Argrave stood proudly beside Anneliese as they walked toward the white-haired woman, taking their sweet time. There was a tacit understanding between berserker and non-berserker that they were to meet, amply far from Traugott, to negotiate on the fate of their burgeoning alliance. That ‘alliance’ bit wasn’t tacit—indeed, this might be misconstrued as ‘hostage negotiation.’ Argrave had talked his way out of worse.

Only Argrave and Anneliese went, as the others weren’t so readily capable of resisting the Shadowlander lieutenant. Following behind them, bound in chains of blood, was the rider. He would serve as a witness to the lieutenant, in case she needed someone of her own kind to offer some perspective into the battle Anneliese had with Traugott. Argrave had earned his own perspective on what Anneliese had done. It made him view his role a little more fondly.

“So… you’re telling me you erased him?” Argrave asked her as they walked. “Wiped the whiteboard clean? Sanitized his data? Degaussed his dome? I’m beyond impressed, Anne.”

“I got lucky,” she said simply.

“Oh yeah, sure,” he agreed sarcastically. “Really lucky, spending all that time reviewing the dark things that he’d done. Tons of good fortune in that act. Not deliberate at all. You accidentally studied what he’d done to figure out how to fight against him.”

“I was speaking of the battle,” she interrupted—at once, Argrave could tell she was in no mood for jokes about the subject and made his expression sterner. “My body felt like it moved on its own in that final clash. He might’ve crushed my skull… but he didn’t. I might’ve been forced to kill him outright, yet I subdued him. That was luck.”

“That’s talent,” Argrave disagreed. “Though I suppose you could argue talent is luck. Either way, I think you’re awesome.”

Anneliese nodded, then moved past the issue, questioning, “What do you want to tell that woman?”

“I want to call her mean things until she cries.” Argrave looked ahead. “But I can’t get what I want. I doubt there are words mean enough to break that heart of stone she has. But I imagine you’re asking what I want to achieve here, now that we have the key to it all.”

Argrave looked around the devastated landscape. He wasn’t fond of this place. Gray, grim, and gruesome—those gr words described it quite well. The people here were inhospitable. He couldn’t exactly blame them for being ornery; they had an affliction that caused them immense distress. Said distress caused them to recklessly consume everything around in a bid to sate the insatiable. It was like a world of violent addicts. It would certainly be easy enough to turn tail and run away. As he’d mentioned, they had the skeleton key at hand.

Argrave looked behind himself, eyeing the one they dragged along. “Our former escort mentioned that only the Hopeful and his lieutenants know how new life comes to the Shadowlands. Considering her revolt, I think there’s more to this situation that’s left unknown. I don’t think the Hopeful is entirely the benevolent dictator this man declares him as. And I think we can get some answers, at the very least.”

He looked upon the white-haired Shadowlander. When she wasn’t trying to kill him, she looked somewhat small. “Still… best be prepared for flight at any moment. This one’s a bit of a firebrand.”

#####

“Tell me what you want, give me the useless one, then fuck off,” the woman declared, waving her hand at them mere moments after they gave introductions.

Argrave studied her, still feeling some instinctive need to dodge while confronting her so closely. Rather like the Hopeful, much of her body was wreathed in shadows. Only dark red eyes shone past them. That, and her short white hair.

“We could negotiate more amicably,” Argrave suggested.

“You killed thousands of my men,” she reminded him, staring stalwartly. “You won. Against my gut, I’m refraining from continuing my attempts to end you. But now that I’ll never again speak to many I called ally, this is as amicable as I can get.”

“And the man we captured has killed tens of thousands of our people,” Anneliese said, putting a hand to her heart. “Through him, we have the means of escape from this place. Yet despite all of that, we put down our arms for dialogue. This was a battle of necessity, but neither he nor I are unsympathetic to you of yet.”

“Of yet?” she repeated.

“Of yet,” Argrave confirmed. “But we need answers from you.”

“Answers? Answers, while the Hopeful may march toward this place even now?”

Argrave shook his head. “He’s too scared of what he built falling apart to try anything. He hasn’t attacked you yet—he definitely won’t now.”

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The woman shifted on her feet, looking off to the distant abyss in quiet ponderance. She looked back and said only, “Ask.”

Argrave looked back at the bound Shadowlander—they’d brought him to help persuade her, but now he had become a rather depressing third wheel. Still, he focused back on the woman.

“Show us your face,” Argrave directed. “It’ll help us know if you lie.”

She looked irritated, but brought her shadow-wreathed hands up and seemed to draw something down. Her abyssal flesh revealed itself, and soon enough all her features were clear. She looked surprisingly human, in spite of it all.

