(Jeanyx's Point of View)
I took a slow, steady breath, the air tasting colder than iron as the flood of Dmitry's memories washed through my mind. They clung to me like frostbite, unwanted but impossible to ignore. In that instant, the haze of uncertainty that had loomed over me for years was stripped away, leaving nothing but a blade of truth pressed against my throat. I saw it clearly now—who had ordered this, who had plotted every step of the path that led me to this chamber, this experiment, this cursed rebirth.
It was my father.
Of course, it was always him.
I don't know why I hadn't pieced it together sooner. Even after years estranged from the Romanov court, he still had ties woven deep into the underbelly of politics and the veins of the military. Power was his nature, control his addiction. And I… I had been nothing but a pawn he could sacrifice when the game demanded it.
The memories showed me how he had orchestrated everything. It had been my father who whispered into the right ears, manipulating the disciplinary board during my trial. By rights, I should have walked away with a reprimand, perhaps a demotion, nothing more. My record, my loyalty, and above all, the favor I held with my uncle—the Tsar himself—should have protected me. But protection is only as strong as the truth allowed to surface. My father made sure that truth never saw the light.
Through Dmitry's eyes, I saw the falsified reports, the carefully crafted lies that erased my victories and inflated my failures. Missions I had completed with precision were rewritten as disasters, my decisions twisted into betrayals. And when they dragged me before the board, my father's hand was already there, invisible yet absolute, guiding the outcome.
Dmitry had never even filed my arrest with my uncle's office. The Tsar, who might have defended me, never knew. The man who had once held me as his favored nephew, who might have demanded my release, was kept in the dark by reports designed to bury me. My father's betrayal was not born of rage or necessity—it was cold, methodical. He hadn't simply turned his back on me. He had carved me out of the family line with precision, like a surgeon cutting rot from flesh.
And now I understood why.
He had known from the beginning. Known what was in my blood. Known what I carried from my grandmother's bargain with the devil himself. To him, I was never a son. I was an experiment waiting to happen. A vessel. A weapon. And when the war demanded monsters, who better to feed to the fire than the son he had always despised?
My chest tightened, though not with grief. Grief had died in me long ago. What I felt now was something colder, heavier—like chains dipped in frost and wrapped around my ribs. Hatred, yes, but not the kind that burns hot. This hatred was glacial, deliberate, eternal.
I stared into the shadows of the lab, the weight of this truth pressing down until my hands trembled against the air itself. My father had set me on this path. He had condemned me not out of weakness, but out of calculation. He hadn't even given me the dignity of being destroyed by chance or mistake—he had chosen this for me. And Dmitry, loyal dog that he was, had obeyed.
I whispered into the silence, my voice dry as old parchment, "You sold me to the fire, Father… and now the fire has learned to walk."
The corridor before me was silent save for the sound of my own footsteps echoing across the stone. Each step I took carried with it a subtle vibration, the mold trailing behind me spreading across the walls like a creeping shadow. My gaze fixed on the heavily fortified door at the end of the hall—the last barrier separating me from the prison's main block, where hundreds of restless souls lay caged. A door meant to withstand riots, fires, and even artillery, bolted with layers of steel, reinforced with iron beams. To the designers, it had been built to be unbreakable. To me, it was nothing more than a test.
I lifted my hand slowly, palm facing the door. My fingers curled as I exhaled, the gesture deliberate, controlled. With the flex of my will, metal screamed. The entire door groaned, the bolts twisting and popping free as though the very atoms betrayed their duty. The steel began to fold inward on itself, compacting with the sound of bones crushed under stone. In seconds, the massive door crumpled down to the size of a ball no larger than my fist, molten seams hissing as I let it drop to the floor with a heavy clang.
The prison gasped awake.
I stepped through the empty frame, wings half-folded against my back, flames flickering faintly in the sockets of my skull. The air grew heavy, oppressive, the cold of my presence rolling down the hall like fog. Behind me, the mold continued to creep along the walls, consuming mortar and steel alike, leaving nothing untouched.
When I entered the main block, I was greeted by the cacophony of prisoners—men who had long since lost their humanity to desperation. They crowded against the bars, reaching through with grasping hands, voices rising in fevered chants.
"Let us out!"
"Free us!"
"Please—take us with you!"
The sound was deafening. The smell of sweat, blood, and old iron hung thick. For a moment, they sounded like a mob praying to a god they did not understand.
