Donte sat alone in one of the central rooms of Dragon’s Nest. Streaks of blood dripped down from his nose, eyes, ears, and mouth but the boy did not seem to notice. His face was deathly pale and his body shook uncontrollably but none of it mattered to him. He sat in the middle of the room with his eyes closed, deep in concentration.

The veins of purple energy that ran through the walls of the room pulsed unceasingly, shining brightly as if trying to bathe Donte in their light. However, the veins of energy closest to Donte were different. They had returned to the soft blue color that had run through Dragon’s Nest before Mare took over.

The blue and purple lights pushed back against each other in a bitter battle for dominance, a battle that Donte was losing badly. With every pulse, the purple energy washed away more and more of Donte’s contamination. Mare’s power was comparable to an ocean and Donte’s was nothing more than a sand castle on the beach. With every second that passed, more and more of it eroded away.

From the outside, this battle seemed calm but the moment I stepped into the room a wave of power nearly knocked me off my feet. Just feeling it made me sick to my stomach. Just like the first time I sensed it, this power still felt wrong to me. It was something backwards. Like a paradox, its very existence was a contradiction I could not understand.

Still, I did not need to understand that incongruity to know that it was tearing Donte apart from the inside. Shielding myself from the energy with my domain, I marched into the room and in one swift motion slapped Donte across the face as hard as I could.

His body crumbled like wet paper. There was no strength in it at all as he collapsed to the ground. Donte’s voice was a gravelly whisper as he struggled to pick himself up from the ground. “No matter how many times you try to stop me, Mare, I will not give up.”

“I’m not Mare but if you keep this up, I am going to start calling you Halfwit,” I replied, placing my hands on my hips.

Donte blinked away the exhaustion in his eyes as he looked up at me. “Wren? What are you doing here?”

“Stopping you from getting yourself killed. What are you trying to accomplish by clashing with Mare? If you keep this up, she is probably going to put a dagger through your back, assuming the backlash doesn’t kill you first.”

Donte grit his teeth as he pushed himself back up to a sitting position. “It’s fine. She can talk all she wants but Mare cannot actually do anything to cause me serious harm. I know what I’m doing.”

“Obviously not,” I replied with a huff, “Have you seen yourself? I have resurrected corpses that looked better than you do right now.”

“Just leave me alone. I am not going to stop.”

I took a deep breath in frustration as Donte closed his eyes and ignored my glare. “Why are you so determined to control Dragon’s Nest that you are willing to tear your body apart?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Donte mumbled.

“Try me.”

Donte sighed as he opened his eyes and looked up at me. “Mare may have taken control of Dragon’s Nest but I am still connected to it. It is a part of me as much as my own arm. I feel everything she does like maggots crawling across my skin. No matter how much Mare exclaims otherwise, we are both still bound by this stupid floating rock. Neither of us can stray too far from it. No matter how much we struggle, we must obey its rules. The most important of which is that there can only ever be one master of Dragon’s Nest. There is no compromise. Either I rule over her or she rules over me.”

“So, you are tearing your body apart because you don’t want Mare telling you what to do?”

“She can do more than just tell me what to do. That annoying brat has already taken control of my body twice and now that she is even stronger, she could do it even easier. If Mare wanted, she could send me into a permanent sleep while she puppets my body for the rest of my life and there is nothing I can do to stop her while she remains in control of Dragon’s Nest. Even without her going that far, even if she does not try to abuse her control over me, we are connected through Dragon’s Nest. Mare can see everything I see; feel everything I feel. What would you do if you knew someone was spying on you every minute of every day?”

I bit my lip as I imagined what it would be like. I could not blame Donte for rebelling against Mare’s control. I would probably do the same if I was in his situation. The difference was, I might have had a slim chance of actually succeeding. Donte was just throwing himself headfirst into a steel wall over and over again in the hopes of making a dent. Unless he suddenly gained the power and control of an ace of the Divisions, he would never be able to overwhelm the horrendous amount of power I felt when Mare repaired the core.

I felt a headache forming as I failed to come up with a solution. “Mare, I know you are listening. Is there any way to sever Donte’s connection to Dragon’s Nest?”

The small form of Mare stepped through the door behind me. She had likely been standing there since our conversation started. Donte’s eyes narrowed when he saw her. The tension between the two of them was thick enough to feel in the air.

“You think I would be suffering this halfwit if I could do that?” Mare replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, “My main body only managed to sever her connection to Dragon’s Nest at a significant cost. It is not something I can recreate without that body’s power.”

