Chilling wind blew through the prison chamber, the icicles beneath the floor and the ever spinning wind within the room bringing unbearable cold to the inmate.
Said inmate was a single man, his wrists bound in lifeforce-restraining manacles, his shirtless, injured form shivering in the cold and the dark. The shadows crawled at him from every inch of the prison, and no amount of chanting the Great Goddess’s praises emitted Eternal Light inside its deep, dank, claustrophobic darkness.
It was the worst place for Ultaf Shimizu, whose life had been upturned into complete misery. He shivered even more, feeling an odd stinging all over his body. The pain was too much. The horrible effect of the shadows and the alien ice was taking its toll on him. He couldn’t even summon his anger for what had been done to him.
He couldn’t even feel sadness as he remembered the ambush in his well-defended, impenetrable fortress. Seeing his grandfather’s seat of power explode into smithereens, leaving a flat mountain top in its wake wasn’t something he’d ever have imagined in his worst nightmares.
That it was done, not by an army, or by a King, but a random, no-name nobody, by twisting the wardstones into something utterly devastating using a process Ultaf couldn’t so much as believe much less comprehend.
The sound of footsteps alerted him, and Ultaf shivered. Panic, fear, and unbridled rage assaulted him from all directions and he was barely aware of his body thrashing about. And then something cool and oh-so-familiar slid in front of him.
“How are you enjoying your stay, elder brother?” said Tanya in an almost husky tone.
Tanya slid into view, looking beautiful and provocative, her pale, pupil-less feline-slanted eyes gazing upon him almost fondly, as she raised a pale hand, and licked the tip of her finger. Ultaf was suddenly aware of a hoarfrost tendril that was crawling upon his chest that began to dig into his skin, drawing blood. He looked at the blood trickling out of his chest, then at the tendril. Then feeling the sudden drop in his vitality, he noticed Tanya licking her finger with nothing short of horror in his eyes. That bitch! She was sucking his lifeforce dry with just that little finger.
He had almost forgotten that she had once served as Grandfather’s sword and acted as his representative on multiple occasions before the hideous truth of her heritage came to light.
“W— why?” He croaked out a few moments later. His body felt deliciously numb and he wondered if he was going to die this time around.
“Oh, elder brother,” she chided lightly, and bopped him on the nose with her finger. “Always so quick to demand answers. Perhaps you should start answering a few of my own.”
Ultaf choked and stared at her with wide eyes.
“But you haven’t asked any!” He exclaimed hysterically.
“Oh,” Tanya uttered in surprise. “That’s right. I haven’t.”
Ultaf couldn’t help it and burst into hysterical laughter. For some reason, it was the funniest thing he had heard in his life. He laughed and laughed, his body shaking against the chains as Tanya stepped back and watched him with those alien white eyes.
It really fucking hurt.
He had to remember, Ultaf decided, as he laughed. He had to remember Grandfather. Yes. Grandfather. Grandfather. The Warlord. The Beast of Shimizu. Mujin. He chanted the name mentally as his laughs turned into coughs, his body shaking with weakness. Grandfather would come. He would save him. Ultaf was his heir. He wasn’t aware of his lips moving but suddenly a pale hand came out of nowhere and slapped him clear across his face.
“Do not lie to yourself, Ultaf,” Tanya chided. “The Peak was destroyed, remember. Along with everyone on it. Nobody knows who did it, or how. For all grandfather knows, you are dead. You see, that makes you the best kind of hostage.”
Her smile turned venomous. “You’ve played the Lord card all this time, elder brother. You hoard secrets, secrets passed down from one Lord to another. Secrets that Grandfather had passed down to our father, and then to you. Secrets that should’ve been mine. Secrets that you will reveal to me.”
“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!” Ultaf blabbered. “I — I get it. I hurt if I don’t tell.”
“Oh yes,” she said agreeably. “Grandfather was never one for empire politics. That is why he had you take the mantle of the Acting Lord. So you’re going to be my little information piggy bank. Except I just take the information. I’ll come in, torture you a bit, get what I want to know, and let you hang here until I need you again.”
Ultaf paled.
“Or, I can set my Obscuror on you. You can, of course, resist and that’ll hurt like you've never imagined in your wildest nightmares. Or, you can cooperate with my Obscuror and that way, the pain will be less and you can hope to stay alive and functional at the end of it.”