But when they saw the mold bloom across the barred doors—veins of black crawling, pulsing, spreading—they fell silent. Their voices died mid-scream, replaced by wide eyes filled with a fear deeper than chains could ever inspire.
I stopped at the center of the block. Slowly, deliberately, I lifted both arms. My skeletal fingers stretched, flames crackling faintly, and the mold responded instantly.
The walls split.
From the veins that crawled over the stone, the first molded emerged. Black, misshapen silhouettes tore free from the slime—limbs too long, heads hunched, jaws gaping with crooked teeth. Their bodies glistened with wet decay, steaming in the cold air. One by one, they peeled themselves from the walls, hissing like serpents dragged from the underworld.
The prisoners shrank back into their cells, all thoughts of freedom drowned by terror.
I lowered my hands, and with a voice that echoed across the block like a cathedral bell, I gave the order.
Two words.
"Eat them."
The molded surged forward like a tide unleashed.
Screams erupted, echoing down the stone corridors as flesh met claw and teeth. Cells that had been cages of despair became slaughterhouses. Steel bent and snapped as the creatures tore their way into cells, dragging men out by their ankles, their hands, their throats. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed across walls, staining the mold like fresh ink upon parchment.
Some tried to fight back—scraping with sharpened shivs, slamming fists against the monsters—but their resistance was as meaningless as waves against cliffs. The molded fed, and in feeding, they grew, their bodies swelling with strength, their voices harmonizing in a grotesque chorus of guttural growls.
I stood in the middle of it all.
Unmoving.
Unflinching.
Watching.
The chains rattled. The mold spread. And the prison, long a monument to order, collapsed into chaos at my command.
I walked slowly, unhurried, while the prison behind me drowned in its own screams. The molded did their work faithfully, tearing through steel, stone, and flesh with the devotion of hounds unleashed from chains. Gunfire rattled weakly, echoing down the hollow corridors, followed by the shrieks of men who thought themselves unbreakable until teeth sank into their throats. The chaos did not touch me. I did not need to look back, for I knew the outcome was inevitable. Red Lake was dying, and it was dying on its knees.
The air grew heavier as I made my way toward Dmitry's office. The mold slithered at my heels, spreading in rivers across the floor and walls, coating the stone in black veins that pulsed faintly as though alive. Each step I took was claimed by it, each surface rewritten under my will. By the time I reached the ornate steel door that marked the warden's sanctum, the entire corridor was already mine.
I raised a hand and touched the handle. The mold surged forward, crawling eagerly into the keyholes and seams. The lock mechanisms shrieked once before bursting outward in a shower of iron shrapnel. The door swung open on its hinges with a groan, and I stepped into Dmitry's lair.
It was a room bloated with arrogance. Fine rugs stolen from the East, bottles of French wine unopened on the shelves, an oak desk polished to a gleam. The office of a man who had hidden behind wealth and comfort while others fought and bled. I glanced once at the portraits on the wall—Dmitry shaking hands with men of influence, generals, aristocrats, and worse. All of them smiling, all of them blind.
But I wasn't here for his vanity.
I closed my eyes, reaching into the freshly stolen memories I had ripped from Dmitry before his end. The map of his mind unfolded before me. Hidden compartments, coded locks, the faint scrape of a drawer pulled one too many times—every detail now mine.
I moved to the desk, placed my hand flat upon the wood, and pushed. The mold seeped into its grain, searching, prying until a click answered me. A panel slid open, revealing a stack of documents bound with wax seals.
I leafed through them slowly, the paper crinkling in my blackened fingers. False reports. Fabricated accusations. Proof that my father had orchestrated every step of my fall. And at the very bottom—the file. The falsified arrest warrant that had consigned me to Red Lake. My uncle, the Tsar, had never seen the truth. Dmitry had never sent him the real reports.
Now, I held the truth in my hand.
Tucking the evidence away, I left the office. I did not spare it another glance. Soon it would join the rest of this place in the earth's stomach.
When I emerged into the open yard, the noise had already dwindled. The last shots had long since gone silent. The last screams had already withered into wet gurgles. The molded, having eaten their fill, now lingered against the walls, swaying gently, as though awaiting my next command. Their work was finished.
The prison was mine.
I stopped at the center of the courtyard, lifting my gaze to the hulking walls and towers of Red Lake. They loomed against the gray horizon, once symbols of unyielding control. Now they were nothing but husks, waiting to be erased.
I extended my arm. Slowly. Calmly.
