Teyva screamed as the pain registered in her brain. Agony unlike any aspect stone transformation. Her nerve endings howled as blood pooled around her. She thrashed, tears burning her eyes, gripping at the stump helplessly. She had to stop the bleeding, she had to calm down, she had to think, she had to breathe. She gagged, slumping forward and pressing her face against the ground as she fought through the pain. How could she stop the bleeding? Pain muddled her thoughts and her vision swam as she kicked her feet against the blood-slickened ground. Her mind couldn’t process the pool of unnaturally dark blood that began to form around her, the coppery odor tinged with sweetness. Somewhere nearby something was moving toward her. She rolled her head and peered up at the skeletal commander, its unfeeling eyes boring down at her. She bore her teeth at him, snarling, and opened her mouth as a ripple of sonic energy burst forth.

The boss staggered backward, startled by her act of defiance. She returned her focus to her felled limb, bleeding, still bleeding, stop the bleeding. Her mind ran in circles as she tried to rationalize some way to stop the rushing flow. She was losing too much blood. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and made a decision. Teyva cast [Chill Touch] on herself, squeezing the stump with all the strength she had left. At first she felt nothing, her reeling mind not connecting the ability to her immunity. She didn’t let up, squeezing harder and begging it to work. She saw stars as the cold seeped into her body, the necrotic chill kicking up a horrendous stench as new pain flooded through her nervous system. She felt the flow between her fingers slow and then finally stop, her body trembling as her nerves died beneath the necrotic touch. She sobbed, falling to her side and curling into a ball, begging for the pain to stop.

Around her, the sounds of battle drew her back into reality, shouts, roars, and the clamor of steel against steel. Then a closer sound, the stomping boots of the boss approaching her again. She heaved, coughing, and turned her head to look up at him again, yellow eyes turned almost orange with burst blood vessels. She stared into his cold blue eyes. Rage gave way to a kind of clarity. She felt cold on the inside, that chilling feeling rushing through her veins like it had when she’d been sitting atop the Ugroth. It felt good, so damn good. Just like before.

She threw herself onto her back and whipped her left arm at him as he swung his weapon for a finishing blow. A dome of magic erupted from her palm as she cast [Labyrinthine Shield], her mana dropped again but she endured, the sword crashing against the shield and wrenching itself from the skeleton’s hand. The sword abruptly launched to the right, hurtling through the air and smashing through a half dozen skeletons lingering in the back of the horde. The Skeleton reached for its whip and Teyva reacted. She shifted her arm into a chain and launched it toward the skeleton, wrapping it around his neck. It reached up to grab the chain only to freeze as she retracted it, pulling herself up to his shoulders. She straddled his head and continued to wrap the chain around him, gripping with all of her might. The skeleton stumbled and she yanked on the chain, forcing it to look into her eyes. “Look at me,” She growled.

She thought back to how it felt to drown in Yaga’s mana. How the king had poured his presence into her. How it suffocated her, how it made her tremble, how it left her feeling exposed, weak. She remembered how it had blown away the Ugroth’s resistance to her [Mind Trap] ability. This had to work. She needed it to work. She took a deep breath and put every ounce of her willpower into her mana. She felt the cloud around her body contract until it was a glossy shell, then she pushed it out, visualizing it like water pouring into the skeleton’s empty eye sockets. She squeezed with her chain, occasionally sending flashes of [Chill Touch] through it that burst into a [Dawnstrike]. She didn’t care that it didn’t work, she just wanted this bastard to suffer as she suffered. It reached up to try to pull her off, its bony hand grabbing her back. She turned her head and screamed at the limb, knocking it away before returning her attention to the skull.

“No! You’re mine!” She snarled and cast [Chill Touch] again, holding it as the bone began to sizzle and crack under the intense cold. She bore down on him, pushing her mana deeper, searching for something to hold onto, anything to expose his weakness. It was there, it had to be. Even if it was undead, it was moving around somehow, something in there was alive so why couldn’t her death magic work on it? If she could affect whatever it was that was animating this monster then maybe she could heal herself with [Hungering Cold]. Above her a voice called out, frantic, it sounded familiar. She hated that voice. She would extinguish that voice next. But it was saying something that sounded important.

“Teyva Akura! Stop! Enough! That is a line you do not want to cross!”

