23

“Well, isn’t this a surprise? How’d you get here?” A familiar voice cut through the darkness surrounding Vander and pulled him up into an almost blinding light. His back pressed against something soft, and tender hands brushed against his bare skin. “You’ve really grown strong, but this level of power is still not enough for what you must face.”

A flood of warmth spread through his body, specifically condensing over his burst heart and broken neck. All the other cuts felt like spiders crawling across his skin, but immolated him from the inside out. When all else was comforting warmth, his heart and throat branded the feeling of that pain into his entire being.

I’ll kill that battle junkie, I swear to the gods.

“That’s curious. I wonder who you might be referring to,” the familiar voice said, chuckling.

A soft hum of power reached his ears, as did a sharp hiss. But whoever tended to him recollected themselves and continued pouring magical warmth into his body. When the warmth seemingly repaired everything, no pain, aches, or remnants of his broken neck and ruptured heart remained, Vander squinted through cracked eyes. The room’s light, heavenly white like pure clouds and blue skies, soothed him. When he looked to the side, a smiling Amany, Goddess of Servitude, waved.

“Glad to see you’re awake and in one piece. Care to tell me how you ended up like this? Looking through your soul history doesn’t shed any light on the situation. Your last entry says you entered the tier zero class assessment, but everything after that kicks back as anomalous.” Habitually, she rubbed a cross necklace settled between her low cut shirt.

Instead of answering her inquisition, he sat up, stark naked and unashamed, and glared at her. She seemed to read his intentions and waved her hand. White shackles wrapped around his wrists, ankles, stomach, and neck. They didn’t apply any pressure until he tried moving.

“The way you’re looking at me is quite unkind. Seems unfitting and highly disrespectful, all things considered. If it weren’t for me stopping your journey in its tracks, the Night Maiden would’ve brought you to the soul well for the Demon Lord to toy with. That doesn’t sound very fun, does it? And to add to saving your soul, I just fixed the crippling damage done to you.” She crossed her arms under her heavenly bust and pouted, cute as a button and equally as infuriating.

The chains kept him absolutely still. Any form of resistance met with absolute restriction. He almost preferred the chains would hurt him so he could keep up the anger boiling in his stomach. All he could do was turn his neck away from the goddess of servitude so her cleavage wasn’t an inch from his nose.

“You have some explaining to do,” he growled.

“I don’t recall your position allowing you to demand things from me. Sorry, not sorry. I also remember something odd, like the fact that I asked you questions first, so why don’t you be a good little soul and tell me what I want to know.” Playfully, she poked his nose and laughed.

Her sweet and friendly way of speech made him want to gag. From his experience, the ones that acted the nicest were often the ones with the blackest hearts. Not something he’d want to involve himself with. In his case, he had no choice, but that didn’t mean he’d let her treat him like dirt.

Channeling his inner Stubborn ox, he turned back towards her and glared, enunciating his words as if she were a simpleton. “No, you.”

Disappointment tugged her brows and lips as her cheeks warmed. Whether from anger, frustration, or something else, he couldn’t care. Not until she answered his questions.

“Don’t be this way, Vander. You might have a special soul, one compatible with all the work we’ve put into setting things up, but you’re not irreplaceable. If you continue to be like this, I’ll give you back to the Night Maiden to deliver you to the soul well for the Demon Lord to torment. I’m sure he’d love to have his way with you.” In her eyes, an almost sadistic light glimmered. “I might even have to join him after all of the disrespect you’ve shown. After I’ve reincarnated you—”

“To die as a child twice.”

“Healed you.”

“Then threatened me.”

“And treated you so kindly.”

“If this is what you call kind, then I’ve been quite nice to you so far,” he grumbled.

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“Just answer my questions, Vander, then we can talk about whatever you’d like.” With a wave of her hand, the room around them turned into a well maintained prison cell. “Nothing says the Demon Lord needs to receive your soul. I’m sure you’d keep me quite entertained with how funny you think you are.”

“Another threat. You’re really bad at this,” he said, scowling. The shackles clanked against the ground as they grew, shackling him to the walls and floor and hoisting him so that he was suspended in the dead center of the cell. “Are we about to start playtime?”

