Well, morning didn’t come fast enough.

No, I did not succumb to the ‘darkness’, nor did it break Stella’s heart to see me suffer under the onslaught of the beasts’ roars and their tantalizing persuasions. I honestly didn’t think Stella and I were close enough for something like this to happen to her. We might have been squadmates, the leader and the one under her command, even friends of late, but that was it. We were neither family nor lovers. In fact, we’d only known each other for a few days.

At least that’s what I tried to tell myself when the ‘darkness’ was attempting to convince me that giving in would spare Stella her misery. The truth was that those few days had brought us closer than I could have ever imagined after our not-so-great first meeting. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Stella hated to see me suffer in a way that couldn’t be chalked up to good old-fashioned empathy.

As I said, the sun took too long to rise above the horizon.

When morning finally came, I was mentally exhausted and drenched in a cold sweat from head to toe. During the night, in addition to the relentless temptation, the “darkness” occasionally poked at my mental defenses. Sometimes it was just a dab; other times it was a hammer blow that left my mind ringing. But I stuck it out; my mental defenses, honed under very similar odds since I found myself on Eleaden, didn’t give way.

“Breakfast, Eichenralkes,” Amari’s snarky voice rang in my ears, even before she and her fellow beast caretaker appeared in the corridor between the cages. “Looks like you’re still yourself, if a little haggard,” she added when she reached ours.

“You look like you could use a few more hours of sleep yourself,” I shot back.

The woman frowned and gave me a deadly stare. “And whose fault is that, huh?”

If she expected me to feel sorry for her or even apologize, she was damn wrong. Maybe if she was nicer, but the way she was acting - I just gave her an innocent smile and showed her my fangs.

“All right, calm your titties. A spat isn’t why we’re here - although I have to say I didn’t expect you to pack so much power, Eichenralke.”

“How do you know it was her?” Stella asked as Raid fixed his eyes on me. “It could have been me.”

“Grand Commander Maignes spoke with our commander and . . .”

“We were there,” Amari cut in. “All the beast handlers were.”

“Not every night are the beasts so feisty.”

“Wait, you were up because the beasts were acting crazy?” When he nodded, I went on, annoyed. “So what’s your beef with me? I thought you were pissed because I woke you.”

“The beast fussed because of you,” Amari spat.

I was really confused, and so was Stella. “This doesn’t happen every night?”

Raid chuckled. “If they were, I’d be out of here. No, it only happens when a new beast comes along - an untainted beast. I guess you can imagine that’s not often, as most of them come from the front.”

“Do you think they would just let you walk away, Raid?” Amari asked. “They would most likely brand you a traitor and put you in one of the prison tents. At least, that’s what they did with Callan.”

“That guy had it coming. The way he talked - anyway, I merely - said that. I’m not leaving, Amari.”

“Good, I’d hate to get used to another - human.”

He feigned to be touched. “Oh, you’re such a sweetheart.”

“And you’re such an asshole.”

“What about Rairok?” I asked, ignoring their banter. “He’s not tainted.”

“Well, it turns out those tainted beasts aren’t so mindless after all, and they learned not to mess with him.”

“Took a while, though,” Amari added.

Oh, so if I were to stay here another night, I could expect another round of grudging urging to join their side - well, unless I used my presence - which was just fucking great.

“What is it with them that they shut up with the sunrise?” Stella asked about their strange behavior, something I’d been thinking about, too.

“If you think they’re weak to light, you’re wrong,” Raid said, pointing to the murky sky. As in the first cycle, it didn’t stop raining. “In case you hadn’t noticed - not exactly a sunny morning.”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“Well, it’s simple. The beasts are more active during the day. And yes, even when locked in cages. They have to eat, defecate, and so on - their minds are busier, and so is yours. In general, if it’s not a nocturnal beast - or human - at night, our minds are more accessible.”

“Or when we’re drunk,” I remarked, remembering my hangover and a rather unpleasant labyrinth experience.

“Yeah,” Amari grumbled in frustration. “I haven’t had a single drop of booze in ages.”

Funnily enough, the same problems seemed to exist across the ages.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle with you, would you?”

Stella laughed at that. “What you see of us is all we have. Besides, you’d think they’d let us keep that kind of stuff - they took my swords.”

“Not exactly the same,” the female beast handler grumbled.

“Leave them alone, Amari. Even if they had booze and given it to you, would you dare to drink it? If you get caught, you’ll end up in a cage like these two Eichenralkes before you could say ‘screw you’.”

“You know what? Screw you, Raid,” Amari hissed at him, throwing a glare at us as she pulled the baton-like thing from her waist.“ To the back of the cage, you know the drill.”

“You know you don’t have to treat them like beasts, right?”

