Deep inside the heart of what was once the Crypt of Fiendish Worms, stood a vast chamber that was larger than most cathedrals on Earth. To a degree, it even resembled one. Lights played in soft colors on the walls, mostly shifting rosy hues. The floor was covered in aqāru running in exquisitely carved furrows to produce a pattern too sophisticated and perfect to be a mere coincidence. And all of that converged to form a sink, an enormous bone-white rock pedestal, its apex morphed into a majestic throne.
And sitting on it, as if born to it, was Lukas Aguilar.
“Magnificent,” said Meynte, observing the entire setup with a look of appraisal. “To think that an Anomaly could fashion something such as this. It reminds me of my Lair to a great extent.”
She glanced at the massive ritual circle beneath them. “And it was to fuse two anomalies into one, you say? Two wombs of Creation, merging. A survivor beneath a cursed Desert, and the remnants of a lost and forgotten world, creating a singular entity that is greater than the sum of its parts. Magnificent.”
Lukas smiled. What had started in the Anomaly back then had a major role in shaping what he had become, was becoming.
“Are you absolutely certain you wish to take this path, Soulcrafter? Distorting Reality is something even gods and emperors are wary of.”
Lukas glanced at her. “You are… unusually wary, Empress. Trust me, I have tried to account for everything I could since the last time.”
He had come a long way from that surprised guy with tunnel vision that didn’t think any further than the finish line. Sometimes it was a fight, at other times, a bargain with Inanna, or Solana, or just developing a particular skill. It was exactly the kind of shortsightedness that had led to him foolishly sacrificing himself which later led Inanna to do the same.
Meynte frowned. Empress or not, she knew very little about the craft the soulcrafter was attempting. But that didn’t mean she was completely ignorant of the nature of what might happen. Despite his impressive efforts and planning, the fact of the matter was that there was far too much that he was not aware of. Had these unknown factors been decreased by even a small margin, the odds of his success would’ve been comprehensible enough to be deemed safe but…
“Am I absolutely certain?” asked Lukas factually. “No. Not at all. But this avenue has the best shot of succeeding in the upcoming trials, and I cannot risk attempting it on the spot.”
One powder keg at a time.
“But —”
“I know you’re preparing Tanya for the role,” said Lukas. “But I cannot be the guy that puts all his hopes in a single basket. I have seen what happens otherwise.”
The moment he knew he had to kill Mujin, he was already preparing multiple plans for what would follow, both in the short and long term. He knew that Mujin would show up with an army — and in turn, give Lukas exactly what he needed to jump three levels to Level-39, where he’d be able to assimilate the entirety of Inanna’s gift, which would instantly put him in the league of every Warlord out there, and possibly a King or two. There was a difference between a Warlord that controlled a single element, and one that controlled motion itself.
It was a good plan. Maybe it would even work out that day.
But Lukas was more that guy who would put all his hopes in a single avenue.
He needed to play to his talents. And in this case, the talents lay in his nature as a World. And in the light of the given circumstances, nothing short of King-level power, or at least within the same zip code, would be enough. And the quickest way to gain that would be to absorb King-level creatures.
Arah, the natural born Ifrit King would be a good place to start.
Theoretically, that is. Like he had said to the Fire King, just getting within the creature’s vicinity risked getting vaporized and then some. And even if the Binding, or Siphoning in his case, was successful, he’d be immolated instantly because of the tremendous amount of Fire mana and Level-5 Fire skills taking over the Binder’s body. And Lukas Aguilar, World-Incarnate, was not immune to that.
No, a better alternative was needed. A way to harness the creature’s power without actually doing it himself. As the saying went — the best way to fight a war was to make someone else fight it.
Blob was arguably a good development on that front. A puppet that moved at his will, answering to his thoughts rather than his commands. While that worked for most creatures, it wouldn’t work in case of a kami, owing to their lack of soul capacity. He’d need to create a synthetic prototype, a body capable of storing soul capacity within itself, with a physiological constitution compatible with the spirit’s element.
