Sand awoke to the stench of fire and brimstone. His awakening was accompanied by the return of sensation; old aches layered over by the new, each inch of his flesh felt like it had been tenderized in preparation for a cooking. Given his situation and how he was being raised by the Princess – it wasn’t an entirely inaccurate summarization of the situation. The impression was further compounded by the furnace-like temperatures of wherever it was that he had found himself. He truly did feel like a piece of meat in an oven.

Groaning as he accidentally placed some weight on his injured left arm, Sand struggled up to a seated posture. ‘Come to think of it, that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would,’ he mused as he inspected his condition with his mana.

He had, unsurprisingly, advanced a stage; his mana now a vibrant shade of lemon yellow. With how interminable the assault of the serpents had seemed, he wouldn't have been surprised if he had advanced right up to Green. ‘Most of them ran when I offed the Wight,’ he concluded. The strength of a colony was also its weakness. The rigid chain of command meant that the higher Tier beasts could drive their subordinates into a suicidal charge to exhaust and whittle away at a superior opponent. It also meant that once the upper echelons were dealt with by means of a beheading tactic, the entire army would collapse into disarrayed rabble.

As Sand advanced upon the Wight, driven by instinct and the force of habit, it had sent out wave after wave of its subordinates to try and wear him away like the sea would a rock. But instead of losing his strength, Sand had turned the skeletal serpents into nutrition for his advancement. The Wight had realized it too late for the knowledge to save its life and with its death, the spine of the colony had been shattered. They broke and ran.

Which was quite fortunate; because unlike his mana, and therefore his physical strength, which was quite abundant, Sand was beyond exhausted mentally. The constant torture of having his blood boil within his veins as the Netherfire toxin seared through them had taken its toll on him. Willpower was all well and good but his mind and body was only that of a child. In this engagement, he had wrung his own potential dry. He was like a pile of kindling and even one more snake bite would have been the spark that set him ablaze.

His wounds spoke of the intensity of the battle. No inch of his skin was unblemished, no inch unscarred. The most common injury was the puncture wounds where the serpents had sunk their fangs into his flesh. A quick sweep with his mana revealed over a dozen such injuries – the most fearsome of which was the one on his left hand where the bone monster, almost at the cusp of advancement to the level of a Wight, had pumped its load of venom into him in the throes of its death.

Raising his hand to the side of his neck, he brushed the two indentations – a reminder of where Lirael had marked him. It seemed that it was a season for venomous fangs.

As for the rest of him – he was mostly unscathed. There was some residual damage to his throat and lungs from their exposure to the miasma and some of his organs were the worse for the wear, having to withstand the effect of burning blood flowing through them, but it was nothing some rest and the washout of his mana couldn't fix. Not a single fissure was to be found on his bones from the impact of the snakes against his body. Sand wasn’t surprised. His bones were toughened by the transformation and the skeletal serpents physically weak without the aid of the musculature they would grow into in the future.

Overall, he was in a much better state than he had expected to wake up in. Noting the lack of the miasma surrounding him, his cleansed body and fresh set of clothing, he was back in the Bloodskull Dungeon again and indebted to the Princess’ care. Exhaling slowly to avoid agitating his lungs, he stared into the near distance where a huge pillar of red steam rose up into the sky. He corrected himself. He was in the Bloodskull Dungeon and close to its centre.

“Come.”

The command rang within his bones and sent his blood singing in his veins. Before conscious thought caught up with his actions, he found himself on his feet and moving jerkily towards the source of the voice. His muscles clenched and shivered as they resisted the attempts of his bones and blood to drag him onwards. All they managed to do was make him stumble, sending him sprawling onto the ground.

The soil felt warm to his touch, his fingers digging furrows into it as he clenched his fist. Fury coursed through his mind at the indignity of being treated like a marionette on invisible strings. But as the power of the magic forced him jerkily to his feet, the blazing fury gave way to a glacial determination. Silently, he coordinated the tugging on his blood and bone and made his way towards the origin of the summon. His dark eyes were like the abyss.

His feet carried him into a clearing identical to the one he had found himself in not so long ago, replete with a crackling bonfire. The only difference was that there were three additional forms present there. A large figure cloaked in black, a woman with hair the colour of fresh snow and eyes the colour of blood, and a transparent bird with ruby eyes that was perched on her shoulder. Three sets of scarlet eyes fixated on him as he entered the clearing – the eyes of the Blood Thrall a uniform stretch of glowing red peering out from beneath his cowl.

“Kneel.”

Again the woman spoke and again Sand’s blood and bone obeyed, forcing him to his knees on the ground. He kept his eyes on the ground, afraid to expose the anger he was sure smouldered within. But the woman would have none of it.

“Look at me.”

The muscles in his neck strained futilely against the command as he straightened against his will, his eyes drawn by the capillaries that threaded them to meet the gaze of his Mistress. Red eyes met an abyssal black.

