Anakin woke to the sensation of being on fire.
Not literally—though given his luck on the Forgotten Shore, literal fire wouldn't have surprised him—but every nerve in his body was screaming. His head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it, His ribs were a symphony of agony with each shallow breath. His arms and legs felt like they were made of lead and broken glass in equal measure.
But he was alive.
That realization came slowly, filtering through the pain and confusion. He was alive, which meant either he'd won a fight he shouldn't have, or someone else had intervened. Given that his last memory was of four scavengers bearing down on him , the second option seemed more likely.
He tried to move and immediately regretted it. Pain lanced through his skull, his vision went white, and a groan escaped his throat before he could stop it.
"Easy." A soft voice, female, coming from his left. "You took a blow to the head. Your skull was cracked open. Moving is a bad idea right now."
Anakin's eyes opened—when had he closed them?—and the world swam into focus slowly. The bright light of the sky above. Crimson coral walls to his right. And to his left, sitting on a chunk of bone with her legs crossed, was the girl.
She looked even more out of place in the clear light than she had in his dying moments. Clean blonde hair, clean neat clothes that weren't stained with blood or dirt, a face that showed exhaustion but not the bone-deep wear that came from days of sleepless nights. She was watching him with an expression that was hard to read—part curiosity, part something else he couldn't quite identify.
In her hand was a waterskin.
"Here," she said, standing and moving closer. "Water. Not whatever poison you've been drinking."
Anakin's throat was so dry it hurt, and the offer was almost enough to make him accept immediately. Almost. But some part of his brain that wasn't drowning in pain was screaming warnings. This girl wasn't in the novel. She wasn't part of the canon story of Shadow Slave. Which meant she was either someone who died before the story started, or she was something else entirely.
And given how easily she'd carved through four Awakened scavengers in seconds, "something else" was probably more dangerous than the monsters.
"Who are you?" he managed, his voice coming out as a rough rasp.
The girl smiled slightly, like she'd expected the question. "My name is Audrey." She crouched down to his level, close enough that he could see the details—the way her blonde hair caught the light, the sharp intelligence in her eyes, the small scar on her left hand that looked old and well-healed. "And before you ask the next logical question: yes, I'm the one who saved you. Those scavengers were about to make you dinner."
"Why?" Anakin asked. The question was simple, but it covered a lot of ground. Why save him? Why help? What did she want?
Audrey's expression shifted, and there it was again—that look of recognition he'd seen right before he passed out. Like she knew something about him that he didn't. She sat back on her heels and studied him for a long moment, her head tilted slightly.
"Because," she said slowly, "you're like me. Aren't you?"
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. Anakin's mind, still foggy from injury but starting to clear, raced through possibilities. Like her, how? A Sleeper? Obviously, they were both stuck here. Someone who was stuck in the forgotten shore?
Wait.
"I don't know what you mean," he said carefully, buying time to think. His hand moved instinctively to check if his gauntlets were summoned—they weren't—and the motion sent fresh pain through his ribs. He was completely vulnerable here. If she wanted him dead, he couldn't stop her.
Audrey sighed and sat down properly, cross-legged on the sand, the waterskin still in her hand. "Okay, let me try this differently." She paused, seeming to gather her thoughts, then spoke carefully "Three days ago, you died. You woke up somewhere else, met someone—something—that offered you a deal. Three wishes in exchange for being sent here, to this world. To Shadow Slave."
Anakin's blood went cold.
Transmigrator? She was a transmigrator. Like him, but also not like him, because he definitely hadn't met any god or gotten any wishes. He'd woken here with no explanation and no powers. Even his memories of the previous life were blurry
But she didn't know that. She was assuming he'd had the same experience she did, which meant—
"You're not from here," he said, and it wasn't a question.
"Neither are you," Audrey replied, her smile turned more genuine now, relieved. "I've been looking for others. I have a way to sense them—us. Transmigrators. It was my second wish, actually. The ability to know when I meet someone else who was sent here the same way I was." She gestured at him with the waterskin. "And you lit up like a beacon."