A featherglass core and his endless soul capacity would take care of the former. Aqāru was more than capable of the latter. Perhaps a skeletal framework crafted using Carquane, just to facilitate better conduction of the stored energy into every body part?
It would still be connected to him, but only on a technical level. For all intents and purposes, it would be an independent organism.
Sapient. Conscious of its own existence.
The only real snag was his lack of a Creation skill of that level. Metaforging was great, but it was barely enough to create basic substances and elemental weapons. He could bypass some of those limitations using Level-3 Alteration to create featherglass and carquane from other substances, but aqāru… aqāru was a deal-breaker. Unlike the other materials, aqāru was spiritually potent, and required a level of alchemy that was beyond his current ability, and unless he pushed his Metaforgery to Level-3 and beyond, he doubted he’d make any progress on that front.
As he said, not something he could prepare for the upcoming fight.
Hence… this.
“Aqāru Boundary. Hundred feet radius. Expansion.”
Unlike every other time he spoke, his words were amplified, power lining his voice as his command took effect, doing exactly as said and created a territory of sentient metal around him in all directions, traveling through the pre-crafted furrows, the pool of metal following his thoughts and criss crossing each other until he sat in the center of a massive pentacle inscribed within a massive circle. The more he studied and experimented with the knowledge he had gotten from Inanna, the more he was convinced that the Asukans had a very superficial understanding of the ritual craft they employed for the Shikigami ritual. The pentacle was an impressively complex and intricate system that could theoretically make effective use of diversified and unpredictable variables at any time.
Unfortunately, the average mortal was incapable of harnessing its true potential. The best the Asukans had come up with was to channel Eternal Light, maintained by their faith in the goddess Amaterasu, to employ a ‘brute-force’ method to bind a spiritual creature inside. From his quick study of the broken remains of the Well at Zwaray Keep, he had determined that even the svartalfars used this ritual, only utilizing their runecraft instead of Eternal Light, to puncture through the rift, and expand it, allowing people to travel into the borderland on the other side. It was crude when he put it like that, but when the closest alternative were astronomical events like the Black Moon where the barriers between the real world and the Haze were at their weakest, it might as well be considered a landmark in itself.
But unlike the svartalfars or the Asukans, Lukas wasn’t so limited.
“Initiate Puppeteer Protocol. Five puppets on stand-by. Rapid-Install Prime Host prototype.”
Following through, five doppelgangers of himself popped out of the aqāru at the vertices of the pentacle. The liquid metal even had the equivalent of trousers and shirt on, adding uneven textures to their metallic bodies.
Dizziness hit him like a tidal wave. Having ‘six’ of him all at once hextupled the sensory output he was receiving. Neural Suppression came to his benefit, and he quickly silenced the data influx. He just needed the doppelgangers to do one job, and do it perfectly, without forwarding all the extra sensory load to him.
“Access Ley-Line Network. Augment mana production. Independent assortment, Magnify output.”
Power surged out of him, flooding through the aqāru into the ritual around him, and into his doppelgangers.
“FIRE.”
Flame creation and manipulation, both Level-3 skills that belonged to the bylestyr, rose to the forefront, as one of the doppelgangers erupted into flame. Within seconds, the entire chamber was alight with crimson as waves of light and heat emanated out of the doppelganger.
“WATER.”
Water Creation and Manipulation, collected from the kami Shahxith that had once been Olfric’s, as well as other kami he had collected from the Haze, activated in the doppelganger on the other extreme end.
Wind, Earth and Ether followed. Within the next minute, the five doppelgangers standing at the five vertices had become anthropomorphic manifestations of the elements themselves.
Fire. Wind. Water. Earth. Ether.
Exactly in that order.
With aqāru being an effective mana conductor and dispenser, he could theoretically map out a ritual pentacle on any scale. The only real problem would be to power it properly, and drawing from a ley line using Capacitance, was likely to kill him first. He had used Blob to draw power at the Peak, and used the near-mindless instincts of the Dranzithl, carefully hiding his own mind from being exposed to that raw power, and even that had sent him reeling.
