Shadow Slave

The three women looked at him expectedly. Sunny hesitated for a few moments.

"You know where we are, right, Jet? In general, I mean."

Taking the cup of tea and cradling it in her hands, she nodded.

"Yeah... we are inside that weird pyramid. Somehow. This place is the Great River, which is supposed to flow endlessly from the future into the past."

He sighed in relief. It seemed that Effie and Jet had learned a few things about the nature of the Third Nightmare, as well.

"Indeed. Because of the nature of the Great River, there are all kinds of strange things happening to time in this Nightmare. For example... Nephis and I have been here for about four months now. But Cassie has been here for more than a year."

Nephis and Cassie nodded calmly, since they had already known that fact. Jet, however, seemed perplexed.

"What?"

Sunny looked at her, lingered for a moment, and said:

"Yeah. What about you?"

Soul Reaper suddenly seemed uncertain. He touched her hair briefly, then blinked a couple times.

"About... two months? Effie and I were sent to the same place, two months ago."

This time, it was Neph's and Cassie's turn to look stunned.

"How can that be?"

Sunny smiled faintly.

But first, Jet... can you tell

took a sip of tee, then smiled back

"Sure. Why not?"

blue eye grew

Look, you even have a ship! Effie and I... we weren't that lucky. The people whose roles we've taken belonged to a tribe of river nomads. Their ancestors were the survivors of one of the destroyed cities, I think, but these guys... they had already regressed into abject savagery. Which is not that surprising,

She sighed.

They rode sea creatures as steeds and hunted weaker abominations for sustenance. When Defiled or powerful Nightmare Creatures appeared, they ran. Actually, their way of life was really ingenious... and tenacious. I have never even thought that it was possible, for humans to live entirely

her head

they were

could Riverborn lead nomadic lives? Weren't they bound to a span of

Jet nodded somberly.

much, that quickly. The nomads lived very short lives, you see. No generation lasted more than a couple of decades. They rarely remained as children for more than a year or two, and were expected to join the hunts immediately after. If there

She shook her head.

like adults, but in reality, it was a tribe where no one ever reached

back, fed her crow Echo a grape, and

a tribe. There were maybe a dozen people left. All the other nomad tribes seemed to have gone extinct already, as well. We were most likely

Her expression darkened slightly.

It took us some time to learn how to live the lives of the Great River nomads. In the process, we also learned from the surviving tribesmen about the Tomb of Ariel, the Great River, the Defilement, and

then winced, briefly touching one

point, there were no children among the nomads anymore, so there was not even a point in trying to run. In

that Jet and Effie remained Outsiders despite having taken the roles of two Riverborn people.

she shrugged

mission to obliterate all nomads. The sea creatures we rode had also been wounded in the battle, so they were gradually slowing down. After about a week of running away and fighting pitched battles with those bastards, we got lost in the mist, and then sucked into this whirlpool. I only managed to send my

the black bird and

trying to reach the island.

glanced at Cassie, then

mean? How long have you