The next day, Zagreus sat in a room on the test subject end of the laboratory. There were two chairs and a table.

The Susneran man in front of him was screaming and writhing on the floor. Zagreus had developed his mental abilities. If he made a link he could send sensations and interrupt motor control on targets. Without a link he needed to be close and the effect was dulled. He felt everything he did to them but he was learning to block that part out. With a grunt, Zagreus ended his attack. The screams turned into dull groans of pain.

Karimere stood on a table near him. “I think that is all we are going to get out of this one.”

A biped golem carried the man out of the room. A minute later another man was lead into the room on a chain. The dhonzel man wore odd clothes and smelled like piss.

“Kill him with your brain.” Karimere said.

“What?” There is the trap.

“Cause a brain aneurism, a heart attack, a seizure, a stroke, I don’t care. Make him die.”

“No.”

“You agreed to do what is necessary. You have limited offensive ability. This is a versatile ability that you could use in many situations.”

“I don’t want to kill in cold blood.”

“I could argue that you left many test subjects in a state worse than death.”

“Hurting them is a lot different than feeling them die.”

“This is an order.”

He glared at her.

“This man was scheduled for execution two days ago. If anything, you allowed him a small reprieve.”

“What was his crime?”

“Sedition. He is the nobleman who was made a slave. It seems he did not like his new social status and tried to overthrow Gwenyr, the infernal Jade chose as Queen. On a side note I am actually surprised how well the slave woman took to the job.”

Zagreus looked at the prisoner. The terrified man muttered something to him in words he did not understand.

“Either you kill him or I will order Jade to come up here and torture him to death.”

He spun on Karimere and sent the mental equivalent of a sucker punch, full body pain and muscle contractions. He didn’t have a link and wasn’t touching her, so he knew it wouldn’t do much, but he wanted to hurt her.

She staggered for a moment then her face lit up in a smile. Every surface of the room was instantly covered in a mosaic of glowing purple runes. His body fell to large pieces. She slowly fluttered down to where his head landed. “I want you to know that on Geothae the use mental attacks are strictly forbidden and punishable by death. Even if no one is harmed it is possible they may try to convict you just for having the powers at all. You will scare them.”

“Then why are you forcing me to learn this?”

“I can only work with the tools, I am given.” She gave her skin crawling laugh.

He took several deep breathes. He would not let her get to him again.

“Good. Control your emotions. Be smart about when you use your powers.”

“Fuck you.”

She ignored him, “I was teaching you to use your abilities. Now I am teaching you to use them wisely.” She ran her hands down her body and she shivered. “That was an interesting sensation. Having your will forced on me. I could slap Lili for claiming you.”

“Put me back together and let me try it again.”

“Oooh, please do. Harder. Make me feel it this time.” She gyrated seductively.

He stopped himself and rolled his eyes.

“Such a shame.” She frowned playfully. “In a real fight, an attack like that might give you an instant of distraction. It is a high risk gamble. Be cautious with your powers.” She waved an arm and the pieces of his body slid back together. There was a disturbing sensation of moving dozens of directions at once.

She flew back up to the table and returned to monitoring the testing on her tablet. The implied compliance was more meaningful than a repeated order.

He stood and turned to the prisoner.

Two hours later the prisoner was dragged away, foaming at the mouth. Not quite dead. Zagreus’ head was pounding.

“You did good work.” Karimere said.

“Nothing about this is good.” He spat.

“You did what was necessary.”

He lay back in a chair and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to have nightmares about this one.”

Karimere landed on his shoulder and spoke softly. “I have nightmares sometimes. I dream of when I was young. I find myself in my childhood home. The one I lived in before the war reached my part of Endrala. My sister is there. She is the one who raised me. Then everything is destroyed with the screeching sounds of the bugs.” He felt her shudder.

This was Karimere Lifeshaper. One moment she was an emotionless monster, the next there was some part of you that wanted to feel sorry for her. He was sure she was telling the truth. She was quite adept at telling the exact part of the truth she needed you to hear. That was her game. That’s what made her dangerous. She made deals and she was good to her word. Many a mortal tale described the horrible outcome of making deals with Karimere Lifeshaper. He had made his deal and now he was paying for it. “You can’t manage to keep the nightmares to yourself? You have to share the wealth?”

She let out a gentle laugh. “You were giving people nightmares long before we met. You are a proficient predator. You might whine about ethics but you know how to survive.”

“I was desperate. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Neither do I.”

“It’s not the same.”