Luckily, Carquane provided a solution to that problem.
It was time to begin.
Unlike anything he had done before, any single or combination of skills would not get this done. He would need to perform a specific spell. Inanna had told him that unlike skills, Spells required the caster to hold a specific mindset and attributes to cast it, and since much of it took place in the caster’s mind, it was always safe to tie the spell to a name or an aria sequence. The other option was to tie the process to a particular item, say, a weapon or relic of some kind, or an ornament, like the pendant he was wearing, but Inanna had never gotten around to explaining how that bit was done.
He was attempting to manifest his inner-world within his established territory. Theoretically, it was no different than applying the LIVING ANOMALY function within an established boundary radius, except that he was also manifesting his inner-reality at the same time.
“Territory Creation Set. ”
Every single drop of aqāru shivered at his words, making the air hum with a chorus of metal from every direction.
Ancient hermeticism had a saying — As above, so below, referring to how the macrocosm and the microcosm had structural similarities. Basically, make something happen on a small scale, then give it the energy to happen on a large scale. If he understood it right, the pentacle matrix could be used as an amplification tool for whatever he was trying to do, so long as it was within the rules of the world, be it enacting a massive spell upon the world or…
…Or affecting Reality itself.
The FIRE doppelganger erupted violently, the flames reaching as high as the ceiling. On the other extreme end, the WATER variant had a massive form resembling a jellyfish entwining around him. A fierce gale swept through the chamber, but the pentacle remained unaffected. Carqaune began forming out of the EARTH variant’s form, who looked eerily similar to a svartalfar at this point — Alteration in effect, connecting it to Lukas. The carquane then segmented as it approached him, forming line segments, connecting him further to the other four doppelgangers. The crystal pierced the doppelgangers, creating a core where the heart was supposed to be.
Power flowed in. Far more power than aqāru was capable of.
“Soulcrafter, mana alone will not fuel what you want. You’re forgetting —”
The rest of her words died down, as Meynte’s attention was suddenly diverted by a soft clattering sound. A piece of jagged rock had fallen down to the ground. She looked down, and found it was still shaking. Within seconds, the intensity of the vibrations grew to the point that the fallen shard of rock shattered, and several more were beginning to fall from above. Nothing that could remotely harm either of them, but definitely odd.
Lukas spoke again.
“Deny Foreign Truth. ”
The rattling and the sounds magnified in size and were joined by a violent rattling of wind that had little to do with the controlled gale within the ritual circle. And that sound was joined by a discordant hum that came from everywhere and nowhere and slowly increased in volume, as if it were the herald of a terrible something.
“Soulcrafter,” Meynte warned, anxiety rising in her tone. “End this. End this now.”
But Lukas didn’t. He had noticed, but it was as if he couldn’t stop now, not even if he tried.
Power danced, forming strange and almost erratic patterns, Kinetomancy manipulating the elements, as rules of a world that was so similar yet so very different began to slide in, substituting Reality itself within the established ritual circle. A world that was the remains of a Lostbelt, one that had perished and yet reborn within himself.
Everything around him was disappearing, and a sea of purplish mist was enveloping the entire radius. There was no light, no life, no conflict, no nothing….
Just erected crystal mounds on an endless terrain, with everything within it lying in patient, eternal wait.
Forgotten.
His lips widened into a half-formed smile.
“Est—”
“NO—STOP!” Meynte yelled, sensing something terribly wrong was about to happen. Unfortunately, it was a little—
“—ablish Living Anomaly —”
— Too late.
THRUMM!
The resounding hum shook the entire chamber. A second of calmness followed, the calmness before the storm. What came next wasn’t an explosion, not really. There was no light, or sound, or force. Rather, a mad outpouring of something tore through the chamber, not as a single shockwave but a thousand slow streams, riveting and flowing in every direction, targeting everything in its vicinity.
