The last vestiges of her victory tasted of honey and ozone, a sweet, electric hum that suffused every molecule of her being. Veridia sat upon a makeshift throne of stacked, silk-draped crates, a queen surveying her new, squalid domain. The battle was won. The prize was hers. And in her mind, the illusory form of her sister crackled with the beautiful, satisfying static of impotent rage.
"You think this is over?" Seraphine's voice was a venomous whisper only Veridia could hear. Her shimmering form paced the length of the crude tent, a caged phantom of fury. "You think one lucky break, one sentimental trick with a glorified rock, makes you a player? You are still just a rat in a cage, sister. A slightly more entertaining rat, perhaps, but a rat nonetheless."
Veridia let a slow, languid smile curve her lips, savoring the moment. "And you are a ghost who has been touched by the filth. They saw you made solid. They saw you bleed. Your brand is tarnished, little host. That perfect, untouchable image has been shattered forever."
Before Seraphine could retort, a new light flooded the tent, extinguishing the warm glow of the oil lamps. It was not the shimmering gold of a Patron's Boon, but a cold, impartial, corporate blue. It hummed with an authority that had nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with power. The light coalesced in the air between them, overriding Seraphine's illusion, forcing it to flicker and dim like a faulty projection. Text began to form, inscribed in letters of pure, unwavering energy. It was a message not from a single investor, but from the entire broadcast network. A directive from The Consortium.
*FOR THE NEXT SEVEN CYCLES, THE BOND IS REFINED.*
*WHAT ONE FEELS, THE OTHER SHALL ECHO.*
*PLEASURE AND PAIN, NOW A SHARED CHAIN.*
*LET THE NEW GAME BEGIN.*
The words hung in the air, humming with absolute, contractual power. The connection snapped into place with a psychic jolt, a cold hook sinking into Veridia's very soul. Her triumph curdled in her stomach, turning to a heavy, icy dread. The sweet taste of freedom became the metallic tang of a new, more intimate shackle. She wasn't free. She was fused to her tormentor.
Seraphine's rage vanished, replaced by a wave of pure, visceral disgust. Her perfect features contorted as if she'd swallowed something rotten. The thought of her own pristine, ethereal self being forcibly tethered to Veridia's mud-caked, bruised, and violated flesh was a horror beyond her comprehension. It was an invasion of her very brand.
"They've turned us into a two-headed beast," Seraphine spat, the words laced with revulsion. "This is a perversion."
Veridia's dread hardened into a sharp, brittle anger. She pushed herself to her feet, her voice a low, dangerous purr. "You wanted a closer connection, dear sister. The Patrons have merely granted your wish."
***
The first test came an hour later, an accident of mundane strategy. Veridia stood hunched over a crude map with Voron Sagewind, the Minotaur chieftain's presence a solid, grounding weight in her chaotic new court. She traced a potential route through the mountains with her index finger, her nail catching on the rough, sharp edge of the poorly cured parchment. A thin line of red bloomed across her skin. A sting of pain, trivial and annoying, shot up her finger.
Miles away, in a war-camp reeking of blood, sweat, and burning slag, Seraphine flinched. She was in the middle of a blistering tirade, her words flaying the hide from a stoic Warlord Grummash, when a phantom sting, sharp and precise, lanced through her own index finger. She stopped mid-sentence, staring at her perfect, unmarked hand. Disbelief warred with a rising tide of fury as she felt the ghostly, stinging echo of a wound that wasn't hers.
The second test was a deeper violation. To calm the frantic buzzing beneath her skin, Veridia uncorked a bottle of elven wine, a prize from a recent raid. She took a slow, deliberate sip. A wave of liquid warmth spread through her chest, the taste a complex symphony of summer berries, moonlight, and a hint of oak. It was a fleeting, private moment of luxury.
And Seraphine felt it. The echo of that warmth bloomed in her own breast, an unbidden, intimate sensation that was not hers. The ghost of a flavor she had not tasted touched her tongue. Her face twisted in revulsion. The shared pain had been an insult. This shared pleasure was an obscenity. It was a trespass of the soul, a reminder that Veridia's every indulgence, every sensation, would now be a stain on her own senses.
Seraphine stopped her pacing. The disgust on her face slowly receded, replaced by a cold, reptilian stillness. Her eyes, fixed on the distant mountains where her sister hid, narrowed with a new, terrible clarity. She finally understood. The revulsion gave way to calculation. This wasn't a shared cage. A shared cage implied equality.
*She thinks this chain binds us both? Fool. She feels pain and runs from it. I feel pain and sell it for ratings. This isn't a cage. It's my new broadcast studio, and she's the only one locked inside.*
A slow, cruel smile touched her lips. She turned to Grummash, her expression now one of cool, professional focus. The game had not ended. It had simply evolved into something much more personal, and infinitely more profitable.
***
"We will wait," Veridia declared, her voice regaining a sliver of its old command. She stood before Voron, her hands clasped behind her back to hide their trembling. "Seven cycles. It's a test of endurance. We will fortify this position, gather our strength, and do nothing to provoke them. We will simply outlast this… inconvenience."
Voron grunted, a sound of grudging agreement. The plan was sound. Patient. He opened his mouth to speak, but Veridia cut him off, not with words, but with a choked cry of pure, unadulterated agony.
A phantom impact exploded in her right arm. It was not a cut or a burn; it was a deep, brutal, bone-jarring shock, as if her humerus had been struck by a blacksmith's hammer. She felt the phantom sensation of her own bone cracking, a sickening crunch that had no sound but screamed through her nerves. The pain was so real, so absolute, that she stumbled back, clutching an arm that bore no wound, no mark, no bruise.
"My Queen!" Voron surged forward, his massive hands hovering, unsure how to help a warrior wounded by nothing.
Then the voice came, echoing only in the screaming confines of her skull, dripping with triumphant, broadcast-ready malice.
"Feel that, sister? That was Grummash. He hits hard, doesn't he?"
Veridia's eyes widened in horror, the phantom throb in her arm a sickening drumbeat of the new reality.
"Don't worry," Seraphine's voice purred, a sound of pure, distilled spite. "I'll have him use his other arm tomorrow. We have a whole week of content to produce, and the Patrons are already clamoring for a sequel."
Veridia stared at her own perfectly unharmed arm, the phantom pain pulsing in time with her frantic heartbeat. The gilded cage had vanished. The true prison, she now realized, had just been built around her soul.