Anakin's mind was spinning, trying to process the implications. There were multiple transmigrators. At least two, counting her and him, but probably more if she'd made a wish specifically to find them. She had THREE wishes, which meant she had powers, abilities, probably a powerful aspect given how easily she'd killed those scavengers.
And she thought he was the same.
"How many?" he asked, his voice still rough. "How many others are there?"
"Six," Audrey said. "Six other transmigrators besides me. You're the first I've found." She leaned forward slightly, her expression eager. "We have got so much to discuss, what did you wish for? I got transmigrator detection as my second wish, and my third was... well, that's my business. But my first wish was for an aspect. A divine-rank aspect based on—" She caught herself, smiled self-consciously. "Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Your turn. What were your wishes?"
He took a deep breath which sent pain throughout his body. "Shouldnt we go to a safer place before talking, cough cough as you can see i am in no shape for a sudden threat and while i can see your competence, the night is approaching"
Audrey was startled by his response before the back of her ears turned red "Ah!! Thats right, sorry sorry, what was i thinking…"
She stood quickly, brushing sand from her clothes in a hurry. Anakin watched her through his haze of pain and thought distantly that for someone who'd just carved through his deathbed, she seemed surprisingly flustered.
"Can you stand?" she asked, offering her hand again. "There's a giant bone about ten minutes north that should work. High enough to be above the tide, defensible. We'll have maybe two hour before sunset."
Anakin took her hand—her grip was strong, steadier than his by far yet soft—and let her help pull him to his feet. The world tilted dangerously for a moment, his vision swimming, and he had to lock his knees to keep from collapsing immediately. Every breath sent fresh waves of agony through his ribs. His head felt like it was full of broken glass grinding together with each heartbeat.
"I'm good," he lied through gritted teeth.
Audrey's expression was skeptical, but she didn't call him on it. Instead, she moved to his injured side, carefully positioning herself to take some of his weight without being obvious about it. "Lean on me if you need to. Pride won't help if you pass out halfway there."
"Comforting thought," Anakin muttered, but he did lean slightly, just enough to take the edge off. His body screamed in protest at the movement..
They started walking, and immediately Anakin realized this was going to be worse than he'd thought. Each step sent jolts of pain through his body, and his legs felt like they were made of wet sand. The Ring of Burden helped—made his body feel lighter than it should—but even that had limits.
Audrey matched his pace without comment, which he appreciated. She kept her eyes on the coral passages ahead, one hand hovering near where she could summon her sword, but she adjusted her stride to accommodate his stumbling steps. They moved in silence for the first few minutes, the only sounds, his ragged breathing and the distant noise of movement
"Watch the edge here," Audrey said quietly, guiding him around a sharp outcropping of coral that jutted into their path.
Anakin nodded, not trusting himself to speak without his voice shaking. Sweat was already running down his face despite the cooling evening air, and his vision kept trying to tunnel at the edges. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, he was still in a daze and confused, this whole situation was confusing.
They passed through a section where the coral walls rose high enough to create something like a natural tunnel, the light dimming significantly as the gray sky was partially blocked overhead. Anakin had to move more carefully in the reduced visibility, placing his feet with greater deliberation to avoid stumbling on the uneven ground. He could see well enough to navigate, but the shadows made everything slightly more treacherous.
Audrey seemed to handle the dim light without difficulty, her movements remaining fluid and graceful.
"Almost there," she said, and there was something in her voice that Anakin couldn't quite identify through the static of pain in his head—concern mixed with what might have been guilt.
The passage opened into a wider space, the coral formations giving way to reveal what she'd described.
A massive bone structure rose from the crimson maze like the ribcage of some impossibly large leviathan that had died here long ago and been picked clean by time. The individual bones were thick—easily as wide as tree trunks—and weathered smooth by countless years of exposure to salt wind and the relentless assault of the elements. Between two of the massive ribs, approximately thirty feet above the ground, accumulated coral growth and debris had created something resembling a natural platform—high enough to be well above the tide line when the dark sea came flooding back through the passages, sheltered from the worst of the wind by the curve of bone arching overhead, defensible from below by virtue of height and the difficulty of climbing smooth weathered bone.
