Chapter Text
Blood was running down his neck.
It curved along his jaw and found its way to his parted lips, bruised from how often he had bitten them to relieve the tedium, and now stained deeper by the crimson that reached them. Hanging him upside down had been an extra precaution. The men his father sent had been terrified when they seized him. He had watched the erratic pulse in their throats, the dread pooling behind each pair of eyes. Amusing, right up until they dragged him to Kyr'Vena and bound him. Seven days ago, perhaps. Tracking the passage of time required resources he no longer had. Night and day were the same in the hall.
He was positioned at its center, with few reference points to orient himself in the darkness, though he knew the place like his own hands. The walls around him were consumed by organic matter — metal and flesh and fragments that had once belonged to someone. He had been the one to select them carefully. The executioner of most of those victims.
"Umbren Kaelthorn, you are detained under charges of refusing direct orders," they had said. Words that had barely registered through the commotion and the alcohol still moving through his veins. Their voices had been so unsteady that he had laughed.
His blond hair, always kept with such meticulous care, now hung heavy and sodden, the roots dark with blood. His earrings, chains of gold ending in small amber stones, chimed with his slightest movement, one of the few sounds that broke the silence. At least they must have offered some interesting contrast against the ruin he had become.
His tongue sought out the drops that did not find their way to his mouth on their own. He allowed himself that small indulgence, telling himself it was to avoid waste, though the truer reason was the sweetness of the taste.
Thick chains wrapped his body, incongruous against the warm air. They pressed into his skin and painted it in bruises ranging from vivid violet to a faded green, the constant friction splitting some of them into open cuts. He would have lifted his head far enough to examine them if not for the collar cinching his throat. The iron structure nearly touched his jaw, descending to the base of his neck. The wretched thing restricted his movement to the barest turn of his face from side to side. Even breathing had become a discipline.
The metal was engraved with runes, burned in with such care that every line was perfect, no margin for error. They served their purpose without fail: a complete seal on his magic. He resented the restriction of movement far less than he resented being unable to see the colors adorning his skin. He had always thought his pallor made him a perfect canvas. He swore to hunt down whoever had conceived that particular idea, whoever had robbed him of the pleasure of admiring himself.
His muscles burned with a sensation that moved through his entire body like an ungrateful lover. It began at his shoulder blades and extended the full length of his spine, his arms and legs lashed tightly together behind his back. His hands could flex, move in small ways that did not demand movement at his wrists. At times he dragged his fingertips along the chains wrapping his wrists, trailing up the backs of his hands. Other times he simply tapped his nails quietly against the steel, or moved them to produce a sound like the slow, deliberate scrape of something against something else.
The thorns fixed to the chains bit in without mercy. Moving was at least the illusion of entertainment, and pain was preferable to numbness. He rocked himself slowly forward and back, generating just enough momentum. The metal sank deeper into his flesh, thickening the ichor that dripped steadily to the floor below.
Drip. Drip.
It fell like a calm melody, joining the rhythm of his own heartbeat, which he could feel pounding in his skull. The pressure blurred his vision at the edges. Some part of him appreciated the irony that the only drink he had received in days came from himself.
Perhaps it was the delirious part speaking, that same part responsible for keeping him conscious. A stubbornness that refused to surrender to the body's failure. Each drop that struck the floor gathered into a small pool, lasting only seconds before the floor absorbed it, leaving behind nothing but a faint memory.
He laughed. The sound echoed through the empty hall, and Kyr'Vena laughed with him. He was not the only thing here being fed by his blood. The entire space shuddered, as though welcoming him, appreciating the rhythm he offered, wanting to keep time alongside it. Imprisoning the creator within his greatest creation was an arrogant maneuver, made with the pure intention of humiliating him. He had never imagined that Valerius Kaelthorn would indulge himself in an illogical decision.
The black pillars — six in total, encircling him as they would any other unfortunate victim — rose to the ceiling and vanished into darkness, as though they had no end. He knew that around them, twisted and corroded silver and gold coiled in spirals, growing like vines, swallowing marble and stone. The metal ran along the floor as well, stretching toward the three archways that led to the corridors. The fourth arch had collapsed into rubble. The chains holding him were fixed to hooks driven high into the columns, and every pull made the steel hum low in the dark. The glass ceiling was obscured by a thick membrane. Kyr'Vena had always been magnificently unsettling.
