“There is little I treasure in this world… but one. And I promised her I would never again be so terrible to mortals.”
Through the shadows, he reached out. Tendrils of darkness wrapping around the prince’s arms and throat, lifting him from the ground. His boots scraped against the tree, body pinned, choking, gasping.
“But that does not apply to you.”
Eldrik writhed, clawing desperately at Rune’s unyielding grasp. Fighting so desperately for a life at its end. But this was too important to let his shadow-self finish alone. So he stepped through the dark, entering the forest. His grasp solidified around Eldrik’s neck, and his claws sank into flesh, blood trailing down his wrist like ink. The prince writhed like a desperate animal, twitching and gasping.
“Tell me,”Rune murmured, shadows writhing around them,“when you looked at me…what do you see?”
His glamor faded, unveiling what he truly was.
Eldrik’s eyes widened with pure, soul-deep terror.
He was already screaming when Rune began tearing him apart. His cries broke the stillness, splintered, and bloodcurdling.
Rune took his time enacting his vengeance.
And such a terrible thing it was.
He unmade the prince piece by piece.
Bone by bone.
His claws sank into flesh, peeling sinew from muscle and tendon with a predator’s patience. Eldrik’s begging screams weakened to gurgles, body spasming. The forest rattled and branches twisted. Wind howled and fled the clearing entirely. The air thickened, heavy with blood and the fury of the night.
Rune eventually saw nothing but red, hardly noticing the quiet and stillness of death. There was only motion now.
Purpose.
He carved open the chest, tearing through the heart. Then he reached in and withdrew the glowing tether of Eldrick’s soul.
It shimmered like trapped light, flickering, frayed. Rune lifted it in his claws and a tempest howled.
The earth heaved.
Somewhere far above, the stars dimmed as if looking away as he committed utter desecration.
Rune held the soul in his palm, watching it flicker with light. Stripped of sin and wickedness, a mere thread of creation. The purest and most sacred thing beneath the Heavens. The soul vibrated in his palm, warm as breath.
For an instant, Rune felt the sanctity of what he held.
And he crushed it.
The soul shattered like a scream. Echoing across planes. A final, eternal silence bleeding into the dirt.
It left behind no light. No ghost.
But avoidin the world.
That was his justice.
Even then, Rune wasn’t satisfied.
He wanted to destroymore. To break, to tear, to unmake. But no more of the prince remained.
Alora stirred faintly in his consciousness, her heartbeat pulsing in his chest. The tether to his sanity silently calling him back.
Rune returned to himself slowly, shadows coiling back under his skin like loyal beasts fed and sated. He turned from the carnage when the smell oddly sickened him. Or perhaps it was the dark stain of his malicious deed.
