming fascinated with their jobs with incredible enthusiasm — trying their best not to make eye contact.

Dar began to fetch more arrows from his quiver at a quickened pace.

While Siord edged closer to him, fixing her gaze on a faraway point — conveniently away from the five adopted royals — as if an imaginary Nightmare Beast were rushing to attack Dar at any moment.

“That was a brave complaint, dear brother …”

A distant, silent flash of light confirmed another impact.

Dar was already nocking a new arrow, his movements unnaturally hastened.

“… knowing that mother is watching us at this very moment.” Seishan finished, her voice dropping a fraction, making the threat more intimate.

“And a braver thing still ...” Moonveil continued, her voice steady but cold — picking up where her elder sister left off. “... to suggest bartering your sisters. Your father is exactly the kind of man who does that. Is that the life you wish to return to?“

Mortred’s face could not betray a slight wince at the mention of his father, but he remained indignant and countered with another mocking tone.

“Oh, don’t worry, my current sisters are better than my old ones … at least, you aren’t the ones I’m actively trying to kill ...”

“... Like right now!” He gestured dismissively towards the distant target — now clouded by dust, smoke, and lingering flames.

“I alone was sent to face a Saint. I return, and I am mocked. You are sent to eliminate them, and mother allowed you to bring an army.”

“And?” Seishan’s voice was raised but dismissive, a deliberate choice to ensure his grievance was not acknowledged.

Mortred’s composure remained unbroken, but the performance became more pronounced.

Instead of fraying, his sarcasm hardened into a theatrical show of self-pity.

"I am only seeking equal treatment! Despite your attitude, it was I who generously offered to guide us across this godforsaken land so that we could catch them in time. After all, I left my old family because I was promised better treatment here!"

He finished, his voice rising to a raw, satiric crescendo. “Aren’t my sisters being unfair? Was I given such treatment because I joined the family late?”

The four princesses did not reply.

They stared at him coldly for a few more seconds before turning their attention back to the bombardment.

The silence was broken by Moonviel.

Her gaze bypassed Mortred entirely and landed on the silent powerhouse.

“Dar.”

The archer instantly stopped his busywork, his full attention snapping to her.

“Your next shot ...” She commanded, her voice calm and absolute.

“A wider trajectory.”

Chapter Text

‘Part of me really wants to kill them for firing at Neph …’

The sheer number of Song powerhouses sent just to concentrate fire on a spot — he concluded that it is likely Nephis that they were after.

His hands tightened into fists, knuckles turning white. “But doing so would reveal my allegiance too soon.”

Another silent flash of light streaked in the distance, followed by the percussive boom of displaced air that hammered against the sun-bleached bone plain.

The ground beneath them shuddered violently — again and again.

After more than an hour of continuous salvos, the surrounding area where Morgan’s Memory was hiding began to show signs of wear.

The bone groaned under the strain, and new cracks spiderwebbed across its surface.

The hiding hole of the star-nosed mole had long been covered with fragments of shattered bone and debris — plunging its hiding spot into absolute darkness.

Soon, the red jungle — already a place of unnatural growth — will be spurred into a frenzy by the bombardment.

And the predators around this area, drawn by the ceaseless detonations, will converge — trapping the princesses.

From his vantage point in the shadows of a gnarled, infernal forest, surrounded by still-warm corpses of slain monsters, he watched the unfolding fusillade of arrows with anger.

He suppressed his urge to unleash his own Shadows — to send them flowing across the kilometres of nascent jungle — and tear the distant assassins limb from limb.

From here onward ... he had to sell himself to Nephis while making her think that she was the one insisting on making the purchase.

People did not value that which came into their possession too easily, after all.

If he wanted to be treated as a precious ally instead of a cheap, disposable tool, he had to make Clan Valor think that they had been extremely lucky to gain his support.

“Right then.” He murmured, sending a mental command to his Shadow Echoes — staring at their lord.

‘Don’t kill them. Just create enough smoke and dust to make them stop. Once she’s escaped, we’ll take our leave.’

At the same time, Sunny stepped from the trees.

The familiar weight of his Shadow Bow materialised in his hand as he nocked an arrow woven with the finest of Weaver’s artistry.

His gaze fixed on the distant clearing — where the Saints of Song were about to receive their first reply.

The hour-long, rhythmic pattern of death from above was suddenly broken by an unnerving lull.

Morgan’s grieving vigil was shattered.

