Chapter 1 #2
I move cautiously, journal ready, sketching what I can in the dancing light. The catacombs branch and twist, forming a maze that probably extends beneath the entire abbey. Perfect place to hide archives. Perfect place to hide anything you didn’t want found.
Or anything you wanted to make sure never escaped.
The thought sends ice down my spine despite the growing warmth. But I push forward. I didn’t come this far to let paranoia turn me back.
The passage opens into a circular chamber dominated by a raised dais. And there, carved into the stone floor in perfect symmetry, is the most complex magical circle I’ve ever seen.
Runes ring the outer edge—binding sigils, containment marks, symbols that practically scream DANGER in three different magical dialects. Inner rings hold shapes that seem to fold in on themselves. And at the very center...
A sarcophagus.
Massive, ancient, carved from black stone that drinks the light. Its surface bears the same spiraling patterns as the surrounding runes, inlaid with what looks like tarnished silver. The lid sits slightly askew, revealing a sliver of absolute darkness within.
This is a bad idea.
But I’m already approaching, lantern raised, curiosity overriding every survival instinct I possess. The runes around the sarcophagus are different from the others—older, more complex. Some are definitely containment bindings, but others...
Summoning circles. Binding contracts. Soul-anchors.
Someone didn’t just bury someone here. They bound them. Chained them with magic and will and probably considerable screaming.
And you’re standing in the middle of their containment circle.
I should leave. Right now. Turn around, climb the stairs, mount Sweetie, and ride hard for the coven lands. Let someone else deal with whatever sleeps in that black stone tomb.
Instead, I step closer.
The lantern light catches on script carved along the sarcophagus’s rim. Not Gothic this time. Something older, harsher. Orcish, maybe? The angular letters seem familiar, though I can’t read them. But there—one symbol I recognize from my studies of pre-Veil magical theory.
Ashbane.
A name. Or perhaps a title. The Ash-Something. The Ash-Bearer. The—
Ash-Bound.
Brother Aldric’s words echo in my memory. The ash-bound lord whispers to him through the stones.
My hands tremble as I pull out my journal, flipping to a fresh page. Just a quick sketch. Just enough to research later, in safety, away from whatever wrongness permeates this place.
The charcoal catches on one of the carved letters—a deep groove that cuts clear through to the stone beneath. The edge is sharp, jagged.
Sharp enough to draw blood.
"DO NOT BLEED HERE."
Brother Aldric’s warning echoes as I stare at the thin line of red welling from my fingertip. Just a scratch. Nothing serious.
But my blood hits the carved rune with a hiss.
The stone trembles.
Oh, shit.
The rune flares brilliant gold-red, drinking my blood hungrily. The light spreads, racing along the carved channels, leaping from symbol to symbol in an ever-widening spiral. The air grows thick, charged with power that makes my teeth ache and my bones hum.
Heat rises from the stone—not the gentle warmth I felt before, but something fierce and hungry. The temperature spikes so fast, sweat beads on my forehead.
The floor groans beneath my feet. Cracks spider out from the sarcophagus as whatever lies within begins to stir. The lid shifts with the sound of mountains grinding against each other.
Move. MOVE.
But my feet seem rooted as the sarcophagus lid slides open with a groan that reverberates through my bones. Smoke pours out—not the clean gray of hearth-fire, but rich, dark clouds threaded with embers and the scent of ancient burning.
My lantern gutters and dies, plunging the chamber into dancing orange firelight that seems to come from the tomb itself. Armor plates scrape against stone as whatever I’ve awakened unfolds from centuries of cursed sleep.
A hand emerges from the smoke—massive, clawed, crossed with scars that look carved by lightning. It grips the tomb’s edge with enough force to crack the stone.
Run. RUN.
But I can only watch in frozen terror as the rest of him rises.
Orc. Definitely orc, but unlike any I’ve seen in the coven’s bestiary texts.
He towers at least seven feet, broad-shouldered and built for war.
Gray-green skin bears the texture of old leather, scarred and weathered by centuries of violence.
Ash dusts his dark hair, and more ash swirls around him in a personal storm.
His armor is blackened iron, plate and mail that has seen battles beyond counting. Cracks run through the metal, and ember-light glows in the gaps, as if forge-fire burns inside his chest.
But it’s his eyes that steal my breath.
Molten red. Not the warm red of garnets, but the deep, terrible red of forge-fire. They sweep the chamber with predatory focus before fixing on me with an intensity that makes my knees shake.
He inhales—deep, deliberate—and his expression shifts from confusion to recognition.
His lips pull back in a snarl that reveals tusks. When he speaks, his voice is the rumble of distant thunder, rough with disuse and barely contained rage.
"Blood."
The word hits me. I try to step back, but invisible chains hold me fast—the power I awakened won’t let me flee from what I’ve called up.
He moves faster than anything that size should. One moment he’s rising from the sarcophagus, the next, he’s looming over me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his scarred skin.
His hand closes around my bleeding wrist.
The world explodes into fire.
Pain lances up my arm, white-hot and merciless. The rune carved into the chamber floor flares brilliant gold-red, and magic whips around us in a living storm. My scream echoes off the stone walls as power brands itself deep into my flesh.
The mark.
I can feel it burning its pattern into my wrist—spirals and angular lines that match the ones carved into his tomb. The magic flows between us, binding, claiming, sealing whatever contract my blood just signed.
And beneath the pain, awareness blooms.
A pulse. Deep in my chest, steady and strong. A second heartbeat that isn’t mine.
The orc staggers, his free hand pressed to his chest as if he feels it too. His red eyes go wide with shock, then narrow with fury that makes the air itself seem to burn.
He snarls words in the harsh orcish tongue that sound ancient, powerful. Curses, probably. The shadows in the chamber writhe and dance, whispering mine in voices that crawl along my spine.
What did I just do?
But I know. Some part of me, some deep instinct older than reason, knows exactly what happened here.
I woke him.
I bound myself to him.
And from the rage twisting his scarred features, he’s not particularly grateful for either.
He slams his free hand against the stone dais to steady himself, and the impact cracks the rock. Ash spirals around us in a miniature cyclone, and I catch glimpses of power barely held in check—muscles that could snap me, claws that could tear through steel, fury hot enough to melt stone.
When he looks at me again, his molten eyes hold centuries of accumulated rage and recognition. He drags me closer, and I’m helpless to resist. The mark burns between us.
His voice, when it comes, is barely controlled violence wrapped in silk.
"You woke me, little witch."
The endearment sounds more threating than greeting.
"Now you will burn with me."
Flames flare briefly in his eyes. Behind us, the crypt doors slam shut with a sound that reverberates through my bones, sealing us in darkness lit only by ember-light and the burning rune on my wrist.
Oh.
Fuck.