Symbols were distributed around the hall, emitting faint light. Protection, or perhaps something else. Runes were less elegant than channeling pure magic. Some had been swallowed by the metal; others were covered by pieces of flesh that resembled tentacles, or split in half by long fissures that had spread across stone and marble, cracks that looked uncannily like veins.
Each scarlet drop made the veins writhe. The flesh appendages contracted and expanded like a beating heart, while the surfaces absorbed the nourishment with considerably less enthusiasm, reluctant to consume more of what wounded it.
From the position in which he hung, the floor was the only thing within his field of vision. The dark wood had edges that had once been well-polished; it had been a stage for musical performances, sheltered by the pillars. The least interesting angle of a structure that breathed. Every strategic point on his body was firmly prevented from acting. Arms. Legs. Chest. Shoulders. Neck.
He had suffered more interesting days when he had been forced to hear the treaty of the breaches for the tenth time. The silence was an offense. Where were the lutes? The singers whose voices filled the void? The pianists who would honor requests? Even an amateur would have been acceptable.
The smell had intensified with each passing day. Something sick. A dark fluid seeped from the veins as though fighting an infection, burning everything it touched. He could feel the displeasure radiating from the walls around him. His blood carried tremendous power. It was also pure poison against itself. And Kyr'Vena was nothing less than an extension of him that had emerged from a moment of carelessness.
"Stop. Contain. Foul. Cursed. Burns. Destroy. Pain."
He opened his eyes. Magic moved through him, the irises warming for a brief moment as words took shape. The sound in his head was like a child screaming, words piling over one another until they lost all meaning.
He moved with greater intention, the thorns tearing at his skin. The crimson ran harder. His hands closed into fists as the screaming intensified, the black substance being violently expelled from the veins as though they were disgusted by it. The metallic smell overwhelmed every sense before his focus narrowed again.
"I know you don't enjoy this." His voice was hoarse, ragged. The collar rebelling against his words as it had before. He ignored it. "Which is why you ought to hurry things along and purge it, so we can put an end to this and make my dear father realize that torturing his own son is not exactly a cordial pastime. And done in such an..." He paused. "Unimaginative manner."
It was not a command. He knew this place far too intimately to believe that orders were something the creature considered worthy of itself.
Blood, however, that was a language in which they were both fluent.
He was approaching the limits of his patience and his body simultaneously. Producing more blood than other people was not the same as being an infinite supply, particularly when the source of his rapid regeneration was being fed on his own essence. A waste of time and effort.
The thorns were already scraping bone. Forcing more might cause damage that healers could not mend regardless of the quality of their herbs or the skill of a cleric. He would probably need to call on one of the Needles to travel to Verdantia, where healing knowledge ran deep. The last thing he needed was to lose the use of a limb out of stubbornness. That would be humiliating. And it would be a victory he refused to hand to Valerius.
He moved his fingertips. Searched for any signal, however faint. A slight burning rose in the veins, a pulse that was nearly imperceptible, but more than he had felt the last time he reached for his magic. For a few seconds the blood ran upward, entering the wounds. The engraved runes protested again, weaker with each pulse. The space around him grew more alive. The floor trembled. It resonated as though it felt every detail in its own body. The chains responded, twisting, the thorns driving deeper. A cry escaped before he could swallow it.
"Just... a little more," he said through his teeth, straining to find the pull of his magic, the blockage keeping the current of power at a distance. "I need you to help me. You don't enjoy my blood and I don't enjoy poisoning you, so it would be ideal if you worked with me to resolve our mutual problem."
His bloodstream fell into sync with the heart of Kyr'Vena, beat by beat, which seemed to have finally found the rhythm it needed, too tired of harboring him like a morsel. All the runes went dark at once, then returned to brightness in a deep crimson. His magic found that of Kyr'Vena and they merged, the containment failing just enough to allow the connection to form.
The silver band tried to hold them apart. It was useless. The bond had been made.
The flesh appendages strangled the pillars, shooting like serpents toward the hooks at the very top to engulf them, thin fleshy tendrils growing and sliding down the chains, infesting them one by one. The steel wrenched his arms further back. It pulled his shoulders toward his spine with brutal force, muscles tensing until his shoulder blades threatened to tear through the skin from within. His thighs were being squeezed with such force that pain ceased to register.