What followed was not a battle. It was not even a massacre. Both of those terms implied the possibility of there being more than one possible outcome, and the moment the world around the Circle lashed out in its fury, there was only one way things could end.
It was not an attack. It was an act of an Almighty being.
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The wrath of the World itself.
The wave from everywhere rolled forth like a tsunami, a wave of emptiness that devoured the dim lighting within the chamber, and everything, including Lukas himself was engulfed. Meynte’s consciousness jumped from one drop of aqāru to another, growing increasingly desperate as the entire thing was consumed, its protocols and sentience ripped apart to shreds.
The soulcrafter had plans. Defenses. Traps. Protections enhanced by Meynte’s own suggestions.
They were blown away like cobwebs in a hurricane.
Meynte screamed. Silently, in her mind, or only what remained of her mind as the flood of erasure followed her trail, flowing down every single drop and bubble of the sentient metal, killing every single thing that contained even a trace of the soulcrafter’s inner-world from the liquid metal all around them, a defilement stabbed into the very core of the essence that was Lukas Aguilar.
And then the familiar Schema popped into existence.
Error Detected
No Vital Signs found for Anomaly Body
Soul Prototypes cannot be utilized.
Troubleshooting…
Host Prototype Exists. Anomaly Body does not Exist.
Incompatible.
Attempting failsafe protocols using LIVING ANOMALY….
Meynte wanted to laugh. Of course. Living Anomaly! What a truly lopsided function! An utterly selfish thing that ignored everything but its own laws.
Even the complete annihilation of its body and accessories.
Was there any doubt that the soulcrafter was what he was?
Initiating reconstruction of Anomaly Body based on Prime Host’s configuration…
In that darkness, something began to reforge itself. Back into existence. There was not enough of Meynte left to feel it, as she slipped away, her mind erased long before any lingering sensory input finally stopped, and vanished into an eternal darkness. The only thing she remembered thinking was that truly, the soulcrafter was a monster unlike anything she had seen in her long life.
Several hours later, Lukas Aguilar — or an instance of him anyway, not that it made a difference anymore — stumbled towards his chambers, with one hand holding his throbbing head in a vice grip while another hand was blindly grasping the thin air for any support. He should never have attempted something that crazy so quickly without considering the other factors. Meynte had warned him against the effects of bifurcating, or in this case, hexafurcating his mind, but as always, he had let his curiosity and need to experiment free rein.
Reckless or not, the experiment had borne fruit. He wouldn’t be exaggerating if he said that what he had gleaned more from this one insane attempt could equate to his entire itinerant through the Haze.
“Obviously,” said Meynte sourly. “Expect you to put manifesting your inner-world upon Reality on the same level as territory-creation.”
I just imagined it was simply a function of power influx, area, and mental control.
“NO.”
Lukas winced. “Then —”
“Why let you do it? Because you have a habit of making unreasonable demands. Do not forget Soulcrafter, I was an Empress in life. I am well used to listening to requests that would curdle milk.”
He frowned. The theory was that all energy-crafting, whether it be lifeforce, mana or anomalous — was reality altering as it could produce matter out of nowhere, create mana in all forms, and achieve all sorts of enchantments. A skilled user could latch on to the spiritual and symbological attributes of the elements to manifest all sorts of wondrous abilities, whether it be applying the principles of Contagion to water and using it to connect to someone far away across geographical boundaries, to employing the symbological attributes of Earth to fortify oneself and another in all sorts of ways. Rifting could transport people through the fabric of space and offensive spellfire could shift landscapes themselves. A skilled terramancer could transmute objects, alter gravity and friction, while a talented pyromancer could flare the emotions of every single person within their vicinity.
“True, but you forgot one simple fact.”
This isn’t my world.
He had been so caught up in learning and experimenting with the powers he had been given, courtesy of Inanna and the Omphalos shard within him, that he had failed to take into account that this wasn’t his home planet. As wondrous as it might appear, lifeforce, mana, or anomalous energy — all of it was part and parcel of this world, and thus, existed within the framework of its rules.
