The same thing. Every day. But consistency had its merits, Benito was a man who did not like error or untidy things. He would sleep at 8PM most night, rise at 4AM, and make the daily rounds from his bed chamber to his study. Frankly, he more accurately observed this ritual of his for one reason most of all.
To find some fault in the way they tended to his palace and beat a servant girl or two, or simply invent one when none were apparent. The men would just be killed, but he'd prefer to keep the women a bit longer. Hastur had truly broken his mind – exacerbating these darker predilections to some degree, but ultimately this was a benefit to him, he'd made such progress in his studies in the last year because of it, a gift of being the target of what Hastur called the 'harvesting'.
The single and only real setback had been the Stalvarg girl's corpse vanishing inexplicably in the night, but it was what it was. Benito still had the daughter and grandson of Jartor in his hands. Potential future bargaining chips, Hans had been so shocked when the calm poleaxes of the Tauran Guard had been swung on them same as any enemy.
Because they were the enemy. Untidy things. Haemonculi were both forbidden and disgusting magic even had it been 'lawful'. They'd all died long ago, and dead things no longer had human rights.
“Irony.”
Benito whipped his head around, a neatly trimmed eyebrow raised towards the sound of wind whistling through his window. He could've sworn someone had said something to him, craning his head out and staring off into the dull light of the impending sunrise. But there was nothing, and nobody. Exhaustion set in at times, being a ruler and organizing his great mess of a demesne was trying to say the least. Heavy sat the crown. He sighed, chuckling a bit at the sudden fright and brushing his hair backwards, padding down towards his study to begin his work.
It was a nice palace, but... He'd be lying if he'd said he hadn't been filled with envy when he'd seen the edifice of the Milanese Merchant Princes. Not even royals... The largest, by paved area, city in the known world. Not as populous as the Krieg, which held the title to most, but Milano itself had five million citizens in such a small area, all of that money put to erecting those fantastic structures... And though they were not kings or queens, those merchant 'nobility' and bourgeois liked to sneer down at him.
Calling his utilitarian basalt fortress, unbroken for centuries, 'quaint'. Quaint! He'd like to witness them lay siege, but he knew as well as they did that the citadel was more than hard on the eyes. Harsh and blocky, geometric and stepped. No impressive spires or decorated mosaics, the black stone too unyielding and blunt to ever be made beautified. It almost seemed like a sin for man to have built such an ungainly structure, at times.
“Sin.”
Benito whipped his head around again. He'd definitely heard something that time, hastening his steps toward study and snapping his fingers for his guards. But none came. All that lay at the end of his short journey was a lone figure. A figure sheathed in gleaming armor, sharp eye slits and an almost nasal shape to the helmet if not the violent edges. A wicked horn protruding from the forehead and a long horsehair plume at the back. Almost like a paladin, with the cloth hanging from the waist down to its mid calf and tabard bearing the silhouette of a wolf's head in side profile.
“T-Tyr Faeron...” Benito stumbled backwards, stuttering his words and ensuring that all of his defensive artifacts were activated. “You shouldn't be here! How did you get past the defensive wards, not even a Saint could do so without alerting me!”
“Hmm...” A disembodied voice, cracked and broken, following by a snapping noise as the heeled boot pressed down on the throne of corpses that thing had made for itself. The entire Tauran Guard. Each of which was equal to a gold rank adventurer, fifty of them, were dead. Made into a macabre piece of furniture sat at by a ghastly revenant positively reeking of death. “Oh, that's not going to work,” The grim voice said when Benito lashed out with his magic, he was an Archmage, after all, only to watch all his spells seize. “But I promise to be gentle.”
–
Beating. Flashing. There was light, dark, light, dark, on and on and each bloom was blinding. A throbbing in my neck like I'd swallowed glass and my throat were just beginning to scab over and swell up. Gods, but it hurts. Pain is a dear companion of mine at this juncture and yet I am sure I've never felt anything like this, even when I was torn to pieces. They made less of me, and in less I was more, a fresh slab of marble for the chisel, until my perfection began to shine through.
