Lorient got on her shaking feet. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, from feeling lighter than clouds. With her mistress protecting her, no danger, no trouble, no anxiety could reach her. But she forced herself to stay calm; she did not deserve this sense of security. She had failed her mistress.

  “Smile for me, Lorient,” Iris said. “Wouldn’t you like to assure me of my victory?”

  Iris’s voice filled Lorient’s heart. She shared with her mistress the brightest smile. “You don’t need it, but I shall smile for you, Mistress.”

  Iris was about to tease her little knight when she turned away and flicked her wrist. A wave of starlight beamed from her palm and crashed against a skull hatchet. The bone fragments bit the tiny stars embedded in the wavefront. The stars shattered, exploding as pale moonlight.

  The hatchet broke into pieces, but Iris did not mind it. She stared at the plague doctor, who carefully retrieved his dimming staff. He hmphed, although he did not dare to cast another spell. Flesh squirmed around his shattered hand, healing it.

  “Blasphemers deserve no respect.”

  “Are you so weak that you must resort to ambush?”

  “Talking to you is already a waste of our time.”

  The plague doctor knocked his staff against the catwalk. The prophet stepped back before he took out a pearl necklace. His bleeding right eye glowed in black light, though he still struggled to keep it open.

  The bodies of the unconscious cultists writhed. Their bones crackled and mutated, piercing through their muscles and skins. Their filth-black blood gushed from their fresh wounds and flowed to one spot. A blob of bone fragments, held together by suffocatingly thick blackness, shot its tendrils at Iris.

  Lorient bit her tongue and spat out her fresh green blood, from which flowers and vines sprang. They formed an array of umbrellas. The tendrils punched holes through the vines, but Lorient came before their target.

  She clasped her hands and shouted an arcane word. A series of hexagrams appeared in front of her. Their symbols spun according to an unheard waltz. She exerted herself until something snapped. Her heart skipped a beat. The spell formation distorted its flow and imploded.

  Holding her breath, she made another gesture, yet her spell didn’t respond. Her power no longer followed her command, her action strung by a higher will. She tensed up to take the blow for her mistress.

  Iris tossed a phantom card at the crumbling spell formation, stabilising it, while she glared at the prophet. Her eyes multiplied inside their sockets, filling the world with only her vision.

  The prophet and the plague doctor’s eyes turned black. An abyss appeared before them and swallowed their spirits. They fell endlessly into an eternity of darkness. Nothing existed within this world, no magic, no thought, no physical body. Nothing but the void of time.

  Iris flew backwards. Her incorporeal body merged with Lorient’s. She wielded only the slightest, gentlest force as her spiritual links joined with Lorient’s.

  Lorient opened her mouth and exhaled a puff of steam. She suppressed her weak voice, but she did not resist her mistress. The sensation of becoming one filled her being. She surrendered her body to her owner, surrendered her mind to her master.

  “Lorient, would you like to become one with me?”

  “Please, Mistress. This heart and soul belong to you.” Lorient closed her eyes and let her consciousness drift.

  “Focus, Dear. You will feel me, become me.”

  Pairs of hands glided around Lorient’s soul. Their fingertips tickled her. Her every part tingled. She opened her eyes and, waving her arms, felt her mistress’s phantom moving as her afterimage.

  “Mistress?”

  “There are no mistress and her knight, only us.” Iris’s voice rang within. “Use our power; reveal our elegance. Annihilate those filthy beings.”

  Lorient lightly nodded. Her gaze assumed an air of high nobility. Her tattered cloak twisted. Its torn fabric sewed itself close. Its dull brown shade gained liveliness. According to the rhythm of Lorient’s heart, her clothes danced, with each swing painting colours onto itself.

  She swiped her right hand. Her mistress swiped her right hand. A whip of leaves and flowers manifested in her palm. Countless roses—crimson and gold, black and white—blossomed on her body, spread to her dress, and infected her whip. The vines swayed, singing a tone only she could hear, and protected her from the dirty air surrounding her.

