Iris's mind fluttered up, waking with the unpleasant feeling of a coarse blanket being wrapped around her. Opening her eyes, muddled and not remembering the last time since becoming an undead she couldn't recall ending the day. Her lavender-coloured eyes swept over her surroundings, finding herself in a small attic room deprived of any amenities. Through a lonely small window, she could see the sun shining down from a beautiful clear blue sky. The rather pictures sight was accompanied by the abundant chirping of songbirds, no doubt as colourful as the elf imagined them to be.

  The frown on her face melted into a disturbed expression as memories of spending nights alone in rooms awfully similar to the one began to flood her mind.

  With a gasp, Iris violently raised her hand. Her fingers came to a gentle stop before she found the blue petals of a flower cold to the touch, braided skillfully into her raven black hair.

  "It's there. Everything wasn't just a hopeful dream." Despite being undead the risen sighed loudly as if a mountain had sled down her shoulders. "Huh?"

  The frown reappeared on the risen's stony face as she heard a rattling sound under the blanket each time she moved her right hand. A cuff made from thick metal, whose unusual colour and gleam suggested it wasn't ordinary steel rattled with an unpleasant chime. Throwing the blanket off herself, she saw a chain meandering against her bandaged body, ending near her left ankle.

  "What the-" Iris's voice trailed off after noticing a figure standing at attention beside the plain door which blended with the sickly beige wall.

  The maid's vampiric eyes watched the risen with a bored expression as if the scene had been played countless times before. The vampire dressed in the dark colours of her liege House maintained direct eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time, both women studying each other. Before Iris could open her mouth demanding an explanation the vampire perked up with realisation and slipped out of the room with hurried steps.

  "Wait!" The hoplite flung her arm toward the door only for it to lock and the chain to pull on her leg and arm.

  A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over Iris as she tried to stand up, despite her undeath, unlimited stamina and having slept for Aspects know for how long she fell on her back. Suddenly and acutely aware of her helplessness the elf could only hold her gaze on the door in hope someone would come through it.

  The sound of armoured footsteps seeped through the open window familiar voices mixed among the metallic clanking after half a bell of waiting. A knight opened the door and Iris could see two more blacken suits of armour guarding the door from the other side.

  Umbria stepped into the room wearing a long dress similar to the one she wore during the Brawl. Despite the casual aura around her the elf could not have missed the armour boots poking out slightly from underneath the oddly voluptuous wine-red dress.

  "Harbinger," Umbria regarded the elf with an unusual level of courtesy making her concern about the next words to leave her mouth. "I see you had slept well."

  "Umbria, is Kia with you? Don't you fucking lie to me."

  "Not yet." The vampire replied, her voice making Iris realise how tattered her voice was, as if before leaving her mouth the words ran across a field's worth of sandpaper.

  "What are you even doing here? We have to find her! For Aspect's sake had you turned your back to her!?" The pale elf forced her body to raise, muscles trembling as she fought through every self-preserving instinct left intact from her previous life.

  "You're not going anywhere," The older undead took a seat at the edge of the bed while simultaneously pushing the risen back onto her spine. "Before I explain what has happened over the three days you were knocked out I must apologise."

  "Three days, that much?" The elf repeated not believing what she was hearing.

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  "Harbinger... I feel like I must kill you," Somehow the woman who Iris had begrudgingly respected appeared like a stranger as she sat less than an arm's length away from the elf's face. "I felt anger, powerful and unexplainable suddenly well up inside me like a hornet hive. I had almost insulted you the Harbinger of my beloved Master and I deeply apologise for it."

  "Do you still want to kill me?" Iris asked, trying to hide her hand sliding closer to the woman, ready to claw out Umbria's eyes if the vampire did something. At least she would try too...

  “Yes, but at the same time, the thought of acting on this urge of mine fills me with a depressing foreboding of letting down and saddening the Great One. A deep feeling of imminent abandonment stopping me each time this buzzing hatred tips the scale."

  "That feeling will come true if you sit here instead of going out there and finding Kia. Better yet, give me a potion and I will find her myself."

  "I did say you are not going anywhere, young woman." The bloodsucker pushed the elf, not needing to exert much force as the light-headed undead fell back by herself.

  "Don't fucking joke with me, she needs me! Something might have happened to her. What if she got hurt? Ahgr! I should have helped her use a knife and not be a stupid s-"

  "I don't think you should finish that sentence."

  "But I failed to protect her!" Iris's vision blurred as a tear gathered in her eyes, clinging to her like the words of a human hero even into her new life.

