Jin Mu-ryong's consciousness returned in fragments.
First, the cold—iron shackles biting into his wrists, the damp stone floor leaching warmth from his bones.
Second, the smells—smoke, medicinal herbs, and the sharp tang of fear.
Third, the voices, hushed and wary:
"The mark… it's like the legends…"
"A spy. Has to be."
"Look at his eyes. They're not human anymore."
Jin forced his eyes open. Torchlight flickered across a cavernous chamber, its walls carved with faded murals of winged beings battling serpentine monsters. Faces stared back—some human, others with faintly iridescent skin, elongated ears, or eyes that glowed like banked coals. All wore ragged clothes and harder expressions.
A woman stepped forward, her voice cutting through the murmurs. "Quiet."
She was tall, her hair a cascade of silver-streaked black, her face sharp as a blade. A scar ran from her temple to her jaw, pulling her lips into a permanent half-sneer. Her eyes, one amber, one milky white, locked onto Jin's.
"I am Kaela," she said. "You're in Veilspire's Maw, the last refuge of those the Ascendancy brands 'unclean.'" She crouched, her leather armor creaking. "Now. Who are you?"
Jin tugged at his chains. "Let me go."
Kaela smirked. "Not until you answer. The tower's shadow is no place for wanderers—especially ones marked by Vorath."
Jin froze. "You know this… thing?" He glanced at the pulsing sigil on his chest.
A murmur swept through the crowd. A child—pale, with moth-like wings folded against her back—whispered, "Vorath's chosen…"
Kaela silenced her with a look. "Vorath is a curse. A relic of the Old Gods' war. So I ask again: Who are you?"
Jin hesitated. His memories were fragments—the Emperor's sneer, Elder Xue's betrayal, the brand's hunger—but his name? His past? Gone.
"I don't know," he said.
Kaela's scar twitched. "Liar."
"He's not."
An elderly man shuffled forward, his hands trembling as he lifted a lantern. His eyes were entirely white, his skin etched with glowing runes. "The mark eats memories. Can't you see it, Kaela? His mind is… hollowed."
Kaela's gaze narrowed. "Then he's useless."
"No," the old man said. "He's dangerous. Vorath doesn't choose weak vessels."
They dragged Jin to a larger chamber, its ceiling strung with roots and rusted chains. The villagers—Veilspire's Remnant—gathered on stone benches, their whispers a storm of suspicion.
Kaela took her seat atop a dais of broken pillars. "Speak, then. What do we do with him?"
A man with ram's horns and cracked tusks stood. "Kill him. The Ascendancy's hounds will smell Vorath on him."
"And if Vorath's power could shield us?" countered a woman with vines woven into her hair. "The legends say its bearers can unravel wards."
"Legends also say Vorath devours its hosts," snapped the horned man. "He's a walking corpse."
Jin's head throbbed. Voices overlapped:
"—saw him crawl from the Black Tower—"
"—marked like the Witch-King's army—"
"—burn him before the hounds come—"
"ENOUGH." Kaela's voice silenced the room. She turned to Jin. "You claim ignorance. Prove it. What do you remember?"
Fragments surged:
The Emperor's laughter as Jin's sect burned.
Scourge's dagger piercing his shadow-arm.
The girl in the woods, her void-eyes haunting.
"Enemies," Jin said. "I remember enemies."
Kaela leaned forward. "And where are they now?"
"Everywhere."
Days passed. Jin remained shackled, but the villagers' wariness thawed:
The winged child brought him brackish water, her curiosity outweighing fear.
The old man, Garrel, studied Vorath's sigils, muttering about "old magic."
The horned man, Droth, glared but stopped demanding execution.
On the third night, Kaela approached, a key in hand. "Vorath's mark saved you," she said, unlocking his chains. "Garrel says it's… stabilizing you. For now."
Jin rubbed his wrists. "Why trust me?"
"I don't." She tossed him a ragged cloak. "But the Ascendancy's hounds are near. We need every weapon—even cursed ones."
Veilspire's Maw was a labyrinth of tunnels and crumbling shrines, its people scavengers and refugees. Jin learned their stories in fragments:
Kaela, former captain of the Ascendancy's guard, branded "unclean" for refusing to slaughter dissenters.
Garrel, a scholar who deciphered forbidden texts, his eyes burned for heresy.
