Marché wandered through the remains of the castle antechamber. The Order's occupation of the city had done little to dissuade a freezing draft from blowing down into the throne room. The castle would most likely remain in its dilapidated state for the rest of time.
The thralls were minimal that time, reserved to an orderly line of Gravewalkers. It was a sight he welcomed. One could only tolerate the stench of rotting flesh for so long before the contents of their stomach were forcibly evacuated. Even so, there lingered a scent in the air that had Marché's nose wrinkling - a slithery, corruptible miasma which had permeated throughout the city since the beginning of the war.
A set of cumbersome stomps caught his attention from behind. Lüngen was beside himself with laboured breaths, dappling the sweat from his face with a sequined handkerchief. He did not reserve his hatred for the castle ascent.
"How does one attain your waistline in the Deadlands, Lüngen?" Marché asked, "Lieze tells me you ate nothing but frogs and lizards. I expected every member of the Order to be malnourished."
The portly archivist placed his palm on the stone archway and took in a few more breaths before answering, "...Frogs, yes. We ate plenty of frogs. Some of us more than others. You would be surprised how ferociously those little creatures multiplied every month. Supply was never an issue, and what greater sin is there than to discard the corpse of an animal?"
Marché had grown so accustomed to the Order's ways that he had expected nothing short of a death threat in reply, but Lüngen treated the query as if he was joking around with an old friend. There was something calm and rational about his presence - it was no wonder why Lieze and Drayya always seemed so relaxed whenever he was nearby.
A door slammed open. The two of them placed their conversation aside to look up, where the half-collapsed balcony overlooking the throne room was stuffed to the point of bursting with idle Gravewalkers. Two of the thralls were pushed aside by Lieze and Drayya, who were either enthralled in a passionate tango or teetering on the verge of slitting one-another's throats.
"What the-" Marché blinked, "What are those two up to?"
A cluster of knuckles bore down to tear across Drayya's cheek. The sting only served to deepen her frustration. She reeled back a fist drowned with fury and brought it forward to flatten Lieze's nose. She couldn't be certain whether the resulting crack came from her own hand or Lieze's face.
"Fucking idiot!" She yelled through clenched teeth, "You don't have a clue what you're doing, do you!? Completing this ritual makes you no better than Sokalar! Why can't you see that!?"
"What's gotten into you, thinking I'll tolerate being ordered around like this!?" Lieze began her sentence before Drayya could finish her own, "That hierarchy I authored wasn't for show! You should know by now that you're in no position to be demanding anything of me!"
They were necromancers, not warriors. Each strike was a childish lash of force and nails. Indeed, from an outsider's perspective, it appeared very much like a quarrel shared between a pair of scorned children. Hair was pulled, gums were hooked - anything to establish an amateur's degree of dominance over the other.
"Oh dear…" Marché observed the scuffle in glimpses from the throne room, "I'll go and stop them before someone ends up dead…"
A fat, hairy hand reached out to take him by the shoulder right before he could march off.
"No." Lüngen shook his head, "Leave them to it."
"You can't be serious." He replied, "Those two wouldn't hesitate to kill a child if they happened to speak out of turn. They've always been looking for an opportunity to murder each other. If we lose either of them-"
"Leave them to it." Lüngen repeated himself, "It's important for them to have this."
The absurdity of that statement couldn't help but humble Marché. Lüngen seemed so convinced of his own logic that questioning it would feel like a betrayal. With a sigh, Marché took a step back and resigned himself to being a spectator.
Drayya's hands tingled with pain. Miniscule barbs of twisted flesh were digging into her skin like the spines of a cactus. The simple act of striking Lieze was painful, but that did little to mute her ferocity. Her nose bled. Her temples stung with indescribable pain. She would be covered head to toe in bruises by the end of the day.
Their scuffle carried them towards the staircase. Struggling against one-another's grip, they tumbled down the first flight in an embrace, scrambling to their feet at the bottom only to fling themselves down the second not two seconds later. That time, Lieze landed on top, her body splashing across Drayya's midsection.
The girl lifted her head only to have her face caught in the grasp of Lieze's twisted fingers. Her tree-bark flesh felt like sandpaper against Drayya's skin. Stiffened outcrops tipped with needles broke the surface of her skin and matted her features with a pooling varnish of blood.
"Ah! Lieze!" Drayya grabbed her wrist with both hands, "That hurts!"
"Of course it does!" She frowned, "The Order is on the brink of glory, and you're going to stand in my way out of - what, exactly? Jealousy? Honour? Perhaps you've experienced a change of heart and suddenly fancy yourself a royalist!?"
"You bone-headed fool!" Drayya clenched her eyes shut, "Try to see things from my perspective for once!"
"What's there to see?" She lowered her voice, peeling her hand from the girl's face, "Why are you getting so worked up over this?"
Drayya peered through a slit in her eyelids to see Marché and Lüngen observing their fight from the antechamber. Pride rose up in her chest to block out every desire for authenticity.