“I’ll let you rot here for a few thousand years, and we can both watch that person you’re so interested in as she’s being consumed by that Witch. Wouldn’t you just love to watch her soul crumble into pieces until all of her was absorbed? Just think about the amount of suffering she’d face in the meantime.” Sure enough, with a wave of her hand, a vortex of silver and gold magic solidified into a mirror that revealed the Witch who’d taken over her body. All other details, such as who she knelt in front of and the surroundings, were completely obscured. “Or you can make things easy on us and tell me what’s been going on while you’ve been in your class assessment. I’m dying to know what kinds of friends you’ve made.”

The events continued to display Madison and the Witch. A conversation they couldn’t hear, moving through a distorted realm of black, coming to a stop and looking around and muttering something to herself. Like watching a recording, one where only the actors were clear and all the sound was muted.

Desperation tinged his words as he turned to stare defiantly back at Amany. Archmage Findelson, Tobias, and Madeline. What did he owe them for him to make things more difficult than they needed to be? Nothing. He could just tell Amany everything about them and what he’d experienced. But then what?

The two ancients seemed to know Archmage Findelson on a first name basis, intimately enough to refer to him in ways that didn’t befit his station. Not only that, the fact they were somehow connected made the knowledge of their existences feel far too important to reveal so easily. Amany’s capabilities weren’t defined in any way, nor were her allegiances.

Nothing said she wouldn’t torture him anyway after revealing what he knew, and she’d already been aware of Madison’s situation. Somehow, he’d been taken to a place even she couldn’t track. She mentioned the system as if it were some program, had enough control to view specific details of his whereabouts in all places but the tower with Archmage Findelson and the village with the two ancients.

Wracking his brain was taking too long, Amany’s features twitching as she regarded him with faux friendliness. But one thing stood out clearly to him: he knew something she didn’t, and that shook her.

“What are you so afraid of?” he goaded, hissing as the chains stretched his limbs to painstaking degrees. Faster than he could see, she backhanded him across the face. She shook her hand as if she’d been hurt, stopping when her eyes met his, brimming full of amusement and smugness. “You can forget about getting any information out of me. Whatever I know, you want. Kill me or don’t. Keep me here, don’t keep me here. Doesn’t matter to me much. I’ve died three, maybe four times now, so it’s nothing new. Pain? I know pain. It doesn’t scare me. Threats? As hot as your humble goddess get-up, nothing but empty air.”

All traces of emotion, false or not, faded from her features. She straightened and rubbed her temples and grumbled to herself, “I told them you’d be an annoying one to deal with. Do they listen? Of course not. Do they still go through with their idiotic plans? Of course they do. Morons, all of them.”

“What was it you said earlier?” He grinned. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“You may not be now, but that will change.” Fingernails shifted and shaped into long talons glittering with a sickly green-violet liquid. “Do you know what it means to be a servant, Vander? I thought we’d get along well, since you spent so much time under the thumb of others. Doing their bidding, rarely complaining, and bearing that responsibility with your head down low, always moving towards the next command. Fulfilling your responsibilities without deviation. I thought you were a kindred spirit, an existence connected to my own path.”

A predator, playing with its prey. That’s the feel Amany gave him that moment as she circled around him, the barest distance between claw and flesh. Her modest slippers against the ground, the only sound he could hear when she didn’t speak.

“You may know something you think of as pain, as suffering, but a good servant knows how to truly embrace the arts of persuasion.” She huffed a hot breath against his back. “You may not believe me right now, but my intentions are pure. My goals are just, as are my masters. You don’t know what you’re doing, and I want to forgive you for that. But that look in your eyes. Wherever it came from, I don’t care all that much. That’s more my master’s thing, figuring out all the variables, the pieces in play, the hiding ancients and monsters tucked away in seclusion.”

Sharp heat radiated through his back where a clawed finger broke skin. As if alive, the green-violet liquid spread through him, wriggling as his body convulsed against his will. Silent screams echoed in his mind, his voice squelched entirely by the chains tightening around his neck.

“Even this, as painful as the experience will be for you, will be a boon if your soul survives.” More and more, she scratched him. Hotter and hotter, his body grew. When she stepped in front of him again, she smiled and waved. “I’ll be back when you’re done. Be a good little soul and don’t die on me.”

Hazy thoughts. Shifting shapes, melting in his vision and running together. Pain unlike anything he’d experienced before erupting inside of his body, but he felt something off. Something unexpected, even though Amany stated as much herself.

Whatever that may have been would remain unknown to him. All became pain. Nothing but pain. Every part of his being screamed as that living liquid coursed through his veins and introduced him to a hell he couldn’t escape.