I woke up, head and heart pounding. I'd been stuffed into a small cage. It was just large enough to accommodate me. The cramped space forced my body into a tight ball of aching flesh. As I came back to my senses, I dimly recalled being hemmed in by Remnants. They’d given me quite the beating after making them go to the trouble of looking for me.

A quick look at my surroundings told me that I wasn’t the first to enjoy the Remnants’s so-called hospitality. Apparently the Remnants were accomplished kidnappers and slavers, because there were countless other cages just like mine. More often than not the cages imprisoned another poor soul, and none looked very talkative despite how close they all were to death’s door. Rather than straining my eyes to determine exactly how many people shared my fate, I narrowed in on my own plight.

I was sore all over, but I forced myself to push on the bars of the wrought-iron bars in order to test their strength. Pieces of shrapnel dug into me painfully, but I didn’t let up. A few of the bars bowed slightly, but the welds held firm. I gasped and let my limbs go slack. Just then, the sound of voices approaching had me redoubling my efforts. Sweat and blood beaded across my body and my hair stood on end.

“Psst, Shadow. Psst, dammit! I could use your help,” I whispered urgently.

“—He killed my partner! If ya ain’t got the stomach to do what must be done, I’ll end the punk,” growled an unfamiliar voice.

Chilling fury caused a layer of ice to coat the ground and made tiny icicles form on the bars of my cage. “You’d dare to question me? Best remember your place, Dunn, before I remind you just how far down the totem pole you are.”

The man was a blubbery mass of fear. “I ain’t— forgive me, Master Kian! I spoke wrong,” Dunn said, teeth chattering.

Hinge was deader than a doornail, but I had plenty of shrapnel left in him to identify his partner Dunn by. Grinding my teeth in frustration, I cursed my bad luck.

“You won’t live to question my resolve a second time. I didn’t bring you here to exact some petty vengeance. Now show me this interesting captive.”

“Yessir, right away sir! It’s an honor, Lord Kian,” Dunn said.

There was no answer, and I fell silent as two men approached. Two men appeared, neither of them were instantly recognizable. The man I took to be Dunn was short with a slim build and had shaggy hair that hid most of his facial features. The second man’s identity was disguised by a cowl and faded black-and-gray wrappings that covered him from head to toe. Despite a tall and imposing frame, the second man was rail-thin and looked sickly.

Nyx had already hinted at the reason the Remnants might capture their prey as well as rob them blind. Any good leader had servants to do their bidding, and serving dinner gathering stock to preserve for dinner was probably close to the top of their list of duties. No matter their intentions, I didn’t plan on being anyone’s prisoner. Not ever. Never again. I watched my captors approach with slitted eyes.

Shadow recoiled. “These guys reek! Smells like something crawled up and died. Glowing red eyes… that’s a revenant if I ever saw one.”

I stopped myself just short of snapping back at Nyx. In the end, I saved the harshest accusations for myself. Fool that I was, I hadn’t thought past my panic and fear of being confined to the answer that lay beyond brute force. I hadn’t thought up a means of escape before I was confronted with a nightmare.

The revenant’s approach was accompanied by a chill that spread through my body as my anima was forcibly drained. My eyes snapped open and I instinctively recoiled from the sensation that I’d been violated. Kian’s dead eyes appraised me as if I was an especially fine horse and he was a prospective buyer. Skittish, I couldn’t quite tear my gaze away from the revenant.

Kian turned to his compatriot. “And you’re sure this boy hails from Altressor?”

“Uhhh… Right. Yeah, that’s right… he came from that direction,” Dunn scratched his head, “Couldn’t be from anywhere but Altressor, what with the Hunter getup and whatnot,” Dunn said, indicating my garb.

I raged against the immobilizing fear that held me in place as surely as the cage did. Animal terror demanded I run away as fast as my feet could carry me, but my limbs only quivered unresponsively. Oddly enough it was the distinctly familiar fear of being forever enslaved to another’s will that helped me marshal my thoughts and regain mastery of myself. I directed a hate-filled glare at my would-be captors.

Hope filled me as I focused my thoughts on the memory of my unsealing and the cloudy vapor— what Shadow had called anima, or vital energy— that had been released. A sloppy power like that was unlikely to save my twice, but it was worth a shot. If that wasn’t enough to send a revenant packing, at the very least it’d be enough to shake things up, and might even free me from my cage of fear. I worked to free my mind of distractions so that I could concentrate on awakening the restless power inside him.

