Nia as well calmed down. She took a long breath and closed her crimson eyes for a moment, though Lera imagined one of them to have a hue of sapphire blue, a charming radiant hue, but it must have been a delusion from her desperation.

  “I should not give in to urges the way you do,” Nia said quietly. “It would be bad for my sanity in the long term. Hatred corrodes. Zealotry too. I won’t become like you.”

  She tilted her head, considering Lera as one might consider a broken tool.

  “You know, in a way, you are also a Possessed. Not a Nightmare. Just… lost. Lost in your idea of destiny, in your place in this Dream. That explains much. It excuses nothing.”

  Her gaze drifted, unfocused, as if she were listening to something far away.

  “Uda would have let you go,” Nia said after a long pause. “I saw your past through my Deepest. My Guilt. She would have understood had she seen, I believe.”

  Her eyes returned to Lera.

  “I won’t let you go, however. I’m not a good person. I am a Possessed, and that makes it easy to call this justice instead of what it is.”

  She laughed without joy and dragged her closer so they were face to face.

  “So,” she said softly, “how should I punish you?”

  Lera’s breath hitched. Nia did not react to her. “You have imagination when it comes to suffering. Tell me how to use it. Tell me how to make you hurt while we walk to Immesh. I hope I like your ideas.”

  Lera's fingers tightened, too weak to resist anymore.

  “Do you believe this beautiful attire you wear has reached its limit? If you do, you still believe in mercy. I don’t. Not anymore.”

  Suddenly, Lera felt growing pressure around her lower body.

  No...

  The pressure increased, and she tried to writhe, but nothing helped.

  “Let us make a deal. I will not let that pressure increase and new needles grow at the more vulnerable places,” Nia said, feigning kindness.

  Lera’s mind fell into blind panic. Words poured from her mouth in a rush of panic, half-formed, obscene, violent. She heard herself describe things she had once imagined doing to the Possessed. Methods. Humiliations. Ways to erase a person while keeping them alive.

  She was shocked and disturbed by what came from her lips, and only realized too late, in blind fear, that all these things might soon happen to her herself. The more she spoke, the wider Nia’s grin became. And the more Lera broke.

  But at least… the pressure no longer increases and no needles sprout…, Lera noted with relief, and she felt sick as she realized that she almost thanked Nia for it…

  Only… the pressure didn’t lessen either.

  Lera widened her eyes. Looked up at the Possessed.

  “I said it will stop. Not that I’ll take it back. As I said, my punishments are permanent,” Nia commented.

  Lera tried to beg. She never finished. Dark crystal crept up her neck and spread across her jaw. It forced her mouth open, then sealed it shut, hard and cold, filling her throat until her words became meaningless sounds.

  Nia walked over to the whip lying on the ground. She picked it up and tenderly and admiringly stroked the fine pattern of golden, red, and white threads that Lera had woven into it with full pride when she was finally called to be an Exorcist after hundreds of days as an Aspirant.

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  “That is beautiful,” she said. “You were gifted with the Light. You even used the same colors as the barrier. You should have trusted that part of yourself more.”

  To Lera’s terror, Nia grew calm and collected, more than she had ever been. Her eyes sparkled, almost greedily, as she examined the pattern on the whip. The next words she uttered not drenched with disgust but interest.

  “Your Lucidity is extraordinary,” she said. “So much potential. So much precision. And you wasted it on hatred and misguided faith.”

  She exhaled.

  “What a tragedy.” Then, without change in tone, “I do not care.”

  She looked at the pale gold threads with faint distaste. “I hate white and gold. Since arriving here, everything has been darkness. I have grown used to it. There were only two points of Light for me.”

  Her gaze flicked back to Lera.

  “And you took them. One woken and one enslaved. You took from me what I held sacred, what was true. What I... desired.”

  Nia raised the whip.

