Shadow Slave

'Slow down there, lady…'

Sunny tried to take a step back, but ended it staggering and almost falling down. Somehow, he managed to keep his balance, crouching as his talons dug into the ground. His four arms rose, sharp claws aimed at Solvane.

All that talk of glory and death made him very, very tense.

'Solvane… wait. Solvane?'

A low growl escaped from Sunny's mouth as he realized who was standing in front of him. So this beautiful, graceful woman… she was the ghastly living corpse he had destroyed in the cargo hold of the crashed ship? Or rather… would be?

He had traveled into the past of the Chained Isles, after all, or at least an illusory reenactment of it. It made sense that Solvane had not succumbed to her harrowing fate.

...Yet.

Sunny shivered, remembering the silent pleading and boundless torment in the empty eyes of the Wormvine's host. How could those terrible eyes be the same as the radiant ones looking at him right now?

Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by pity, compassion, and sorrow.

And fear.

Because if he was right and this was really the same Solvane, then this dazzling stranger who had just promised to gift him a glorious death… was a Saint.

And a Saint promising to kill him was not something Sunny had ever wanted to hear.

He peered beneath the surface of Solvane's lovely figure, and saw a single sphere of light burning brightly in her chest, so radiant as to appear almost blinding. Her soul core… the soul core of a Transcendent.

His vertical pupils narrowed, a single thought ringing in his mind:

'Run!'

his body was much more powerful than his own, inhumanly so, but without knowing how to properly control it, outrunning a

started to fall into the shadows when a beautiful silhouette suddenly appeared near, a graceful hand falling from above to grasp one of his arms into an iron

was

Memory would have taken too long

All except for one.

suddenly appeared in his trapped hand and awkwardly shot upward, leaving a thin

with blood, a single crimson drop falling on the verdant grass. Her luminous

fate, then? A sacrifice of blood was made, on the altar

that, she

moved

with pain, and

***

Shadows… shadows…

surrounded

far. Some were small, and some were large. Some moved, and some were

of

of them. A legion of shadows, all hidden in one vast and lightless soul. Silent and tranquil, free of all burdens. Free of

For now…

'Ugh… my head hurts…'

thing he felt was pain, and then, the steady beating of his hearts. Hearts? Yes… apparently, he had two now.

him feel a dull pain in his limbs. His head ached, too, as if he had been struck on it hard enough to

he had been.

hit him. She

in pain if I am dead? What

the pain away. But it remained. Why wouldn't it disappear? It wasn't supposed to

Unless… he wasn't dead.