Kyrylo stared into the waters of the fountain. They rippled as new water splashed down from above and began the cycle anew. His reflection stared back at him, not his own face but instead the empty eyes of Syla, their lanky frame made of darkness.
“You can see them, right?” Kyrylo turned to Shychur beside him. The rat loomed over him as they stood together. Felix was only a few feet away, switching between watching for further guards and checking on Shychur in case the spirit tried to get revenge on Kyrylo with his guard down.
“Yes,” Shychur’s reply was softer than his usual tone. Kyrylo couldn’t discern what meaning he should draw from that. Shychur was so boastful, fuelled by desperation from deep within, everything he ever said was nearly a shout. He didn’t seem to be in shock at the sight of the spirit residing within Kyrylo, but he was certainly reserved.
“Do you recognize them?”
“I already told you I’m not King of Sagos. I don’t know every spirit in the Fog Plane.”
“I just meant as a coincidence,” Kyrylo said. Syla below had tilted their head, burying any notion this shadow followed Kyrylo’s movements. “That would have been helpful.”
Shychur scratched at his chin. Kyrylo could hear his tail shifting behind them, dragging across the stones underfoot. “It would be but the odds are impossible. You can just ask them who they are since they’re clearly still alive in you.”
Kyrylo didn’t answer. He felt his stomach churning as if he was about to make a phone call. He didn’t want to talk to them again. They hadn’t been real before, just part of some strange trip into a bizarre place. They wanted to become an Honour too. They expected things of his life. Shychur stepped away, joining Felix and saying something to him. It was all hazy to Kyrylo as he looked back at the reflection in the water.
“I don’t understand this either, if that helps.” Syla’s voice bounced around his brain. He heard it from outside his head as well, somehow made manifest in the reflection.
“I just don’t…” Kyrylo trailed off. He checked Felix and Shychur but they weren’t paying attention. “I don’t like that you’re still something.”
Syla seemed to frown. Kyrylo could feel some sort of annoyance in his body that wasn’t his own. “I’ve always been something. I was my own spirit until you crashed into me.”
“You were a threat to my…friend.”
“Then I guess I should be grateful. If it hadn’t been your friend, you just would have killed me.” Kyrylo winced at the sarcasm. “You know I can hear you when you talk about me.”
“Are you mad about that?”
“I would prefer you didn’t talk around me, is all.”
Kyrylo sat on the thought. He listened to the water splashing down, saw some ripples pass through Syla’s face. “What are you, then? Who were you before?”
“I was just another spirit in the city. I aspired to be an Honour so I traveled to the Third Plane to prey on humans for strength. Three days later one of them collides with me and I’m bonded into this body.”
“But where does the power come from?” Kyrylo asked, unsatisfied by the benign answer he had faced. That was too simple a story for what was the greatest change in his life.
“I don’t know. I only managed to drain one human before your friend. They talked about feeling heavy, maybe that was my effect on them?”
“That’s gravity,” Shychur said. Kyrylo jumped a little at his sudden appearance. He had assumed he would have heard the enormous rat coming but he had gotten too lost in the conversation. “Syla in there was walking the path of tear.” Shychur pointed at the water, confirming he could see and hear the being. “That’s Yteta stuff. They’re a maniac.”
“Well don’t they know that?” Kyrylo exclaimed, slapping at the water. Syla’s appearance distorted and nearly disappeared before reforming. “This is so cryptic and frustrating.”
“I only existed for a few days before we fused. I’m sorry.”
“See,” Shychur added, spreading his arms wide as if everything was solved. “It’s pretty straightforward now though, not all that cryptic. Syla has some gravity Passion and now it’s in you. That makes sense to me.”
“Of course it makes sense to you,” Kyrylo countered, stepping away from the fountain in frustration. “This is your realm. It all makes sense.”
“You didn’t.” Shychur pointed a metallic finger at Kyrylo. “I’ll remind you that you just showed up in my sewer and killed the Rat King with some nonsense tricks. Now I find out it’s because you were using gravity Passion.”