“Func— functional?” Ultaf accused. “You’ll make me your puppet!”
“Why yes,” said Tanya. “Isn’t that what you’ve done all your life to others? Let’s see how you like it for a change.”
Ultaf remembered Zuken’s changeling, the ljósálfar who had proven capable of Obscuration. He remembered being paralyzed by that demon, only for the changeling to grab him by his chin. Seeing those bright, owlish, putrid eyes and squid-like form in those eyes wasn’t something he wanted to revisit anytime soon.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” Ultaf blabbered. “Just… just stop this! I’ll tell you everything! Everything!”
Tanya smiled. “Wonderful! So why don’t you start by telling me all about grandfather’s relationship with the Earth King.”
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Wonderful.
That was the single word that summarized the situation in Tanya’s mind.
Even with it being supersaturated with all the sarcasm she could muster in her being, the description felt woefully inadequate to express what she was feeling right then.
The things she had learnt from Ultaf… the origins of Everfrost within her, and how deep this conspiracy ran, and the people involved in this mess… The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to just drop it all and vanish into some borderland with Lukas. Preferably for months, and then travel to some distant part of the Empire.
The West felt like a good option. Nothing this crazy ever happened in the West.
“FASTER!”
She grimaced as Meynte’s metallic, right fist slugged her and threw her back by a dozen feet. Even with all her power, it still felt like she had just been smashed by a cannonball. The only reason why her punishment wasn’t being pressed was due to Meynte’s inability to rift in her current, metallic form, which made her feel even worse.
After finding out everything she could from Ultaf about the conspiracy between Mujin and the Earth King, though the details were still beyond her, it had taken her everything not to kill Ultaf on the spot. Lukas would have been pissed if she did that, and while she was still getting used to his strategic planning, the truth was that all of these games played between the uber-powered players all around her were getting to her.
She was tired.
Mujin. Solana. The Empress’s shard. The entire Shimizu name and future. Lukas’s deal with Lord Naowa and most recently, the Fire King. And now the Earth King’s involvement. This entire debacle had exhausted her in so many fucking ways that she didn’t even imagine was possible. She had thought she had been prepared for this, especially after the Level-Ups she had gotten in the borderland. Hah! She was an idiot for even assuming something so trite. She, who had spent all these years growing on the run, had been caught unaware and Lukas, who hadn’t even known what lifeforce and mana were until barely a year ago, was dealing with the entire world, while keeping her safe.
She instinctively knew that Lukas was hiding things from her. Meynte’s own presence was proof enough. Seeing Lukas withstand the Fire King’s power had been an eye-opening event for her. Yes, he came clean with a lot, and in the grand scheme of things, it did make sense even if it was unappealing. He was in a shitty position, and while she was grateful for it, she honestly didn’t know if she could handle much more.
She wanted to punch something in the face.
She wanted to scream till her throat was bleeding.
She wanted him in her hands, talking to her in person, telling her that she didn’t need to deal with this political backstabbing and this ever-escalating mess. That he was going to take her away with him.
But he wasn’t here. So she had to make due with taking it out on the metallic avatar of the Empress that had once drowned her in her deepest nightmares and was only instructing her because Lukas was, in a manner, her Lord and Master.
If only the bitch would just stop beating the crap out of her already.
“Get up,” exclaimed Meynte. “Cease this weakling behavior. I’m not done with you yet.”
“I’m bleeding,” Tanya protested, glancing at the blood that stained her legs and her abdomen. The punch that she had just received had to have broken multiple ribs, which only intensified the pain.
“You’ve bled before. You’ll live.”
Tanya gawked at her taskmaster. She had expected Meynte to be cruel and heartless in her instruction. But this was a level beyond that.
Just as Lukas had instructed, the Empress had been instructing Tanya in secret, within warded boundary fields that Tanya herself had erected with her guidance. And currently, that training involved her attempting to outfight using nothing but Rifting and a thin blade. The Empress’s shard was unable to rift, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t detect the ebbs and flows in the fabric of space around her, and was able to react almost instantly, and often with either a metallic punch, or with her double-edged broadsword. That resulted in two blades flashing in the arena, silver blurs dancing in a lethal symphony. Meynte’s broadsword swept in great, disemboweling strokes that left the air whistling in its destructive wake. Tanya’s blade, a thinner, smaller, one-handed version of it, wove in intricate patterns, clashing against each other to the tune of ringing steel, smiting each other in powerful, yet graceful blows, creating lasting ripples in the air around them.
