With a breathless gasp, Iris awoke, sitting bolt upright as cold sweat clung to her body. Her hand darted to her side, finding only a neatly folded pillow, untouched, uncreased, and undisturbed, a total opposite of what she had grown used to. Her chest felt tight and bloated, as though something was crushing her lungs against her ribs. She reached for the hem of her shirt, fingers curling into the fabric as she lifted it slowly. Tilting her head, she pressed her chin to her colrbone and dug her nails between the pale bars of her ribs. She noticed her body had become thinner, a far cry from the thin thing it was when her first life ended, but the sunken skin was certainly evident to anyone who looked.

  Her thoughts reeled, galloping through her mind until her amethyst eyes locked onto a figure seated by the door. A small nightstand had been brought into the room, one she didn’t remember seeing before.

  It was a maid. She was not the same one she had recalled from earlier, but another human. Blonde hair pulled back in a bun, a slim notebook resting on her p. She looked up with a vaguely bored expression, and something about that look made Iris let go of her shirt. That face told her this wasn’t the first time she had been caught unraveling in panic, which somehow made her not worry about her internal organs becoming external.

  “For how long was I out?” Iris asked. There was no trace of formality in her voice, desperate for an answer now.

  “Eighth bell just rang. So you’ve been asleep for more than a day.” She stood up, approached, and touched Iris’s forehead with the back of her hand before scribbling something on the page. Sticking her tongue in concetration out as she did so.

  “I should be freaking out,” Iris muttered, pcing her palm against her chest. The pressure inside her was starting to fade, slowly, like a balloon losing air. “I shouldn’t be here.” She said feeling her emotions betraying Kia and her.

  “Miss Harbinger?” Persephone’s voice came soft and cautious. She took a step back, unease fshing in her eyes as the undead elf turned toward her with a bnk and unreadable expression. An alien thought of being harmed by an undead entering her mind.

  “I should be screaming,” Iris said. Her voice was thin, hollow. “Barely holding it together while the void eats me from the inside.”

  “You were treated by a good doctor,” Persephone said gently. “Miss Harbinger, you—”

  “I don’t feel it.” Iris’s tone faltered. “I finally crossed the line. Got what I deserve. Useless sve that I am. Failed her again.” Tears gathered in her eyes, but her body was too weak to let them fall. They shimmered quietly, held in pce by exhaustion, all the while the risen spent her st smidge of energy on guiltily stroking the flower on her head.

  Persephone hesitated, then stepped forward with more resolve in her voice. “Hey. Maybe you should consult your system. You're exhausted, clearly shaken and emotional. You’ve been through a lot. That doesn’t make you useless.”

  “You don’t know me, human."

  Persephone’s smile was thin, but honest, as she did not reply. She had seen the elf doze off into death-like stupor before crying herself to exhaustion, and she didn't want Miss Elf to wake up once again in tears. In return for her silence, the elf growled like a feral animal, fshing her sharp pearly teeth more vicious than those of the vampires she served, but without another provocation, the risen mind swiftly wrapped around the suggestion, doing as the human told her.

  A genuine smile began to grow on the elf's face, intermixed with sadness as she raised her arm and began to stroke something dispyed by the system only for her. "I don't understand."

  "What do you not understand, Miss Harbinger?" Persephone kneeled beside the bed, her thick uniform cushioning her from the hard floor. "Tell me." The elf looked slightly better than before making her hopeful that this time she wouldn't pass out.

  "Kia and I share a connection, a magic link connecting our souls. I don't feel it anymore." The elf expined. "Her feelings were so alien like a... like thoughts of a country a million strong condensed into one, pushy, overwhelming. But now the link between us is empty, an erect wall blocking her off from me." The elf muttered her words trying to expin. "Aspects, she must be so scared." She ended with a barely audible whisper barely able to slip past the choking tightness in her throat.

  "That's rather romantic." The human maid marvelled with star-like eyes.

  "What is?" Pulled from her grief, the risen frowned at the oblivious blonde.

  "Your bond. It's like something out of a novel.

  The elf blinked at her. “You’re not serious.”

  Persephone leaned closer, resting her arms on the edge of the bed with a dreamy sigh. “No, I am! Soul bonds, superhuman feats, and an aching silence where there was once warmth. Tragic and beautiful! It’s very Hearts Entwined: The Countess and Her Swordmaiden if you ask me.”

  "There is a book like that? And you own it?" A dirty look caused the human to blush in shame.

