#I edited this some like a day later when I realized I only mentioned cyna's name once in the entire fic lmao

[bigsnaff]

Months pass in Nayos, and Cyna experiences a taste of revenancy, to her great chagrin.

I hold nothing for you in my heart but hate.

The words don't phase Cyna – she's known this man, this ghost of Ascalon, Merlish Cendigg, for little over a few months. What power do his words have to her? As though they were new to her ears? But she knows that every little word he breathes against her breaks down whatever thin veil of camaraderie that builds. Every time they fought together, every drop of blood spilled of their foes between them. 

It wasn't forced upon her; she had accepted the spear from Isgarren of her own will, though perhaps at the time she didn't fully recognize the weight of it, the value, or the burden. The events preceding their entrance to Nayos were rattling to her mind, a rushing wind past her ears. She accepted the weapon blindly. But now she knows it was more than just another tool like the Heart of the Obscure.

In Nayos, Cyna steps back for once and allows herself to be the one commanded. A foot soldier once again, an expendable sword on the frontline. It's almost a relief to leave the consequences to someone else for once, as Peitha orders her blade here and there — until the guilt weeds its way back into her mind, and she looks over to the ghost at her side and knows exactly what he’s doing to her.

She finds humor in the fact that the otherworldly being who wormed her way into her mind was more amiable than the human from her own world. Though whether that amiability is born from sincerity, she didn’t yet know. In truth, she didn't know who she trusted more. She had slaughtered enough Kryptis at this point that, had it not been in self defense, it could’ve been considered genocide — and Merlish, of course, had witnessed his kingdom’s fall at the hands of her race.

Both of them had enough reason to level her.

She and Merlish are alone so often. She carries the spear with her closer than she carries her blade. Clusters of crystal grow from it with each swing, with each thrust of her power forced through it, though she could not control it. She stands as sentry at the edge of the Ward’s camp, watching as he pries the crystals off the spear and crushes them to dust in his palm. She doesn’t stop him. The spear harbored his soul; was it not an intrusion upon his being? She felt foolish.

“I’m sorry,” she has the gall to say, somehow, though it will happen again and again. The glow from his presence reaches farther than the meager light of the embers of her campfire. It's brighter than the ghosts she would fight in Ascalon, and she wonders why. “...I can’t help it.”

“Then you’re weak,” he says simply, without emotion behind the words. It’s meant to just be a statement, Cyna thinks. But still a low growl rises from her chest. She’d been uniquely patient until now. 

“It’s different magic than you use.”

“The fundamentals of all magic begin and end the same,” he says, holding up the last of the crystals between his fingers. His glow catches within it, scattering it like a prism. She closes her eyes against the influx of memories.

“I’ve been dealing with it for years. It’s dragon magic. Don’t act like you understand,” she tosses back, and it’s the first time yet that she’s ever heard him laugh. It’s louder than she expected, but there's little joy behind it. He twirls the shard between his fingers as she watches mist waft off him like flames – the mundanity of the action contrasting so starkly against what he was.

“Wayfinder–”

“Don’t call me that.”

“...Commander — strike with a hammer with however much force you please, but aim.” He crushes the final crystal in his hand and releases the fragments to the wind. She huffs. It's hardly a lesson. But he's more pleasant than she recalls him being in a while, so she refrains from adding fuel to the flame. Instead she looks away and watches the red leaves of Nayos trees dance in the wind.

Cyna hadn’t pondered as much on Ascalon as she likely should’ve — though she had grown up in Grothmar Valley, distant from the epicenter of Ascalon’s fall, even when she and her warband migrated south to battle the Dragonbrand, the ghosts seemed no more to her than another environmental hazard. During then, she instead turned her focus toward the ever-growing disaster that plagued Ascalon’s East --- not the echoes trapped in endless reverberation. She grinds her teeth at this thought. They were people, once, though hatred shared between their kinds. It’s bizarre to imagine the ghost before her there. Though she had met much older beings, there’s something about Merlish that seemed inherently… antique.

She has watched Merlish as executioner, in her mind’s eye placing herself into a time that she had not yet set foot into the world, when fear and hatred ruled Ascalon, and remarks upon the sorcerer’s savagery. Surely he fought the charr as fiercely as he did the Kryptis. Was he so unlike the ones he claimed to be beasts? The rage in his eyes? Was he so unlike her? 

Angry. The fury forming around them like bars to break away from.

The thought pulses in her head. She turns her gaze back toward Merlish and clenches her jaw. He stares back. To Isgarren, maybe, Merlish had become just a tool, a means to an end. But he wasn’t a slave. More than an echo. She bows her head to him. “...I don’t want to keep you.”

He flares at the suggestion alone. “I am not yours to keep.” 

“I know.”

“You're a fell beast," he spits. "You and your kind. Good that the gods cursed me so, that I might not end all of Tyria in my bloodlust for you.”

“You have what you want. Isgarren doesn't withhold you anymore. You are bound to no one.”

He steps within inches of Cyna's face. A fury in his eyes that never dies. Ascalon eternally burning. “Foresight is scarcely a blessing as often said. My own folly is my jailer.” 

Cyna shoves away a rising growl. As if she, born centuries later, was the mastermind behind all of his suffering. For all he claims that foresight is a curse, she wishes she had enough to not humor him for so long. “Then break the chains.”

“I loathe you,” he whispers aloud, but she hears the words in her mind as well, louder, deeper. He doesn't allow the barrier between them to fall. Like Ascalon’s Northern Wall, he rebuilds it, again and again. “For all that you've done, you personally, Commander, I loathe you so. I hold nothing for you in my heart but hate.“

She's known this man for little over a few months, she's watched him spill blood of demons with relative ease, and yet, he steps toward her, blinding spear in hand, nothing between them, and he doesn't touch her. For all that he claims he hates her, he doesn't take the advantage, the vengeance. He never does.

“I’m not too fond of you either,” is all she returns.

Merlish's furious expression remains steadfast — but he steps back from her, supernatural flames tempering. Soon, his spirit dissipates as the spear in his fading hand glows brighter and then spins itself to her. She catches it with one hand and scoffs. The ghost has gone to his room and locked the door.

Cyna closes her eyes and leans her weight against it. Tomorrow, they march to the Midnight King's coliseum, and she wonders if he hates the Kryptis as much as he hates her.