She didn’t care, she had to survive, she had to live on. She was not going to die here and surrender to Teyva Rani, not here, not this time. She wanted to live. She’d healed from flesh wounds before with [Hungering Cold], from being stabbed, cut, bludgeoned, maybe she could get her arm back too? It wasn’t too much to ask, right? She pushed deeper, the slick feeling of her mana slipping into the boss’ very being made her feel powerful, in control. It staggered beneath her assault, its knees buckling and it hit the ground. Deeper, she had to go deeper. There! She could feel something in there, something small but full of life, something warm. That would do! She wrapped her mana around it, clutching at it with imaginary fingers, and froze.

A sickness wormed its way into her stomach. Revulsion came next. Something so basic, feral, instinctual inside of her screamed a warning. She was going to do something she could never undo. The redness clouding her vision slowly began to clear as she felt her imaginary fingers wrap tightly around that small, helpless mote of warmth. Beneath her she felt frost spread across the skeleton’s skull, she felt warmth spread throughout her body and a tingling sensation begin in her necrotized stump. The tingling began to turn into pain, two explosions of agony that she barely registered as she bore down on the skeleton. The creature’s eyes flickered like candles and something deep inside of it cried out in panic, fear, grief? She swallowed, why did she sense grief? Was it afraid to die? Well so was she! She wrenched its head tightly and looked into those weakening eyes; “Are you afraid? Really?”

ERROR!

ERROR!

ERROR!

SOUL LINK HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED.

She ignored the prompt that flashed red across her vision and clenched down harder with her imaginary hands, feeling that beating, warm, brilliant light somewhere deep inside of the skeleton. It was trying to cry out, to scream, to tell her something. She bore her teeth hungrily and tugged again at that helpless mote, “Speak!”

SYNCRONIZING

Teyva’s vision went dark, her head swimming as she felt herself diving deep into a place that felt both alien and familiar. She heard the all-too-familiar clap of thunder in the distance and forced her eyes to open, suddenly blinded by a vast whiteness that surrounded her from all sides. She spun on her heels and looked down at herself. She was standing on a cloud of white, blue currents running through it. Something nearby tugged at her senses and she flinched, whipping her head around to find the source. When she saw him, she froze, her lips parting with wordless shock.

He was tall, not as tall as Teyva was but he still had some height to him. Thin, with a narrow frame and short ash-blonde hair. He wore simple armor beneath a clean violet tabard. The tabard’s tails fluttered a little in a sourceless breeze as he looked at his hands and reached up to touch his own face. He blinked several times, tears welling in his eyes as he pressed fingertips into pale skin. The handsome young man turned his head to look at Teyva and his eyes went wide, he staggered a few steps forward, his gaze filled with hope and maybe just a little pleading.

“Teyva?” He blubbered, “Teyva is that you?”

Teyva looked at him askance, tilting her head up a bit and taking a slow step backward, “Wrong Teyva,” She said, her tone so cold it surprised her a little.

He froze, his expression souring, “You look just like her but… different somehow. Stars on your skin. Horns. Like…”

“A monster?” Teyva asked, her lips curling into a smirk, “You must be Batel Rani.”

Batel blinked, “How?”

Teyva waved her hand, “It wasn’t with any help from Teyva Rani, that’s for sure. If you know her she never mentioned you,” Teyva said, shrugging. She reached up to the mangled stump of her right arm and stared him down. It was nice that it didn’t hurt here. She still couldn’t rightly put her finger on how she’d ended up in this place. The better question was where she was in the first place. “I don’t even know where I am.”

Batel made a face that Teyva had a hard time reading, it was almost like he wasn’t surprised. His shoulders slumped and he shook his head, chuckling a bit to himself before sitting down on the sourceless ground. “The place of the soul, some call it the void.”

“It’s white,” Teyva said, making a face.

“What color is yours?” Batel asked.

“I have a feeling I shouldn’t answer that question,” Teyva said uneasily.

“I can’t argue with that,” Batel said, “So how do you know my sister?”

“Oh she’s trying to hijack my body and use it in a hare-brained attempt at world domination so she can resurrect her species, you know, sister stuff,” Teyva said sarcastically, “I’ve got her locked up in my ‘void’.”

Batel shook his head and rested his elbows on his knees, “So she really did figure out a way to escape death.”

“Sorry to say this to your face, but I’m really looking forward to proving her wrong,” Teyva said cooly, “Actually, you cut my arm off, so no, I’m not really all that sorry.”

