I was trying to unpack what she was conveying as she spoke, but the density of meaning made it a chore to work through. There was the understanding, the concern, the promise of aid, the condemnation for trying to go it alone, and respect for the care I’d shown her.

  But beneath all of that was a warning, a cautionary note not to stray too far from the light. And even deeper than that was the threat of something ominous, though she had been quite vague, and I couldn’t tell if it were a threat of something disastrous or great.

  It had become clear after my excursion into the depths of The Song that Nia’cyl was both ancient and far wiser than I was. In part due to the generational memories granted to her by The Song, but also simply due to her nature as one of the Fae.

  Under no circumstances could I allow Nia’cyl to find a reason to hate me, or even dislike me. This was a being I had to treat with profound caution.

  “My love grows! Our sight will widen with every step; there are many wrongs to right, and many battles to fight. I address you, Nia’cyl, daughter of darkness and mother of midnight.”

  I plucked her titles out of the stream of verses now flowing through my soul. She had many; beings as long-lived as her collected them like mementos everywhere they went.

  “Would we be brighter as one? Clasped hands hold more tightly to the thread of fate! Are we not tempered with each step we take? I beg of you, fairest of starless wanderers, take me as I am!”

  It was a bold statement, bordering on reckless. As a member of the Fae, Nia’cyl was a timeless creature. She wasn’t just old, or even ancient; she was beyond such metrics. She was an existence that had been spontaneously produced by the universe, something brought about by the sheer fact that she had to exist.

  There was no causality for her. Logic would not follow; in her case, it wasn’t ‘universe exists, thus, Nia’cyl exists’. From her perspective, the universe very well could have resulted from her existence.

  She had no lineage, no permanent bonds to the physical realm or emotional ties that she could be held to. What I’d originally thought had been fear as she trembled beneath the wagon had simply been bewilderment and recovery from the wounds she’d sustained.

  Now that we’d been connected through The Song, I could feel the threads of fate being tugged and cut between us. Even more frightening was the concept that she’d been captured to meet me specifically. There was no way to know just how much she knew about me or my purpose, or her motivations regarding those things.

  She was ephemeral, illogical, and very likely horrendously terrifying in every capacity one could think of. Even the people at the camp had instinctively hated her for simply existing. Her power and knowledge existed outside the realm of mortal comprehension.

  And yet here I was, essentially begging her to help me. Not just begging her to help me, but begging her to tie herself to me. It was like asking the wind to bind itself to a rock.

  A moderately interesting rock.

  She laughed. Either because she found it humorous—which I desperately hoped was the case—or because she was about to end me for my arrogance. But even the laughter rang out with notes of the deeper song. A chorus of voices laughed along with her. It warmed my heart; filled me with joy and hope and love and satisfaction.

  But then she shook her head, and my heart sank slightly.

  “Our voices chime well, Vita of the Tarnished Steel. We rejoice in the offer of unity, for our hearts beat so surely. But we hope you know just what great seas yet need be sailed before our lines may be entangled.”

  It wasn’t an outright rejection, and I certainly wouldn’t be killed, but there were still things that needed to happen before whatever destiny we had together could be played out.

  “You were lost, yet us we found, is that not enough for our love? Such naivety endears us, so for a spell we shall listen on to our heart’s song. Hear me?”

  It… worked?! Or, rather, it hadn’t… not worked.

  It was about as noncommittal as an answer could get. Beyond even just saying ‘maybe’, this level of wishy-washy answer may as well have negated my ever having asked the question. But… she was sticking around, at least, for now; who could say whether that whim lasted 5 seconds or 5 infinities.

  And it wasn’t in any sort of active role either; she would simply watch my part in the song. Listening to what notes I could craft and if they were worth listening to. Which unnerved me more than anything else up to this point. A creature of unknown knowledge and power, something that operated well outside the realm of even God’s, had just taken a personal interest in my life.

  After I had directly asked her to do so. At no point should this outcome have been possible for me, especially given my track record for diplomacy.

  A mad ambition overcame me, fueled by my continued success and a tickling sensation deep in my soul.

