It was ten years ago, when Issen and Maereth still travelled together as mercenaries under Kareth, that they first began to entertain the idea of a life beyond what they knew.
"I heard that in the Golden Cities, you can try any kind of food you like."
"None of that matters to me."
"Why? Do you enjoy starving?"
"Why is it that when someone is deprived of something all their life, the moment they have it, they make it their purpose to consume as much of it as they can, like it's some sort of game?"
"You'd never understand."
"I lived in the underground, Maereth. I had nothing."
"Don't give me that sad story. I know all about how you people lived down there. There's a reason some of you could spend your entire lives without ever coming to the surface."
To an outsider, it might have seemed as though they were on the verge of a fight. In truth, this was simply how they spoke. If anything, their arguments had become a form of entertainment.
"If you feel that way, why don't you go live in the underground?" Issen asked. "I know people there. They'll take care of you."
"I don't belong in the underground. I belong in the cities. I've already made that choice."
Maereth's stubbornness irritated Issen, but he admired it too. A weaker part of him tried to imitate it.
"I wish I could be like that," he said. "It feels like every time I make a choice, I fail. Don't you feel the same?"
"Of course I do. But I made a choice about the life I want. Everyone has to make a choice someday. Even you, when you decide to grow up."
"That's it. I'm not speaking to you anymore."
They both laughed.
Now, they lay in the sand of a world they did not know. Slowly, they woke, and memory returned, how Ashar had torn them out of space itself. He now stood over them, red-eyed, an Axiom Blade forming in his hand.
Issen shifted.
"Don't bother," said Ashar. "I have the Pendulum Blade. You don't have the speed to keep up with me from that distance."
"What are you doing?"
"What do you think? It's time for both of you to die."
"Wait! Stop!"
The blade swung, then halted.
"If you wanted us dead," Issen said quickly, "you wouldn't have saved us."
"We're after the same thing," Maereth added. "We're trying to reach the City."
"The Faceless Soldiers extract memories," Ashar said. "I didn't want you captured. That doesn't mean I need you alive."
"Use your brain," Issen snapped. "Look around. We don't even know where we are. The smartest thing we can do is survive together, like before."
"As we did before?" Ashar said. "You mean when you tried to hand me over to the Shadow Clan?"
Silence followed.
"There is no mutual benefit here," Ashar continued. "We are not playing the same game."
"Don't kill us," Maereth said.
"Why?"
"You don't mean it. You need us to survive here, and we need you. I don't know where you've taken us, but I know we won't get back without you."
Issen sighed. They were trapped again.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"My ability, Serpent's Wisdom, brought us here. I intended to enter the Higher Realm, but the ability itself still seems imperfect. My Eye tells me this is a bridge between the material and the spiritual, a kind of dream dimension."
"It reminds me of the underground," Issen muttered.
"Yes," Ashar said. "Some are born here. Others come here to forget themselves. It is a reality of intoxication."
"Can you take us back?"
"No. Not like this. The ritual gave me enough energy to use Serpent's Wisdom once. To use it again, I will need a Second Tier body."
He had aimed for isolation, for a place where he could pursue his mission unseen. But he was still too weak.
"We need to escape," Ashar said. "I will spare you, for now. But understand this: I am the only one who can return you to the material realm. From now on, your lives are in my hands."
He turned and walked forward.
For a brief moment, he felt it, a sharp, silent intent. He turned.
It was nothing visible, but he knew. For an instant, Issen had meant to kill him, and then stopped.
Ashar relied on rationality to control others. He understood their motives, their limits. That was how he had survived. But now, after weeks of travel, exhaustion had begun to erode reason. At any moment, Issen might act without thought. That made him dangerous.
Yet killing him outright might push Maereth to turn as well. And alone, Ashar would not survive here.
"It is time to deal with reality," Ashar said. "This conversation was inevitable."
He turned, his red eyes burning.
"Issen," he said, "Why are you here?"
Issen frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
"I understand Maereth. She believes reaching the Golden City will redeem her life. But you? Are you risking everything for her?"
"You don't know anything," Issen said.
"I look at you, and I pity you," Ashar replied. "You live a terrible life."
Issen tried to laugh, but those eyes unsettled him.
"Maereth is more cunning than she appears," Ashar continued. "She has given you hope. You think you are bound together. But when you reach the Golden City, she will forget you. You will become nothing."
"Shut your mouth."
"Will you always follow?"
"I'm warning you…"
"Or will you shape your own destiny?"
Issen summoned an Axiom Arrow.
"You know what must be done," Ashar said. "So for once, find the courage to do it."
Issen fired—
—but the arrow veered. A barrier struck him aside.
"Maereth?"
She stood between them, energy flaring with killing intent.
"I can't let you do that," she said.
In that moment, Issen saw nothing familiar in her, no friendship, no past, only another opponent.
He smirked.
"You really are a bastard, Ashar."
He turned and began to walk away.
"Issen, where are you going?" Maereth called.
"I'm leaving."
"But we need to get back home."
"Home? I have no home. There's nothing left for me there,"
"You can't be serious. You're going to leave me, in this place?"
"Maybe he's right," said Issen, "We have lives to live and maybe it's time that we stop wasting them."
"But where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You're going to abandon me after everything?"
"This is my final choice."
He smiled once.
"Have a good life, Maereth."
And he disappeared into the desert.
"What have you done?" Maereth shouted.
"He was a liability," Ashar said. "He would have tried to kill me. This is better."
His red eyes flickered.
"And besides… the Eye showed me parts of your past. Perhaps it is better that he left, for his own sake. You have not yet faced judgement. You have not been saved."
"I hate you," she whispered.
She covered her face.
"I wish you were dead."
Bethryl is somewhere here, Ashar thought. She will be essential. With her ability, and a Second Tier body, he could prepare, for the Golden City, and for the Supreme Leader.
For now, he needed to recover.
"Are you coming?" he asked, and walked on.
Maereth looked ahead, then back, toward the path Issen had taken.
In the distance, she saw him again. The young man from her past. The one she had tried to forget.
"I am a failure," she whispered.
And then she followed Ashar.