The Skathrith pulses above me in rhythmic waves, white light casting shadows through warped bark as each beat synchronizes with my own heart, the bond between us tightening with every step forward. Hunger surges through the bond, sharp and insistent, making my jaw clench as I force the need down and push back against the construct's ravenous pull.
Binah walks beside me without sound, her form solid and more real than memory. Her violet eyes stay fixed ahead with unwavering focus, that otherworldly calm steadying me even as it unnerves. A branch above splits into fractals, each segment folding into itself before stretching toward some point I cannot see. Another tree vanishes, leaving a void that hurts to look at.
Her presence remains constant and unchanged by the chaos, her silence anchoring me while I offer nothing in return.
We burst into a clearing.
A bone blade whistles through air where a Xal'rith pins the Stagger against twisted metal, all gleaming obsidian limbs and taut black skin stretched over dense muscle, ritual scars tracking across its torso in precise geometric patterns. The boy trembles, kiran raised, terror in every line of his body as the creature looms.
Three more Xal'rith flank the squad, moving in perfect coordination with yellow eyes gleaming with predatory intelligence. The lead creature's throat produces sharp clicks in rapid pattern, a command structure I should not recognize.
Flank. Encircle. Divide.
The meaning surfaces in my mind without translation, without thought. I know what they are planning before they move, tactical geometry appearing in my awareness like inherited memory I should not possess. How do I know that? The question dies as they execute exactly what I somehow predicted.
"Left flank. Now!" The command cuts sharp from Flint's position, his kiran blazing in the half-light with its crystalline head glowing. "Cover him!"
The squad surges as one practiced unit, Wren blurring between the Xal'rith with kiran-thrusts alternating with searing beams, Edge charging forward while shouting "Come on, freak! I am right here!", and Ash positioning his broad frame between the creatures and Stagger just as bone blades crack against his guard.
They hold formation, practiced and drilled, but the Xal'rith press from all sides with bone-blades clacking in relentless rhythm.
My body moves before thought completes, a Xal'rith raising four arms above Stagger as the Skathrith hums in response, silver light pouring along my arm until it becomes radiant. The world slows without my asking for it, without the second channeling, and I do not question it even as my heartbeat stutters into double-time.
I slash, but my body moves wrong, the motion incomplete in a way I cannot name. The creature's upper-left arm severs cleanly and falls, yet I feel phantom resistance in my other hand, the ghost of a second strike that my body knows should have landed simultaneously. My left arm hangs at my side, unused.
The Xal'rith stumbles as if struck from two angles. Impossible. The sensation fades as I blink, trying to clear my vision, but the wrongness lingers in my awareness like an itch I cannot scratch.
"Hold the line!" Flint's voice comes rough, his pale eyes flicking toward me.
Edge spits blood as he parries. "The demon joins our battle. How gracious."
Wren glances between thrusts. "Edge, less talking. More killing."
The Xal'rith I struck collapses, obsidian skin peeling as its flesh and essence draw upward in crimson threads, heat flooding the bond with the Skathrith's satisfaction as the construct drinks deep. But skin? Flesh peeling away in crimson threads... since when did it consume physical matter? The Armigers stare at the display, and I force myself not to follow their gaze.
"Focus." The word comes out harder than I mean it to.
They return to fighting stance, eyes darting my way with nervous, quick glances. Flint's kiran tears through the nearest Xal'rith, white-hot light leaving smoking flesh. "Wren! Flank right. Torch them!"
Wren pivots, his kiran's crystalline head blazing white-hot as a radiant beam bores through obsidian skin, and the Xal'rith shriek as dark blood bubbles and steams where light burns through taut flesh.
Edge hurls himself between snapping bone-blades and drives his kiran's crystalline head under a creature's jaw, dark blood spraying across his face bright against his pale skin.
"Watch the reach!" Ash yanks Stagger backward just as a scything bone weapon passes where the boy's head was, his short blade shattering its tip.
The clearing crackles with bone against metal, the Skathrith's pulse echoing in my ears in rhythm with my own heartbeat, and for once I allow the synchronization, surrendering to the construct's hunger instead of fighting it.
A leap lifts me from the ground, and when I drop my arm is radiance, slicing through obsidian limbs with clean, effortless cuts even as the hunger intensifies with every drop of blood, gnawing at my mind like teeth grinding bone until my skull throbs with the pressure of containing both my thoughts and the construct's ravenous need. I force it down. The silver glow dims.
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One Xal'rith slips past Flint's guard, obsidian blade swinging toward his exposed flank as his kiran drops a fraction, and refusal burns through me as the Skathrith flares, not to guide me but to sharpen the edge, carrying me across the clearing before Flint can finish drawing breath.
My strikes flow like water, upper attack angling toward the throat where the creature's central nerve cluster sits while lower sweep catches legs positioned exactly where four-limbed anatomy demands maximum instability. The geometry of Xal'rith combat flows through me like muscle memory I have never earned.
The creature's obsidian skin splits under my assault, flesh tearing and dissolving mid-scream while muscle and sinew spiral upward, dark blood turning to crimson light as ritual scars fragment and fade, leaving only bones and steaming offal behind.
White-hot pain pierces my mind, my knees threatening to buckle as burning glyphs scorch across my consciousness while I taste metal on my tongue:
Victorious.
Opponents: Xal'rith Abominations.