He tried to lift his head. The pressure behind his eyes worsened, his vision darkening. He gave it up, returning to his previous position, biting his lips on instinct. Speaking would not help. Kyr'Vena had a plan, he could feel it, but verbal communication was not part of it. Of course it wasn't.
He could feel the tension building. Kyr'Vena consumed as though starved. Everything grew and grew and grew.
And then it reached its limit and broke.
A shrill sound of agony consumed him, an apology of sorts. The chains retracted, releasing him; the thorns were torn from within him, leaving deep holes. He could feel air touching exposed muscle, perhaps periosteum.
The metal was overtaken by organic fractures, pulsing veins that had not existed moments before. Kyr'Vena had consumed the chains entirely.
Gravity pulled him down, nearly disorienting after so long suspended. He fell to the floor with a heavy impact, his arms numb and his legs unresponsive after days of disuse. His face struck the wood, followed by his shoulders, the collision wrenching a grunt from him. He did not know whether the blood at his temple came from a new wound or an old one. Darkness took him briefly, the scant magic demanding its price for having been forced when so little of it remained inside him. Most of it lived outside his veins now.
He lay still. It was easier to think of what did not hurt, because the alternative was a list far too extensive to categorize in his current state. He waited a considerable while before risking movement. His muscles were tense and unresponsive, sending a shudder down his spine.
Some of the appendages released themselves from the pillars; others slid down from the walls and made their way toward the center where he lay breathing deeply, his lungs grateful for the air after days of being limited to whatever small amounts he had managed to draw in.
They reached him with a kind of haste, wrapping around parts of his body, turning him so he lay on his back. They were damp and soft, some of the fibers writhing impatiently, tickling against his skin. He surrendered to the touch. The warmth coming from the limbs was a comfort. They pulsed against his muscles, working out the knots, coaxing blood back to where it belonged, the flesh beginning to knit itself closed.
"Hm. You were worried about me." He closed his eyes, the tension slowly leaving him as though being drawn out. Kyr'Vena was an excellent masseur when it was not occupied consuming people.
"Yes. Yes. Important. Very."
With effort, his magic moved through him, threads he managed to pull and direct. He commanded the blood to stop. The liquid obeyed, stagnating in the wounds and weaving nearly instantaneous crusts of coagulation. He was slow. With any luck it would be enough to keep him from bleeding out for the next few hours.
He had to concentrate far too hard on a task that mundane. He felt like a novice. His fingers found the culprit still locked around his throat. Those wretched runes, always the runes. Liters of the resource his magic so desperately needed had been spent on yet another of its futile attempts to convince him to cooperate. He permitted himself a long breath, holding back his own anger. He could not travel back in time to escape Valerius Kaelthorn's sadism. What he could do, and would, was remind the man that he did not appreciate being toyed with. Once he felt capable of walking without a limp. Once his precision returned, so he could appreciate the control he would have over the blood vessels Valerius carried in his tongue. There were several. He had always loved how versatile that organ was. He could choose: perhaps the lingual artery for a more dramatic effect, or merely a few less vital veins for something slower and more agonizing.
If Valerius was incapable of a civil conversation with his own son, then he had no need of a tongue.
✦ ✦ ✦
The corridors of Kyr'Vena were not illuminated by torches or enchantments. Torches needed to be fixed to the walls, which — as had happened repeatedly — would be consumed by more of the living mass, which took the bracket, the shaft, and extinguished the flame. Runes suffered the same fate, and men lacked the courage and the particular brand of madness required to return daily and etch them anew.
Kyr'Vena was not a selective eater, and it was difficult to escape when the predator is the very ground beneath your feet.
Under ordinary circumstances, with the considerable consistency that had characterized things since Kyr'Vena's emergence, he would have coaxed the tissues to recede enough that the runes could emit a soft light. He dealt in vitality, not sunlight, and preferred to see the path ahead of him. He had tried walking in the dark once, at twelve years old, knowing the architecture well enough to navigate it almost without difficulty... until he had tripped over what remained of some poor soul who had not trusted the instinct to stay well away from this place. That night had taught him that knowing where one was placing one's feet mattered, if one did not want to soak one's clothes in unpleasant substances.
