Alvir pawed for the blindfold on the bedside table to tie over his eyes, then fanned out his fingers and slowly made his way downstairs. Night had fallen, but the affliction was now entirely independent of his surroundings. Even the slightest opening of his eyes sent a searing migraine straight to his temples.
Jana was due back from her hunt tonight, and Cedric had gathered the last of their supplies for the journey. Everything was in order, but Alvir despised that his role in it all was practically nonexistent; he was supposed to be a healer, caretaker, and provider, not a helpless burden.
"Cedric?" Alvir called. There was no answer, but he heard Clover's whinny from outside. The boy was attending to her, even in the dark. Perhaps something was troubling him.
Alvir took shuffling steps toward what he hoped was the back door, and grudgingly resolved to swallow his pride and request a walking stick upon his wife's imminent return.
His fingers had just brushed the latch when several knocks struck the front door. Reluctantly, Alvir turned around to embark on another perilous journey across the room.
"Jana," he sighed, swinging open the door. "I think it's time I used a walking--"
Something unimaginably cold and sharp pierced his torso. Alvir's breath hitched as his entire body seized up around the terrible, unnatural intrusion. Something thick and liquid was running down his tunic and breeches. He stood there, frozen, for either a few seconds or an eternity. And then he was falling, falling, falling.
*
Cedric waited patiently for Clover to pick off the last bits of grain from his hand while he stroked her silky russet mane with the other. The darkness surrounding them, of a different sort than the rank, miserable suffocation of his former cell, resonated warmly with the primal core of his spirit as naturally as breathing. Only at night did the world fully unfold into a vast expanse of mystery and intrigue, irresistibly beckoning him onward to freedom. Cedric was half-convinced that he could fly like a bird into the velvet depths if he wished it fervently enough.
A muted thud from within the cottage snapped Cedric out of his contemplations. He raised his lantern and swiftly made for the back entrance. Surely Alvir hadn't fallen?
Out of nowhere, an iron hand clamped over his mouth while another arm grasped his waist in a stranglehold. Cedric's entire body pulsed with terror, and he bucked and writhed like a maddened animal. Stop, don't touch, go away, don't hurt--
"Cedric!" Jana's voice hissed into his ear, which pierced the fog of panic enough for him to cease struggling.
She neither removed her hand from his mouth nor let him go. "Listen, someone has come to the cottage. Alvir… has been hurt."
Her words sent a bolt of icy horror through Cedric's body. No, this couldn't possibly be. They'd had time. They were going to leave…
"I'll stall him," Jana said. She released Cedric's mouth and reached into a pouch at her waist, then pressed a small bundle of fabric into his slackened palm.
She roughly turned him by the shoulders and grasped his face with dry, callused hands. "Take the stone to Borne," Jana told him. Tear tracks shone on her cheeks, but a cold fire blazed in her icy blue eyes. "Find a woman named Candra Relictus, an exiled Dark Apostle. I'll come for you as soon as I can, but if--"
The back door burst open, making Cedric jump. A tall figure stood at the threshold, silhouetted by the light from within their home. An elegant sword protruded from his fist, down which a long rivulet of blood slowly dripped.
A shorter, stockier figure cowered behind the first. Henry Avidus. Cedric's heart lurched.
Jana drew her knife. "Run!" she hissed, then charged at the stranger with fearless abandon.
Cedric fled, the sounds of clashing metal ringing in his ears.
*
He tore across the night-soaked countryside for several long hours before he finally allowed himself to collapse onto the grass. His chest heaved, and every desperate gulp of air burned like fire in his lungs.
My fault. My fault.
He curled up into a ball and began to shiver.
My fault. All my fault…
Tears trickled onto the grass. Cedric crushed the bundle of fabric against his chest as he fought to keep his breathing steady. Even without unwrapping it, he knew exactly what it was. He'd known as soon as he'd touched it. Jana's last gift to him.
