At the Ancient Cathedral, inside the office of the Eye of Elicia…

It was no less luxurious when compared to the Ecclesiarch’s Studio that she had the pleasure and honour of visiting every now and then with her elven mistress. For this office, much like the rest of the Ancient Cathedral, had very much the same décor, if albeit tightly cramped due to its relatively small size and all the files and librams its ornate bookcases held on subjects and matters far beyond her mortal comprehension. But unlike the Studio that always smelled faintly of sweet lavender prepared meticulously every day, this place had a far different smell. Intoxicatingly so, like that of power and madness, of sex, flowers, and sulphur.

In all her time in service of the Lich, Elena de L’Enfer, Claire de la Lune had yet to pay a visit to the part of the administrative wing of the Ancient Cathedral that hosted the office of her mistress’s mistress, the Archon known as Nhaka Mezalune. For unlike the Ecclesiarch whose silver-masked acolytes occupied most of the administrative wing, the Beholder had but a single chamber at the end of the hall. Where around it, more of the Ecclesiarch’s clerical servants were present, having taken up the rooms on the sides of the hallway as offices for their seemingly unending duties in administrating every minute detail of the Ecclesiarch's dominion. Without so much as a glance at her as they most busily continued those duties, they had pointed her here, to the workplace of the Eye of Elicia.

And now, she was here for an audience on her own initative. Her mistress, the elven Lich she had pledged herself to after all that had happened in a lifetime long past, had been gone for weeks on end. She was, after all, travelling with the Ecclesiarch herself to work on a mission to kill some human warlord on the fringes of Fort Sina. Whom, in her mistress’s words right before she had left to do her grisly work, was a bastard who had it coming for a long, long time. Whatever that meant.

Regardless, what Claire had right now was far more important. Far more important to herself, at least. This, she was sure, for she was doing it without her mistress’s blessing, for she knew well in her heart that a Vizier of the Eye needed far more than a mere maidservant. And the Eye herself had acquiesced to her request with little more than a smile and laugh just yesterday, almost as though on a whim.

“Hey there! Claire de la Lune, right?”

With the sound of those words, Claire’s reverie was brought crashing down upon earthly Melodia. She prostrated herself before Nhaka Mezalune, who was sat comfortably at her desk, upon a high-backed chair far taller and larger than her petite frame.

“Your Excellency!” Claire exclaimed hurriedly, the gaze of her brown eyes upon the rug she had knelt upon. “I’m here to speak to you about…”

“No, no, no! Don’t say it so soon!” Nhaka interjected, giggling fiendishly as her eyes and crystalline eyestalks looked upon her mortal guest with good cheer. “Let me guess! It’s more fun that way, hmm?”

Claire looked up from the rug and at Nhaka, who smiled warmly at her as any Beholder ever could.

“Um… okay?”

“Well…” Nhaka said slyly as she wagged a finger at Claire. “Is it about the charity ball for Saint Lyra’s Convent School that’s happening later this week? To think those fat, good-for-nothing merchants would dare…”

When Claire gave her nothing more than a look of stunned silence, Nhaka paused and placed her finger upon her lip for a moment, her pink brows knit deeply in thought. And that moment soon passed, when what seemed like a burst of inspiration struck her right upon her crystalline eyestalks, making them twitch excitedly in unison as she nearly leapt out of her chair with a big smile.

“Ooh, ooh, I know! Is it about my conference with Ebondrake later today, about that stupid Terask…”

“Not quite… Your Excellency,” Claire uttered with a frown as Nhaka too, frowned in turn. “It’s about the tutor you said you were going to assign me, to, you know… teach me how to wield a sword.”

Now, it was Nhaka’s turn to look at Claire in stunned silence, as all of her eyes and crystalline eyestalks seemed to pause for the briefest of moments upon the mortal servant and her little request. They remained like this, until the Beholder's many eyes suddenly blinked in unison.

“Your Excellency?”

“Ah, I… knew about that!” Nhaka squealed in reply as she gave the biggest and most fiendish smile she could at Claire, who smiled nervously in turn. “Yup, I most definitely did! Just wanted to test you, silly! I like doing that, you know! Oh, and arise already, won’t you?”

“Alright,” Claire said as she stood up. “So, um…”

From where she sat, Nhaka crossed her arms and pouted her lips at Claire.

“Of course I did! If you’re looking to learn how to wield a blade… I have exactly what you need! But first, be a dear and fetch my cloak over there by the door, won’t you?”

