"Zerin?"
Silence.
"Zerin?" The voice repeated.
"...Yeah?" His voice rasped.
A sigh cut through the dark–it was her.
He turned. A smirk cracked his lips, brittle as frost on stone.
Rising from the huddle of warmth-starved captives–mice clinging together battling the cold. Murmuring soft reassurances to those flinching from the crimson eyes floating in the dark, she left them. Her boots whispered across the frigid stone.
"Ecludia?" The name finally tore free, choked, waiting until she stood mere inches away, the rusted iron bars the only barrier.
"I knew you'd come…" Her fingers, bone-white with cold, slipped between the bars and found his right hand, cradling it.
Minutes stretched. He drowned himself in her eyes, searching, grasping for… something. He hardly knew her, yet his thoughts stumbled, slipped... into freefall.
"Sorry," she breathed, a laugh escaping as her grip tightened, desperate for his warmth. "It's just… so cold."
"No... It's fine." It was his fault. Wasn't it? If he hadn't left the Howler guarding her... if he hadn't blindly accepted... she wouldn't be here. Suffering. He'd been too late then.
Not again.
"So, you did worry…" Her whisper was soft, knowing. Fingers brushed his knuckles, reading his trembling hand.
He tensed to pull away, instinct screaming, but the numbing cold leaching from her skin into his held him frozen.
"I thought you were dead."
Would a corpse have been easier? He didn't know what to do, where he even was. But who wanted that uncertainty from their rescuer? It was a luxury he couldn't afford.
"I need to get you out of here." The promise burned like embers spat into the frigid air.
Instead of relief, Ecludia snatched her hands back through the bars. "No."
No?
Zerin stared, the refusal a physical blow, refusing to make sense.
"I can't leave them," she pleaded. "You saved us when we—"
CRASH!
His fist slammed against the cell door. The metal bars screamed down the corridor, jolting the huddled captives. Even to him, his reaction was sudden, unexpected, nothing but an outburst, but it was rooted in something real.
Enough. Pointless. He hadn't come for them. His three-day promise became two, now he found himself tangled in other people's disasters, dragged into lives he was never meant to be a part of.
Save Dex? Or keep paying this twisted charity? Why them? Why was he expected to pull them out? Where was that expectation when he needed it? Not in the First Nightmare. Not ever.
His crimson gaze drifted past her, locking onto a figure in the huddle–a young woman whose features froze the blood in his veins.
"Is that..."
Ecludia didn't turn; the darkness made it futile. Her eyes stayed fixed on his before she nodded. "Yes... she's pregnant. Most of them are. She had no choice, Zerin—so you have to save them too."
The strong fight for the weak... Except he wasn't strong enough. Not this strong. The capable fight... and sometimes die for the trouble.
He sighed, shaking his head. Idiot. A Divine Aspect. Ever since The Spell infected him, responsibilities piled up faster than his own power like a crushing avalanche.
Finally, a reluctant sigh. Surrender. "Okay," he said, the calm surface barely hiding the churning depths.
No choice. How bad could one more promise be? Outwardly still; inwardly, his guts twisted into knots. He stepped back from the bars.
"Where are you going?" Her boots scraped stone.
"It heard me earlier. That crash? It'll come." He forced steel into his voice. "I'll... figure something out. A way to get you out."
"Get us out, Zerin." Gentle, insistent correction.
"Yeah. That..." Zerin paused.
***
Zerin hauled the dead weight across the stone, not slowly from effort, but with deliberate intention. Each smear was a message written in gore, a message so horrifyingly clear even a Tyrant would flinch.
He needed this.
Luring the elder wouldn't be hard. It had come before, drawn by the mere thud of him hitting a wall. It had no idea what was waiting for it.
His focus narrowed to the scrape of flesh on rock, each pull tightening his resolve. Now. He would end this. Without any mercy.
The dragging echoed ahead of him, reaching the captives before he did. Boots shuffled nervously behind the bars as he appeared, but no hands reached out. Only Ecludia stepped close, her gaze hooking on the twin red embers burning in the dark.
"Zerin, you need to go—it's coming!"
"I know..." His voice was flat, devoid of haste. He didn't look at her. A cold knot tightened in his chest–less than a week, and she'd crumbled into this state, over people who didn't matter.
He pulled the limp Kaldrmenn by its arm. Its blood painted a wet, azure trail, seeping into the stone floor. In this suffocating dark, only his Aspect let him see the vivid blue. And the elder... yes. The elder would see it too. It would follow.
He pulled the corpse into the cell beside theirs and propped the Kaldrmenn upright against the far wall.
"So, how does this work again?" Zerin muttered, glancing down at the corpse. He summoned it–the [Cursed Seed of The Goddess].
Upon summoning the memory, his crimson eyes widened at the seed's true appearance. Normally it looked spent or dead. Its surface was a deep, near-black brown, dull and useless. Yet even in the waking world, he'd noticed more. Under ordinary light it seemed completely matte, but with closer inspection, one could find that thin undertones of revealed themselves: faint slivers of red tucked deep inside the grooves, barely visible until the light struck them at the right angle.
But here and now, with his Aspect active, he saw the seed for what it truly was. Alive.
Intriguing as it was, he had no time to linger on such a thing. The sound of the Elder was already echoing down the corridor. Knowing it was coming, he gripped the seed and jammed it hard against the creature's chest.
"Come on..." he growled, shoving it again.
Then, as if answering his prayers, the Spell spoke:
[Insufficient amount of Blood Shards... Crystalize blood in Soul Sea?]
'Crystalize all blood? Wouldn't that...' His brow furrowed. "Yes."
[Blood Crystalizing...]
He felt it–a sudden pull, deep within. The reservoir of blood in his Soul Sea churned, coalescing. The seed trembled, then lifted, hovering like an ominously over the corpse.
[Crystallization complete... One shard formed. Insufficient amount... Extract blood to complete Veinborne?]
"You've got to be kidding me." Zerin whipped his head around. Footsteps. That unnerving, crude musical chime... "Yes!" he snapped, accepting the Spell's request.
Darkness closed in on him as his Aspect died. He crashed onto hands and knees, gasping, the world tilting violently. A ragged groan tore from his throat.
"Too much," he gasped with a withering exhale.
From his Soul Sea, the newly formed shard emerged, then shattered. Luminous red dust exploded outwards, swirling in the blackness like a constellation. Their faint, red glow illuminated the dark cell–just enough for him to see.
He scrambled backwards on trembling limbs, pressing himself into the farthest, darkest corner.
[Veinborne Complete.]