Cassie

  There were a lot of thoughts running through Cass’ head.

  That wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for her, but even by her standards things were getting a bit hard to follow. She had almost managed to convince herself she was awake, lying very still on her bed in the early afternoon in the Warg’s Fang.

  She wasn’t though. She knew this, and she couldn’t let herself believe in the experiences of the last few hours. She had a bit too much experience with this sort of situation to know that down that road lay only ruin.

  It had happened before, after all. Maybe not this exact situation but certainly not too far off. Some catalysing incident drew her and Lia together and they both confessed love and lived happily ever after. They enjoyed years of life, loved each other forever and grew old after a life of intrigue and joy.

  Then she would wake up.

  It always hit her after the fact, and she would always choose to simply play along with it. Of course she did. She was dreaming of it for a reason, after all. There wasn’t much to do about it, so she would let herself enjoy it for a bit.

  These particular dreams had been plaguing her for years by now, so she knew the harm of letting herself fall too far into the lie. She’d had a few close calls over the years, which she only got out of because Lia could be so damn oblivious when it came to this kind of thing.

  Of course, this one was certainly one of the stranger ones, although not for the normal reasons. She had imagined all kinds of scenarios where this would take place, but none of them were this… coherent. These last few weeks had been wonderfully real, although that had caused some grief recently.

  She opened her eyes in frustration for the dozenth time. She couldn’t sleep, despite being exhausted physically, mentally, and magically. Whatever power she had drawn on earlier had really taken it out of her, so she was stuck lying on her bed without recourse.

  Rolling over, she saw that Lia was still asleep. She was curled up on Cass’ bed, back in the form of a little Observer. Apparently being human-sized was too much of a strain on her right now. Cass didn’t mind.

  She hadn’t even really known what they looked like before this point, since she had just been finding them with Mage Sight when they were hunting earlier, so it was a little strange to find out they were actually kind of cute.

  She watched for a bit longer, mesmerised by the ever-shifting patterns on Lia’s skin. They were moving lethargically in her sleep, but even when resting no part of them was ever still. The longer she watched the more she saw more small changes, tiny shifts at the ends of tentacles or skin texture. Subtle details, but still definitely there.

  Cass sighed and rolled back, careful not to disturb the little squid. It was strange. This kind of thing never made it into her dreams, or if it did she never remembered it. Normally they were all highs and no lows, no quiet absences of action. She didn’t mind it, honestly. For all that she could be rather high-energy she had learned to appreciate a bit of quiet over the years.

  Shutting her eyes, she tried yet again to drift of into sleep. She could barely keep her eyes open, yet she couldn’t quite keep them shut either. She caught herself tossing and turning and forced herself to stay still, which was never easy.

  Images of the fight from before flashed through her mind. Her mind had never created something so… visceral, before. She kept flashing back to the moment she’d seen Lia’s body stop moving, the stab to her heart that had echoed through her entire being.

  Of course, Lia hadn’t died. She knew that, both in the sense that she was sleeping next to her and that this scenario was probably fake. Yet that didn’t scrub the minutes where she hadn’t known that, when she had been caught in the horrible limbo of worry, anger and grief. When life had just hurt, beyond all else.

  She groaned and rolled over again. It wasn’t real, It wasn’t real. None of it was, the good or the bad. She just wished her mind would get the message. It would make it all so much more comfortable.

  After an unknowable amount of time in the darkness of sleep deprivation, Cass heard a sound. It was almost like a knock on the window, but muffled and barely there. If she hadn’t been lying in silence for hours she wouldn’t have noticed it, but there was definitely something.

  Her eyes shot open again as she sat up slowly, examining the room through bleary vision. She couldn’t see anything in the muted light that pierced the drapes. It was technically daytime, but the curtains here were incredibly effective.

  Slowly she settled down again. It was very possible that her tired mind was playing tricks on her. Wait, how could she be tired, she was meant to be dreaming, wasn’t she? People weren’t meant to be tired in their dreams, especially not if they knew they were asleep.

