"What did you say?" Lorelei asked, freezing on the beast's back.
Shiniel sighed and dismounted, landing softly in the tall grass. Lorelei remained seated, her eyes fixed on the other woman. Shiniel circled to the creature's head and ran her fingers along its jaw, gentle, almost reverent.
"Good boy," she murmured, then reached for the small cloth packet hanging from the saddle.
She dipped her hand in and drew out a palmful of little brown treats. They were far from perfect spheres—lumpy, hand-rolled things, dotted with flecks and tiny coloured seeds that had been kneaded into the dough. As they caught the morning sunlight, tiny worms wriggled out of their hiding holes, squirming across the surface, desperately trying to burrow back out of the light. Shiniel slipped one past the beast's lip and fed it from underneath, where its mouth sat.
"Crk! Crk!"
The creature snapped its jaw shut and squirmed, rolling against the grass in plain delight. Shiniel paid Lorelei almost no attention—only a quick glance as she gathered her belongings from the saddle. Lorelei, in turn, tracked her every movement, waiting for the answer that never seemed to come. She let go of the reins, and as the beast writhed beneath her, she slipped slowly off its back, her body sinking into the cool grass, her face turned toward the blinding morning sun.
The spiky grass pressing into her cheeks, the numb ache spreading through her legs—they woke her in a way nothing had in months. It struck her how brief this eternity-that-wasn't had truly been. Time had moved differently within the pillar; the endless years she had endured there had amounted to only five months in the real world, or so Shiniel had claimed. Lorelei lay still, turning that over, unsure whether she should feel grateful or cheated.
Shiniel looked down at her guest sprawled across the ground like a prisoner just released from an oubliette. The woman's carefree indifference made Shiniel wonder, for a moment, whether every reaction she'd shown her before had been nothing more than an act.
"So? What happened?" Lorelei asked, a touch of superiority in her voice she didn't entirely believe in.
She felt the grass shift near her face as footsteps stopped beside her ear. Shiniel's high black boots scraped a speck of dirt onto Lorelei's forehead before she stooped, tipping her cap with her thumb to block the sun.
"Move. You're blocking the sun," Lorelei complained.
"Do you not want to know what happened?" Shiniel asked, her tone almost tentative, as though seeking approval.
Lorelei looked up into the shadows of Shiniel's shaded eyes, then turned her gaze away. "I don't really care anymore," she said, flatly.
Shiniel crouched to Lorelei's level, careful that her long grey coat never touched the ground. Her face was as cold as the pale ice of her eyes as she tried, silently, to pull Lorelei's gaze back to hers.
"You have it?" she asked softly.
"Why should I tell you? I don't owe you anything." Lorelei pushed herself up, brushing stray grass and dirt from her hair.
Shiniel watched her, lingering on the ends of that hair. The alluring silver melted into a deep crimson at the tips—a sight that couldn't be produced naturally. Lorelei straightened her jacket and made to leave, but Shiniel caught her shoulder.
"Wait."
Lorelei didn't bother turning. She simply stood still, listening.
"Let's work together," Shiniel declared, the words landing like an order rather than a request.
A fresh gust of wind swept through the field, snapping both their jackets up and back. The grass swayed in slow waves, whispering as it bent. A calming sound—the sound of spring arriving.
Lorelei took one step, then turned to face Shiniel. A flash of memory surfaced: the figure, the one who had also wielded Blut in life, the one who had received a crest on her right hand, just as she had. As if she'd done it a thousand times, Lorelei raised her hand to her side, and the crest began to glow in her palm. A floating crimson substance gathered in the air and settled into the shape of a sword. The moment it locked into form, Lorelei seized it, her fingers curling around the hilt—and the substance itself dissolved back into the crest, leaving behind only what it had forged. A crimson blade, sheathed, hung in her grip.
Shiniel jumped back instinctively, putting distance between them. Her lower abdomen glowed a sickly icy blue; she pressed her palm there and drew out a sword shaped from pure ice, then crushed it in her bare hands, the shards scattering like struck glass. Both women held their blades toward one another.
"Listen to me!" Shiniel called from across the grass. "You're in danger right now! The Order is searching for you! Make a contract with me!"
Lorelei remained unmoved—until the word "Order" landed. Her senses sharpened at once.
"Why are they looking for me?" She began to close the distance.
"I'll tell you—once you put that sword away."
Lorelei stopped mid-step. She hurled the blade behind her; the veil that had become her jacket swallowed it whole, and the weapon vanished into its folds. She sat down in the grass and turned her face toward the sun.
"Why are they looking for me?" she repeated, quieter this time.
Shiniel let the ice in her hand thaw, crushed it, and watched it scatter into pale blue particles. Before Lorelei could move, she froze the other woman's hands to the grass with a lattice of the same blue light—a precaution more than a threat, and one Lorelei seemed not to mind at all.
The air around her changed completely, Shiniel mused, settling down beside her. One moment defenseless, the next, cold as winter. Honestly—personality disorder would be putting it kindly.
They sat in silence, watching the sky, until Shiniel finally broke it.
"Let's start from the beginning. Any objections?"
Lorelei didn't answer, picking at the small strands of herbs poking through the ice around her hands.
"What happened to you during the Bleeding?"
"I left the city."
"Listen—I'm not going to cut corners. Arstelan's attack happened during the Bleeding. How did you survive?" Shiniel repeated herself, colder and sharper the second time.
Lorelei let her body fall back into the grass, soaking in the warmth, eyes closed. Shiniel had clearly had enough of the mood swings. She rose and stepped directly between Lorelei and the sun.
"Move. You're blocking the sun," Lorelei whispered, heedless.
Shiniel hauled her up by the collar and released the ice from her hands. They held each other's gaze—one eye for two, or rather one eye for one. Lorelei's eyepatch had long since become a simple cover, its old ability to see through gone. And Shiniel's own left eye was blind; it was her right that truly saw—not the world, but the nature of the energy inside living beings, the foundation of their cores. Any creature that carried energy was visible to her in ways ordinary sight could never reach.
It was a gift, certainly, and a great advantage in a fight. But it came with a weakness: the inanimate world shimmered with only the faintest trace of energy, almost nothing at all. And there were limits she could not push past. The first time she had laid eyes on Lorelei, what she had seen was a deep, black core that overwhelmed her senses. She had long learned to read the colours of energy as both a mirror of a person's mind and a ledger of their past—her perception was nearly perfect. Nearly. That lingering doubt was the only thing that had kept her from cutting down every too-dark core she'd ever encountered.
But Lorelei was different. The urge to kill her on sight had been the deepest Shiniel had ever felt—until the day at the Healing Ray, when Lorelei had poured every emotion she had out at once. For a single, fleeting moment, Shiniel had glimpsed a white core. Something she had never witnessed before in her life. That glimpse had lodged itself like a splinter in her mind, refusing to be ignored. So she had watched Lorelei, wanting to see with her own eyes what kind of person she truly was.
"Let's make a contract," she declared, holding Lorelei's gaze.
"Why?" Lorelei asked, simply.
"Because I need you, and you need me."
"Please. Spare me that. Let go of me."
"No. Not until you've heard the terms. Only then will I let you go."
The stubbornness in Shiniel's eyes was immovable. Lorelei sighed, letting her shoulders drop. Shiniel released her jacket, and the two of them sat down together again.
"Are you ready to listen now?"
Lorelei drew a long breath, then slowly nodded.