My mind reeled from the shock of knowing Penny, my old neighbor from Earth, was here in Mythralon. Not just in the world, but in the body of Thalindra, the dark sorceress who had helped me change bodies with Morthisal, and she was in a prison cell deep in the heart of Crownforge.
"Penny?" I managed to choke out.
She looked at me, confusion etched on her face. "Vince? Is that really you? It looks like you. A lot like you. How are you here? Why are we here? Why won't they let me leave?"
I nodded, still trying to wrap my head around this situation. Not that transmigration was anything new. Of all the billions of people on earth, how in the world was my old neighbor here? "How...?"
Penny, or rather Thalindra, shook her head. "I don't know. One minute, I was in my shop with you, doing a seance, and then I was here. There may have been something in the drinks, and I woke up in this body. Am I dead? Did I blow out my brain cells with that weird concoction? That must be it. I'm tripping."
Seraphina glanced between us. "You two know each other?"
"We were neighbors back on Earth," I explained, my voice still shaky, and turned back to Penny. "What do you mean you were with me?"
"You, Vince. you were there. You had been acting so weird for a few days. I thought it was the head injury."
"Head injury?" I shook my head and swallowed hard. "It's a long story," I said, not wanting to get into the details of my own body-swapping experience. "You’re saying you woke up here in Thalindra's body?"
"Thalindra?" She shook her head. "They kept calling me that. All I know is that I'm me, but not me. And now you're here, too. How is this possible?"
"The last time you saw me," I began slowly, "what happened?"
"You were in my shop," she said. "We did that seance, and you were in my head. Then we were somewhere else. Wait. It was the second time… I'm sorry. My memory is all over the place. I feel like you might have been somehow controlling me. But, now, you're not."
I swallowed hard. "Penny, listen to me. This world is... it's not where we came from."
She nodded vigorously. "Clearly! Vince, I don't know what's going on."
"Oh, dear," Seraphina said.
"My name is Varix. Okay? Varix."
She stared at me dumbly, and I couldn't blame her. This was a lot to take in.
I scratched my head and tried to form words, but nothing came out. If Vince was back there, in my body, that is, that could mean only one thing. Morthisal had survived being body-swapped with me and was on earth.
King Alister had been studying us intently. Finally, he said, "Hello, Penny. A curious phenomenon strikes some people, and they are transported into another body in this world. It's happened to your friend Vince, and to me."
"And me," Seraphina added.
"I've been here for days, and no one has told me anything. I'm in a prison cell, and I don't know why. Like, who even are you?" she asked.
"I am King Alister of Mythralon," the king said, his face settling into a grim expression. "The situation with your imprisonment is... complicated."
"How complicated can it be?" Penny asked, and her hands gripped the iron band around her ankle. "This hurts. Why am I chained like a dog? This is ridiculous!"
"The body you inhabit belonged to Thalindra, a dark sorceress who committed terrible crimes," Alister explained. "If we were to release you, you would be recognized and likely killed on sight."
"But I didn't do any of those things!" Penny protested. "Just let me go. Please!"
"I know this is hard to understand," I said. "The same thing happened to me. I woke up in the body of someone else, too. I thought I'd been drugged, or that I had died and ended up in a weird purgatory."
"As did I," Seraphina added. "It was disorienting at first, but I adapted and grew to love my new life."
"You adapted? Were you chained to a wall? Don't act like our situations are the same!"
"We're not saying you did anything wrong," I assured her. "We're trying to protect you."
"Then give me a disguise," Penny said. "I could change my hair and wear different clothes. Something!"
Alister shook his head. "It's not that simple. If you leave this prison, you'll be treated as an escaped prisoner. Every guard in the kingdom would hunt you down. The bounty on Thalindra's head is substantial."
Penny slumped against the wall. Her shoulders shook as she began to cry.
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. My stomach twisted with guilt. Here was my neighbor, someone who had been my friend back in our world, and she was trapped in a nightmare situation. I wanted to help her, but how?
Penny wiped her face with her sleeve. "There's something I don't understand," she said. "If we all got sent into different bodies, why does Vince—or Varix—whatever your name is now? Why do you look almost exactly like you did back home?"
I froze.
"He does?" King Alister asked, turning to face me. "How is that possible? The odds of you landing in a body with the same face as yours are, well, quite high and very unlikely." He squinted at my face and took a step toward me.
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I glanced down and found my skin had continued to turn gray.
I met Seraphina's gaze. Her expression softened with concern.
"I need to tell you something," I said to King Alister. The weight of my secret pressed down on me. It was like a physical burden. My skin was quickly turning an ashen gray, and there was no hiding it anymore.
"What's going on?" King Alister demanded. His face hardened as he studied my changing appearance.
"The Heart of Shadows," Seraphina interjected. "My father might be able to help Penny the same as Vince."
"How?" I asked her.
"He's been researching ways to make its effect permanent for you. If he succeeds, we could use the amulet to give Penny a new appearance, just like..." She trailed off, glancing at the king.
"Just like what?" King Alister stepped forward. "What aren't you telling me?"
I reached up and touched the amulet that hung around my neck. The metal felt cold against my fingers. "This will be a lot to take in, King Alister. Very few people know this, only those I trust and love." I reached out and squeezed Seraphina's hand in mine. "The artifact I wear is ancient and may pre-date the cataclysm. It's a device that allows the wearer to change their appearance," I explained. "It's how I've maintained this form."
