He Who Is Born of the Blood of Gods
Casteel
Screams filled the air like smog. Some of horror. Others steeped in pain that went deeper than bone.
They came from wherever I heard Kolis’s haunting voice, somewhere inside Wayfair and beyond the inner Rise, lifting from the broad, cobbled avenues of the Garden District and the cramped, dirtied streets of Croft’s Cross.
Death was everywhere.
The sound of it should’ve been enough to reach the part buried deep inside me that recognized things like duty and responsibility.
But those parts were dead now. In their place was nothing but a knot of coldness, lodged deep in my chest.
Fists banged against the sealed doors of the Great Hall. He shouted, calling my name. Other voices joined in, but his remained the loudest.
“Cas! Let us in!” he yelled, the doors shaking under the force of his blows. “Cas!”
When the doors remained closed, sealed by the inky, overlapping vines, I felt his presence bearing down on me, that woodsy imprint brushing against my thoughts.
Tearing my gaze from the too-still bodies lying in the Great Hall—what remained of my father—I rose.
Unused muscles across my upper back twitched, adjusting to the strange weight of wings.
A breeze drifted in from the shattered glass dome, carrying with it the iron-rich scent of blood and the lingering stench of stale lilacs.
The feathers… They were oddly sensitive.
The shouting continued.
He kept trying to break through, using the singular pathway forged by the notam that now extended to me.
I shut him out, quickly and precisely, as I glanced down.
“Fuck!” he shouted. “Cas!”
The shirt was torn, the edges soaked in blood.
Through the ragged tears, I saw that the flesh that had been ripped open was now the bright, shiny pink of healed skin.
I could see the dark-gray, crimson-tinged shadows moving beneath.
Could see silver bone where patches of skin had faded away.
Reaching up, I halted as I saw that the hand was half flesh, and the four fingers were bone and shadows.
I gripped a fistful of the linen and tore the ruined shirt free, letting it drop to the floor, then lifted my chin to the dome above and the jagged shards of glass that remained intact.
I summoned the essence, and it responded in an icy rush, flooding my veins with power. My will formed in my mind, and the realms answered.
“Casteel!” he roared, surely feeling the surge of energy.
A crackling ball of silver formed and then thinned, stretching wide as the realm tore open. The briny scent of the sea and decay drifted out of the tear.
My lips curved up on one side as the crackling, spitting tear widened, revealing bare branches and a vast colonnade.
Whatever she—and I knew it was her—had done to prevent me from leaving Carsodonia no longer held.
The vines peeled themselves off the floor, retreating to clear a path as I walked forward.
A burst of scorching eather slammed into the doors, throwing them open.
“Casteel!” he yelled. “Don’t! Don’t—” He stumbled to a halt, and his shock rolled across the Hall like a cold wave. “Dear gods…”
I stepped through the opening and into Pensdurth, my gaze rising to the sprawling manor atop a rocky, windblown bluff as the realm sealed behind me.
The port city was full of the dead, but it was not vacant.
Awareness throbbed in my chest, and instinctually, my senses opened and spread out. They were sharp. More…finely tuned. I could sense the essence in those within Seacliffe Manor’s walls, even from where I stood.
There were gods inside. All were old, but only some were powerful. Others were weak, their ability to harness eather in the mortal realm diminished to little more than parlor tricks. My head tilted as I inhaled. At least one was truly more powerful; chock-full of eather. A Primal god.
My lip curled.
They were not alone.
Beings that had once been mortal but now drank from the living were also inside. Vamprys.
Others were present. Those neither alive nor dead. Revenants.
And there was something else. Echoes of fading power. Those I could not…sort through out here, but I…I could feel her in those echoes. Caught the faintest scent of jasmine threaded with decay and fresh blood. Ice filled with smoke seeped into my chest as I straightened my head.
Anger was too tame a word. Rage was too weak. Fury, too polite. What coursed through me was ruinous, soaking into my muscles and tendons, entrenching in my bones, and then igniting a cold fire that burned hotter than any flame.
It was ruin.
Thick clouds formed over the Bay of Pensdurth and darkened, turning the color of charcoal as a flash of intense, silver light flared behind the windows lining one of the manor’s halls.
Wisps of smoke seeped from my fingers as I prowled forward.