  “I think it’s fitting I take this in return. Your pride. That is what this represents for you, am I right? Pride, status, admiration... Paid for by blood and pain, mostly of others, but also yourself.”

  She paused, considering.

  “But I don’t want you on it. You do not deserve it anymore. You never have. Because... You are guilty. At fault. Because, after all, you are...”

  WORTHLESS TRASH!, Lera screamed internally and would have gladly slapped herself in the face and torn her hair out over these thoughts at the same time.

  But all she could produce were incomprehensible sounds.

  Nia understood anyway and nodded approvingly. She focused on the weapon once more. Black steam seeped from her fingers, curling over the handle. The gold dimmed. The red darkened. The white vanished entirely.

  Stop, please, stop, no, please!, she begged, but Nia did not even look into her direction, fascinated with the whip in her hands. Only after what felt like an eternity, Nia turned, let the whip’s strand move toward Lera and mockingly traced the tip around her sealed mouth.

  “Don’t worry,” Nia said. “I’ll let you speak again.”

  Her gaze drifted back to the weapon. “You have many things left to confess.”

  She turned the whip slightly, studying the weave. “These patterns… I understand now. I truly do.”

  Her voice softened.

  “The abyss in my heart understands. Listens. Creates.”

  She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "You know, it still feels alien. Like a part that is not me. But it blooms and festers so effectively. And I am prepared to give in to it. After all, it made you afraid when it hit our camp long ago. And it resonates with this weird part of me. So, let me take a closer look... Yes.”

  The whip began to steam faintly. A thin vapor curled from its surface as Nia’s fingers traced the patterns Lera had woven with such care. Her touch lingered, reverent.

  “I see the stirring in your patterns. This... weapon, this artifact of yours... I will make it mine. You have gifted me more than you can imagine… A way... out…”

  Out? What are you... No, do not touch it, filthy... Lera tried to retreat inward, toward the Circle, toward the dark. The Dream offered her nothing.

  Nia fell silent. Then she smiled.

  It was warm. Genuine. Almost grateful.

  Her fingers traced the patterns again, and this time they responded. They shifted. Not flowing, not glowing. They moved, twisting and reordering themselves in shapes Lera had only ever glimpsed at the edges of arrival and waking. The movement slowed, stilled.

  Then the patterns lifted from the whip. They slid away from the surface, drawn inexorably toward Nia’s hands. One by one, they vanished into her skin.

  Nia exhaled. The sound was one of relief.

  The scent of meadows and open glades spread faintly through the air. A smell Lera had never noticed before. A smell she suddenly wished she had honored.

  Then the world changed. It was not a big change, nothing flashy or breathtaking. But it was without a doubt a change so fundamental that it might have as well been the laws of the realm. And in its center stood Nia, transforming herself in the patterns.

  Her skin paled. The red faded from her body and bled into the whip, igniting the red threads woven into its length. Her hair darkened further, falling smooth and heavy down her back. Her right eye turned blue. Not pale. Not soft. Sapphire-bright, steady, radiant with Light.

  Her left eye remained red, pulsing faintly. Controlled. Wounded by choices, hers and Lera's. Still bleeding hatred. The sight struck Lera like a second collar. For a moment, she hated herself for the thought that followed.

  She is almost.. divine... No... she is just...

  But Lera's mind was broken and Nia's transformation continued.

  The whip writhed in Nia’s hands, its shape folding inward. It shortened. Tightened. The patterns rearranged themselves, calm blue threading through flaring red, white sinking into black.

  When it stilled, the object in her hand was no longer a whip.

  It was a long, barbed needle. Elegant. Balanced. Its surface shimmered faintly with layered color. Almost perfection taken shape.

  A hairpin.

  Nia lifted it and gathered her hair, securing it with a practiced motion that seemed to surpise even herself. Then she smiled once more.

  Happy.

  Lera could not look away.

  No.

  The thought barely formed.

  No, NO! THIS CANNOT BE! SHE CANNOT HAVE... THAT IS...