Diving Into An Icy Lake (2)

The door closing behind the two, the lights failed to turn on for a moment. All that could be seen were two dancing white orbs that appeared in front of Minerva.

The lights then flicked on, at the behest of Cyrus, revealing Ares with a drawn sword standing in front of Minerva. The full weight of his aura was unleashed, creating an instinctual fear in all that was alive who had the unfortunate time of being in close proximity.

Minerva was frozen in place, the distance between the two was enough for her to have time to draw her sword…but her instincts told her that she was completely at the mercy of the undead before her.

"I did say the price was high" said Cyrus, his voice dripping in sadism.

He slowly walked up behind Minerva, his weak movements from before shaping up with each step bringing him to a combat ready state once more.

Minerva felt her skin prickle and heart miss a beat with every step he took, hearing the draw of a blade from behind her and felt the air of the swing aimed at her neck hurtle towards her. Helpless she was, for the moment she walked into the room her doom was at hand.

Or so she thought.

A warmth wrapped around her neck, as instead of a blade meeting her it was an arm, as Cyrus clasped her right shoulder from her left side as he could no longer hold his laughter.

The tension leaving her entirely, she spoke up with annoyance and anger in her voice.

"Do you enjoy toying with me so? Is it your most ardent desire to torture an innocent girl, how sick."

Cyrus simply laughed harder, while patting her on the shoulder, with even Ares making a clattering sound with his jawbone.

"I did say I would be honest, so I will not lie and say I do not enjoy manipulating emotions. I like to see what happens if I do this or that, to understand the complexities behind humans better so that I may be at more of an advantage in the future. Also its amusing, but I did not do this for sport. This time at least" began Cyrus, as he led Minerva by the shoulder towards the only seat in the room.

Sitting her down on it he stood in front and explained his actions,

"While you may not be as hostile to the world, or at the very least your natural state is not, you are still a strong individual. You should know that I think of myself quite highly, so when I say you are my better in swordsmanship it is a grand compliment. Not only that but you are decisive and have the capability to be ruthless, all good traits in my book. However, for todays discussion I have no need of the strong you but instead I have business with the you that is buried beneath and hidden away from all. This move by me is to that end, first by showing you that your life was completely in my hands for a second time over and that nothing bad happened as a result."

"A second time?" wondered Minerva aloud.

"The first being when you decided to charge through a deadly trap, almost dying immediately after as a result. Ring a bell?"

"Cht, almost forgot about that one. So, your grand plan succeeded, but you said I could ask anything right?"

Cyrus simply nodded in response.

"Then, what is what that undead behind you? Was it laughing earlier? How can an undead even laugh? Why is it not attacking you and why is it so…intimidating" asked Minerva, firing one question after the other.

"This is Ares" began Cyrus, ordering the undead to construct a place for him to sit with the leftover bones of the previous prisoners.

"He is my first eternal servant and product of my research into the undead. It was probably laughing I think. It still has a very human soul inside of it, not corrupted by undeath fully. It does not attack me because it cannot, I have full control over it to the point where I can kill it with just a thought. As for the intimidation factor, probably because it is even stronger than me?" answered Cyrus, responding to each question one after the other.

"You created something stronger than yourself? And it obeys you on top of that…is it just me or does that not make much sense?" wondered Minerva her knowledge of reality failing her at the speed of light.

"Well when I said stronger than I was speaking strictly in the sense of physical combat capabilities. With magic I can match him for a while, eventually he would win though. If you add in my soul manipulation technique, then I would be more than his match."

"Now you have a soul manipulation technique, all right nothing will surprise me at this point. A weird guy with clear personality issues walks into my life, and now he tells me he is essentially the second coming of Mundus. Great. All right your holiness, what else have you got?"

"I think I can do you one better. How about the high possibility that my parents were most likely not exactly…human, well one of them. Remember those creatures that we witnessed in the Labyrinth, the ones that the Inquisitor and Archmage Glacies fought? I believe that there is a chance that I am related to them, my current guess is that whoever birthed me came under possession by a demonic entity as I was developing in her womb. The result of this is what you see now, two extremely polar personalities inhabiting one body. All that is good gets sucked away by my other half, and all that is left is taken up by myself."

"This mask was given to me by my Mentor, who is a grandmaster mage by the way, which I believe helps keep the balance between the two halves. Whether the balance is held after it destroyed my previous iteration, where the two halves were mostly whole, or it preemptively allowed us to separate before we naturally did so in a far more catastrophic manner is still up for debate though."

Minerva's jaw dropped upon hearing these shocking statements, a gesture that the bright half of Cyrus might regard as an adorable gesture.

"You asked earlier some other questions right…let me see. Oh yes, I remember them now. I met Venator Fauve through my mentor, he was an honorary member of the Inquisition and the Venator was one of his retinue I presume. The same with the Honoris who gave me the token of friendship, another member of my mentor's retinue who escorted me here along with a master Vita mage and three more legionaries. As for my interest in the war, it is because my Mentor may have been one of the core reasons as to why the nobles lost in the end or at least lost in the way that they did."

For several minutes all that could be heard was the crackling of the bone stool that Cyrus was sitting on, it being held up only by Ares manipulating it carefully with his soul leashes.

"You do understand that everything you told me is enough to cause massive waves in the Empire, right? The amount of people who would be wary of you, the amount of people who would automatically be hostile to you, those who would wish to suck up to you, and those who would wish to control you for their benefits…the number of such people would be as plentiful as there is grass in the ground" said Minerva, breaking her long held silence.

"Exactly. Congratulations you are now the only other person besides myself who is beholden to all my secrets, the price of which is high as I have mentioned several times now: Your everything" demanded Cyrus, words that would have been seen as arrogance if uttered by anyone else but for him it was as if it was only natural.

A slight blush appeared on Minerva's face, due to the phrasing of the words uttered in such a commanding way. Quickly becoming serious, however, she spoke once again.

"Secret for secret, information for information…you wish to know everything. An explanation for everything on this list of yours, I presume?"

"That and any other questions I might have. Long have you held my interest, but it is high time to learn what makes you tick."

"I will tell you then, its not like I have any choice in the matter nor do I wish for you to suddenly reveal that you are the secret love child of the Emperor" said Minerva in defeat, whilst eyeing Ares who stood at the ready behind Cyrus at all times.

Thus, the tale of Minerva began to be spun.