Conquered: Blood Claimed. Flesh Claimed.
Energy Assimilated: +6 Units.
The glyphs vanish but their imprint lingers, burned into my awareness like a brand. Flesh Claimed. That line is new, absent from every previous battle in the Labyrinth, appearing only now after the Skathrith consumed Castor's construct and became something more. The implication settles in my gut like swallowed ice.
I lower my hand and force my gaze from the remains as the Armigers pull back, creating distance, Edge staring at the wet bones with his kiran clutched white-knuckled, his lips moving around a single word I catch clearly despite the distance. "Demon."
"How did you..." Wren's voice cuts off as his quick eyes dart between me and the scattered Xal'rith corpses. "You moved like... you fought like..." He does not finish, but the unspoken accusation hangs in the air between us, thick enough to taste.
Flint's pale eyes narrow. "Like you knew what they would do before they did it."
"Combat instinct," I say, though my voice sounds hollow even to me.
"No." Edge spits blood. "That was not instinct. That was something else."
None of them can name it, but they all feel it, the wrongness hanging between us like smoke as Flint growls "Stay in formation!", his command carrying wariness beneath the order.
I do not reply, my gaze locked on scattered trees and the Skathrith's receding glow, sated but not for long, the hunger already returning to coil through the bond and make my fingers twitch with anticipation.
Enough! I hiss inwardly.
Harsh breathing fills the clearing, the only sound except for metallic trees groaning softly around us as they shift.
"Wait." Wren's voice cuts through the quiet, sharp and uncertain. "Where did they go?"
I follow his gaze across the clearing floor and find it clean, scrubbed of evidence as though the battle never happened. No bones, no viscera, no steaming remains of the Xal'rith I tore apart moments ago. The space where corpses should lie stretches empty and unmarred, metal gleaming dully under fractured light. I still feel their blood drying on my hands, still hear the wet sound of tearing flesh echoing in my ears, but the clearing offers no proof that any of it was real.
Edge steps forward, his boot scraping against metal where a corpse should be. "They were just here. I saw them. We all saw them."
"Formation." Flint's command steadies his squad, but his pale eyes scan the clearing with growing unease that mirrors the cold weight settling in my chest. "Weapons ready."
They spread out, searching methodically and finding nothing, every sweep of the clearing yielding the same impossible result.
Ash kneels where the largest Xal'rith fell, his broad hand pressing against smooth metal that shows no trace of impact or struggle. "No blood. No fragments. Nothing."
Stagger's voice trembles. "Did they dissolve? Like the trees?"
"No." Wren's quick eyes dart between shadows, seeking patterns in the wrongness. "The trees burned away. These just... vanished."
The squad turns slowly in place, weapons raised and ready, searching for an enemy they cannot name while the metallic forest groans softly around us, indifferent to our confusion.
I see her standing where the largest corpse lay, directly beside where Ash kneels searching for traces that no longer exist. Her form is more fully manifested than I have ever seen it, the translucence that marked her appearance after the healing now vanished as completely as the Xal'rith remains. Her skin gleams pale and perfect under the fractured light, her white hair flowing like silk instead of smoke, her violet eyes meeting mine across the clearing with steady, unwavering satisfaction.
She looks at me as if watching a seed finally begin to sprout after seasons of patient waiting. The expression on her face holds no surprise, only the quiet contentment of someone witnessing an expected outcome. She tilts her head in that small, familiar gesture, but something in the angle feels different now, weighted with knowledge she has been waiting for me to discover, and my breath hitches in my throat as understanding begins to creep through my awareness like frost spreading across glass.
Ash's hand passes through the space where her foot should rest, encountering nothing, perceiving nothing, his fingers searching empty air while she remains perfectly still and utterly solid to my eyes alone. She does not move or acknowledge him, only watches me with those violet eyes that hold too much knowledge and too much patience, as though she has always known this moment would come.
The Armigers find nothing, their confusion building into fear that sharpens their movements and raises their voices. "This place." Edge's voice carries an edge of panic beneath his sneer. "Something is wrong with this place."
Her lips curve in an expression that is not quite a smile. My stomach turns over slowly, bile rising in my throat as the implications arrange themselves in my mind with terrible clarity. If she consumed what remained...
"Flint! The forest shifts again. We have to go!" Wren's call from the tree line breaks the moment.
"Optimate." Flint's voice pulls my attention back from Binah's silent vigil. His pale eyes study me with guarded wariness. "We are moving out. You coming with us?"
I nod, unable to find words for what I witnessed, for what I am too afraid to understand.
Ash places a hand on Stagger's shoulder. "You good? Let us move."
They fall into formation with practiced ease despite their lingering fear, Flint leading, Wren watching flanks, Edge taking point despite his injuries, and Ash supporting Stagger's limping gait. Five pieces functioning as a single weapon, their unity a stark contrast to my isolation as my eyes roam the empty clearing where every scrap of evidence has been erased, consumed.
I turn from the void where corpses should be and join the Armigers, while Binah moves beside me in silence, solid and patient.
Together we press deeper into the shifting forest, the Skathrith pulsing once overhead as we move onward, each of us haunted by different hungers, none of us speaking of what might happen if any of these hungers are ever fully unleashed.
Book One of Shattered Empire is complete on Patreon.
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Nightbreak (Patreon-exclusive)
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Ablations (ongoing)