Argrave started basically. “What are you fighting for?”

“Freedom,” she said, looking all around. “Freedom from the lies, the horrors. The option to choose to live or die, and be free of this cursed place. Free from the constant infighting, and the will pressing on the back of your neck to make you do that which you hate. I want all that shit to go away. It’s sickening. It’s worse than the hunger. Those under my banner are in agreement—we will not be the Hopeful’s slave any longer.”

In response to the Shadowlander’s openness, Anneliese asked intently, “What exactly is this place?”

“A gutter,” she answered at once. “What it was made for, I don’t know—gutter trash aren’t permitted to know the whims of those that build the gutters, you see. But it serves a purpose for someone. Perhaps it’s punishment. Whatever it is, the Hopeful knows. I intend to extract the answer from his bleeding body, or his corpse. I intend to eat him alive. Only then might I have my answers.”

Argrave looked at Anneliese to see if she noticed any lies, yet there were no indications from her.

“What exactly are the Shadowlanders? How does new life come here?” Anneliese continued.

The lieutenant inhaled deeply. “The very question all of us ask. The answers to your questions made me harbor this resentment. It hints that we’re a part of the greater cycle outside of this place, outside of this realm. It hints that the Hopeful is not someone suffering the same affliction, but rather something placed here to keep us all in line.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell you clear. All of us are dead gods.”

Argrave didn’t know quite what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. Both he and Anneliese fell silent, chewing that with active minds. Anneliese clearly thought the woman wasn’t lying, and provided the Shadowlander wasn’t outright wrong… what could be the purpose behind this place?

“I can see you thinking. Don’t bother—it’s fruitless. All we have is guesswork. Gods, the best among mortals… and us Shadowlanders, the worst among the best. It’s why I call this place a gutter. With those questions, you have essentially all that I know that you couldn’t extract from your prisoner. Now, tell me—does this end in violence, or will you give me the cyst you stole?”

“You’re talking about Traugott?” He snorted when the woman nodded, but felt the need to remind her, “Don’t be overeager. You seem angered by your people being killed. Perhaps you’ll understand when I say that I fear the same thing might happen to us if we let you have the key to the Shadowlands. We can work something out, but we need to know your intentions for the mortal realm. Our concern lies, bluntly put, in the living and breathing, not long dead gods warped into cursed forms.”

She crossed her arms. “The Hopeful is the one that sends out the weakest among us to fight in the mortal realm. I have no reason to do the same.”

“…and if I were to say that it’s exposure to the mortal realm that breaks your shackles?” Argrave continued. “Would that change the circumstance?”

She exhaled loudly and lowered her head. “I should’ve known.” She lifted her head back up, fire in her eyes. “Consider this—with the Hopeful dead, all of us would be freed. Only in the shadows, however, is our hunger abated. What need would we have to go to your realm? Why would we invite pain onto ourselves?”

“I’m not sure. And neither are you. There are a lot of unknowns in this deal. My priority is my people.”

“As is mine,” she answered back. “I promise that I have no intention of unleashing Shadowlanders upon your land.”

“But this could become far bigger than you alone as more join you in freedom,” Argrave countered quickly. “That’s the nature of the word. Unless you intend to inherit the hierarchy, somehow—which I don’t think you want to, even if you could—you can’t control them all. You’d be giving free will to things that’ve killed my people for millennia uncountable.”

The lieutenant didn’t deny this fact, staring ahead with her red eyes in quiet consideration.

“We need some time to think,” Argrave said. “We’ll consult, then come back with your answer.”

Argrave was prepared to turn and leave, but saw the lieutenant’s stance shift subtly. Just as he was ready to take Anneliese and get away, his queen stepped forth and put her hand on the Shadowlander’s shoulder.

As the shadows wreathed around her hand, Anneliese said, “Alone, you couldn’t defeat Argrave. But he and I are together, now. Together, it’s different,” she lowered her voice in subtle threat. “To that end, I suggest you be careful. Freedom doesn’t mean you can act without consequence. Don’t make enemies where you don’t have them.”

Argrave’s gaze flitted between the two of them. Anneliese kept her amber eyes fixed against that berserker glare. The former lieutenant seemed to be strongly considering whether or not to fight them here and struggle to reclaim Traugott. In the end… her tenseness lessened, and she pulled her shoulder from Anneliese’s hand.

“I’ll wait for your answer, then. I hope you have the decency to give me one.”

Argrave thought they were strange words coming from someone who’d considered sucker-punching them, but he held his tongue. Together, Anneliese and Argrave went to find their answer. Was there something of value here? Would they leave this realm to languish in shadow, as it so often had?

Or, perhaps, as with Traugott… was there another way forward altogether?