Its Truths.
But Reality Distortion? That was man playing God.
Not small g. Capital. For even gods would think twice before attempting to alter Reality itself. The art of Reality Distortion was far, far, too far to comprehend than what he had envisioned in his mind. It was like playing with the space-time continuum on his palms. After all, even time was nothing but an illusion — a thread in the meshwork of Reality that could be unwoven or rewoven in all sorts of ways if one just knew how.
In the face of Reality Distortion, facts were baseless, truth was meaningless, events were timeless and Reality was powerless.
In the words of Vespasiian, the Roman Emperor, ‘Vae, puto deus fio’.
Dear me, I think I am becoming a God.
And that was what Lukas had just attempted. And the moment he had attempted to distort Reality by bringing his Inner-world — bring the Plains of Forget to exist outside his body, to ship it over the Greater Reality by brute-forcing his way using raw power, he had severely underestimated the World’s reaction to it.
For some reason, he had this weird feeling that this was Reality just chiding him, like a parent admonishing a silly but innocent child over some wrong-doing. He didn’t know why, but he sort of knew that the next time he tried to pull this off, Reality would be far-less accommodating.
Still, it was better he knew of that. It wasn’t something to take comfort from but fear of the expected was always better than fear of the unexpected. He knew now that his activation ritual had failed the moment he tried to bring the Plains of Forget into the greater Reality, so there must be some kind of threshold he was yet to cross.
But the same could be said about Wells. Yes, one could argue that the Rift existed naturally, and all the Well did was tear it open further at the expense of energy, but that didn’t undermine the fact that the Wells employed the world’s energy against the world to tear the Rift open, albeit for a small amount of time.
But so had he. After all, anomalous energy was no different from the natural energy of this World, even if it came from….
His stomach sank.
Again. This world was so similar to his that he sometimes forgot something fundamentally important: he was from beyond this Creation’s boundaries. The rules he played under were different from the ones everyone else around him did. Even if some things seemed to have changed in a minor fashion, like the ability to use lifeforce or mana, it was ridiculously easy to just assume that Earth too had similar stuff going on before it was rendered a Lostbelt by circumstances unknown.
And then this world threw some pretty profound curveballs to chuck at him.
Like the very idea that energy would be different too had just never occurred to him.
It took him a second to recover from that sudden realization at such a huge fundamental difference there was between Earth and this one. He had almost forgotten that the lifeforce and mana he used was actually produced within his body. And the only time he had drawn energy from the outside world, it had been added to his Omphalos Reserves or…
….Or directly used against the world itself.
Like in the borderland, or when he had opened a rift to the Haze.
“Not really,” Meynte pointed out. “Remember what you did in the fortress.”
…She had a point. He had used the energy from the wardstones to amplify the Dranzithl’s attack. Crippling as the attempt had been, he had thought he had been adversely affected because of channeling energy way more than his body and mind could take in. But what if…
What if that crippling sensation had been less because of the energy density, and more to do with the fact that the energy itself was foreign to his body and had been poisoning him? Was that why his experiment had failed, because he had been powering it with his own reserves — anomalous or otherwise, that was fundamentally different to this world’s energy?
It was a valid argument, and the only way to prove or disprove it was through more experimentation. If it held true, then the only successful way to conduct it would be to repeat the experiment on top of a ley line, with carquane wardstones digging into it. Theoretically, it had a larger chance of success, but on the battlefield, not very practical.
Not when you were facing an Aeromancer warlord that could simply nuke the living shit out of you from above.
“And Carquane crystals aren’t inconspicuous.”
And time-consuming to make, Lukas mused. And time was currently against him.
But all that caution and fear meant nothing as right now, Lukas was feeling as though his head might split open at any moment, and his brain would leak out as squishy juice. Oh, god. That image itself gave him another migraine.
Staggering into his room, Lukas steadied himself to not appear as though he was mindlessly drunk and taking a huge gulp of air, he trudged forward and —
…froze.
