‘Damien!’ Yuriko called out, but the old man hadn’t responded after nearly ten minutes of mental yelling. Fri’Avgi didn’t have anything to add either, saying that she didn’t know what the old man meant and that she was really only concerned with defeating and devouring things to further her recovery.

Left with little choice, but with her mind churning with thoughts, doubts, and fears, Yuriko tossed and turned inside her bedroll, stared fitfully up the tent’s ceiling, and then cuddled with a sleepy Gwendith for comfort.

And she had such a pleasant spar, too, only to find out that Sage had ulterior motives. Now she had to question whatever intelligence he had given, even the suggestions could have been a trap. She also wondered at the monkey’s true power as neither of them had gone all out.

She tossed and turned until Gwendith grumbled in her sleep and managed to kick Yuriko off the bedroll in revenge. Only then was she able to calm down enough to sleep. She woke up late the next morning, and it was to Gwendith, Desire, and Saki all glaring down at her.

“You went out alone for more than a day,” Gwendith said in tones of pure outrage. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Ehehehe…”

_________

Gwendith held in a giggle while Yuriko pouted. After scolding her beloved that morning, and after being debriefed on what she found, the council had met and plans had to be changed and brought forward.

The initial plan had been to do what the Frozen Camp’s division had done. An advance group would secure and ready a forward base camp, the rest would follow, and the rearguard group would erase tracks and dismantle the previous camp.

The distance between where they currently were from their objective was a little more than thirty leagues, but only if they travelled in a straight line. By sticking to the valley wall, they’d need to go north nearly thirty leagues, then go directly east by a couple of leagues. On a road or plains, it wouldn’t take her more than a couple of days to get there, but as a group, it should take a week or two, depending on how dense the undergrowth was and how many times they got attacked by the guardian beasts.

All considerations fell away to watching Yuriko sulk though. And when she glanced at Gwendith reproachfully, then the giggles came out. Which only made Yuriko pout harder. Hie hie!

The camp was already on the move. The ground near the valley wall wasn’t flat, which meant it wasn’t easy to walk on. The horses complained incessantly with their neighing and constant mane shaking.

The undergrowth was too thick if they left the slope, so she was thankful that at least there was an available path. After a few more minutes of pouting, Gwendith asked Yuriko to clear the undergrowth so they could walk there after a couple of longstrides. The slope got steeper a bit north from what she could see.

Both of them moved to the front of the caravan, and Gwendith practised with her flying ice knives. Unlike Yuriko Radiant sword shards, the ice knives weren’t quite as sharp and destructive, but at least her knives wouldn’t cause a forest fire. One would have thought that with the humidity and perpetual mists, that would have been impossible.

However, Yuriko’s Radiant blades had so much heat packed in them that their mere touch could cause steam explosions from the trees. And the wood would be dry enough to be ideal firewood. Then, merely being in the shards' presence would ignite them.

Gwendith helped put out the small forest fire afterwards. Unsurprisingly, it was easy enough to accomplish. She smothered the flames by pulling the heat out of the mists, causing it to turn to ice, which she then tossed in the middle of the flames. She tried taking the heat out of the flames directly, but… well, when she extended her Anima towards it, she got burned.

She could manipulate heat with her Ennoia of Cold, but her tolerance was on the other extreme, after all. Tricks with producing flames while making ice didn’t mean that she was immune to fire, not the way Yuriko was.

Either way, using her ice daggers with purpose, rather than just practice felt better to her senses. She didn’t aim to cut down trees but chopped up vines, bushes, and branches instead. Together, they cleared a path wide enough for two abreast to walk, and they did it almost as fast as the others could walk.

After a day of doing that, Gwendith’s mind ached with fatigue. Using her Anima and her Ennoia didn’t spend Animus, but even so, something else was spent. Focus and concentration, for one. She was well past the point of being jealous of how Yuriko could keep on going. Maybe if it had been a few years ago, back before she got abducted. Her pride would not have let her stay silent then. Not so, now.

The next day, the wolves attacked. Perhaps the caravan had been too noisy, or perhaps they had pushed too far into their territory when the valley wall path proved too perilous at this point, and they had to go a bit deeper into the forest.

The iron-furred wolves were always eerily silent, even when they trod upon dried leaves and twigs. However, few things could actually avoid Yuriko’s peeping aura, so they were forewarned.

Ice daggers shot at a wolf’s eyes, nose, and ears, and she managed to nail all three strikes. The vital points weren’t as tough as its fur, so it was incapacitated after a moment and should die within a few minutes. She moved her strikes at another attacker, though this one avoided an eye strike. The daggers shattered to bits and froze the beast’s head into a block of solid ice. Gwendith stood back as she conjured more daggers. The misty atmosphere made gathering the necessary moisture quick and easy. She only needed to move her Anima and channel her Will through it. Ten seconds later, a new set of three daggers were available to attack.

However, the battle was already over. The wolves had retreated almost immediately, but they left a dozen corpses behind. Those were processed quickly and packed for conversion using the ration bar fabricator. Then they continued on their way.