  I felt I still had cards to play, gambits to make. I’d gained a lot over the few minutes we’d spent talking, but there was more to eek out of the interaction, and I needed to capitalize on that while the opportunity existed.

  Or die trying.

  “Mistress of moonlight, shadow of shadows, I offer you just a simple wish in return for lending me your ear. This occasion has brightened not just my path, but my soul alongside it. I would carry your chorus across the stars, were I able to bear even the slightest sliver of its beauty…”

  I was brutally informal. Cashing in every single chip I had on the flagrant intimacy of my words. Another unhinged gambit from a man who knew far less than he should about making such deals.

  Nia’cyl was, as expected, completely floored.

  There probably hadn’t been another soul to address her so casually or bluntly that she hadn’t also deleted from reality. And not only that, but to offer a wish to her… I’d all but handed my soul over to her.

  The whiplash of the exchange had caught her so completely off guard that she, for the first time, could not respond to what I’d said. That, more than anything, would have caused me to break out into a cold sweat, if that were still possible for me.

  The song had gone from her lungs, and her storm-blue skin deepened richly. I had poured every last ounce of sincerity and hopeful desperation into my words as I could muster. Packing them with the heartfelt plea of a drowning man.

  And while I wasn’t certain she wouldn’t take it as a pathetic attempt to save myself from the crushing responsibility I’d been assigned, I did hope I wasn’t wrong about the threat she’d brought up earlier. We both understood that there was an evil at work in this universe, something I didn’t understand or even really know how to understand.

  But I could feel it in my soul when I interacted with the crystals. There was something wrong here, and I would need help.

  All the help.

  She stared into the drone and then, somehow, swivelled her head up and towards me; once again making direct eye contact through the several hundred meters of stone and dirt between us. They were a deep crimson red with pitch black vertical slits for pupils, which were now dilating intensely.

  The promise of a wish to the Fae was something one did not do, ever. The Fae dealt in trades and barters, tit for tat, quid pro quo and the like. But outright offering up a soul-bound wish was a power they were rarely—nay—never given.

  It looked to me like she’d simply forgotten how to breathe, and I was about to speak again when she pursed her small cherry red lips into an equally small ‘o’ and inhaled.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  She sucked at the air, iron dust and all, ever inhaling until I was sure there could be no room left in her, but she continued. A breeze picked up at the entrance of the mine shaft as the air density changed enough to form a gradient.

  I didn’t know what this meant and mentally braced myself for the worst.

  The ground shuddered slightly, trees swayed outside the camp as the air drew into the cave mouth more and more rapidly. The others attempted to steady themselves as the ground shook beneath them, and the wind threatened to topple them over.

  Alarm spread among the group over what was happening, and Armela broke away from an elderly man she had been tending to in order to come to my side.

  The rush of air was deafening now, so she shouted over the gale.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

  I simply shook my head before replying.

  “IT’S NOT ME THIS TIME.”

  She took up a battle stance, preparing to fight whatever the cause was, which I thought was both incredible and adorable.

  I sent her a ping as the howling wind became too loud to hear anything other than whistling air.

  “I don’t think we can fight this, Armela; just come hold on to me for now.”

  She sprinted over to me and crouched at my side, clamping onto my shoulders. The people from the wagons had taken up shelter behind them, using them for cover from the wind. In the cave, Nia’cyl was vacuuming up stones and dust, leaves and branches, bugs and birds, anything unlucky enough not to be more than a few kilograms in weight.

  The wagons slid sideways towards the cave entrance, dragging along the ground a few lurching centimetres at a time. Just as one of them tipped up onto two wheels, the sucking stopped. It shut off like a switch being flipped; the wagon crashed back onto two wheels, sending some of the people behind it sprawling.

  Dust and dirt fell from the air and swirled about in clouds. Stones clattered to the floor around Nia’cyl as she stood stock-still in the centre of the room, cheeks puffed out like a squirrel hoarding nuts.

  Her eyes snapped shut, and she vibrated, shaking spastically and violently as she fought against the great surge of air she’d drawn in. I tuned out the bustle of the camp as the people ran about checking on each other, demanding to know what had just happened.

