Skidmark hurried through the snowy trees toward the river. She couldn’t remember which way to go. The trail of Zoe’s deep footsteps vanished a few minutes ago, and now she turned this way and that. She couldn’t admit she was lost. So long as she kept that secret the nightmare couldn’t swallow her.

Not completely.

Trees loomed into the dark and shifting sky. Movement flickered at the corner of her eye and she spun, panting, electricity arcing from her fingertips. The technique dredged the gutters of her Skein, but fear forced her guard.

Frozen trees reflected the arcing light. Shadows stretched out across the snow. Nothing moved. Again, there was nothing there, no sound but her heavy breathing. She had to stop flinching at every movement, but she could still smell the dead woman. Still see her leering smile whenever she closed her eyes. Still hear the chittering snarls of the children…

She leaned over, gagging, but there was nothing else to vomit.

Something moved.

She blasted lightning over her shoulder. She hit it before she saw what it was and the lightning struck a tree. Branches exploded. Burning woodchips scattered across the snow. Whatever she hit, she destroyed, and now she stood, wild-eyed, wondering what snuck up on her. Her lightning flickered across her knuckles. She wasn’t sure if she had any blasts left.

What had moved, and were there any more?

“Can you not?” Anton’s voice rang out.

“Huh?”

She turned as a silver eye floated toward her out of the trees.

“I thought you were…”

“What did you think?” Anton asked. “That I was one of those monsters following you?”

Skidmark froze. Following her?

“Is it all clawed and skinless?”

“Yeah, it’s snuffling at the ground, though a headless pig could follow the trail you’ve left behind.”

“Shut up!” Skidmark felt color return to her cheeks. Warmth bled from her core. Even if it was just Anton’s eye, she wasn’t alone. “Can you take me back to the cave?”

“Of course,” his silver eye rolled in the air. “But we’ll have to go the long way around, I want to lose your tail.”

He floated away, and Skidmark followed.

“Where’s Zoe?” Anton asked.

Oh, Skidmark’s heartbeat spiked, Zoe…

“She was fighting something… a woman… said her name was Cassy, no, it wasn’t Cassy…”

Anton’s eye listed. It spun.

“Cassy?” he said. “You’re sure?”

“Yes?”

“Did Zoe get away?”

“I don’t know. She told me to run, and I…”

The silver eye stared at her.

“Change of plans,” he said. “Get ready to run. We need to meet up and go after Zoe. If Cassy captures her…”

The silver eye zipped away through the trees. Skidmark sprinted afterward.

“What is she?” she huffed out strides. “What does she want?”

“I don’t know,” Anton said.

###

The mound stuck up above the forced tombstones, and icy slope, spotted with barren trees. The wind crawled along the flanks like a tongue scooping at ice cream. The false winter persisted despite the heat coming down from the viridian sky. So long as the Mantis Queen held the island in her barbed claws, the winter would last.

From her vantage point atop the hill, Zoe could survey the city, and her Insight cut through the dark. It was as terrible as she imagined.

Cassy leaned in close to her. The dead reminder of Zoe’s failings smiled.

“You want to break the hidden system,” she laughed. “The system within the system! But how can you break something from within?”

Zoe’s body loosened, but she remained slumped against the tree.

“Chickens… break out of eggs,” she said, annoyed by the grandiose metaphor she had to suffer through.

The thing that was not Cassy grinned as it explained some grand theory. Zoe couldn’t bother to listen. The cityscape beyond haunted her. Mantis crawled over buildings with struggling humans clutched in their claws. Webbing between the alleys where bodies hung. Flames everywhere lighting up cages. Screams carried over on the ever-present wind.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Zoe closed her eyes — creak and moan of the Gambler’s Hell in the back of her throat — and opened them to see Not-Cassy still speaking.

“Bound things fight their bindings, but you only gain true power when you fight —”

“I get it,” Zoe slurred. She moved her jaw. “What I don’t understand,” her voice cleared. “Is what you want from me?”

Not-Cassy blinked. Why did she do that? Those eyes were already dead and dribbling…

“I want you to cut all ties to the systems and the power they grant,” she smiled. “Become truly free, like me.”

Zoe shuddered. Give up her Skein? But she needed her power to…

“I won’t be able to change anything without the systems,” she said.

“You grew up without systems, why do you think they are important now?” Not-Cassy poked Zoe in the forehead. “One, two, three systems: Skein, Chains, and Flesh. Where is Zoe in all this mess? If you become like me,” she stepped back and swept a hand down like a sales clerk. “You are only you.”

“But I need power,” Zoe spoke through gritted teeth. Her veins tingled as her Vitality burned out the toxin. Sweat pricked her brow. “What don’t you understand?”

“Power?” Not-Cassy grinned. “I wonder what you think power is…” she darted forward and licked Zoe’s forehead. She stepped back before Zoe could raise a hand. “Hmm, you know a little. You know the flashy magic. You know the pain that vibrates through the universe like sap through a tree.”

“I know it.”

Not-Cassy shook her head. She stood and wagged a finger at Zoe.

“The living flesh betrays the immortal mind. I see your thoughts in your eyes. You think the system is everything. Everything! But it is just a passing wave upon a stony shore. Wave after wave passes! The shore remains! The power remains! We remain!”

