Prison

Ever since Frein had started immersing himself in meiyal, he had never felt lethargy after waking up. When he had been training to keep his Siffera active while sleeping before, in Schrodie’s Realm, sleepiness only really had slammed into him whenever he reached Art fatigue. Every other time, aside from that, especially after Norazzel had helped him improve this technique, he always woke up full of energy.

Today was different.

The strain on his outstretched shoulders didn’t help, and the metal clamping on his wrist made it worse. His knees were forced to carry his weight against hard stone, and his neck hung low, putting more pressure on his back.

Sweat, thirst, the need to relieve, they were all secondary to his desire to open his eyes. The energy wasn’t there at all. Meiyal refused to enter his core despite how much he tried to Gather.

No… There’s no meiyal at all.

No meiyal to Gather, nothing to Mill. However many sources of meiyal he possessed within his Exhibit, none of them allowed him to Draw. Only Brymeia’s meiyal allowed such a thing.

In fact, he couldn’t even access his Mind Palace at all. His last desperation move was to use Meiyal Weaving like Elizzel had done before. Pull from the Fulgurblade of the Thousand-Year Storm and throw it like a lightning strike against his shackles. It couldn’t be done. Not without the faunel. No matter how much he tugged at the Tether, there was no response. It was like something had been taken out of him. A huge part of himself.

His other half.

It chipped away at his sanity. Old voices that he had silenced with her help came creeping out again, as if they had been waiting for this chance all along.

Loser. Overconfident. You deserve this, you know? You’re going to die here and you won’t be able to see Katherine again.

Only his mind kept working. As much as he wanted to scream at these voices, his energy just wasn’t there. It was as if he had abused himself with meiyal, pushed himself beyond what a human should be capable of, and now his body was claiming what it was owed.

It wouldn’t listen to him.

“How does it feel to be meiyal starved, hmm?” said a voice. Tryvinal’s voice. Only this time, it was more sinister, laced with confidence that the real one had lacked. He reveled in Frein’s suffering.

The Visitor couldn’t speak. Just breathing alone was already labor that refused to properly pay. As if his lungs could never be full, or something was pressing down on them. The last time he could breathe properly had been back at the restricted library.

“Guess, you can’t respond at all, huh. The previous Visitors were the same, you know? The moment they couldn’t use their meiyal cores, they quickly started to expire. The only thing holding you together now is Zerax’thum’s meiyal system. Starved. It’s eating you from the inside out. Very sinister.”

Tryvinal’s words were accompanied by the sound of metal. Frein could only guess that this fake had locked him up in a prison cell and was currently gripping those metal bars.

Of course, someone who knows the previous ones has to be my enemy… If Frein could’ve sighed, he would’ve. Air was precious, it kept him from totally suffocating.

“Now, about your Destiny,” Tryvinal began again. “Surrounding you right now isn’t Brymeia’s meiyal. It’s Zerax’thum’s. The chains around your wrists are made of Vynore. Yes, from Vyndival. Meiyal-breaking minerals that they’ve weaponized against the Nightmare and even Iristans. That’s why you can’t feel it. Very rare now. Previous kings thought a wall of it could stop the Nightmare Lands. Wrong.”

The faunel impersonating Tryvinal laughed like a maniac. As if someone had made a joke and it had caused him to have a laughing fit. He was wheezing by the time he was done.

“Ah, that felt good. If they knew just a little bit of history, they’ll know Vynores need to form an enclosure, like a circle, to function properly. Instead they did what? Make weapons out of it! The rest? Thrown at the South Wall! Just the south! What a joke!”

Frein had no arguments to dispute, nor had he any reason to. He couldn’t even do it in the first place.

“Anyway, I digress. Destiny. Core on your wrist, wrap it with Vynore, and voila, no Meiyal Arts for you. The moment you remove it, surrounded by Zerax’thum’s meiyal, what do you think will happen?”

Frein had his ideas, but he imagined the question was rhetorical.