Unnerved, she sent a silent command to her Memory to dig through the debris covering its hiding spot. 

It took a while of scrabbling before its seven beady eyes, gleaming prettily — poked above the ground.

Morgan’s hewn-stone textured eyes widen.

“We are leaving!” She announced.

"Your pet isn't dead yet." Nephis remarked, still sitting on the chaise longue.

"I saw arrows flying in the other direction. Retaliating against our assassins. I think … I think it’s the Shadow Clan, counter-attacking." Morgan said, ignoring the jibe as she scrambled to her feet.

"It's plausible. And how would you know for certain?" Nephis said, raising a brow, her tone laced with scepticism.

"Because of the Sleepers’ accounts! They operate in this region!" Morgan’s voice grew with confidence — latching onto the sudden, unexpected hope that she did not need to sacrifice her cherished memory just to escape after all.

"He probably thinks we're just a couple of lost Sleepers needing rescue."

"It matters not!" Nephis said, her voice deliberately dismissive. "We are not using that portal of yours! It’s far too dangerous! Stick to the plan!"

"No!" Morgan’s sharp voice echoed through the cavern. "We stick to my plan!"

She took a resolute breath, raised her head — and spoke to the empty air of the cavern.

"Lady Cassia, I'll grant you access to that part of my memory. See for yourself. Tell my sister I speak only the truth."

Without waiting for a reply, Morgan turned her back on Nephis.

With a new, defiant purpose, she strode over to their supplies — eating and drinking her fill while her steed Echo materialised before a shimmering portal trying to stabilise — the exit she had created.

'She's telling the truth, Neph.' Cassie's voice echoed softly in Nephis's mind.

Nephis remained silent for a long moment, her gaze fixed on Morgan’s back. ‘Should I kill her here, Cass?’

‘Tempting.’ Cassie admitted, her mental voice tinged with a hint of her dark amusement.

‘But I wouldn’t recommend it. The Songs may have stopped firing, but it's best you have someone to watch your back ... at least until you are safe. And we do not know how the hermit Saint will react. He may not look kindly on you for killing someone he is trying to save, even considering the circumstances.’

Nephis considered this. ‘It’s just the two of us in here, and he would never know … but her corpse might appear outside once her Memory disappears. And ... you’re right. The Lord of Shadows … his reputation is terrifying, but this doesn't sound like the act of a monster. He may have attacked the Songs because he mistook us for lost Sleepers.’

‘And she doesn’t look like she is going to backstab you now either.’ Cassie added. ‘I think we should let this play out. We’ll have other chances to eliminate Morgan in the future.’

‘Fine!’ Nephis conceded, clearly frustrated.

Once she had finished, Morgan swung herself up onto the saddle of her steed.

She gestured towards the swirling portal with a theatrical flourish, her eyes locking with Nephis’s. "After you, dear sister."

"And why would I do that? It was your brilliant idea in the first place." Nephis shot back. "You created this exit. You should be the one to stick your neck out for it."

A smug smile played on Morgan’s lips. "Because we both know that when a spatial Memory is destroyed, it ejects anyone inside. That's a known fact. It happened to a few unfortunate Awakened, after all, and they recounted the same thing. However …"

She leaned forward, her voice brimming with cruel delight, "I wonder what would happen to you if you remained in my cave after I simply dismissed my mole back to my Soul Sea?”

Her lips curled upwards with every word, savouring the moment. 

"We know not every spatial Memory is created equal. Some can safely house their occupants upon dismissal, some can’t, and for others, the Spells never describe what happens next. Mine is, unfortunately, one of those, and no one has ever been daring enough to volunteer for that experiment. Do you want to be the first to find out?" She finished, her smile triumphant.

It was a lie.

A beautiful, perfect lie.

The Spell had made it perfectly clear to Morgan that her star-nosed Memory functioned just like Effie’s Black Beast Locket — despite its lower Rank.

But Nephis did not need to know that.

The sweet poison of the bluff was too satisfying to resist, and Morgan managed to rope her sister into playing the role of her human shield.

A muscle tightened in Nephis’s jaw.

The gloating look on Morgan's face was infuriating, but the threat was undeniable.

To be trapped in a collapsing spatial dimension for eternity … or worse.

She was a hostage.

With a final, angry glare, Nephis mounted her own steed — her body glowing with healing flames as a precaution — and rode through the portal.

