“No!” Saleh screamed, reaching toward the glass vial as it somersaulted through the air as if in slow motion.

Nathan tracked it with his eyes, the pain in his gut forgotten. All that mattered in the moment was that tiny glass vial. His hands were weak with fatigue, the light edging out at the corners of his vision. Then it dropped right into his palm.

Nathan’s fingers closed around it, a glorious fuck you smile coming across his face, and drank the potion in one smooth motion. It was like drinking sweet syrup. It trickled down his throat, bringing a comforting warmth with it. He could feel the wound within his chest already starting to knit itself back together.

Thank god that was a healing potion, Nathan chuckled to himself. Luckily the redness of healing potions seemed to be a fact that transcended all words and lifetimes.

The assassin smacked his lips loudly, dropping the vial to the ground. It shattered to bits on the tile.

“Cranberry juice tastes a bit different in this world,” Nathan said, smiling as Saleh looked with horror back and forth between the two assassins before him, and his right arm. His right hand was currently flipping himself off. “But I think I rather like it. What do you think, Cleo?”

“You drank it all.” Cleo was getting up from the ground, hand on the side of her head as if she were fighting off a headache. “Remember?”

“Ah, yes, I did,” Nathan chuckled. “You would have loved it.”

“I’m sure.”

“You should be dead!” Saleh yelled as he staggered back. “I said, Di–” he didn’t get to finish the word as his right hand punched himself in the gut.

“And I’m telling you to shut up,” Cleo growled, stalking toward Saleh as he doubled over in pain. She grasped the back of his head by his white hair and yanked upward so they were looking eye to eye. “I don’t know what you want here, and I no longer care.”

“I thought your ability ran out long ago,” Saleh breathed, panic edging into his voice.

“And you were a fool to believe me,” Cleo said. Her expression didn’t flicker. “So now you die.”

Saleh started to speak, but his own hand gagged him, shoving its four fingers into his mouth. It was an odd sight seeing the man do it all to himself. Cleo pressed her blade up against the man’s throat, but before she could drag it across, Nathan spoke up.

“Wait, Cleo.”

She turned to him, furious at being interrupted. “What?” she spat.

“Let me do it,” Nathan drew his own dagger, its edges lighting up with emerald fire as it hissed from its scabbard. “He might make an interesting Echo.”

Cleo looked annoyed that she wouldn’t be the one to kill Saleh, but she stepped back, releasing the man’s head. Saleh’s own fingers still gagged him, drops of wet starting to form at the corners of his eyes. It was the first time Nathan had seen fear on his face. The fear shifted to fury.

With a muffled roar, Saleh bit down on his own fingers. A spray of crimson blood and severed skin and bone was flung into the air, spat from Saleh’s mouth.

There was a brief moment of stunned stillness as Cleo and Nathan were agape at what the man had done. Dribbles of blood spilled down his lips.

“He’s insa–” Cleo started.

“Leave!” Saleh bellowed, his voice cracking and tearing. Like he’d spent the last three days screaming it raw.

The pale man doubled over hacking and coughing as Cleo and Nathan started to walk steadily back toward the exit. Nathan tried to fight it but he was already so spent from resisting the command to die and could do nothing but obey.

“Close the door,” Saleh said, as he coughed again. He looked almost sickly, his skin slick with a sheen of sweat, eyes red and puffy, blood leaked from his hand. His one good hand reached back into his pocket, and Nathan saw him pull out another red vial.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

But the two assassins did as told. Cleo’s trembling hand wrapped around the handle and wrenched it closed, cutting them off from Saleh.

Nathan leaned against the door. No matter how hard he tried he was unable to physically make his body open the door again. He could raise his hand to it, he could place it on the handle, but he couldn’t open the door. His mind just refused him.

“What fucking now?” Nathan growled through a clenched jaw.

“What do you think?” Cleo had pulled out her dagger and was pressing it into the skin on her forearm. “We get back in there and kill him for good.”

“What are you doing?” Nathan asked, watching as Cleo’s blade penetrated her skin and a small drop of blood appeared.