  She concentrated, trying to take control of her subconscious imaginings and dream herself up some more energy, to no avail. That was… strange. She rarely became aware of her dreams while she was in them, but when she did she had no issue commanding them.

  Another attempt met the same result, so she simply gave up. She didn’t have the energy to be persistent right now. A whisper at the back of her mind offered up an explanation for this discrepancy.

  It's because you’re awake, it whispered. This time it’s all real.

  That’s ridiculous. Why would this be real? It barely even makes sense. What, we get drawn into some plot just so that we can confess? No, definitely not.

  Every situation has an element of chance, the voice advised. Don’t lose yours over petty fear and resignation.

  Petty? We’ve both been here before, buddy. I can’t risk it. What if I mess everything up because of this once I wake up?

  She could almost hear a grin in the voice. She was getting through to herself, and she knew it. Then you catalyse the event in reality. You speak of risk, yet you risk what could be your only chance because of disbelief. You are a fool.

  Maybe…

  Definitely! Do share, what exactly do you lose by taking this situation at face value? The voice had her on the ropes now.

  Embarrassment when I’m wrong? Bungling up the real confession when I have to do this all again in reality?

  The voice cackled, sounding eerily like her. You sound unsure. Trust us, you’re making this whole issue up. We should know, we feel the same fear you do. Fear of failure, of disappointment. You are us, we are you, and each of us know that this is no dream.

  Cass hesitated. As much as she was starting to dislike how smug her own thoughts were, she couldn’t find an argument against them. She was scared of messing up. If she somehow lost Lia, she didn’t know what she would do.

  Yet they had both confessed, hadn’t they? Sure, Lia only seemed to be cognisant of it as of a few weeks ago, but she’d done enough thinking for the both of them. She just needed to trust in Lia. Properly, not the half-baked trust she had been relying on for years.

  Everything was in the open now, so all she could do was wait and see how it played out. Maybe nudge the situation in the right direction now and then.

  Her worries eased, Cass settled back down into her bed. Sleep was pulling at her now, its many formless hands dragging her into the endless void of rest. She smiled softly. This was no dream after all.

  That came with new horror, though. As the images burned into her mind blazed to life behind her eyes once more, she realised that if this was real, then Lia had been through that. She’d watched from the outside as Lia’s body had rotted away, what must it have been like to have felt that?

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  Despite her misgivings, the siren song of sleep was suddenly irresistible. Her body grew heavy, her eyelids bearing the weight of the world as she began to drift into the darkness of sleep.

  As soon as she fell asleep she awoke again, her eyes shooting open as she heard another sound. A single footstep, gentle and expertly hidden. She scanned the room, her sight blurred by rest. It was still light outside, so she couldn’t have been asleep for long.

  Still, there was nothing in the room. She settled down again, more than a little frustrated at the fact that her well-earned rest had been stolen from her. Yet almost as soon as she closed her eyes she heard another step.

  Another scan of the room revealed nothing yet again, but she was sure that it was somehow darker now. No, not entirely. The shadows were deeper, almost opaque in the very corners of the room.

  Cass sat up properly, slowly extricating herself from the covers. There was definitely something happening, she just didn’t know what. She gradually stood from the bed, electing not to wake Lia. At least one of them would get some sleep today, if she had anything to say about it. Besides, she’d been through enough today.

  She considered her options. If there was someone in the room, then they were definitely using some kind of magic. What kind, however, she didn’t know. If she was lucky though, she could find out.

  At her side, her left hand subtly ran through the gestures for Mage Sight, a simple yet precise twist of the fingers and a small thrust with the palm. At the same time she pictured the spellform in her mind, checking and double checking her progress. Finally she muttered the incantation, as quietly as she could risk while maintaining the proper pronunciation.

  “Visum,” she intoned, magic bursting into her vision as she completed the spell.