“Well then, this is clarifying indeed. It’s no wonder those cultish villagers from Altressor have flourished in spite of the blight. Untamed, untrained energy like that possessed by this child would no doubt be quite a boon to whomever acquired it. No doubt those fools deified their inhuman spawn after witnessing it produce a fount of power that healed the land. Harnessed for Manzant and its revenants, the Remnants will enter into a new age of prosperity…” Master Kian trailed off, lost in thought.

The revenant’s glassy eyes shone with greed, and something else— longing?

Dunn looked pained. “Ya think you can say what you mean, master? Real plain like.”

Kian sighed in an uncharacteristically human manner. “How about this then? If we play this right, the Remnants will live like kings.”

“But we’re dead, aren’t we?”

Apparently even monsters rolled their eyes. “That was a figure of speech. Suffice it to say that the Remnants can return to the old ways. We’ll hunt the humans for pleasure, not survival. We’ll return to the time before the fall of Manzant, before this fine city was soured by the blight. With power such as this at our disposal, this gang will no longer need to dirty its hands digging for scraps.”

Turning to one side so that the movement would be hidden from his master, Dunn slowly began to draw his sword from its sheathe. “Well then! This be quite the haul after all! Sounds damned good to rest these old bones of mine,” Dunn said, a self-satisfied smirk plastered across his face.

My shadow chuckled merrily. “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re having performance issues?” Nyx said, laughing at my expense.

Although I was red in the face from concentrating so intensely, not even a wisp of misty aural vapors was to be seen. No matter how hard I tried to force it, I couldn’t achieve the same state of mind that from the time when I’d broken the seal. I made a face, but I nodded grudgingly to acknowledge that I was at a loss.

Shadow smirked victoriously. “There’s no way I won’t regret this later, but there is something I could do to lend a helping hand. It’s not like you have much of a choice if you want a chance to escape this place, so all I’ll say is that it’s quite dangerous. You could die. Are you sure you still want me to act, knowing that?”

I wanted to slap Nyx silly, but didn’t want to show my hand before I had a chance to play it. I seethed and pressed my lips together. Looked at Hinge, whose blade was held furtively against his leg. The revenant was muttering to itself and probably wouldn’t notice Dunn raise his sword to strike. I nodded once.

“Right then. I’ll help myself to a snack— just a nibble or two. While I do that, why don’t you fill in the other masters and let them know that tonight’s fights will be particularly entertaining.”

Dunn made no move to leave. He seemed reluctant to disobey, but he also looked unwilling to leave his score with me unsettled. Finally Dunn relented. His rigid muscles went slack and he sheathed his sword as stealthily as he drew it. I would’ve breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the man putting up his sword, but the look Dunn gave him said his vengeance wouldn’t be complete until he took care of me personally.

Dunn pivoted on his heel and pointed himself in the direction they’d arrived from. “A common foot soldier like me is yours to command, sir, but I’m not sure the other masters will be as willing to listen to me.”

Kian stopped salivating long enough to consider this. “Certainly none of them will be happy at first, but if you explain the situation, not even Volt or Genesis will be foolish enough to pass up an opportunity such as this.”

Master Kian didn’t look away from me when Dunn saluted rigidly and stalked out of the makeshift prison to parts unknown. Before the revenant tried to take a bite out of me, I had a few moments to reflect on my lack of training and understanding.

I stopped cursing the incomprehensible nature of magic and started cursing Nyx when a ravenous, chaotic-feeling soul brushed up against mine. A light tugging sensation overrode more complex thought with simple fear. Discontent flooded my mind from without.

Kian loomed over me, his crimson eyes glowing. “Delicious! I’ve never tasted a more divine flavor. I must have more. More!”

The revenant gorged on my anima like the starving animal he was. There’s nothing soft and fluffy about the sensation of being eaten alive. Ripping and tearing, Kian tore into me with wild abandon. Agonizing pain rendered me immobile and my eyes rolled up into my head. I lost some immeasurable amount of time to the feeding.

