Chapter 9
LORD IMAS
Iwake to a sensation so unfamiliar that for a moment, I think I have died.
Silence.
Not the heavy, expectant silence of a room before a ritual, but a profound, resonant quiet within my own skull. The static is gone. The screaming demands of The Serpent, the grinding pressure against the back of my eyes, the ceaseless thrumming of chaos—all of it has vanished.
I lie still, staring at the velvet canopy above my bed. My breath comes easy, deep and unencumbered. My muscles are loose, devoid of the tension that usually locks my jaw even in sleep.
It is terrifying.
I turn my head. Leora lies beside me, curled into a tight ball on top of the covers.
She is facing away, her breathing slow and rhythmic.
I still grip her ankle, my fingers wrapped around the delicate bones like a manacle.
Her skin is warm under my palm, and through that point of contact, a steady, rhythmic pulse of calm flows into me.
It feels like cool water running over a burn.
I should release her. I should recoil from this alien influence that has invaded my mind and silenced my god.
Instead, my thumb strokes the arch of her foot.
The gesture is involuntary, a reflex of a body that has been starved for comfort. I snatch my hand back as if burned, sitting up abruptly.
The movement disturbs her. She shifts, murmuring something unintelligible, but she does not wake.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. My equilibrium feels off, lighter, as if I have shed a suit of iron armor I didn't know I was wearing. I walk to the window, my steps silent on the thick carpet. Outside, the storm has passed, leaving Lliandor shrouded in a thick, gray mist.
I look at my hand. The obsidian ring is dead stone.
I should be panicking. To be a Khuzuth Lord without magic is to be a corpse walking. If Malek knew, if the Council knew, I would be stripped of my caste before the sun hit its zenith. I would be Dfam—worse than a slave, a non-entity to be used and discarded.
But the panic does not come. The silence Leora provides is a drug so potent it numbs even the fear of ruin.
What is she?
The question gnaws at me, sharper than the missing noise. I called her Purna, a label pulled from nursery rhymes and ancient history lessons meant to frighten children. The witches who stole the night. The women who twisted the dark elves into stone.
But the Purna were destroyed. The Dark Elves hunted them across the continents, burning them out of existence centuries ago.
And even the legends speak of them wielding fire and earth, aggressive magics that rivaled our own.
They do not speak of this... this negation. This ability to make a god mute.
I need to know.
I dress quickly, pulling on a simple tunic and breeches, leaving the heavy robes of my station for later. I glance back at the bed. Leora sleeps on, an anchor in the chaotic sea of my existence. I leave the room, locking the door with a physical key since my magical wards are useless.
The library is cold. It smells of dust and secrets. I bypass the sections on politics and warfare, heading straight for the restricted archives at the back—the iron-caged shelves that hold the texts predating the Great War.
I find the volume I need: The Heresies of the First Age. The leather binding is cracked, the pages yellowed and brittle.
I carry it to a reading table and light a single candle.
I turn the pages with careful fingers. Here are the accounts of the Vrakken, the winged horrors that drove us from the surface. Here are the first mentions of the Gargoyles. And here...
Purna.
The illustration is faded, a woodcut of a human woman surrounded by a halo of chaotic lines. The text is written in Old Elvish, complex and archaic.
...born of human blood but touched by the raw Aether. They are not conduits; they are sources. Their magic is not a gift of the Thirteen, but a theft of the natural order.
I read on, my eyes scanning the descriptions of their powers. Elemental manipulation. Shapeshifting. Healing.
Nothing about silence. Nothing about empathy weaponized as a poison against Chaos.
I turn the page.
There are rare accounts, the text reads, of Purna whose power manifests not as an outward force, but as an internal gravity. They do not cast spells; they rewrite the emotional reality of those around them. These are the most dangerous. They do not fight the darkness; they absorb it.
I stare at the words. Absorb it.
Is that what she is doing? Is she drinking the Chaos from my blood?
If so, she is not just a threat. She is an existential abomination. If she continues to absorb The Serpent’s influence, she will eventually sever the bond entirely. She will make me mortal.
The text offers a solution.
The only cure for a soul infected by a Purna is the purification of the vessel. The heart must be excised and burned in the fire of the patron deity.
Kill her.
The instruction is clear. It is logical. It is necessary. If I kill her, the silence ends. The Serpent returns. My power returns. I can crush Malek, secure my legacy, and rule Lliandor as I was meant to.
I look at the candle flame. I imagine the noise returning—the screaming, the grinding pressure, the madness that nibbles at the edges of my sanity every hour of every day.
I imagine going back to that.
My hand trembles.
I close the book. The heavy thud echoes in the empty library.
I stand up, picking up the heavy volume. I walk to the large hearth where a fire burns low.
I should kill her. It’s the only way to save my life as a Lord.
But the thought of the noise returning makes my breath hitch. The thought of losing the quiet, of losing the strange, steadying presence of the girl sleeping in my bed... it feels like stepping off a ledge into a void.
I cannot go back. I am already ruined. I am a drug addict staring at his last fix, knowing it will kill him, and unable to walk away.
I toss the book into the fire.
The dry paper catches instantly. The flames curl around the leather, turning the ancient knowledge into ash. I watch the face of the woodcut woman blacken and crumble.
"My Lord."
I spin around.
Asema stands in the doorway of the library. She is fully armored, her helmet tucked under her arm. Her face is unreadable, a mask of stone, but her eyes are sharp. She looks from the burning book to me.
"Captain," I say. My voice is steady, but my heart hammers a traitorous rhythm. "You are up early."
"I did not sleep well," she says. She steps into the room, the metal of her greaves scraping against the stone. She stops a respectful distance away, but her posture is not submissive. It is alert.
"The estate is restless," she continues. "The shadows are... thin."
She is Miou. She does not have magic, but she has instincts honed on a hundred battlefields. She can sense that the heavy, oppressive atmosphere of my power is gone.
"Is there a report, Asema?" I ask, stepping away from the fire, placing my body between her and the evidence of my heresy.
"Rina found the door to your chambers locked," Asema says. "She could not enter to clean or bring the morning meal."
"I did not wish to be disturbed."
Asema’s gaze flicks to my hand. To the dull, lifeless ring.
"Lord Malek has sent a messenger," she says quietly. "He requests a tour of the southern fortifications tomorrow. He says he wishes to admire your... defenses."
It is a trap. He wants to see if I can ward the walls. To see if I am truly powerless.
"Tell him I accept," I say. "Whatever game he is playing, I will finish it."
Asema nods, but she does not leave. She looks at me, really looks at me, in a way a subordinate never should.
"My Lord," she whispers, her voice dropping. "The Serpent sees all."
It is a warning. A common phrase, usually meant to invoke fear in slaves. But from her, it sounds like an accusation. She knows. She knows I am compromised. She knows I am hiding something in my bed and burning books in my library.
"The Serpent sees what I allow Him to see," I lie, putting a cold arrogance into my voice that I do not feel. "Dismissed, Captain."
Asema holds my gaze for a heartbeat longer than is safe. Then, she bows—stiffly, mechanically—and turns on her heel.
I watch her go. The warning hangs in the air, heavier than the smoke from the fire.
My household knows. My enemy knows. And I am standing here, unarmed, protecting the very thing that is destroying me.