  Colour bloomed throughout the room, mostly dull and muted. A mild ache built up in her mind, a reminder of her exhaustion. That was fine, she could push through. She quickly parsed and removed the ambient mana from her sight, leaving four sources of magic to examine.The first was herself. Ever since the fight in the crypt she had been giving off a little more magic than usual, but she was otherwise normal. Pale blue strings of mana swirled around her as she dismissed her own distinct magic from her vision.

  That also removed the second source of magic, her wand. It was currently in her bag on the other side of the room with the rest of her clothes. Right now she was stuck in a simple shift she had brought with her to sleep in. Not ideal if there was an intruder, but she couldn’t exactly change that now.

  The third source of mana emanated from Lia’s sleeping form. Her illusory magic shimmered like heat haze, hovering colourless around her coiled form. Small sparks of magic flared and died occasionally where her body shifted, but they were as brief as they were irrelevant, so that too was banished from her awareness.

  Cass turned to the final source and saw… nothing. She squinted and reconfigured her spell, trying to tune in to the mana that seemed to be hiding from her. She almost gave up, but managed to catch a single strand of purple hiding in the shadows right before it disappeared.

  Shadow magic. That explains how they’re hiding at least, and confirms that someone’s here.

  Shadow magic was infamous for being hard to detect. It came in two forms, and she could guess which one the intruder here was using.

  The first form of shadow magic was far more literal, a direct manipulation of the places where light cast shadows. It was distinct from darkness magic, which was only known to originate in the hells, yet it did have many of the same applications.

  The second form of shadow magic was far rarer, yet theoretically more powerful. Rather than literal shadows, the second form was known more commonly as ‘probability magic’, manipulating the chances of things to happen. This magic, fortunately, was incredibly extinct. Still, it was better safe than sorry.

  Cass squinted as she considered her next move. She could wake up Lia, maybe see if her vitae sense could sniff out the intruder who refused to reveal themselves. However, she didn’t want to disturb her if she didn’t need to. After what she’d been through, the least that Cass could do was make sure she got her rest.

  So she turned to plan B, raising her hand and making a single gesture, the simplest one she knew.

  “Clarus,” she incanted as she snapped her fingers, the room bursting into light as an orb of magical light burned itself into being above her head. The shadows in the room retreated, but still the intruder did not reveal themselves, so she cast it again, and again.

  Two more Magelight spells cast their sparkling light into the room, her affinity invading her magic as her light burned off excess energy in the form of electricity.

  Those spells may have been a mistake, as she felt the strain on her magic heavily. She was already exhausted, casting three spells at once was apparently too much. Even as simple cantrips they were a weight on her weary mind that she had seemingly failed to respect. She dropped Mage Sight, but it was still too much.

  She staggered back to the bed, legs weak and head spinning. She caught herself on the sheets, barely holding onto the spells as she blazed above her. With a twist of will she sent her lights to the corners of the room, growling as she saw crimson splash onto the sheets below her face. She raised an unsteady hand and felt the hot flow of blood from her nose.

  She was definitely overdoing it, but her plan worked. With her light banishing the shadows in the room the intruder was revealed. They turned out to be a fairly androgynous dark figure dressed in light, form-fitting clothing that obfuscated them in the dark. Their deep hood, blank mask and long gloved seemed designed to obscure them entirely. They wore a bandolier of blades across their chest, with at least ten daggers in easy reach.

  The intruder stood silently, staring eerily at Cass as she struggled to maintain her control over her light. Slowly they began to move slowly walking towards Cass, who was now slumped by the bed. Her mind ached under the strain, but she refused to dispel her light. If she did, this intruder would simply disappear into the shadows.

  “Lia,” she croaked, slapping the bed as she tried to wake her companion.

  “Hush,” the figure said. Her voice was vaguely feminine even muffled by the mask, but her words were still clear enough. The moment she spoke Cass felt her throat constrict. She tried to speak but the words simply didn’t come.

  “Better,” the voice whispered. She reached towards Cass and grabbed her under the shoulders, hefting her with ease. “Let’s move you over here. Wouldn’t want to wake your pet, would we?”

