His body twitched. His eyes struggled to open.
He remembered what happened. He had fought for control. His body did little but protest, refusing to obey commands to fight back. Nothing came in that moment. None of it. And yet he had died. Just like that.
It reminded Lucid of how terribly fragile he was. If Alice wanted him dead, she could have done it long ago. What terrified him was the fact that she had been willing to die. With him.
He reconsidered her now. She was not an enemy. She was not a friend. She was not a foe. She was a monster in her own way, and Lucid was her accomplice.
His eyes twitched. Sensation returned all at once. The warmth from the fires. The smoke curling into his lungs. The hot stone beneath his back. The smell of burning paper and charred flesh.
He opened his eyes.
"Back to the living," he said, his voice a dry rasp.
He raised his head.
His transgressor was there. The girl who had stabbed his heart, who had driven her dagger through his eye, was kneeling beside her leader. The hawk-nosed boy was fumbling beneath his coat, his earlier arrogance replaced by something that looked very much like panic. The girl was tending to his wounds, her hands shaking.
Normally, Lucid would be furious. Normally, he would feel the hot surge of vengeance, the satisfaction of rising from death to confront his killer. But he felt nothing. Not anger. Not fear. Not even exhaustion. Just a vast, hollow weariness. Apathy, complete and total.
He stood up. His boots crunched against the charred ground.
The sound caught her attention.
She turned. Her face went pale. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
What she saw was a ghost. His clothes were ruined, his shirt shredded, riddled with thin holes where her blade had pierced him again and again. Blood had dried in dark patches around each wound. Yet beneath the torn fabric, his skin was fair and untouched, as if nothing had happened at all. His hair was a mess, falling across his forehead. And the fog around his face had grown denser, thicker, obscuring his features in shifting mist.
Lucid was the definition of a ghost. Something that should be dead, yet persisted.
The leader finally found what he was searching for beneath his coat. A bright blue stone, pulsing with stored energy. An artifact. His hands trembled as he clutched it.
"Get away from me!" He shoved the girl sideways, hard. She stumbled, caught herself on a broken shelf. "Away, away, away!"
"Don't leave me!" The girl screamed, reaching for him.
Blue light enveloped the leader. A moment later, he was gone, the air rushing to fill the space where he had been.
The girl stood alone. Her hand still outstretched toward empty air. Her chest heaved with ragged, panicked breaths. Slowly, very slowly, she turned her gaze toward Lucid.
"Well," he muttered, his voice flat and distant. "I guess that leaves us both now."
"Please… please…" Her voice was barely audible, swallowed by her own shaking.
Lucid brushed past her. His steps were odd, slow, as if he had not walked in a very long time. He did not look at her. He did not acknowledge her pleas.
She braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the killing blow. She flinched. She winced. She waited.
Nothing happened.
She opened her eyes. He was not there.
She heard footsteps behind her.
She turned.
This was her chance. Her only chance. She could not let it slip away. If she brought his head to the leader, proved her worth, maybe she would be forgiven. Maybe she would be allowed to live.
Her hand found her fallen dagger. She palmed it silently, her movements practiced despite her terror. A crescent blade flashed, catching the orange glint of the burning shelves. She prepared to thrust forward.
He turned.
What happened next was a blur of motion.
Her elbow popped inward, her arm bending at an angle that made a wet, sickening sound. Something had struck it from the side, folding it inward like a broken wing. The dagger fell from her nerveless fingers and hit the ground with a sharp clatter.
A force, heavy and absolute, punched into her gut from below. Her body folded around it. She vomited blood, the hot liquid splattering across the charred stone. She was knocked backward, tumbling several feet before coming to rest.
She scrambled. Her right arm hung useless at her side, twisted and wrong. She tried to crawl away, pushing with her left, but her right arm gave out beneath her weight and she slammed her face into the ground.
Lucid walked. Step by step. Unhurried. Inevitable. Like an approaching storm.
She fell onto her back, raising her remaining hand. "Please…"
He tilted his head, studying her like she was an insect pinned to a board. "You had your chance. You killed me. And now, after I let you go, you try to kill me again." His voice was calm, almost conversational. "I'm quite merciful, aren't I?"
She could not answer. Her throat was closed with fear.
He bent his knees. He brushed past her raised arm. His hand found her throat in a quick, brutal motion and gripped firmly.
He did not want to kill her. No. He was going to do something else. He knew what it was. But he also did not. The knowledge existed somewhere in his mind, a door that was simultaneously open and locked.
He rammed her neck downward, slamming the back of her head against the base of a nearby shelf. The stone was not actively burning, but it was charred and hot enough to leave marks. The skin at her nape sizzled.
