Hope

For a few moments, Alira just stood there smugly, the magical lantern illuminating her expression. Irwyn thought that she would say something, however, she did not. He tried not to speak either as the shadow fixed him with a bored glare. Except that glare was becoming sharper and sharper. And in those eyes Irwyn saw death, creeping closer every second. There was only so long he could face that before speaking.

“Why did you bother with bringing me here?” he asked and the pressure abated. Alira’s grin, however, only deepened with apparent self-satisfaction.

“You have to pay for your crimes,” she proclaimed. The sick smile both disturbed and disgusted him; because he was powerless. “As does everyone else who ever was in your company.”

“Is it not the will of her Ladyship Avys for children to not be harmed?” Irwyn tried. He did not have much ground to stand on, but perhaps a higher authority had the slightest chance of holding. He did not hope for much but for just a split second, her eyes widened with what he knew was her expression of fear. Even if it was for just that short moment he was sure it had been there.

“You do not understand the Duchess,” she spat, not even grinning anymore, just seething. “Exceptions can be made as long as no one finds out. Which no one living will. And I will make you pay for what you did. Not just for what you did to me but because now I know for certain: You were the one who murdered Frederick,” then she calmed down, a sick smile upon her lips.

“So high and mighty you think everything and everyone is below you. That we should just grovel and die when you ask us to,” Irwyn scoffed, remembering the man who was called Rage; or Frederick von Blackmaw. Irwyn held no sympathy for someone who would have had only scorn for him. It was not like letting his temper run would make the situation any worse. “You believe yourself so untouchable you would break an oath sworn before an Aspect’s name. I might be ignorant in the ways of the mage houses but not for a second do I believe that such pacts can be broken with no consequence.”

“Who do you even think you are?” Alira was all mocking laughter again; though just as malicious as before. She reached under her collar and pulled out what Irwyn could only describe as a black yet glimmering amulet. He did not need his senses to know it was magical. “Fate and Oaths can be subverted for a price. All it takes is to just transfer the cost to something else. Yes, your obnoxious insistent on the Voidmother’s Name does make that more difficult but hardly ‘impossible’. You overestimate yourself if you think any oath made to a nobody like you has the weight needed to be unbreakable, no matter what other tricks you try.”

Irwyn looked at the talisman again as she rubbed it in. It seemed… too easy. Too convenient of a way to escape from sworn words unharmed. But perhaps that was to be expected. House Blackburg had led the Duchy of Black for centuries and they have had every opportunity to accumulate knowledge and resources. For all Irwyn knew, that talisman could be worth more in raw materials than the entirety of Ebon Respite. Still, it made him bitter and angry. The Aspects may be dead but Irwyn still considered himself someone who followed their teachings. And so was supposedly house Blackburg.

“House Blackburg proclaims itself the extension of Umbra’s Void upon our realm,” Irwyn practically spat. The unfairness of it all was eating him up, not to mention Alira’s arrogance. “Yet you so easily scorn what was sworn on her Name. I do not know the means by which you avoided your obligations but I refuse to believe it would be so easy. You may kill me or torture me for your own satisfaction but one day, and I say this with all my conviction, there will be consequences. Because of what you are. An oathbreaker.”

“Hah, he is absolutely delusional, shadow,” Alira just laughed at him while the shadow did not have the slightest change in expression; nor did he move. She, on the other hand, mocked him viciously as she laughed and laughed and laughed. Irwyn averted his eyes, angry and humiliated.

Then Alira suddenly stopped.

Irwyn looked again and saw even the shadow’s eyes widen in surprise; Irwyn and Alira were the same. For the amulet had a large crack running across it. And from that crack arose utter blackness, far deeper and darker than a mundane colour could ever achieve. Then, from that one scar, the amulet splintered to pieces. For a moment there was silence. The next instant her screams began.