“Your starvation will force you to Gather just a teensy little bit. But just that will be enough for you to keep going. Keep you craving for more. It’s your Destiny, after all, to absorb a Fragment of Zerax’thum’s Core. Yes… it’s all meiyal, Frein. Not something for you to hold, not something for you to see. Break out of your chains, Gather the Fragment, and fulfill your Destiny.”

Why? Why the chains, then? Why not just let me Gather it in the first place?

“By now you must be asking, ‘Why not just let me absorb it in the first place?’,” Tryvinal said, smugness in his voice as he mimicked Frein’s tone in a mocking way. “Well, it’s your Destiny. Not mine. You choose to break out of those chains and do what you’re supposed to do. I only said I’ll help.”

What happens after?

“What you should be thinking, is what happens after you absorb the Fragment,” Tryvinal continued. “See this is where it gets tricky. Let me give you a little history lesson…

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“Fourteen Visitors have come before you. Each came to a different country. When Zerax’thum fell, Brymeia’s lands were separated into sixteen countries. Fourteen countries have fallen to the Nightmare, with only Irista Nation and half of Vyndival Kingdom remaining. You can do math, right?”

Of course, the faunel didn’t care and spelled it out for him.

“See, whenever you, you Visitors, claim a Fragment, a country or a nation or a kingdom, what have you, gets destroyed. Don’t ask me why, but it’s random. Vyndival had their Visitor, but Oh’strol Continent died for it. It wasn’t because of Palar’gog. The norcs survived after that kingdom of dragons laid waste to their lands. It was the Nightmare that finished them.

“But now, there’s just two countries left. I did half the work on Vyndival, but this Letterman of yours just keeps thwarting my plans. Irista Nation has to be sacrificed instead.”

Confusion filled Frein. There were a lot of gaps in that history. The faunel left out how many Fragments had broken out of Zerax’thum’s core. He claimed to not know why countries had to pay for Visitors fulfilling their Destinies, but he had somehow been involved in destroying at least one of the two remaining safe territories of the world.

At the very least, this gave Frein more confidence in the Letterman. But now, the issue was whether he should absorb the Fragment or not…

“Ah, by the way,” Tryvinal spoke again. “I already began the Nightmare Incursion. Eastrise is gone, then I’m taking Southshore next. You must be asking why, when you haven’t even absorbed the Fragment yet, right? Well, here’s the deal, Visitor…

“I’m going to destroy a country whether you like it or not, the only thing you get to choose here is which one. If you do not Gather the Fragment, I’ll end Irista Nation. Otherwise, bye-bye Vyndival Kingdom. With so few countries to choose from, we can’t really make it random, can we? So I’m giving you a choice.”

Tryvinal tapped the metal bars. Frein didn’t know if it was to intimidate him, but he cared so little that he didn’t even flinch.

“Oh, one last thing, Visitor.” He spoke again. “After you absorb the Fragment of Zerax’thum’s Core, that’s when you die. Usually, Destiny has a way of making that happen for you before your time limit, sort of a way to let you enjoy your time before you go. But we’re on a tight schedule here.”

For how morbid his words were, Tryvinal delivered them so casually. Like it was just another day at work.

“So, I’ll be completely honest with you, Frein. If you don’t absorb the Fragment, not only will I destroy Irista Nation, I’ll give you a few hours before I completely engulf Vyndival Kingdom in the Nightmare.”

So, I basically have no choice. Destiny in the end, huh…

“If you absorb it, though. I’ll just take Vyndival Kingdom. I’ll let you pass on peacefully, and I’ll let Irista Nation struggle as much as they want until they, too, get engulfed by the Nightmare. But at least, you know, Katherine gets to get old. Or maybe not… maybe I’ll just kill her so she can join you in the afterlife. That could be interesting—”

The chains clanged with a deafening echo as Frein strained against them. It drained him right away. A sudden fire, then a sudden cold. But the blaze didn’t completely die out.

“What the fuck!” Tryvinal said. “That scared the shit out of me, you fucker! Here I am bargaining with entire countries; I mention one girl, and you go mental? Fucking shit. I was trying to do you a favor!”

