Rules For The Bled

Adeline swayed in Yvain's arms, her steps faltering. He caught her before she collapsed, lifting her effortlessly off her feet. Her weight felt lighter than it should have.

"She doesn't look good," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at Celeste.

Celeste moved in, pressing the back of her hand to Adeline's forehead. "She's burning up. Fever's climbing. We need to get her somewhere safe. Now."

"Already ahead of you," Mars called, nodding toward a squat, slate-colored building just ahead. "That place there—it's an inn. Or at least, it says so on the sign. Doesn't look like much, but nothing in this city does."

The inn was nestled between two crumbling mausoleum-like structures, its crooked sign swinging overhead, creaking with every gust of wind. The Handmaid's Respite, it read, in faded bone-white paint.

The group pushed through the throng of half-living denizens, shrouded figures and whispering ghouls, merchants with jars of embalming oil and bone-etched trinkets, until they reached the inn's entrance.

The double doors were already ajar, swaying inward like an open mouth. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of incense and something faintly metallic. The windows were shrouded with gauzy, yellowed curtains, filtering the dim daylight into a sickly glow. Strange portraits lined the walls, faces stretched too long, eyes too wide, painted in colors no artist should have used.

A man stood behind a crooked desk at the far end of the room. He was tall and thin, with paper-pale skin and a mouth that never quite smiled. His expression sat somewhere between boredom and disdain, as if perpetually unimpressed by the living.

"Welcome, visitors," he drawled, his voice dry and nasal. "How may I be of service to the newly arrived?"

Yvain adjusted Adeline in his arms. "We need rooms."

"How many?"

"Two," Celeste replied.

"Second floor. Rooms thirteen and fourteen are empty and freshly turned. I'll have a brazier sent up to keep the chill out. Payment up front. No conjuring, no necrotic rituals in the common areas, and no howling after midnight."

Celeste arched an eyebrow. "Howling?"

"House rule," the man said flatly. "Some guests get ideas."

Mars stepped forward and dropped a few silvers on the counter. "That cover it?"

The man swept the coins away with long, bony fingers. "It does. Enjoy your stay."

As they headed for the stairs, Yvain glanced over his shoulder at the portraits. One of them, an old woman with three glass eyes, seemed to be smiling just a little more than before.

Once they were inside the room, Yvain gently laid Adeline down on the bed, pulling the thin, patchy blanket over her. Her skin was clammy and her breaths shallow, but steady. He watched her for a moment, her pale face framed by tousled hair, then turned and quietly slipped out, leaving the door ajar behind him.

Celeste stayed behind, rolling up her sleeves. Her work was a quiet blend of precision and instinct. She drew a fine needle from her kit and worked delicate punctures along Adeline's limbs, thin threads of golden vitae drawn from her own reserves weaving their way beneath the skin. She whispered soft incantations under her breath, coaxing the girl's breath back into rhythm, easing the fever from her veins. It was draining work, but familiar.

After nearly an hour, Celeste stepped back into the hallway, where Yvain and Mars waited, leaning against opposite walls in the dim corridor. The gas lamps hissed above them, casting flickering shadows down the passageway.

"She'll be fine," Celeste said at last, as though displeased that she had saved other than deformed. "Overdrawn breath and seasickness took their toll, but it's nothing rest and time won't fix."

"That's good," Mars said with a soft exhale. "Would've been a bit poetic, dying in Necropolis. But not the kind of poetry I like."

"Nothing dies here," Yvain corrected, gaze distant. "Not really. You rise again. Wrong."

"Wrong how?" Mars asked, eyes narrowing.

"Incomplete. Twisted," Yvain said. "Whatever comes back isn't you, not all the way."

Celeste smiled. "Would've been a hell of a show."

Mars frowned. "Is that even true? I've heard the stories, sure, but… come on."

"It is," Yvain replied, tone low and certain. "Indra broke death in this city. Ever since, the dead don't rest here. Not properly. Die enough times, you end up in the Pilgrimage."