He winced and looked away, “She abandoned us here anyway.”

Teyva frowned, “Abandoned you? I thought she loved her people.”

He barked out a laugh, “When Master Paraklytus realized that she was going to start a war with the new-peoples he begged me to take my forces to the University to protect the people living there. She already hated Paraklytus after he refused to help her in her experiments with the place of the soul,” He paused, “Then the war happened. The new-people of the fortress rebelled and she sent no one to help,” His lips trembled and he looked up at Teyva, “Have you ever held a child as they starve to death?”

Teyva swallowed and lowered her hand from her wound, she crossed the distance between them and sat down across from him. He looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes. She rubbed her hand over her thigh and wrestled with the facts. She and Azrael had been right, the soldiers here had given everything to defend innocent people who had nothing to do with a war that they wanted nothing to do with. They’d been the last to die, living every moment for protecting the helpless people in their charge. “I saw them, the bodies,” Teyva said. “I killed a lot of your men to get down here. I couldn’t just back down though.”

He turned to look her in the eyes, “And? Did you find what you were looking for?” He snarled.

“No,” Teyva said, “Paraklytus made sure of that. Not sure why he did it, though.”

“What do you mean? He’s alive as well?”

Teyva raised her eyebrows, “Weren’t you listening?” She pointed at her head with her good hand, “Your sister’s in here and she really, really wants out. I was looking for a way to get rid of her. I’d heard that there was secret knowledge down here so here I am. Paraklytus is a lich, undead, just like you.”

Batel mouthed the word ‘undead’ before frowning at Teyva, “Can she hear us?” Batel asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Teyva said.

“Good,” He muttered, looking down at his hands. “That’s good.”

“Paraklytus made a point of telling me that you and the others we’re fighting right now are the last of the protectors of this place, and we could leave once we wiped you all out,” Teyva made a face, “If I kill you and your men, what happens to your souls? Can you move on? Is it possible that he’s trying to help you?”

The young man blinked and looked up at her in horror, “No! Of course not! I have no connection to my body, not in that way! I barely know what’s happening outside! I’m no sorcerer but I just know that’s not how it works,” He hung his head, “That idiot, for a man so smart he can be a real fool sometimes,” He squared his shoulders, “Besides! Even if that would work, I know enough to know that the souls of the people left behind are still there. We need to protect them, even in death they are vulnerable!” He declared. “What kind of Archon would I be if I ran away while my people suffered?”

Teyva leaned back, honestly a little shocked. She’d only known Teyva Rani, only known the worst that the Labyrinthians could offer the world. Here was her little brother and he was as good as they came. All he wanted to do was the right thing and he was so trapped it made her heart ache. She reached out to touch him and hesitated, her lip trembling a little. Sure, she didn’t want to be a hero, but how the hell was she supposed to ignore this? What was she even supposed to do? She didn’t have a way to help them move on or to ease their suffering. The thought made her stomach twist. So much for being selfish and living for herself. She couldn’t even manage to do that right. She let out a breath, all the fight leaving her in a choked sound that she refused to admit was a sob.

He looked up at her, “You’re crying.”

“No I’m not,” She spat, “Shut up, you cut my arm off.”

He blinked, shocked by the sudden accusation, and stared at her in confusion. Teyva shook her head and looked him over, pity on her face, she reached out and held his face more out of instinct than anything else. “Why are the monsters of this world so sad? It’s not fair, damn it.”

ERROR - SYSTEM INTERFERENCE

ERROR - SYSTEM INTERFERENCE

ERROR - SECURITY FAILURE

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O mother of monsters, o mistress of the impure, o tragic queen of the damned ones, o cruel soul who weeps for the twisted and the wretched. You who embody the love of a mother. Why do you shed tears? Do you mourn for those who know nothing of your love? Do you yearn for those who care nothing for your life? Can you not turn away your gaze? Is it not enough for you to create the damned with your own power? Must you draw even the foul ones born of their own regret into your embrace? How many will be enough, o pale maiden? How many souls, cast aside by the hatefulness of this world will satisfy you?

O Mother of Monsters, would you accept even the wretched soul you hold in your hands?

Yes / No

Teyva sniffed, her lips trembling, what kind of stupid question was that? The unfortunate young man in her grip looked up at her in confusion even as a faint glow began to blossom around the two of them.

“Um… miss?”

“Of course,” She forced the words out with a small, choked voice. "I'll take them all."