"You’re not a slime. Not a normal one, anyway," the woman hissed.
Her voice was like jagged glass, cutting through the damp air of the dungeon. She didn't move from her corner, but her eyes—sharp, gold, and exhausted—were pinned on me. She was chained to the wall by her wrists, her white priestess robes stained with filth and old blood.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My body was still a semi-translucent, shivering mass of shadow, though I’d managed to push out something resembling a humanoid arm. I was trembling, and not just from the cold. There was a humming in my chest, a violent, vibrating pressure that felt like a bomb ticking down. If I didn't figure out how to stabilize this new form, I was going to pop like a blister.
"Don't play dumb, you little freak," she snapped. She leaned forward, the chains rattling against the stone. "I saw you take that Captain's blade. I saw you eat it. Slimes don't eat steel. They melt it. You... you absorbed it."
I shifted, the shadow-matter of my legs sliding across the floor with a wet, squelching sound. I stopped a few feet from her. I wanted to tell her I didn't know what was happening. I wanted to ask who the hell she was. But all that came out was a low, guttural gurgle.
"Pathetic," she whispered, though her eyes flickered with a hint of desperation. "You're powerful, or at least you have the potential to be, but you're a mindless animal right now. And you're about to explode. I can smell the mana instability from here. It smells like ozone and rotting sulfur."
I froze. She was right. The pressure in my core was peaking. A sharp pain spiked through my center, and a small burst of black ichor sprayed from my shoulder.
"I can fix it," she said, her voice suddenly smooth, a predator offering a deal. "I know the stabilization rites. I know how to bind that chaotic energy so you don't turn into a puddle of useless goo. But I'm in chains, and you're... well, you're a blob."
I slid closer, my form flickering. I reached out with that strange, newly formed hand. My fingers were long, tipped with obsidian claws that looked more like needles than nails. I didn't touch her; I stopped just inches from her bare ankle, the heat from her skin radiating against my cold shadow-flesh.
"Careful," she warned, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. "Touch me without knowing what you're doing, and you might just trigger the collapse. Now, let's talk business. I need out of this hole. You need to not die in the next ten minutes. Seems like a fair trade, doesn't it?"
I let out a hiss, a sound that felt more like a challenge than a question. I didn't trust her. The air around her smelled of old incense and something sharp—like copper and betrayal.
"Oh, stop with the brooding," she rolled her eyes, though her breath hitched as I moved my hand closer to her wrist. "I'm Lyra. Former High Priestess of the Solar Sanctum. Now? I'm just the girl they forgot to kill before they threw me in the Abyss. You're the first thing to crawl into this cell that didn't try to eat my toes. That makes you my favorite person in this hellhole."
I lunged.
Not to attack, but to prove a point. I snapped my hand upward, the obsidian claws grazing the skin of her wrist just above the iron shackle. A tiny bead of blood blossomed.
Lyra didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. She just looked at the blood and then looked me dead in the eyes. "You're trying to intimidate me? Sweetheart, I've been tortured by people who make you look like a cuddly toy. If you want to play the Alpha, you're going to need a lot more than a few claws and a bad attitude."
I felt a surge of irritation—or maybe it was hunger. That 'Forbidden Devour' skill was screaming again, not for the steel of the blade, but for the gold-tinted mana swirling inside her. She wasn't just a priestess; she was a battery of concentrated energy.
I leaned in, my face—or the void where a face should be—centimeters from hers. I could feel her heartbeat. It was fast. She was terrified, no matter how much she played the part of the composed noble. The scent of her fear was intoxicating.
"What's the matter?" she whispered, her voice trembling slightly now. "Cat got your tongue? Or are you realizing that without me, you're just a very expensive piece of charcoal waiting to happen?"
I didn't like being talked down to. I didn't know who I used to be, but the instinct to dominate was hardwired into my soul. I shifted my weight, my shadow-mass expanding, filling the small cell until the walls felt like they were closing in. I pressed her back against the stone, my form looming over her, blocking out the dim light from the corridor.
"There it is," Lyra breathed, her eyes widening. "That's the spark. You're not just some random mutation. You've got a core of a Lord. A broken, shattered Lord, but it's there."