“As long as they’re in cages, they’ll get no different treatment from me,” she replied, and stepped into the cage, eyes on me, to replace the water jug and bucket and give me food - nothing better than the same old bread as yesterday. It was good to drive away the hunger for a while, but that was about it. There was no comparing it to the roast meat I had the other morning. That thing was a delight to my taste buds. This bread merely delayed my crankiness.

“Eat it before they come for you,” Raid said as Amari closed Stella’s cage behind her.

“When will that be?” she asked.

“Again, the wrong person to ask. Nevertheless, I would say soon.”

“How soon?”

“A little eager, eh? I don’t know - once they’ve finished their breakfast and some other shit. You know how it goes - anyway, nice talk . . .”

“Speak for yourself, Raid,” Amari spat.

“Well, like I said, take care. We got a lot of beasts to handle and only one day to do it.”

 

***

 

“Are you going to eat that?” I asked Stella about her bread after the two beast handlers left.

She smiled and passed it to me through the bars. “Be my guest.”

As I said, nothing appetizing, but life had taught me not to ignore any food. Without further ado, I devoured both loaves - just in time, as our tickets out arrived. Not Traiana, the ancient one, nor the one from the past - they had both been who knows where. Who emerged from the corridors of the cages were two stocky guys, knights, one handsome, the other - less so.

“Come out, hussies,” they urged us rudely - immediately losing points with me - as they opened the cages, checking our shackles first thing before we even got out of the cages.

“Grand Commander Maignes is expecting you.”

And he was, not so surprisingly, in a tent not far from the Cages. How else could he sense my presence at night, right? What puzzled me was why he was actually stationed here. It couldn’t be because of us; that would be too ridiculous. So the only thing I could think of was that it was because of the beasts and the potential information they might provide.

Nevertheless, when we were ushered into a massive tent hammered by heavy rain that formed streams of water running down its canvas, it was like stepping into another world. It was dry and warm inside. And so big, in fact, that the tent consisted of several rooms, large rooms where you could stand properly. Hell, each room even had chandeliers. I was thoroughly impressed.

“Good morning, Dia Eichenralke,” Grand Commander Maignes greeted us from behind his massive desk as we entered his office. He wasn’t the only one there. His aide sat at a smaller table to his left, and another man, a mage by the looks of it, stood in the corner of the room.

“Thank you, lads. I’ll take it from here,” he said to the two knights who had brought us here, sending them away with a wave of his hand.

“And you two, please have a seat,” he pointed to two chairs in front of his desk. “You seem to have made it through the rest of the night unscathed - good. And you did not disturb my sleep any further. I applaud you for that. It showed your - shall we say - resolve. Now, before we continue, let me introduce Magus Vejahr,” he said, gesturing to the man standing in the corner of the room behind us, a mage indeed. “He is here to verify the truth of your words.”

Even though it was in our plan, something we expected, I couldn’t help but flinch. My experience with similar interrogations and forcing the truth out of me was not great. Stella, on the other hand, kept a straight face and just nodded in acknowledgement of the magus’ presence.

The star difference between us could not be clearer, and the reason why Traiana was not with us even now. Her guidance could have helped us, but her presence would only undermine our efforts. As we rehearsed this situation during our planning - as awkward as it was - neither of us could keep from glancing at Traiana from time to time, something the Grand Commander certainly wouldn’t have missed.

With that said, Grand Commander did notice my slight lapse. “Perhaps I should correct myself. He’s here to verify my own observations, which will focus primarily on your intentions.”

“Sir?” Stella asked, as confused as I was about what he meant.

“I’m not going to dig deep into your past. You see, it doesn’t matter here whether you were a farmer, a whore or a robber. Everyone here has a past, some shit they’re ashamed of. I don’t care. You see, we are all the same in death.”

Did he mean we are going to die here no matter what we do? It wasn’t the best sales pitch. On the other hand, we were the ones trying to get in, not him who was trying to convince us to join.

“What matters is your intentions, whether you have come to fight alongside the Elea-Den’s 3rd United Army or to stab us in the back, whether you really want to prove your honor on the battlefield or have, shall we say, dishonest thoughts. Do you understand?”

“”Yes, sir.""

“Good, then I’ll ask you if you agree to this small talk, as I explained.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then I will have no choice but to lock you up again. Don’t worry, this time in proper cells. However, you won’t find your honor there. Instead, you may very well lose what little of it you have. Is that what you want?”

“No, sir,” Stella said, and I shook my head.

“Good, then we will proceed - by reviewing what you told me last night . . .”

And we went through it again, telling him our made-up story before getting to the part about our intentions in coming here. He had a lot of questions, most of which had nothing to do with what we were, and he went through them like he was checking them off a list. Which he actually had in front of him. A list of prepared questions to test people like us.

“What is your verdict, Vejahr?” asked the Grand Commander as we answered his last question.

Our eyes inevitably went to the magus, the man who was deep in thought with a puzzled expression on his face. “I have to say, I’m a little confused - or should I say, the two Dia Eichenralkes here are. If I had to say, they’re not quite sure of their goals here.”

