Chapter 13
XAVIAN
My body felt like a battlefield, every muscle aching with a deep, unrelenting burn, as if I had been torn apart and stitched back together with crude thread.
I lay there for what might have been moments or hours, my breaths shallow and labored, the air tasting of rust and stale water.
My eyelids fluttered open, but the world remained blurred, shadows dancing at the edges of my vision, lit by a faint, flickering glow that seemed to come from somewhere nearby.
A lantern, perhaps. The warehouse. Yes, that much anchored me, the familiar chill seeping through the walls, the distant drip of water echoing in the vast emptiness beyond this room.
But how had I gotten here? The question floated in my thoughts, elusive, slipping away before I could grasp it fully.
Fragments surfaced then, unbidden and disjointed, like echoes from a nightmare I could not quite escape.
Blood. So much blood, coating my hands, my clothes, the ground beneath me in some forsaken encampment far from here.
The rain had been pounding down, turning the mud into a crimson slurry, bodies twisted in the muck, their faces frozen in accusation.
Dozens of them, far more than the blade should have needed, a slaughter that went beyond survival into something grotesque and wasteful.
The whispers had been deafening, driving me through the blackout, but the details blurred, lost in the void where my control had shattered.
I remembered the pull back toward the warehouse, a desperate compulsion cutting through the chaos, the blade's hunger twisting into a need for silence, for her.
Morgan. The name hit me like a jolt, sharpening the haze.
I had staggered through the streets, miles of rain-slicked pavement, my body propelled by that singular urge, crashing through the door in a splinter of wood and force.
And then... her. Lunging toward her, not to kill but to reach, to let her presence stifle the storm raging inside me.
Her hands on my face, steady and insistent, pulling back the darkness, the black clouds in my vision receding under her touch, the veins sinking beneath my skin as clarity flooded in. Then nothing. Collapse. Oblivion.
I shifted slightly, wincing as pain lanced through my side, my limbs heavy and unresponsive at first. My coat was gone, replaced by a threadbare shirt from my sparse pile of spares, the fabric clean but worn.
Clean.
That struck me oddly, a detail out of place amid the wreckage in my mind.
I raised a hand to my face, expecting the tacky residue of dried blood, but my skin felt smoother, washed, though faint streaks lingered in the creases of my knuckles.
Someone had tended to this. The realization settled slowly, stirring a unease that cut through the fog. I was not alone.
My gaze sharpened, sweeping the dim room, the lantern's light casting long shadows across the cracked walls and scattered debris.
There, in the corner opposite the cot, huddled against the wall with her knees drawn up, was Morgan.
She watched me with eyes wide and wary, her posture tense, like a coiled spring ready to snap.
Her clothes were rumpled, stained with faint smears of what looked like blood, not fresh but transferred, and her hair fell loose around her shoulders, framing a face pale with exhaustion and something sharper, anger perhaps, or fear honed into resolve.
She held a shard of glass in one hand, its edges wrapped in cloth, gripping it like a weapon she might still use.
The sight of her there, alert and unyielding, sent a ripple through me, not alarm exactly but a guarded awareness.
She had seen me at my worst, the blackout's aftermath crashing into this space, and yet she had not fled or struck while I lay vulnerable.
Instead, she had cleaned the blood from me, an act that unsettled me more than any defiance she had shown before.
It spoke of a complexity I had not anticipated, a choice that blurred the lines I preferred to keep stark.
I pushed myself up on one elbow, the movement sending fresh waves of pain through my chest, my veins throbbing faintly beneath the skin, a reminder that the blade's influence lingered even now.
Virelya rested nearby, sheathed on the makeshift table, its presence a low hum in my blood, quieter in her proximity but not silent, watching as always.
"You," I muttered, my voice rough and strained, barely more than a rasp after the night's toll.
It was not a question, but an acknowledgment, testing the air between us.
She straightened slightly, her grip tightening on the shard, though she did not raise it. "Me," she echoed, her tone laced with bitterness, eyes narrowing as she met my gaze. "You're awake. Finally. I was starting to think you'd bleed out on that cot and save me the trouble."
The words carried edge, a challenge that cut through my disorientation, pulling me further into the present.
I sat up fully, ignoring the protest of my body, and swung my legs over the edge of the cot, the concrete cold under my bare feet.
Fragments still pieced themselves together in my mind, the lunge toward her, the desperate grasp, her hands forcing back the darkness.
She had done that, somehow, her touch unraveling the blade's hold in a way nothing else had.
It left me exposed, the walls I maintained cracked by necessity and exhaustion.
"What happened?" I asked, though I knew parts of it, testing her account against the shards in my memory.
Her laugh was short, humorless, echoing off the walls.
"What happened? You tell me. You burst in here like a monster from a horror story, drenched in blood that wasn't yours, eyes black as pitch, veins popping out like you were possessed.
You grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. And then.
.. it stopped. When I– it all just... pulled back.
You passed out. So yeah, what happened?"
Her words hung between us, demanding more than I wanted to give, her voice steady despite the wariness in her eyes.
She had seen too much, witnessed the blade's curse in its rawest form, and brushing her off with threats or silence would no longer suffice.
Exhaustion weighed on me, a deep fatigue that made holding back feel like another battle I lacked the strength for.
I rubbed at my temple, feeling the faint pulse there, and glanced at my cleaned arms, the skin free of the worst gore.
"You washed the blood off," I said, not quite a question, but an observation that carried unspoken weight.
It unsettled me, that act of care from someone I had caged here, a reminder that she was not just prey or anomaly but a person with choices that defied my expectations.
She shrugged, though her shoulders remained tense. "The smell was making me sick. Couldn't stand it in here. Don't read into it. You're still the bastard who dragged me to this hole. But after what I saw, you're going to explain. No more vague bullshit about dreams. What was that? What are you?"
The demand was direct, her anger fueling it, and I felt irritation stir within me, a spark amid the weariness.
She pressed as if she had the right, trapped though she was, and part of me wanted to shut her down, to reassert the distance with a glare or a threat.
But the fragments of memory lingered, her touch pulling me back from the edge, and total silence felt futile now.
"The blade," I said at last, my voice low, the words coming clipped and reluctant.
"Virelya. It's... bound to me. It feeds on life essence.
Not just blood, but the core of what makes someone alive.
It demands it, whispers in my head, drives me to take it.
If I don't, the blackouts come. I lose time, wake up to. .. what you saw."
She leaned forward slightly, her eyes sharpening with disbelief and curiosity. "Bound to you? What does that even mean? It's a sword, not some living thing. You're talking like this is some fantasy movie."
Irritation flared, exhaustion making my control thin.
"It's not fantasy," I snapped, my tone sharper than intended.
"Virelya is alive, in its way. Sentient.
It was forged long ago, in a place far from here, and it chose me.
.. or was forced on me. The bond is a curse.
It sustains me, gives me strength, but at a cost. The hunger grows, the whispers louder, until I feed it.
I've endured this for years, since my exile.
Blackouts started small, gaps in memory after a kill.
Now they're worse, longer, like last night.
I don't remember all of it, just... pieces. "
She shook her head, the shard still in her hand, though her grip loosened a fraction.
"Exile? From where? This sounds like bullshit.
If it's cursed, why not just get rid of it?
Throw it away, break it. Something. You act like you're trapped, but you're the one trapping me here.
If this thing is ruining you, why drag me into it? "