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.

were five hundred

gave her

around

thought for a bit, then

the Dark City at around a thousand. Most of them are fairly young, too —

She paused.

single Sleeper of our crop here in the slum. As far as I know,

his

also here.

grew strangely

Han Li clan? He

need to be

not

had been here pretty much this entire time. Actually, Caster had told us that there were only seven Sleepers sent to the Forgotten Shore by the Spell this year. Strange,

few moments, and

But there is an explanation. 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

at the three

people believe that this marks the end of a fourteen-year long cycle and the

thought for a bit,

the total

good question, naturally. One that Sunny had asked himself many times before finally

an Artisan in the castle with a weird type of revelation 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

was silent for a

"Continue."

his own thoughts on how things worked under the pristine white surface of