These were not ordinary circumstances. The escape from the chains had been a success, but the silver band still locked at his throat had not magically dissolved when he fell. It was performing its role with flawless dedication. Conjuring anything more complex than directing the trajectory of a few drops of blood was unthinkable.
The flesh consuming the runes could not hear him, could not sense him. He restrained the urge to force the connection. He needed energy to get out and address the real problem.
The clothing on his body was profoundly unsuitable for managing any part of this situation. It was garb designed for a celebration, striking down to its smallest details, the white fabric setting off the amber jewels he wore at his ears. The few painted portraits he had consented to sit for stood as definitive proof that his appearance bore no resemblance to his nature. A pure angel. A marble angel. The Blood Angel, the only designation that was both true and flattering, if only others possessed the audacity to grant him a title that fit.
The cascade of silk fell over his legs and trailed to his feet, tangling with every step. Bones, irregular fragments of objects that had once adorned a magnificent place, metal erupting like weeds from the mucous coating spread across the wooden floor. The slits meant to leave his arms and thighs visible had become the perfect frame for the bruises that covered them, the white fabric soaked through with red, dozens of cuts that had long since destroyed the beauty of the piece. The fabric seemed actively determined to make his life more difficult. Beautiful, and a nuisance.
His balance was already precarious enough without having to disengage the stubborn garment. He simply let the hem tear with each step. He could commission a weaver to replicate the garment; his patience, no one could replicate.
Frustration had settled in his stomach, a burning with no connection to the weakness (and hunger) ravaging his body. He dragged himself through the long corridors, using the walls for support, feeling the pulse against his fingers, the sounds of things breaking and occasionally something wet accompanying his footsteps.
Empty.
Now that he was away from the central hall, his mind no longer occupied with freeing himself from the chains and waiting for Kyr'Vena to gather enough force to help him, he could no longer hear its voice. The bond was thin as a thread on the verge of snapping. Everything was quiet. He could not feel his magic. He could not feel his creation. He was without two parts of himself because of a single careless moment, a lapse that Valerius had seized upon to hang him there like a cut of meat.
He walked for what felt like an eternity, though the path to the entrance hall was short. His hands found the wooden edge of an archway, a respite from all the biomass. It was carved from wood worn down by time and moisture, the entrance to what had once been one of the two inner gardens of the Palace of Four Wings. The smell drifting through was even more suffocating than the rest, and he wrinkled his nose despite finding putrefaction generally tolerable.
He had played here, though he had been too young to remember every detail. It had smelled better than any perfume — with the single exception of his mother's. The flowers had been selected with care, among the few that were beautiful and capable of surviving in Vharosk. They required little sunlight and did not demand fertile soil.
He had been fond of one with wine-red petals, their tips curled in spirals. Vharûn spiralias. He had always thought the name was stupid. He used to press his index finger into the center of one small whorl, pull away, and watch it coil back into itself, the way one might play with a curl of wavy hair.
He shook his head, pulling his attention back to the walk ahead, forcing himself out of the memory. The flowers had died. The woman who had sat with him on the marble garden border, telling him the name of every bloom and smiling so gently that he had never understood why other nations were so fond of the sun when that smile existed — she had met the same fate not long after. Memories would not help him remove the obstruction at his throat. The Needles would. That was why he had to reach the exit. The pull urging him to step inside the garden, just for a moment, would have to content itself with a no. With a never. His legs finally obeyed him and he walked on.
The hall that finally spread before him was vast: the remnants of the foyer that had received thousands of visitors. He held no vivid memories of it; he had always been moving too quickly, cutting through the corridors that would take him where he actually wanted to be. The floor had once been brilliant, a mirror that seemed to have no end. Now it was one more room consumed by Kyr'Vena, and the reflection had been covered over with flesh.
Which meant, to his considerable relief, that the exit was right there. The double doors, enormous, with a frame of dark marble covered in gold engravings; small lightning bolt symbols and imitations of cracks. Almost poetic, considering how those cracks had grown slightly more realistic as the years passed. The artist ought to have felt grateful, to have his work immortalized so completely.
