I was drowning. How? How did I get here?
My vision was blurred by the transparent current, ripples in the body of water blurred the sun and clouds of the sky.
I felt the weight of the water on my skin. I felt the cool fluid waft over me.
I needed to get out. To leave this place before I drowned. I had instinctively held my breath, and now my lungs burned, stretched to the limit because I hadn't taken any more oxygen since I gained consciousness.
Why am I dying? How did I get here?
My vision blurred back at the edges, a feeling I had gotten too used to during the last week, and my lungs couldn't keep up anymore. A breath was forced. I expected to feel the water rush through my nostrils, to feel my lungs being crushed, to have my airways blocked out. . .
Instead, I inhaled, and fresh air rushed into my nose.
My chest rose as the cool oxygen flowed in, temporarily forgetting that I was drowning moments ago.
Or at least I thought I was drowning. Obviously, I wasn't anymore. Maybe I never was.
I looked at my fingers as I continued to breathe in and out in the water. They shifted from six to five to four, occasionally blurring in between.
Being able to breathe underwater, changing fingers, that could only mean one thing.
I was dreaming.
So all I needed to do was wake up.
As I was about to start contemplating on how to do that, something, no someone grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. Not the brown robe I had been given by Tav back in the Humility Domain. This was the one Fisher had given me on the river bank.
Was that where I was? No. The waters were too deep.
I was brought out roughly from the water to the surface as the calloused hand dragged me back to the bank.
I wasn't in an ocean or stream. I was in a river. I looked up, the water on my face dripping out of my hair as I gazed into the sky.
It was clear. Completely. Not a cloud in sight. Only the bright blue sheen of the afternoon sky.
The dream setting wasn't the main camp. If it was, there would be a lot of clouds in the air. The sky would be darker. The wind would be cool and damp.
This was somewhere different. The air was lazy and warm. The heat from a sun I couldn't see was hot against my skin.
And from the houses lined up on the horizon, I recognized this place.
"Finally woken up, you damned bastard."
The person who had dragged me up from the water called out to me as he sat on the sandy bank of the river, the water current brushing against our toes lined on the gravel.
His tough, muscled arms that had pulled me out of the ocean with ease. The face that held contempt to anyone who he felt was weaker than him. The eyes that spelt out murder and pride. The mouth that revealed a yellowed set of teeth as they snarled at me.
I recognized this person.
They had taken lives at whim. Killed people off on a whim. Drunk to his full in wild taverns with his share of women he paid for.
"When are you going to speak up, you brat?" He said, folding his arms as he stared me down.
The way he spoke, the power he commanded. There was no doubt, even if my weak, sickly frame contrasted starkly with the powerful man before him.
He was Reygir Bondyek. Wielder of the Obsidian Blades.
He was me.
"This will be an interesting dream." I said.
"Huh? The hell did you say?!" He yelled, spittle flying into my face as I absentmindedly stared around my surroundings.
The warm tropical climate, the river where me and Alfred grew up. I remember hunting for deer and pheasants in the woods ahead, picking up sticks and tying sharp stones to them like tridents to pluck fishes from the rivers.
I looked into the river as I had the thought, and a fish appeared almost immediately, a whole school of salmon, their silver scales gleaming in the sunlight. They looked so realistic. It was incredible how much detail my brain could generate.
"Don't you fucking look away while I'm talking to you!" He yelled, sending a hard punch to my face. It might have been a dream, but the pain was just as real. Stars shone in my vision as I fell to the sand, but it faded almost immediately. I rubbed the impact spot. It wasn't even sore anymore, and no bruising remained. Dream logic is weird.
He grinned. Crude and arrogant. God I was insufferable, thinking the world revolved around me. "Look at you. Soft. Talking to Priestesses like they're people. Buddying up Kindness like she's your girl. You gonna rail her next?"
I didn't move.