Nyx chuckled evilly. “Sorry kid, I couldn’t resist. Watching you squirm like that was too tempting to pass up. Tell me, did you think I had decided to abandon you after all?”

When I came to, I noticed a thin trickle of drool had made it as far as my shirt before it was absorbed by the tattered cloth. In the small space it was no small task to wipe the saliva off my face, but I managed. “What… what happened?”

In the time it took for my hand to drop back down to my side, Shadow’s presence grew in my mind’s eye until it eclipsed my mental processes. It seemed to take Nyx little effort to make me into a simple observer. Disbelief turned into triumph and my lips stretched into an uncharacteristic smirk. Like a vessel in a container many sizes too small for it, Nyx stretched the confines of my body similarly before a goodly portion of his essence retreated.

Huffff. “There we go. It’s been so long since I’ve had a physical body. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like,” Nyx hmmped, “I forgot how much it hurt. I suppose I’m better off in the passenger seat after all.”

I let the frustration I felt roll off me in waves. “Are you quite done?”

Master Kian was a gibbering mess. “Possession? Who— what are you? Monster? Demon?”

Nyx shrugged, wincing in apparent pain when the movement rubbed my battered body the wrong way. “I’ve been called worse… and then by much more powerful beings than a pitiful halfling like you.”

Kian’s fury caused his muscles to bulge; his cloth wrappings tore alarmingly in places. “After tonight, you’ll know the cost of insulting your betters. But first I’ll make you eat those words,” Kian said.

“Do try to pay attention this time, Shiro.”

From far away, I felt the revenant redouble its efforts to relieve my body of it’s stores of anima. If the previous feeding had been anything to go by, I should’ve been rendered senseless, but I wasn’t. It took longer than it should have, but understanding finally dawned on me. Nyx had raised a defense against the attack in my stead. A cloudy vapor— anima— had seeped from my pores and condensed into a hard shell that surrounded my entire body.

For all he tried, Kian’s spectral teeth couldn’t break the barrier of dense energy. “ It’s not possible… a shielding technique of such caliber from an untrained youth? How can this be?!”

Nyx laughed and waggled my fingers. “And that’s not all.”

Whoosh.

Anima blasted out of my hands. Focused as it was, the energy had a compounded effect that made a mockery of my uncontrolled release of power. The cage was torn asunder like it was papier–mâché and not a sturdy iron construction. In almost the same breath, the energy collided with Kian, knocking the revenant off his feet and sending him flying into the darkness of the corridor.

My mouth was a wide, perfect O of shock and surprise.

Nyx laughed with childlike enthusiasm as he relinquished control over my body and became my Shadow once more. “Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope you were paying attention. Good luck!”

Nyx’s presence faded. I could only assume he had returned to his deep slumber. “How can you sleep at a time like this??” I demanded.

In spite of the pain, the first thing I did with my freedom was stretch luxuriously. After that, I clambered to my feet hastily. The moment I did, I was raked by the pleading eyes of the other prisoners. I grimaced, because at the same time the shuffling gait of an injured revenant echoed down the hall.

Muttering under my breath, I eyed a sharp piece of iron from my ruined cage and stalked toward it. That hesitation robbed me of my momentum as well as my chance of escape. I wasn’t too sure if Nyx was right about revenants living a sort of half-life, because Kian recovered with startling speed.

Master Kian shuffled back into sight. Where the cloth wrappings on his chest had been shredded by the blast, dead-white skin showed through. The revenant was covered in tiny lacerations that oozed gooey black blood. His gait spoke to the seriousness of his injuries, but the monstrous grin he sported didn’t convince me that he’d been put out of commission.

“Look here, boy, you have two choices: either submit now and beg for forgiveness at my feet, or face the consequences. The choice is yours, but I promise to be lenient when doling out your punishment if you choose the former.”

Slim to none… those were my odds of making it past the angry revenant that lorded over the hallway I’d need to escape down. At best ten feet across, Kian shouldn’t have much difficulty barring the way. I almost opened my mouth out of sheer habit to submit to the imposing authority figure before me. Although I knew I’d never again have the will to affect my own fate, I licked my lips and nearly fell to my knees then and there to beg my new lord’s forgiveness.

I cringed. “Sorry. I’m not that person anymore.” I made sure the words didn’t sound apologetic.

