The princess stared at the shard, before glancing at Kai's stricken face. He slowly nodded, making her mind shook. How could that be the truth? Could Night be lying? No, she knew for a fact that the striking singer couldn't lie for his life.
Meanwhile, the new comer plopped down on his chair, calm, as if he hadn't just declared he had slain one of the mightiest creatures ever killed by a Sleeper.
Or by any normal Awakened, really. Fallen Demon were nightmares for the average warrior.
The silence in the room was deafening, its oppressive void urging Seishan to say something.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to the others. She was a bit reassured by Kai's disbelieving face, but her hope was snuffed when she saw Cassia's and Changing Star's aloof expressions, unfazed like it was their daily routine.
'I might've underestimated them. By a margin, too.'
Sunless smirked as he looked at her, his eyes teasing.
"Have I surprised you, Lady Seishan?"
There was no reason nor any way to lie, but the exotic beauty lingered with her answer.
'You are behaving like a fool, Seishan.' She berated herself.
"I must admit I'm impressed, Sunless. I did not expect to receive such a valuable welcoming gift." Seishan looked at the clock hanging from the wall, and sighed.
"As you must be aware of, my absence will not go unnoticed for long. I regret meeting in such circumstances, but I suggest you go straight to the point, Changing Star. While it is a pleasure, why did you want to meet?"
Changing Star of the Immortal Flame regarded her with that terrifying, expressionless, cold grey eyes. In those grey eyes dwelled a flame made of steel, hot enough to burn the heavens and cold enough to freeze hell.
"I am going to kill the Bright Lord, and then conquer the Crimson Spire. Will you help me, or be annihilated along those who oppose me, Song Seishan?"
Seishan had been expecting such a goal, as crazy as it may have seemed. She had, perhaps, even hoped it. And when she had looked into the outskirt's Saint grey, determined eyes, her assumptions had been cemented, even before she spoke.
Changing Star's declaration was so bold and brazen that it would've made her laugh, weren't she aware of whom she was facing.
Song Seishan faced her heavy gaze, challenging and unfazed.
She smiled, her sharp canines showing. Her voice was as firm as it was daring.
"You are bold, Changing Star. You aren't the first to challenge his rule. What makes you think you won't be just one of the heads hanging from the gates? You are reaching too far, daughter of the Immortal Flame.
The Bright Lord is akin to the Sun here. Unreachable and absolute. Don't be like Icarus, Changing Star."
Seishan's hopes were unattainable. Hope was poison. She must remember that.
But Changing Star was hellbent, and would not change her stand.
"Gunlaug is merely a human. I shall penetrate his armour and pierce his heart. And then I will extinguish the Sun. They are not as invincible as you think, Song Seishan."
Changing Star did not understand. She had not seen how Gunlaug had conquered everything under the sun that could be conquered by a mere human. His unscratchable Memory, that covered his body like a second skin, exuded a feeling of oppression and hopelessness.
Changing Star did not know how many had tried to break his eerie protection. How many had failed. How their swords had broken upon contact with the liquid like material. How arrows had ricocheted off his figure, their shafts splintered.
Seishan smiled darkly, her eyes shining with the fury of those who had witnessed horrors that were being downplayed by the newly come.
Penetrating that armour was impossible. Changing Star was a fool to believe she could.
--------------------------
Sunny watched as Seishan's expression hardened at Neph's declaration.
He knew she hated Gunlaug, and wished for change. Why was she so stubbornly refusing hope, then?
The answer was simple, one he had learnt at the very beginning of his stay at the Dark City.
Hope was poison.
Seishan had accepted the meeting because she hoped that Nephis would bring freedom, and yet, had the same time, she feared change.
She feared both a change and that a change would never come, because humans were creatures made of contradictions.
So Sunny wasn't surprise when she mockingly asked, in a way that did not befit a princess.
"And how do you plan on breaking his Transcendent Memory, obtained by him after slaying a dying leviathan of the Dark Sea? An armour countless have failed to pierce?"
Sunny saw himself in her, if only a bit.