“Right away!”

As soon as the words left her lips, Claire turned and picked up the large black cloak hung upon a bejewelled rack by the door. Made of what seemed like woven midnight dark like ravens’ feathers, the cloak itself felt heavy upon her hands as she handed it to Nhaka, who had gotten up from her most comfortable seat.

“Mm hmm!” Nhaka exclaimed as she accepted her cloak from Claire, putting on its dark embrace with barely any effort. “Excellent! Now, let’s just take a little trip together… to visit a friend I know! Elicia’s Veil might keep the lesser occultists and warlocks at bay from calling forth more of my fellow Hellbourne, but there's no restriction for Archons or mortals to travel into the realm of Chaos! If, of course, they can!"

Turning away from Claire, she stretched out a hand towards the air ahead. Her palm, and then the tips of her fingernails, began to glow bright with violet light as the room itself began to quake with tremors that shook the desk and the bookcases of her office. The fringe of pink hair covering her forehead split sidewards, revealing her third eye as all of the eyes upon her face and her crystalline eyestalks began to glow with that same violet light. This brought forth what appeared to Claire like a portal torn from reality itself, its shimmering surface materialising in a corner of the Eye's office.

“Come along now, my dear!” Nhaka exclaimed, her purple eyes upon the conjured portal’s swirling magics as she grabbed Claire's hand while her other hand brought forth an eerie, multi-coloured light that flickered ominously with eldritch sorcery. “My magic will keep you safe, and we’ll get you those swordsmanship lessons you wanted!”

 

---

 

In the realm of Chaos, within the Citadel of the Obsidian Knight…

Acrid smoke filled the unnatural air, bringing with it a warmth amidst what felt like the lingering chill of massacres and battles long past. Here, every breath seared and chilled her lungs, like a flame of frost and fire lit anew within her stomach each time it happened.

Taking it all in, Claire stood silent with her hands clasped uneasily over the lower part of her abdomen. The pain was only fleeting, and it seemed to lessen with every successive breath. For such was the nature of the realm of Chaos, the eldritch world of the Hellbourne. Her body, dare she say it, was acclimating to this alien place bit by bit, in no small part because of the eldritch magics Nhaka had placed upon her right before they entered that portal that bridged the gap between worlds.

Now, in this eldritch realm seemingly made from the alien whimsy of beings far beyond her mortal comprehension, it seemed like her request for swordsmanship lessons had finally been answered. And it was not exactly in the way she had ever pictured it, for her proposed tutor had six arms and looked like a mutant cross between an armoured knight, a centipede and a mantis, three things on Melodia she had seen as separate but never as one. His hulking insectoid frame, close to double her height and girth, was clad completely in a chitinous carapace of black and red armour, and his eyes, six of them total, appeared to her like lidless slits of deep red staring out unblinkingly into the world through a multi-eyed visor.

Zaxas Nyzak, Lord of Blades. He belonged to a type of insectoid Hellbourne known as the Nisroch, and that was his name. This, Nhaka had explained to her in the moments leading up this meeting as they tread upon the cyclopean tiles of this timeless Citadel beyond the realms of men and elves. That this place within the realm of Chaos was like a temple to these eldritch beings, a training ground for the lesser insectoid beings seen standing guard or sparring in the chambers they had passed by. They too, were Hellbourne, she had explained to her. Lesser Nisroch, mere larva and initiates compared to their Lord of Blades who spoke with a voice that grinded every word from his armoured mandibles with a guttural chittering, all of them completely alien to her. Nhaka, on the other hand, she could see was replying to them so fluently, the ensuing conversation getting faster and more frenzied with every passing moment as the two Hellbourne began to speak over each other.

“Oh, right!” Nhaka suddenly said, turning to Claire as she tiptoed up and tapped her forehead with a glowing finger. “I forgot you don’t speak Eldritch, so this should help just like the enchantment I placed on your body! Anyway, Zaxas, you…”

“She doesn’t even know our tongue, and you, Beholder, demand that I teach her MY secrets?” Zaxas all but spat in reply as his six eyes took a moment to glare at Claire, who frowned as her brown-eyed gaze darted nervously between both Hellbourne. “She is only mortal, and a weak, simple-minded fool at that!”

Nhaka nodded and smiled at Zaxas, whose six insectoid eyes seemed torn between glaring at both Claire and Nhaka. And then at Claire, whose frown had grown deeper at the realisation of what and who the ongoing exchange was all about.