I am perfect. Black and white.
I can barely breathe. What is this place? I felt it settle on me, and it asks of me what I would like to do. Of course I wanted to go, to be free and to wreak vengeance. Why wouldn't I? Look what they did! I watched and saw. But for some reason, I'm not as angry as I thought I'd be... Why?
What happened to me?
Shouldn't I be wroth? They took what was mine, one of the few things I can claim ownership of, and they defiled it! No. No, they did not, I am not less for that. Temple walls could be washed clean, a forest burned can be regrown, seeding the next cycle of life. The eternal struggle. So much sin. We do not like sin, it unnerves and discomforts us. I don't need to look at the middle, I don't care for it, when they grow old and sinful. I only care for the beginning and the end, I hold these chains of mine and dictate where it stops and starts.
By my clock and my compass, all the hands are spears.
Why, though? It does not matter. I guess, like everything, it's all just temporary, as was my pain, as was my imperfection – but I am born again, aloft on wings. These little sparks in the darkness bound for hell one way or another could not defile me. I've never been much for inflicting pain, pain is not the point or purpose. It's about observation of the ending, the gradual process. Once they die I lose all interest. It ceases to become about killing them, I just like watching their lights fade.
We who court the weep and wither.
How all of those decades of decadence and experience can just... Blink out. The lights go off and it's over. Nothing to show for it but some vain monuments on the scribbled pages, cut from a frail tree on a frail world. All of it was temporary, it would all end, all edifices of these weaklings would be dust so very soon. And I'll be there to see it, for all things are of life, and all things end, so is my writ, my...
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Inevitability.
I took his face from him, and watched him struggle. Took his eyes and tongue. Left him groaning. Drowning in his own blood. I like it when it's slow, I do not care overmuch for their sin but it does make it a simpler thing. Less burdensome to know they deserve it, since it is my mein to be of the law and order. They feel cleaner when the skin is gone, like I've dug down the first layer towards the truth at their core, I can see it in there but it's still so far away. I keep digging. But if I dig too fast, they leave and then it's over.
I watch it happen. I dig slow.
I was tapping at the door, and when it opened I was set free, there are no more chains to bind me.
No more lights to blind me.
Washed clean.
All I am is black and white.
–
“I am sorry,” Eve didn't bow, she knelt, making all of them uncomfortable. “I tried to stay and fight, but I underestimated these adepts. They are far stronger than they should be by the conventions of nim, I believe they've been graced...”
“Indeed,” Kul growled. “I have never seen a mage fight like the bloody one, the one they call Pattoli. He is a tyrant, chasing us off with his companion and forcing our retreat.”
“It's not your fault,” Micah was still weak, but blissfully alive. Somehow. And even stranger, he felt even stronger for it. Resting aside with his back against the collapsed Brenn after he'd given so much to keep his friend alive, Micah had went some place... He could not remember where, his only memory persisted as a single pair of blue eyes staring down at him from somewhere above the gray home he'd gone to. “It's mine, I could've done better but I froze.”
“It's not,” Sigi asserted. “It was a trap, and a ridiculous plan to begin with. We had no business being out here, it is clear they targeted the more obvious force in a position that suited them.”
“But it worked,” Tiber said softly, and she glared up at him with mournful eyes. “30,000 of their men dead, and only about 300 of ours. 100 to 1. Not bad odds, not ideal either but this is the cost of war, Princess. You knew what you were signing up for, and so did Princess Astrid.”
They all nodded sadly. They had known, but they'd thought themselves ready. Here amidst the crowfield and aware of the horrific action that was a war. All to save people who would never thank them. And for what? For his vain pride and ego. Tyr's, when seeking refuge elsewhere would've been the smart play, or to swallow his pride and return home, and yet they'd followed him...
“My sister is dead,” Sigi replied quietly, and the expressions of all of them sank, the reality of the situation. “I would not have traded her for ten million enemies, or a million times that.”