“So you’ve made peace with your fate? What a pity,” Kian said. He even managed to sound apologetic!

As if. I wasn’t about to give up on my dream, not until I was dead and buried.

Master Kian moved into the flickering firelight that bathed the corridor and advanced steadily. Even as I watched, the black substance reversed direction and retreated back into the revenant’s half alive body. Unable to hide a shudder, I took a step back and waved the pointy iron rod at Kian.

“St-stay back! I’m w-warning you. One more step and I’ll blow you away!”

Kian appeared unconcerned, he grinned easily and spread his hands wide in invitation. “You will, will you? If my guess is right, you’re hardly capable of launching a magical assault without demonic assistance. Am I mistaken in assuming that pet of yours will be out of commission for quite some time?”

So much for bluffing. He had me dead to rights and he knew it.

Looking into the revenant’s eyes, I saw what I lacked: unflinching determination. Kian didn’t so much as blink when I stabbed my makeshift weapon into his stomach. I stared in disbelief at the metal bar, confirming that I had landed a solid blow. Sure enough, there was a length of iron lodged in the revenant’s guts. If I had to guess, I would figure it had pierced clean through a kidney.

“Umm… whoops?”

Kian chuckled darkly. “Whoops indeed. You must think me a common revenant. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Let this be a lesson to you. I can’t be killed by normal means, and your magic is far too common to do me in.”

“I wouldn't be so sure.”

“Oh? Why don’t you give it a shot then. Go ahead, I’ll wait,” Kian challenged.

The revenant was looking down his nose at me and smiling like I was an amusing pet. “Just wait. I’ll show you exactly what I’m capable of.” That’s what I said, but I wasn’t so sure I could follow through on the words.

Kian gestured invitingly. Black blood seeped from the hole in his guts and bubbled around the iron rod. He either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

I fought to reenact Nyx’s actions and marshal the chaotic currents of anima swirling through my body. Cloudy vapor exploded from my aural nodes and covered everything within five feet of me in a misty whirlwind. Grimacing, I strained to hold together the uncooperative energies. If I lost control of the anima I wouldn’t have the time to try again.

“Oh. You seem to be having some trouble controlling that mighty power of yours.”

So it was out of necessity that I fed all my self-doubt and uncertainty into an imaginary fire at the core of my being. As long as I stayed concentrated, I could control it. Mercifully, the whirlwind of anima stilled and became more malleable. The process was not unlike centering myself for meditation, or doing a deep-thought exercise.

Faster than thought, the anima reordered itself around my body and condensed into a hard shell. Done right, the shield should protect me from being fed on by revenants… and the agonizing pain that accompanied it. Filled with confidence from my first success, I gathered the remaining energies to augment my makeshift weapon.

With the forethought of a true novice, I brazenly cohered anima to the iron bar. I realized my mistake a second later when Master Kian’s eyes danced. That’s when it hit me— revenants would just slurp down all the anima thrown at them… unless the power was condensed like my whitish-gray shield. The full force of Kian’s unbridled bloodlust struck me with palpable force. I was thrown back against the jagged remains of the ruined cage; there were five burning points of pain where sharp iron stabbed shallowly into my back.

Hmmph. “I suppose your last attempt was a fluke. There’s no need to be concerned after all.” Master Kian looked almost disappointed.

I was having trouble breathing. My head lolled to one side. The words I wanted to say in response came out garbled and unintelligible. I coughed-spat a globule of blood onto the ground.

“For your sake, you should try to do better than that. In each round of fight night, there can only be one winner, and the losers— if they don’t die first— are executed at the end. Here, allow me to treat you to another practical lesson.”

Another almost invisible wave of force struck me in the back of the head. My concentration shattered along with my shield when I collided head-first with the cold stone flooring. The impact nearly knocked me unconscious, but I held on grimly until the blackness retreated to the edge of my vision.

The revenant grabbed my braid of long silvery-white hair and unceremoniously dragged me down the hallway. While I tried to remember how to control my basic bodily functions, Master Kian took the opportunity to monologue.

“In this ruined world which we reside, only the strong survive and only the strongest rule. The Remnants are the strong. And I am among the strongest of the Remnants. Next time you seek to challenge the natural order and your place in it, remember this moment of weakness. Remember that the weak cannot hope to prevail over the strong.”