Lost from light.
The words left her lips easily, but the second they were gone she felt that something was terribly wrong. It was as some deeply buried part of herself was screaming at her silently. Sudden terror gripped her heart and emotions that weren't hers flooded her mind. Sadness, guilt, grief.
My memories...
She felt something shift inside her soul, like a lock sliding into place. Something cool settled itself into her chest and she shivered like Death itself had breathed into her neck.
The sensation, coupled with her long since buried feelings, was overwhelming. But she couldn't dwell on that for long, because in the next second Sunny was upon her, Azure Blade having manifested itself in his hands. Nephis was too distracted by everything happening and didn't react quickly enough. She only managed to turn her torso so that the blade didn't bury itself directly on her heart.
Cold...
Scream left her mouth and she activated her Aspect without thinking. Ligh suddenly poured from her skin, glistening on the blade that extended from her chest. The pain was excrutiating, but she was too shocked to feel most of it. She looked at Sunny, who stood above her, and could clearly see his face. Only, Nephis had never seen him like that.
Sunny's eyes were wide with horror as he watched the weapon in his hands, but his face was blank, devoit of any emotion. He looked like a grim reaper himself and his pale face was merciless like that of a machine. However, Nephis could see behind his cold facade.
He was furious. It was cold, calculated fury, ready to kill. But he was also horrified and pained. And, under it all, he was scared.
He could have killed Nephis right there and then, but he was frozen, looking at a creature of light in front of him. The steel of starlight legion armor reflected the dim daylight like a liquid silver and Nephis's eyes blazed with annihilating fire. She could see herself in the mirror-like surface of Sunny's eyes. Even on her knees she was still tall, bloodied but unmarred, pristine and beautiful. Yet she was harrowing as well - a nephilim.
Nephis stood up and pulled the sword from her chest, shuddering in pain, before her flames healed the damage. Sunny was still gazing at her in shock as she handed the weapon back to him and looked down, a question — the question — forming behind her eyes.
"Why?" she asked softly.
Sunny shuddered and turned away. When he looked at her again she saw his eyes filled with rage.
"Why even ask? You know it, don't you? That's why you came for me. Did you do it last time, too?" He suddenly laughed mirthlessly. "Of course you did. To think that I was slave not just once, but twice! And because of the same person, no less! It's truly incredible!"
Nephis looked at him, heartbroken. Sunny turned around and ran. His shadow wrapped around him and he reached the edge of the island, continuing downwards without glancing back. Nephis felt frozen, but she couldn't just let him go like that.
"Sunny?"
No response.
"Be careful! Don't die!"
She didn't know if he had heard it.
A slave...
What have I done?
She... hadn't known. Hadn't remembered. But she should have been more careful. Why had she said it?
There were no tears in her eyes as she gazed to the west and if there had been they had been burnt away by her heat. Her mind was churning with thoughts and emotions, so full that she wanted to let them out any way she could. But she couldn't. She could just stand there and suffer in silence.
Everything had come crashing down in but a moment. Nephis was torn between two desires. On the other hand she felt drained. She wanted to just lie down and do nothing. But at the same time she was full of frantic energy and wanted to run after Sunny, try to understand what had happened or try to apologize.
She quickly came to a decision. It was always best to act. Being passive was a certain doom. And now Sunny was in danger, alone in the coral labyrinth.
Nephis was almost halfway to the edge of the island when she realized she had forgotten Cassie. Frustrated, she turned around.
Cassie was looking for her as well, and surprisingly she was staring at her straight to the eye. Nephis could see she was angry, but mostly scared. They both were scared of her now. How could she ever win their trust back? She didn't even know what she had done, not exactly anyways, but whatever it was it was bad. Not just bad, disastrous.
"Cassie", Nephis called. "We need to go after him."
Cassie didn't respond. She was gazing to the sky. Nephis repeated but Cassie was still silent.
"Cassie? Are you okay?"
She got closer to Cassie. Soon she was crouched in front of her, looking into her deep blue eyes. She frowned. What was —
Cassie hit her. Hard.
"What did you do?" she asked. Her voice was trembling. Her fists were curled into balls. "What were you thinking?"
"Cassie... "
"He tried to kill you, didn't he? Why did you do it? Why did he do it?"
Nephis breathed deeply, but she did it so fast it felt like hyperventilating. Her mood was quickly plummeting even further. First Sunny buried his sword to her chest, then Cassie hit her to the face. Could the day have gone any worse?
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" Cassie grasped at her arm, and then her face. Her grip was quite powerful and Nephis felt her anger resurface. She in turn gripped Cassie's shoulders forcefully.
"I mean just that", Nephis said. "My memory of my last lifetime is not complete — it has many gaps and they all revolve around Sunny." She imagined she looked quite ferocious, nothing like the cold and composed facade she had worn all throughout the Forgotten Shore. But there was no one here to see it so it didn't matter. Nephis for once allowed to be carried away by feelings, because she simply didn't have strength to resist anymore.