Irwyn watched with both gratification and horror as Alira fell to her knees and screamed her lungs out. At first, her head was facing the ground. But when suddenly snapped up and looked straight at him, he realised something that made his skin crawl:

The book of the Name, in the full edition, specified that the ‘eyes of nothing for a fool who saw even less’ were originally conceived for necromancers who refused to abandon their magic after the First Betrayal. Alira herself had administered this ritualistic mutilation to her victims all across Ebon Respite. What he had assumed was that such a thing was always meant and only possible post mortem.

Before him writhed proof of the opposite.

Her eyes blackened and expanded, practically popping out of their sockets as black tears ran down her cheeks; the very same tears which eroded and burned her skin and then mixed into her bloodstream. Ebony veins popped up across her once pretty face and then seemingly tried to force their way out Alira's flesh. All the while she screamed without a pause to breathe.

Irwyn had at most two seconds to watch with morbid fascination until the shadow interfered. A wisp of something Irwyn could barely see left his palm and buried itself into Alira’s neck. The screaming cut off as she collapsed, losing consciousness. That did not stop the veins contorting beneath her skin, as Irwyn clearly saw while the shadow picked Alira up.

The man looked at Irwyn for a second, his face back to emotionless, he raised his hand and Irwyn’s heart clenched. Is this how I die? But instead, it was that same black wisp from just before. Apparently, he had chosen to not kill him; yet at least.

Before the spell hit him, Irwyn saw the shadow force open a hole into nothingness, perhaps the Void itself, and vanish with a single step. Carrying Alira with him.

Then Irwyn was hit and immediately lost consciousness.

His headache was better when he awoke. The smell much, much worse. It was not just human waste. Irwyn realised it was now mainly the same stench he had been feeling across the city for the past few days. Which was strange because he had thought that was something he could only smell because of his ability to sense magic; which was currently sealed off by his chains.

Just in case, he tried again but any magic he managed to gather was immediately sucked into the fetters which heated a tiny bit, almost unnoticeably.

“How long was I asleep?” Irwyn asked.

“You still alive?” a familiar voice spoke from the side. Irwyn knew that he was the one from the Stars but realised he had already forgotten his name. Something starting with D.

“Yes, for now. Not like I am not completely… fucked,” he allowed himself a curse.

“I thought they killed you… Didn’t know the tears had a caster.”

“That was kind of the point. If no one suspects it, no one would look for one.”

“Can’t you magic us out of this place?”

“Unfortunately, these chains eat up any magic I try to cast.”

“Well, ain’t we both fucked.”

“Was there not another person earlier? D… D…”

“Donovan. Yeah, they dragged him away before. I wanna say a few hours ago, not long after all the screaming with you, but for all I know, it could have been days. Or less than an hour. Been here for a while now, fucks with my head.”

“I think that is the point,” Irwyn grimaced. The cold, smell and desolate darkness were not getting to him yet but he understood it was probably just a matter of time.

Suddenly, loud rattling sounded right in front of Irwyn, probably from the corridor directly opposite to his own. He looked up but didn’t see anything.

“Are you alright?” Irwyn asked, the man seemed half-dead when they dragged him here. Instead of an answer, the chains shuddered even more frantically and Irwyn felt like the stench got worse. However, there was no voice. Perhaps the person on the other side was awake but could not speak.

It was at that time that the distant rattling started from the entrance. Irwyn copied them as he had last time as did the Star, letting people further in know that someone was coming.

“You probably already understand, but don’t make eye contact. Don’t let them hear you so much as gulp,” the man from the Stars advised, either for Irwyn or the newly awoken man. Maybe both. Irwyn stopped moving when enough time had passed but the man opposite to him did not.

“Calm down,” Irwyn loud whispered but it had the exact opposite effect: whoever was opposite to him got only more frantic. Biting his lip, Irwyn shut up. He did not need more attention on himself than he already had. He was not about to stick out his neck for someone he did not even know.