She sighed. “Maybe you are right. I mean you were doing it to feed one starving person and I am doing to for the sake of multiple species and the survival of an entire civilization.”

“Lofty goals. Where do you fit into this New Endrala?”

“I expect to be the most detestable criminals to ever live. If I am not, I feel I will have failed at saving Endrala.”

“I hate to say it, but you can bring down the mood of an attempted murder by brain rape.”

She stroked his ear and whispered. “If you ever want to have a drink with me, my door is open. Claim or not, you still can choose to pay me a visit, Daddy.”

Another skill of hers. Hitting people when they are distracted. He shuddered. “I’ll pass.”

“Is it the name? Would you prefer Master, Sir, My Lord…? Oh. Yes. How could I have missed that? If you liked to be called Daddy, I would have come upon a much different scene yesterday.”

He was unsure if she was still hitting on him or slowly torturing him with words. Those were not mutually exclusive concepts either. “Will you stop?”

She was ignoring him again. “If we want to get technical the claim on you is invalid since they only apply to mortals. The whole claim system was just made up because some mecromancers were not good at sharing. We are allowed two claims each to prevent idiots claiming every mortal they see.”

“Nice.” He said dripping with sarcasm. “You’ve condensed a slavery system down to who calls dibs first.”

“Exactly.” She said cheerfully. “You are a Mecromancer too, so you can claim mortals as well. But I would prefer it if claimed me. I will call you whatever you wish. Just put a collar on me, I will let you have complete control of me, use me, abuse me, humiliate me, do every dirty thing you want.”

He searched for the hidden lie in that last sentence. “Are you serious?”

“After five millennia of having to tell everyone what to do, I think it is fun to let go and have someone else tell me what to do. But it has to be a Mecromancer. Mortals are too fragile and I can’t even force myself take them seriously anymore.”

“Why don’t you force me? Wait. Let me be perfectly clear. I am, in no way, agreeing to you doing that. But after all this time I’m getting curious as to why continue to be such a persistent little nightmare.”

“I have followed the same goal with no outside help for millennia. I am the definition of persistence.” She actually sounded offended. “To answer your question, I want you as you are. If I were to break you then I would be destroying the parts that I desire. And I think it would harm your ability as the Eleventh.” She gave a little huff that sounded adorable so close to his ear. “The traits that make you desirable are the same ones that have thwarted all my attempts. I find the whole situation disappointing. It would be nice if I could just shave off the annoying bits.”

“Since you won’t drop the topic, I need to ask. What the fuck are you? Unless you have some really, really strange kinks, there is not much I can do with an aerial anyway.”

“Ah, yes, back to the ‘It won’t fit.’ problem. I have another, big person, form. I will show it to you, for one day locked in my room.”

“No, deal.”

She let out a disappointed sigh. “How are things progressing with Cinder?”

“Since you forced her to take my orders she barely looks at me and speaks in single syllables and grunts.”

“Do you still game regularly?”

“Yes. But the moment the game is over it’s like I don’t exist.”

“You could order her to tell you how she feels.”

He laughed, “There are safer, cleaner, and less painful forms of suicide.”

“Jade has grown and she has her eyes on you. I assume you are still stubbornly ignoring her.”

“That is none of your business.”

“Mecromancer business is my only business. You will address this problem or I will.”

“Am I supposed to seduce her too? Do you want us all to pile in a bed like one big happy harem?”

“The bed idea sounds thoroughly divine. But I am not foolish enough to think it will happen.” She flew up and hovered in front of him. “I order you to speak to Jade within a six-day and give her an answer. Make sure she understands. The choice of answer is yours.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “No guidance from on high?”

“I don’t know if it will do more harm for her to be rejected or for her to get close to you then have to stay behind when you leave. You have done much better with her than any of us. I trust your judgement on the matter.”

“So I have to decide how I am going to break her heart?”

“I think the worst option is to do nothing. She will be alone for a long time once you are gone.”

“Since a decade is short to you, it kind of freaks me out when you say ‘a long time’.”

“We have to find more candidates who can wear the nine Mecromails that are in the Cradle. We don’t need all of them, but we must find someone for the first mecromail at minimum. And we need someone with the right genetic code to unlock the Cradle. Even optimistic estimates don’t get us what we need for several centuries.”

“I’m not sure about my maths here, but I don’t think remnants live several centuries.”

“Jade’s new training mecromail will also extend her life. That is the main reason I am giving it to her.”

“I don’t want her stuck here for centuries. I’ll do everything I can to find the Cradle. You find someone to wear the first.”

“It is my life’s work Eleventh.”