The winged child, Lira, born with "defective" magic, abandoned at the tower's base.
"We're relics," Kaela said bitterly. "The Ascendancy purges imperfection. You're just another flaw to erase."
In the archives—a room stacked with moldering scrolls—Garrel traced Vorath's sigil on Jin's chest. "It's a prison," he rasped. "Vorath isn't power. It's a ward—meant to contain something older."
"Contain what?"
Garrel's milky eyes narrowed. "The Devourer. A god sealed in the Black Tower millennia ago. The Ascendancy's ancestors used marks like yours to siphon its power… until it broke free."
Jin's head pulsed. A memory flickered—the leviathan's voice: "Free me."
"The girl in the woods," Jin said. "She called me 'brother.'"
Garrel paled. "The Devourer takes many forms. If it's whispering to you…"
Footsteps echoed. Kaela burst in, her sword bloodied. "Hounds. Two miles out. We move."
As the villagers gathered supplies, Kaela cornered Jin. "Can you fight?"
"Yes."
"Can you kill?"
Vorath pulsed, its whisper eager. "Yes."
"Then you'll guard our rear," Kaela said. "But betray us, and I'll carve Vorath from your corpse myself."
As the Remnant fled into the tunnels, Jin lingered at the rear. The hounds' howls echoed closer, their torches staining the dark red.
"They're here," Vorath purred. "Let me feast."
Jin's claws unsheathed, but a figure stepped from the shadows—Scourge, her armor cracked but eyes blazing.
"Hello, Jin Mu-ryong," she smiled. "Miss me?"
Behind her, the Ascendancy's hounds emerged, their leader's blade glowing with anti-magic runes.
"Vorath dies tonight."
The air thickened with the stench of iron and rot as Scourge stepped forward, her cracked armor glinting like serrated teeth in the torchlight. Behind her, the Ascendancy's hounds fanned out—soldiers clad in obsidian plate, their faces hidden behind snarling wolf visors. Anti-magic runes pulsed along their blades, casting jagged shadows that writhed like living things.
Jim's claws trembled. Vorath's sigil burned hotter, its whispers clawing at his mind. "Let me in. Let me end them."
Scourge tilted her head, her smile sharp as a scalpel. "Still clinging to that curse, Muryong? How poetic—the Emperor's hound, reduced to a rabid stray."
Jim lunged.
Scourge parried his first strike with a laugh, her blade screeching against his talons. The impact sent shocks up Jim's arms, Vorath's power flaring in retaliation. Shadows coiled around his limbs, thickening into tendrils that lashed at her throat. She pivoted, her own blade glowing as runes flared to life—the shadows disintegrated inches from her skin.
"Still relying on parlor tricks?" She spun, her follow-up strike aimed at his ribs. Jim twisted, but not fast enough. The blade grazed his side, and agony erupted—not from the cut, but from the runes' searing backlash. Vorath's mark recoiled, its pulse stuttering.
The hounds surged forward, their movements unnervingly synchronized. One swung a spiked chain, its hooks tearing into Jim's thigh. He roared, tearing the chain free in a spray of blood, and slammed the attacker into the tunnel wall. Bones crunched. Another hound thrust a spear, its tip crackling with violet energy. Jim caught the shaft, but the runes scorched his palms, flesh sizzling.
"Fools," Vorath hissed. "They think their trinkets can cage me. Show them."
Jim's vision blurred. The sigil on his chest split open—a jagged, toothless maw—and shadows erupted like black flames.
The nearest hound screamed as the shadows engulfed him. His armor melted, flesh sloughing off bone in wet ribbons. The others faltered, their formation breaking as Vorath's power writhed across the chamber. Stone walls bubbled and cracked, bleeding a viscous black sludge.
Scourge staggered back, her smirk finally fading. "You're killing yourself, Muryong! That thing will eat you alive!"
Jim didn't care. The pain was distant now, drowned by Vorath's euphoric whispers. He tore through the hounds, their anti-magic blades shattering against his claws. One soldier swung wildly; Jim caught his wrist and pulled. The man's arm came free at the socket, tendons snapping like harp strings.
But Vorath's hunger grew. The shadows began to twist him too. His left hand warped, fingers elongating into barbed talons. His ribs cracked and reformed, jutting through his skin like serrated armor.
"More," Vorath urged. "More."