"AAHHHH!" She screamed, the sound raw and animal.
It was a cruel thing to do. He winced at the sound, at the burning smell of her flesh. But he pulled her throat back, maintaining his grip.
He did not know why he was doing this. But something told him that if he did this, he would get information. He would understand.
He opened his mouth.
***
"Manifest."
***
His voice carried twice its normal volume, reverberating through the air as if enhanced by some unseen force. It echoed off the burning shelves, a command that demanded obedience.
Immediately, white-gold chains materialized from the air around them. They were different from the Chain of Heart. Shorter in length. Thicker in girth. They wrapped around both of their throats in a single, unbroken loop.
Lucid grunted. The chain tightened around his grip and her throat, rough and constricting. It pressed hard enough to strangle, yet left just enough space to breathe.
Then the pain came.
The tip of the chain moved with a will of its own. It formed a curved, sharp point and slid along the baseline of their throats. It pierced downward, digging deep into flesh, into muscle, into something beneath.
He knew what he was doing. But he also did not.
He knew one thing, however. Saying nothing would result in death. Truth was gold.
She trembled beneath his grip. Blood slipped down her pierced throat, trailing from where the chain had bitten into her. She gritted her teeth, her eyes darting everywhere, confused and terrified.
Lucid was calm. Terribly, completely calm.
He spoke again. His voice carried twice its volume.
***
"I have three questions."
***
What the hell? He did not speak those words. They were his thoughts, but they were not his voice. It certainly was not him.
He spoke again. His mouth moved on its own.
***
"You have three answers."
***
She sobbed now, her mouth shaking, her eyes wide and wet. She was a child. Just a child playing at being a soldier.
"Who sent you to kill me?"
She shook her head. She did not speak. Her mouth trembled as if reaching for words, but none came.
He held her throat. He could feel her warmth, her vitality, her heartbeat pulsing against his fingers with each desperate thrum.
Time passed. She said nothing.
'Wait. She will die if she does not say anything. She will—'
He tried to speak. The moment his lips parted, a white, translucent membrane pressed across his mouth, sealing it shut.
***
The opposite party is restrained from speaking.
***
'What the hell is this thing?' He thought, the words screaming in his skull.
The monotonous voice spoke again.
***
The time limit has expired.
No answer has been provided.
***
The chain around her neck tightened. The inner spike dug deeper into her throat.
Blood spilled from the corner of her lips. Her eyes strained, turning slowly red, like she was being strangled from the inside. Her breaths became wet, rattling sounds.
Lucid stared in disbelief. This was not what he wanted. This was not what he intended. But he gritted his teeth.
It has to be done.
"Why are you guys killing silver badges?"
She trembled. Her mouth opened in a desperate, pained wheeze. It was barely enough to form words.
"For Miguel." Her voice was a broken whisper. "The new heir to the crown of Vex."
***
The truth.
Conditions have been met. Transferring roles."
***
The chain pulsed with a soft, gold-white light.
***
Party One now has three answers and one question.
Party Two now has three questions and one answer.
***
The roles had reversed. His heart dropped for a moment.
Tch. I'll just heal. I always heal.
'But no wait...'
He could heal from any damage. Any damage except damage inflicted by Alice's source. A Primordial ranked power.
He was not so sure anymore.
The girl spoke, seizing the desperate thread of her survival. She managed a faint, ragged breath, understanding the shifting dynamic.
"Why don't you kill me already!"
"Tch! Beats me..."
***
False
The conditions are maintained
***
'What the... that's the truth though...'
The chain tightened incrementally around his throat.
***
"Party One now has two answers and one question.
Party Two now has one answer and two questions."
***
Pain. Inside his throat, something coiled and writhed, like a snake that had been swallowed and now wrapped around his arteries, his spine, threatening to crush everything at any moment. He coughed. Blood sprayed from his lips, black and thick.
No green light. No healing warmth.
His heart sank.
His grip on her neck loosened.
She laughed. A sinister, broken sound, blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth. "I'll kill you, you sick son of a bitch! I'll—"
***
"The opposite party is restrained from speaking."
***
Her mouth clamped shut. Her eyes bulged with fury and frustration.
Lucid stared at the chains binding them together. He had walked into his own trap, not knowing the rules of the game he had created. It was a truth game, a binding contract of question and answer, and he did not understand how to play.
Every word he spoke carried weight. Every silence carried consequence. And the entity administering the contract was not him.
He looked at the girl. She looked at him. Two prisoners bound by the same golden chain, bleeding from the same wound in their throats.
He needed to choose his next words carefully.
He was in danger.