Valek stood by the frost-rimed window, gazing at the moon hanging aloof beyond a drifting veil of pale clouds. Far below the mountain's feet, rain lashed the world in sheets of silver. But here, at this impossible altitude, the sky was too cold and too thin for such a mundane phenomenon.
His pale eyes — those spectral orbs unlike any other creature who still dared call itself alive — wandered across the endless expanse of snowcapped ridges. The peaks resembled tombstones jutting out from a white world that had already buried everything worth remembering. His thoughts drifted far beyond them, wandering somewhere between mourning and memory.
Here he was again. In the world of the waking. In the world he had come to loathe.
Many mortals imagined death as oblivion, a darkness where nothing stirred. But to Valek, oblivion sounded like a blessing — a mercy. For awareness was agony. Consciousness was punishment. Existence, without what he had once grasped and lost, had become a wound that never closed.
Once he was human.
Once he had a family.
He failed. All of it — all of them — were gone.
His lips parted, and a soft, weary sigh escaped, fogging the window.
"I do not even get to dream."
The words left him barely above a whisper, as if spoken more to the indifferent moon than to the chamber around him.
Dreams were for souls. He possessed none. Dreams were for men. He no longer was one.
"My master… please refrain from gazing at the moon. We do not know what its effects might have on you."
Liam's voice drifted from behind him — hesitant and strained, forced into the reverent quiet of the chamber. He had been standing silently in the shadows for some time, trying his hardest to remain unseen, unheard and unintrusive.
Valek's reconstitution — his return from the edge of absolute dissolution — was a miracle of corrupted alchemy and occultic machinations.
A miracle, or an abomination. Even now no one fully understood what state he occupied. He appeared normal, or close enough to fool the untrained eye. But the unknown coiled within him like hibernating serpents.
"Fret not, William," Valek murmured, turning his head just enough for the moonlight to slide over his sharp features. "As you can see, I'm still in my own skin."
A small, ghostly curl touched the corner of his mouth — amusement, thin and cold, but sincere enough. Liam bowed, though his worry did not lift from his eyes.
Valek turned back to the world beyond the glass, his expression sinking once more into melancholy.
At least his loyal ones still breathed. And more waited for him beyond this cursed place. Once they departed, this mountain would become nothing more than a memory he wished desperately to excise.
Celia. His heirs. All of them had died here — seeking a remedy for his affliction, believing there must be salvation tucked somewhere within mortal invention. If she had listened to Vijaya… if she had listened to the council… if she had remained in their realm rather than following him into this cold refuge…
They might have lived.
Regret was a heavy creature, and it perched upon his shoulders now, talons sunk in deep.
He lifted his gaze once more to the indifferent moon.
crakk
A faint crack broke the stillness.
Valek's breath caught.
"Argh—"
A wet, meaty crunch blossomed inside him, like bone slipping from its socket. He jerked back from the window, hand gripping the sill with unnatural force. His head snapped toward Liam.
Liam's eyes widened, the panic instant, sharp, and unmasked.
"My lord— please— please rest in your seat while I retrieve the elixir!"
He did not wait for permission. His body darkened, fragmented, dissolved into a violent swarm of chittering bats that hurled themselves out of the chamber with frantic urgency.
Valek watched his retreat, vision beginning to dim. His pupils swallowed the pale irises whole, turning his eyes into two pools of liquid darkness. A guttural, animal noise growled from deep within his chest.
He staggered to the large, ornate chair by the fireplace. He collapsed into it with a grunt.
"No…"
The word crawled out of him, ragged, desperate.
He raised his hands.
And froze.
His fingers were lengthening. The bones pushed forward unnaturally beneath the skin, stretching tendons tight like violin strings. The knuckles bulged, split, reformed, each joint spasming violently.
A tremor shook his entire frame.
His breath hitched into a pained, gnashing snarl.
Then—
CRUNCH.
CRUNCH.
The sounds multiplied — bone grinding, bone snapping, bone remaking itself.
A low groan tore from his throat as he clutched his elbows, his nails digging into his own flesh. Skin tore. Dark blood welled between his fingers, dripping onto the cold stone. His shoulders twisted, rolling forward and upward as if pulled by hooks from inside. The tendons beneath his collarbones writhed, distending into rope-like cords.
He gasped sharply, chest convulsing. His ribs warped beneath the skin, some collapsing inward while others jutted outward like the beginnings of a cage trying to break free. The flesh struggled to contain it all, rippling like something alive beneath the surface.
He slammed back into the chair, arching violently as a series of deep cracks burst through the room like muffled thunder.
He tried to breathe, but the air cut him like knives. His lungs felt too small, too fragile for whatever was swelling within.
Muscles spasmed, tightening and bulging, contorting with unnatural violence. Fibers tore and reknit themselves in grotesque rhythms. His neck thickened, then twisted sharply, each vertebra popping. He grabbed at his throat, dragging deep furrows with his nails as if trying to keep something inside.
A strangled moan escaped him, dissolving quickly into a feral, broken growl.