The wood was still in good condition. Far enough toward the boundary between the structure and the outside to hold little appeal for Kyr'Vena, and made from ironwood treated with a resin that had granted it remarkable longevity. His own insistence on maintaining a way out that did not require new methods — such as crawling through a gap between a collapsed door and a fresh growth of flesh — had also contributed to its preservation. He was going to have to endure a considerable trek through the Varyn Wood, and dragging himself through the last stretch of it was simply not acceptable.
The doors had never felt as heavy as they did in that moment. His hands closed around the rusted handles and he pulled with everything he had, leaning his weight back, grunting with the sheer effort of it. It was absurd to be defeated by a piece of wood older than himself. At least there were no witnesses to report the humiliation of watching the Kaelthorn heir use his own body weight to open a door. The groaning creak that filled the silence was the finest sound that had ever echoed in a foyer, the hinges protesting but not seizing.
Cold wind came rushing in, as eager as an impatient guest, catching pale blond hair and amber earrings first. It was freezing and divine, the damp and thick air of Kyr'Vena having suffocated him with no reprieve; a reprieve he had been prevented from taking, too occupied with hanging in the middle of the ballroom. The wood stretched out before him, the darkness of the small hours doing little to soften the atmosphere of danger that permeated every corner of it. The veirya trees cast an unsteady light, flickering out for brief moments before returning to glow, their rhythm like the beating of a heart.
As with everything in Vharosk, its beauty came with the certainty that a moment of inattention might send you straight into the path of a blade. Feared by most of Vharosk's people, and an excellent refuge for those members of society who did not wish to be interrupted or found. Varyn was, in itself, a weapon.
He had always wielded it as one. It was as much his territory as it belonged to the creatures born within it, creatures shaped extensively by the concentration of magic. The Blood Wood, as it was commonly known. The Cradle of Beasts. The forbidden place you should not enter under any circumstances or you will be cursed. He would need an entire compendium to write down every name people had given it.
Pure dramatics. The worst that would happen to someone was being killed by a grey wolf with more teeth than a mouth ought to contain and larger than any other in Vharosk. It wasn't as though their lineage would be punished for their foolishness.
These observations were considerably more entertaining when he wasn't wearing a collar that had stripped him of his weapons and put him in the exact same position as the unfortunate souls who wandered in unprepared. Sighing and pressing a hand to his face, he was fully aware that delaying his departure would not improve his odds.
The wind still welcomed him, pressing against his feverish skin. The mixture of relief and discomfort as it found each wound was reward enough. The first part of the plan was done.
The line between courage and madness had always been thin, and he honored it faithfully. He had left a trail of blood behind him along every corridor he had walked, and now Kyr'Vena pulsed and stirred in protest. He simply nodded in acknowledgment, stretching his arms above his head to extend them — pulling at aching muscles and the thin crusts covering the wounds. He lingered there for a moment, studying the damage, glad that he could finally do so.
The tension in his shoulders released. To the right, a rough path covered in dense dark vegetation wound away from the entrance, the trees arching overhead in long gnarled curves, their branches twisted and their leaves black with pronounced veining, like swollen veins pressed beneath skin. If he followed it, using the trunks for support and taking care not to step on anything venomous or anything inclined to take his leg, and if nothing was drawn to the trail he would leave behind, he might reach one of the Needles' outposts.
A mediocre plan, and the best he had in his condition. Having his corpse found this close to Kyr'Vena would fuel rumors, speculation, and manipulation. If rumors about him were going to be whispered across all of Vharosk, he intended to be present for them.
He took a step forward. Then another. His feet found damp earth, sinking into it with each footfall, the heels of his shoes driving into the soil. His feet ached from the angle they had been forced into for days, but going barefoot was simply not an option he would entertain.
He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and refused to let his clothing be yet another source of irritation. His taste in dress served him in nothing beyond beauty, and this was not the moment for a reflection on how much simpler his life might be if he wore less elaborate and inventive things.
His next step was taken with a certain forcefulness. The one after that did not come immediately.
Lights. There were lights: five sources, coming from a distance to the north, higher up on the hill that crested beyond the wood. They were moving toward Kyr'Vena at a steady pace, at a gallop. Pure elation took hold of him. The smile spread across his face was wide enough to pull at his wounded lips, sharp and real.
Better than walking to the Needles was having them walk toward him. And if they were riding for the Iron Maw, there could only be one explanation.
A storm was coming.