Capítulo 30: Pointless Flickers
In a darkened alleyway, under the gaze of the pitch-black moon.
An old man lay on the ground, slowly bleeding out of a wound in his throat.
He didn't remember how he was stabbed nor by whom. The only thoughts flickering in his mind were those flashes of horror after he saw that monster in human shape—the shape of someone that shouldn't have been alive.
As his consciousness faded, the last thing he recalled wasn't his family, friends, or cherished ones. Instead, it was the faint memory of a little girl with bright green eyes.
It would be wrong to call her a stranger since they had been neighbors once.
She had been lively, always scurrying around in the most curious places and hiding in obscure parts of the slums. During her less lucky days, she would be dragged out by her father to work in the fields so they could survive the winter.
He often hit her, but it was a given right for fathers in Hierapetra. Most would disagree about the violence that girl had been put through, however.
The walls in their building were thin. Her screams resounded quite frequently, but the old man, among many others, never intervened.
Late at night, after the worst had passed, he occasionally saw her perched on a crooked spire, gazing at the stars. He had guessed it was her refuge and sometimes left her food up there, knowing that her family cared little for her wellbeing.
He didn't dare to get attached, but indifference and a lack of heart were disparate notions.
Despite never properly meeting her, he remembered feeling a mixture of pity and inspiration about the ordeals such a young child had been put through and the way she had been braving them.
Came the tragic day of the fire.
When the inferno had engulfed the building, her parents and older siblings had been the first to escape. Seeing that the little girl wasn't with them, he asked the parents if they had forgotten anything. Their response was forever etched in his mind:
"Nothing worth our lives."
From an outsider's point of view, it would seem strange for this ordinary old man, with no ties nor memories with this random little girl, to react in such a way.
Nevertheless, at that moment, it felt like the absolute right thing to do.
As the fire burned his skin and the heat seared his lungs, he climbed all the way to the child's room.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
He didn't even learn her name until the funerary rites, where her small, scorched body was tossed into River Phanias. When asked about the reason for such parsimony, those were her mother's words:
"There's no need to spend precious coins on her. She's dead anyway. What's the point?"
Out of pity for such a despised being, the old man fished her body from the stream by himself.
Out of sympathy for a child too innocent for this world, he buried her in a place where she could gaze at the stars forever.
And out of conviction in the Gods Beyond's love for all creatures, he offered pious prayers to cradle her soul.
"How strange... to think about her, at death's door... Myrine... I am sor—"
The light went out from the old man's eyes, and, just like that, he heaved his last breath.
—
At the same time, a few blocks away.
"Answer me carefully," Nysa's tone was cold. "What are you?"
"Huh? Have you gone crazy?" Asteri was seemingly confused. "What are you saying?"
"You're not human, are you?" Nysa's Mana flared, coursing through the pitch-black blade that her shadow had morphed into. "I don't know why or how you're able to maintain a human shape this flawless, but it managed to fool even the Mekkubal Order. Not me, though."
Asteri tilted her head, remaining wide-eyed despite her expression noticeably freezing. "You've killed Old Nestor, didn't you? He was innocent."
"Innocence has nothing to do with this. He held valuable knowledge which I could only extract if he were dead. It would've taken too much time to awaken his shadow, so I merely borrowed parts of it to access his memories concerning you."
"Liar," Asteri spat. "I can see it in your eyes. You enjoy the killing. You're twisted, aren't you?"
Nysa stifled her smirk. "It's not me we're talking about here. Asteri—or rather... Myrine Polycaste. You dare call me twisted when you're walking around wearing the appearance of a dead child?"
Asteri's body jolted with a single spasm. The color in her mismatched eyes started fading, and her internal flow lost its relative stability.
"No. I-... I'm Asteri," her voice was trembling. "I swear. Myrine is... she's dead? No... But I watched her... NO! I am Myrine?!"
