Shadow Slave

In the next week or so, things moved with terrible speed.

Nephis became the ruler of the Bright Castle without any type of glorious ceremony or impassioned speech. No one questioned her authority, anyway, as though it was a simple fact of life.

In a sense, it was.

Sunny found it interesting, however, that she didn't take her seat on the white throne of the ancient citadel once. Even when there was a need for a large gathering, Changing Star sat on the last step of the stairs leading to the throne. As if making a point to show that the Bright Castle did not belong to her… or, perhaps, that she did not belong to the Bright Castle.

At first, he was sure that Nephis was going to push people to march on the Crimson Spire immediately, but she didn't even mention it. When he confronted her about her plans, she simply said that they were going to wait until the winter solstice came before making any decisions.

It was just a few days away, anyway. In the meantime, everyone who was left alive had a lot to do.

There were just five hundred people in the Dark City now. In less than a month, the human population of the Forgotten Shore had been reduced by half. The outer settlement remained completely abandoned, but even then, there were barely enough people to maintain and guard the Bright Castle.

Nevertheless, they persevered.

The halls and corridors of the ancient citadel were cleaned of blood and corpses. The Nightmare Creatures that had found their way inside were methodically hunted down and eliminated. The breaches in the defensive lines they had created were located and repaired.

the ruins, with hunters from

had died in the turmoil of the bloody struggle for the throne, not to mention

but. And the reason

creatures could be killed without paying too terrible a price, of course. But after

Creatures were tracked down and slain. Suddenly, humans have become if not the apex species in the Dark City, then at least not

Nephis was achieving several goals simultaneously. She was steadily accumulating an arsenal of Memories to arm every person in the Castle.

shards, which were then given to the

though now, it was the Bright Lady who was paying tribute to

made the respect and adoration people felt

the fact that through these hunts, she was training her people to fight together as a cohesive force and prevail against creatures that

any gaps in how the humans of

supply Gunlaug's Host with gear and equipment, now their only job was to create things people were going to need

they were preparing for

things were requested from them by Nephis herself. He suspected that they were going to become useful once the time to attack the Crimson

the winter

to believe that he had survived here for