Jana would have also ordered him to pull himself together this instant.
He sniffed hard, wiped his cheeks, and forced his aching body upright. Now that he was still, the night air seemed to curl in all around him like a comforting blanket. Silken murmurs caressed his trembling body and coaxed his heart into a gentler rhythm. Instinctively, he relaxed into their embrace and closed his eyes.
His perception somehow expanded rather than diminished--he was a part of the night, not an observer. And the night knew exactly what he was searching for. Somewhere in the distant velvet darkness, a set of galloping hooves was tearing through the tranquil night. Toward him.
Jana. She's coming to me. Cedric's eyes snapped open, and his heart eagerly resumed its frantic former tempo. It could only be her. He still vividly recalled the carnage she'd wrought back at the prison; she couldn't possibly be defeated by any one man.
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Buoyant relief flooded Cedric's body, unknotting his stomach and lightening his chest.
He spent the next few minutes gathering rocks and kindling, as Alvir had once taught him to do. And though it took longer than he would have liked, a small, sputtering flame eventually flared into being beneath his unpracticed fingers. Cedric patiently fed it with strips of dry grass until it grew to a more conspicuous intensity and size. He then settled beside his makeshift beacon, hugging his knees to his chest.
Crickets chirped their endless melodies as the night wore on, and the vast tapestry of stars above his head continued its slow, inexorable rotation. Cedric allowed his mind to settle into a light trance, and the minutes melted away before his hooded eyes.
Eventually, Cedric's pursuer arrived. But the strange figure sitting atop an unfamiliar mount was not Jana.
"Forgive me, Your Grace," said the man from the cottage, trotting forward into the firelight. "But we have urgent matters to discuss."
*
Cedric leapt to his feet, heart pounding.
The man dismounted his dark, graceful stallion, a fundamentally different sort to Clover's sturdy earthiness. "I am Kestrin the Ice Blade, a humble servant of your brother, the Red King." He bowed.
Cedric squeezed the bundle of fabric in his right hand until it hurt. He had no weapons, no means of defense, and no means of escape. Worst of all, he'd put himself in this hopeless situation. If only he'd kept running and not dared stop until the sun had cleared the horizon. If only he hadn't clung to some blind hope of Jana, victorious and unscathed, galloping to meet him.
Jana… she can't be…
Kestrin's sword remained sheathed, for now. "I must say, Your Grace, you cleared quite a distance in your escape. But I'd expect nothing less."
Cedric swallowed hard. The object within the bundled fabric grew a little colder.
But he couldn't possibly be fated to die here. If that was what this ruthless stranger truly wanted, he wouldn't waste time on pleasantries.
The truth hit him like a lightning bolt.
"You can't kill me," Cedric blurted. He barked a single, hysterical laugh. "Rava would be reborn; the Crimson Blade would have to find them all over again."
A ghost of a smile twitched at Kestrin's mouth, though the set of his jaw also suggested the beginnings of irritation. "You speak true. Even the full might of every Blade took over six years to find you. Though we would no longer be weathering the aftermath of the Madness, my master would still be highly… displeased if such a predicament were to afflict the sovereignty again."
Perhaps Cedric did wield a crucial advantage after all. "Don't take a step closer," he said. "I'll end my own life before I let you imprison me again."
"I have no intention of taking you by force, Your Grace," Kestrin said. "Once you fully comprehend what you've done, you'll accompany me willingly."
"What I've…?" Cedric's voice rose. "I've done nothing! It was my predecessor who--"
"That is not what I refer to. Look at what's become of your two caretakers. Your very presence draws danger. As long as you roam free, what has happened to them will continue to happen to every unfortunate soul in your proximity."
What has happened to them? Cedric frantically shook his head. "No, I--I never chose--"
Kestrin tutted. "Your identity as not only a Blessed One, but the disgraced Heir of Darkness, is entirely your responsibility, and yours alone." He took a few steps backward toward his well-behaved stallion and reached into one of its bulging saddle bags. "You wouldn't wish this fate upon anyone else, would you?"