“We will remember her,” Brenn's eyes were still lit with that conviction, his reignited faith brought on by Vestia answering his call. She was no goddess of healing, but she'd helped in the way that she could. Smiling down at Micah, and--
“Micah?” Alex was alarmed. The man was standing stock still and rigid now, rising from the ground with no sound or motion to indicate movement. His eyes were blank, inky pools riddled with starlight, warped mirages around their lids as if they'd become miniature singularities.
“I see them,” His voice was uncharacteristically deep, echoing despite there being nothing in their vicinity to facilitate the mechanics. There was something... Erudite in that gaze. Like he was not looking at her when he'd been addressed, but through her, into her. All those present were staring at him with mixed looks of confusion. Tiber with his eyes slit alongside Mikhail, both of them open mouthed.
But to the mages, those with real experience and knowledge, Rafael in particular was beyond sure of it. Micah had just awakened an arcanum, that poorly understood phenomena that was seen as the point by which a man or woman could be called a 'hero' class individual. Strangest of all was the complete void one would expect of transcendent power. But it wasn't a weapon, armor, or some physical thing made manifest and metal... His arcanum was his very eyes.
“You see who!?” Tythas cried, this was a little too much, how the hell did this suddenly happen? Was this some influence of his soul being removed like that, or... He was of the same opinion as Rafael, though unspoken, but the problem with all of this is that Micah was no longer alive in that moment. Tythas stared at him with every life detection spell he was capable of, and looking for signs of undeath in the next. He found neither.
Once Micah had stood, although they could all see him, he'd ceased to exist. Which was... Oi, vey... He could honestly say that he missed the days when they were all just academy students and not expected to run about fighting against crusades. Or... Watch this, whatever this was.
“We must defend the children of the wolf. I see them. The hands of the Betrayer strike out to clip the threads. Forces at play have begun to move, no longer bound by caution – they are afraid, terrified of the wolf and his children,” Micah droned on, geometric runes dancing about in the air. In the shape of control arrays, but they were of no identifiable structure. Dimensional magic at a minimum required six runes and one of activation, but these things he seemed to be carving into thin air. One single rune made to open at the center...?
“Those are dimensional gates...” Rafael paused, squinting ever harder in an attempt to figure out what the hell was going on. Micah had barely moved, and slowly but surely the runes were splitting the air and creating twinkling apertures by which three men could walk abreast.
“Do you mean the orphans?” Brenn knew Micah best, and while he might have said it in a more easily understood way, it wasn't so difficult as to stretch the imagination, being touched by a god might've given him sight beyond ken. But why would the children be in danger? They were all within the estate, fit with defensive wards that could last for days under bombardment by an Archmage. “What's happening, what do you see?”
“I see eleven candles orbiting a dying star. I see the Liar's hands moving where she cannot, pulling at their strings to cut free that which does not belong to her. I see broken cities and a world aflame. The silver arm had been made black and rusted, oaths broken, brothers at the throat of one another. This is the end, dead gods plucked from the over-world and made carcasses to be devoured by the great Dream. I bear witness to stories, I see with my eyes, I read and know. We must defend the children of the wolf.”
“Hmm...” Harkon mused, humans were a strange lot. Somehow this child had been possessed by a very high tier celestial spirit, but one who could hardly influence this plane just yet. Becoming some prophet of whatever so-called deity had chosen him. “Celestial entities don't usually spend all of that energy manifesting where they're not supposed to be for no reason. I believe it wise that we should go through the gates.”
“Yes. You should.” Micah stabilized. “Go through the gates and defend the children. I will return.”
“Where are you--!?” Nala was cut off abruptly. Micah hadn't moved, his mouth had remained still and there was nothing tangible within or without. He hadn't been breathing either. And he didn't move again, not in the classical sense. He became a cloud of mist and summarily disappeared... She knew the boy was a potentially gifted adept, once in ten generations, but this was...
For the first time in such a long lived life, she found that she didn't know much of anything at all these days. Whatever the case, her little mouse was reborn a lion in his own right, a truly realized nephilim.
Any by any other word... A demigod.
Perhaps, even... A primus...?