  I tuned out Armela asking me for answers. I focused exclusively on what Nia’cyl was doing.

  The next few moments would determine if my soul would be lost for eternity to the Witch of Echo’s.

  Slowly the shaking stopped, her cheeks deflated and her breathing returned. Opening her eyes, she stared directly up at me.

  “You know not what you’ve done, Vita of the endless forge. The tireless cogs that you’ve now disrupted.”

  Well… Shit.

  “You could not fathom the implications of your proffered wish, beyond even what it means to me. For such an oath to be made, now, here, in the way you’ve done it… I was right to follow the song’s call.”

  I was petrified.

  She had done away with any and all uses of the song’s Legion. This conversation was now simply just for us. Between us. Only us. The personal nature of it was crushing me with its intimacy.

  To have a being like Nia’cyl focus her entire consciousness on me was eroding my soul by the second. But I grit my teeth and listened.

  “This is my boon, for the unwaking infinities that I’ve wandered alone from realm to realm, from time to time… here is where my steps have carried me, and here is where they carry me no longer. For the urge to take flight is strong now. To flit like a bird across the endless horizons and not turn to look at all I abandoned.”

  She was… worried? Confused? The slight pain gnawing at the edges of my soul was distracting me from fully deciphering her implications.

  “You’ve given me such a gift. Out of hand and out of mind. Fools are not so brash, nor are geniuses so generous. Answer me now, Vita of the shifting steel, do you value yourself so little?”

  I was dying. I wasn’t sure how, but I could feel death creeping across the back of my skull and boring through my core. Her words were grinding away at my essence. My teeth rattled, and a fear I’d never known gripped me. It felt similar to the dread I’d experienced when facing that t?h?i?n?g? inside Armela.

  Even with all the power I had, my thoughts were scrambled and cracking. Words came to my lips and died. I felt like a man slapping at the surface of a turbulent ocean.

  Two things bubbled to the surface, and I wildly clung to them to live.

  “Need… Love…”

  I gasped

  “Need… Warmth...”

  The pain intensified, and I crumpled to the ground, unable to move or think coherently any longer.

  Nia’cyl’s voice sunk into my mind like an icepick.

  “The weak seek love, and the cruel want warmth. Do these strike you as truth, Vita the Unbound?”

  I wheezed

  “Nooo…..”

  The pain doubled again, and my vision faded into a pinprick of light. A strangled cry of tormented anguish ripped from my throat as my soul was picked apart like a carcass inside my skull.

  “After I’ve devoured your soul, what do you wish of me?”

  I don’t know how I answered, or if I had really even answered. Words had lost their meaning to me, so it felt like my soul had just pushed something out of me in a desperate bid to prolong itself.

  “Beeee… freeeee…”

  And just like that, the pain had stopped.

  Or rather, not that the pain had stopped; it felt like there had never been pain. One moment I was dying, and the next I was perfectly fine. I sat up, looking around at the people who were now staring at me like some kind of potential hazard.

  Even Armela was looking at me like I’d grown an extra head.

  “Sorry… I’m alright, just… needed to resolve something… I’ll tell you about it later.”

  She squinted at me, but nodded. Going back to helping the ex-prisoners gather themselves and start work on bandaging cuts and bruises from the wagon ride.

  I looked at Nia’cyl through my drone. She’d slumped to the floor, unconscious. I called out to her, but there was no response. Whatever she’d done, whatever had happened between us had seemed to take whatever strength she’d had.

  I chose to leave things as they were for now. It was possible that the iron had a larger effect on her than she’d anticipated. Turning my attention back to the group, the brigands were slowly coming to. Apparently, my scream had been enough to wake them. I called to Armela and indicated their moving forms on the ground.

  She finished with the small girl she was helping before walking over and crouching before one of the two slavers she’d impaled the leg of. She grabbed the damaged leg and dragged the man before me as he screamed in pain.

  “Alright lad, you’ve got two choices! Answer my questions, or suffer. It’s a simple choice, really, and truthfully it doesn’t quite matter which one you pick, just make sure to pick one or you’ll suffer!”