“I own you,” said Lirael. “I may not own your mind like I own Vlad’s or Igor’s but I own your body. All I need is a word and your blood and bone will cease being yours. I can crush your heart, shatter your bone and reverse the flow of your blood. All I need is a word.”

Sand was silent. She hadn't allowed him speech.

“Blink twice if you understand,” she said and Sand felt the control over his eyelids return to him. He blinked twice.

The imperious expression on Lirael’s face melted away like snow under the summer sun. “As long as you remember that I can turn you into a pile of mush with just a thought, we’ll get along just fine,” she said with a bright smile.

Sand felt the control of all his limbs return to him. Bowing hastily, “This one thanks the Mistress for her kindness,” he said hoarsely, his voice roughened by his exposure to miasma.

“Don’t this one and that one me,” frowned Lirael. “Can’t you speak normally? I have enough of formal speak in the courtrooms, I don’t want to have to resort to it in my own Dungeon.”

“This… I am compliant,” replied Sand haltingly.

“Ugh. Well, that’ll have to do for now.”

She began pacing before the bonfire as Sand watched her shadow with his eyes fixed on the ground trying to figure out what she might have in store for him.

“Anyway,” she finally said as she stopped her tread in front of him, “All I wanted was someone to test my shard combinations on but you had to blow all my expectations out of the water, didn’t you? First your shards resonated and forced me to invest more than I would like to, then, when I dropped you off to live off the land, instead of staying put obediently within a circle of safety, you went off gallivanting into danger. Not only that, you got into a scuffle with a whole nest of Netherfire serpents."

She emphasized each subsequent word. "And you won!"

The flickering firelight threw her dancing shadow on his kneeling form. “Even before that – you guessed that I had a safety net laid out for you when you were fighting the skeletons and you abused that to force my Core Spirit to act to save you... You’re quite the clever kid. You’ve constantly been trying to impress me while staying within the bounds of my protection. It seems like you’re risking your life at every step but you weren’t ever in any real danger, were you?”

Sand was startled. That was exactly what he had been doing but he hadn't expected her to catch on so soon. She was shrewder than the stories made her out to be… But it actually didn’t matter if she caught on or not. He had achieved his goal of impressing her either way. Only the connotation would differ – dauntlessness or cunning.

Bowing deeper until his forehead touched the ground, he said, “This one doesn’t dare.”

Looking down upon him, Lirael sneered. “Oh, you dare alright. There is very little anyone who can rush into a colony of Netherfire serpents with their eyes open doesn’t dare to do. Stop grovelling and stand!”

Without protest, Sand scrambled up to his feet.

Raising his face with a finger under his chin, Lirael looked into his eyes with a grim expression. “I will ask one last time… Do you understand the consequences of betrayal?” As if to accentuate her point, Sand felt the control of his body slipping away from him and his heart clenching painfully in his chest. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he nodded.

Releasing his chin, Lirael straightened up with a bright smile and ruffled his hair. “Good boy.”

A deep sense of humiliation bubbled up within his chest at being treated like a pet but Sand swallowed his pride and bore it.

“Well, seeing that you're so smart, I think I need to reward you.” Tapping her chin thoughtfully, she said, “Hmmm… what about I teach you magic?”

For a long moment Sand stared at her blankly without comprehension. He really couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth.

“Naa… don’t stare at me like that. I said I’ll teach you magic. What’s so strange about that?” She began pacing back and forth again agitatedly. “I’ve been trying so damn hard to get my Undead Marrow shard to fuse with my Dungeon but it simply won't budge. But here I find a kid who, by blind luck, managed to fuse two shards with such great synergy that they even advance together.” She threw up her hands. “It’s not fair.” Turning back to Sand and noticing his blank look, she said, “Aand you aren’t getting a single word of what I’m saying, are you?”

She sighed. “Well, not to worry, I’ll drill my knowledge into that skull of yours and we’ll see whether or not your shard selection was all luck. And even if all else fails, I’ll have a Champion who can manage my Dungeon for me from the inside.”

Finally getting back his composure, Sand couldn't help but feel wild with joy. Never in his wildest dreams had he even considered that such an opportunity would fall into his lap. All his resentment at her manhandling his body and her condescending treatment was blown away like dark clouds before a gust of wind, revealing the sun shining brightly behind. Wasn't this why he had planned to become her slave -- so he could learn more about magic and increase his power? Wasn't this exactly why he had chosen to debase himself and flatter her -- displaying his worth like a cockerel in heat just so she would throw more scraps his way? Now, she was presenting his end goal to him on a silver platter right at the beginning of their relationship. All of a sudden, she became dazzlingly beautiful in his eyes.

Before she could change her mind, Sand dropped to one knee and bowed deeply. “Disciple greets the Mistress.”