Shadow Slave

Some time later, Mordret was leaning on the wall in the circular hall containing the stone archway. The Princess of Shadows was on the lower floors of the Ebony Tower, looking around. He had cleaned the floor, so it was as spotless as before.

There was also a foldable army cot in the hall now, on which Song of the Fallen was laying, unconscious.

“Really, now… this woman is going to sleep through the end of the world”

Well, maybe not the end of the world. But the end of the Longing Domain, for sure.

At that moment, finally, the blind seer stirred. Mordret could not see if she had opened her eye because of the bloodied blindfold covering it, but he was pretty sure she was awake now.

Song of the Fallen… Cassia… sat up slowly and leaned on the wall, facing him. Her face was expressionless.

“How long was I out?”

Her tone was even, too.

Mordret smirked.

‘Talk about spending too much time with Changing Star…’

Was the inability to emote infectious?

He shrugged.

“A few hours.”

Reading a silent question on her motionless face, he added:

“It’s all over. Nightingale surrendered Ravenheart to Seishan and her sisters… he is being tortured now. It’s not pretty. Raised by Wolves, meanwhile, is chained in a stone cell underneath Mirage Castle. I think they are planning to starve her. That is probably going to be even harder to stomach.”

Mordret smiled, amused by the pun, then shook his head.

“There are a few people here and there who have proved to be highly resistant or even immune to the plague — they are being cleansed as we speak. But those who are too valuable, like your friends, are not that lucky. The Dreamspawn is going to weaken and drive them to the edge first, all to compromise their resistance and take them when they’re ready to give up.”

He sighed.

“Good old torture never goes out of fashion, it seems. Well, you’d know better. Poor Thane… of all the Saints in existence, Changing Star just had to go off on the most harmless one.”

Cassie lowered her head and fell silent, seemingly trying to cope with the dreadful weight of defeat.

Mordet chuckled and raised his hands, clapping slowly.

“Wow. And I thought myself a good actor… you really are a talent, Song of the Fallen. But, please, enough with the theatrics. No need to act so surprised.”

Cassie sighed.

“Whatever do you mean?”

Mordret gave her a bright smile, even though she could not see it.

“Oh, it’s just that I couldn’t help but notice the manner in which you arrived at the Ebony Tower. That archway was built by Nether, you know? And Nether was a daemon of a very practical sort. Instead of building a Gateway between his temporary workshop and the Ivory Tower, he simply patched into an existing network of local pathways that Hope had created in her kingdom. Local being the key word… this archway was supposed to remain inoperable while the Tower of Hope was away from the Chained Isles, but somehow, it wasn’t.”

He shook his head.

“Which means that you modified the runic circle of the archway on the Ivory Island, at some point, well in advance. Which means that you had already predicted what would happen if Changing Star and the Lord of Shadows failed to do whatever it is they were trying to do, and prepared an escape route. Which means that you already knew that the Longing Domain would fall. So, no matter how good your acting is, this surprised act… really fails to look convincing.”

Mordret looked at her with an amused smile.

“What are they doing, by the way? Changing Star and the Lord of Shadows.”

Cassia remained motionless for a few moments, tracing her hand across the cot to figure out what she was sitting on.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Mordret chuckled.

“Oh? I see… you must have erased your own memories of knowing, then. How thorough. Well, it doesn’t really matter anymore. Whatever it was that they hoped to achieve, they are already too late.”

Cassia did not seem to agree, but she did not say anything to contradict him. Mordret stopped smiling.

“You really are a terrifying witch, you know? No diviner, not even you, can see the future anymore. And yet, you still predicted everything that would happen, to a tee.”

She stayed quiet for a short while, then said reluctantly:

“Not everything”

Mordret studied her somberly.

“So, you must have predicted what I would do, as well? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have dared to take refuge in my lands. I am not sure if you are foolish or just that confident… I came very close to killing you, you know.”

Cassie faced him calmly, then shrugged.

“Sure. I predicted your actions and reactions, as well.”

Mordret’s smile turned a little vicious. He did not like her arrogant attitude at all… however, he held himself back.

“Oh? Am I that predictable?”

His tone was cold and ominous.

Cassie lingered for a while, then offered him a smile of her own.

“Of course. There is no one more predictable than you.”

Still sitting on a low cot, she raised her head a little to better face him and added:

“All you care about is survival. That is how beasts are, not humans. What’s so difficult about predicting the actions of a beast?”

Mordret laughed.

“You do realize that you are a mere Transcendent, right? And such a weak one, at that… oh, don’t get me wrong, I know how fearsome you are. But that is only when you have ample time to prepare, and when you aren’t facing an overwhelming foe. That’s me, by the way, an overwhelming foe. I can end you with a thought, Song of the Fallen. Actually, I am quite tempted to.”

She tilted her head a little.

“But you won’t, will you? Because you need me… you need me if you want to survive.”

Mordret let out an exasperated sigh.

“You must be thinking… look, I am the only one who can erase the influence of the Dreamspawn from his mind. So, surely, I am safe. But, Cassia… do you really think that I will let you anywhere near my memories? That I will just invite you into my head and let you run amok? Think about it, really. From my point of view, you are no different from the Dreamspawn. Why would I exchange having my mind manipulated by him for having it manipulated by you?”

He shook his head.

“I’ve always been wary of you, to be honest. Well, perhaps not at the start… back when you first came to the Night Temple as a freshly Awakened youth, I was quite fascinated, watching you and your cohort from my mirror cage. It was a bit of a remedy for my boredom, and such a palatable one at that. But when I realized that you manipulated events to help me break free, I’ve grown suspicious of how much you seem to know.”

Mordret exhaled slowly.

“Later, as I watched everyone dance to your tune without even realizing it, let alone suspecting the meek and unassuming Lady Cassia, I found the fact of your existence increasingly unsettling. You might have blinded everyone else to your true nature — Changing Star, the Great Clans, the government, and all the rest — but I could always see just how devious and eerily effective at manipulating things you were. And that was before the Tomb of Ariel, even! After… well, even if nobody else seems to see it, I know what you are. I know what you’re hiding.”

Cassia had been listening to him nonchalantly, but just then, she finally showed a reaction.

Raising her eyebrow, she asked:

“Oh? And what am I?”

Mordret chuckled.

“l am the King of Nothing, after all, so let’s start from what you are not. You are not even a person anymore, are you? You are just a shell of a person, wrapped in a pretty bow.”

Cassia just sat there, emotionless, facing him silently.

Eventually, she said:

“Takes one to know one.”

Mordret laughed.

“Indeed, indeed… but we are a bit different, are we not?”

She shrugged.

“How so?”

He leaned forward a little.

“My condition is the result of my Flaw. Yours, however… yours is self-inflicted, isn’t it?”

Cassia frowned slightly — more out of politeness, to show some kind of reaction, as opposed to genuine concern.

“What do you mean?”

Mordret studied her for a moment, then leaned back again.

“Come on. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out a few things about the thing that none of us can figure out. I am talking about what happened to us in the Tomb of Ariel… about the vast swathes of our memories that are missing. All of us suffered some loss of memory, but you suffered the most. Didn’t you?”

He looked at her with a strange mix of disgust and pity.

“There’s barely any of you left behind that blindfold.”