Some are just lucky that way.
And some, like Erebus, can harvest it. Strip it from the dying and claim it as their own, adding stolen Bloodfire to their inferno. It’s the ultimate violation, not just taking a life, but consuming the very essence that made that life real.
And somewhere in the chaos, in the screaming darkness of the village massacre, my Bloodfire roars in answer.
Moros stalks through the village center, and everywhere he looks, people see their deaths. They stumble away from visions only they can witness—throats being torn out, bodies being drained, futures ending in blood and darkness. Some collapse from the terror before we even touch them. Moments later, their visions become reality as my coven comes through to take their lives.
And Khaos the First, the eldest, he doesn’t move at all. He stands in the center of the carnage, and reality bends around him. The air thickens, the ground cracks, and mortals who get too close age decades in seconds, their skin withering, their bones turning brittle, when he drains them.
This is what we are.
This is what we’ve always been.
Predators.
Grinning through the chaos, I savor the destruction I’ve wrought, the taste of death still warm on my tongue, before moving to the next. A woman clutching a child. Her wide eyes are full of tears as she begs in some language I do not know.
They always beg.
But I have no mercy.
It’s who I am.
I lunge forward, grabbing her by the hair. The child breaks free, and the woman screams as she dangles. The child runs, and something in me, something that recalls being newly made, remembers the taste of first darkness, and that something wants the chase. Needs it. I toss the woman to the side, her body cracking with the force of my throw as I turn for the hunt. I let the boy get twenty paces before I move.
One stride. Two. Three.
The boy never makes it to four.
Time loses meaning when you hunt like this. Could be minutes. Could be hours. All I know is the red haze, the warm blood coating my throat, and the screams that eventually fade into silence. My Bloodfire burns so hot I feel it in my veins, glowing beneath my skin like molten lava.
When the hunger finally recedes, when I’ve had my fill and more, I stand in the center of the village to survey the site.
There are bodies everywhere.
There is blood soaking into dirt that will never grow crops again.
The smell of iron and death is so thick I could drown in it.
Nyx appears beside me, shadows still writhing around her, living pets that never stray far. Blood stains her lips, satisfaction deep-seated in her eyes. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to. We’ve done this dance a thousand times.
She watches me hunt.
I leave her the final scraps.
A perfect system.
The rest of the Coven regroups.
Thanatos wipes his blade clean on a dead woman’s dress. Erebus looks bored, mass slaughter is just another Moon’s Eve. Moros studies the corpses, an artist admiring his work. Khaos remains motionless and completely indifferent to the death surrounding him.
“They’ll tell stories about us,” Nyx croons, her voice carrying an edge of dark amusement. “They’ll say a murder of crows descended and wiped out an entire village in one night.”
I look at the carnage.
At what we’ve created.
At the evil we’ve spread.