  Cass was panicking, struggling against the iron grip of the intruder. “Now, now. Don’t you go kicking up a fuss. I don’t normally work in the day, but this was just a perfect opportunity.”

  The intruder gently placed Cass on the other side of the room, placing a single foot on her chest to keep her down while she wriggled her fingers. “Silentium,” she murmured, a weight settling over Cass as she finished her spell. She realised that she couldn’t hear the subtle wind outside anymore.

  She turned back to Cass, her mask turning the simple movement eerie and inhuman. “Now, feel free to scream as much as you want. No one else will hear you, so it’s just entertainment. Once you’re done though, I have a few questions for you, and I believe that you have incentive to answer.”

  Cass glared at the intruder as she felt the knot in her throat come loose. “Who are you?” She asked, struggling to focus through the burning in her mind. She was starting to slip, her lights dimming and her vision blurring. She felt sick as her thoughts began to bend under the strain, but she held on. She had to.

  “Tch. I’m asking the questions here, child. Still, that little trick with the lights was smart, so I think you deserve a reward. You may call me Dusk.” Dusk tilted her head. “Now, where’s the other one? She disappeared at some point after leaving the Adventurer’s Guild, and I reckon you know where to.”

  Cass couldn’t help the bloody grin that cut its way onto her face as she glanced behind the intruder. “Sorry, friend. You’re a bit late with that one.”

  Dusk tilted her head curiously. “Really? Why, whatever do you mean?”

  Cass chuckled, which soon devolved into coughing as her lights flickered. She waited for her eyes to refocus as she glanced again behind the intruder. Soon, she just needed to stall.

  “What do you think happened to her?” She asked coyly as the most distant of her lights cut out. The burden on her mind eased greatly, but she was still weakened by her time beyond her limits. Her head pounded as she stalled for time, blackness encroaching on the edges of her vision.

  Rather than answer her question, Dusk turned to the now dim corner of the room. “Getting tired, child?”

  Cass said nothing, simply glaring at the intruder as she counted down in her head.

  Three.

  Dusk turned her gaze back onto Cass. “Are going to tell me or not? I’ve been very nice, you know.”

  Two.

  She pulled a single dagger from her bandolier, the thin blade gleaming in light. “There are other means of persuasion I could employ, if you end up being stubborn.”

  One.

  Dusk leaned in, taking notice of her silence. “What are you waiting for? No one knows I’m here, there’s no rescue coming.” She brought her blade up and pressed it against Cass’ cheek.

  Zero.

  Cass watched as a spike of jutting chitin extended through Dusk’s chest, sharp as steel yet thin enough to avoid bone. She winced as blood splattered onto her from the wound, even as she internally cheered.

  Dusk gasped, trying to spin to escape the wound. To Cass’ surprise she seemed completely mobile despite what really should be a mortal wound. Dusk gasped again as she must have noticed the second effect of Lia’s spear of chitin, sucking out her vitae.

  She twisted around with unnatural flexibility and slammed her dagger into the chitin, lodging the blade in before ripping it out. Then she did so again, and again, the third strike cleaving the chitin in two as the end snapped off. Now disconnected from the main body of the weapon she tore out the point, tossing it on the ground with a hiss as she finally turned to see the culprit of her attack.

  Behind her stood Lia, now fully equipped in her bug-like form and looming over the intruder. She must have gotten a good amount of vitae from Dusk, because she had attacked as an Observer with a highly modified tentacle.

  Dusk tilted her head as the gaping hole in her chest began to seal, the eerie stillness returning as she were returned to peak health. “Ah, how convenient. The other one. Lovely to meet you. I am Dusk, and you are my prey. Excellent attempt so far, I hope you don’t disappoint.” Cass got the sense that she was grinning beneath her mask.

  Rather than respond verbally, Lia decided to simply let out the layered hiss she had worked on last night. The sound echoed through the room and silence fell over the trio.

  Dusk raised her free hand and drew a second dagger as Lia extended her claws. “Come at me then, if you think you can.”

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