A crossbow bolt whistled past Jim's ear, embedding itself in a hound's throat. Kaela stood atop a crumbling arch, reloading. "Muryong! Fall back—now!"
He barely heard her. The shadows were singing, intoxicating. Scourge lunged at him again, her blade aimed for his heart. Jim batted it aside, but she pivoted, slamming a dagger into his mutated shoulder. The runes flared, and Vorath's power recoiled—a split-second weakness.
Scourge seized his throat, her grip iron. "You're coming back to the Tower. The Emperor wants to watch Vorath rip you apart."
Behind her, the remaining hounds regrouped, their leader chanting. The ground trembled as a glyph ignited beneath Jim's feet—a binding circle.
"Pathetic," Vorath snarled. "Crush them. Crush them all."
Jim hesitated. The glyph's light seared his skin, but deeper still, a memory surfaced—Lira's wide eyes as she offered him water, Garrel's trembling hands tracing the sigil. Humanity.
Kaela's voice cut through the haze. "Muryong! The tunnel—collapse it!"
He understood.
With a guttural roar, Jim drove his talons into the glyph. Vorath's shadows exploded outward, shredding the binding circle. The tunnel ceiling shuddered, stalactites plunging like spears. Hounds were impaled mid-scream; Scourge barely dodged, her armor gouged by falling debris.
"Retreat!" she barked, but Jim was already moving. He seized a hound's fallen axe and hurled it. The blade spun end over end, burying itself in her thigh. She collapsed, snarling curses as her soldiers dragged her back.
The survivors fled, their torches fading into the dark.
Silence fell, broken only by Jim's ragged breaths. The shadows retreated, leaving his body a patchwork of wounds and grotesque mutations. Kaela dropped beside him, her sword still drawn.
"You're a fool," she hissed, but there was no venom in it.
Garrel and Lira emerged from the shadows, the old man's runes flickering as he assessed Jim's injuries. "The mark… it's repairing him. But the cost—"
"Cost?" Vorath's voice dripped with mockery. "Look what I've given you. Strength. Victory. Embrace it."
Jim stared at his clawed hands. The talons retracted slowly, leaving raw, bleeding flesh. "What… am I becoming?"
Garrel's milky eyes held pity. "A vessel. And vessels break."
That night, as the Remnant tended to their wounded, Jim slipped away to the archives. Vorath's whispers followed, sweet and venomous.
"You felt it—the power. Let me in fully. No more pain. No more fear."
Jim traced the sigil on his chest. It throbbed, warm and alive. "What do you want?"
"Freedom. The Devourer's prison is weakening. Together, we can shatter it. Become more than a pawn."
Memories flickered—Scourge's blade, the Emperor's laughter, Lira's terrified whimpers. He saw the future: the Remnant slaughtered, Kaela's defiant sneer extinguished, Garrel's knowledge lost to ash.
Vorath pressed, relentless. "You cannot protect them as you are. But with me… you could burn the Ascendancy itself."
Jim closed his eyes. In the dark, he saw the girl from the woods—her void-eyes pleading, her voice echoing. "Brother. Free me."
"No more half-measures," he muttered.
The sigil flared, tendrils of shadow weaving around his heart. "Yes."
When Kaela found him at dawn, his eyes were twin voids, the mark now a twisted crown of thorns across his chest.
"What did you do?" she whispered, blade half-drawn.
Jim turned, his voice a harmony of man and monstrosity. "What I must."
As the first light of dawn seeped through the cracks in the cavern ceiling, Jim stood at the mouth of the tunnel, his shadow stretching unnaturally long behind him. The remnants of the battle lay scattered—broken blades, scorched earth, the lingering stench of blood and burnt magic. Kaela watched him from a distance, her grip tight on her sword, distrust warring with something darker in her gaze.
Then, a whisper slithered through the air—not Vorath's voice, but another.
"Jim Muryong."
His head snapped up. At the edge of the forest beyond the Maw, half-hidden in the mist, stood the girl from his fractured memories. Her void-black eyes locked onto his, her lips curving into a smile too knowing, too old for her child's face.
"They're coming," she murmured, her voice carrying on the wind like a funeral dirge. "The ones who buried us. The ones who fear what we become."
Behind her, the trees trembled. Not from wind. Not from beasts.
From marching feet.
Jim's claws unsheathed with a wet, metallic click.
Vorath laughed in the depths of his mind.
"Let us greet them properly."