I wouldn’t say unsure or confused about our goals; we just didn’t know exactly what to expect at the center of the echo - not that we told them that. However, I imagined that some of that uncertainty factored into our answers. Well, other than the outright lies.

“Go on,” the Grand Commander urged the magus.

“That being said, their intentions to enter the battlefield are genuine. None of them seem to be directed against or at odds with those of the army. In conclusion, they pose no threat - though I am not entirely sure of their usefulness to us.”

“What?” I asked, taken aback. “Don’t you need more people to fight?”

My slight outburst didn’t faze the magus. “We sure do, but not everyone is worth our resources.”

‘Damn! Understandable, though.’ They couldn’t waste what little they had on someone they knew wouldn’t last a few minutes on the battlefield.

“Then we see it the same way then, Vejahr,” said Grand Commander Maignes.

“And what does that mean for us?” Stella asked. She looked calm on the surface, but I couldn’t help but notice her voice trembling slightly. The prospect of us failing here had gotten to her, too. “Will you put us back in the cells now, sir?”

“If you wish . . . ?”

She raised her eyebrows. “So you won’t?”

“Look,” the Grand Commander said with a sigh. “Under normal circumstances, which I haven’t seen in years, I would, but as you said yourself, we’re running short of men.”

“Among other things,” the magus added.

“Yes, among other things. So, for my part, you are fit to join our ranks.”

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. We could join their ranks - that is, get to the center of the echo, hopefully with its end. Naturally, I could not contain my emotions and fluttered my wings with joy.

“Wait, sir. Just like that?” Stella asked, questioning his decision for some reason.

“You have a problem with that, Palemoon. Something you haven’t told us?”

“No, I would just expect you to check us - our minds for the presence of - you know, the ‘darkness’.”

I knew what she was getting at. Mind mages. Traces of their magic in the minds of those they controlled were relatively easy to find for those who knew what to look for and had the right skills.

The Grand Commander smiled. “I would if there was a way, but in spite of the fact that we face it every day, our mages have been unable to find any trace of magic in the minds of the beasts that would make them go wild, let alone control them.”

“Contrary to how it appears, it’s not mind magic,” Magus Vejahr spoke, revealing that this foul magic I hated already existed by now. “It is ancient magic - primordial magic that works through this primordial connection that the beasts have preserved throughout the ages. It works like no magic we’ve ever seen, defying all logic. If only we could understand it . . .”

“As you can see, we are still half in the dark. But to your question. If you had succumbed to your inner nightmares, you Palemoon wouldn’t be standing there like this; you’d be rolling around on the floor, your brain trying to get out of your skull, and you Grey would be desperately trying to get out of your shackles or rip my throat out by any means possible.”

Ah, the shackles. “I’m not very fond of them.”

He laughed. “Who would be? But I guess you get my point.”

“It doesn’t rule out that we might be under the influence of mind magic. You know, sir, being spies.” 

Even though she was right, I had to smack her with my wing to shut her up. We were about to be released, finally getting closer to our goal, and she was only making it harder.

“You seem awfully focused on mind magic,” the Grand Commander wondered. “Have you had an encounter with it? Did your captor, Frederic Dungreen, use it?”

“No, sir. He was just a lunatic,” I said, with a good deal of disgust in my voice.

“Sorry, sir. I just don’t want people to suspect us of being under the influence of magic,” Stella explained her reasoning.

“I see, reasonable, considering there are beasts that can use it. Nevertheless, while we were ‘chatting’ here, Magus Vejahr here and I have verified - subtly - that you are in fact not under the influence of mind magic.”

“Oh, you did?” 

Well, either he was lying, in which case he is very good at it, or their verification was really unobtrusive, because I didn’t notice a thing either. It was in stark contrast to when Captain Rayden or Lord Wigram were the ones checking my mind. I mean, I could feel their presence in my mind back then, not to mention the fact that they had to concentrate fully.

“Yes, we did. A standard procedure that everyone here is aware of. So once you leave this tent - unshackled, of course - you won’t have to worry about anyone suspecting you of such a thing,” the Grand Commander explained, gesturing to his aide. “Unshackle them, Tobias.”

The young man rose from his desk at once, the key appearing in his hand. “Yes, sir,” he hollered, and proceeded to remove the bloody shackles.

I had to say it was - damn liberating, so much so that I had to stop myself from screaming with joy. Instead, I just wagged Sage happily behind me.

“Now,” the Grand Commander spoke, leaning closer to us. “You’re qualified to endure the nightmares of the front as far as I’m concerned, but whether you’ll be of any use there is for High Commander Ronnu to say.”

My mind reeled as my breath caught in my throat. High Commander Ronnu? Traiana? Or not? The name couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it? I mean, her full name was Traiana Harvine Jheidre Ronnu, so . . . damn, were we really going to meet the Traiana of this era so soon?