By day, Haviskali was a busy city, scorched by the red light of two suns. Hard, distinct, and somewhat oppressive. At night, however, the mists came to blur and obscure. High-rise buildings became ghostly, looming silhouettes. Streets seemed to grow more narrow in the fog, every thoroughfare becoming a lonely, dangerous alleyway. Even troops and guards were apprehensive about going out at night— it took a strong heart to brave the foreboding, misty silence. The dark city was a place for the desperate and the foolhardy; it was a land of swirling mystery and strange creatures.

Strange creatures like us, Lukas thought. He stood upon the edge that ran around the lip of the flat-roofed Meewich Gate. Shadowed buildings loomed in the night around him, and the fog made everything shift unnaturally in the darkness. Weak lights peeked from the occasional window, but the tiny beads of illumination were huddled, frightened things.

It was finally time to start on for their mission into the Other World. Tanya had said something about being quick on their feet, so Lukas had packed light and hung the ax upon his spaulder. A Mauser or two would have probably made him feel better, but that was just wishful thinking at this point.

Besides, there was no saying how a Mauser would even fare against spiritual demons.

A cool breeze slipped across the rooftop, shifting the haze, brushing against his mist-wetted cheek like an exhaled frosty breath.

Tanya stepped up beside him. Her hair, normally restrained in a messy bun or ponytail, now hung free over her back, her golden curls emitting a soft, ethereal luminescence that was every bit eerie as it was beautiful. Her icy eyes glinted, but it lacked the malicious sheen that haunted his dreams.

Inanna’s thrall, Lukas mused. It’s still holding her back.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, apprehensive.

What happens when it doesn’t?

“I know what you’re thinking,” Tanya’s voice carried itself over the heavy mists. “Very few people have the ability to stomach this fog. Most stay indoors, and those that don’t fear the things that come out at night.”

There was confidence in her tone, something that, in the fog cloaking them from all sides, Lukas certainly didn’t share.

“What things?”

“Wraiths. Nightmares. Nameless things. Shades left behind by curses.”

He felt a shudder go down his spine. He could deal with pretty bad shit in his personal life, stare down predators and angry goddesses, and even stomach a live-in relationship with someone who could slit his throat while he was asleep. But with scary stories, there would always be a cold shudder followed by that eerie sensation of feeling something hiding under the bed.

“…Those are real?”

“As real as you and me,” Tanya replied, amused. “Bremetans are terrified of them, afraid that wraiths would catch them, devour their souls, and steal their skin for their own. That’s why they don’t leave their homes.”

Her eyes glinted as she said that.

Yep. Not malicious at all.

She grabbed his hand, and they leapt from one building to the next. For someone like him, jumping from roof to roof felt almost natural, and it was comforting to see her match his steps. They landed somewhere in the open street, took a left, and continued their stroll.

“I don’t see how staying inside the house would help protect against a spiritual predator.”

“It does,” Tanya replied, without skipping a beat. He was right. Being outside made her feel… invigorated. He wondered if it was the fog, or the fact that it was Ooma— Oumag— the ‘Omega-tacky’ thing. Was it this exuberance that had caused her to jump his bones?

“Depending on your wards,” she clarified. “We Asukans have a system called Kanso, the science of Holy Energy redirection into appropriate directions to cast a spiritual barrier around one’s home. The bricks of the house walls store power from the suns, and after sunset, they channel the energy in appropriate Kanso formations to raise the wards.” She paused. “Sometimes, it even works.”

“I thought—” Lukas began, but Tanya turned down another street. Lukas wasn’t certain where she was taking him, as it was easy to get lost in the night. Perhaps this was the way to the Zwaray Keep, or maybe she didn’t even have a destination, and was just getting him accustomed to the mist and fog.

He rushed up to her side again.

“It only works sometimes?”

“Well, the barriers work fine. But if a wraith is interested in you, it will resort to casting illusions around you. Make you hear things. Smell things. Feel sensations that don’t exist. Sometimes, hungry wraiths will band together and attack a household if they think it's worth it.”

Lukas faltered. He fell back just a little and found Tanya getting enveloped by the fog in front of him. A moment later, a sense of wrongness came from behind him, though the Scans couldn’t detect anything, which was scary. He spun around, Soul Siphon on his lips, but it was—

Gone.

Just like that.

He felt someone grab his left shoulder and spun around.

The blonde grinned.

