“You came.”

The twinned voices startled Cayden out of a trance he hadn't even been aware of. How long had he been staring at his own reflection, watching those blue eyes, flecked through with white? His memory was fuzzy, out of focus. He'd been in the Throne of Tabbris, stepped through the portal, and then…

“I did.” He replied, surprised at the nervousness in his own voice.

He couldn't see her, and the unnatural echo of the place made finding the source of his own voice impossible, let alone hers. But he knew she was there, a step behind, with her back to his. He need only turn his head an inch to see her, lean back on his heels to touch her, but Cayden knew he would do neither of those things.

It was a surreal sensation, the closest thing to an out-of-body experience had ever, or hoped to ever experience. He should have been able to see hints of her in the mirror, in the reflection of reflections that surrounded all sides of the dimly lit limbo.

They probably weren't reflections at all, he realized. Some magical distortion made to mimic a true mirror, perhaps, or they were indeed mirrors, but his perception of what he saw was being subtly altered. Neither was a comfortable thought and yet he didn't feel the same sort of dread he might have expected at the realization.

As wrong as this place was, there was something soothing about it, and about the two voices that teased him as they replied. “Took you long enough.”

“You aren't an easy person to find.” He replied with a shrug that was far more nonchalant than he felt.

“I'm not a person at all. At least...”

“Not really,” Cayden said the words in unison, without even meaning to, a sense of dread clutching at his heart. Where had heard those words before?

An uncomfortable stillness settled between the two of them, and yet every time he opened his mouth to speak, the words caught in his throat. Questions, thoughts, requests, all of them lay stillborn on his tongue as if breaking the tranquility of this place was a violation of natural law itself.

He had lost track of all sense of time when she finally spoke once again. “Why have you come?”

“Because I promised you I would.”

“Why did you promise?” She pressed a sudden edge to her voices.

Cayden was prepared for the question, but he still lacked an answer. He had wondered the same thing in the weeks since his first surreal experience in this place. Was his reasoning really something so shallow as he'd joked? Eager to save the damsel in distress? If not that, then what? She was a stranger to him, not even a person, by her own admission. What did he owe her?

He'd given plenty of good reasons to his comrades why they should delve into the throne in search of her, but in the quiet reflection of this moment, he saw how comically flimsy those motivations had been. They were here because he wanted to find her, but why? Was it something as simple as a compulsion, a force of magic that drew him inexorably here?

His nights had been filled with dreams of this place, and even with all that was happening, he'd thought of it more often than he'd liked to admit. Why?

“You seemed like you needed help,” Cayden said, at last, unsure of how long he'd spent inside his head in search of the answer. “And that I was the only one who could.”

“Funny.” She said softly. “I'm supposed to be the one to help you.”

Another sense of quiet overwhelmed the pair in the wake of that admission. Cayden could hear his heart, the dull pulse of it slowing as the stress of the moment ebbed and flowed.

For all of his nervousness, the peace of this place felt absolute. Like a perfect dream, one where nothing could harm him, where there were no needs or concerns. He could think for an eon here and never feel a pang of concern for himself. Surreal was simultaneously too strong and too weak a word, for, despite the unnatural quirks of the place, there was still a realness to it, and to the woman so close behind him.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I missed your name, last time.”

“Cheriss.”

The name struck something in him, the twined tones of her voice spinning it into a thing of elegant beauty. For a moment his vision blurred, clearing only as he felt the trickle of a single warm tear roll down his cheek, one that he didn't dare wipe away, as though moving might break the spell of this place, and leave him to begin the search all over.

“Cayden.” He said, at last, swallowing hard.

“I already knew that.” The girl said with a giggle that finally broke some of the tension between them.

His shoulders sagged as a fog cleared from his mind. It felt like he'd finally gotten sleep after being awake for days, tension draining from every pore as his eyes flicked to his own reflection. She was there now, just behind him. A bun of tightly ordered hair, hair so white that it glowed, peeked just over his right shoulder, while a slender hand was almost, but not completely hidden by his own.