Her Mana suddenly overflowed from her body, spilling out in an unrestrained current with brutal enough strength to cause injuries. Gashes and holes opened underneath her flesh, tearing her petite figure apart.
The next moment, an ominous glimmer escaped those wounds as her skin turned inside out, revealing pale-white feathers that spread like fur.
Nysa's instincts screamed at her to flee.
Her Mana output is colossal, and it's only increasing. If this continues, we will be noticed by both the Temple of Stars and the Henosis Seekers. It's too soon. I need to stop her.
"I aM ASteRI! I sWeAR!" Her voice started getting distorted as her entire body repeatedly swelled and imploded, gaining size with each cycle. "AaAAaaH! It hURTS! It hURtS!"
"I have no choice." Steeling her resolve, Nysa revealed an ornate, thinly decorated black needle with purple patterns. "I need to silence her as quickly as possible."
"Calm down." A male voice echoed from behind her.
It was Jonam.
"We're going to get exposed at this rat—"
"I said, calm down," Jonam walked past Nysa, visibly talking to the rampaging Asteri. "Your name is Asteri. Don't you remember? You've lived in these slums before. The Mekkubal Order took you in when I found you collapsed in front of our shop. You've been working with us ever since. Have you forgotten?"
"MeKKuBaL...?" Blood trickled from her eyes, mouth, and ears as the pale-white feathers covered inch after inch of her skin. "J—J...oNaM? It HUuuRTS! It HuRTS SO muCH!"
"That's right." Jonam's tone was as calm as ever. "I'm Jonam, and you're Asteri. Focus on that identity. I'll end the pain soon. Surely, you can do that?"
The morphing little girl tried to nod, dislodging bones and bulging flesh from her neck.
The blue-haired apothecary twirled a small, greenish vial between his gloved fingers. He emptied the content on his right palm—an oily, brass-colored liquid that stuck to his hand.
"What's happening, Jonam?" Nysa frowned when she noticed his practiced movements.
"I would like to say this is unexpected, but it's unfortunate timing more than anything else. It'll be over shortly."
Jonam drew back his right sleeve before nonchalantly plunging his arm inside Asteri's bloated, feather-covered belly. The pale-white plumage ignited when touching the oily substance, burning away like a field of dry grass lit on fire.
Despite the blaze, the girl's painful groans considerably lessened, and she began shrinking back to her original size.
Jonam retracted his gloved hand after the initial thrust, holding a fragmented, bone-like orb the size of an eyeball. He broke Asteri's fall with his other arm, cradling her like a child fast asleep.
"This one is three-fourths completed. Congratulations, Lady Quinctillia. You've escaped death by a hair's breadth."
Nysa tsked over his offhand comment. "Going forward, I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me about such matters. That thing's no human, let alone magus."
"My apologies, but I wasn't trying to deceive you." Jonam smeared the white orb with the brass-colored oil, then stuffed it inside a pouch. "Rather, I was trying to maintain the stability of Asteri's identity. So long as she believed she was a twelve-year-old girl with aptitude in magecraft, none of this would happen."
"For what purpose? What is she?" Nysa hid back the needle-shaped relic inside her tunic while talking.
"A Dead Spirit," Jonam answered dryly.
"I thought we'd agreed you wouldn't lie to me anymore. I know what Dead Spirits look like. Asteri is no such thing."
"Well, to be precise, she's a human-engineered lifeform using Dead Spirits as fuel. I believe she's the reason the Henosis Seekers are in Priene."
Jonam snapped his fingers twice, and the ground suddenly rumbled. A faceless, humanoid mass of stones, dirt, and rock emerged from underneath his feet, picking up the unconscious Asteri. It was a golem—and a skillfully crafted one, too.
"Get her to Giron and explain the situation to him. Tell him we're going to continue our investigation."
The golem respectfully bowed to its creator before darting into the night, holding Asteri in its hand.
"Where were we again?" He briefly glanced at the three dead Homunculi, then at Nysa. "Oh right, Asteri's true nature."
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