Tanya was sitting in his room. Tanya, who seemed to always have an expression on her face — angry, sad, petulant, mischievous or otherwise — looked like she had been slapped. Her face was drained of color and she looked genuinely startled. The last time he had seen her like that was….
— when he had mentioned the possibility of Tsurara being her mother.
Lukas immediately knew that something was wrong.
Tanya always — always — carried some kind of expression on her face. Once you got past her tough as nails exterior — no minor feat, she would become the type to wear her heart on her sleeve, you only needed to glance at her to tell what she was feeling. And over the time he had spent with her, he had thought he had seen it all. He had seen her laugh in pure happiness, smirk mischievously as she pranked him. He had seen her moan in bliss after an eventful lovemaking, and seen the glimmer of an inhuman, predatory grin on her lips when presented with the opportunity to shed some blood. He loved the woman to bits, but knew perfectly well that she had issues. And then there were those moments when she revealed her vulnerability — something she showed to no one else but him.
But before this day, Lukas had never seen her look this… scared.
Not since her disastrous episode with Meynte.
Ignoring the Empress huffing in his mind, he rushed towards her, his own headache forgotten. Tanya just stared blankly up at him, her face so devoid of feeling that it was startling. It was a face that was so unlike her, that he could scarcely recognize her. Blank, so stripped of emotion, so… empty that I scarcely recognized her. It frightened him.
What the hell was going on?
“Tan — Tanya! What’s wrong?”
It wasn’t until a few seconds later that some color returned to her cheeks and she dragged her eyes away from him.
“...What’s the real reason you asked the Empress to train me, Lukas?”
“Tan—”
“Do not lie to me, Lukas!” she barked out harshly, her voice unusually loud in the silent room. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Neither am I blind. And let me tell you this, Lukas Aguilar, you aren’t very good at hiding things from me. Or even hiding the fact that you’re hiding something.”
“What could I be hiding?” He asked defensively.
“Well, that proves it,” she said, her voice slightly lowered. “Usually you do one of two things when confronted with hiding something, you deflect it with a question or you get defensive. You just did both.”
Lukas flinched and looked away. Part of him was terrified at the notion of being so predictable. As a lawyer, giving away one’s inner thoughts through body language was an absolute sin. That went double for him because he also had to play the role of a cocky, powerful player. That Tanya understood him so well both sent a tinge of pleasure down his spine while also ringing alarms in his head.
It didn’t help that she didn’t ask anything further, and just looked at him patiently.
Finally, he sighed. “I just want you to —”
“Master Everfrost,” Tanya finished for him. “Before it takes over.”
Lukas looked at her sharply.
“Please,” said Tanya. “I’m not a fool. It wasn’t an entirely difficult leap of logic. You’ve been scarily focussed on having me master Everfrost ever since all of this began. And I don’t know what kind of fucked-up deal you have with Solana, but even she’s been nice to me since you jumped into the Haze. I don’t know what you promised her, but she’s practically giddy.”
Damn it.
“And if not for that, there’s this look you keep giving me since you returned. Like you see me, and you feel… sad, or guilty. So, spill.”
Lukas stared at her sullenly, a little annoyed at how easily she had read him.
“I want you to control Everfrost before it takes control over you.”
“But,” Tanya looked at him, confused. “It shouldn’t! Your goddess sealed it away. You told me—”
“That was before Meynte and everything happened. She brought forth way more than you could have. You can’t do that without weakening the spell.”
“A goddess cast the spell.” Tanya sputtered. “Meynte was a memory.”
“A memory of an Empress that wielded a Taboo. Not an ordinary skill but a Taboo. The same taboo that you also wield. You are her descendant, you’re both yuki-onna… when she possessed you and did those actions…”
“You’re talking about spiritual resonance, aren’t you?” Tanya picked up quickly. “You mentioned that before.”
Lukas knew that even Meynte was paying close attention now.
He nodded. “Spiritual resonance between two beings so spiritually similar, sharing a deep connection with a Taboo. Plus, it doesn’t help that Inanna is no more, and I’ve depleted nearly the entirety of her divinity within me.”