  "We all did! And we shall face our punishment in her divine court and nowhere else." Like the zealots, she had seen in Havenfall the vampire declared with such confidence and zeal she wanted to believe in whatever the bloodsucker would say.

  "Then why are you not letting me go? I can help, I have the ability to find her. If something happens to her I-I wouldn't know what to do, I can't let Kia get hurt for the second time! I will do anything to find her." The undead's clawed hand clutched at Umbria's bloodless hand begging the older woman.

  "And that is why I can't let you leave."

  "WHY!" A banshee-like shriek tore the air.

  "Because I believe more in Master than in you. My Divine had seen fit to tie her soul, her time on Niuran with you," Umbria spoke, her eyes resembling that of an owl as she leaned closer to the Harbinger. "You would charge into the city carving a bloody trench through the streets. Disregarding how slowly the daemons chipped at your health, not caring about yourself and the link you share with our... Kia! My Master! I had waited for her longer than you could have imagined! She will not be taken away from us, her children because you wouldn't listen!"

  The vampire had gripped the collar of Iris's shirt pressing her entire weight down, pinning the raven-haired elf to the bed. Then as swiftly as she pinned her, Umbria's voice bordering on screaming the vampire let go her crimson eyes morphing into golden-yellow orbs.

  "You're infinitely more useful here, Iris at least for the moment. I swear to you once we figure out the parasite in you and when the city will be ready. We all will go there and drown Oriripol in the blood of apostates and daemons to save our most merciful Master." Umbria said lightly stroking the younger undead trying to reassure the risen.

  "How can I be useful here if I'm stuck in bed? I'm unable to help, Umbria. Not here."

  "I had informed all of my vassals about the bond you and Master share. You might be too inexperienced to lead troops but the sheer knowledge that our Lady, our great Liege Lord is there safe. Her unbeating heart connected to you in such a way that as long as you stand we will never give up on our mission."

  The Damestar raven visibly sunk into a thoughtful pause, slowly analysing the vampire's each word. "You said something about a parasite?" Iris asked calmly. Or at least she tried to and the older woman shuffled closer.

  "That is what my staff called the strange affliction affecting you and the reason for your three-day napping session," The Firmusian shadow eminence said sounding concerned for the risen. "They are saying that something had been feeding off your mana, coming close to killing you five times but always stopping before doing so. They reported to me that in the midst of cultists and lesser daemons, there might have been a proper daemon possessing a human who had jumped ship at the last moment. Normally a cleric could exorcise the daemon but because of your race, you know you would sizzle more than a sausage on the campfire... Why are you smiling, Iris this is a serious matter." Umbria scowled at the idiotically smiling undead before turning around to her vampiric staff which had dutifully stood behind her, not a single noise coming out of them until now.

  "Undead are the best," Iris said those words as if they would explain the situation. "You better get eyes on my cuddle bug, she prefers not to use my mana which means she was using huge amounts of it and needed it."

  "Cuddle bug?" The woman furrowed her eyebrows before realisation hit her and her hand traveled to brush gently against the elf's brow. "Master is more connected to you than I thought."

  "Maybe you will give up trying to steal Kia from me?" Iris half-jested finding the touch of the mature woman endiring in a way she half remembered.

  "Never." She answered with a chuckle.

  "...So can you explain the cuff on my arm and leg?" The elf wiggled her wrist causing the chain to rattle like a snake. "I may have lost the sense of touch but having this on me reminds me of something."

  "No can't do."

  "Why?"

  "The situation on hand requires all hands on deck and I'm unable to spare Karol to babysit you, while you are stuck dealing with the side effects of near-fatal mana depletion." Umbria explained but the elf could see what the old hag was trying to say.

  "I won't run away. I can take an oath if you don't trust me."

  "Later today. You need to rest and whatever memories these might reel up, just remember that you were reborn a new woman the moment Master had blessed you in the same way she blessed us." Umbria spoke before standing up and heading toward the exit.

  "Umbria?" The risen mumbled her mana once again being siphoned out by the undead ancient somewhere far away from her. Her head resting deeper into the pillow behind her.

  "I will leave Staska here, ask her anything. Unfortunetly humans are not blessed with patience. Rest now Harbinger." The high noble smiled before leaving, Iris catching a rare break in her mask.

  The only evidence the elf didn't dream up everything once the door closed was a Firmusian woman with short blonde hair dressed in a dar Blackworm uniform, altered to fit a role Iris wasn't aware of.