"Let me tell you a secret about me and Sunny. We were not just comrades, we were lovers. We fought together from here to the third nightmare and then we all forgot about him — for a reason I still don't know. For four years I didn't know who he truly was, I only realized it after coming back here. And I would never, ever do anything like that to him knowingly.
"... Whatever it was that I did. That also is something I don't remember."
Cassie paled during her rant. She was silent for a long time and Nephis was silent as well. Her mind was muddy. She realized she was using her Aspect unknowingly — because of the intense pain that washed over her suddenly. She made to stop the burning, although... maybe the pain of her Aspect was preferable to the pain of thinking...
"I'm sorry", Cassie said quietly. "I didn't know."
"It's okay." Nephis said, her voice dull.
They sat there and Nephis decided to check something. More precisely, she opened her runes, her intuition guiding her. From the bottom of the runes she found what she expected.
Slave: Lost from light
Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost from light
Rank: Dormant...
And so on. When Nephis got to his innate ability she felt her heart clench. What she had done... From Sunny's point of view she might as well have stabbed him in the back. And right after she had told them about her future knowledge.
It didn't look good at all.
"We still have to find him", Nephis said. Now her tone was steady again. "He is in danger." She looked at Cassie, but she made no move to join her. Instead she shook her head.
"What do you think he will do now?" she asked.
Nephis frowned. What would Sunny do? Nephis's control over him was, to him, an existential threat and she had just extinguished whatever trust Sunny had had for her. Sunny knew where the human castle was and could traverse the labyrinth and fight off most of the creatures there. For him the obvious course of action was to leave Nephis and Cassie behind and try to find the castle on his own.
Even if it was stupid — and it was — Sunny would probably still try, just to spite them.
"You see it, don't you?" Cassie whispered. "He's not coming back."
She added quietly: "You said yourself that we were hard pressed to get to the Bone Ridge today. Sunny might be in time if everything goes well. But we will not make it. We can't go after him, not if we want to live."
Nephis realized Cassie was right. She was powerless once again. Even if she was the most powerful human in Forgotten Shore she still had two enemies whose might dwarfed her own: Fate and the Dream Realm itself. Two opponents she was all too tired of battling.
It was bitter.
"We can't do anything then."
She made her way to Cassie and sat down. Again she summoned the shimmering runes and started waiting for the night to come. When doing so her eyes unexpectedly found something new. She hadn't realized it before, too preoccupied with Sunny.
It was a small thing, easily missed (though she would never have missed it in normal circumstances). One of her Attributes had evolved. Where the Attribute [Error of time] had been there was now anew one, [Fracture of time].
Attribute Description: "You have traveled back in time and in so doing disrupted the course of Fate. It may still be steered back to its natural path, but just as likely is a fall into complete unknown."
*******
Sunny was not in his right mind. The feeling of betrayal burnt him and filled his lungs with hot anger. His muscles ached - he had been running for a long time.
Curse it all!
He wanted to kill something — preferably a certain silver-haired princess. He had already slain couple of those centipede-like beasts but it did little to quench his bloodthirst. Cold fury was coursing through his veins, but alongside it came a strange acceptance, bitter as it was.
You knew this would happen.
He had indeed known. World was cold and cruel, as were the people living in it. Most only had their own best interest in mind, especially those that tried to appear noble and just. Was it any surprise, then, that Changing Star of the Immortal Flame, someone who appeared as noble as any, was in reality the worst of them all?
No it wasn't. He should have expected this. He should have killed Nephis in her sleep the first chance he got. Because now... second chance might never come.
Even though Sunny was, in a sense, not surprised, it didn't mean he accepted the situation. He felt violated, stripped down. Even more so as Changing Star seemed to know all of his secrets already. There was nothing he could hide, no surprise up to his sleeve. She probably knew more about his Aspect than he did himself! And that meant she had known about Shadow Bond all along.
Not only that, she had let him think he might have found an ally at first — and then and only then had she stabbed him in the back.
What had he done to deserve this? If he could choose, he might as well just have gone back to the Outskirts. Even that would have been better than being a slave.
Night was creeping closer and closer and the grey sky was becoming darker. Sunny had no problem seeing his surroundings, but he very much had a problem with drowning alive and being eaten. He had to move faster. But his dormant body would not let him. His eyes were concetrated on the sliver of white bone he could see above the blood-red trees and branches. They appeared more twisted than before, trapped and tortured, like they shared part of Sunny's pain.
Not fast enough...
The Bone Ridge might as well have been a thousand miles away. He would not be able to reach it in time. He tried to look over the thick coral walls that surrounded him. Maybe he could find something else, anything? But there was nothing. He could not even go back to their island, not that he wanted to. All too early he heard a familiar sound and it filled him with dread.
The low rumble of rushing water reverberated all around him, finding purchase in every root and vein of the labyrinth.
The Dark Sea was coming. Sunny sighed.
Well, he wouldn't just go down without a fight. He might as well get as close to salvation as he could before the ancient horrors of the sea would get their chance to feed on his flesh.
He groaned and started running again.
*******
AN: From now on chapters will probably be released every third day. Also, there might be bit of a delay with the next chapter because I'm moving to another city. Thank you to everyone who has read the story so far!