Shadow Slave

Behind the window, a striking vista of the cursed city sprawled far below. The morning sun washed the ruins in a pale light, making them look menacingly mysterious.

Nephis smiled.

"Besides… what can compete with this killer view?"

As though answering her words, a ghastly wail resounded from somewhere far away, echoing in the wind like a dying scream. Sunny trembled.

'I guess she meant it literally.'

With a sigh, he put Changing Star's strange choice of habitat at the back of his mind and approached the pile of meat.

"Let's eat first."

The three of them sat on the stone floor and ate monster meat, passing around Cassie's beautiful glass bottle between each other. It was just like the good old times, provided that those times were not actually that old, and there had certainly not been anything good about them.

Almost.

When all three of them were satiated, Nephis looked at Sunny with calm intensity. For some reason, he was reminded of the unseen waves of pressure that Gunlaug created anywhere he went.

"What have you learned in the castle?"

He sighed. This was going to be a long conversation.

Sunny started by describing the general order of things in the ancient stronghold. He told Neph about the six different castes and the complex relationships that existed between them, as well as briefly explaining how the members of each caste lived their lives. Sometimes, Cassie would add a few details of her own.

Changing Star frowned.

you say that there were five

gave her

somewhere around

a bit, then

the human population of the Dark City at around a thousand. Most of them are fairly young, too — which would mean that each year, hundreds upon hundreds

She paused.

as I know, we three are the only ones to come to the Dark City after the

scratched the back of his

is also here. He's living comfortably in the

suddenly grew

Li clan? He

need to be

not

that there were only seven Sleepers sent to the Forgotten Shore by

a few moments, and

You see, there seems to be a pattern to how many people the Spell sends here. Fifteen years ago, when a bunch of crazy humans first laid claim to the castle, there would be just a dozen or so newcomers each year. Then a few dozen. Then a hundred. In the past few years, it

at the

Spell is obsessed with the number seven, some people believe that this marks the end of a fourteen-year long cycle and the first year of a new one.

Star thought for

know the total

Sunny had asked himself many times before finally convincing

Ability. She can trace the general location of everyone a person had ever met. Caster paid her a bunch of soul shards to check if any of his acquaintances made it to the Forgotten Shore. She told him there

silent for a few moments, then simply

"Continue."

mentioned the main points of everything he had been able to learn, including all the vile crap he had to witness and his own thoughts on how things worked under the pristine white surface of the magnificent fortress. Inevitably, he had to describe how ingenious and unassailable Bright Lord's hold over the Dark