As a Clan heir, Tanya had been trained exclusively by experts. This, on the other hand, was completely different. No resting between bouts, no breaks in between flurries of strikes. This was nonstop combat. Continuous, uninterrupted battle. There was no hesitation, and the only thing close to a pause was when Meynte spoke something, and even then, she’d come forward with the intent to kill while discoursing on whatever topic garnered her interest.
“You’ve become far too dependent on your aeromancy,” said Meynte, circling her like a predator taunting an injured prey. “You’ve forgotten that it is but a tool like that blade in your hand.”
She spun the broadsword casually in one hand, before swinging it in a slicing arc downwards, causing Tanya to roll away.
“And that is what makes you INFERIOR!”
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Tanya snarled and rushed at Meynte, only to be backhanded and sent tumbling away.
“Tools are just tools, even if they’re part of your body,” said Meynte. “You are you. The soulcrafter knows this, hence he prevailed. That is why I bowed before the might of a Level-3 manacrafter, and why he commands my allegiance and respect.”
Like always, it came back to Lukas. It always did.
“Is that why he’s vanished in some cave and left you to train me?” She growled.
“Some things,” said the Empress, “are better kept secret. And if the Soulcrafter deems you worthy of the truth, he will tell you in his own time.”
Tanya furrowed her brows, and pushed herself up again.
“Is it that bad?”
“Bad? Certainly not. But you will not understand. And it will lead you to asking more questions. Questions I cannot answer.”
Tanya closed her eyes as she contemplated Meynte’s response. It was cryptic, and she found herself intrigued.
“What are you? As in… I could understand a memory, a consciousness taking over a similar body with similar powers, but that’s just a pool of metal you’re possessing right now. Just how do you still exist?”
Meynte chuckled. “By being forgotten.”
Tanya frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“I expect you not to. By the laws of Reality, I am an impossibility. As is every other creature the Soulcrafter has brought forth to do his bidding. Those of the dead must stay dead, for their souls return to the Great Mother. Even us, the wielders of Taboo, are not exempt from this law of the universe. What is born, must die. And what dies, returns to the Mother to be reborn afresh.”
Tanya opened her mouth to say something, only to realize she had gotten within her instructor’s reach. She barely managed to defend against the strike, and hastily rifted away with an almost fractured shoulder-bone. But she ignored it.
“You…. you’re influencing him, aren’t you? Controlling him from inside his world?”
“Influence? Yes. Control? No. Not even close. The soulcrafter’s mind is ironclad. His world holds no rule sacred but its own. I couldn’t get in even if I tried.”
“I don’t believe you,” she challenged. “Lukas was a Level-3 when he siphoned you. You tried to end me, and somehow, he trusts you more than me about things?”
“Foolish girl,” the Empress’s shard mocked. “Weak and pathetic you already are, yet you amaze me with your shortsightedness. You bremetans never truly realize your potential, do you? You train under pretenders. You call them Master and grovel before them to learn their pitiful secrets. But they are nothing in the grand scheme of things. So inconsequential that they are a little more than a single droplet in a surging ocean.”
Tanya rifted and came from above. Meynte grabbed her leg and spun her in mid-air and drove her blade right through her shoulder-girdle, and flung her back. The entire thing happened in a fraction of a second.
“Forget what your wise elders have taught you, girl,” said Meynte. “For they are lies twisted to become truth. Only through pain can you forge strength. Only through weakness can you forge greatness. The soulcrafter isn’t a Warlord, and yet, he resisted the might of the strongest King. He is young, and yet his will is as indomitable as the universe itself. He is strong because he wills it to be strong. And that is why his will bent mine, and it will stay that way until his World itself becomes undone.”
Tanya ached all over. She bled from a dozen wounds inflicted purposely by the Empress. Her entire body felt like one big bruise.
“And how do I… become like him?”
A shadow of a smile crossed Meynte’s metallic features. “You are a long way from that girl. The soulcrafter is a monster unlike anything you have ever known. Let him be. At this moment, the only thing you should be caring about is my blade tearing through your flesh.”