His skin rippled again — then split.
Thin, jagged tears opened along his arms, shoulders, and sides, releasing trails of steaming blood that dripped down his torso in viscous strings. He clawed at himself instinctively, fingers raking desperate, erratic paths across his chest as though trying to peel away the agony.
His spine buckled forward. Then snapped backward. Then contorted sideways in a sickening, fluid motion that no human form could ever survive. With each shift, another wave of bone erupted beneath the flesh, pushing, stretching, reshaping.
His jaw trembled, then violently dislocated with a wet crack. Blood slicked down his chin as he clamped both hands around his face — palms pressed to his cheeks, nails digging into his own flesh — trying to hold himself together as his teeth shifted beneath his gums.
He shook violently, choking on his own breath. The chamber echoed with every broken sound — every crunch, every wet tear, every muffled primal groan.
The firelight cast monstrous shadows across the walls as his form continued to distort, fragment, rebuild — piece by tortured piece.
His fingers curled, tendons snapping, bones elongating beneath the shredded skin.
His shoulders split open further, blood soaking the ornate chair beneath him.
hphhhhh....hphhhhh hphhhhh~~~~~
His breath erupted in steaming bursts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the same time,
a swarm of bats tore through the corridors like a shadow, a streak of blackness twisting between pillars, vaults, and half-collapsed archways that had endured centuries of cold silence. Their screeches and wingbeats echoed through the stone labyrinth, disturbed dust spiraling in their wake.
They moved with purpose — frantic, urgent and terrified.
The swarm poured through shattered doorways, drifted past ruined tapestries, and then slipped into a chamber hidden deep within the monastery's bones — a makeshift laboratory.
The room had hardly changed since the centuries when it was first put to use. The air was still sharp with the memory of alchemical smoke and dried blood. The bed stood in its usual place.
Only the modern machines—slender metal constructs with flickering lights and trembling wires—betrayed the age they now lived in. They hummed softly.
The swarm shuddered, and then shapes burst upward from it like limbs from black water. Liam's form materialized piece by piece—bones knitting, skin reforming, boots touching down onto the cold floor. His breathing was harsh, his eyes wild.
But he did not waste a single heartbeat.
He crossed the lab in two strides, snatching an exquisitely crafted box from atop the bed. Its surface shimmered with ancient etchings that glowed faintly beneath torchlight.
Clutching it tightly, Liam dissolved again, his body fragmenting into a storm of batlike shapes that screeched and surged toward the doorway.
He moved faster now. Desperation sharpened him.
Somewhere above—
CRASH.
The sound blasted through the corridors like a cannon shot.
Liam surged forward, wings beating harder, the swarm twisting into a violent spiral as they raced upward through the halls. Cold winds slithered through the monastery's corridors, carrying with them the scent of blood and broken stone.
He reached the chamber.
And froze.
The room was devastated.
What had once been a grand chamber befitting a voivode now lay in ruin. The rug — a heavy, centuries-old weave — was shredded into ribbons, deep claw marks gouged into the floorboards beneath it. The walls were torn open, great arcs carved out as though something with immense strength had dragged its limbs along every surface.
Furrows, fractures, collapsed masonry — destruction radiated from the center of the room like the aftermath of a detonation.
But there was no Valek.
Only the yawning hole in the outer wall remained — an opening where the window, the stone, and even the reinforcements had been torn outward, hurled into the snowy night. The cold mountain wind screamed through the gap, carrying ice and moonlight on its breath.
Liam stepped forward slowly, horror widening his eyes.
His breath hitched.
"My lord…" he whispered to no one.
He approached the ruined window frame and peered into the freezing darkness beyond. The mountain peaks were silent, stoic, indifferent to the nightmare unleashed among them. The sky overhead churned with clouds that pulsed with the moon's silver glow.
And then—
WOOOOOOOOOOO.
The howl erupted from somewhere among the peaks, vast and bone deep. It was no ordinary cry of a wolf — it was deeper, filled with layers of pain and fury that twisted its resonance into something nightmarishly inhuman.
The sound struck the stone walls with enough force to make them tremble. The entire monastery shook, groaning beneath the weight of its echo.
Liam staggered back, hands flying to his ears as the violent note pierced him to the marrow. His eyes watered, his veins chilled, his pulse slammed against his throat.
The beast was loose.
'This is not good…' he thought, terror crawling under his skin.
He was strong, yes.
But he alone could not herd the master back.
He needed the others.
He straightened, composure fighting to overtake panic. He turned to rush out—
Wooooo…
Another howl drifted through the stone halls. Softer. Shorter. Its tone—different.
It came from within the monastery.
From deep inside.
From someone — or something — answering the first.
Liam stopped.
His pupils constricted.
His breath froze mid-inhale, and the shadows around him seemed to hold their breath with him.
A cold dread seeped down his spine as realization carved itself into his mind.
His voice dropped into a whisper, annoyance in his tone.
"Corvinus…"
Then without a moment to waste,
He burst into a swarm of bats and surged forward.