“Lukas,” she said, meeting his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Lukas closed his eyes. “After the Empress possessed you, the seal on Everfrost loosened. Frost can take over you if she really wants to, and you won’t even notice it.”
Tanya stilled. It was like watching a cornered animal, preparing for a last-ditch attempt at flight.
“And how do you know that?”
Lukas felt his throat go dry. He had no idea how Tanya was going to react to what he was about to tell her.
“Because she’s taken over twice so far, without you knowing any better.”
Tanya stayed quiet. Unmoving. Without the slightest change in reaction.
“...You already knew,” he realized.
“I cannot control Everfrost without coming to terms with my other self,” she said softly. “She told me… everything.”
Of course she did! Lukas thought spitefully. He knew that what had transpired between himself and Frost could have debilitating effects on his relationship with Tanya. And now Frost had gone ahead and done just that.
He exhaled. “Tanya, the truth is Frost always had a far higher control over you than you realized. Yes, you were in control of your senses, but she was always there, listening to what you hear, seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. She was there, in the borderland, listening to every single thing I told you about myself, about being an anomaly, about Inanna. And after the Empress unleashed her, she’s been able to take over, whether you want it or not.”
Tanya stared at him dully. “You knew all this… and you didn’t tell me?”
Lukas flushed at her stare. What was he going to say? That he had slept with her alter ego? That he had plotted with her behind her back, even though it was all done to protect her?
“When you sat on Meynte’s throne and she took over, I tried to save you. I don’t know how or why, but I got pulled inside your mindscape, and encountered Frost inside. She… she told me things. About herself. About Fimbulwinter. About Meynte. Things that helped me outsmart her.”
He could feel Meynte’s gaze drilling at him from inside his mind.
“You’re telling me that Frost… my other self, helped you?”
“It’d hardly be the first time. You told me she helped you secure Ezzeron, did she not? Frost isn’t an alternate entity. She’s a form of you, a branch of your consciousness corrupted by the Taboo you wield. Every yuki-onna, starting from Meynte himself, has had his or her consciousness fragmented, creating a similar persona. That’s what Frost is. Not nice, but not your enemy either.”
“Laying a little too thick on the compliments, Outsider,” said Tanya’s mouth, but the tone that came was too teasing to be hers. Tanya’s entire body froze, and her eyes widened, before a wave of wintry plume exuded out of her, transforming her hair into cadaverous white, and her lips into the color of fresh, purple grapes. The only clue that she was still in control was the panicky expression on her features. And the tightening of her throat.
“You aren’t supposed to come forth unless I call for you,” said Lukas, his voice tightened. It was one thing to work with her, another to discover that she could freely skirt around their bargain with such ease.
“This seemed… neater, darling,” said her mouth again. “Seeing you try so hard to get the weakling to accept me felt so… stirring.”
“She…” Tanya choked out. “She’s taking over! She’s….”
“Sshhh….” spoke her mouth. “You forget, little girl. I’m your other half. The instincts you suppress. The power you deny yourself. We are two halves of the same coin, but that coin is weighted, and one side will always turn up more than the other. Now stop fighting me, and let me help you.”
“Frost, if you—” Lukas began.
“Oh, darling,” spoke Tanya’s mouth. “Your care for this weakling is so alluring. Almost enough to want me to seize control. But no matter, no matter. Right now, all I wish is to facilitate your goals.”
“She’s lying,” Meynte warned.
“Any reason behind this magnanimity?” Lukas pressed, all but ignoring the Empress’s words.
“I promised you, remember?” said Frost beatifically. “I will not hamper the weakling’s attempts to control this power. Especially now that you are moving ahead in the Asukan world.”
Lukas felt a shudder run down his spine. “This… this is about the two favors I owe you.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a confirmation.
“Yes,” said Frost. “Your little demonstration with the Fire King showed a lot of potential, Outsider. Deal with your Warlord first, and then, we negotiate.”
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