The grey sky of the Tithelands pressed down like a tombstone lid, heavy and suffocating. Veridia stalked through the blighted landscape, each step a hammer blow against the damp, dead earth. Rage was a furnace in her gut, the only warmth in this cold hell. Behind her, a sound she was learning to despise: her sister's ragged, undignified panting.
Seraphine stumbled over a root, catching herself with a clumsy flail of her arms. Pathetic. The untouchable, ethereal host, now bound to a body that was already failing her. A body unused to walking on anything but polished obsidian floors, a body that knew nothing of mud or exhaustion.
Veridia lengthened her stride, deliberately putting another foot of distance between them. She wanted to run. She wanted to sprint until her lungs burned and Seraphine's wheezing was a forgotten echo. She wanted to be alone with her fury.
Five feet. Eight. Ten. The gap widened just enough for a fleeting, savage sense of freedom to dawn. Maybe if she just pushed a little farther, a little faster—
Pain.
The invisible tether snapped taut. It wasn't the clean agony of a blade but a cold, nauseating drain, a metaphysical leech fastening onto her soul. It started in her chest, a hollow ache that radiated outward, turning her blood to ice water. Her vision swam, the grey landscape blurring at the edges. The furnace of her rage was extinguished, replaced by a strength-sapping chill that compounded the familiar, gnawing hunger of her own curse. She clutched her chest, a strangled gasp escaping her lips as the leash yanked her to a halt.
Behind her, Seraphine let out a pained cry and stumbled to her knees, her face ashen. The same chilling drain wracked her new, fragile form. She looked up, her eyes wide with a mixture of agony and pure, undiluted hatred.
The truth settled upon Veridia with the weight of a collapsing mountain. An invisible leash, ten feet long. They were chained. Trapped. The open warfare of their rivalry was over, replaced by the simmering, resentful intimacy of a shared cell.
Teeth grinding, every muscle screaming with the need to flee, Veridia stood frozen. She waited. She was forced to wait as her jailer, her personal tormentor, picked herself up from the dirt and limped forward, closing the cursed distance between them.
***
"If you would learn to walk like a civilized being instead of a panicked beast, perhaps we wouldn't be in this state," Seraphine rasped, clutching a hand to her side. Each word was an effort, but the venom was perfectly intact.
"If you had the stamina of a corpse-rat, perhaps you could keep up," Veridia shot back, her voice a low growl. The hunger was a living thing inside her now, a constant, aching reminder of their shared vulnerability. It was a clock, and it was ticking for them both. "We need to find a source. Now."
"And what do you suggest?" Seraphine sneered, gesturing at the bleak, empty landscape. "Do you plan to seduce a rock? Or perhaps you'll perform one of your… brutish submissions for a particularly robust-looking weed?"
Veridia's hand twitched, her fingers itching to form a claw and rip that smug, pale face to shreds. The memory of the shared pain held her back. "My methods kept me alive. A concept you'll need to familiarize yourself with. We head east. Towards the Slag Crown foothills. More creatures. More opportunities."
"East?" Seraphine's laugh was a dry, brittle thing. "Into the arms of every goblin and Orc with a functioning libido? A brilliant plan. No, we head south. Towards the human settlements. They may be brutish, but at least their Essence doesn't taste of mud and despair."
"And be killed on sight by the first silver-plated zealot who sees us? Your grasp of strategy is as flimsy as your new mortality."
Every suggestion was a stone wall. Every word was a parry. It wasn't a debate; it was a reflexive, spiteful dance. They stood glaring at each other, the hostile air between them thick enough to choke on, until the gnawing in Veridia's gut twisted into a sharp cramp.
She finally broke, her voice flat and cold. "Fine. We will have a truce. A single rule to prevent us from starving to death in this miserable ditch."
Seraphine raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, waiting.
"We do not speak," Veridia stated. "Not a word. Unless it is a matter of immediate, life-or-death survival. Otherwise, you will stay within your ten feet, and you will remain silent."
For a moment, Seraphine looked as if she might argue out of sheer principle. The same hunger was visible in her eyes, however, a faint sheen of desperate sweat on her brow. She gave a curt, hateful nod.
The silence that fell was not peaceful. It was heavier, more hostile than the argument had been. Every crunch of a boot on gravel, every ragged breath, every rustle of clothing was an unbearable intrusion, a constant, grating reminder of the other's presence.
***
They crested a low, windswept hill, the silence between them a palpable weight. Below, a dirt road cut a brown scar through the grey-green landscape. And on it, a target.
It was a rickety cart, pulled by a fat, plodding mule. At the reins sat a merchant, a soft, plump man whose jowls wobbled with every jolt of the cart. He was alone. He was vulnerable. He was, to their shared, starving senses, a walking feast.
The hunger in Veridia spiked, a physical, desperate need that made her mouth water. Beside her, she heard Seraphine's breath hitch. This was it. An easy meal. The solution to their immediate problem.
And then they both froze.
The full, horrifying implication of their new reality crashed down on them. To feed, one of them would have to descend that hill and perform the intimate, necessary act of survival. And the other would have to watch.
Veridia imagined it: luring the mortal, her hands on his skin, the act of the drain… all under Seraphine's hateful, judging gaze. The thought of performing for her most vicious critic, not for spectacle or boons, but for simple, pathetic sustenance, was a new and profound level of humiliation she had never conceived.
She glanced at Seraphine. Her sister's face was a mask of revulsion. The former host, the untouchable commentator, now faced the prospect of having to perform the same base acts she had so viciously mocked. She would have to seduce, to drain, to become one of the desperate creatures she had built her fame on tormenting. And Veridia would be there, ten feet away, a witness to every degrading second.
They were paralyzed, trapped in a standoff between their shared, desperate need and their individual, absolute pride. Down on the road, the merchant's cart continued on, oblivious. It grew smaller, a rapidly dwindling opportunity, a lifeline slipping through their fingers.
The sisters exchanged a look. It was not a look of understanding or truce. It was a glare of pure, venomous loathing for the choice that now faced them, for the cage they had built for each other.
The hunger in Veridia's gut twisted, the dull ache flaring into a sharp, undeniable agony. She looked at Seraphine, whose face was a pale mask of the same desperation. The unspoken question hung between them, more poisonous than any insult they had ever hurled.
*Who goes first?*