Feign right, step left.

I moved through my sword-forms with a slow, deliberate pace.

Feign left, step right.

I twirled and spun, leapt and danced.

Guard high, parry low. Follow through.

I focused on fluidity, on an economy of motion. I didn’t need to worry about speed, not anymore. From now on, Acceleration would handle that.

Guard low, parry high. Follow through.

I narrowed my eyes and sharpened my focus, imagining with crystal-clarity that I sparred against Ewan’s final form. That awkward, rippling stance, that snaking, curving sword that seemed to attack from everywhere all at once.

Everywhere, all at once.

Left, right. Left, right. Faster.

Faster, but not really.

Speed didn’t matter, here. It was something else than that. Something more. Somehow, I needed to be in two places at once.

I’d trained like this every night of our journey, attempting to bridge the gaps in moves I didn’t yet know, moves I’d seen my master employ for only an instant. My memory was faulty, but my soul recalled it all.

High, low. High, low. Guard, block, parry, twist, skewer.

Faster.

I was building up a sweat, now, perhaps giving Ewan’s imaginary remnant more credit than it deserved. My form stuttered slightly as I failed to bridge the gap between a curving, right-handed strike and its response.

Right apace, dodge the thrust, sword down, mind the left, MIND THE LEFT–

“Incredible…”

A soft, light voice suddenly broke my concentration, and the memory evaporated.

My limbs fell heavily to my side. Sweat ran in rivers down my barren chest, my only shirt destroyed by Sovereign back on the second floor.

I should’ve sprung for a spare.

Sighing, I turned to face my delving companion. Not that I needed to. I already knew who it was. It could only be one of us, anyway. The Inquisitor had taken his customary watch, up high above, on the lookout for foes. He took the majority of them. After all, he no longer needed to sleep.

Lady Nycta’s face was a deep scarlet, as I had now become accustomed to, and overflowing with embarrassment.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she rapid-fired. “I didn’t mean to distract yo–”

“Don’t worry. Doesn’t–ermmmmuhhhhh–matter,” I said, moaning with relief as I felt Draconic Blood kick in, bringing with it a soothing, scalding relief to my overused muscles.

“Fucked the end there, anyway,” I muttered, peevishly.

“Didn’t look like it,” Alyss shook her head as I started to gently recite a series of stretches. “You looked incredib–” she quieted suddenly, clearing her voice profusely.

“A-anyways,” she went on, quickly, “why do you train now, when you didn’t before? Were you loath to reveal your forms?” She shook her head, once more. “If so, I can imagine why, you–”

“No, no, nothing like that,” I cut her off. “It’s just…”

I paused for a moment.

“Something, ah, something re-invigorated my focus, of late,” I finished, unhelpfully.

“Ah,” Alyss realized all the same. “Your Trial,” she identified.

But she said no more, and I offered no further details on the subject, so we sat in silence for a while as I stretched.

“I always wondered why Blessed would bother with conventional weaponry,” Alyss ruminated, idly. She summoned a shadow, and examined it quizzically as it revolved around her hand. “When we possess the greatest weapons of all, within our very selves.”

She dismissed it with a sigh.

“Yet your performance, of late, has led me to question these beliefs somewhat.” She pointed at me, accusingly. “The Canadians barely trouble you at all. You dispatch scores of them, without pause, without effort. Before I, or even Glare, have time to move.”

“Hardly a demonstration of strength,” I snorted, emphatically twirling my blade. “I’m fast, and Fang is sharp. At a certain point, that’s all that combat really is.”

Ewan’s words, from beyond the grave.

“Who strikes first?” I recalled, softly. “Who strikes fastest?”

“Fang,” Alyss breathed, gazing directly, almost reverentially at my Shard’s lupine form. “That’s…that’s right. I remember. You told me. Is that, then…its name?”

“His name,” I corrected. “Fang is a he. Not all Shards subscribe to such niceties, but he does.” I quirked my head, grinned, and whistled.