"First off, that isn't a Memory. It's an Echo. Gunlaug's a lucky bastard to have received it for slaying a half-dead foe. I mean, I'm pretty sure seeing a Corrupted Devil coming at you after you've been thrown in the Dark Sea, and it being the first creature you meet in the Dream Realm, is a worse predicament. So why didn't I get an Echo, that Spell be damned, when I killed it!?" He whined.
Seishan was staring at him dumbfounded, her righteous fury forgotten. Silence reigned for a moment, before the princess turned towards Kai.
The archer was staring at the floor, eyes unfocused, his face ashen. He looked on the verge of passing out, but still, he somehow persisted in being stunning.
The leader of the Handmaidens looked at him until he slowly nodded, and he whispered.
"It's true."
Sunny looked amused, but decided to deescalate the situation before it could become detrimental.
"Yeah, sure, an even mightier creature had torn it in half, but I think I deserved at least a tool!"
Seishan looked somewhat relieved, and took a deep breath.
"Do you have any way to kill Gunlaug?"
This time, she was completely serious.
Nephis nodded. "Yes."
Seishan considered what to do for a moment, then she nodded.
"If we manage to kill Gunlaug, then how do you plan on conquering the Crimson Spire? The moment the Guardian falls, the Dark Sea will likely flood everything."
"You are in possession of a Shard Memory, are you not?"
If Seishan was caught off guard by the peculiar question, she didn't let it show on her face.
"I am."
"Do you know the story of the Crimson Spire, Song Seishan?" Before she could answer, the socially clueless Nephis continued.
"In a land of everlasting darkness, seven heroes were born. They swore to bring light and hope to their land, and after a myriad of bloody battles they kept their promise. They built the Crimson Spire and created the Sun with the sacrificed soul of thousands along with their own. Someone was used as a anchor for the Sun, and seven seals were used to imprison the darkness.
The Sun was created with a noble purpose: to give the people light and hope in a sea of darkness.
However, it needed human lives as fuel to keep burning. With time, the vessel of the sun was corrupted and it morphed into Terror of the Crimson Spire was born. Now, it seeks to consume the souls of the inhabitants of the Forgotten Shore, exerting its control through the red Labyrinth, and the Dark Sea reigns at night, released.
The Nightmare Spell gave us a way to restore these seals: the seven shard Memories. Once we obtain them all, we will have a way to restrain the Sea."
Seishan remained silent, considering the implications of what Changing Star had revealed. Then, she sighed.
"The First Lord owned a Shard Memory. It is lost."
Cassie, who hadn't uttered a word until that moment, interrupted her.
"It isn't. I've received a vision. It rests with the skeleton of the First Lord, near the Hollow Mountains."
Seishan laughed.
"Then it is truly lost. The Hollow Mountains are a Death Zone."
The expressions of the rest of the room were as serious as ever. Kai was still blankly facing the floor, trying to get a hold of himself- and failing.
Seishan slowly stopped laughing, her eyes widening in disbelief.
"You can't be thinking to go there, Changing Star. It is suicide. In addition, how long would it take to reach them? By the time you come back, if, you come back, the Bright Lord will have unleashed Harus and decimated your followers."
Changing Star's grey eyes were unmovable.
"It will take us no more than two months."
Seishan leaned back on her seat, closing her eyes for a moment. Dealing with the daughter of the Immortal Flame was unnerving.
"You'll need an army to conquer the Castle and the Spire. You have many followers, but they aren't enough. How will you persuade the Sleeper."
It was Sunless who answered.
"She does not need to convince them. Either they follow us, or they die. Not only because she will annihilate anyone who stands in her path, but because we are the last.
Over the years, the Nightmare Spell has condemned a specific number of people every time.
First, seven Dreamers.
Second, fourteen.
Then, hundreds.
This time it choose seven people, the last, fourteen.
The cycle has ended.
If we don't act now, our forces will be eroded by corruption and we will succumb."
One of Seishan's Handmaidens had already theorised something similar, so she wasn't too rattled by the confirmation.
It was not a choice, not really.
She stared in Changing Star's steel like eyes, and declared.
"I shall follow you for the time being, Changing Star."
Her sharp canines were a hint and a warning not to betray her.
That was how the alliance between Changing Star, the last daughter of the Immortal Flame, and Song Seishan, the Lost Princess, was forged.