“They won’t come for you,” Tanya promised, her voice strangely soothing. “They sense my presence. I am a yokai. No mere wraith will dare to cross me or anyone I have marked—”

Marked?

“—intimately,” she finished. “They sense me on you. I marked you with my Frost when we…” She blushed.

Lukas cleared his throat. “Marked.”

Tanya grinned. “Yes. Marked.”

“What about others? Doesn’t your government, or your… Gods, do anything about it?”

Lukas marveled at how odd it felt to use the word ‘god’ like a position in society. He may as well be talking about a police officer or a bureaucrat.”

That erased the smile on her face. “Come. We need to jump up. Follow my lead.”

She sprinted ahead and leapt up a wall, using the momentum to step onto a nearby roof. Then another, and another, until she was easily seventy feet into the air. Lukas grinned, feeling lifeforce rushing through his veins. The coldness disappeared, replaced by a familiar warmth and a sense of control, of rejuvenation, of physical strength. He leapt up the wall—

With a sudden whoosh, the fog came for him. Surrounding him, rubbing against him, cloaking him. Lukas felt his feet touch the surface of a roof, but that warmth was half-dissipated. By his third leap, he was already feeling tendrils of exhaustion grip him. And by the time he made it to Tanya’s position on a high-rise building, he was panting like a dog.

“There are several things you need to learn before you can call yourself a nightwalker in these lands. One lesson however, cannot wait.” She pursed her lip and regarded him evenly. “Do not use lifeforce while in the fog. It will suck it out of you faster than you can say ‘unfair’.”

She grabbed his arm. The coldness returned.

“Does this happen every night?” Lukas questioned.

Tanya shrugged. “It varies. But tonight is Oumagatoki, and the curtain between worlds is at its weakest. People here are very superstitious about it. Mostly end-of-the-world stuff, how the curtain between worlds will vanish and the wraiths will consume them all.”

Lukas laughed. It made him feel a little less uncomfortable. “Back in my world, I made a living writing fictional tales about apocalyptic ends of the world. It’s—” He paused at Tanya’s stupefied expression. “What?”

“Why would you willingly author tales that inspire dread in others?”

Lukas wondered what his partner would think of Lovecraft and Stephen King. “There’s a saying back in my world. Nothing sells like dread. Maybe it's the adrenaline rush, or about exploring the dark side, or the appeal of shadows. People love it. It’s…” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “It’s like this fog. People fear it, and so it creates rumors and myths. And from them come stories.”

“And do you have plans for continuing such a dastardly profession here?” Tanya demanded. Lukas felt amused at the tautness in her tone.

“It wasn’t my profession, per se. Just a little something to get extra cash— coin, until my education was complete. But then other stuff happened, and I found myself inside that underground cave.”

Tanya’s frown had devolved into an open scowl. “I can feel you speaking the truth, yet I find it hard to believe. You have the power and potential of a demigod, yet you speak of an ordinary— no, a ludicrously average life of being no one. It makes me wonder whether you’re able to lie perfectly or are simply deluded enough to believe in your own.”

Lukas chuckled. “Take it as you will.”

Tanya tilted her head, studying him closely.

“What of the svartalfar?” he asked. “Won’t he be joining us?”

“She,” Tanya amended. “Collectors are always female. A collector needs to be good at sensing metals, and female svartalfars have excellent long-range geomantic perception.”

“Geomantic, huh?”

“Yes. Similar to Zuken’s earth-shaping ability, only more finely tuned to metals. The collector will be gathering precious metals and we—”

“—have to protect her from monsters. Got it.” He raised a thumb.

The blonde looked at him perplexed, before slowly mimicking his gesture. “What does this mean?”

Lukas owlishly blinked. “It… means everything is fine. Or that I got what you said. Or, no problem.”

“I see.” Tanya frowned. “Your people have strange gestures.”

Lukas shrugged. He wondered what Tanya would say about dabbing. “So where are we meeting her?”

“We are heading there. Ideally I'd want to meet her in the Other World but Space is… wonky there. If you don’t remember where you came in from, you might end up appearing elsewhere in the Real World. Which is, incidentally, how I came to Haviskali in the first place.”

“Hiding from soldiers?”

Tanya held his stare. “Freelancers. Mercenaries hired by the clan to capture me. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling through the Other World. Baramunz, Eaborid, Maluscion… there isn’t a kingdom out there where I wasn’t attacked by my family.”