For several days, the wolves attacked the caravan. Most of the time, they were fended off easily, and few were killed. None of Yuriko’s followers was gravely injured, and those that were wounded were quickly treated by Desire. Gwendith watched with appreciation as those her beloved trained became more and more competent. Why, most of the injuries suffered by the wolves came from the ex-guards and the awakened civilians now, since the beasts avoided Yuriko whenever they could.

“Why do they keep doing it?” Gwendith muttered after a fight.

“Who knows?” Heron said. “At least they’re making sure we’ve enough supplies. Heh.”

The attacks stopped a week into their journey, and they’d covered two-thirds of the way there. Less than four leagues a day. Not too bad really, considering they were on foot. Still, they should arrive at the tower in four days or so. She could already see it, even with the thicker mists.

Gwendith glanced at her beloved and saw Yuriko chewing her lower lip while staring at the tower. She reached up and clapped a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Worried about that monkey?”

“Yeah.” Yuriko answered absently.

“If it comes to it, we’ll fight him together.”

Yuriko sighed. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

__________

“You. Seek. To. Bargain.” The clockwork, spherical spirit intoned. “What. Do. You. Offer. What. Do. You. Want.”

To She Who Whispers into the Light, the spirit was huge. At least ten times her current size, though being a homunculus, her body right now was about a third of a pace high. Even if she were in her true body, she would still feel as though she stood before an apex predator. Here was a spirit of a fortress created specifically for conquest and destruction, and each of its animating spirits embodied that concept in one form or another. However, the fact that she managed to stand before this creature meant that the Siderious’ unifying purpose was no longer in full force. After several millennia without its true owners, she supposed that was only to be expected.

“I offer servitude. Bondage for a time. The absence of intelligent beings in your domain tells much. You lack hands to fulfil your duties.”

“Duties. I. Know. My. Duty. But. Should. I. Fulfill. It. You. Would. Perish.”

“And so, I came to bargain.”

“Servitude. Very. Well. Ask. Your. Boon.”

“Freedom from my slavemaster.”

The sphere seemed hesitant all of a sudden. It opened up its body, revealing many slender manipulative limbs, though the ends of which faded into the dream. Whisperer didn’t struggle as one of the graspers touched her body, dug into her Anima, and drew back, carrying within its grasp, a tendril of her very being.

While still connected to her breast, the tendril was brought into the centre of the sphere, and the metal layers folded over it. It didn’t snip the connection, which only meant the pain of such a transgression filtered down to her main body as well as this one.

Whisperer could feel the animating spirit dissect and read the patterns of her tendril. She knew she could stop it. Knew she could easily pull back and even destroy the spirit. She was a Chaos Marchioness, possessor of a true Domain. This spirit was as dust beneath her feet.

But she could not. If she wanted to be free of her bindings, she couldn’t do it. Not yet. Once she had broken the Watcher’s chains and bound herself to a new master, one that was objectively weaker than she was, then she could work her way free. But then, if the bargain was fairly made, she wouldn’t need to try and wiggle her way out of it. But one must be ready for all circumstances.

“You. Are. Bound. By. A. Chaos. Duke. Good. I. Thought. You. Were. Entwined. By. A. Fate. Spinner. Or. Their. Progeny.”

“So I am,” Whisperer said slowly. “Will you give me the bargain?”

The metallic creature pondered for a long, long while. Days, actually. It was a good thing the Whisperer was no longer mortal, otherwise she might have perished of thirst by now. Finally, the creature spoke again. And as it did, concentric rings of light covered both of them.

“I. Accept. Your. Offer. For. Until. The. Siderious. Is. Under. My. Sole. Command. You. Will. Be. The. Instrument. Of. My. Shyllynn’s. Will. In. Return. I. Will. Break. All. The. Bonds. That. Chain. You.”

“I agree.”

“Then. Transfer. Your. Anima. And. Consciousness. Here.”

This was it. Finally, after several centuries…

Whisperer murmured a name. Her name. But the Chaos took the sound of it as soon as it left her lips. It even took the memory of it from those around her who could hear. The animating spirit, Shylynn, didn’t even seem to notice, but the words did one thing. It acknowledged that the current speaker held her true title. A moment later, her Corpus outside, in a seated meditation pose atop the clouds, crumbled into its constituent Chaos. Her Anima followed the connecting threads and snapped into this homunculus, which ceased to be thus, and became her new Corpus.

Ambient Chaos swirled in a vortex and gathered around her tiny body. Each one dove into her Anima, was converted by her Essence and by her Dominus, the fourth stage of Ennoia, into particles of light. Her body was made of such, and soon enough, she was whole again.

She knelt down in front of Shylynn and accepted its benediction. Then, there was agony as part of her Anima was torn apart.

Days, weeks, perhaps a Season or so later, she pulled herself back together. And now, she was no longer burdened by the Watcher’s sigil and his ever observing eye. Even if he couldn’t see into this fortified space, his heavy touch had still caressed her Anima every now and then.

But finally she was free.