Fang’s steely ears perked up, and he glanced my way. I smiled down at him, then at Alyss, and snapped my fingers. My Soulbound Weapon shot into the sorceress’s lap, and his ethereal, lupine form followed it with a raucous howl.

She abruptly delivered a quiet un-Masterly yelp, and keeled over as the gleeful wolf leapt atop her, despite the fact that he couldn’t truly affect her physical form.

…or could he?

Alyss, now reclined rather awkwardly upon a single elbow, reached up and combed her fingers through my Blessing’s fur. Right through, with no apparent difficulty. I saw the little steely bristles move and shudder accordingly, parting way for her fingertips.

Fang crooned with delight, and Alyss gawped at me.

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“Why, I can…I can feel him!” She cried in amazement.

“Fascinating,” I murmured, raising my eyebrows as I strode over to the newly-made friends. “Your ability to see Blessings, I imagine.”

“Perhaps, though,” I mused to myself, “Perhaps it’s more than just…,”

Alyss didn’t hear me, so engrossed was she in her caresses. She rubbed behind Fang’s ears and joyfully scratched his belly, all the while laughing that delightful, tinkling giggle. My Shard whimpered, went limp, and rolled over onto his back.

I frowned.

“For shame, Fang,” I chided, “show a little composure!”

My Blessing quirked his head towards me whilst still rolled-over, tongue lolling blissfully, clearly in no mood to consider my advice.

“This,” I hissed in mock fury, channeling my Noble Shard. It wasn’t hard to do. “This, this…creature who manhandles you is a mere mortal. A vermin.”

Fang yipped at me happily, absolutely dumb to my words. His ignorance, in this case, seemed a touch deliberate. Alyss giggled again, looking back and forth between the two of us eagerly.

“You are a Shard,” I boomed, drawing myself up tall and gesticulating wildly, dramatically. “You are divinity! Infinite! All powerful! For the Gods’ sake man, act like it!” I lamented, drawing forth another fit of giggles from my delving companion.

Fang, of course, continued to ignore me entirely. My infinite, omnipotent lupine companion just moaned again, his thick belly rumbling with pleasure as he prostrated himself before his newfound Master.

Alyss wiped tears from her eyes, her sides still quivering.

I shook my head once more, smiling at her.

Our eyes met.

“W–well, I…” Alyss looked away, uncomfortably, “There was something, something I, ah…” She bit her lip, her eyes flickered nervously back towards me, and she spoke.

“There was something I wanted to ask you,” Alyss declared, her mood no longer quite so jovial. “Ever since that night in the white room, to be honest. Your words, just now, brought it to mind.”

“Of course,” I said, curiously. “Go right ahead.”

“Well, it’s just–” she hesitated, “I survived against your Blessing, Taiven.” Then she looked at me, expectantly.

I returned her gaze, confused.

“…yes?” I asked, frowning. “That is to say, well done. No mean feat, certain–”

“No, no,” Alyss cut me off, quickly. “That’s not–that’s not what I’m getting at.” She hesitated again, cringing. “You see, I got to thinking…,” she rubbed her forehead, then looked up at me nervously. “Why didn’t it kill me?”

I frowned.

“It called me ‘sibling’. Sibling, Taiven,” she shuddered. “It called me sibling, and didn’t lay a finger on me. What does that mean?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Sovereign is…not easy to understand, even for me.”

My primary Blessing might not have been insane, per se, but it wasn’t far from it. Whatever logical or emotional processes the creature operated off of were wholly and entirely alien; any attempt to rationalize its actions from a human perspective would have been little more than an exercise in futility.

Alyss nodded, then raised a finger. “Right, sure, but I had an idea.” She leaned in closer, and whispered. “What if it wasn’t talking to me?

What if it was talking to my Shard?”

My brows furrowed.

“I don’t–”

“What if my Shard’s the same as yours, you know?” she suggested, anxiously, “Noble.”

“Um,” I replied, “Honestly? I doubt it.”