“There are no ‘weak’ students, only bad teachers!” Nhaka exclaimed, much to Claire’s surprise as she watched her mistress’s mistress wag a finger at the insectoid Hellbourne. “But then again, I suppose… you’re not really the Lord of Blades, huh? How disappointing!”

“What did YOU say?”

Nhaka wagged her finger once more at Zaxas, who had stepped forward with his mandibles twitching erratically with loud, chittering clicking.

“You heard me, silly! A true Lord of Blades would be able to teach anyone how to wield a sword! Unless, of course, the Lord is actually…”

"It's not THAT! I'm just... busy..."

"Too busy... being a coward?"

“You dare sully MY honour by assuming my cowardice?” Zaxas roared as he brandished an array of blades with all six of his insectoid arms. “I have tutored many, and I can easily make HER into the greatest blademaster of her misbegotten kind!”

It was with this, that Nhaka smiled. With a nod of approval at Zaxas, she then turned to Claire, whose legs were trembling as she did her best to stand still.

“Um… Your Excellency, I really wasn't expecting…”

“I know, right? I always aim to exceed expectations. Yes, indeed I do! And now, you have a teacher to properly induct you on how to properly wield a sword. The very best, like no one ever was!” Nhaka squealed excitedly as she reached up and placed her hands upon Claire’s trembling shoulders so as to steer her towards Zaxas, whose multi-eyed visage looked on in silence. “I’ll be back later, so learn all that you can today and onward, my dear!”

She then looked at Zaxas, at his hulking insectoid frame while all of her eyes and crystalline eyestalks glowed a deep purple. As the Lord of Blades himself took at step back at the sheer force of the eldritch energy coalescing within his fellow Hellbourne, a fiendish grin formed upon her lips as she clutched at Claire possessively like a precious doll.

“Oh, and make sure she’s alive when I return later today, and for every session after! Or else.”

 

---

 

One week later, within the inner sanctum of the Citadel of the Obsidian Knight…

It had gone on like this, day by day in what felt like mere moments in passing while Elena was away. Training with the Lord of Blades, just after a light breakfast at home long before Melodia’s sunrise. The hours after would go by in the blink of an eye, and like clockwork, she would return home to rest when Melodia's skies had fallen to dusk. By the blessing of the Eye, her soul had been attuned to the Citadel, to that area within the vastness that was the realm of Chaos. That between Her Excellency's office in the Ancient Cathedral and the Citadel, she could walk between worlds in that specific space.

In a way, all of this reminded her of how she used to take Anna to her piano lessons back home in another life long before when they were still children, when their parents were still here with them. They had moved away a few years back to retire in the countryside, after she as the elder sister had come of age. And after all that had happened, it hurt to write to them as she once did so joyfully, to lie to them as though it had been as it always was. About Anna, about herself, about a life and story of things that might have happened, if what truly had come to pass was all but a bad dream.

It hurt, it really did. Perhaps slightly more than this training that left her muscles sore and aching as she slept, for even the lightest and shortest Nisroch-forged blade, even the ones blunted for mere initiates like herself, were the size of the two-handed greatswords she had seen sheathed upon some of the Lightsworn Guard back at the Upper City. She had hoped to learn how to use a sword, perhaps a rapier, but this was not turning out the way she had imagined it to ever be.

Still, she was improving day by day. At least, with the exercises meant to strengthen her body. In a way, it was like dance practice back in her days as a courtesan of Heretic, and she felt the grace and poise she once had return to her as her muscles strained to keep up with what was demanded and expected. Her ability with the two-handed training blade, however, had been anything but stellar, to say the least. Not even acceptable for a mere initiate.

“Doubt plagues you, and it makes you hesitate at the time of violence,” Zaxas said, as Claire most clumsily struck yet another glancing blow upon the training dummy that barely scraped its side. “I thought it endemic to your kind, but now I can see your doubts manifest so clearly in your mortal eyes. You seek to avoid it to be stronger… it doesn’t work like that!”

As he said this to Claire, a servitor entered the inner sanctum. Their insectoid arms bore a large tray arrayed with all manner of thin needles and bottles of coloured fluid in swirling hues so alien yet familiar, that Claire found herself at a loss of words as she looked at Zaxas, who paid her no mind as he watched another servitor enter the room, bringing another tray that bore all manner of curiously exotic medicinal equipment. At least, what could constitute as medicinal for giant insectoid Hellbourne warriors.