Morgan smirking victoriously.

Shielded by her diamond Echo with only a slit opened wide enough for riding vision — followed right behind her.

They emerged into chaos.

The air was thick with clouds of dust and the lingering heat of flames, but the shellings had ceased.

In the distance, they could see the Song assassins returning fire blindly at an unseen enemy, their arrows flying south-east blindly — caught completely off guard by an unknown assailant.

“We’ll head towards where they’re firing!” Morgan yelled. Her mole was already safely dismissed, now resting in her Soul Sea, and her Diamond Wave deflected most of the swirling particulates — leaving Nephis exposed to the full brunt of the dust storm.

Nephis couldn’t even blink — her eyes instantly filling with grit and dirt.

Blindly, she followed the sound of Morgan’s steed — riding for several minutes through the choking dust cloud.

They rode blindly for several minutes — following Morgan’s lead.

Morgan, her vision clear — was the first to break through.

She reined in her steed abruptly, then stared — motionlessly — at the ground ahead.

Nephis emerged seconds later — coughing violently, tears streaming from her burning eyes as she tried to wash out the dust.

Through a blurry haze — she saw her sister frozen in place. "Morgan? What is it?"

Morgan didn’t answer immediately, her gaze fixed on something Nephis couldn't see.

Then, her voice strangely flat, she said. "There's a shadow."

Still blinded from the dust, Nephis’s beautiful face paled slightly. "A shadow? Who is it? Him?"

"No," Morgan replied slowly. "It's just … a stray human shadow. Without its owner."

That was not what Nephis had expected to hear.

She continued rubbing her eyes, but her expression shifted to one of profound surprise. "Only a human shadow? What … what is it doing?"

Morgan hesitated. After a long moment, she answered in a monotone.

"... It's waving at us."

"What?"

"I said, it's waving —"

"Yes, I know!" Nephis snapped, eyes still closed. "I mean … why is it doing that?"

Just as she spoke, the lone shadow on the ground pointed towards a distant crack in the bone plain, then gestured for them to follow — a path that would bring them into the Hollows.

Morgan opened her mouth, then closed it again — then opened it once more.

“I don’t think it’s a distraction to lure us into a trap ... It seems friendly … I think it wants us to follow it.”

Even with her eyes squeezed shut — blind to her surroundings — a strange, nagging feeling pricked at the edge of Nephis's consciousness.

‘Weird …’ She thought to herself.

‘I can’t see what Morgan sees, but why do I find myself reminiscing about the Forgotten Shore? …’

‘... And why am I getting a case of déjà vu?’

Chapter Text

A reader pointed out that I wrote Nephis differently from how she would normally behave in canon sources.

I thought about it and realised that maybe I should have "told, not just shown", rather than sticking strictly to "show, don’t tell" — since a few of you didn’t catch that I kept using the phrase "burning away her humanity" to explain the reason behind her cruelty.

Hence the purpose of this chapter.

Why does this feel like the author is biased towards Morgan 😭

I know that Morgan changed but there's no need to make nephis seem so arrogant lmao

Oh, absolutely, and that’s because I’ve given her Flaw a proper twist in this fanfiction — unlike the canon’s kid-gloves treatment.

According to canon, if she overuses her Aspect, she’d writhe in agony as her humanity goes up in flames — but unlike canon, “burning away her soul” is a minor oopsie I refuse to let slide.

And this fanfic is my gloriously grim spin on what that looks like without Sunny as her emotional anchor.

In my opinion, G3 seriously over-coddled Nephis.

In canon, Nephis's Flaw never truly felt like a debilitating or crippling curse, not in the way the Spell is supposed to hammer down on those granted great power — oh btw, she’s rocking a Divine Aspect, no biggie.

The bias is glaring — she's overpowered and manages to overcome nearly everything through the magic of " ~ sheer willpower ~ " alone.

Even Caster got a rawer deal — and his Aspect was just a measly Ascended, four levels below Divine!

His Flaw has real, tangible consequences — every time he uses his Aspect, he ages.

That's the Spell laying down the hammer — "You wanna spam your power? Pay with your expiry date, mister."

In-universe, a Flaw is an inherent rule, custom-crafted as a bespoke middle finger to force individuals to adapt and become a better version of themselves.

Sunny can’t lie and he needs to learn to trust people, hence his Flaw.

Cassie is blind, and her Flaw forces her into relying on trusted allies, forcing her to spill the truth rather than hoard secrets playing puppet-master.