The only problem, and it was a significant one, was getting up there.
Anakin stared at the bone structure and felt something cold and heavy settle in his chest—not despair but definitely its close cousin. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't have been insurmountable, just another challenge to overcome. But in his current state, with a cracked skull and multiple broken bones and exhaustion weighing on every limb, thirty feet might as well have been a hundred.
His memory was damaged, barely functional after the punishment they'd taken during his desperate fight against the scavengers. His body was being held together through sheer stubborn refusal to die and the compensating effects of the Ring of Burden, both of which had definite limits that he was rapidly approaching. And the sun was sinking steadily lower toward the horizon, each passing minute bringing them closer to full darkness and the things that hunted when night fell on the Forgotten Shore.
"I can climb it," Audrey said, following his gaze and clearly reading his thoughts in his expression. "Get myself up there first, secure a rope, then pull you up. It'll be significantly easier than trying to make you climb with those injuries."
"You have rope?" The question came out more accusatory than Anakin had intended, his voice rough with pain and exhaustion.
She hesitated, a fractional pause.
"I have resources," she said carefully, choosing her words with obvious deliberation. "Memories. One of them includes a storage capacity—not unlimited, but enough to carry supplies. I've been collecting things since I arrived here, preparing for exactly this kind of situation."
Of course she had. The disparity was almost laughable, except Anakin couldn't quite manage to find humor in it through the haze of pain and fatigue.
"Alright," he said, forcing the words through gritted teeth. "Let's do it."
Audrey moved to the base of the bone structure with purposeful strides, her earlier nervousness gone. Her fingers traced invisible holds along the weathered surface, after a moment of assessment, she summoned her sword with that distinctive shimmer of light, the blade materializing in her hand as though it had always been there waiting for her call, and began carving additional handholds.
The blade cut through the bone with unsettling ease, each strike precise and controlled, producing clean edges that would serve as reliable grips during the ascent. The sound of metal meeting bone echoed strangely in the enclosed space between coral walls making Anakin's teeth ache in sympathy. She worked quickly but without rushing, creating a ladder of sorts up the first several feet where the bone was smoothest and most difficult to climb naturally, and Anakin found himself analyzing her movements with the detached portion of his mind that wasn't consumed by pain.
She climbed fast once the handholds were complete, her movements so fluid it made the ascent look almost effortless, she ascended the platform in perhaps thirty seconds. When she reached the top, she didn't pause to catch her breath or celebrate the accomplishment, simply turned and summoned another Memory with that same shimmer of light.
A coil of rope materialized in her hands, the fact that she had it, that she could simply pull it from whatever storage Memory she possessed like reaching into an invisible bag of holding, drove home the vast gulf of preparation between them more effectively than any words could have. She secured one end around a protruding section of bone, tested the anchor with her full weight, then dropped the other end down to where Anakin stood watching from below.
"Catch," she called down, and he did, his left hand closing around the rope while his right trembled uselessly at his side.
Anakin stared at the rope for a long moment, his mind working through calculations that all led to the same conclusion—this was going to hurt in ways that would make everything up to this point seem almost pleasant by comparison. Every muscle in his body was already screaming from the three days of constant punishment he had put it through, he was going to rest today…. honestly.
The Ring of Burden would help, its enchantment lessening the effective weight of his body, but there were limits to what even an Awakened-rank Memory could compensate for.
He wrapped the rope around his forearms slowly, managing to ignore the occasional pain, testing his grip with what remained of his strength. The rough fiber bit into skin but the pain was distant compared to the symphony of agony coming from his bones. He looked up at where Audrey had braced herself against one of the bone supports, the rope wrapped securely around her waist, her stance solid and ready to take his full weight plus whatever additional force the climb would generate.
"Ready?" she called down, he was a little stingy.