I narrowed my eyes, peering once more into that space inside her skull, that place just above and to the left of her forehead, where a pitch-black and lime-green Marble sat, the Entropy within swirling endlessly.

“I mean…” I vacillated, “I’ll admit, I’m something of a novice at this particular extension of the song, but it definitely looks, feels, and sounds Minor, to me.”

“W-well,” she stammered, coloring slightly again for reasons unknown to me, “c–can you check?”

“…check?” I echoed, dubiously. “What do you mean, check? Like what, you want me to split your head open? I don’t have a healing power, milady, at least no–”

“No, no, no!” Alyss stammered vehemently, holding up her hands. “Absolutely not! I just…” She hesitated, and cringed slightly.

“P–perhaps…,” she stammered, flushing an even deeper shade of crimson, “t-the issue is one of…of…”

“…of?” I prompted.

“Of, um, of…proximity?” she squeaked.

I raised my eyebrows.

“…proximity?” I echoed, not entirely sure what she was getting at. “I’m afraid I don’t–” Alyss shook her head, shut her eyes tight, turned to the side, and abruptly thrust a considerably-shaking arm and hand in my direction.

I blinked.

“Ohhh, you mean physical contact,” I realized, finally. “I mean, I’m certainly happy to try…,” I muttered, “but, to be honest, I doubt that’d–”

“Please do,” Alyss insisted, glancing at me from the very corner of a face turned to face a different direction. Despite myself, I smirked slightly.

I couldn’t help but find her antics adorable. It was difficult to believe that the woman before me now, trembling at the mere thought of barely-intimate physical contact with another her age, was the same who’d stood tall against a fanatic Master not weeks ago. And yet, the mere fact she’d summoned the courage to do so meant that these weeks had done wonders for her growth.

Well, I thought to myself, tapping my chin. I guess it’s worth a shot.

Gingerly, I reached out and touched her hand to mine. Thin, fragile fingers possessing an uncanny strength characteristic of their Marble stage Host intertwined with my own.

Nothing happened.

Aside from its owner’s muted squeak, the hand remained…just a hand. Which it was, I supposed. I don’t know what exactly I’d expected. There was no merging of the souls, no melding of the minds. Whatever physical affinity, or synchronicity, Alyss hoped might aid my efforts was clearly nonexistent.

I sighed.

“No change, I’m afraid,” I announced, gazing absentmindedly at the eclectically-churning soul sequestered within the sorceress’s mind. “I thought as much, I…”

Belatedly, a thought occurred to me.

“Alyss…,” I began, “would you mind exercising your Blessing?”

The sorceress in question, clearly still caught tight within the throes of embarrassment and indecency, coughed slightly.

“M-my Blessing?” she repeated, taken aback. “What do you want me to do, exactly?”

“Nothing too extreme,” I murmured, my gaze still focused intently upon her forehead. “Just–summon some servants, and have them orbit about you, I suppose.”

Alyss nodded agreeably, closed her eyes, and I watched what I might as well call her Marble pulse like a beating heart. Ever-so-miniscule slivers of shadow squirmed for a moment, breaching through the surface of the crystalline sphere that housed them and emerging into their Host’s body.

I watched with awe as they lithely slithered through vessels and muscles, making little paths of darkness that led eventually to her hands and fingers, whereupon they emerged eagerly into the outside world.

And this gave me an idea.

I called upon the song, but gently, my newfound Marble-stage control plenty sufficient to do so. It flushed my arteries and filled my veins, sharp and clear and strong, and waited patiently, enthusiastically, for further direction. Ever so slowly, I stretched it outwards, further and further, towards the very tips of where my fingers met those of my friend.

For a moment it pulsed fervently, hungrily, longing for release, desperate to exert its influence over the material world, but I held it tight in my grip.

Instead, and still ever-so gently, I tugged it from my fingertips into those of the sorceress, sea-green song meeting pitch-black shadow, mixing, becoming one.

I drew breath sharply, felt Alyss go rigid, and triggered Acceleration as our songs fully intertwined.

And then I was her.