  The frozen prophet squirmed. Blood gushed out of his tightly closed lips. He vomited globs of fresh as his eyes regained their brightness. He took a few steps backwards and adjusted his breathing. His bloodied pupils struggled to stay open, but he did not dare to close them.

  The plague doctor’s chest split open. Oozy tendrils crawled out of his lungs and threatened to devour his heart. He snapped out of the abyss and stabbed his gaping chest with a golden dagger. The tendrils retreated while he coughed out black filth.

  Lorient kept her faint smile while waiting for her enemies to recover. Their immense prowess now appeared unsteady, stoppable. With her mistress by her side, she could hold the sky and crush her opposition with her whip.

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  “Foolish,” the plague doctor said. “A mere apparition dares to underestimate us?”

  “Merely you two?” Lorient laughed. Her voice, resonating with her mistress’s, overlapped as a melody. “We’re giving you a chance.”

  The plague doctor stepped forth. Beneath his feet, darkness manifested and tainted the catwalk. The rusty chains holding the walkway trembled. His clothes rustled as flesh appendages pierced out of his back and unfurled like wings. He pushed forth with a speed that crackled the air, that shattered the metallic path beneath him, that rocked the warehouse.

  The prophet crushed the pearl necklace. Its crystal fragments absorbed his blood and blackened. The walkway collapsed. As he descended, he sowed the crystals. They magnified until they became a maze of mirrors, whose reflection revealed Lorient’s silhouettes.

  The silhouettes smiled, laughed, cried, cursed, and swayed as if trying to tell the world something. They all stared at Lorient, who could hear, with unmistakable lucidity, their incomprehensible messages.

  Through their incoherent sentences, countless visions of past and future asserted themselves. They latched on her mind, crutched her heart, and blocked her vision. She raised her whip and swung it, but her movement slowed to a crawl.

  She sank into silence as she limply fell to the ground.

  A monstrous appendage reached her. Its tip tore through her clothes. Her body arched as the appendage went through her stomach. Her emotionlessness sparked a smile, and her body dissolved as petals.

  The plague doctor’s face darkened. He slashed his dagger at the appendage which stabbed Lorient, but the sprouting flowers reached him before he could sever it. The vines rooted themselves in his body, greedily absorbing his blood and magic.

  The prophet widened his reddening eyes. They darted from one mirror fragment to another, looking for the silhouette concealing the real Lorient. His heart ached as his chest tightened. He heaved, his soul flickering from exhaustion. An unmistakable gaze landed on him; he shuddered.

  Lorient tapped the inner side of the mirror, cracked it, and stepped into the real world. She giggled while swinging her whip. Her reflections, which laughed and cried and mocked and cursed, ceased their movements. They screamed, their bodies dissolving, leaving behind lifeless figures.

  Those figures followed Lorient’s movement and snapped their whips.

  Every mirror fragment shattered. A tide of petals flooded out. The plague doctor and the prophet respectively created barriers to stop them from drowning, but they still lost track of Lorient.

  The tide swallowed the unconscious cultists and everything stored in the warehouse. The rusty containers, the sealed chests, the corpses of innocents and criminals, all became compost for the ever-growing ocean of flowers.

  Lorient land on the tide. The petals beneath her feet hardened into a series of staircases. She descended to the floor, put back her whip, and closed her eyes. Her mistress’s spirit shifted her hands. Lorient could feel the softest fingers tracing her arms.

  Iris reached for Lorient’s chest and pressed her fingertips on it. Lorient carefreely moaned, her voice echoing only for her mistress. Her flushed cheeks puffed in anticipation, but she received no more tease.

  “Lorient,” Iris said. “Allow me to gift you a souvenir.”

  “I’ll cherish it like my heart.”

  “Don’t feel too excited, Dear. Those two are failures who couldn’t become Grandmasters on their own.” Iris pinched Lorient’s chest, pinched her own chest. “A true Grandmaster is coming.”

  “Mistress, you’re absolute.”