“I recognise that colour…” Claire remarked, unsure of whether to scream or flee. “That’s…”

“Fantasia, yes. Your mortal eyes tell me that you know of it! Or at least, the mockery inspired from it,” Zaxas stated in reply. “Do you know of the dragon, Izoria Vhal?”

At the sound of that name, Claire stood mortified. Zaxas's mandibles let out a chittering sound much like a grim chuckle.

“I believe that was what his younger brother used on him. It… changed him. And I believe he went on to make an approximation of it when he survived."

“I…”

“No matter,” Zaxas remarked, ignoring Claire as he and his servitors continued preparing the needles with the Fantasia. "He knew Fantasia as nothing more than a tool to inspire terror, to control the minds of those beneath him. But he did not know that Fantasia, born of our realm, divines the truth from the world of dreams. It is what the lesser beings fear, for they see within it the future, the past, and the present. And that is what we will do for you this day, my mortal disciple. We will find out…”

Zaxas paused his preparations. He looked at Claire, his armoured visage unblinking.

“If you cannot do this, then leave. Never return, and tell Mezalune that our time is over. But you know, that I know, that you know, that something is lost within you. And only this, will answer the emptiness in your heart.”

Claire stood still, for what felt like an eternity. She considered Zaxas’s words, and bit down upon her lip as she turned around to look at him, at his armoured and six-eyed visage.

“Alright, it’s against my better judgement… but let’s do this.”

If her Hellbourne master could smile beneath that faceless black and red carapace of his, she was certain he was doing so right now. But he betrayed no such emotion, and simply gestured towards a massive, Nisroch-sized cot that had been prepared for her, where the servitors of the Lord of Blades stood at the ready with needles spiked with fantasia, where thick grey fumes of incense heavy with the scent of smoke and alien flora surrounded the cot like an implacable fog.

“In dreams… we will find out what ails you, mortal.”

 

---

 

In dreams…

It was a little blurry, like seeing through the stains of a mirror that showed the world beyond. Where what had been, was unfolding once more before Claire’s eyes as she stood a mere observer, within and yet beyond this world of her own creation.

“I recognise this place, this moment… the mansion of Izoria Vhal…”

Atop the bloodied and corpse-laden staircase, half-dead with embers of ethereal fire burning upon her skin like torches flickering in the wind, she saw her sweetest little sister and the black blades of the eldritch chains that were hers to bear. And she saw herself and Cecelia, walking up the stairs. Towards burning oblivion, towards the crimson glow of the eldritch heart of Anna de la Lune.

“I remember… I held her as she cried… I cried too. I told her everything was going to be alright, so many things that I didn’t truly believe… I was afraid of her, of what she had become…”

When her eyes could take no more, she closed them shut and clenched her hands into fists. Her nails dug crescent shaped cuts into the flesh of her palms.

“Anna…”

After what felt like a moment in passing, she opened her eyes once more, blinking out the tears within them. No longer was she in the mansion, but at the gates of the Holy See of Arcadia. Now, the convoy of prisoners and guards of the Black Legion were about to depart the gates of the Holy See of Arcadia, bound north for the city of Shadowgate. As per the Black Amnesty of the Lord General, as per Elicia’s Law. Where in the distance, she saw her sweetest little sister once more, clear as a ray of light in the shrouded moondance of her memories. And then she saw herself with Elena, far away in a corner away from the gates.

“I… remember this, too. I was here that day, when Anna was to leave… I didn’t want her to go, and she knew it so she didn’t tell me. But I found out, and I came here to say goodbye. But, I…”

She closed her eyes once more. Her hands hurt, and she could feel traces of blood from the cuts ade from her fingernails. It stung, and when she opened her eyes from the jolt of pain, the world before her had shifted once more to something else.

“Where is this… I don’t even…”

She stood now, in a world of flames. In a foreign land, before a shrine both alien and bloody beyond her darkest fathoms. The burning silhouette of a petite girl stood a few steps away from her, cloaked from head to toe in ethereal flames burning brightly in shades of purple and white that had consumed every last bit of her flesh, of which was adorned in plates of black armour meant to bind and encase the being of eldritch fire she had fully become. Where amidst those bindings, amidst her burning visage and the harrowing links of the bladed chains protruding from her body set aflame, was the crimson glow of the black heart that had changed her forever.

