Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the last string of runes, waiting to feel something.

The sight of it…

He still remembered the deep well of complicated, irreconcilable emotions that seeing it had made him feel. Anger and indignation mixed with love and longing… pain, resentment, fear, hope, comfort. And numerous other things he could not quite name. They had been potent enough to make him feel like he was suffocating, at times, so he expected to sense the familiar ache.

But no matter how long Sunny waited, it did not come.

He did not feel anything special. Looking at the runes did not move his heart, and he remained at peace.

That was because he had made peace with the truth they showed some time ago…

And also because that truth was different from what the runes had meant before. Before, these runes signified something that had been forced upon him in violation of his will — something that he had no part in choosing for himself, and therefore resented with all his heart.

But even though the runes themselves remained exactly the same, the meaning hiding behind their shimmering glow was entirely different now.

Now, they were an expression of his own free will. They signified a choice Sunny had made freely, and so…

Looking at them did not provoke any negative emotions. In fact, Sunny was mostly preoccupied with thinking about the practical implications of what it meant to share the Shadow Bond with Nephis again. He briefly concentrated on her True Name, and her runes shimmered into existence. That was one of the minor benefits of being Neph’s shadow — he could check on her whenever he wished.

The runes told him that she was still alive, at least. Although he was not sure if the Spell was telling him that Nephis was still alive in the time period he had ended up in, or showing him her current status somewhere in the labyrinth of broken time.

He believed that it was the latter.

Neph’s runes looked like he remembered them. Of course, Sunny had seen them last when both of them were Masters, so there was a lot of new information written in the shimmering runes, as well.

Seeing Neph’s name glowing in the darkness made him feel the urgent need to find her. Somewhere out there… Nephis was probably remembering him. Remembering the past they shared, and what they had felt for each other.

She was most likely remembering how he had abandoned her in the depths of a Nightmare, as well.

Were the memories rushing in all at once? Or were they simply there once again, and would only surface when she thought back to those times, as memories did?

Sunny sighed and glanced away from her runes, turning back to his own.

They read:

Aspect Abilities: [Shadow Control], [Shadow Step], [Shadow Manifestation], [Shadow Incarnation], [Shadow Legion].

Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].

Flaw: [Clear Conscience].

Citadels: [Nameless Temple].

And that was it. His life, summed up in a scattering of glowing runes.

Sunny remained motionless for a short while, trying to distract himself from anxious thoughts by thinking about something else.

‘Right…’

Being able to check Neph’s runes was only a minor benefit of the Shadow Bond. The Shadow Bond was not a Flaw, after all, even if Sunny had only ever thought about it that way. It was in fact the Innate Ability that lay at the core of his Aspect, and a power that he was supposed to have been using both for his own benefit and that of his supposed master throughout his life.

The boons of the Shadow Bond depended entirely on whom Sunny entrusted with being his master. And all the emotional baggage aside… he would have been hard-pressed to find a better master than Changing Star of the Immortal Flame clan. Her ability to heal deadly wounds alone was worth more than words could describe. And Nephis was not just any healer — hers was a Divine Aspect, after all.

Needless to say, those who possessed Divine Aspects did not grow on trees, and if he were to choose between Nephis and Mordret, he would choose Nephis in an instant — because their powers complemented each other so well.

Before, Sunny and Nephis had been able to augment each other, with the whole of their combined power being greater than the sum of its parts. There were other benefits, as well… but all Sunny knew about the effects of the Shadow Bond on both of them was from their time as Masters.

Now that they were Supreme, the fusion of their powers would have grown far greater, as well.

The problem was that the powers of Awakened grew much broader in scope and harder to define in simple terms as they climbed the Ranks. Gone were the times when Sunny and Nephis existed in the narrow confines of their Abilities and Attributes, as described by the Spell.

These days, each of their Abilities and all of their Attributes could be expressed in dozens of ways, often resulting in secondary powers derived from a combination of several core Abilities, made possible by an ingenious application of experience and skill.

So, Sunny could not immediately predict how the scope of the Shadow Bond had grown.

Would Nephis be able to heal and augment his shades from a distance, like she could heal and augment members of her own Domain? Would the shadows of Nightmare Creatures killed by the soldiers of the Longing Domain end up in his Soul Sea instead of traveling to the Shadow Realm? Would the power of his Domain add to Neph’s own, since he was her shadow? Would her [Longing] Ability now protect him, as well?

What about their Will? Would it also fuse, becoming greater than the sum of what each of them wielded individually? Would Neph’s Will gain an inherent affinity to death, just like his own?

There were too many questions, and not enough answers. It was obvious that there was a lot they were going to have to discover, one step at a time…

Sunny knew that the Shadow Bond made them dramatically more powerful, though. If the two of them had faced the Vile Thieving Bird united by the Shadow Bond, the battle would have ended quite differently. The same went for Azarax, the Flesh of Kanakht, the Wandering Archon… Which was a good thing, considering the kind of enemies they would have to face in the future.

Sunny inhaled deeply, then sighed.

“Time to go.”