Shadow Slave

The first time the locals felt that something was off came when the peculiar conversations failed to die down after a week or two. Instead, they only seemed to grow louder, and more people seemed to accept the baseless rumors as the truth.

It was fine when there was only an occasional oddball or two who decried Changing Star. But when their number grew, the mood in the city shifted for the worse. The rumormongers continued to spout nonsense about Lady Changing Star and the Immortal Flame clan, and the people slowly started to get angry.

After all, these two ideas — the Immortal Flame clan and its last daughter — were not merely representing the authority of the Human Domain and the Sovereign who ruled it. In this world where the gods were dead and terrifying beings were looking at humanity with hunger, they were the closest thing people had to something sacred.

Changing Star was a symbol of their hope, and at the same time the source of that hope. The tenacity of the Immortal Flame was synonymous with humanity itself. Naturally, emotions ran high when someone cast doubt and maliciously undermined either. Especially here in Red Hill, where most people lived in broad view of each other and rarely kept secrets, such sacrilege was bound to cause a few altercations.

On more than a few occasions, fists followed insults. The clear glass was marred with blood, and the retainers of the Maharana clan had to pull the brawling citizens apart.

The situation was only made worse by the fact that it wasn’t only the usual suspects who believed the rumors. The eerie part was that even people whom everyone considered bright and reasonable would suddenly start to side with the apostates. Even one’s own friends and family could suddenly abandon their deep-rooted beliefs and principles, changing the way they saw the world.

The miner finally returned home after a long shift in the remote quarry, happy to see his wife and parents. To his dismay, however, the former seemed to have had a serious quarrel with the latter, to the point that they were not speaking to each other. The cause of the quarrel was that his wife had somehow become an ardent fan of the new Sovereign, Dreamspawn, whom his father despised.

The Awakened warrior and his siblings held a memorial dinner for their late older brother, who had died in Godgrave. The youngest gritted his teeth and spat that if it wasn’t for Changing Star, their family would have still been whole. When the warrior glanced at him in utter confusion and said that it wasn’t true, the young man only got bitterly angry with him.

The waitress couldn’t understand her daughter as of late. She felt like a stranger. Her reverence for Lady Nephis, whom she used to idolize, was suddenly gone. It was replaced by admiration toward the man called Asterion, which seemed almost zealous. When the waitress asked her about it, her daughter just stared at her hollowly. It was upsetting. It was unsettling. Most disturbing of all, no amount of logic and persuasion seemed capable of changing their minds back — trying to argue with the apostates felt like slamming your head against a wall, because all arguments simply washed over them or were turned upside down to be used against you, even if all rational meaning was lost in the process. That was because most people did not argue with logic, naturally. Most people argued with emotions. As long as they were attached to an idea emotionally, their subconscious would find all manner of ways to make that idea into truth with an illusion of reason.

And as those loyal to the Changing Star argued with the growing number of Asterion’s zealous supporters, the very idea of truth gradually turned blurry.

When it did, the nightmares came.

Perhaps they had been tormenting the citizens of Red Hill for a while, but no one noticed because of everything that was happening. People just woke up tired, having spent a restless night tossing and turning in their sleep. It was a few people at first, then more, until half of the city seemed to be walking around with bruises under their eyes.

Their expressions, too, were subtly haunted. Still, no one really paid attention until the nightmares became clear and vivid.

In them, the people of Red Hill were burning.

The soothing flames that had brought them hope once turned scathing and hungry instead. Their skin blistered, and then blackened. The flesh beneath turned into charcoal, then crumbled into ash. The white bones cracked and melted.

The nightmares repeated themselves over and over again, instilling a new fear in people’s hearts.

That was when some of them began to ask themselves a question...

The blessing of Changing Star could reach them across the entire world, washing away their wounds in a wave of white flames.

But those flames of hers could not only heal, but also destroy.

So... did that mean that if Nephis of the Immortal Flame clan wanted to, she could burn anyone, anywhere, at any point in time? Did it mean that for as long as they were a part of her radiant Domain, their lives depended solely on her mercy?

And that there was no escaping her wrath. Or rather, there had not been. Until the Dreamspawn came to the shores of the Mirror Lake and offered his help.

Once that realization crawled its way into the minds of the citizens of Red Hill, the number of apostates among them started to grow with great speed.

Until a day came when the Awakened warrior saw a fight while patrolling a market. A miner with bronze skin had found himself in an altercation with a cook from a nearby inn, shouting obscenities.

“Shut your mouth! Shut your damn mouth! I’m so tired of you crazies! Stop spouting that crap everywhere you go, damn it!”

The Awakened warrior frowned, then walked over to the fighting pair and forcefully pulled them away from each other.

It took him one look to realize what was happening. The cook was one of the apostates, and the apostates could never just have an opinion. They seemed hellbent on spreading the news of their changed worldview as far and as wide as possible, ignoring the fact that it could make some people uncomfortable.

The Awakened warrior’s frown deepened. He supported the battered cook, dusted his clothes off, and then turned to the miner somberly.

When he spoke, his voice sounded grave. ”...Why are you bothering a faithful servant of Lord Asterion?”

Standing atop the Red Hill, Dar of the Maharana clan was observing his city with a concerned expression. He seemed tired, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His gaze was a little unfocused.

At some point, his fingers twitched, and he glanced into the distance with a sigh.

His imposing figure was reflected in the polished glass, drowning in sunlight.

Just as he turned away to look at the horizon, his reflection seemed to smile faintly for a brief, fleeting moment.