The firelight danced eerily across the features of the two large, round objects he held, one in each hand. Cedric stared at them, for much longer than should have been necessary, until his mind finally recognized what they were.
Heads. Jana's and Alvir's. Still fresh.
Horror crashed in upon Cedric in endless, potent waves. His knees buckled. He was screaming, tearing long gashes of agony into the night. He clapped both hands over his mouth to silence them, but his stomach roiled and expelled its contents past his fingers and onto the grass. He retched, heaved, gasped for air.
Can't be, not possible, another nightmare, wake up…
The bundle in Cedric's hand suddenly grew very cold. A strand of dark energy emerged from the object within, smoothly snaking up along his right arm. It was soon followed by countless others, cooling his blood and suffusing his flesh. The gathered energy briefly pooled in his chest before spreading outwards to the rest of his body.
Snatches of unfamiliar images and sensations engulfed his mind, almost too jumbled to comprehend--a blood-red moon, a squalling baby with midnight eyes, windswept black hair, a fiercely roaring bonfire, yowling worshippers, wails of grief and pain, guttural shouts and roars of bloodlust. They battered against his consciousness, overwhelming all other thought. A singular voice--ageless, inhuman, neither male nor female--emerged from the miasma of chaos with one irresistible word.
Submit.
Cedric closed his eyes and gave in to the power of the black diamond.
*
Kestrin felt his entire body erupt into gooseflesh, as if a chill had passed through his very soul. The darkness surrounding them seemed to thicken, and the boy's makeshift beacon flickered more rapidly, struggling against some smothering force.
One moment, the boy was hunched over on the grass, blubbering and sniveling like any other weak, common child. The next moment, he'd transformed into something enormous, primordial, something so dark as to be a hole of nothingness carved into the fabric of reality itself. Kestrin saw claws, fangs, an enormous pair of wings.
The creature opened its giant maw and roared. A hellish choir of discordant anguish, neither beast nor human, set Kestrin's heart racing in visceral terror. Every base instinct howled for him to flee, but he resisted it.
He dropped the traitors' heads and drew his sword in a flash of steel. The movement captured the creature's attention. Its eyes, twin pinpricks of light affixed to the dark abyss of its body, flared with bestial menace.
Kestrin stepped forward and swung at the same time that a razor-edged wave of pure darkness crashed down upon him. There was a terrible, shattering separation, then an acute feeling of absence on the right side of his body. He fell backwards onto the ground, blinked in confusion, then turned his gaze to assess the damage.
His sword, along with severed arm and leg, lay some distance away, oddly devoid of blood.
Fascinating, was the Ice Blade's last thought before he plummeted into oblivion.
The creature roared again, sending further bolts of terror into the heart of every living creature within a mile's distance. It then leapt into the limitless expanse of the night sky, borne aloft by otherworldly wings.
*
"Pa, up there!" A little girl, her round face illuminated by the lantern she held, pointed upwards at the moon.
The aging man split another log with a meaty crack and swept a hand across his forehead. "For the last time, Bree, back to bed with you."
"It's… it's a monster!"
Nowadays, even moonlight blazed as brightly as the sun, but he nonetheless looked upward.
What he saw in the night sky was inhuman, unnatural, a dark aberration perfectly silhouetted against the luminous underbelly of the moon. It was winged and clawed, with a long, tapered tail trailing its path. The creature then passed beyond the moon's edge and vanished back into the darkness.
The father shivered amidst the balmy night, then hurriedly returned to his work.
"What was that?" his daughter asked in a hushed whisper. She hugged her midriff, also struck by the same chill.
Something extraordinary, he thought with an inherent certainty rooted in some ancient, primal instinct. The split log was swiftly followed by another.
Something we cannot even begin to understand.