“Mujin will not wait until I’m ready,” said Tanya. Her heart was pounding, her throat constricting. “And I’m done letting Lukas fight my battles for me. Even with Ezzeron, I cannot match Mujin in aeromancy. Not even with Rifting. What can I do?”
Meynte looked thoughtful.
“You made me face my worst fears,” said Tanya, her eyes glistening with tears. “Made me watch as you destroyed Lukas’s arm. I don’t ever want to ever feel that helpless again. I need to be strong. To use Everfrost like I was born to be. To protect myself and Lukas. I…. I need to be like you.”
Meynte smiled, but Tanya thought she detected just a faint glimmer of sorrow lurking beneath.
“You don’t want to be like me,” she said softly.
There was a hidden meaning behind those words that she couldn’t discern.
“All strength comes at a price. Power, even more so. All these things do not come free. And sometimes, the price is something you don’t ever want to give up. Sometimes, it may even cost you your bremetanity.”
Tanya swallowed.
“I saw you, girl. I saw your hopes, your dreams, saw the illusions you have cast upon yourself. Even with Everfrost coursing through your veins, you stubbornly stick to being a bremetan. The soulcrafter, in his arrogance and selfishness, let open a gate through which the End shall resurface. I warned him, but he thought you could control it.”
Meynte met her eyes. “You can’t. You do not have it in you the strength to give your soul up little by little until you have gone so far beyond the deep end that you cannot even remember what you were once. You do not have within you what it costs to become Nidhogg’s Vessel. To channel the power of the End.”
“Then teach me,” said Tanya earnestly. “Tell me how. I will do it. No matter what it takes.”
“Brave words,” said Meynte. “But ultimately, it's meaningless. The power of the End is a deceitful labyrinth, girl, a web that you can only tread into if you are willing to leave all your foolish preconceptions about right and wrong, about power and potential. You must be willing to accept that you do not fear to tread the boundaries of the true and the profane. You must be one with your other self, the Frost Avatar, and proceed to gain the power that calls to your very soul. If not, this is as far as you can go.”
The Empress looked at her with a mix of pity and contempt. “If only the soulcrafter had listened to my advice. You have potential, girl. Potential to become a pioneer in Aeromancy, or perhaps even at Rifting. But to cross the boundaries and stand on the edge of the horizon, you need to be willing to submit yourself to the omnipotent power of Everfrost. A power you fear. A power whose manifestation lies hidden in your core, and until you can overcome this fear, you are not worthy.”
Tanya frowned.
Was Meynte right? Did she fear Everfrost?
The answer was an obvious ‘yes’ for anyone that was introduced to the power through carnage and torture. It was natural to fear things one didn’t understand and in that sense, as long as she couldn’t be sure what she was getting into, the fear would remain, for it's the most basic instinct of any being out there. The same instinct guided you away from danger, the same instinct that made you dread the blazing flames, the same instinct that stopped you from taking that delightful leap from the top of the tower.
The fear that ensured one’s continued survival.
But similarly, a newly born child would have every reason to fear the people around him, including its own parents, but eventually, a trust was built upon the experiences, and the fear faded away into the background until faith replaced it in one’s heart. The trust emerged from the belief that the person wouldn’t hurt them and hence fearing the person was irrational. Illogical even.
So could she put that trust on her other self? From her experiences? Of course not. Frost had risen within her, only to kill everyone within sight. It had transformed her from a skillful fighter to a hungry beast that only loved to devour lifeforce. It was what had gotten her captured by her grandfather, and what eventually killed her father. It was what had turned her into a fugitive and even after years of fashioning a new identity for herself, that Frost-self of her had ended up destroying an anomaly and dripping her with Sin. how could she not fear something that was responsible for so much wrong in her life?
She stared at her fingers, flexing her hand as she watched them extend and clench and suddenly, like a flicker of a faulty lamp, a stray thought came to her.
Did she fear her fingers or her hands that could accomplish so much?
Surely not. No sane person would fear her own limbs. But why? Because they were part of the body? Because they were completely under one’s control that they never found the need to fear them?
In the end, everything led to the fact that you didn’t feast on something that was an inherent part of you or it was something completely under your control. But a child couldn’t control its limbs completely before they could work, but did that mean kids possessed a rational fear towards its legs? Of course not. A part of you couldn’t hurt you, at least not without your consent.