“You say all these words like they mean something,” Kyrylo snapped. “What’s your Passion?”
“Exercise. Thank you for noticing.”
“You have to know that’s not what I asked.”
“Then have some fun!” Shychur slapped Kyrylo on the back. It reverberated through his chest, nearly launching him onto the cobblestone in front of him. But the real force was clearly held back. “I don’t understand why you’re so mad about all this. Fusing with a spirit could’ve resulted in instant death, could’ve crippled you, could have split your mind. Instead you’re a human with spirit power, what’s the big deal?”
“Because this is my life!” Kyrylo whipped around to face the rat, whose massive grin diminished in response. “I just want to live a normal life doing normal person things. I didn’t ask for this, all this Honour stuff, Passion, I don’t want to walk a path of tear or whatever. I don’t want everyone else to get to decide that.”
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“Sounds kind of ungrateful,” Felix cut in, a few feet away. He was still watching over the buildings, back to the both of them.
“I don’t need to hear it from you,” Kyrylo said. “You don’t care about half of this.”
“Some of us,” Felix continued, as if Kyrylo hadn’t interjected, “don’t have a normal life to try and run back to.”
Kyrylo tilted his head back to stare at the sky above. It was always some form of night here, as far as he could tell, a few faint shining glimmers that might be stars dotted the black. The green lights around him tried their best to reach up into the darkness but couldn’t pierce it, leaving only a thin hue to see past.
There were no answers up there. He didn’t want to look back down and meet eyes with Shychur or Felix, not liking anything they said but unable to challenge it. He didn’t know who Felix was, not really. He was all secrets and second lives. And Shychur was from another plane of existence. The only thing they shared in common was a mutual recognition of desperation they had both experienced but Kyrylo couldn’t say what Shychur was desperate to solve. Syla was born yesterday. He didn’t know these people.
They were right.
“Fine,” Kyrylo said. “Fine. I’ll just figure it out then, I guess.”
“There you go,” Shychur replied, wrapping his arm around Kyrylo’s shoulders. His fur felt strange and soft, not something Kyrylo had ever wanted to experience. He tried to look over at Felix but he was still met with back. “We’re going to need that gravity stuff for Drummond anyways. Maybe you can crush his bones and pancake him.”
“I…don’t think it works like that.” Kyrylo looked down at his hand. It seemed to affect something he was in contact with and only so long as he was holding it. That might have been why his sword had felt lighter, not just heavier. He could control gravity in both directions.
Shychur chuckled and released Kyrylo, sauntering away and stepping over the avian corpses littering the ground. “Well you’ve still got the swords at least. They seem to cut through any spirit. That should do the trick.”
“So you’re deploying us to clean up your messes?” Felix asked, spinning around and joining Shychur in moving deeper into Lyrica.
“It’s a two-for-one, like I said.” Shychur waved away the venom under Felix’s words.
Kyrylo looked back into the waters of the fountain. Syla was there instantly, a faint hint of a smile on their face. He withdrew immediately and left it behind. He checked his hands again, as if they could suddenly jump up and do magic on him. Every step he took, every answer he got, made the path in front of him wider, longer, more complicated. He was supposed to get closer to answers and understanding as he moved forwards in life. It seemed like every time it was supposed to start it just got bigger instead.
The walk within Lyrica was strangely absent any further attacks from guards. Shychur brushed aside protests from Felix that they should have had more fights and indicated that there were usually only ones near the entrances to the district. It was assumed you wouldn’t get past them anyways, and then individual mansions might employ their own private security. Drummond, for example, employed a rotation of different security spirits who they could run into; it depended who was on shift.
“Here we are,” Shychur exclaimed, chest swelled with pride at guiding them. The home in front of them was smaller than Kyrylo had expected, given the opulence they had already witnessed along their walk. It wasn’t modest, certainly, but by contrast, Kyrylo had thought this was the wealthiest person in a wealthy neighbourhood and their home would reflect that. Instead it was only a three-story brick house, four windows across each floor, except for the first since double doors took up the space.