The mold surged across the ground, a black tide racing toward the foundations. Then from the earth itself, massive tendrils erupted—towering columns of pulsating biomass, thick as tree trunks, dripping with rot and power. They snaked upward, curling around the towers, the walls, the blocks of stone and concrete. Their grip tightened, and the entire structure groaned.
The sound was deafening.
Brick split. Towers crumbled. Chains snapped as the tendrils dragged Red Lake downward, inch by inch, the prison resisting its death even as it was swallowed whole. The ground trembled beneath me, the courtyard tilting as though the very island itself was breaking apart. I felt the weight of centuries collapsing, felt the blood and sweat poured into this monument of cruelty being ground into dust.
And then I clenched my fist.
The tendrils obeyed, pulling harder, their roots burrowing deeper into the earth. With a final wrench, the entire structure of Red Lake—walls, cells, towers, corpses—was dragged screaming into the abyss below. A massive chasm opened, swallowing everything. Dust and stone billowed upward in a choking cloud as the prison disappeared into the depths.
Silence followed.
Only the yawning black pit remained.
But even that would not last.
I raised my hand again, fingers curling delicately as though conducting an orchestra. The tendrils shifted, weaving through the soil, dragging tons of dirt, stone, and ice back into the hole. The ground began to close, folding in on itself, burying Red Lake as though it had never existed. The towers were covered. The walls vanished. The yard was smoothed over with soil.
In minutes, the prison was gone.
All that remained was a barren field of stone and frost, silent and unmarked. The wind blew freely across it, carrying no sound of chains, no cries of prisoners.
The tendrils retreated, merging back into the earth, their black sheen fading into nothing. The ground pulsed once—like the final beat of a dying heart—then stilled.
I stood alone in the wasteland where Red Lake had been.
And I smiled.
(timeskip 2 months later)
The night air over Tsarskoye Selo was sharp, carrying with it the faint scent of frost and pine. I crouched in the tree line at the edge of the imperial estate, the branches above me blotting out most of the moonlight. From where I knelt, the Alexander Palace loomed like a jewel of stone and glass, glowing faintly beneath the stars. Its sweeping wings and marble colonnades were framed by carefully trimmed gardens and long driveways paved for carriages. Beauty, order, and wealth radiated from the walls—yet all I saw was a gilded cage for secrets.
The palace was not unguarded. Far from it. Lanterns burned at every approach, their halos of yellow light cutting into the darkness. Dozens of guards patrolled the walls and the courtyard, rifles on their shoulders, sabers hanging at their belts. They moved with stiff discipline, shadows of men who would die without ever questioning the orders that bound them. Every entrance glimmered with steel. My uncle still believed himself untouchable here, behind this sea of uniforms.
From the quiet corner of my mind, Nyxia's voice unfurled, velvet and mocking. "So… are we going to stand here staring at your uncle's fortress all night, or shall we get creative? I could make you one of them."
I blinked, lowering my gaze to the guards pacing below. "Disguise?" I whispered, my voice a rasp between the trees.
"Yes," she purred. "Do you think I only exist to gnash teeth and sprout claws? My kind can weave more subtle things. Fabric, armor, skin. Clothing is as much ours to shape as weapons are. If you wish to walk among them, let me show you."
I hesitated. "You can… change my clothes?"
In answer, the shadows around my body stirred. A ripple coursed down my arms and chest, and in the span of a breath, my cloak of mold and fire melted into something else. My boots reshaped, heels hardening into polished leather. My chest tightened beneath the embrace of a fitted double-breasted coat, dark green with brass buttons, the exact cut of the palace guard's uniform. A saber hung at my side, a rifle materialized across my back. Even the insignia was perfect—the Tsar's crest gleaming in gold on my collar.
For a long moment, I stared at myself, at the immaculate detail. I could have walked straight through the gates and no one would have raised a brow.
I slapped a hand against my forehead with a hollow sound, shaking my head. "I forgot you told me that already."
Nyxia laughed inside my skull, a throaty sound that danced between affection and mockery. "Oh, Jeanyx… you never listen, do you? My species—at least those of us worth remembering—are not just parasites. We are artists. We can become skin, or become silk. We can make you a monster, or we can make you a prince. Did you think I was going to let you march into your uncle's palace looking like a ghost wrapped in fire and feathers?"
I exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of the uniform settle on my shoulders. The mold beneath the fabric still pulsed, alive and loyal, but hidden now beneath the mask of order. A disguise crafted from my symbiote's will, as seamless as breathing.
