A solitary figure was within, clad in a robe that barely clung to narrow shoulders, almost as if it had just thrown it on. The robed one was short, with hair brownish-blonde, face heart-shaped of pale white flesh, lips full and pouty. Beautiful for truth.
He knew that face, everyone in Drenth did. Solanine.
Solanine motioned them into the room and dismissed the guards with a flicked wrist. It was a simple room within a palatial compound atop the floating fortress, a small desk alight by glowing orbs of aethecite, parchment papers stacked neatly beside the inkwell. A three-legged stand was behind the desk. A bloodied blade, a saucer, and small vials lay atop. No windows, no other seating, only the desk.
On the floor in front of the desk was a rune, of which Evander had no idea how to decipher. Bloodred as it was drawn in blood. Dark reddish-black mist seeped from the rune, as if summoned by it, for there was no mist upon Gargantua.
Elian chuckled. Glancing at him from the cowl of his cloak, Evander noted that his brother’s laugh was at the expense of the dying man nailed to the far wall, arms outstretched. Wrist-thick spikes pinned him in place. Naked, crimson stained the flesh of his torso and legs from the missing strips of skin at the man’s breast. Head hung, face burnt, cracked and bleeding, his thickly corded, raven locks smoldered.
“One of the Gutter King’s rats,” Solanine said coolly. “Captured when the man attacked my aethecite factories last nightturn. One of the others captured still rots beneath us now.”
“Ness?” Elian’s face was flushed behind the beard, but his eyes were hard, a man not to be crossed in the streets of Drenth. But here on Gargantua, Evander knew his brother was but a candle to Solanine’s sun. “Never liked the bastard, cut into my pockets. Elian, mistress.” He clapped a hand to Evander’s shoulder. “My brother Evander.”
“Mistress,” Evander said, drawing his own cowl down. He wondered if Solanine recognized him from Prien Soabin’s party. Was that a chance meeting, master? To test me?
As per usual, the voice of his Divine remained silent, only speaking when He sought, never the other way around.
“I am nobody’s mistress, address me as such again, and I’ll pluck your seedpods and shove them into your mouth raw,” Solanine said with such force Evander couldn’t contain the smile from breaking the planes of his face. “I’ve a need,” Solanine continued with less vigor, “one in which your service will be valued. A girl resides in Drenth, a girl the Fallen desires.”
“A girl?” The promise of quadrans gleamed in Elian’s eyes. “I’ve lots of girls. Plenty for the Fallen to play with. Boys, too, if that’s his vice.”
A fool you are, brother, to try and barter with one such as Solanine. But Evander kept his tongue still, watching to see if the barb would pierce the aetheurgist’s shield.
Solanine smiled, baring teeth like a predator stalking prey, venom in the accompanying hiss. “This is no ordinary girl, child.”
“This girl, how will we know her?”
“O you know this one. Clouded eyes she has. Trained in the arts of the mortal coil you call the Scattered Shards.” Evander’s face tightened while Elian’s grimaced. “Bring her to me.”
She’s to be mine! he screamed into the void.
His brother’s mouth quirked within the curls of his swarthy beard. “If you summoned us, you could’ve taken her at any moment.” Elian paused, stroking his beard. “I’ve also on good authority she’s been seen in the presence of vicar. Seems the Scattered Shards still have hold on her, too, eh mis… er… Solanine?”
Evander side-eyed his brother. You never miss a thing, do you, brother? How do you know this information? A brutal game you play, one false step will be your end.
“The answer matters not, child,” Solanine responded. “She cannot be forced, this girl. She must come willingly, lest she serve no use. You can enter doors the Fallen’s soldiers cannot. I’ve tried, good scourges were lost in the process. My sources still wander free, but not for long. Beware of the Gutter King. The inferno comes to him. She cannot join his cause.”
Master, you promised me that she would be mine.