"Just get it over with"
She pulled, and the first surge of pull sent white-hot agony exploding through his chest with an intensity that momentarily whited out his vision entirely. He bit down on the scream trying to force its way past his teeth, channeling it into a strangled grunt that probably sounded pitiful but was better than wailing like a child. His feet scrabbled against the weathered bone surface, trying desperately to find purchase in the handholds Audrey had carved, trying to take some of the weight off his damaged arms and give him some relief.
Every inch of progress felt like a mile of suffering stretched out into eternity. His vision pulsed between white and dark and white again in waves that matched his thundering heartbeat, each pulse sending fresh cascades of pain through his fractured skull.
He just kept moving, kept forcing his hands to maintain their death grip on the rope even as his fingers went progressively more numb, driving his feet against the bone to push himself upward one agonizing inch at a time, refusing to let go and fall.
The gauntlets materialized on his hands at some point during the climb. The stone ridges found purchase where flesh would have slipped. The Memory was damaged, cracks running through it like frozen lightning, but it held together anyway. Stubborn thing.
Then hands grabbed his shoulders, and Audrey pulled him over the edge.
Anakin collapsed onto the coral-covered surface and lay there gasping. The world spun. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint surrounded by darkness that kept trying to swallow him whole.
"Stay with me." Audrey's voice cut through the fog. "Don't pass out. I need you to be conscious."
He forced his eyes open and found her crouched beside him with a medical kit already in hand. Of course she had a medical kit. Probably wished for an entire hospital's worth of supplies with those three wishes.
"Skull's cracked. Left side. Ribs broken, right side. Shoulder's torn up. Feet are shredded. Probably concussed." His voice came out flat, "Also I've also been drinking blood for three days, so that's fun."
Audrey's jaw tightened. She pulled out impossibly clean bandages and a vial of something. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything hurts," Anakin said. "Be specific."
"You'll know the difference."
She was right. When her fingers probed the crack in his skull, white fire exploded through his brain. He bit down hard enough to taste blood, nails digging into his palms. The pain was absolute.
"The fracture's extensive but clean," Audrey said after an eternity. "You're lucky. Should heal with time, but you'll need real medical attention."
She wrapped his head in bandages. The pressure helped somehow, reducing the grinding sensation. When she moved to his ribs, Anakin almost told her to just leave it. He only just realized how important nephis was for the cohort.
Pride was a stupid thing to cling to when you were this broken, but he'd never been particularly smart about these things.
"Deep breath."
He tried. His ribs shifted wrong and he gasped, which made it worse. Audrey's hands palpated his side.
"Three broken, maybe four. Nothing punctured. You'll live."
She wrapped his torso tight enough to support the breaks. Stitched the wound on his shoulder with quick, neat sutures. Cleaned and bandaged his feet. The whole process took maybe fifteen minutes, and by the end Anakin felt marginally less like a corpse.
"Here." She offered him a waterskin. "Water. Drink slowly."
The water hit his stomach and for a moment he thought he'd vomit it back up. He forced it down. Took another sip. His body finally started to believe it might survive.
"Thank you," he said after a long pause
Audrey sat back against the bone structure, watching him with that strange expression again. Like she knew something. The sun was setting properly now, painting the sky in shades of blood and ash. The tide was coming in below.
"So," she said quietly. "Are we going to talk about it?"
"About what?" Anakin already knew what, but he wanted to hear her say it first.
"About the fact that you're a transmigrator. Like me."
There it was. The words hung in the air between them, heavy and dangerous. Anakin studied her face, trying to read what she wanted, what she knew, what she thought he was.
"You said something about three wishes," he ventured carefully. "When you saved me. Before I passed out."
Audrey nodded. "Three days ago, I died. Woke up somewhere else—somewhere white and empty. There was a being there. It called itself a god, though I'm not sure I believe that. It said I'd been chosen along with six others. Seven total. All of us being sent to a novel called Shadow Slave. All of us were given three wishes and sent here."
Seven transmigrators. The number hit Anakin like a physical blow. "Why?"
"It didn't say. Just that we'd been chosen, that we'd know each other when we met, that we should work together if we wanted to survive." She leaned forward. "My second wish was the ability to detect other transmigrators. That's how I found you. You... lit up. Like a beacon."
