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 freshbut 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 unravelingthe 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,drenchedin 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, hertouch 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?"
Her challenge hit close, stirring anger that mixed with the fatigue, making me speak more than I planned. I stood slowly, testing my balance, the room spinning briefly before steadying. "You think I haven't tried? The bond isn't something you snap like a chain. It's in my blood, my veins. Destroying Virelya would destroy me. And exile... I came from a world apart from this one. Velrith. A realm where power flows through bloodlines andrelics like the blade. I was part of that, once. House Seraxen. Not a lord in name, but close enough. Betrayal sent me here, bound to Virelya as punishment, my powers diminished, forced to survive in this mortal decay. The blade was my sentence, to hunger and erode until nothing of me remains."
She rose to her feet now, matching my stance, though she kept distance between us, her expression a storm of skepticism and fascination. "Velrith? Another world? You're serious? Like, parallel dimensions or something? Magic. God, it sounds insane, but after what I saw... your eyes going black, the veins... But why me? You followed me, tried to kill me. If this is your curse, what's my part in it?"
The questions kept coming, relentless, her voice rising with frustration, and I felt my own irritation peak, words spilling out in response. "Your part? I don't know fully. Virelya pulled me to you, not for feeding but something else. When I tried to kill you, it rebelled, screamed in my mind, severed the hunger for a time. Your presence quiets it, muffles the whispers. That's why I brought you here. To understand. You're an anomaly, tied to this somehow. Maybe blood from my world, distant, unaware. The dreams I questioned you about, the sensations—they are signs of suppressed magic.”
She paced a short step, shaking her head, the shard glinting in the lantern light. "I've had weird feelings my whole life, dreams that don't make sense, but I thought it was just... my imagination. Stress. Not some connection to another world. And if I'm quieting your blade, what happened last night? How many? What did you do out there?"
Her accusation stung, drawing a growl from my throat, exhaustion fraying my restraint. "Too many. An encampment by the river. Dozens. The blackout took over, worse than before because I left your proximity. Foolish. It rampaged, fed beyond need. I woke in the aftermath, the hunger still there, twisted.You're the only thing that steadies it now. Letting you go risks more of that."
She stopped pacing, facing me fully, her eyes searching mine with an intensity that made the air thicken. "So I'm your… stabilizer? You're from some other…realm, cursed with a sword that makes you a killer? But you were someone before this, right? House Sexting, or whatever. What happened? Who betrayed you? If you're not always this... monster, prove it. Tell me something real."
The demand pushed too far, irritation boiling into anger that made me step closer, towering over her, though she did not back down. "Real? You want real? I was a guardian in HouseSeraxen, part of a lineage that wielded power you can't imagine. Betrayal stripped it all. Someone I trusted, schemes I didn't see. They bound me to Virelya and cast me out, to this world where magic fades, where I scrape by in shadows, feeding the blade to survive. Years of it, blackouts eroding me piece by piece. I'm not the monster you think, but the curse makes me one. And you... you disrupt it. That's real enough."
She held my gaze, something shifting in her expression, not softening but deepening, a flicker of understanding amid the anger. "Years. That's a long time to be alone with that. I… I get it, sort of. The fear I saw in your eyes last night, that wasn't fake. You're trapped too, aren't you? But that doesn't make this right. Keeping me here, using me like some drug to keep your head clear. If I'm from your world somehow, distant blood or whatever, does that mean I have power too? The door, the shimmer—I saw it, felt it push me back. Is that magic? Could I learn to break it?"
Her words carried a new edge, not just demand but curiosity, probing the cracks in my revelations, and I felt the dynamic between us alter, no longer pure opposition but something more tangled, intimate in its tension. Exhaustion made me answermore openly than I would have otherwise. "Perhaps. The wards are basic, drawn from Velrith's arts, holding you because you don't know how to counter them. If there's heritage in you, it might awaken. But it's dangerous. Untrained power draws attention, from this world and mine."
She laughed again, bitter but with a trace of something warmer, almost wry. "Attention? Like from the people who exiled you? Great. So I'm a potential target now too. This just keeps getting better. But... thanks for finally talking. Doesn't mean I trust you, or that I'm okay with this cage. But I see you're not all monster. Scared, maybe. Like me."
The admission hung there, her eyes meeting mine with a directness that pierced the fatigue, stirring an unwelcome recognition. She saw the fractures in me, the vulnerability the curse exposed, and in naming it, she bridged something, turning our shared space from prison to a precarious alliance, tense and unstable. I nodded once, the gesture small but significant, acknowledging the shift without words. Trust was distant, the blade's hum a constant reminder of danger, but the walls had cracked, revealing us both as trapped in ways neither had chosen.
14
MORGAN
Ipaced the length of the warehouse room for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, the concrete floor cold under my socks even through the thin layer of dust that never seemed to settle completely. The space had started to feel less like a prison and more like a grim habit over the past week, which annoyed me more than I cared to admit. The cot in the corner, with its lumpy mattress and threadbare blanket, had become my reluctant bed. The cracked mirror propped against the wall reflected a version of myself I barely recognized, paler than usual, with shadows under my eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights listening to the distant hum of the city outside. And those wards on the door, the faint carvings that shimmered like heat rising off pavement on a hot day, they still held me back every time I got too close, a invisible wall that pushed with just enough force to remind me I wasn't going anywhere without his say-so.
Xavian had left about an hour ago, muttering something about food before slipping out into the rain-soaked streets. His absences always carried this undercurrent of tension, a mix of relief at having the room to myself and a nagging worry that he'dcome back in one of those states, eyes black and veins throbbing, like that night after the massacre. But things had shifted since then. We talked more now, not just the clipped interrogations from before, but actual conversations, even if they were laced with my sarcasm and his guarded grunts. He wasn't looming over me every second, wasn't snapping threats as often. Still an asshole, still keeping me locked in here like some twisted pet project, but he'd brought me clothes a few days back, simple stuff like jeans and a couple of shirts from who knows where, after mine had gotten ruined with all that blood. He hadn't made a big deal of it, just tossed them on the cot with a curt "These should fit," and I'd changed without a word, grateful that I didn't have to sit around in stained rags anymore. It didn't make him any less controlling, but it was something.