From the walls of the Alexander Palace came the muffled sound of boots striking stone in rhythm. The guards continued their patrol, unaware that one among them was no longer quite human.
Nyxia whispered again, her voice wrapping itself around my thoughts like silk threads. "So… shall we pay the Tsar a visit?"
And with that, I stepped from the shadows and began my walk toward the palace gates.
The uniform fit me like skin. Nyxia had seen to that. Every stitch, every crease, every polished button gleamed as though I had walked straight out of the barracks that morning. Even the sabre at my side and the weight of the rifle across my back felt natural. From a distance, there was nothing to distinguish me from the other men pacing the courtyard—except that I moved with a silence they could never dream of.
The palace gates loomed closer with each step. Lanterns cast long arcs of light over the cobblestones, flickering against the frost that clung to iron. Guards patrolled in pairs, rifles balanced across their shoulders, their eyes dull with routine. To them, I was another shadow in the line, one more cog in the machine of Imperial vigilance. To me, they were obstacles.
Two guards crossed my path near the west wing, speaking in low tones. I slowed my pace, falling into step behind them. Their conversation was mundane—complaints of cold meals, poor boots, the endless monotony of standing watch. They didn't notice when my hand reached out, quick as a snake, clamping over the first man's mouth. A twist of my wrist and his helmet cracked against the stone wall with a muffled thud. Before the second could react, my elbow drove into his throat. He wheezed once, eyes bulging, before I hooked my arm around his neck and lowered him silently to the ground. Both men were unconscious in less than ten seconds.
Nyxia's voice purred through my thoughts. "Mmmm. Efficient. Brutal. Just the way I like you."
I dragged the bodies into a recess between two stone pillars, the shadows swallowing them whole. The mold oozed out from under my cuffs at a thought, creeping across their mouths and sealing them shut. No sound. No warning.
The courtyard opened into a grand promenade lined with marble steps. The palace itself stretched wide, glowing with candlelight from its arched windows. Music faintly drifted from inside—a string quartet, soft and elegant, masking the cold tension of the night. Nobility were within, feasting and drinking, unaware that death had already crossed their threshold.
I moved along the promenade, hugging the walls. Another patrol appeared—three this time, their rifles slung but their posture more alert. They passed beneath a balcony, laughing at some joke whispered between them. They never saw me drop down behind them.
My sabre flashed in the dark, the flat of the blade striking the first across the back of the skull. He crumpled forward like a puppet with its strings cut. The second spun, opening his mouth to shout—my fist silenced him, crashing into his jaw with the crunch of bone. The third reached for his rifle, but Nyxia surged down my arm, lengthening into a barbed tendril that whipped forward and struck his temple with the force of a hammer.
All three fell in a neat row, unconscious. I exhaled slowly, straightening my coat, adjusting the brass buttons as though nothing had happened.
"You're enjoying this," Nyxia teased, her tone velvet.
"Perhaps," I murmured. "But I enjoy the silence more."
Inside the palace, the music swelled. I approached a side door guarded by a lone sentry, his eyes heavy with fatigue. He barely registered me approaching in uniform before my hand clamped on his collar. A quick jerk, a sharp twist, and he slumped unconscious at my feet. I eased him down, brushing the snow from his coat so no trace remained.
The door yielded to my touch, Nyxia slipping into the lock like liquid, turning the mechanism with a soft click.
I entered the Alexander Palace.
The hallway beyond was a cathedral of marble and gold. Chandeliers hung like constellations overhead, their crystals scattering warm light across polished floors. The air smelled of wax and perfume, far removed from the rot and iron of Red Lake. My boots made no sound on the floor as I walked deeper, blending into the rhythms of the palace guard. Servants passed by with trays of silver and wine, nodding politely before continuing their duties. None questioned me.
When patrols appeared, I struck. Always quick. Always silent. A blade across the neck of a man who strayed too far from his post, dropping him quietly behind a curtain. A sap to the skull delivered with the butt of my rifle. A chokehold in the dark until a man's eyes rolled back. Every unconscious body I left was consumed by the mold that rippled out from my boots, swallowing them into the cracks of the palace itself. By dawn, there would be no trace they had ever existed.
With each step, I moved closer to the heart of the palace. Closer to the throne of decadence where my uncle sat, blind to the betrayals sewn into his bloodline. Closer to the answers that would finally tear away the veil of lies my father had woven.