  "U-uhhh... It's not that kind of book, Miss! I-I swear! Mistress likes to sponsor artists from all over Edor, and sometimes they send her gifts, books and such, but she usually just shelves them without ever opening them! A-and, well, some of them have... illustrations. Very bold ones. BUT I didn't know about them, I was trying to practice my letters. Please don’t tell Mistress! I really do my job properly! It’s just most of the Household are undead, so there’s not a lot to do, and I might have, uh... peeked. Just out of boredom!"

  "So it's Umbria's fault? That you read such things." The tall bedridden woman made a serious face, looking like the executioner.

  "Of course not! That is not what I was trying to say." Persephone shook as she frantically tried to expin herself before noticing a hand weakly resting on hers.

  "You're almost as easy to tease as she is." The pale woman with raven bck hair said as her head sank deeper into the pillow.

  "Wait? You tease Master?!" she asked, blinking slowly as her mind tried to wrap around the concept. Lady Umbria’s Master was supposed to be the Undead Divine, an actual Divine! That’s what she had gathered from all the whispers and hushed reverence of the elder vampires. According to her preacher, such a thing didn't exist, but she trusted her kind Mistress more than even her own kind. How could someone tease a Divine Aspect? Weren’t they all supposed to be all fire, judgment, and eternal silence?

  "Of course. It is so fun to do. She is so precious that half the time my words fly over her head, and she blinks at me like a confused kitten. She adores food, she practically inhales it the moment I give her some. Purrs a lot too. Especially when she sleeps or when I scratch her behind the ear..."

  Iris wasn't sure when, but in one moment, she was speaking to Persephone with tears in her eyes, and the next moment, the human handed her books and gossiped with her while sipping tea primarily about Kia before the conversation shifted to more petty subjects both women knew well. A thunder strike caused the maid to jerk, pausing her excited monologue on the various strange foods which apparently helped with keeping fingernails growing strong. She giggled a little, putting her hand to her face before returning to her speech about the small-stuff back in Firmusa. Iris, unable to lift herself off the bed, listened, inexpressive, to the way women talked to each other. Wondering how her life could have been if she were born human and without her talent, upon sensing the strange bliss of her mind refocusing on lesser, happier things.

  "Wouldn't have met her."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Nothing, continue please."

  POV Change

  Thunder struck one of the mage spires, creating a light show at its base, electrifying the ground around it. The runes having been drained dry. North of the central citadel, in a broken-down house, the groaning of shambling figures in the dark was drowned out by the heavy rain outside. The figures all congregated in a dark corner of the building, forming a thick ring around it. They appeared catachonic, a dull light shining unknowingly behind their bloodshot eyes. Among these walking corpses, both cultists and loyalists swayed, some having their clothes shredded while others appeared more dignified, having been killed in more civilised ways.

  Someone living screamed, armed with a short sword as they stormed out into the streets. The undead stirred like a hive of wasps, their rigid muscles forced to move by a will beyond. The human's loud rammblings turned to mute droning in the distance, and shortly after, the undead huddled together, having not left as was their nature, their primal minds shackled to the corner.

  Without warning, the resurrected mob fell over. A dust cloud was kicking up from the yers accumuted by the dust on their shoulders. As the magic animated them, it wizzed through the air toward an ancient vessel in the form of a snow white doll with raven bck hair. Deathly silence gripped the hall as a torrent of rain drummed outside.

  A deafening shockwave tore through the streets, shaking the buildings to their foundations as a sickly purple light burst through the seams of the metallic veil. Moments ter, an otherworldly chorus of shrieks and wails erupted as souls were wrenched from the aether and violently forced into rotting corpses. A bright blue fme burned through the soulless eyes, leaving a burning iris behind.

  "Automated defence system: disengaged." An emotionless voice filled the room before the ancient's body stirred to unlife.

  A pair of glowing blue eyes first scanned the deathly pale arms first, watching them with an umbreaking mask not to dissimir to unmoving faces the zombies around her possessed for a long while.

  "Objective..." The ancient turned north and tried to head there, intending to get as far away as possible. Before her heel hit the floor, her leg slowed as she encountered a barrier. Going no faster than a zombie through mosses, with each step needing to be forced with almost all the power the ancient possessed. "...Impossible." She uttered after having her leg suspended for a while. The mage's leather heel hit the floor hard enough to break the ground she stood upon as all the will to leave the city departed her muscles. "Need to fortify the position." An etherial voice boomed and the gathered undead began to funnel out of the broken ruin.

  SemperFire