Then why must she fear Everfrost? The power that flowed through her veins. The power that consumed the lifeforce of others and saved her life on multiple occasions. The power that manifested in the form of an avatar that lay silent in the darkest recesses of her mind. A power that was inherent and part of her, as much as she hated acknowledging the fact.
The fear was meaningless.
“I’m ready,” said Tanya finally.
“Excellent,” said Meynte, smiling wolfishly. “If it means anything to you, it took me several weeks for me to reach this mental state. The state where you felt invincible and believe you’ve completely accepted Everfrost. So let’s make haste. For by the time you finish your first lesson, that feeling of invincibility will dissipate into thin air.”
Several miles away in the heart of the labyrinth that was once the Crypt of Fiendish Worms, Lukas Aguilar watched the events unfold through Meynte’s eyes, as the shadow of the Empress led Tanya into facing her deepest fears, which included acknowledging her other half — Frost, someone she hated and despised beyond reason. While this would be quite tumultuous for his lover, the end result would nonetheless be what he had anticipated.
“You truly are a cruel person, Empress,” he said. “You’re playing upon the very fears that you put in her in the first place. You know perfectly well what lies in wait if she faces her other self, and yet you still lured her into it.”
Next to him, aqāru pooled and a humanoid figure arose, forming an identical copy of the Empress.
“I merely informed her of what she needed to know,” said Meynte, not showing the slightest sign of regret on her features. “It was her decision to partake in the perilous path to controlling Everfrost. If anything, blame yourself for putting her on this path.”
Lukas sighed. He would never understand he could see through the first Meynte’s vision and his own simultaneously, or how his mind could process such a thing, but he had given up figuring how psionic skills worked, and instead accepted them as a fact and moved on. Anomaly or not, there were some things that were simply too convoluted and bullshit for him to make sense.
Lukas gave her a slightly disapproving look. “Be as that may, even I find it distasteful to manipulate her like this.”
“You knew what you were asking when you asked me to train her, Soulcrafter. Tell me you have not forgotten the promise you made to me.”
I have two requests, Meynte had told him after he had captured her. Swear never to allow the End to take root within the girl’s body. And swear that you shall stand against Fimbulwinter, if it ever arrives, even if it costs you her life.
He had given her his word.
And he was going to keep it.
“The longer she fears Everfrost, the deeper it shall seep into her psyche,” said Meynte. “You yourself claimed that her other self has already attempted to hold her as ransom. How long before she completely takes over? The only way to keep her from falling is to wrest control from the Frost.”
“I’d have expected more restraint from someone like yourself.”
“Do not worry,” said Meynte. “Frost is no fool. She knows the girl is too valuable to waste just yet. It is much easier to let the girl fall under the delusion of invincibility. She will need it if she wants to survive the oncoming storm.”
Lukas leered at her as if attempting to decipher a puzzle before sighing again. “I suppose. But mark my words. I will not lose Tanya.”
He looked away, canceling the vision from the other Meynte’s eyes and focussed on his surroundings, at the massive aqāru pool gathered around him. As intense as Tanya’s training was going to be, it wasn’t the one he was troubled by at the moment.
“Soulcrafter… I can stop her from furthering along the path. It would be a mistake to do so, but I will, if you want.”
Lukas kept quiet. He couldn’t risk losing his cool now. Not when there was so much on the line. Inanna would never let him live it down when she found out.
The goddess had always stressed upon abandoning emotions while doing a job, lest they get in the way of everything, and for the most part, Lukas agreed with the lesson. It had been the same line of thinking that led Inanna to self-sacrifice. And as heart-touching as it was, it was the most prudent solution available to her.
While Lukas was not as adamant to throw away everything as she had, he had learned to shut himself down in inhumane situations. It came with hunting monsters and fighting beasts and armies, and walking through slaughtered corpses that he had put down personally.
What would Inanna do?
It was a question he frequently asked himself whenever he was in an emotionally trying situation like this. It was a state of mind that he greatly disliked utilizing for multiple reasons, primarily the fact that he was naturally not cruel or heartless. But it allowed him to come up with quick solutions to immediate problems that would get out of hand if left unaddressed.
The sicky irony given the situation was not lost on him.
“No…” he said at last. “As unfortunate as it is, sometimes friends must do distasteful things to one other in order to ensure their growth and survival in the future…”
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