Anakin kept his expression neutral.
"And the other wishes?" he asked instead of answering.
"First wish was for an aspect. Divine rank, based on something from another world. Third wish is personal. He told me i would lose all my memories of this novel except the most basic one, like the spell and how the world works" Her eyes sharpened. "Your turn. What did you wish for?"
This was it. The lie or the truth. Audrey was watching him with intensity that suggested she'd know if he tried to deceive her completely. But the full truth— no wishes, a shattered fate, that made no sense—that would make him look weak. Broken.
Anakin made his choice.
"I used all three wishes on knowledge," he said, meeting her eyes. "When he told me the same about losing all of it, I wanted it even more, everything about this world. The story, the characters, what's coming. I traded all three for information."
Her eyes widened. "All three? You have no aspect? No enhanced abilities?"
"I have these." He dismissed and resummoned the gauntlets for emphasis. They flickered, cracks visible. "I am infected by the spell so there is that, but yeah, everything else is just me and what I know."
It was close enough to the truth to be believable. He did have knowledge. He just also had a shattered fate and a mysterious fragment counter, but she didn't need to know that. Well the no aspect part was concerning too.
Audrey was quiet for a long moment. Then: "That's either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid."
"Can't it be both?"
She almost smiled. "I guess it can." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "So you know the story. Which means you know who the protagonist is. Who we should be looking for… you even know where we are don't you?"
This was important. The misdirection that would keep seven divine transmigrators away from Sunny. He had made some conclusions from their talk. There were five or six more transmigrators out there, he wasn't sure if all of them were in the forgotten shore or just in the world, next was the fact that it seems like they had met a mysterious god who had given them these three wishes.
Anakin felt scammed.
The next thing was that they didn't have any major knowledge about the novel, not even who Sunny was or where they were, that was good, he could use that. Anakin did not trust Audrey enough to tell her everything, and especially not enough to give her his only card when he didn't even know of the things she could do.
"Yes," Anakin said carefully.
Audrey leaned forward. "Who?"
"Changing Star. Nephis." He let the name hang in the air for a moment. "As you know, this place is called the forgotten shore, a death zone where no human has managed to survive. " He chuckled "That is until she arrives, you see there actually is a way to get out of here and the last heir of the immortal flame is the one to do it"
Audrey frowned. "A Legacy? That seems... obvious. Wouldn't the protagonist be someone from nothing? An underdog?"
Good. She was questioning it. That made it more believable when he convinced her.
"You'd think that," Anakin agreed. "But consider what you know about Shadow Slave's world. The Spell, the Dream Realm, the structure of power. It's not a story about rising from nothing—it's about destiny and legacy and the chosen few who can actually change things."
He shifted slightly, wincing as his ribs protested. "Shadow slave is actually a revenge survival story about Nephis, she is the last heir of her clan which was betrayed and killed. she has a divine aspect, the only one in this world. Her entire character is built on changing the world, on refusing to accept how things are."
You're absolutely right - why would he mention Sunny at all? That defeats the whole purpose. Let me rewrite this conversation to be more natural and believable:
Audrey was quiet, processing. Then: "What's her aspect?"
"Flames. divine flames specifically. They can destroy anything—nightmare creatures, curses, corruption and they can heal. But more than that, she has this... presence. People follow her. Not because they want to, but because she makes them believe impossible things are possible."
"That doesn't make her the protagonist," Audrey pointed out. "Just a powerful character."
Smart. She wasn't just accepting it at face value.
Anakin leaned forward despite the pain. "Think about the structure of this world. The Spell doesn't choose randomly. It chose her family line specifically—gave them the lineage of the fire god for generations while everyone else got scraps."
Audrey pulled her knees closer to her chest, thinking. "You said she finds a way to the Dark City. How?"
"Can't tell you everything," Anakin said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. "Some things need to happen naturally or the timeline breaks. But I can tell you this—when we get to the Dark City, we need to make sure she survives. The other transmigrators with their divine aspects? They could accidentally kill her, change something critical, and doom everyone including themselves."