The dead trees lining the road shuddered and collapsed without a sound as I passed.
One after the other, along both sides, they shattered, leaving only hazy clouds of ash behind.
The remaining trees leading to the steps of Seacliffe withered away as I stopped in the center of the road, the mist swirling as it rose around me.
I lifted a hand, turning it so my palm faced me.
Eather thrummed. The ice in my chest spread. I closed my hand.
The eastern front wall of Seacliffe Manor split with a crack of thunder, stone and wood wrenching apart.
Dust billowed out in a rapidly expanding cloud as larger chunks of mortar smashed through the pillars of the colonnade.
The roof heaved and then cracked, caving in as its support crumbled to the ground.
The screams began before the dust had even begun to settle, rising from within as rays of sunlight pierced the haze, finding those who had traded sunlight for power.
I smiled as they paid for that now in fire and blood. Every so many feet, flames erupted in scattered bursts and clusters as the sun ate away at the vamprys’ flesh. Acrid smoke choked the air, and the smell of charred skin rose as the dust cleared.
Behind the smoking, twisted, burnt bodies that had fallen where they caught fire, and those who still burned as they crawled toward the shelter of the manor, there was red.
Revenants.
Revs.
Dozens of them, standing in the partially intact atrium and the exposed chambers, their eyes a milky, lifeless blue, and their features obscured by crimson-painted wings.
A command echoed from the manor like the crack of a whip in a language no longer spoken.
The Revs crept forward as one.
With a flick of my wrist, I moved the debris, sending the wreckage of stone and plaster sliding off the sides of the bluff.
After all, I wouldn’t want anything slowing their eagerness to greet Death.
Apparently, neither did they.
The Revs poured out of Seacliffe’s ruined front, swarming the road like a horde of crimson cockroaches.
They came at me—at me—with swords made of shadowstone.
But they hadn’t seen me yet.
I changed that, letting the mist whip back.
Those closest stumbled, jerking to a halt as the painted wings lifted, and pale eyes widened. If Revs could feel fear, they did then.
Cold amusement tugged at my lips.
They recovered, coming at me in a blur as they picked up speed.
But I had no time for them.
So, I made nothing of them, tearing through the Revs with fangs and claws steeped in the essence throbbing within me.
I moved like a shadow, slipping under swords as I cracked bones.
Shredded throats. Clawed hearts from rib cages.
Ripped limbs away from those I touched. Tendrils of essence rose and struck like pit vipers as I punched my hand through a chest, the essence freezing tissue and bone until the body cracked like delicate glass.
All around me, they fell and stayed where they had fallen, littering the road.
Catching a Rev’s arm, I spun them and drew them back, sinking my fangs into their throat. Blood poured down my chin as my essence poured into them. Their body stiffened—
Pain flared, sudden and hot, radiating across a wing and shooting down my spine. Ripping my fangs free, I cranked my head around with a hiss as several silver feathers fell to the ground, covered in blood.
The Rev shot forward, driving the shadowstone sword in a straight, forceful blow. I felt the impact more than I felt the pain. Looking down at the hilt now flush with the center of my chest, I straightened my head and dropped the Rev I held onto the road.
I laughed, the sound full of icy smoke and frosted shadows as I grabbed the sword.
The shadowstone splintered into nothing.
Snapping forward, I gripped the Rev by the cheeks. My fingers pressed in, smearing red paint as I leaned in until my lips were inches from theirs. “Ouch.”
Eather erupted from my hands, cascading over the Rev. Their veins lit up with muted silver and shadowy crimson. Smoke drifted out from under their eyelashes a heartbeat before silver flames consumed the Rev’s eyes.
I shoved them back as their lips stretched wide, smoky eather erupting from their mouth in a silent scream.
I turned, seeing that the road ahead was empty except for the bodies scattered down its length.
The seeping wound in my chest was already healing, but my wing throbbed.
Instinctually, and without much thought, I willed the wings away.
Something deep in my back, between my shoulder blades, shifted.
The skin there tingled, and the muscles spasmed and then contracted.
The sensation was…strange, and the wounded wing stung as they both flattened and folded inward, slipping beneath the skin.
I could still feel them inside me, under flesh and muscle, tucked along my spine.
Walking forward, I picked up speed and leapt over the space where the colonnade had once stood, landing in what was left of the atrium.