He circled me like a wolf. "You remember what we promised, don't you? Kill them all. No negotiations. No empathy. They don't deserve it."
"I remember," I said quietly.
"Then what happened?" he spat. "You limped back into her arms, collapsed like a deer after rutting season, and now what? You're… thinking? We didn't think, we acted."
I turned to face him fully. His eyes burned like coals. Mine just felt tired.
"I think-"
"You think?" He laughed, a wild barking sound that echoed, even though there were the space we were in was wide open. "That's your new power? Thinking? You were a blade. Now you're a wet towel."
"And yet you're here." I stepped toward him. "Not out there. Not walking in my boots. You're a memory. A corpse."
He moved like lightning—grabbed my throat, shoved me against the river bank, shoving my head back into the water. Now it felt like I was drowning. Water flowed into my nose in an instant. I had tried to stop it, but now that I held my breath too soon, I already felt like my lungs would give in at any second and fail.
His face straddled on top of me as he squeezed my throat tighter, I perverse grin splaying on his lips as he pressed harder, not only drowning me, but choking, strangling me too.
"No," he whispered. "I'm the part of you that survived. The rage. The purpose. You'll die in your sleep, and you'll beg for me to wake up and finish what you couldn't."
"That's what I'm going to do now. I'll kill you in this dream. And then I, the real Reygir Bondyek will take over and put an end to your bullshit, then I'll kill the Virtue Priestesses you're trying to befriend."
No. I couldn't let that happen. I already knew what would happen if I rushed in brashly. That was how I lost to Domitia the first time. It wouldn't happen again.
I thought her Holy Mandate had gotten rid of all my pride, but apparently, this aspect of me remained. Pride was a core aspect of who Reygir Bondyek was. The Sacrament of Submission had only removed the surface. I had to pluck the real thing out with my bear hands.
I didn't fight him.
I just stared.
Then I said, softly, "You're afraid."
He blinked. A beat of hesitation. Then his face contorted into an ugly sneer. But something was hidden behind that smile. Fear. The same fear I saw in the eyes of that Humility scout. "Of what?"
"Of being useless. Of being left behind. You think you're the fire that forged me. But you're not."
Words flowed smoothly from my lips, even though I was supposed to be under water. I grabbed the locks of his hair and with strength I didn't know I had, I dragged his head closer to mine until our eyes met.
"You were just the heat. I am the blade. I have not forgotten the promise I made. I will kill the Virtue Priestesses."
I pushed him away, rising up from the water.
"Just not your way."
This was a waste of time. This version of myself only existed in my head. So I'll just get rid of him.
Which is what I did.
With a flick of my arm, he vanished, right as he was about to ram into me, obsidian blades drawn against a weak enemy.
"Truly pathetic" I muttered as he faded into nothingness, screams dying into oblivion.
The dreamscape started vibrating. Shaking.
Rocks fell from the banks. The water of the rivers sent waves shaking through.
Clouds appeared in the sky, twisting and turning until something formed.
A face.
I strained my eyes to see what was happening. Whose face could it be. Mine?
No. It was That face that had told me to wait as she put me to sleep for over three centuries.
That motherly gaze. Those big round eyes that had the calm look of a cow as it chewed the cud. The soft, light brown skin and silver hair that flowed like the silk robes she adorned on her frame.
That was the last face I saw before I was put into waiting.
I remembered her words.
"Wait. Wait for that person."
I don't know what she was doing in my dreams, but now, her lips twisted and formed a new phrase.
"Oh, Reygir Bondyek. I have been waiting for you for so long. The others have strayed from the path. But you... you are right on time."
I small smile crawled to my lips as I looked straight to the sky, into my gaze.
Something like a challenge passed through us, as Bon and the Virtue Priestess of Patience met for the second time.
"You call yourselves Virtue Priestesses, huh-?" I said, recalling all the horrific things they had done. How they had killed and enforced obedience in the name of goodness.
"-I will show you what true Virtue is."