Page 61 of The Immortal Covenant

twenty-four

Malorg

In some ways Malorgfound he preferred the nothingness. Wrapped in its thick, cloying shroud, he could imagine himself trapped in a half-waking dream, no longer able to discern where his consciousness ceased and oblivion began.

Perhaps therewasno distinction. Perhaps the Void had consumed him long ago.

As he floated adrift and alone in a sea of empty black, memories from his time in the Immortal Realm unfurled before his eyes like duskflame tapestries.

Laughing and rolling dice with Uryqh and Pelorak as they discussed their aspirations for the future even as they gambled away their present.

His first kiss with Uryqh amid a battlefield of dissipating voidspawn corpses, both of them flush with triumph and eager to confront whatever lay ahead.

Another battlefield, this one charred with sour ash and choked by Uryqh’s screams.

Pelorak’s sneer when Malorg abandoned his former ambitions and resigned himself to a lifetime spent seeking atonement in the crucible of combat.

Those long centuries of loneliness, nothing but death and honed blades to keep him company as Uryqh’s once-familiar face fuzzed around the edges in his mind’s eye.

And then, like a ray of sunlight amid endless shadow, that chance encounter with Sarilian, his dancing eyes and warm touch searing Malorg back to life.

Though they constituted but a fraction of his too-long life, it was these more recent memories with Sarilian that Malorg clung to within the darkness and that he most feared losing to the Void.

Every smile, every pointed look, every subtle touch, every kiss, every caress, every moan—he cataloged them all, clutching them to himself like they were the most precious things in existence because, to him, they were.

Until we meet again.

That meetingwouldcome. It had to. The thought of that eventual reunion, whether here in the Immortal Realm or after in the Great Beyond, was the only thing that gave him hope.

Of course, it was notalwaysempty in his prison. Occasionally, the all-encompassing dark would shimmer and shift, a brush of noise and a puff of air reaching Malorg within the heart of oblivion, and though he still couldn’t see, he’d know he was no longer alone.

“Hello, old friend,” Pelorak’s sly voice would whisper. And then, the pain would come.

No matter how many times it burned through Malorg, devouring him until he was certain he must be dead, each fresh wave never lost its potency. He would scream, but no words emerged—writhe, but so far as he could tell, he didn’t move. There was only him, and the darkness, and the pain.

Eventually, the pain always receded, the insidious voice along with it.Until we meet again. There was no escape—no relief. This was to be his fate, forevermore.

So, when the darkness broke around him, retreating fully for the first time since his banishment here, he assumed it was a hallucination. He blinked eyes no longer used to seeing, squinting to force the wavering shapes before him into better focus.

“Malorg! Merciful Light, are you all right? Malorg, speak to me!”

The voice was…differentthan usual. Brighter. Instead of dread, it conjured memories of light and joy. He squeezed his overwhelmed eyes shut, willing this new disturbance away. Change meant only pain. Send him back to the eternal dark so he could be at peace.

“Malorg! Hey, stay with me, Mal. I’m here.”

He instinctively flinched at a pressure on the side of his face. Butthistouch didn’t herald fresh pain. It was soft and gentle and oh-so-warm. He found himself leaning forward, turning his head into the gesture.

I can feel my body moving.

The realization struck him with the force of a void god’s fist, and his eyes shot open. Everything remained blurred, but he focused on the shape just before him, the one still touching his face and murmuring tender words he couldn’t quite process.

“Can’t…see,” he mumbled.

The fuzzy shape shifted, and the soothing voice said, “Hang on.”

Heat radiated from the point of contact on his cheek. Malorg recoiled, an image of Uryqh’s melting flesh flashing before his eyes. Butthisfire didn’t burn him alive. Instead, it trickled over his skin like drops of rain, as soothing as the voice that hadconjured it. A thousand little aches he hadn’t realized he bore eased, his mind and vision both jolting into greater focus.

He had a vague impression of a tiny, barren room, its every surface utterly black, but he ignored his surroundings in favor of the revealed figure in front of him. When he saw it was Sarilian, his brow knit with worry, Malorg knew this had to be a dream. He tried to reach out anyway and found his arms and legs bound by chains of duskflame holding him suspended between floor and ceiling.

---