He nodded toward the grimy window at the end of the hall. Beyond it, in the haze of streetlamps and fog, a line of strange figures trudged down the avenue. Men and women in tattered robes, their movements mechanical, faces slack and tortured.

"What are they?" Mars asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"They were people," Yvain said. "Now, just remnants. Empty shells. They walk to the center of the city, to the Grand Tombs. No one knows what calls them, only that it never stops."

Mars shivered, visibly unnerved. "Alright. New topic."

Celeste folded her arms, looking squarely at her cousin. "We're here. In Necropolis. What's the actual plan?"

Yvain straightened. "The Pit."

Celeste blinked. "Come again?"

He nodded, calm and resolute. "The arena."

She let out a sharp laugh. "You're going to fight? In front of a crowd? Voluntarily?"

Yvain shrugged, leaning against the wall with arms crossed. "Power without experience is wasted. We've seen blood, sure, but not enough of it. The Pit teaches you fast. And if you make an impression, the city's higher powers take notice."

"You're not wrong," Celeste admitted, though her smirk lingered. "Still… never thought I'd hear you suggest the arena."

Mars eyed him warily. "You sure about this? Gladiator? That's a twist."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Celeste gave a short nod. "Alright. The Pit it is."

"One of us needs to stay and watch Adeline," Mars said, breaking the quiet tension between them.

"Not me," Celeste replied at once, brushing back her hair. "I don't do bedrest and sickrooms."

"I'll stay," Yvain offered without hesitation. "Just find a fixer and get us on the roster. Shouldn't be hard in a place like this."

Mars gave a short nod, and with a glance toward the closed door behind Yvain, he and Celeste slipped away into the rot and fog of Necropolis.

Yvain stepped back into the room. The light hadn't changed, it never did much in this city, but Adeline looked better. Her skin was no longer ghostly, and a faint warmth had returned to her cheeks. Her breathing had steadied, soft and slow. She was no longer caught in fevered sleep but had not yet stirred.

He pulled a rickety chair beside the window and sat down, the frame creaking beneath him. Outside, the moaning winds carried the muffled sounds of life and unlife, the shuffling of thralls, the distant chants of bone merchants, the occasional cry that might have been laughter, or pain. He barely heard it. His eyes stayed on Adeline.

He let his eyes drift shut. And there, sleep found him. Sleep, and the dark with it.

He stood in a place that was not a place, an endless void that trembled like breath on glass. There was no up or down, only coldness and a whispering pressure.

And then a voice. A voice he knew.

It spoke in a familiar tones, but different somehow. This was older, deeper, a version worn by time.

"I remember a time," the voice said, "when dread spears armed your ancestors… when the witch-kings of Babel sang in twelve tongues and called the void by name."

Yvain turned, but there was nothing behind him. Still, the voice pressed on.

"There was not a demon they could not invoke. No forbidden formulae too complex for their will. No wall high enough to protect their enemies. No host vast enough to stand before their wrath. Theirs was an age of unchained glory. The most opulent visitation of sorcery this world has ever known."

Images flashed: a city of impossible towers and bleeding suns, of rivers that ran with gold and black water, of beings too immense to bow, kneeling before a throne carved from starlight and bone.

"The Empire of Nephilims. The Many-Tongued City of Babel. The Seat Palatial. The Throne of Thrones."

"And you," the voice continued, with something like tenderness, "Yvain the Younger. Scion of Mordred the Twenty-Second. King of the World."

He tried to speak, but no sound left his lips.

"No man shall equal your power. No woman shall be worthy of your love. The most beautiful queens in creation will slit their own throats just to lie beside you. The proudest lords will grovel at your feet, weeping and cursing your name."

"Take advantage of these trials. Of this pain. Learn to savor blood. Learn the allure of vice and the utility of greed. Learn the necessity of treason and the potency of hate."

A shape formed in the dark. Tall. Crowned. Featureless save for two blazing eyes, one silver, one black.

"Until… you call for me. Beg for me. Curse me. But wait for me, my love."

The thing moved closer, its voice softening into something almost intimate.

"For soon… soon, we shall be reunited."