Editing The Broken Exarch (section)

==Part II==
The moment before I took the next step on that path, I knew something was wrong. The rhythm, the beat of life in the mon-keigh strung up before me was... absent. Gone.

I looked upon a regiment of corpses, nightmarish grins carved on their faces, eyes devoid of even the limited feeling that they could ever possess.

My body anticipating the next beat in the dance, the next verse of the song, swung my sword in an arc to the side, and hit....nothing? No, there was the slightest bit of resistance at the nadir of my blade's arc, the slight sound of flesh being cleanly cut.

I looked, and I saw...a mirror. She was not a physical reflection, but inside her I saw one who had traveled on the same paths as me. She moved with the casual and refined grace I did, her body moving along the flow of perfection instant by instant.

And yet her clothes, her hair, her features, were all so...dark. She traveled the same paths as I, but there was something different pushing her forward, and something different holding her back.

"Oh, my joy at finally finding you knows no bounds. I've found the one person who's traveled the same lengths I have, another person who knows the depths of this...art, that we create. Someone else who can appreciate the beauty of this path we travel along."

As she speaks she runs her finger along her cheek, running it along the finest of cuts that my blade made as it sang through her skin.

"This, I think, is a perfect first meeting. I shall see you once more, my muse. Your work has inspired me as I followed behind you on this path - and now, with this inspiration, I shall give you a bit of the joy you gave to me. Farewell - as I know you shall."

As she turned and walked away, I did the same, only now I was following her.