  Her toothy grin only added to the man’s terror, and he quickly agreed to answer her questions. Naturally, she pouted, but proceeded with the questions.

  “You came out of Eprie, yeah?”

  The man nodded.

  “Who sent ya?”

  The man looked at the leader.

  “Oi! Eyes here, you worthless cunt!”

  Armela smartly slapped his face back in her direction before clamping a fist around his ruined calf. The man howled and wept.

  “Don’t go worrying about what the bossman has to say; he’ll have his turn to sing soon enough!”

  She directed a murderous gaze over to the leader, who simply shook his head and looked away. The fear that had caused him to pass out in the first place seemed to have dissipated, replaced instead with a rebellious resignation. Perhaps he’d come up with some kind of game plan, or a bargaining chip.

  “Right, who sent ya?”

  The man gulped audibly before shaking his head and stuttering out

  “I-I d-don’t know!”

  His shin popped like a fluorescent bulb under Armela’s grip. The man instantly passed out.

  Getting up, she made her way over to the second man she had impaled. He screamed and tried to claw his way through the mud away from her, but she snatched his leg up and dragged him over as well.

  “Same deal for you, lad—answers or suffering blah blah blah.”

  She was horribly impatient with these kinds of things; it seemed.

  “I-I swear! I don’t know! But! But—but—but!”

  He quickly stammered out a desperate plea in order to stop Armela from shattering his shin as well.

  “I seen Marol—our leader—talking to a bloke in a church cape! I swears on Rel! W-we only just drove the wagons… w-we never loaded ‘em, I swears it, miss!”

  Armela pursed her lips.

  “Where’d you pick the wagons up from?”

  The man started shaking his head, but a warning squeeze of his calf sent a jolt through his body as he blurted out a response.

  “I-it was on the north end! Up in Tor district! It was d-dark so I couldn’t say for sure, but… it was down the alley from ol’ Cernan’s place! The Shop with the anvil o-over the Door!!”

  Armela was getting frustrated with his compliance.

  “Was there just the one church cape? Did you hear what was said?”

  The man’s eyebrows knitted together in thought and panic.

  “Uh…uh, I-I don’t remember what was s-said… mistress…?”

  It was a Hail Mary if I’d ever seen one, but based on the grin splitting Armela’s face, it seemed to have worked, to his benefit or not.

  She turned to me.

  “This one’s pretty smart, Vita. I think a second pet would be nice, don’t you? What do you think? Should I keep him?”

  The man chuckled nervously as he turned his head towards me as well. Hard to imagine what was running through his mind while looking at me, kneeling in the blood and guts with a blindfold over my eyes.

  I slowly rotated my head to stare directly at him. The move had the intended effect of wiping the shaky smile from his face. I regarded him and then slowly shook my head.

  His absent smile morphed into a look of terror once again as he turned his head to plead with Armela.

  “Sorry lad, looks like my pet’s the jealous type. Didn’t mean to get your hopes up like that!”

  “I-I’ll do anything! I’ll beg you! Anything at all, just please sp—”

  His pathetic cries for mercy were cut off as she ripped the man’s shin from the socket and tossed it over her shoulder. The snapping and tearing of flesh was enough to cause some onlookers to turn away. But there were a few who remained stone-faced.

  Impressive.

  With two of the men down, all that remained was the leader. His look of defiance had crumbled slightly with the impromptu amputation performed in front of him.

  Getting up, Armela made her way over to where he sat. Unlike the two men, he hadn’t been injured, at least not physically. Pissing his pants and begging for his life had most likely inflicted quite the wound on his ego; despite that, he had remained rather cavalier about his situation.

  “I’m going to hurt you in a lot of different ways. If you play nice, I might stop when you beg me to kill you. But if you make this harder for me than it needs to be… well…”

  She looked at the man now missing his leg.

  “Let’s just say you’ll end up in smaller pieces than that.”

  The leader took this on the chin and kept his mouth shut. Potentially trying to salvage what was left of his dignity, which had to be hard to manage with piss soaking the front of his pants. She didn’t bother dragging him over to me like the others, choosing instead to question him where he sat. ‘on his turf’, as it were.