The more he looked, the more he saw. A glimpse of armor here, or shining skin there. He hadn't missed her before, she hadn't been there, or he couldn't see her. She looked exactly as he'd remembered her, a creature that fully lived up to her given name as The White Knight, a beauty so bright she was hard to look at, one that felt as though she had an almost Disney-esque purity to her.

“Is this fate then?” Cayden asked.

“Hmm? Because of your name?” She laughed again, sing-song voices intertwined. “No. When you first arrived, I was told your character name.”

This time it was his turn to laugh. Of course, the Developer could tell her that much.

“Dumb question.” He admitted, his head turning half an inch. It was too soon to look at her, he knew, but the impulse was there now, like a child wanting to take a peek at a present. “I have others, though.”

“Dumb questions?” She inquired.

“You'll have to tell me.” He retorted, pushing through her obvious bait. “What are you? Are you an Elan?”

“No,” Cheriss replied, a few strands of her white hair bouncing this way and that in the reflection. “I'm not a human either before you ask.”

“Then what?”

“A Legend.” She explained. “Your guardian, your ally, your... partner.”

That last was enough to make Cayden happy for the unusual nature of their conversation. Better to hide the blush. “You mean you'll fight alongside me?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Define 'among other things', please.” Cayden urged. “This is all strange enough without me getting the wrong idea.”

He couldn't see her smirk, but he could absolutely hear it in her reply. “What makes you think you have the wrong idea?”

“I didn't mean-” Cayden stammered.

“Don't worry Cayden, it is nothing like that.” She explained. “Though you are lucky you got the pretty knight as your Legend.” Cheriss teased. “There is one of us for each pairing of Goetic and Thronic houses. If you'd selected Barbatos, I'd be taller than you, have four arms, a snake tail, and a goat head.”

“I have no idea if you are being serious right now.”

“Deadly serious Cayden.” The woman replied in a tone that suggested she was anything but, her voices dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I never joke about people with goat heads.”

“I'm sure.” Cayden snorted. The more they spoke, the less dreamlike this place seemed to become.

He no longer had to struggle for words, or even for thoughts. What had felt like two distant friends exchanging instant messages, waiting heart in hand for the other's reply, had become a rapid-fire conversation as the world coalesced about them.

As the moment passed, Cheriss returned to his question. “I can add my strength to yours to make you more powerful, and together we have access to abilities unmatched by any one person alone.”

“Do you want to help me?”

“I'm a Legend, Cayden.” She said gently. “What I want-”

“Matters a great deal to me.” He interjected angrily. “I've spent the last few weeks giving orders that have ended up with people dying. I’m already very sick of it. It might not matter to you, but it does to me.”

For only the second time, he appeared to have stunned her to a loss of words the way she so often did with him. There was no witty reply, no cryptic comeback, just silence between them as Cheriss considered his words. When at last she spoke, it was a tentative thing, an unusual disharmony to her tone. “I don't think I can answer that.”

“Why?”

“Because we don't exist to have wants.” She explained. “I have a compulsion to serve the player who finds me, a compulsion that makes the difference between a want and a need impossible to judge.”

Cayden sighed. “I worried as much.”

“I want...” she began, before he could say anything more. “I want to believe that desire is more than just the magical compulsion,” Cheriss admitted. “I just don't know.”

“Well, I can't leave you here, in any case.” He said, after a short consideration. “If ever the time comes that you don't-”

Her promise came before he could even finish the thought aloud. “I'll tell you.”

“Good enough for now.” He grudgingly conceded.

“There is one more thing-”

The sudden sound of her movement was all the warning Cayden was given, but it was enough. Months spent in Babel had honed instincts that modern life had dulled in most of humanity, the sense that danger was coming from nothing more than the scrape of a shoe, the whirl of cloth, or, in this case, the scrape of a sword in a scabbard.

He lunged to the side just as the blade thrust passed through the space he had been occupying, a small patch of his sleeve stuck to the tip of her blade as she withdrew and thrust it in his direction once more.

“-that I am compelled to do.”