Shadow Slave

Hearing that, Saint finally looked away from the vista of the drowning city outside the window. She stared at Morgan coldly for a few moments, then turned to glance at Sunny.

A faint crease appeared on her brow.

Even if she did not say anything, Sunny could imagine what she was thinking…

’Enough is enough. Be happily crazy together all you want, but if you start discussing plans of assassinating someone, I am calling the police!’

’...Wait. He is the police.’

Sunny cleared his throat and focused on the road.

’She is not wrong.’

He remained silent for a while, then asked in a neutral tone:

”Is that how you ended up locked in an asylum? You tried to kill the other Mordret?”

Morgan pursed her lips, then let out a sigh.

”Yes. Sadly, I failed.”

Her expression grew a little wistful.

”Ki Song might have found out about my brother’s Flaw and where he had hidden it, but she did not know a lot about the Great Mirror, let alone about what is hidden on its other side. So, finding myself in Mirage City was quite a… novel experience. Suddenly becoming mundane again was a difficult transition, as well.”

Morgan looked at her hands.

”Plus, I was severely wounded while trying to sneak past the Cursed Demon you had deposited in True Bastion. Soul damage, mental damage… you name it. I was in rough shape, and Mordret — the real Mordret — was on my heels. So, I might have acted a little hasty.”

Her expression soured.

”Killing the most powerful man in Mirage City as a mundane person turned out to be more difficult than I expected. He is protected incredibly well, with an army of bodyguards following him day and night — both in plain view and hidden. Well, anyway, he survived. I thought I’d be disposed of right there and then, but he must have grown attached to my false self… he looked quite distressed, even.”

Morgan scoffed.

”You’ll find it hard to believe, but I did not end up in that mental hospital because he wanted to get rid of me quietly. There were no nefarious reasons behind his decision to commit me to a psychiatric facility whatsoever — rather, he seemed to harbor genuine hope that I would be fixed and return to how my counterpart was before.”

She shook her head.

”That guy… something is not right with him. He is not quite as twisted as the real one, but he is definitely not entirely there.”

Sunny smiled crookedly.

”You do remember that you just escaped from a mental hospital? Should you really be going around calling people insane?”

Morgan chuckled.

”Fair. ”

Sunny lingered for a few moments.

”You seem to have escaped quite easily, though. I suspect that you could have left that place whenever you wanted. So why did you stay?”

She shrugged.

”Because for a while, it was the safest place for me to be. The other Mordret might have spared me, but the real one was still out there, determined to finish what he had started during the Battle of the Black Skull. I was laying low and gathering information about Mirage City… until my fortress suddenly wasn’t that safe anymore. It was time to leave.” ṟâ𝐍𝐨ＢĚṩ

Sunny frowned.

”Wait, but how did you regain your sense of self, to begin with? There was no Effie around to make you remember. Was it because you were the ruler of Bastion, at some point?”

Morgan smiled, then shook her head.

”No… it was because I killed my reflection a long time ago.”

Sunny raised an eyebrow.

”What?”

She chuckled.

”Long before my Awakening, my father brought me in front of the Great Mirror — its false version in the illusory Bastion — and made me fight my reflection, until one of us was destroyed. That is why this place has a weaker hold on me than it had on you. I suspect that my brother is the same.”

’Huh.’

Sunny smiled darkly.

’And I thought I couldn’t despise Anvil any more.’

He lingered for a while, then shook his head.

”Anyway, we can’t kill the other Mordret. At least not yet.”

Morgan pierced him with a sharp look.

”And why is that?”

He hesitated for a while, trying to put his thoughts into words.

Eventually, Sunny said:

”Well, first of all… he has been living here for the past two decades. And from the looks of it — and believe me, I can’t quite believe I’m saying it — this version of Mordret seems like a nice guy. He’s an innocent bystander, so what right do we have to kill him?”

Morgan laughed.

”Wait, what is this? Are you really giving me the ’world is not worth saving if the price of saving it is a tear of an innocent child’ speech? Hey. This is Mirage City, not Omelas, and you are the Lord of Shadows, not Ivan Karamazov. It’s a nice sentiment… how very noble of you, wanting to spare him. I’m in awe. But will you take responsibility when the next House of Night massacre happens?”

Sunny frowned.

”Oh, please... don’t pretend like you care about what happened to the House of Night — gods know your own hands are not exactly clean either. You’ve committed your own share of despicable deeds, Princess of Valor.”

He sighed.

”But I see your point. Not that I know what Omelettes and… I can’t even pronounce the second one… you’re talking about, mind you. No need to swing your Legacy education around, okay? In any case, why would I take responsibility for something your crazy brother does?”

Sunny shook his head.

”Anyway, that is not the real reason why we can’t kill the other Mordret. He has to stay alive because he is the axis of Mirage City. This whole place has been created by the Castellan — the chief reflection who serves as the custodian of the Great Mirror — to suit his fantasies. Even if there are foreign influences twisting the fabric of Mirage City now, its foundation is still what your other brother has imagined.”

He looked at the city lights flying past the window of the PTV and grimaced.

”Do you see the problem here? Whose imagination will become the foundation of this illusory realm if the other Mordret is removed? Will it be you, me? Do you even know what kind of horrors dwell in our imagination, Morgan? I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen things so dreadful that merely witnessing them will instantly shatter the minds and extinguish the souls of mundane people. And I have quite an active imagination on top of that.”

Sunny let out a joyless laugh.

”Imagination seems like a whimsical power — a sweet and fanciful power that makes dreams and fantasies come true. But when you think about it, it is perhaps the most harrowing thing in existence. Because one can imagine horrors, too… and unlike reality, imagination has no limits.”

Mirage, the Demon of Imagination, had always seemed obscure when compared to her more prominent siblings, so Sunny never really considered her that deeply. He did not know a lot about her, either.

But now that he was inside her abandoned palace, he was starting to suspect that she had been no less sinister and frightening — perhaps much more so — than the rest of the daemons.

No wonder the moon itself had to be shattered just to bring down her castle.

He shook his head.

”The point is, we do not even know how to escape the Great Mirror. Effie does not have full control of the Palace of Imagination because the damn Castellan has gone rampant and usurped the role of the Castle Master. So, until we find the Castellan and deal with it, the other Mordret has to stay alive.”

Sunny looked at the rearview mirror, looking into Morgan’s glowing vermilion eyes.

”We’ll decide what to do with him then. Understood?”

Morgan remained silent for a while, then scoffed.

”Well, if you put it like that…”

She paused and shivered visibly.

”Yeah. Let’s keep him alive, for now. We… we can’t risk letting Athena’s imagination run wild in this place. That simply cannot happen, no matter what…”