Chapter 5 Lord Imas
LORD IMAS
The hum of the obsidian ring returns slowly, a lethargic vibration against the bone of my finger. It is not the roaring furnace of power I am accustomed to, but it is there. The connection to The Serpent has reknit itself, fragile and resentful, like a limb that has been broken and poorly set.
My magic is back. But it feels… sulky. I need to confirm something about her.
I stand before the iron cage placed on the center of my desk.
Inside, three rodan scrabble against the metal bars.
They are vile creatures, the size of large cats, with hairless, scabby tails and teeth capable of chewing through oak.
They smell of ammonia and musk, a sharp stench that cuts through the ever-present heavy incense of my study.
They hiss at me, their beady red eyes filled with a mindless, ravenous hunger.
"Perfect," I whisper.
The heavy door opens. I do not turn. I know the cadence of Asema’s stride, the heavy, rhythmic clanking of her armor. And I know the lighter, uneven scuff of the girl’s slippers.
"Leave us," I command.
Asema hesitates. I can feel her disapproval radiating off her like heat from a stone. "My Lord, the creature is… unpredictable. You are unarmed."
"I am never unarmed, Captain. Leave."
The door clicks shut. The silence of the room reasserts itself, heavy and expectant.
I turn slowly. Leora stands by the hearth, her back pressed against the cold stone. She looks rested, though the wariness in her posture remains. Her hands are hidden in her sleeves, but I see the tension in her shoulders. She is watching me, her sapphire eyes tracking my every movement.
"Come here," I say.
She does not move. She defies the order not with words, but with a stillness that is infuriatingly loud.
"If I have to drag you," I say, my voice dropping to a silken, dangerous register, "I will not be gentle. Come. Look at what I have brought for you."
She steps forward, her movements stiff. She approaches the desk, her gaze flickering to the cage. The rodan throw themselves against the bars, snapping their yellow teeth. She flinches, a small, involuntary jerk of her head.
Good. Fear is there. It is just buried deep.
"Do you know what these are?" I ask, steepling my fingers and resting my chin on them.
"Rodan," she answers. Her voice is steady, but I hear the tremor beneath it. "They eat humans."
"They eat anything," I correct her. "They are creatures of pure appetite. Much like myself."
I drop my hands and circle the desk, standing behind the cage so she is forced to look at me through the mesh of iron and the writhing bodies of the beasts.
"My magic failed a few hours ago," I say conversationally. "It was… a singular occurrence. I believe you are a dampener, Leora. A void in the weave of the Aether. But a void cannot stop a flood."
I raise my hand. The ring flares. It takes more effort than usual—I have to mentally claw at the connection, dragging the power up from the soles of my feet—but the violet light ignites. It wraps around my fingers, crackling with static.
Leora’s eyes widen. She takes a step back.
"Don't," she whispers.
"Watch," I command.
I thrust my hand toward the cage. I do not cast a spell of death. That would be a waste. I cast a hex of agony—a simple weaving of nerve-fire designed to make every synapse in a body fire with blinding pain.
The spell hits the rodan.
The effect is instantaneous. The creatures shriek—a high, piercing sound that grates against the teeth. They thrash wildly, biting at themselves, tearing at their own flanks in a frenzy to escape the pain coursing through them.
I inhale, waiting for the rush. I wait for the feedback loop, the delicious, savory taste of their suffering to flow back into me and strengthen the spell. I wait for Leora to scream, for her horror to shatter that infuriating calm she wears like armor.
She does not scream.
I look at her.
Her hands are out of her sleeves now. She is gripping the edge of the desk, her knuckles white. But she is not looking at the rats with disgust. She is looking at them with… recognition.
Her pupils expand. The sapphire is swallowed by an all consuming tide of black, turning her eyes into voids.
Then, it hits me.
It isn’t a sound. It is a physical pressure, an atmospheric shift so sudden my ears pop. The air throughout the room turns thick, viscous, like wading through warm honey.
A wave of sensation crashes into my mind. It is not fear. It is not the sharp, metallic tang of terror I crave.
It is a blanket. Heavy. Warm. Suffocatingly soft.
Peace.
It tastes like milk and vanilla. It feels like the numbness of a limb falling asleep, spreading rapidly through the metaphysical space of the room. It wraps around the chaotic, jagged edges of my magic and soothes them.
"No," I snarl, trying to push more power into the hex. "Burn them!"
But the violet light on my hand flickers. The chaotic energy doesn't just fail; it unravels. The threads of the spell go slack, turning from a whip into harmless mist.
Inside the cage, the shrieking stops.
The rodan do not die. They do not pass out from pain. They simply… stop. Their frantic scrabbling ceases. Their breathing slows. One of them, a massive male with a scarred ear, uncurls its claws from the bars and settles onto the floor of the cage, blinking lazily.
The aggression drains out of them, replaced by a docile, drugged stupor.
I stare at the cage, then at my own hand. The ring is dormant again, the stone dull and lifeless against my skin. The connection to The Serpent hasn't been severed, but it has been muffled, as if I am trying to hear my god through a wall of cotton.
I look at Leora.
She is swaying slightly, her face pale, sweat beading on her forehead. The blackness in her eyes recedes, leaving the blue looking washed out and exhausted. She looks as if she has just carried a heavy load up a mountain.
