(POV: Seris Vale)
Seris was shocked once again to see the goblins drag the same mysterious stranger back into the cave. This time they chained him to the altar. She was more surprised to see them performing rite after rite as the stranger—she wasn't sure what he was anymore—seemed to die again and again. She counted the rituals one after another; three had already taken place, although she wasn't sure how much time had passed—a week? Maybe...
She found herself wondering yet again if she would ever be rescued. By now they must think her dead. She was pulled from her thoughts by the scrape of stone. The abominable goblins were chanting yet again; the air thickened as blood was drawn and symbols flared.
The stranger, as always, was spread across the carved stone, wrists locked into iron rings that bit into the skin, drawing blood. The symbols beneath him never fully faded since they placed him there; they glowed faintly even between rituals.
He died every time. At least this is what she thought. It's certainly how it appeared, but she still felt this should be impossible for any human or for any monster.
Sometimes quickly—throat cut, chest pierced, blood torn from him in shimmering threads pulled toward the bowl. Sometimes slowly, deliberately. They learned which wounds hurt more. Which ones kept him alive longer?
And then—
He came back.
Not immediately. Never immediately. Hours and hours would pass; it often felt like a full day before a stir ran through the corpse and the stranger's body twitched ever so slightly.
Seris watched the first resurrection with disbelief.
She pressed her face against the bars, breath shallow, as goblins began their sick chant once more. His wounds were gone. His skin is whole. His eyes—still closed—fluttered like someone waking from a bad dream.
When he inhaled sharply and violently, the cave went silent.
The goblins laughed.
After that, it became routine.
The second time, she noticed the change.
His hair, once dark, had threads of white woven through it now—streaks of white steadily ate at the dark strands; it looked unnatural yet beautiful, as if the color was being leeched out from the roots. His skin looked paler too, but not sickly. Translucent. Like moonlight shining through.
The third time, his body looked… stronger.
Not larger. Not brutish. But defined. Muscle lines are sharper. Movements are more controlled, even when weak. When they chained him down, he tensed instinctively against the restraints—not in panic, but in calculation.
The goblins noticed too.
They began treating him differently. Reverently. Possessively.
No other captives had been taken for rituals since the stranger was chained.
They did not even touch me nor the other women. While she had at some point let go of a heavy breath she had been holding at their reprieve, she knew her comfort came at someone else's suffering.
Whenever the guards came to check the cage—whenever they might have chosen another victim—their attention drifted back to the altar. To the stranger and his blood.
He was always conscious longer now.
By the sixth death, he started to look back at them during the rituals. His eyes would open while they cut him, while the symbols drank deep. He didn't scream as much anymore. Sometimes not at all.
Once, when his gaze met Seris's through the bars, she flinched.
There was something in his eyes she had not seen before.
Not fear.
Understanding.
With each return, his presence changed the cave. The air grew heavier. The light warped subtly around him. Even chained, bleeding, and dying, he drew attention the way fire did in darkness.
The goblins began arguing during rituals—voices raised, movements frantic. Although Seris couldn't understand a wink of what they were fighting about, it didn't change much.
The bowl overflowed more than once.
And still—he came back.
His hair turned ash-gray where black and white blended together. His face grew sharper, more beautiful in a way that felt wrong to look at too long. Not charm like kindness—charm like inevitability. Like gravity.
Seris had an epiphany. This stranger was surviving the devouring of a god. She had felt fear and awe when she saw the stranger resurrect for the first time, and call it her ignorance or relief at being safe for just a moment longer, but she had not truly considered the implications of this until now.
Gods were powerful beings, incomprehensible by mortal minds. Surviving an encounter with one was something out of a legend, and here she was witnessing it happen again and again, even if it was via proxy.
On the day everything changed, the ritual began like all the others.
The rattling of chains. Blood. Chanting. More blood.
But this time, the boy didn't thrash. Didn't gasp.
He went very still.
Then his eyes snapped open.
A sound rippled through the cave—not from the goblins, not from the captives, but from the stone itself. A deep, resonant groan, like the mountain shifting its weight.
The symbols flared too bright.
The bowl cracked down the center.
The goblins froze.
The stranger laughed.
It was quiet. Hoarse. But clear.
The cave shook.
Dust rained from the ceiling. One of the goblins dropped to its knees, shrieking—not in worship of its god, but in fear. The chanting collapsed into chaos as the red glow flickered wildly, no longer controlled.
Seris clutched the bars, heart hammering.
For the first time since she'd been taken—
The goblins looked uncertain.
And the boy, chained to the altar, bleeding and reborn too many times to count, looked more awake than she had ever seen him.
Something had gone wrong.
Or worse—
Something had finally gone right.