"...Not here." She muttered, "Somewhere quieter."
"You're always pushing it, aren't you?" Lieze sighed and lifted herself up from Drayya's abdomen, "Let's go back to my chambers, then."
Marché watched the two of them dusting each other off as if they hadn't just been treating one-another like punching bags. The psychology of necromancers was beyond his understanding. He could only assume that a lifetime of familiarity with death had stricken all of them with an ethereal form of madness.
They stumbled up the staircase. Lüngen took his hand off Marché's shoulder, "It's always a fine day whenever those two become so passionate."
"You call that passion?" He replied, "The word must mean something different in the Deadlands."
"Ah, but there are fewer things more passionate than fury, young Marché." The old necromancer said, "Yes. If it wasn't for fury, the Order would have imploded some decades ago. When all else fails; rhetoric, irony, and tears - fury is all that remains of the human expression. Perhaps you are different - I imagine most city-dwellers are. But Lieze and Drayya are not. Have you ever heard either of the two alive before now?"
"Alive…?" Marché repeated, "You're not making a lick of sense."
Lüngen chuckled. His hand came up instinctively to retrieve his pipe, but he suppressed the reflex, recalling he had no more tobacco left to smoke. He patted his heavy hand against the boy's back and went on ahead towards the Gravewalkers, "We'd better get these out of the way now, or else Lieze will ask us to do it later."
Marché pulled his eyes away from the sight of Lieze's disappearing in the direction of her room and followed in his senior's footsteps. A chorus of marching thralls muffled the sound of her door slamming shut, and the two of them were more or less alone in the dusty sanctum of Lieze's chambers.
"Ah…" She brought a finger over her lower lip - one of the few regions of her body unclaimed by the Blackbriar's influence, pulling it back to reveal a smudge of crimson, "You don't hit nearly as hard as you used to. Or perhaps I'm just more resilient now."
"I struggle to think of anything you are now that you were before." Drayya replied, "No - that's not true. You're just as much of a stubborn fool as you were back then."
"Don't you have something you want to say to me?" Lieze crossed her arms.
"An apology?" Drayya clicked her tongue, "Not a chance."
"No, you half-wit. A reason." She said, "A reason that rationalises your denial of my ascension to Lichdom. The reason you're so adamant can only be revealed in privacy. I want to hear it so you can go back to agreeing with everything I suggest - I prefer that Drayya to the one I'm speaking to now."
"You're - you're not asking for something simple…" Drayya stuttered, pressing a palm to her chest "When we speak, there are certain expectations to be met. I wouldn't say anything unlike myself in the same way you wouldn't suddenly burst into laughter at an offhand comment or suddenly develop an interest in anything material or transient."
Lieze collapsed into the chair near her desk, "That pride of yours is really something else."
"Fine." She said, "I don't want a Lich. I want you. I want Lieze."
"My name isn't going to change, you know." Lieze leaned forward, "-And I'm especially not about to demand that you start calling me 'Master Sokalar' or anything like that."
Drayya deflated. She wasn't vanquished, or frustrated, but merely fatigued. Her patience at an end, she stepped forward and placed both hands on Lieze's shoulders, giving the girl a stern shake as if to rouse her from some waking dream.
"It's youuu!" She drew out the word for as long as possible, "Not your name - you! Get it through your thick skull! I don't want the Lieze you will be, but the Lieze you are now! I won't live in a world without that! Tell me you understand or I'm really going to kill you and then myself!"
That most likely wasn't an exaggeration. Drayya wouldn't allow her emotions to show if she wasn't captured in a true life-or-death situation. Lieze could only appreciate glimpses of the desperation welling in her eyes. Not one word had been an exaggeration.
"...Is this the first time we've had this conversation?" Lieze asked.
"No!" She hid a smirk by curling her lips, "It's not. And every time we have it, you find a new way of slithering out of an answer. But this time, I'm not letting you leave this room without telling me what I want to hear."
"This is entrapment."
"I don't care." Drayya lowered her head and sighed, "...For one moment, just take me seriously. I won't ask you to do it again. Please."
Lieze had encountered an entire library's worth of natural phenomena over the course of her life, but Drayya's elusive 'please' was the rarest of them all. She recalled only two occasions in the past when the girl had lowered herself to using the word in such a pathetic manner.
She wasn't averse to difficult decisions, but those queried in war were matters of blood and steel, not turnabout whirlwinds of emotion. She detested every sprig of anxiety that had ever sprouted in her heart. She wholeheartedly preferred the expectant torture of Helmach's precinct to a quiet, vulnerable moment shared with Drayya.
"This is so much more important than you or I." She answered, "You're asking me to abandon the path of unconditional victory for…"
Drayya smiled, "For what?"
"-For something very ridiculous." She finished.
"I'm flattered that you're so genuinely conflicted by it." Drayya said, "Knowing that might just be enough for me. It doesn't have to be perfect."
"No…" Lieze's ambitions flew away on her breath, "You're right. This isn't necessary."