“No… it can’t be! Anna! You’re…”

“JOIN ME… EMBRACE ME… SIS…”

“Ahh!”

She closed shut her eyes and opened them, a part of her hoping to awaken from this waking dream, whatever it was that the Fantasia had done to her mind. But instead of the Citadel's interior, she saw once more with her opened eyes, the gates of the Holy See of Arcadia, and the convoy of the Black Legion preparing to leave.

“I’m back, to…”

“This… half-Hellbourne creature,” Zaxas remarked, much to Claire’s surprise as she watched his large and insectoid frame join her. “Because of her, you feel that you're the worst of all!”

Claire shot him a tearful glare.

“I failed her! I couldn’t save her, with these hands of mine. Because of me, she…”

“Yes. Perhaps it’s far too late for that. But there is a way to make amends.”

Claire looked at Zaxas with tears half-shed in her eyes.

“How?”

“Step forward, into the world of your own creation. Pierce the veil, and listen to your soul’s cry. You will know what to do, mortal.”

Without another word, Claire stood up. Her legs felt heavy, wobbly as well. But she grit her teeth and walked forward, towards the gates of the Holy See of Arcadia. It was strange, possibly beyond words if she was being honest, but she had merged with herself within this waking memory And it was with this feeling upon her that she walked onward.

“Anna… Anna!”

“Sis…?”

Anna turned around, her green eyes torn between shock and sorrow as she beheld her elder sister rushing up to her. The soldiers of the Black Legion stood aside, and much to Claire’s endless relief as she fought back both the tears welling up once more in her eyes and the lumps making themselves known upon her throat, she was just in time.

“Sis, how did you…”

“Never mind that! Before you go… I just wanted to say… that I… love you. Always…”

As she said those words, she very much wanted to close her eyes. But she willed them open as she embraced her sweetest little sister as tightly as she could, looking deep into her green eyes that had once been brown like hers while she caressed at the softness of her lavender hair and felt upon her fingers the tears flowing down her cheeks. At things that had changed, at things that would remain and always be, no matter what.

“No matter where you are in the world, no matter what you become… you’ll always be my sweetest little sister… Anna.”

As Claire said this, she felt herself waste away, as what felt like the buckling of reality itself ensued around her as the scenery altered rapidly between the mansion, the city gates, and the bloody shrine. And as it all happened, as she held her little sister as tightly as she could, Anna's form began shifting erratically as well. Between all that she was, what she had been and was fated to be.

“And I… will always be Claire, your big sister. Always, and truly. No matter what.”

When her eyes could no longer bear the strain as tears washed over them, she let them fall down her cheeks. And when she next opened her eyes, she saw herself in the bedroom of her old home in the Upper City, upon a bed meant for two. Where next to her, by her side upon that familiar bed, Anna looked at her with tears in her brown eyes, her body in a frilly pink nightgown, and her flesh unblemished by eldritch mutations.

“R-really? Sis, you… promise…?”

For a moment, Claire looked at Anna, who returned her tearful gaze with tears in her own eyes. And then she took her little sister’s hands into hers, feeling their warmth upon her skin as she nodded.

“Yes. I promise.”

“I’m glad… I’m truly blessed, to be your…”

Before Anna could finish her sentence, before another teardrop could fall upon the sheets, Claire awoke to the cyclopean interior of the Citadel of the Obsidian Knight. With a loud, tearful gasp, she opened her eyes to the armoured visage of Zaxas, who simply stood by with his six red eyes looking intently upon his mortal disciple.

“You’re awake, at last. How does it feel, exposing your mind?”

“It was only a dream…” Claire said as she looked around for a moment, before looking at Zaxas once more as she got up from the Nisroch-sized cot. “And yet, I feel… better.”

“Yes…” Zaxas uttered in reply. “That is what it means to love. Without pain, there is no love. It is real, what you feel. Keep it close, and let it be your mortal strength.”

“Yes, I now know what I must do to make amends. For Anna, for Elena, and for myself, I will be strong.”

To that, Zaxas nodded. His servitors had left the chamber, leaving them alone within the inner sanctum once more.

“You are finally ready, then.”

With a smile upon her lips, Claire bowed to her Hellbourne master. She picked up the practice blade that had been left upon the floor, and readied herself with a lightness in her body unfelt of in years as her brown eyes focused solely upon the training dummy ahead of her.

“Yes, master. Let’s continue.”