I beg for her. I beg with every mote of courage and furious determination I can muster. I have never been one to be a chaste maiden in need of saving. I've always been strong. I killed those who would hurt me. Banished even more that would hurt this world and those I love in it.

Yet I am weak.

I feel myself begin to slip as the Decay's tendrils push back into my mind.

My hands clench, and I know they're not clenching of my own accord.

I will lose. I know this.

"Essa. You have to run." She's not moving, though.

"What do you mean you're compromised?"

I don't have time for this.

I take a slow, wide swing at her. She'll block it. She's no fighter, but she's not a slouch, either: the Guild's combat training is mandatory.

Essa blocks my fist with a shield made of pearlescent force. It falls limply back to my side as I double over, huffing. Sweat beads on my brow. Please, no.

And then I feel her. Even through the way my synapses misfire, even as the darkness encroaches on the edges of my vision and I feel the toxic joy of submission to Mistress coursing its way into my thoughts.

A light, burning through the dark.

I feel Kam. I feel her hope. Her confusion.

Then it gives way to other emotions: trepidation and fear and rage. They must be directed at me. At what I've let happen. How I've failed her.

I should just give in. It's hopeless. I've lost Kam's love forever. I lied to her. Deceived her. Manipulated her into being mine. I deserve this.

And Mistress' love is right there. It's inside me. I can't ever pull it free now. What use is there to fight?

The next fist my body throws leaves a crack in Essa's shield.

Kam will never love me.

I am useless.

That the darkness found me is fate.

I will never be good.

I break Essa's shield.

And now she does run. Good. It won't be fast enough. I am not a combatant. I am a weapon. I am Her weapon. Mistress' to control. She loves me not for whom I can protect. She loves me when I do not sacrifice myself to make the day safe. She loves me in dark and poisonous hues.

And it excites me.

Not 'Tiana'. Not the traitorous version of me. Me. I want this. I want to be loved in a way that's corrosive. Dangerous and painful. I want my body pushed to the limits and then past, and its the exact vector She exploits.

I want it, even if I don't want this. Yet She blurs the two.

Desdemona wants me as the killer I know I am. The violent, hateful beast that wears the mask of a young girl oversexualized by people who only understood that I am to be adored.

I should go.

I am not welcome in the light.

But there's something which glimmers beyond the seam of my soul.

A resolve that is not my own, and whose light breaks through the inky corrosion. It cannot save me. But Kam's determination sustains me. It keeps the small fraction of me that isn't Desdemona's thrall alive.

Essa's escaping. Tiana will surely hunt her down. Then the light becomes physical. Real.

And Tiana sees something that makes no sense. I'm not sure I believe it, either: Kam, dressed in green. A Magisorcerer.

Tiana is angry about it. Angry about it because Desdemona is angry about it. It's not even 'me' in control. Desdemona plucks at the strands of Decay, puppeteering my body.

"That impudent wretch," She seethes, Her voice so loud that I forget that I am even a person without Her. "what does she think she's doing?"

I curl back deeper still into myself, biting back the instinctual urge to reply — for who am I if I do not let Her know. Perhaps She will not find me.

"Answer. Me."

I cannot resist Her. There is no corner of me that could think of fighting against what She has wrought. I am undone at Her very suggestion of compliance.

"Very well..." I begin. It is strange to speak into one's own mind and expect an altogether foreign audience, and yet I must.

"Kamilliajora Neff is far greater than anything in this world, even You. You may have my heart and my soul by force, but they are hers by right and by love. You could be smarter, and stronger, and more clever. She'll find a way."

"Desperate, keening drivel," She howls back, fraying my gray matter.

"And that is why you wish her to join you," I continue, remembering my legal training even as Desdemona flenses it from my mind. "Because you know that your plans require her if you are to be happy ruling this world. You were better with her. She made you better. And you loathed her for it."

"Silence." The word batters everything that I am into pieces, but it doesn't shatter my connection to Kam. And thus, I draw strength from her.

"I may have no faith in my goodness, but I would die for Kam's. For all her flaws, for every shortcoming, she wants a truly better world."

"ENOUGH."

There is nothing but Desdemona. She conceals the smirk on her puppet's face.

"Kam...?" Her voice is soft, filled with longing and confusion. A perfect trap, calibrated to hurt in all the ways Kammie is weak to.

Kammie doesn't meet Her gaze. "Hey, Tiana..."

"Is it really you?"

"It is."

"Why won't you look at me?" Her manipulation strikes true. Kam seems resigned. Graven.

In mourning.

She guides Essa behind her, then locks eyes with Desdemona. "Because you're not in control."

Desdemona gives a lopsided smirk. "Can't you just let me kill her, Kammie?"