A Vow of Vengeance and Silk

The nothingness lasted both an eternity and no time at all. Seraphine's consciousness floated in the void, untethered from her body, from time, from the laws of physics that once bound her. She had no mouth to scream, no lungs to breathe, yet she existed in this limbo with perfect, terrible clarity. Then, Light. Sound. Agony. She crashed back into her body with the force of a falling star, every nerve ending screaming as her flesh remembered how to be flesh. Her hands scrabbled against cold stone as she rolled onto her side, vomiting black bile that sizzled where it hit the ground. "Kaelan?" Her voice came out a broken rasp. No answer. Blinking through tears of pain, Seraphine pushed herself up onto shaking arms. The world around her was...wrong. The sky was a fractured mirror, reflecting countless variations of the same ruined city. Buildings stood at impossible angles, some melting into the ground like candles, others floating upside-down in the air. The very air smelled burnt, charged with magic gone rancid. A groan to her left. Rook lay sprawled across a pile of rubble, his bow shattered but still clutched in his hands. Beyond him "Kaelan!" 

He was on his knees, head bowed, his entire body trembling. As Seraphine stumbled toward him, she saw why. The bone crown fragments embedded in his scars were growing, extending jagged tendrils across his face like living cracks in porcelain. His eyes, when he lifted his head, were no longer human, one glowed the familiar gold, the other pulsed with the same abyssal black as the Devourer. "Stay back," he gasped, the words distorted as if spoken through water. "It's...fighting me. For control." The ground between them rippled like liquid. Seraphine barely had time to leap back before a fissure opened, vomiting forth a tide of skeletal hands that grasped at the air. From the depths rose a figure she recognized, Lyrith, or what remained of her. The queen's body had fused with the crown, her torso emerging from a mass of writhing bone spurs. Her face was half dissolved, revealing the grinning skull beneath. When she spoke, her voice came from everywhere at once. "Look what you've done, children. You've broken the world." The skeletal hands grasping at the fissure's edges began pulling something else upward, a pulsing, fleshy mass that resolved into a vaguely humanoid shape as it emerged. Seraphine's breath caught as she recognized Brick's features forming in the quivering meat, his mouth stretching open in a silent scream. "Brick?" Rook whispered, horror-struck. The thing that had been Brick turned its head with a wet, tearing sound. Its eyes were pits of darkness, but when it spoke, it was undeniably his voice. "Rook? Gods, help me, I can feel everything! The roots, they're inside my…" Its words cut off as Lyrith's bone spurs suddenly impaled it from behind, lifting the screaming mass into the air like a grotesque puppet. Kaelan let out a roar of anguish and lunged, but his movements were uncoordinated, his body fighting against itself. The black veins in his arms pulsed violently, sometimes receding, sometimes spreading further. He made it three steps before collapsing to his knees again, a strangled cry escaping his lips. Seraphine moved without thinking. Her shadow blade formed instinctively, slicing through the bone spurs holding Brick's remains. The fleshy mass hit the ground with a sickening splat, immediately beginning to reform itself. Lyrith laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "You can't kill what's already part of the crown, dear child. Just as you can't save him." She gestured to Kaelan, whose struggles were growing weaker. "The first heir was always meant to be the vessel. My poor, sweet son, born for this purpose." Memories that weren't hers flooded Seraphine's mind, a younger Lyrith, pregnant and screaming as priests carved the first fragments of crown into her belly; a newborn Kaelan wailing as his skin knit itself around the embedded shards; decades of careful planning, of grooming the perfect vessel. "No," Seraphine whispered. 

Lyrith's grin widened. "Oh yes. And now you'll watch as he becomes what he was always meant to be." The sky shattered further, great chunks of reality shearing away to reveal the swirling void beneath. From every fissure, more horrors emerged, twisted versions of people they'd known, places they'd been, all corrupted by the Devourer's touch. Rook nocked one of his last arrows, his hands steady despite the terror in his eyes. "We need to…" A sound like the world inhaling cut him off. The floating debris, the screaming horrors, even Lyrith herself, everything froze as the temperature plummeted. The Devourer stepped through a tear in reality. 

It had shrunk itself to human proportions, but no less terrible for it. Its form constantly shifted, one moment a beautiful youth, the next a wizened crone, then something entirely alien. It regarded them with polite interest, like a scientist observing insects. 

"Fascinating," it said, its voice perfectly modulated. "Even now, you fight. Why?" 

Seraphine spat at its feet. "Because we're not your playthings." The Devourer tilted its head. "Aren't you?" It gestured around them. "This is my dream now. My rules. My..." It paused, as if searching for the right word. "Story." Kaelan made a choked sound. When Seraphine turned, her heart stopped, the crown's growth had accelerated, now covering half his face in jagged bone. His golden eye met hers, brimming with desperate love and sorrow. The Devourer followed her gaze. "Ah. The vessel nears completion." It smiled pleasantly. "Shall we Seraphine's shadow blade flared to life as she launched herself at the Devourer. "I'll kill you!" It sidestepped effortlessly, catching her wrist with impossible speed. "No," it corrected gently. "You'll try." With a casual flick of its wrist, it sent her flying into a floating chunk of rubble. Rook's arrows found their mark, three shafts buried in the Devourer's chest. It looked down curiously. "Did that make you feel better?" It plucked one out, examining the tip. "Admirable craftsmanship." Kaelan's scream tore through the air as the bone crown completed its growth, encasing his entire head in a grotesque helm. For one terrible moment, he stood perfectly still. Then…The helm cracked open like an egg, revealing... Kaelan. But not. His face was his own, but his eyes, both now, glowed with that same abyssal black. When he spoke, his voice was layered with something ancient. "Seraphine." She pushed herself up, her body screaming in protest. "Kaelan, fight it!" He…it…smiled sadly. "I'm sorry." Lyrith let out a triumphant cry. "At last!" She reached for him. "My son…" Kaelan moved faster than sight. One moment he stood before Seraphine, the next his hand was buried in Lyrith's chest. "Not your son," he said calmly. "Not anymore." Lyrith's eyes widened as the bone crown encasing her began to dissolve, flowing into Kaelan's body. "No! This isn't, you can't, " "I can," Kaelan said. And pulled. Lyrith came apart like a sandcastle in the tide, her essence absorbed into Kaelan's growing power. The Devourer applauded politely. "Excellent! The vessel is ready." It turned to Seraphine. "Now comes the choice, little queen. Join him, or die fighting me." It spread its hands. "Either way, I win." Kaelan's voice whispered in her mind, cutting through the Devourer's words: "The crown...it's a cage. But cages can hold two."

Understanding dawned. Seraphine met Kaelan's eyes, both the man she loved and the thing he was becoming, and made her choice. She ran toward him, her shadow blade reforming into something new, something more. The Devourer's laughter followed her. "YES! EMBRACE IT!" Kaelan opened his arms. Seraphine plunged the blade into his chest, and let go. The world exploded in light and pain as the shadow inside her flowed into Kaelan, merging with the crown's power. The Devourer's triumphant smile faltered as the ground beneath it began to glow with intricate golden runes. "What is this?" it demanded. Kaelan's voice, now strong and clear, answered: "A new story." The runes flared blindingly bright. The Devourer screamed. And then.

Nothing.