Shadow Slave

Effie stared at him with no amusement whatsoever on her childish face, which only made her attempts to appear serious look more comical. Then, she scowled and said evenly:

"Wanna die?"

Sunny shook his head with a grin, then went into more detail about the things he had learned, including various pieces of information he had gleaned in the nightmares, his experience with the Warmongers, and his observations about Solvane and Noctis.

When he was done, there was silence for a while. The others were digesting all the information he had shared with them, full of thought. Well… everyone except Effie.

The somber silence was soon broken by the sound of loud chewing. The little girl swallowed a piece of meat pie, then blinked a couple of times, noticing that everyone was staring at her. Finally, she wiped the oil off her lips and said:

"What? I am a growing child, you know! I need to eat well to grow big!"

Then, she wiped her oily fingers on the tablecloth and shrugged.

"Well, anyway… I guess I'll go next."

The little girl glanced at Sunny, made a face, and turned away.

"There's not much to tell, anyway. My three months in the Temple of the Chalice were not at all as exciting as Sunny's wild misadventures. Although…"

grew

very pleasant,

sighed, lingered for a few moments, and said spoke in

entrusted to the Maidens, for better or worse… but mostly worse. As I already said, their teachings had grown cruel and perverse over the centuries. Now that I know about how

The little girl trembled.

caught, and the punishment… at the time, they already knew that nothing they did to me would make me obedient. So, they punished

grew silent for a bit, then

it was pretty boring. Just endless training… battle training, essence training, body conditioning, and all that stuff. How to endure pain, how to endure fear, how to steel your will. How to be a perfect, merciless, lethal vessel of War. Of course, they

girl's

everyone turned out to be weak. Except

her piece of

But mostly, it was just combat training. They trained us ruthlessly. There's a lot you

Effie shook her head.

the rest. The girl whose body I took had the misfortune of Awakening at a very young age, you see. So, the Maidens saw her as their promised chosen one… a prodigious warrior fated to slay Solvane and wash away the humiliation she had visited upon the sect, to avenge

girl looked

their little sisters — when they were not torturing and killing us,

a moment,

hold over my head, I started planning my escape. I had no idea if I would survive it, but luckily, before