Shadow Slave

Sunny stared into the darkness with an incredulous expression, then shrugged:

"Sure. Whatever. Nice to make your acquaintance… Your Highness. I am called Sunless, by the way. Sadly, no title."

Silently, though, he thought:

'...The young prince that the Dreamspawn had taken away?'

Oblivious to his suspicions, Mordret hesitated, then asked politely:

"Sunless? What an unusual name."

Sunny grimaced.

"Yes. My mother had a… on second thought, forget that! Are you going to tell me about the divine flame or not?"

The Prince of Nothing was silent for a bit, then said:

"There is not much to tell. The heat of those flames is absolutely deadly. Unless you have some way to fly, you are in big trouble. Which, I assume, you don't… otherwise, you wouldn't be in this predicament, to begin with. Right?"

'Well… you can't argue with sound logic, I guess!'

Sunny sighed.

"...I can control the direction of the fall, but yes, no true flight."

He hesitated, then added reluctantly:

"For what it is worth, my Aspect Ability allows me to turn incorporeal, as well as teleport for short distances."

He didn't really want to share the details of his powers with the mysterious prince, but currently, there was no other choice. Mordret obviously knew more about the Sky Below than Sunny, so his advice was vital.

The lost prince thought for a few moments, then said:

"Turning incorporeal will help against being cooked by the heat, but it won't save you from the divine flame itself. However, not everything is lost. Even though you can't fly, you do have some mobility. With some luck, you might be able to dodge the conflagrations."

Sunny glanced into the darkness with a resentful expression.

"That I already figured out myself. Tell me something that I don't know, genius."

The void chuckled.

"Fine. But only because you asked nicely…"

Then, it disappeared.

Sunny's face twitched.

"Goddammit! He's gone again!"

But a second later, Mordret's voice suddenly resounded from the darkness:

"No, no. There is still time. I was just thinking…"

He was quiet for a few moments, then said hesitantly:

"There is actually a path through the divine flame. An empty rift in the tapestry of stars where none of it remains. If you find it, you might survive."

Although it was hard to control his emotions these days, Sunny tried his hardest to suppress the misplaced anger and calm himself down. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost even:

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? How far am I from this rift, then?"

Mordret sighed.

"How would I know? It's not like I know where you are, exactly. More than that, I had never managed to find the rift myself. The Sky Below is vast and deadly, after all…"

'...So, he was exploring this abyss, too. Why? What's out there, beyond the fake stars?'

Sunny tilted his head, the asked cautiously:

"If you never found it, how do you know that it's there?"

The void remained silent for some time. After a while, when Mordret spoke again, his voice sounded distant and weak:

"The Tear… it should be somewhere near the Tear. I think…"

With that, Sunny felt that he was alone in the darkness again. This time, the mysterious prince was truly gone.

He sat motionlessly for a while, staring into the endless nothingness of the Sky Below.

"Near the Tear…"

The String of Fate, too, had pointed toward the Tear. To somewhere very near its center. If the rift in the annihilating field of the divine flames had anything to do with the golden thread, then Sunny had a much better chance of finding the path through the merciless stars than Mordret had ever had.

…He had already half-found it, really.

Looking down, Sunny sighed and closed his eyes again, returning to the endless routine of circulating the shadow essence through his body.

***

Day passed after day.

The closer Sunny drew to the obliterating stars, the calmer he became. Now that mortal danger was getting near, his mind had no time and reason to slowly destroy itself. The absolute nothingness of the void that had assaulted it, too, was much less empty now.

Not only was it full of threat, but also of heat and light.

And shadows…

Sunny had dismissed the leather elements of the Puppeteer's Shroud and undid the bands of its upper garment. Stripped to the waist, he meditated in the darkness, the Soul Serpent coiling around his pale and lithe body.

Because of the rough diet of only eating the poisonous meat of a dead devil, he had practically no fat left. His skin looked a bit feverish and was drawn tautly across his lean muscles, making for a sight that was both splendid and a little disturbing.

His broken arm had almost healed, so he removed the splint and spent some time every day doing simple exercises to bring it back to its former strength. He had to be cautious not to overexert it too soon, though.

The plan of how to survive the field of stars was slowly forming in his mind. It was bound to be a gamble one way or another, but Sunny was not going to give up without doing everything he could to survive.

…His confidence was somewhat reinforced by the fact that he had, most likely, discovered the rift that Mordred told him about.

Following the direction of the golden String of Fate that had been practically burned into his mind, Sunny studied a particular cluster of the stars for an entire week before finally noticing something that looked like a tiny, almost imperceptibly minuscule gap in the vast tapestry of countless shimmering lights.

Trusting his judgment, he summoned the Dark Wing and used it to push the treasure chest toward that particular cluster. Luckily, he was already not too far away from it… most likely because he had been aiming to follow the golden string from the very beginning of his fall.

As a few more days went by and the stars grew even larger, Sunny became more or less certain that the tiny gap was, indeed, there. It had grown slightly bigger, too.

What he was uncertain about, however, was his ability to reach the rift without being incinerated by the annihilating heat of the divine flame.

The field of false stars was vast, and the rift was tiny in comparison. At the speed that he was falling, missing it would be far too easy.

But what choice did he have?

'Do or die...'

Well... when had it ever been any different?