"You do realize that you are a mere Transcendent, right? And such a weak one, at that... oh, don't get me wrong, I know how fearsome you are. But that is only when you have ample time to prepare, and when you aren't facing an overwhelming foe. That's me, by the way, an overwhelming foe. I can end you with a thought, Song of the Fallen. Actually, I am quite tempted to."
She tilted her head a little.
"But you won't, will you? Because you need me... you need me if you want to survive."
Mordret let out an exasperated sigh.
“You must be thinking... look, I am the only one who can erase the influence of the Dreamspawn from his mind. So, surely, I am safe. But, Cassia... do you really think that I will let you anywhere near my memories? That I will just invite you into my head and let you run amok? Think about it, really. From my point of view, you are no different from the Dreamspawn. Why would I exchange having my mind manipulated by him for having it manipulated by you?"
He shook his head.
"I've always been wary of you, to be honest. Well, perhaps not at the start... back when you first came to the Night Temple as a freshly Awakened youth, I was quite fascinated, watching you and your cohort from my mirror cage. It was a bit of a remedy for my boredom, and such a palatable one at that. But when I realized that you manipulated events to help me break free, I've grown suspicious of how much you seem to know."
Mordret exhaled slowly.
“Later, as I watched everyone dance to your tune without even realizing it, let alone suspecting the meek and unassuming Lady Cassia, I found the fact of your existence increasingly unsettling. You might have blinded everyone else to your true nature — Changing Star, the Great Clans, the government, and all the rest — but I could always see just how devious and eerily effective at manipulating things you were. And that was before the Tomb of Ariel, even! After... well, even if nobody else seems to see it, I know what you are. I know what you're hiding.”
Cassia had been listening to him nonchalantly, but just then, she finally showed a reaction.
Raising her eyebrow, she asked:
"Oh? And what am I?"
Mordret chuckled.
“l am the King of Nothing, after all, so let's start from what you are not. You are not even a person anymore, are you? You are just a shell of a person, wrapped in a pretty bow."
Cassia just sat there, emotionless, facing him silently.
Eventually, she said:
“Takes one to know one."
Mordret laughed.
"Indeed, indeed... but we are a bit different, are we not?"
She shrugged.
"How so?"
He leaned forward a little.
“My condition is the result of my Flaw. Yours, however... yours is self-inflicted, isn't it?"
Cassia frowned slightly — more out of politeness, to show some kind of reaction, as opposed to genuine concern.
“What do you mean?"
Mordret studied her for a moment, then leaned back again.
“Come on. It doesn't take a genius to figure out a few things about the thing that none of us can figure out. I am talking about what happened to us in the Tomb of Ariel... about the vast swathes of our memories that are missing. All of us suffered some loss of memory, but you suffered the most. Didn't you?"
He looked at her with a strange mix of disgust and pity.
“There's barely any of you left behind that blindfold.”