She needs to guide them by trusting them with the truth, not orchestrate 4D chess games that inevitably backfire like she’s bloody Tzeentch.

Newsflash Cass, over-complicating plans is the fastest way for a schemer to trip over their own feet.

The more pointless variables you cram into a plot, the quicker it unravels.

So, wanna see actual results?

Be practical, involve them for the steps you need, not some grand manipulation to steer them towards a future you think they want.

The gang trusts you, Cassie.

Remember how gloriously hard she carried once Sunny involved her in the time-loop? Note: The only way for my shayla to grow old with Sunny, riding to their death together, damn you G3! {Shakes fists}

[ Got that idea from 1d4chan, though it’s just my speculation. We only saw her face true consequences once in canon, as post-Solstice, she morphed into the perfect diviner who can do no wrong. So, what I assumed was that her clamming up again in the Third Nightmare would bite her back in the arse, yet nothing happened afterwards — a little complaint of mine but oh well. ]

Anyway, I once stumbled on a fanfic that absolutely nailed this with Caster — guy got humbled hard and actually learnt to outsmart his Flaw instead of over-relying on Daddy’s time-reversing Memory.

The author of the fanfic ( don't ask, I can't remember the title just like G3 can’t remember writing consequences ) wrote something along the lines of Caster's Flaw being designed by the Spell as a way to teach him that he can’t play suicidal berserker like Nephis.

Instead, he should overcome his limitation by wisely fighting in such a manner that his speed acceleration is only deployed at the most opportune moment.

In a nutshell, if Caster had taken the time to decode what the Spell was trying to spell out to him ( pun intended ), and adjusted his battle style accordingly — he would be just as deadly as Kiritsugu Emiya with his Time Accel.

One of the few actual real men in Fate/Zero — get me out of here with that whiny ass Shirou and his beta male BS. Can't believe I forced myself through the entire VN!

Now that's character development! — the kind the universe is trying to teach you by tailoring a Flaw to your base character.

With Nephis, though?

Let's ignore the fact that it already took most of my "suspension of disbelief" that she can fight effectively while suffering from her Flaw.

I’ve dabbled in martial arts.

So believe me when I say even as a certified noob, pain will screw your performance somewhat, even with adrenaline in your veins as your hype man.

But nah — canon’s got her executing complex sword techniques with micron-level precision, while solving grad-level classical mechanics problems and physics equations mid-fight.

Fine, we'll handwave it by saying: "She's just built different — She's an Awakened, and you, author, are but a mere Dormant Beast" or "the pain from her Flaw isn't so bad."

I’ve got to choke that down too while reading, else we’d see her wailing in agony and ugly-crying every time she powers up for a brawl.

Let's just focus on the burning away of the humanity aspect — that's where I decided to write her callousness as an integral part of my fanfic.

Even in canon, the narrative tells us she's "losing her humanity" after nuking a city or overcooking her Aspect, but we never really see the cost.

There's no real fallout. There’s no consequences.

People tiptoe around her for a few days, and then she bounces back as if nothing happened.

But losing your humanity should be a big deal.

It should leave a permanent mark.

Let’s take an extreme example — imagine she had to permanently lose an eye or lose one of her five senses every time she used her nuke — that's what real consequences look like, a serious price tag attached to it with no refunds.

The Spell, as we know, has a cruelly ironic sense of humour — Sunny can't lie, and his True Name makes him a slave.

That's brutal. That's twisted.

That's exactly what the Spell does — it grants you immense power by gutting you of something deeply personal.

So for Nephis, the Spell sized up her lofty ambition and whipped up a custom-made First Nightmare to test her, and once she passed — granted her a proper Flaw tailored just for her ambition: [ You must suffer to use your power. ]

That's not just a limitation, it's a test of her very determination by asking her to put her desire for comfort and her humanity on the line to reach her goals.

[ You are a creature of light that was banished and doomed to exist in the darkness. You bring radiance and warmth to wherever you go, but with it comes indescribable longing. ]

Put simply, I’m betting the Spell straight up told her — You’ll be lonely, darling. Not just because of who you are, but because the raw torment you’re willing to endure just to win will send everyone running for the hills.

And yet ... we don't see that in the canon.

As one Redditor perfectly put it: "In-universe, it's supposedly one of the worst Flaws, but from a reader's perspective, it's a non-issue."