“Seeing if pain can force my mind to get over his command.”

“Is it working?” he asked.

Cleo grabbed the door handle and tried to push, but the door remained firmly closed as if it were welded shut. “No,” she said with a defeated sigh.

They could hear muffled noises coming from the other side of the door, but it was too difficult to make any clear words. It had only been about fifteen seconds, but it felt like an eternity. There was no guessing what Saleh could be doing in there. He’d better not be taking the dungeon rewards.

“I’ll be right back,” Nathan suddenly said.

“What?” Cleo said, surprised. “Where are you going?”

“Within.”

Nathan plunged into his mind, seeing the rush of colors and twisting lines of threads as they shot past him. He looked around the black expanse, not sure quite what he was searching for. Something that looked like a command.

It was hard to find anything in this strange place. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Every thread looked the same, just varying in their thickness or color or intensity.

But he could feel the pressure of them. And that would have to be enough.

Nathan started by looking at all of the threads that lead into him. He’d only been in this place a couple of times, but he knew what was supposed to be there and wasn’t. Or, at least, what was new since the last time he’d seen them.

There was a faint, glowing red line that followed beside the massive one in his chest. He touched it, feeling its pressure. Not it.

There was a coiled, teal one that wound its way throughout his body. As well as a black and green one. It was difficult to tell where either started or ended. Neither of them were what he was looking for.

But then he found another. Two more, actually. Both nearly hidden, intertwined together and leading to the same distant point. They glowed with a soft white light. Like new fallen snow in the morning.

He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the two and instantly knew, these were what he was looking for.

With a snap, the threads were severed.

Nathan was thrown out of the space within him with a gasping breath. He fell to the side, but steadied himself with a hand against the door. The familiar wave of nausea crashed over his mind and he nearly hurled.

Blood pounded in his brain for several moments, but then quickly subsided. Cleo was staring directly at him. Did she look worried? For him?

“What was that?” she asked. “It looked like you were sleepwalking or something.”

“I might explain it to you later,” Nathan said, stepping up to the door and grasping the handle. “Not that I really understand it myself. But it doesn’t matter now.”

He looked back at Cleo, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “Right now,” he said. “We have a person to kill.”

The confusion melted from Cleo’s face, replaced with a chilling excitement. “Let’s kill this bastard,” she said.

Nathan pushed open the door, and it glided smoothly across the stone once more. Whatever mental block had been present in his mind was as if it had never been. Whatever it is I can do with those threads, he thought, I don’t think it is normal.

Saleh was crouched down before the statue. He spun open hearing the soft sliding of the door, eyes wide, hand no longer oozing blood.

Hopefully that was his last healing potion.

“It wore off already?” Saleh said, turning and rising to his feet. “You’re more troublesome than I thought. Your friend appears to still be having some difficulty.”

Nathan glanced over his shoulder. Cleo was standing right at the edge of the doorway, glaring daggers toward Saleh, but not entering the room. Despite the door being open, the earlier leave command appeared to still be in effect. Cleo was contained outside of the room.

“Looks like it is just you and me.” Saleh smiled, his white teeth glinting yellow in the torchlight.

“I’ve never known a man that smiled at the thought of being trapped in a room with me.” Nathan rolled his shoulders back, twirling his dagger in one hand, the emerald flames burning an arc in the air. “I will show you why.”

“Kneel.”

Nathan began to slowly drop to one knee. Despite his big talk, he was by no means fully recovered. Resisting the commands was not something he could do right now. But he didn’t have to resist them. He just needed to cut them.

He plunged into the place of threads once more, finding and severing the command’s glistening white thread. He stopped kneeling before his knee even hit the ground. All in all, it had taken him a little over two seconds to cease the command.

Saleh’s eyes widened. “H-how?” he stammered.

Nathan stood back up to his full height, holding his green-flamed blade in one hand. “And you’re wrong, Saleh,” Nathan said. “It’s not just you and I in here.”

A ghostly howl filled the room. The flame-wreathed form of the final Lunar Lynx stepped out from behind Nathan, materializing from his fire, its emerald claws clacking upon the ground.