It took a while before the torchlight grew near, then it stopped right before Irwyn’s corridor. He saw the silhouette of the man across him for a moment, visibly struggling with his bindings, but then the torchlight diverted as the guards apparently entered the corridor right before Irwyn's. He could hear the rustling of chains being returned to someone as well as muted groans of pain. It was a few minutes, unless Irwyn’s sense of time was already off, before they were done locking the bindings again.

The guards were probably about to leave when a loud tear followed by harried grunting sounded from opposite of Irwyn. And they noticed. A figure walked into Irwyn’s line of sight, carrying an oversized baton; it looked almost more like a proper club. The guard did not hold the torch so he just blindly walked into the corridor opposite of Irwyn and swung. Audible thuds sounded from the blows as the guard flailed without restraint. But there were no cries of pain nor indication of stopping, just more thuds and rustling of chains. Actually, the rustling was much quieter than earlier.

It took the guard until he needed to take a breath that he realised something was wrong. “Light,” he called out with a bit of a wheeze. He turned around and there was another tear. The guard turned just in time to see the jaws lunging for his neck. Not that it gave him the time to react. With a horrifying crunch, the maw bit out the guard's throat. The man clearly tried to yell out but that was difficult without a windpipe so instead, he died with a silent scream on his facade.

Then the apparition was no longer in the shadows and Irwyn could see it in its full terror. It had been bound by both its wrists as Irwyn had seen before. And he realised that the earlier rattling was it struggling hard to break free of those exact bindings. Of course, a mortal body could not quite break solid steel no matter how it struggled. It could, however, break itself. Because where steel was unrelenting, flesh and bone gave way. The creature, its maw bloody, had torn its arms off in the escape. And it was no longer human, that much was obvious. The aggression and the mortal wound, which no one living could possibly inflict upon themselves nor survive, were already enough. But if there was any doubt it was the eyes that made it beyond apparent to Irwyn: They were completely white, as if hollowed out of everything except the sclera. And when Irwyn made eye contact for the slightest moment they burned with relentless and eternal hate. An appetite for destruction beyond sating.

‘You may have felled me but enough it shall be not,’ Irwyn remembered reading those words in the Book of the Name. Spoken by the champion of the Betrayer at the very end of the Great Crusade. When the first lich was slain and even his Name was forbidden and forsaken. ‘We each have sworn, engraved it upon the father’s gift. To never forget. To never forgive. From the frailest to the greatest we shall never stop. Never waver. Until all is dust.’

In those eyes, Irwyn saw those words reflected. The eternal grudge of the undead.

Then the zombie, if that even was what it was, silently ran after the guard who had been trying to flee with the torch while screaming.

After the initial shock faded, Irwyn realised that he needed to get out, immediately. With an undead running around it was only a matter of time until his turn came and deprived of his magic he would be helpless. Not to mention there could be more.

He did not understand his bindings, therefore the only option he had was to try and overwhelm the enchantment. With desperation he began gathering as much magic as he could, the chains quickly devouring it. But he grasped for more and more. And for each bit, the chains grew ever so slightly hotter. In less than a minute they were hot enough to burn skin in an instant. Too scorching for anyone to touch or hold onto. So fiery that they began to glow red.

But Irwyn did not burn.

As he poured more and more magic into his fetters the metal gradually began to contort, unable to withstand the ever-increasing temperature. It was a testament to the enchantment’s craftsmanship that this was not enough to even disrupt its magic. It was only when the metal melted, when it dripped down Irwyn’s skin and sizzled on the ground below, did the restriction finally break.

Irwyn took a steadying breath as his magic returned to him. He summoned his light and strode into the corridor. Not far away was the second guard, next to a torch that was slowly burning out on the ground. The man was still bleeding from the neck.

Then Irwyn, to his horror, tried to sense magic. There was some in the remnants of his chains, he could feel much in the distances, especially directly overhead. That much he had expected of course. What disturbed him so was that he could not sense the undead in any way. And to judge by the sudden silence and complete stillness?

It had certainly sensed him.