  “Promise me, and I’ll bless you.”

  “Please grant me the bliss.”

  “You’ll wait for me, no matter how long it may take.” Iris smiled. “I will not lose you.”

  “What are you—”

  Lorient’s sentence was interrupted by a shaky moan. She could not stop herself from shaking, her body from heating up. Her mistress’s hands plunged into her chest, reaching deep into her soul. Those fingers invaded her private part, invaded her mind, invaded her memory.

  Those late nights and curtained moments resurfaced as flashes and lingering sensations. If not for her mistress’s spirit holding her, she would’ve collapsed on her knees, panting and twitching.

  “You’re my knight, Dear. And you deserve your imperial blade.”

  When Iris dug her hands deeper, Lorient lost her voice. She wished to hold her mistress, to give her mistress a burning kiss, to mark her mistress’s neck with red patches. But she could only force herself to stay awake.

  Her mistress grabbed a sword and pulled it out of Lorient. A burst of lilies exploded in Lorient. She regained her voice and, arching backward, cried out in the most bewitching tone. Her voice blossomed her roses, and even her mistress trembled.

  But Iris still took out the sword. Its rose-etched blade glimmered. Iris’s reflection on it merged with Lorient. Lorient hastily grabbed the sword and stabbed the ground, forcing herself to stand upright.

  The prophet flew out of the tide. Thorny vines rushed after him, but pairs of dark wings behind him spread their feathers, which cut down the vines. His pale face winced when he turned around.

  Lorient stared at him, gripped the sword handle, and stepped forward. Her figure transformed into a gigantic outline of a rose. She broke the fabric of reality and arrived in front of the prophet.

  He covered himself with his wings. Lorient slashed.

  Ethereal giggles permeated the air. The blade cleanly sliced off the wings and grazed the prophet.

  He rapidly retreated. The wound on his chest spewed an airy fragrance that numbed his mind. He crushed a vial of golden liquid, but the liquid could not control the overwhelming magic within the wound. He prepared a purification spell, but Lorient was already before him.

  She slashed her sword. A tail of flame traced its path. The blade cut through his cloak. He jumped back; the blade’s tip cut his cheek, landed on his shoulder, and swiped across his chest. He didn’t have the time to scream when he braced himself. The trinkets hanging on his waist glowed, creating layers of translucent membranes over his figure.

  Lorient held up her left hand. Cold winds surrounded her arm. A frozen shield manifested in her grip. She struck her enemy. A shock wave scattered droplets of blood away from her body.

  The prophet’s body was flung through the metallic wall of the warehouse.

  Despite knowing the prophet did not die, Lorient disregarded him. She stared at herself, at the heavenly phantom overlapping with her body. Her mistress’s silhouette had faded.

  “You didn’t need to do this, Mistress,” she said. “I didn’t deserve this.”

  “I can be cruel sometimes, Dear.” Iris’s voice softened. “The Rosy Sword contains my power, and your heart now contains my essence. Is that not enough?”

  Lorient stepped forth and turned to face her dissipating mistress. “I’ll treasure it well.”

  “Treasure yourself as well; you possess an even greater thing, right?”

  Lorient was about to answer when she frowned and spun around. The presence of the prophet and the plague doctor vanished. They couldn’t escape her enhanced perception, but they didn’t need to.

  A foreign power covered the warehouse with a magician’s napkin. A sleight of hand was enough to fool the world, to sink a region into the void, to cut away the land from its anchor.

  “There’s no need for senseless violence,” Iris said. “They aren’t here to harm us.”

  Lorient’s eyes dimmed. “They … want to capture you.”

  “They will keep you safe.”

  Lorient bit her lips. She could only watch as her mistress floated to stand between her and her enemies.

  A lady in a suit entered the empty warehouse. She tossed a few cards in her right hand while holding a walking cane in her left. Despite her arrogant demeanour, she flashed Lorient a familiar smile and bowed at Iris.

  “This Humble One greets Your Royal Highness.”

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