Frein responded by pulling against the chains once again. They barely budged. There was absolutely no way he could rip them apart without meiyal.

“Fuck! You there, keep an eye on him, and make sure you keep them meiyal starved or I’m killing you next. I need to go fetch somebody.” Tryvinal’s voice became distant, his voice trailing as he stomped out of this place. Wherever this was.

Frein kept trying. There was absolutely nothing else he could do. Threatening Katherine was the only thing that kept the fire within him ablaze. And the only goal he could form in his mind was to break the chains.

Until, of course, his brain caught up to him. Telling him of an important detail he just missed.

Them?

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The sound of metal spurred Mother Selfiya awake. She was used to it by now, ears heightened to such a level that even other felintines and canintines wouldn’t dare covet. Her nose picked up the scent of her own refuse, for she was left by her captors without even the freedom to save herself that little dignity. They fed her at the same place. Not that these Nightmares cared where or what she ate.

She heard Alphazzel storm out of the prison. Mad faunel. Whatever his objectives were, they hadn’t come from Brymeia. Whatever Divine Will or Prime Designation was letting him exist didn’t come from this once beautiful world. It was the Nightmare. It was always the Nightmare.

Selfiya believed this with all her heart.

She also believed that whoever was making that noise was her ally. She had so little precious meiyal left. A feat she would dare not let the mad faunel know.

For how ancient and knowledgeable Alphazzel was, his maddened state had left him out of the loop. His methods were just as ancient as they were strong, but they lacked flexibility, just like how he had missed the hidden meiyal from her second meiyal core. Her canintine core.

Still, this little meiyal wouldn’t let her reach Venry and his companions with her Soul’s Walk anymore. But this man on the other side of her prison, she could easily reach. All she had to do was whisper.

She began by infiltrating his mind. A different function of her Blessing. Crude, but there was no other way around it with these Nightmares standing guard. Though they could no longer understand, spoken words would still stir them into suspicion.

The rhythmic sound of chains suddenly stopped. Not because he was tired, but because he was sensitive enough to be aware of another presence.

“Who’s there?” he asked out loud. Selfiya responded with her mind.

“I’m Selfiya Lunasensia. Mother of the Void. There are Nightmares around, so respond through your mind. I’m a captive, just like you. May I ask your name, stranger?”

“Frein. Frein Nivan. I’m the Visitor.”

Suddenly, it all made sense. Where they were and what he was doing with the chains. Alphazzel might be mad, but he had taken clear records of the past before he had succumbed to the madness. Records that only Mothers and Fathers of the Void had access to.

“I see. Are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked.

“He’s going to kill Katherine,” was all he said.

“If you break those chains, you know you’re going to die, right?”

“I have to try something rather than just stay here. He’s going to kill everyone if I don’t stop him.”

At this, Selfiya knew that she was right about the Visitors. They never made any sense. Not to her, anyway. To throw away a life for a purpose they wouldn’t possibly know until the end. It was absurdity, at the very least. Complete madness at most. Alphazzel couldn’t even hold a candle to them.

Frein’s desperation was apparent when he started struggling against the chains once again. Visitors already accepted death when they entered Brymeia. But he was different.

Selfiya could feel it. This Visitor didn’t care about his purpose. His mind was only on protecting Katherine. That resonated with her on such a level that she started to tear up.

The Lady of the Void was her most gifted student. One who kept up with her teachings despite Schrodie getting in the way. That child hadn’t lived a proper childhood. Expectations on expectations were irresponsibly placed upon her shoulders, and then she was thrown out in a strange world.

Selfiya had never gotten to say sorry.

And here came a man with no expectations for Katherine other than to be with her. No wonder she had fallen in love. The Void Mother had taken the liberty to peek when she found out the Lady had returned, but she couldn’t take the courage to approach her.

She had done too much and too little to deserve even asking for forgiveness.

“You can’t break those chains without meiyal,” she said.

“I have to try. I have no choice but to try.”

This was it. Her chance to make amends.

“Let me help.”