He approached with weary, slow, deliberate steps. He did not want to startle her. Did not know what state she was in.
She looked like sharks had crawled out of hell and used her as a chew toy.
He could not find his voice for a moment. His eyes lingered on her bloodied state, cataloging the wounds, the gashes, the way her robes clung to her body where the blood had soaked through and begun to dry.
"What in God's name happened to you?" he said under his breath.
Ayame was sitting on the cold, hard stone. Slowly, her head tilted to meet his gaze. Her eyes moved slowly, almost as if they were half shut, but they were open nonetheless. The movement had a dreamlike quality to it, the kind of motion that belonged to someone who was not fully present in their own body.
She was quiet.
He rushed over and put his hands on her cheeks. Her face was covered in blood. Thick and tacky, already beginning to dry into something that cracked when he touched it. He brushed his thumb and smeared it away.
Then he shook his hand.
"Geez." He exhaled softly.
He quickly looked back to meet her gaze.
Her eyes were red. So red it almost made him flinch. Not the red of her awakened form, not the red he had seen when she fought or fed or raged. A different red. Deeper. Emptier. Like something had reached into her and pulled out everything that made her her and left only the shell behind.
She gritted her teeth. Her eyes fixated on him, boring into his face, his eyes, his soul. He did not know what to make of it. Had she missed him? Had she suddenly decided that she had had enough of living? Whatever it was, her look was bad.
"Hey," he muttered. He tried to find words. Tried to ask the questions that were piling up in his throat.
She did not even bother to look back up. She stared at the ground for a long moment, then finally registered his presence. This was beyond bad. He did not know what to make of it. Had she been attacked in the middle of the night? No, that was not possible. Ayame was practically an Enlightened, or it seemed so. Anyone would have had a hard time attacking her, especially her being non human.
She finally broke the silence. Her voice came out raspy but also soothing at the same time, like the sound of waves over gravel.
"Nothing happened."
He did not know what to make of it. It was clearly a lie, some cover up for something she did not want to share. Then he remembered. Maybe not. This could simply be her bleeding, the wounds that seemed to come out of nowhere, the cuts that opened on her skin without warning.
At that sudden realization, he stepped forward and summoned a pair of immaculate chains with slight discomfort, as if something poked his heart.
Ayame stood up and interrupted his movement. She moved close to him, stopped for a moment, found her blood covered hands, and rested them beside his cheek.
She muttered something, or it came out as a whisper. He could barely hear it over the sound of the waves.
"All of this for a single loud hearted human."
He flinched. What had he done? What could any of this possibly mean?
She moved past him.
He followed suit as she walked along the beach. She was barefoot, kicking at the red stained sand, splashing through the shallows where the crimson light pooled like spilled wine. The air was much more dimmer now. The red tinge had faded to something softer, something that looked almost like dawn if dawn was the color of dried blood.
During the whole walk, he stayed behind her. He did not dare to catch up. He did not know if he had the right to.
Something had happened during his absence. Something he could not know. Something she would not tell him.
So he was quiet as they walked under the dimly crimson ambience. The water reflected his face, showing the uncertainty in his head, the ambiguous motives, the unexplained incidents. There was so much mystery, not just about this world, but about his own companions.
'Good,' he thought. 'Knowing about each other will leave me vulnerable.'
Whether that thought was aimed at Arthur or Ayame, he did not think too much about it. But he could never allow people to trust him again. He could never allow himself to trust them. That was the only way to stay safe. That was the only way to survive.
***
"Alright, folks!"
A boy with a worn cap and yellow curls beaming underneath stood in the dimly lit carriage in front of a massive pearly fish. The creature's scales caught the light and scattered it across the walls, making the cramped space feel almost magical despite the smell of salt and dried blood.
"We have done the hard part. Acquiring value."
Valen spread his arms wide, gesturing to the fish like a merchant displaying a prized artifact.
"Now all we have to do is send this bad boy into the market so we can fertilize the economy. And when we do that, the Domain should be able to manifest again. It responds to economic activity, you see. More activity, more access. Less activity, less access."
He trailed off like he was muttering something and letting the sentence finish itself in his own head.
Lucid looked outside the window. The morning light was grey and weak, filtering through the glass like water through cheesecloth. Arthur was slumped over a table, sleeping. His head rested on his crossed arms, his breathing deep and even. He had been up all night monitoring the control panels, making sure no one stumbled upon their hideout.
Ayame was sitting in the corner, looking past Valen at something else entirely. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, lost somewhere far away.
"You guys are really invested in this scheme."
A moment of silence hung inside the cabin. No one was particularly thrilled about speaking. Arthur seemed tired and unresponsive, which made sense given he had been awake for nearly twenty four hours. Ayame had withdrawn into her quiet corner, and after she had come back, a mutual understanding had gone through Arthur, Valen, and Lucid. No one would interfere with her. No one would ask questions. No one would pry.
As for Lucid, he had not been able to sleep. He was in pain. Every time he called out to Alice's power, something settled in his chest. A quiet ache lodged itself between his heart and his lungs and burned with every breath he took. It was by no means fatal. But something was horribly wrong. So wrong it kept him awake when his body screamed for rest.
Valen cleared his throat.
"Anyways, by noon we should do an open auction right in the middle of the town."
"What about the guards?" Lucid asked, his voice flat.
Valen responded in a dismissive, casual tone, imitating someone who was trying very hard to sound invested in a conversation that no one else cared about.
"Aha! That is simple. Nothing. The town is in disarray. I am sure you guys have noticed that the shops are closed, the guards patrolling the area are not there anymore. Well, that is the same reason the Domain is closed. When economic activity goes down, so does the Domain's influence. And when the Domain's influence goes down, the town goes into disarray. It is a cycle. A feedback loop."
Lucid stood up and walked to the cabin door.
"Hey, I am not finished talking," Valen called after him.
He walked past Valen without so much as a word and shut the door.
He had other things in mind as he walked along the shoreline. He didn't think much of where he was going. Something was clouding his mind that day after what he had seen with Ayame. As he walked along the coastline, he couldn't help but chuckle, a bitter outlet for his confusion. How was he here? He swore that just yesterday he had arrived in a town in Tyriana after waking up in a purple forest. Things seemed hopeless when it came to going back home, especially with a vague queen that had a rushed coronation.
Lucid felt around his pocket and pulled out a small worn notebook he had found in that shed. Taking it in, it seemed like a journal. The leather was deep indigo, and the edges of it were worn smooth from years of handling. He flipped it open.
It shocked him. His eyes briefly widened.
The writing was in the same manner, the same handwriting as the hastily written words on that book he found in the shed that wasn't there anymore. But this was controlled, deliberate, almost reverent.
He read it.