Lukas considered her words carefully. From what she’d described, the Other World served as a spatial shortcut through which one could bypass political boundaries and travel far in short spans. Someone like that could disregard laws with utter impunity, avoid retribution from nations and people alike, and escape from damn near anything. So long as the fog was around.

Put simply, it was Power. With a capital ‘P’, and all that it implied. The sheer potential of something like that under one’s belt would be…

Lukas’s hands clenched into fists so tight that his fingernails almost drew blood.

Inanna was right. He truly had underestimated her.

“I see,” he replied evenly. “So that’s how it is.”

No wonder the blonde was so carefree. No wonder why no one, not even Banksi or the Secretary had been able to pin anything on her. They knew what deeds she had committed, but they didn’t know what she truly was. What she was truly capable of. The only reason he did was because of Inanna’s thrall and whatever strange reason Tanya had for trusting him with such crucial information.

"The look on your face says that you've come to a very dangerous conclusion,” Tanya replied, her icy eyes glinting in the darkness. "For your sake, you best be sure that you don't do something foolish with it."

Lukas smiled. He knew that look. He’d seen it on Inanna several times when she had tested or manipulated him. Really, what was it about bad girls? They lied, they cheated, and for some reason, no matter how much you wanted, you simply couldn’t stay away from them.

But he wasn’t exactly here to stay. He needed to find a way to restore Inanna. And, given the looks of things, he’d have a better chance of it by staying on Tanya’s side and learning to traverse the Other World than at Haviskali being Zuken Banksi’s employee.

“Don’t worry,” Lukas told her. “I’m more of the reacting type. Though, I can’t help but wonder about one thing.”

“Which is?”

Lukas slowly exhaled. The differences were subtle. Tanya was tightly wrung with conflicting thoughts and desires, a girl both afraid and envious of her own power. A young woman who went out of her way to hide her bloodied past in manicures and expensive grooming.

But when the Frost took over?

She was sharp, calculating, zealous, exuberant, and unafraid to act upon her basal desires. A sensual, enigmatic killer that was a far greater danger to people around her than Banksi would ever know.

And she was right in front of him.

“Who are you, truly?”

Her expression faltered. “Who else would I be?”

He took a step closer. “Not Tanya. You. The real thing. The one who attacked me in the anomaly. The one exhilarated at the thought of re-entering the Other World. The one not attacking me now, and, for reasons I don’t understand, trusts me with such information. The one I have dreams of, ever since I saw you that night, when I had sex with… Tanya.”

Another step.

“You’ve helped me in the past, so obviously there is something you want from me. I’m not naive enough to think you’d tell me, but at least tell me this. Why are you here? Maybe Tanya can’t, but You can get out of this land with nary a thought, yet you stay and limit yourself to this land and its laws. Why?”

He waited in stark silence for her reply. There was a chance she would attack him. But she had also willingly shared such information with him, so perhaps a part of her wanted him to realize it. Or perhaps…

Lukas smiled.

Perhaps this was a test. She was testing him. Just like Inanna once did.

A motion drew his glance, as Tanya slowly shook her head. “I think the problem is, you simply don’t sound all that bright, Outsider. Perhaps it is skewing my expectations.” She turned towards him. “You’re right. I have reasons for being here. And you are instrumental for achieving them.”

Lukas nodded. He figured as much.

Ever since that earthquake, there had been shadowy forces driving events in the universe at large. The prophecy, the Atlas comet, the earthquake— those had merely been symptoms. Surely there was some celestial force behind the destruction of Lostbelt Earth, probably someone of the real Inanna’s league.

And then in the anomaly. The yokai. Tanya. Frost.

Everything that had happened since then.

Lukas had been picking up threads and finding them connected to others. He had been flailing around, trying to get an idea of the forces that had been arrayed against him and Inanna.

And now, finally, one of the real players was out in the open.

Right in front of him. Behind Tanya’s eyes.

Staring at him.

And he was going to get answers.

“Tell me your name,” he demanded, suffusing his words with intent and lifeforce.

Tanya threw her head back and laughed. “Very well. Hunger is what I am. Frost is my nature. To bring down the Deepness of the Eternal Glacier upon the Asukan Empire is my desire. Through Tanya, I will herald the second coming of Emperor Meynte…”

She shuddered in bizarre ecstasy, and her voice lowered to a frantic whisper.

“The last ruler of all Yokai.”