Shadow Slave

Summoning the Dark Wing and the Prowling Thorn, Sunny jumped off the edge of the stone balcony. In the next second, his dagger pierced the darkness and bit into a fractured coral branch high above. With a sharp pull, Sunny sent himself flying upward, the transparent cloak turning into a blur behind his back.

All around him, the interior of the Crimson Spire that remained unchanged for thousands of years was shifting. The ancient tower continued to shudder and quake as it endured the calamitous consequences of the battle between Changing Star and the vessel of the artificial sun.

Vast coral roots were shattering and plunging down, drowning the echoing expanse of the Spire with deafening clangor. As massive slabs of coral collided against lower branches, they were pulverized in turn.

Moving through all this destruction, Sunny struggled to stay alive.

Before he could even reach the root he had been aiming for, it was obliterated by falling debris. The mass of coral then rained down, threatening to bury Sunny under its deadly weight. Not phased, he twisted and hurled the Prowling Thorn sideways, then flew out of the way of the collapsing coral. Just a second later, Sunny hit the side of an intact root and pushed himself off its surface, continuing to ascend.

He spun and twisted, using the Prowling Thorn and every surface he could reach to dodge the falling slabs of coral, avoid being cut to pieces by deadly clouds of flying splinters, and soar higher and higher.

As he did, the shadow jumped from one root to another, searching for Caster.

The Legacy was much faster than Sunny, but was chained to the ground and didn't have the advantage of being able to see in the dark. Sunny was certain that he would be able to catch up to him before too long.

And after a few torturous minutes, he inevitably did.

Emerging from a cloud of coral dust, Sunny left a crimson trail in the air as he landed on a wide root in a nimble roll. A moment later, he jumped to his feet and stood silently in the darkness, waiting for Caster to appear.

Up here, at the highest levels of the Spire, the chaos was not as pronounced. Those branches of coral that were going to break had already fallen, and the few remaining ones were relatively stable. That allowed Sunny to predict which route the Legacy was going to take.

polished wood of the Weaver's Mask rested comfortably on

extra careful. He was wary of someone tracing Caster's death back to him with the

by now, he was sure that one of the two of them

confrontation was

The proud scion was many things, but a fool was not one of

was his

let's see

only about defeating Caster. It wasn't even

was about defeating the world

he and Caster had first met in the Academy, they were on

was on the top, and the other was on the

was weak and alone. One had the best education, the best mentors, the vast resources of his powerful family, the inherited arsenal of Memories, and

The other had nothing.

No family and no home, no place to call his own, no one to care about whether

as Caster, he clawed and fought, suffered and endured, survived and bettered himself through will, intellect, and countless brushes

he wasn't some inconsequential nobody to be discarded and forgotten, to be lost on the pages of history. That he mattered as much as

them, despite the fact

…Much more so, even.