That was true at least. Seven transmigrators running around could absolutely derail everything.
"So we find her," Audrey said slowly. "Make sure she survives. Help from the shadows without interfering too directly."
"Exactly." Anakin felt tension ease slightly. She was buying it. "We're not the main characters in this story. We're variables that shouldn't exist. Our job is to survive without breaking everything."
Audrey was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Explain what the dark city is again?
"It's a stronghold," Anakin admitted. "All the sleepers who survive and reach the city are there, it's the ONLY place in this hell where there is a chance for them to survive, but it's not all rainbows and sunshine." He shrugged with his good shoulder. "Its ruled by a tyrannical ruler named gunlaug, he is also a sleeper, acting like a king with absolute authority over everyone"
Audrey remained silent for a long time, the sun was finally gone, covering the world in darkness, he could here the distant sound of water too, soon the dark sea will come.
"Anyone specific I should know about?"
"A girl named Cassie—she is a blind oracle, has prophetic visions. She's with Nephis, helps guide her." That was safe information. Cassie was publicly known to be with Nephis in the canon. "Beyond that, the Forgotten Shore is mostly just bodies waiting to happen."
She studied him for a long moment. "That must be terrifying. Knowing everything that's coming but having no power to change it yourself."
"It has its moments," Anakin said dryly.
They sat in silence for a moment. The Forgotten Shore bathed in twilight. Below, the tide rushed through passages finally letting the unknown horrors hunt.
"Why did you really save me?" Anakin asked suddenly. "You said you've been alone for three days. But that's not enough reason to risk your life for a stranger."
Audrey was quiet for a long time. When she finally answered, her voice was soft.
"Because being alone here is terrifying. I wished for that ability for a reason, to me…. Being alone in an entire world is a terrifying concept. "Because maybe if we work together, we don't have to die in this nightmare."
Fair enough. Survival was a good motivator.
"There's something else you should know," Audrey said. "The god told me that not all seven of us will survive. That the world will push back against us. That we'll face challenges beyond what normal people face." She hesitated. "And that some of us might turn on each other. Compete for power"
He had to hold back a sigh, he pitied her a little, so naive, of course things will get ugly fast. Seven transmigrators. Divine aspects. Limited resources. Yeah, surely they will form a group and save the world!! He almost chuckled.
"Then we make sure we're not the ones who die," Anakin said simply. "You have power, I have knowledge. That's a good start."
Audrey nodded slowly. Then her expression turned curious. "Since you know the story—what happens next? On the Forgotten Shore, I mean. What should we expect?"
Anakin considered how much to tell her. " They're is an Ashen Barrow where we are heading, don't ever dare to approach it. There is a large tree called the soul devourer, by the name, it won't end well for you" He paused. "Originally nephish crossed the large barrow by making a boat, but we can't use that approach. So we'll need another way."
"Like what?"
"There are tunnels. Underground passages through the coral. Dangerous, full of nightmare creatures, but they run beneath the Ashen Barrow. We could go through instead of around."
Audrey considered this. "And you know how?"
"I spawned in those tunnels," Anakin said truthfully. "When I first woke up here. I had to fight my way to the surface." He didn't mention the armor pieces he'd found, or anything else really.
"Alright," Audrey said finally. "We should wait for you to recover a little, then we start moving toward those tunnels. Work our way to the Dark City, find the other transmigrators, figure out what this god's endgame is."
'Talk about long term'
She pulled out another waterskin and some dried meat from her storage, offering him half. Anakin took it, forcing himself to eat despite his stomach's protests.
They ate silently in the darkness, somewhere in the distance, something shrieked—high and terrible.
"Get some sleep," Audrey said. "I'll take first watch."
Anakin wanted to argue, to insist he could keep watch but exhaustion finally won over pride. He closed his eyes, the bandages tight around him like a blanket, and let unconsciousness take him.
He was still very suspicious of this Audrey, how much did she know, was she even being truthful or not. He will deal with those thoughts in the morning.