Bloody spot on!

It never actually stops her, and it barely changes her as a person compared to the others.

A temporary case of the blues and a few days of depression are just not a tangible price.

Instead, G3 just wrote her as this perfect heroine who could power through it all with a stiff upper lip and the sheer force of ... well, being the MC.

A bit of perseverance, a dash of willpower, maybe some pretty rainbows for good measure, and all that " ~ losing humanity ~ " stuff just magically vanishes away.

That got incredibly boring for me, so I decided to write my own version of what that "crippling Flaw" actually looks like — what “burning away her humanity really looks like”.

All the while, I kept thinking — her drive should make her suffer.

It should isolate her.

It should tear something fundamental out of her.

That's the real price for being a light in the darkness.

For a brief moment when I was reading SS, I even thought maybe this was a clever way for the Spell to educate her. To subtly ask through her suffering:

"Are you sure revenge against Aster, Song, Vale, and destroying me is your true goal? Or is there something more? Wink, wink ... Broken Sword, Smile of Heaven, and IMMORTAL Flame perhaps?"

And in the same way, the Spell could have been subtly hinting to Sunny:

"Are you sure this " ~ freedom ~ " was worth it? You know that whole " ~ standing beside her as an equal ~ " narrative was something you made up in your own head, right? You could have had a real relationship with her even as her slave. If you had stayed to ground her before she turned full cyborg, she would have been truly yours — master-slave bond be damned!”

“Sure, it was fucking cool when you told Auro to his face that there is nothing more pathetic than a slave who begins to trust his master. Alrighty then, here's an exception to the rule and she has genuine feelings for you. Catch!"

The frustrating part is, Sunny was halfway there in Antarctica!

He was already having that major character development when he stopped obsessively checking his runes to compare himself against her.

But the story never went there.

Wasted opportunity.

That's why Sunny fumbled so hard when he abandoned his cohort.

He never realised the Shadow Bond was a blessing in disguise.

And the Spell had already laid it out to him that it was a good thing — it is the ONE THING that could have saved Nephis from the profound isolation her Flaw and her goals demanded!

Without him, and with the world forgetting he ever existed, she's left to become exactly what the Spell intended.

It was basically the Spell's response to Sunny trying to quit, its own cosmic way of saying: 

"Oh, you want to tap out from Weaver's programme that much? Fine! Request processed! Please enjoy your parting gift, you stupid ingrate. VTB, jump his ass!"

Remember how cold Nephis was towards Sunny in Antarctica when she saw him as just some creepo after their Third Nightmare? ^[***]

That's a little taste of the path she's on now.

I will say, though, the rest of my fiction hinges on the premise in Chapter 1 — the first prologue.

I know it isn’t the most popular chapter I’ve written, given that I only received snarky or spammy comments there.

But it remains one of my favourites because it sets up everything that follows from this interpretation to support the plot of my fanfiction.

[***] Anyway, here’s yet another head-scratching contradiction in G3’s writing that I’m currently puzzling over how to write around. And I might need to do a few ass-pulls, lose some readers over it, and end up fighting with a few of you angry lots in the comments section. Brace yourselves.

When he met Nephis after their Third Nightmare in Antarctica, she just stared at him like he was a weirdo and asked him to state his affiliation.

Then, years later, they suddenly had a "love at first sight" moment.

And G3 just handwaved that particular plot hole with Cassie telling Sunny something along the lines of "although we cannot remember, our feelings and emotions towards you linger on."

Because nothing says lingering emotion like treating someone like a complete stranger in a frozen wasteland.

Chapter Text

⚠️⚠️⚠️ POSSIBLE CHAPTER RETCON WARNING ⚠️⚠️⚠️ 

[Update: Some readers have pointed out that this chapter may not do justice to Hel’s character. Because of that, I’m currently considering a retcon. No final decision has been made yet — I'm waiting until I’ve had the chance to read through Volume 10 and get a better understanding of the Song sisters. Once I have a clearer picture, I’ll revisit this chapter with fresh eyes.]

Meanwhile, a careless and coincidental glance towards the fast-growing red jungle — far to the south-east — was all it took for Seishan to be the first to notice an incoming projectile flying towards them at breakneck speed.

The rest of the Saints were focusing their attention south — on the hiding spot of the two princesses, which had begun to show signs of spiderwebbed cracks.

Unfortunately for Seishan, she was primarily a melee combatant.