The king's face went slack with shock. "What are you saying?"
I drew in a deep breath. The moment I'd dreaded since arriving in Everspring had finally come. "My name here wasn't really Varix Vel'Naris. That's just the identity I created when I came here."
"Then who are you?" the king asked. Kara quietly slipped to his side.
I drew a shaky breath. "You know me. You know for a fact that I am like you, Seraphina, and Penny here. I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask for this. But I truly love my life here. Living in Everspring is the dream I never knew I needed."
"Who?" The king's eyes narrowed.
I blew out another breath, reached inside my shirt, pulled out the heart of shadows, and laid it against my chest over my tunic.
"I was known as Morthisal, the Dark Lord," I said quietly. "But that's not who I am anymore. When Vince's consciousness entered this body, I escaped using the Heart of Shadows with Lady Churl's help. I created this new identity to start fresh and do some good in the world."
The amulet always felt heavier than it looked, which was true now. I slowly pulled the chain over my head and placed the Heart of Shadows on the desk.
The silence that followed felt endless. I waited for the king to draw his sword, to call for guards, to order my immediate execution. But he just stood there, studying me with an unreadable expression. Then his head bobbed back. His lips cracked into a smile and the next thing I knew, King Alister was laughing his ass off at my predicament.
"Um…"
"You're…" he started to say but burst into more laughter. "You're trapped in the body of the dark lord Morthisal. The most feared creature in the land. The necromancer who has terrorized Mythralon for decades." The king paused to laugh again. "And instead of embracing his powers. You opened a tavern! Oh, this is rich!"
"Well… this is not what I expected," I said.
Kara regarded me coolly, but I think a small smile might have played across her face. She approached me and I steeled myself in case she pulled out a weapon and tried to stab me to death.
Kara stopped and looked up at me. "You are very ugly."
"Um. Thanks?" I shrugged.
"Oh my god. You really are hideous, Vince. No offense," Penny put in.
Kara lifted the amulet and studied it. "How does this work in this place? Magic is dampened."
"I think it has something to do with a friend. He sacrificed himself to hide the amulet's power from a relic hunter. He was a Durethian named Zyn. See, one of the side effects of being trapped in this stupid body is being able to communicate with the dead. Some, not all. Just a few who were close to him."
Kara took a step back, her face registering shock. "Zyn? Did you say Zyn?"
"Yeah. He was cool. The last thing he told me was that he was weary of this world and wanted to see what came next. He was my friend, and I miss him," I said and realized how true the words were. Zyn had been an odd creature, but he had truly been a friend, even in death.
"Zyn." Kara breathed. "I never thought to hear the name of the wraith blade again. He was a legend. I did not train with him, but I wish I had."
I remembered the king mentioning that Kara had trained with the Durethians. That explained how she seemed to fade in and out of shadows with ease.
Kira lifted the amulet and pressed it to her forehead. She closed her eyes and whispered words I couldn't make out, then released the amulet.
"I wish you could have met him," I told Kara.
"Thank you. Please put that back on."
I chuckled as I picked up the chain amulet and looped it over my head. The amulet settled over my chest. The effect, as always, was almost immediate, but it did not complete the transformation. My skin was far too ashen, and when I touched my cheeks, I found they were slightly sunken in.
"You know what this means, right?" King Alister chuckled. "I have to reward you again. You literally captured the Dark Lord."
This set off another round of laughter.
After all the laughter died down, I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to Penny. I needed answers about what had happened back on Earth.
She nodded, pulling her knees up to her chest. "The first time was weird. You walked in, looking lost and confused. Said you wanted to contact the dead—but not just one person. You wanted to contact all the dead."
I shook my head. That definitely sounded like something Morthisal would do.
"Go on," I prompted.
"The second time was even stranger." Penny shook her head. "You stumbled in, clearly drunk. Your eyes... they were different. Darker somehow. You kept muttering about power and spirits."
King Alister leaned forward, very interested. "What happened then?"
"I had this special tea I'd made with, um, some mushrooms I'd been experimenting with." Penny's cheeks flushed. "You practically demanded we do a seance. Said you could feel the veil between worlds was thin or something like that. I was kinda spacey from the shrooms."
I exchanged looks with Seraphina. This was definitely sounding like Morthisal.
"Then what?" I asked though I dreaded the answer.
"We drank the tea and started the seance. But something was wrong. You weren't speaking like yourself at all. Your voice got deeper, and you started speaking in some language I'd never heard before, like you were using some kind of power. I could feel it on my periphery. Like you could control me." Penny shuddered at the memory. "Next thing I knew, everything went dark. When I woke up, I was here. In this body. In this cell."
I ran a hand through my hair. "So Morthisal did make it to Earth. He possessed my old body."
"That explains the confusion and odd behavior," King Alister mused. "A dark lord trying to navigate your world would certainly appear strange to others."
I turned back to Penny. "I'm so sorry you got caught up in this."
"Not your fault," she said with a weak smile. "Though I have to say, this is way beyond anything I ever dealt with in my shop back home. Real magic? Different worlds? Body swapping? It's like something out of one of those fantasy novels."
"Penny, this is the embodiment of a fantasy novel. You're going to love it here. If we can figure out your current situation."
"Speaking of which," King Alister interjected, "we need to figure out what to do about both of you. And quickly."