"What did you do?" I whisper. My voice sounds loud in the sudden, unnatural quiet.
"I didn't want them to hurt," she says. Her voice is faint, raspy. "They were afraid."
"You protected them," I accuse her. "You protected vermin from me."
"I..." She blinks, looking confused, as if waking from a trance. "I just wanted it to stop."
I should be furious. I should be reaching for a weapon to flay the skin from her back for this insolence. She has neutralized my power. She has rendered a Khuzuth noble harmless with nothing but a thought. It is treason. It is heresy.
But I cannot move.
I grip the edge of the desk, my knuckles turning the color of bleached bone, bracing myself against a sudden, violent vertigo.
The world has tilted. The gravity in the room has shifted.
For five hundred years, my mind has been a slaughterhouse.
The Serpent is not a passive deity; He is a shriek in the blood.
His demands are a constant, grinding static—hurt, break, consume, bleed—a cacophony of vipers hissing against the back of my eyes, day and night, waking and sleeping.
Every thought I have ever had has been shouted over the roar of His hunger.
I have lived my life in a hurricane, screaming just to hear myself think.
And now…
The silence hits me to the core.
It is not peaceful. It is a vacuum. It sucks the air right from my lungs and leaves me gasping, reeling from the sudden, impossible absence of pressure. My ears ring with the phantom echo of the noise that is no longer there.
I stagger, my knees buckling, and I catch myself heavily against the wood.
I wait for the backlash. I wait for the crushing headache, the bleed-over of Chaos, the anger of the god.
But there is nothing.
I hear only the sound of my own ragged breathing. The soft scratch-scratch of the sleeping rodan’s claws against the iron floor of the cage. The rhythmic weeping of the rain against the glass.
Sounds I haven't truly heard in centuries because the god in my head was too loud.
A shudder rips through me, starting at the very base of my neck and rolling down my spine. It feels terrifyingly like pleasure. It feels like the moment a fever breaks, leaving the skin cool and wet. The tension that permanently knots the muscles of my neck unspools so fast it makes me dizzy.
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the urge to sob. Not from sorrow, but from the sheer, overwhelming sensory overload of quiet.
It is a drug. It is the purest, most addictive nectar I have ever tasted.
I open my eyes. The room looks different. The edges of the furniture are sharper. The dust motes dancing in the dim light are distinct, individual specks rather than a chaotic blur.
My thoughts… my thoughts are crystalline.
I look at the scrolls scattered across my desk—the Vhoig trade treaties, the defensive schematics against House Malek that have been a tangled, migraine-inducing knot in my mind for weeks. I have stared at them until my eyes bled, unable to find the path through the noise.
Now, in this impossible silence she has created, the solution does not struggle to be found. It simply exists.
I see the pattern. I see the leverage. I see the flaw in Malek’s southern supply line as clearly as if it were drawn in red ink.
The realization chills me.
I look at her.
She is leaning against the bookshelf, pale and trembling, unaware that she has just stripped a High Lord of his god. She thinks she has merely stopped a cruel spell. She does not know she has stopped the screaming.
I should kill her. To exist without The Serpent is to be Dfam. It is to be hollow.
But as I gaze at her, I realize with a jolt of horror that I do not want the noise back. I do not want the god back.
I want this. I want this clarity. I want to be able to hear the rain.
I steep my fingers, pressing them against my lips to hide the tremor. The repulsion I felt yesterday—the nausea of feeling pity—is still there, a faint, sickly aftertaste. But the silence...
It is worth any price. Even my soul.
I walk around the desk. She flinches, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Open your eyes," I command. My voice sounds strange to my own ears—deeper, steadier, stripped of the manic edge that usually sharpens my words.
She obeys. The blue is back, wary and defiant.
"You are not a dampener," I say softly, the words tasting new. "You are a counterweight."
"My Lord?"
"My magic thrives on chaos. You..." I gesture vaguely to the sleeping rats. "You project order. Calm. You are a temporary antidote to the poison I drink."
My mind races. I can use her. She stifles my magic, yes. But she sharpens me. I will keep her close for the strategy work. And when the time comes to summon The Serpent, I will lock her in the deepest dungeon of the estate, far enough away that her influence cannot touch me.
I reach out and tuck a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. She trembles, her breath hitching, but she holds her ground. The contact sends a jolt of that sickly warmth through me, but I grit my teeth and accept it.
"You will not go to the servants' quarters," I say.
"But Rina said—"
"Rina is a slave. I am your Master." I lean down, bringing my face close to hers. "You will stay here. In my chambers. You will sleep at the foot of my bed if you must, but you will not leave my side."
Her eyes widen in horror. "For how long?"
"Until I have dissected you," I promise. "Until I understand how a fragile little human thing can silence a god."
I turn away, walking back to my desk. I pick up a quill, dipping it into the ink. The intricate political strategy is flowing out of me, demanding to be written.
"Sit," I command, gesturing to the rug. "And be quiet. I have work to do."
She sinks to the floor, radiating shock.
I begin to write. The obsidian ring on my finger is cold and dead, a useless stone. It is a terrifying weight to bear, this defenselessness. But the clarity is a drug, and for now, I am willing to risk the silence.