Unlike a ranged archer, she lacked the ability to judge that the projectile was not aimed directly at her.

“Incoming! Take cover!” She cried out, turning with a swift, brutal motion devoid of her usual elegance.

Her hands shot out, her grip like vice.

Seishan grabbed a stunned Hel — still clutching her blood-red cape — and instinctively used her body to shield her delicate little sister.

The full, unchecked might of a Transcendent warrior — amplified by the very power her little sister had poured into her — slammed into Hel's fragile frame.

With a sickening crunch of bone, Seishan leaped — dragging her sister across the seven-foot gap to the cover of a small mound.

The rest, dazed by her yell, followed split seconds later.

The first arrow landed in front of the three-Saints archery formation, generating an explosion and conjuring a cloud of dust and smoke.

A second and a third arrow arrived moments later — a few feet to the left and right of the first — and spewed thick clouds of smoke and dust that completely blocked the Song Saints' view to the south.

More arrows followed, continuously pounding the earth — creating an even thicker screen of smoke and dust that shielded their targets completely from view.

Once they had taken cover behind the mound, the archers' priorities violently split.

Dar, understanding the need for covering fire — abandoned their original target and immediately began returning fire blindly.

Despite his Aspect Ability, he could only vaguely sense the location of their unknown assailants in the chaos of dust, smoke, and heat-haze.

“Anyone missing?” Siord yelled, scanning their formation.

“Everyone is accounted for. Guard our rear, Saint Siord.” Mortred replied without looking at her — instead staring at his bewildered elder sister holding their younger sister with his disconcerting, unnaturally reflective, mirror-like eyes.

Obeying her prince's command, Siord spared a quick glance at Seishan and Hel before moving towards their cohort’s rear — gripping her javelin tightly, ready to intercept any ambush from behind.

Mortred had arrived shortly after Seishan and Hel — ice in his veins, he had already scanned their surroundings calmly, but found nothing.

Regardless, he readied himself.

A mirror-like blade materialised in his right hand as his left twisted and hardened, elongating into bizarre, sharp, reflective, beast-like mirror claws.

When Mortred was formally adopted into Ki Song's family, the queen made an extraordinary gesture.

Aware of his old, long-lost Cruel Sight through her spies in Anvil's court, she immediately commissioned her personal team of enchanters and smiths to begin a year-long project crafting this unique Mirror Blade to replace it.

Crucially, unlike his estranged father's order, they did not deliberately forge a lesser Memory for her adopted son.

This powerful new weapon was ultimately bestowed upon Mortred when he returned from his Third Nightmare.

And unlike Cruel Sight — the polished silver sword with its blade showing a person their own reflection — Mirror Blade was forged using specially enchanted mirrors and imbued with Ki Song’s blood and Will during the forging process.

Thus, Mortred’s cherished Mirror Blade was of the Supreme Rank.

Mortred rarely used it — given his versatile Aspect Ability to invade another’s soul meant he seldom had the need for it

However, since Antarctica, the threats posed by Skinwalker vessels in the waking world had only worsened, year after year.

As Song Domain’s deadliest hunter of Skinwalker vessels, Mortred had plenty of chances to use his adopted mother’s gift.

Eventually, he became proficient with it.

In her frantic rescue, Seishan had carelessly unleashed the full, barbarous might of a Transcendent to grab her delicate sister — and had nearly crushed her in the process.

In her effort to empower Seishan, she had unwittingly set the stage for her own tragic demise, suffering a far worse fate than if Seishan had acted alone.

Hel, a mere dainty haruspex and hardly a resilient warrior — was currently lost in brutal agony.

It was a cruel twist — in her effort to hide her scent by empowering Seishan, she had unwittingly set the stage for her own tragic demise, suffering a far worse fate than if Seishan had acted alone.

“Hel! Hel! Stay with me!” Seishan screamed, the horror of her mistake dawning on her as she embraced her sister.

Dark, ugly bruises were already blooming across her skin where Seishan's fingers had dug in.

Hel's dark robe was torn, frayed, and soaked with blood.

The hint of innocence on her lovely face was gone — marred with numerous wounds and the blackening of bruises.

The blood that normally traced her skin in calm, arcane patterns now gushed in a frenzied, unnatural tide and streamed across her body.

Her nose and the corner of her mouth were filled with blood — and her attempts at screaming were wet, gurgling gasps as she fought for air — mirroring the horrified, pained noises of a dying animal.

