Page 32 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
"Jork?" Patir called softly. "I brought your favourite bread today."
For a moment, the man's face softened. "Patir? Little cousin, is that you?" His voice was normal, almost relieved. "How is Aunt Mira? Is she still making those butter tarts you love so much?"
"She is," Patir said, and I could hear the desperate hope in his voice. "She made some yesterday. She sends her love."
"Tell her I miss her cooking," Jork said with a genuine smile. "Tell her I remember the stories she used to—" His expression went completely vacant mid-sentence. When he looked at us again, there was nothing human left in his eyes. "The blood speaks in languages older than words. Can you hear it singing? It wants to paint the walls red, wants to feed the hungry shadows that nest in my bones. Open the door, little cousin… I need your blood… give me your blood…"
Patir quietly set down the food and moved on without another word. I could see his hands shaking.
"He was my cousin," he said eventually. "Three years older than me. He taught me to fish, helped me with my letters when I was small. Some days he remembers me, remembers who he used to be. But you can't let yourself hope it means he's getting better. The madness always comes back stronger."
The corridor ahead seemed to stretch into absolute darkness, and from somewhere in that black void came a sound that made my blood freeze—a low, rhythmic pounding, like something massive striking stone. Other patients we had passed were now cowering in their cells, some weeping, others pressing themselves against the far walls as if trying to get as far as possible from whatever lay ahead.
"What's down there?" I whispered.Patir swallowed, trying not to follow my gaze. "That's... that's Sayven. One of the most powerful shadow mages who ever lived."
The pounding stopped abruptly, replaced by a voice that seemed to echo from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Freshmeat walks the corridors. Sweet, uncorrupted flesh that hasn't yet learned to scream properly."
I felt ice forming in my veins. The voice was cultured, articulate, but carried undertones that spoke of horrors beyond imagining.
"We should go," Patir said urgently. "We shouldn't have come this far."
But I found myself drawn forward, horrified fascination overriding common sense.
The darkness ahead seemed to pulse with its own malevolent life, and despite every instinct screaming at me to turn back, I took another step forward. The voice that had spoken carried an intelligence that was somehow worse than the mad ravings of the other patients—this was not madness born of confusion, but something deliberate and calculating.
"What did he do?" I asked Patir, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Please, my lady, we need to leave," Patir begged, tugging at my sleeve. "Sayven hasn't had visitors in months. The last person who got too close..." He shuddered. "We don't speak of what happened."
But I couldn't stop myself. Something about that cultured, terrifying voice called to me—not with attraction, but with the same morbid curiosity that had driven me to watch executions in the arena. I needed to understand what Taveth might become, what fate awaited the man whose darkness I was supposed to anchor.
The cell at the end of the corridor was different from the others. Where the previous chambers had simple wooden doors with barred windows, this one was sealed with what looked like solid stone, covered in symbols that seemed to writhe and shift when I wasn't looking directly at them. The only opening was a narrow slot at eye level, barely wide enough for a hand.
"Ah," came that honeyed voice from within. "She comes closer despite her keeper's warnings. How delicious. How wonderfully foolish."
I approached the viewing slot, ignoring Patir's strangled protests, and put my eye to the narrow opening. It took a few moments to adjust to the darkness inside, but I saw that the chamber was circular, carved from black stone, its walls covered in scratches and gouges that looked like they had been made by claws. In the centre sat a figure that might once have been human, chained to the floor with bonds that glowed with their own pale light.
Sayven had been beautiful once—I could see the ghost of it in his bone structure, the elegant line of his jaw. But whatever he had become was a mockery of that former self. His midnight skin was translucent, shot through with veins of silver that pulsed with their own light, and his white eyes glowed in the darkness like beacons as they swung around to fix on the door.
"Ah, the shadow prince's little pet has come to visit. How delicious. Tell me, sweet morsel, does he whisper pretty lies when he takes you? Does he promise he'll never become like us?"
I felt my skin crawl, but I forced myself to speak. "What are you?"
A laugh echoed from the depths, rich and warm and absolutely terrifying. "I am what your beloved will become, given time. I am the future written in shadow and madness. I was once the High Shadow, you know, before the current pretender took my place. Before I learned the truth about our precious magic."
"The truth?" The words left my lips before I could stop them.
"That it was never meant to protect us," the voice continued, and I could hear something shifting in the darkness ahead, something large. "It was meant to consume us. To feed on our souls until nothing remains but hollow shells dancing to its will."
I pressed closer to the slot, my heart hammering against my ribs. The chains rattled as he moved, and I caught a glimpse of something that made my stomach lurch. Where his hands should have been were writhing masses of shadow, constantly shifting and reaching toward the walls like living things.
"That's impossible. The shadow magic protects your people—"
"Does it?" Another laugh, darker this time. "The shadows aren't magic, little dove. They're parasites. Ancient, hungry things that found their way into our bloodline centuries ago and convinced us we were special, chosen. But we're just food. Cattle being fattened for slaughter.
How many of us die screaming in these cells? How many lose themselves to whispers that grow stronger with each passing year? The magic doesn't protect us from the Empire—it devours us from within while we fight their wars."
I pressed closer to the slot, unable to help myself despite the terror clawing at my chest. "If that's true, why hasn't anyone—"