Elian started to speak, but Solanine silenced him with a click of tongue that sounded strangely like a Kanjan aerovern clacking their serrated draconem teeth. “Organize yourself before the inferno begins.” Solanine lifted a thin, golden chain from the robe’s pocket and tossed it to his brother. “A gift in the knowledge you’ll do as told.”
“What is this?” Elian inspected the pendant. In the center was a crimson rune within a black crystal.
“A shield against aetheurgy.” Solanine handed him two additional pendants. They must contain aether. “You may go.” Elian smiled and moved toward the door. Evander went to draw up his cowl, but Solanine stopped him with a curt motion. “You stay, child.”
There was confusion upon Elian’s flushed face, but after seeing Solanine’s look, he quickly saw himself out. The Gutter King’s man hanging on the wall grunted as he shifted ever so slightly. Evander’s eyes darted toward the dying man.
O master, give me this power.
“How long have you served the Divine, child?” Solanine ran a hand through blonde-brown hair, regarding Evander curiously.
His gaze went slack, the voice of the Divine speaking to him. “OBEY AND MY POWER IS YOURS. MY DISCIPLE IS AGELESS, THIS BODY YOU SEE IS NOT. SUCH IS OUR POWER OVER DEATH.”
“Long as I can remember,” he said. “His voice comes to me often. I serve.” I will serve, master.
“I remember you, child, from the villa. You were with the Godsblood. Do you know this term?” He shook his head. “We shall see if you are worthy.”
Solanine’s all-onyx eyes closed as the robe fell. Evander drank in the aetheurgist’s nudity. Stomach taut above shapely hips with a thick, curled thatch of hair in the recess of vulnerable thighs. He stared intently on the aetheurgist’s ample bosom, for nestled between was a crystal shard of ebony emblazoned with a similar rune as to the one given to Elian. Below were scars that ran red with blood from the cuts procured to draw the rune on the floor. Solanine’s Void Form.
His manhood stiffened against his trousers. Lust filled him. There was a soft cackle in his mind, his master mocking his carnal desires.
Drawing on aetheurgy, the air around them grew cold, so cold Evander’s breaths left puffs. The absence of warmth fled from his body, down his legs, into the ground itself. Evander shivered. The crystal around Solanine’s neck blazed as the blackened mist draped about the aetheurgist’s body, the edges became wispy like that of the red-black mist from the rune on the ground.
“WATCH AND LEARN. THIS IS TO BE YOURS. THE VOID AND THE MEADOWS WILL OPEN TO YOU. A BODY IS MERELY A BOUNDARY THAT CAN BE SURPASSED. CAN BE BROKEN AND REBORN.”
Then, Solanine moved. Not the mortal body, no, but the aetheurgist’s soul, he realized. A carbon copy, built from the black-red mist. Evander’s gaze followed the aetheurgist’s soul as it ghosted about the room. His eyes found Solanine’s every phase of mist. Then Solanine was before him, touching his face, a wisp of nothingness across his cheek. He stiffened, breathing hard. Solanine went to the tips of toes, putting lips to his, the barest of touches. True life-and-death hovered between them.
His need burned like a volcano. Solanine whispered against his lips, chanting an aetheurgic spell. Without knowing what he was doing, he opened his soul, his essence spanned, shadows gathered around him, sweeping in flowing waves, black as the coldest night in the Voidlands, yet a glowing brightness within the ethereal mass.
The pleasure of touching Life and Death rampaged inside him, swelling his body’s senses, tingling his manhood. Blood pulsing. Throbbing. The bliss and the sorrow. A want to expel his seed, to fertilize in the name of Life, only to see it wither and die.
Master…
“DO YOU NOW SEE, MORTAL? THIS IS WHAT I OFFER. ALL IT TAKES IS YOUR DEVOTION.”
Yes, master, I see. O how I see. You have it, master. My devotion.
Solanine’s ghastly soul retreated into the stiff body as the gateway to the void closed and the mist syphoned back into the rune. “You’re of us, child. You could be so much more.” He panted; the full brunt of their communion had drained him. “I will show you the darkness of this world.”