Seishan could feel the frantic, arrhythmic hammering of Hel's heart against her ribs — a panicked drumbeat signalling a soft body in revolt.

Her limbs were bent at an unnatural angle — the white of shattered bone almost piercing the skin.

The strange calmness in her large, glistening eyes had long vanished, replaced by bulging, bloodshot terror — knowing that she was at death’s doorstep.

“Silent! Potion! Hurry!” A panicked Moonveil screamed, rushing to her younger sister’s side.

Silent Stalker, jolted from her daze by Moonveil’s horrified command, frantically conjured a healing potion — a consumable Memory forged by Song enchanters.

The few seconds it took for the Memory to materialise felt like an eternity set against her sister’s agonised convulsions.

“Stay with us, Hel!” Moonveil cried, gripping Hel’s one good hand.

Already kneeling, Silent Stalker silently cursed the slowness of the Spell.

Once the vial was fully formed, she worked with desperate precision.

While Seishan pinned Hel's thrashing body, Silent Stalker forced her sister's blood-slicked, trembling lips apart and poured the blood-red concoction down her throat.

It took a few agonising moments before Hel’s violent shaking subsided and her thudding heartbeat began to slow.

Confused and utterly exhausted, the frantic terror on her countenance softened as her muscles slackened — her pained noises ceased.

Her glassy, distant, addled gaze flickered unsteadily across her sisters’ faces — a last, fleeting connection before her strength gave out.

She managed one soft, frail whimper as her eyelids slid closed and her limbs drooped aimlessly — finally falling unconscious in Seishan’s arms.

Moonveil clutched Hel’s hand to her cheek — tears of relief tracing paths through the grime on her face.

Silent Stalker, her own trembling hands — gently brushed a stray, blood-matted strand of hair from Hel's forehead.

And Seishan, the unwitting architect of this crisis — could only hold her sister tighter.

A silent, shuddering sob of guilt and gratitude wracking her powerful frame.

After brushing the hair from Hel's forehead, Silent Stalker did not stop.

She produced a clean cloth and a flask of water from her personal spatial Memory.

Without a word, she began to gently and methodically clean the blood from Hel's skin.

Her touch as light as a whisper, her love shown through quiet, competent care — a silent promise to fix what has been broken. 

As she worked, Moonveil leaned in close to Hel's ear — whispering softly. "We're here, Hel. We've got you. Just rest now."

The enemy’s arrows continued to bombard their location.

A few moments later, Mortred spoke up.

"No one wants to be the one to say it … not even our mother and sisters, who are current watching us from Ravenheart. But it must be said … and as our commander, you have the right to know. So, I suppose I’ll be the one to break the silence.”

A strained silence stretched, then he spoke again. "Sister, those were warning shots, not killshots. They were meant to make us stop killing the two princesses, they weren't meant to harm us."

Saying his piece, he sighed and turned away. “I’ll leave you three to attend to our sister. I’ll guard Saint Dar.”

Mortred positioned himself beside Dar, his gaze fixed on their unknown assailant to the south-east — prepared for an attack that might come at any moment while Dar continued laying down suppressive fire.

Hearing her brother’s words, Seishan froze — staring at her own hands cradling Hel as if they were venomous scorpions.

Her fingers trembled uncontrollably.

She wanted to caress Hel’s cheek, to offer some comfort — but couldn’t make her fingers obey.

The hands that could tear terrifying monsters apart with perfect precision were now useless for a simple, gentle gesture.

A single tear traced down her cheek — one of the mightiest Saints in the Song Domain had been utterly broken down by her own strength.

His calm, steady words hung in the air.

'Warning shots. Not killshots.'

The phrase echoed loudly in Seishan’s mind, each syllable a fresh stab of guilt.

The continuous sounds of bombardment shifted, becoming a mocking rhythm from an unknown assailant toying with them — a distant, meaningless storm beyond the fragile sanctuary shielding them.

The weight of Hel in her arms suddenly felt impossibly heavier — crushed not just by her strength — but by the dawning, horrific possibility of her mistake.

All that existed in Seishan’s world now was the faint, steady puff of Hel's breath against her neck, the gentle, rhythmic swipe of Silent Stalker's cloth, and the warmth of Moonveil's hand clutching Hel's, whispering a soft lullaby of sisterly comfort against the backdrop of intermittent, roaring explosions.