Shychur seemed to note the disappointment on Kyryrlo’s face. “It’s deeper than it looks,” he added. “I don’t think Ivan has seen his son Jasper in years and they both live in there so think about it like that.”
“Oh,” was all Kyrylo mumbled out as he tried to fathom how much house was hiding behind what he could see, flanked on either side by white trees with full foliage that blocked anyone from seeing past. The property was surrounded by a brick wall, with only the gate in front of them to even peer through.
“Remus,” Shychur shouted. There was a rustling from a nearby bush behind the wall. Eventually, a pair of hands poked out and waved at them, both left hands, one above the other. A small head followed, three eyes blinking out of sync to peer at them.
“What’s this?” Remus said, stepping out entirely to take in the visitors. They had a mostly human torso, wrapped in overalls, but their knees bent backwards, with a pair of small hooves at the bottom of the pants. They had four arms, their two right hands jointly holding garden shears. “The Drummonds weren’t expecting guests.”
“Go get Valentina, tell her that an old friend is back to visit.” Shychur folded his arms across his chest, doing his best to look intimidating. Kyrylo had to imagine this worked on any other spirit given Shychur’s bulk, though he was finding it had lost its edge to him. He had a flash of the soft fur against his skin again.
“Valentina doesn’t work here anymore.” Remus turned away from them, returning to the bush and snipping off a stray branch.
“Then get whoever does.” Shychur grabbed the gate, metal claw sinking into the poles they made it up. He squeezed and the metal groaned, bending inwards under his force. It looked like he was going to pull the whole thing off the hinges.
Remus turned and glanced at the hand. Then he looked at Shychur and sighed. “Don’t trample the gardens this time. I’ll go get Natasha.” He turned and shuffled away towards the house. Kyrylo could see the door open and Remus started talking to the being inside.
“There, see?” Shychur turned to Felix. “No betrayal, you can calm down all the time, I took us exactly where I said we would go.”
“Why would I lower my guard at the house of the person we’re supposed to kill?” Felix cocked an eyebrow. Shychur recoiled a bit, obviously unfamiliar with meeting so much resistance. He had gotten a little too used to being king.
“You two are such a strange pair to deal with,” Shychur remarked. “One of you is all about this place, except when it gets tough. The other one only shows up when it matters. Make up your minds already.”
“Give us a chance to get used to this place,” Kyrylo said. “We’ll get there.”
“That you would even show your face here.” Shychur winced as the voice that cut through the air between them. A feminine voice, outrage apparent. Kyrylo leaned around Shychur and saw the figure approaching, standing tall on two hooves, tall enough to match Shychur’s height. Each step rang out as the spirit clacked along the stone walkway between the house and the gate.
It was some sort of deer or goat in shape, with a more human torso and hands. There was gorgeous short, white fur running along its exposed arms and legs, the rest wrapped in an ornate pink dress, adorned with bows across the front and layers to the skirt below. The fur ran up and along its face and snout, only ending at its nose and around its eyes. Thin, silver hair ran down either side of its face, glittering in the green light as it approached, eyes blazing.
Most intimidating was the single horn that shot out from its forehead, spearing the air in front of them and curving into a crescent moon. It ended in a violent point and was longer than Kyrylo’s arm. He couldn’t imagine the damage it could wreak, hoping it was more ornamental than useful.
“Guys,” Shychur whispered, eyes shifting between Kyrylo and Felix. He hadn’t turned around to face the approaching spirit and was instead hunched over to be near their heads. “Do you think Ophelia saw me.”
“Tall goat lady?” Felix asked, rolling his eyes. “No, I think you’re good.”
“How dare you not inform me of your intentions to visit,” Ophelia shouted out as she drew close to the gate. While lithe, her height was really something, particularly with the horn stretching up into the night. “You might want to pretend we weren’t something but I won’t let you forget.”
Felix rubbed his face for a minute. He wrapped his hand around Shychur’s snout and yanked the rat down even closer, their eyes nearly touching. “Did you bring us here to kill your ex-girlfriend?”
“Three-for-one,” Shychur managed to squeak out.