“What about the you at the center of the planet? Can she do it?”

“There is another Mare at the center of the planet?” Donte exclaimed in surprise.

Ignoring Donte, Mare once again shook her head. “That is just a shadow, a fragment left behind as a form of insurance. Her ability to influence anything physical is extremely limited.”

I placed my finger on my chin as I glanced at Donte. “What if we stop Donte’s heart… temporarily.”

Mare laughed at that. Her voice echoed through the halls of Dragon’s Nest as a wicked smile spread across her face. “That does sound like quite a bit of fun. Unfortunately, the Preateritum were too clever for that. His connection to me is hardwired into his brain. Unless we scoop it out, he will still be the master of Dragon’s Nest when we wake him up. Of course, if you want to try, I will not complain. Let’s call it… an experiment.”

“I’m very much against any plan that involves killing me, temporary or otherwise,” Donte said with a stutter as his eyes darted between both of us.

“You really are no fun,” Mare said with a little too much disappointment in her voice. She stepped up to Donte and leaned forward so that the two of them were at eye level. “Is it really so horrible for you to live under me? Do you wish to be my master that badly?”

“I don’t care about being the master!” Donte shouted, “I just want to be free!”

Mare frowned as she looked at Donte for a long moment. The boy shifted uncomfortably under her scrutinizing gaze but to his credit, he did not look away.

“And would you be willing to give up all the power you have trained so hard to attain in exchange for this freedom?”

“What do you mean?” Donte asked hesitantly.

“I mean exactly what I said,” Mare continued, “You are bound to Dragon’s Nest until death. I can’t change that but I can seal away your power. Without it, you would not be able to feel your connection to Dragon’s Nest and I would not be able to feel you. You could go wherever you pleased, and live as you wished. However, you would have to give up the innate talent you have gained, the domain you are on the verge of awakening, and the abilities of an Adept you will someday achieve. Cast it all aside and you can live a normal life again. I would even give you a nice parting gift of gold. You could live the rest of your life in absolute luxury or you can stay here, under my command. The choice is yours.”

Donte fell silent. His gaze drifted down to one of the dried blood drops on the ground. He stared at that blood drop for several seconds before he raised his head. Our eyes met and I saw a firm resolution in his gaze.

“No, I will not run away,” he said decisively, “You may be stronger than me now but I refuse to believe it will always be that way. I will stop trying to take over Dragon’s Nest for now so long as you promise to never take over my body or dictate my actions again.”

“For now?” Mare asked with a raised eyebrow.

Donte smiled as he stood up on shaking legs. He still looked exhausted but there was an underlying confidence in his smile that I had not seen from him before. All doubts and insecurities were cast aside as he spoke. “One day, I will force you to accept me as the true ruler of Dragon’s Nest. I promise this, one day you will bow to me.”

Mare crossed her arms across her chest in obvious disapproval. “You’re rather cocky for a half-witted brat. If you are going to be staying here, I am going to have to beat that out of you.”

“Do your worst.”

“I intend to,” Mare said with a widening smile, “Now that I have a bit more power at my disposal, there are a few more… experiments I have been wanting to test. If you are really determined to become powerful enough to make me kneel, then you should have no problem dealing with a little pain, right halfwit?”

“Wait, what experiments?” Donte asked. His eyes went wide as he glanced at me pleadingly. Before he could say anymore though, the floor under his feet turned to liquid. Donte’s scream was cut short as he vanished into the sudden puddle.

I glanced over at Mare inquisitively. “You are not just going to torture him, right?”

Mare shook her head. “So long as he does not resume this blundering attempts that hurt us both, I have no reason to hate him. Believe it or not, I am actually rather proud of the halfwit’s answer. That is the attitude a member of Dragon’s Nest should have. Even if all the worlds across all the realms turn against us, we will never back down from what we have decided. He was able to withstand the pain of backlash from my power more than a thousand times without giving up. I have no doubt that Donte will one day prove himself worthy of ruling Dragon’s Nest. Unfortunately, our little halfwit is still very weak right now, embarrassingly so. It will likely be a thousand years before he can make me kneel at his current rate of improvement.”

I raised an eyebrow curiously. “Doesn’t the power of Preateritum constructions grow with the power of its ruler? Is it actually possible for him to surpass you ?”

Mare’s laughter echoed through the halls like bells as she turned to walk out of the room. “I guess we will have to wait and see,” she said with a smirk.