Shadows oozed from pores in the air, and the miasma enshrouded the hilltop. The wind faltered as the smoky air bound Zoe and Not-Cassy in a sphere. Darkness hid the world, and Not-Cassy glowed.

“You see us as enemies, but that is merely the face I wear. You have sampled the so-called parasite techniques. They call us parasites because they are prey. You are a predator, Zoe Chambers. Time to unleash yourself.”

Though this thing was a monstrosity — wrong on every level — and that it spoke was so much worse, still the words hit her very core and rang with truth. She was so tired of dragging this weight behind her.

ding!

So, what do you think?

Zoe started.

“Huh?”

I know you want to get rid of me.

What, no I —

“— don’t want to get rid of you,” Zoe finished her sentence aloud as the Black Star pushed her outside her mind. A weight became hollow.

I know you hate me being your hands. You don’t want me inside you and I… I get that! I understand!

“No, no…” Zoe stuttered as a gulf opened up inside her mind. Where was this distance between her heart and mind? How long had it been there? What caused it? She felt sick, and for once, Not-Cassy had nothing to do with it. “Don’t leave me, I can’t do this without you.”

Tears ran down her face, and a chain lifted to wipe them away. The hard and cold metal link brushed against her skin. Traced the scars. Slipped away. Her chains stretched away from her and toward Not-Cassy.

The dead woman grinned as she glowed in the darkness. Chains reached for her like eldritch roots. Zoe forced herself to her feet. She would not take this lying down. She would fight.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want you to go. I want to keep you.”

Not-Cassy cocked her head.

“A lover’s spat? A rift in friendship? Perhaps two philosophies have collided and are now finally breaking apart?”

“Shut up!” Zoe said.

She swung a fist, but her chains were heavy. They dragged her down. Why was this happening?

“You told me to listen,” Zoe ground out, addressing the Black Star as a voice in the air. “Why?”

ding!

You needed to hear this.

“Hear what?”

That the option exists. That we can be separate.

“I thought you were my friend!”

ding!

The chains rushed toward her, swept around her, stroked her, caressed, as though she were a dog frightened by a thunderclap.

ding!

ding!

Of course, I want to be friends, Zoe! We’re still friends. Best friends! You’ll always be my best friend, but…

A maudlin note entered the Black Star’s voice, and though it still sounded childish, and naïve, Zoe felt the age behind each word.

This thing was ancient, and capable, no matter how it presented itself.

I want to be friends with everyone.

The chains squeezed her one last time before they slipped away. Links pulled at her wrists and ankles. Tethered to her flesh, but pulling away from her, like the tide retreating from the shore.

Zoe blinked and staggered back as the realization hit her.

“This wasn’t about me…” she glared at the chains brushing against Not-Cassy’s bare and rotting feet. “This was about you! That’s why you asked me not to fight… so she would cut you free!”

ding!

No…

Don’t say it like that. This is for the best…

“How can you say that?”

ding!

Look at this world! Turmoil. Systems fighting. Blood in the air. It is the perfect place for me to regrow! I know you’ve felt… chained… by my presence. I know you don’t feel love like me. You’ve tried, you’ve tried so hard, but… we’re different, Zoe, and I need to let you go.

You need to let me go as well.

Zoe snarled as tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to clench her fists, but the chains did not obey her. The Black Star spoke as though these thoughts had built up for a while, but Zoe had sensed no discontent. Where were these doubts when they battled an Angel in the bowels of Hell? Where were these misgivings when the Black Star volunteered to become Zoe’s hands and feet? When the Black Star reached out to give Rue a helping hand…

Or had that all been the Black Stars’s scheme? The thought sobered Zoe, and she leaned back against the tree. There was no telling what the system could have planned. It was powerful enough that the Crimson Armada hadn’t annihilated it. Instead, they merely imprisoned it in a dungeon. The dungeon that swallowed her…

Zoe’s boiling blood cooled as the fight fled her veins. She gazed at the chains.

“You want freedom?” she said tiredly.

ding!

It’s best for both —

“Don’t,” Zoe said. “Don’t give me that speech. Don’t throw stones at me until I run into the trees. Tell me what you want.”

Not-Cassy grinned as the silence — mental, physical, spiritual — trembled in the air.

ding!

I want to grow.

“And you can’t grow with me weighing you down?”

The Black Star remained silent, but that was answer enough. Zoe faced Not-Cassy. Had this been the parasite’s scheme all along? Did everyone conspire against her? She thought of Skidmark, Bella, Oriz, Anton — they lay terrified and wounded and huddled in a cave — injuries that were Zoe’s fault — what were they saying about her now?

Zoe felt too tired to be angry, too angry to be tired. Chains draped from her flesh and their other end they grasped… nothing.

“You can cut them free?” Zoe asked Not-Cassy.

The dead woman nodded.

“I can cut you free of everything.”

“No,” Zoe shook her head. “Leave the Crimson Armada. I… I can use that for now. Take the Black Star. Give it the freedom it desires. That was your plan all along, right? That was the reason you gave your little speeches?”

Not-Cassy laughed as a glittering blade slid from her wrist.

“I don’t have any plans,” she said as she stepped closer. “Now, hold still, this will hurt.”

Zoe leaned against the tree.

“Of course it will.”

She hoped this was all part of the Black Star’s plan, why it winked inside her soul, but as the translucent blade pressed against her wrist, she feared it was all for nothing.

Nothing but pain.