How much time had passed since my renewal? I felt my thralls and the distinct coils that made up the foundation that was my servant Shra’anan. Her current vessel shone in my senses like interconnecting stars tethered by coils of power.

The thick membrane of my seed flexed around me. I wasn’t fully awake just yet, only aware of myself and my thralls. My senses coming back to me in fits and spurts. Like a kaleidoscope of colours, my thoughts, feelings, the memory of my mission.

The Architect had sent me across the barrier so long ago. I wasn’t certain of how far I’d gone. The distance had no bearing on time and mass.

All I knew was that I was beyond the enemy line. I had to be cautious, but I wouldn’t run nor cower from this material plane. I had been sent through to pave the way for Draugur forces to follow. Maybe others had been sent through as well. If so I would simply claim their lives and take their spoils for myself.

I was Makkian. A seed of the great Architect, who in turn was moulded by the great-one himself. I felt the membrane flex again, and I drew coils of dark magic around me. Their dark purple light coursing through my very being.

Is it finally time? I sent out into the ether of the Aetherium. The semi-incorporeal plane that branched all worlds. It was the universe, and its pathway’s. To travel across was dangerous. That right was reserved for only the great-one himself, and his chosen few. Some of the betrayers primordial’s still roamed the Aetherium, protecting the branching planes and their worlds.

Yet I had been sent across one such barrier. I hadn’t questioned my orders when they had been given. And my renewal brought on a certain level of nervous excitement.

The betrayer still lives’? I sent as an after-thought. It made sense, and also didn’t. The betrayers death had shielded a portion of Aetherium’s abyssal plane. Barring those branches from the great-ones reach.

They were crumbling slowly, cracks forming to be renewed.

It is time.

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Came the discordant voice of my creator. It sounded aggrieved and angered.

You are correct my chosen. The blighted-one still lives. His aether has touch our roots briefly. Be aware.

I nodded and stretched out with my senses and coils bursting them through the thick membrane of my shell. They weaved and punctured out, writhing as I slowly breached on to this new world I had claimed. Beyond Shra’anan and my thralls, I felt Grav’nion thrum with excited energy above the planet.

Then curiously, as I my eyes dinned on my new surroundings I felt another presence. It was both familiar and wrong in some fashion I couldn’t explain. Then the presence faded.

My servants bowed as I stepped down from my rebirth. The strange building I was in, gleamed at me with alien wonder. I felt the presence draw close, and my head snapped to the ceiling. There, within the structure of ceiling a few rooms over, was what I thought to be an abomination. I had heard of Draugur seedlings corrupting. Still drawing on death and dark magic, yet changing them somehow.

I hissed, and bared fangs. “Nul, cul’na. Brin, brea’offre, na Shra’anan,” I ordered and gestured a crackling hand of coils at my servant.

“Of course my lord. I will make certain none disturb your ritual,” Shra’anan replied and ducked her blonde head at me. Her new vessel was certainly pleasing to look upon, but I preferred her natural state. I needed to clothe, and to call upon Pra’vin, my sword and conduit.

Weaving coils of magic was fine. But with Pra’vin, my power was doubled and focused. Shra’anan left the room, taking a number of my thrall knights with her. I empowered them with a small tether of my dark magic. Weaving coils through their changed bodies, and imparting a piece of my power on them.

They siphoned it up and left with her.

I waved my hands at a few thrall grunts and they began to clamber together. Then I drew deep from within myself, and extracted piece of my magic vessel. This one coursed with power. Radiating purple and black light, flickering like incorporeal fire.

It burned the senses, but death magic was attuned to sacrifice. My coils of power drank a portion of it up, and I launched it at the gathered thralls with a wave of my hand.

They moulded together as the last vestiges of their astral spirit succumbed to the death magic. They affixed themselves, transforming into an anvil of bone and power. Then I imparted a piece of not my magic, but my very being instead.

The magic of the aether thrummed powerfully through the anvil as its surface liquified, and then sunk inwards. A black glassy surface shone in the chasm of the anvil. And I felt the eyes of my maker, and then our god look back at me approvingly.

My sword Pra’vin formed in the pit and manifested through for me to wield.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]