SUAW Workbook

The Spirit of Writing: Prompt 2

❗️❗️❗️SPOILERS FOR WARFIRE❗️❗️❗️

Warnings: Descriptions of death

Prompt: Write the realization that the character is dead.

Carth didn't know when he woke up, only a realization that he laid on a cold, filthy floor. The room smelled rancid, like vomit and old blood. It was dark, but not so dark that he couldn't see. Stains littered the floor. He couldn't remember what happened or why he was there in the first place. Wasn't he on his way back to camp with the others? Where was everybody?

That got him moving. Where was his squadron? Were they in danger while he was knocked out? He grimaced at how stiff his clothes were. He could feel it slowly peeling away from his skin as he shifted to stand. It was a shame the Dragonmage cloaks were black, or else he might've been able to identify what it was.

"Is it almost ready?"

Carth's gaze shot towards the voice. He didn't recognize it in the slightest, and his hand reached for his sword. It wasn't there, however, his hand only grasping air, and he gaped down at the missing sheath. Was he disarmed but not restrained?

"Quit asking that," another voice snapped, assumingly at the first one. "If Teran didn't end up swallowing a blade by the dying kid, then maybe this ritual might be going quicker."

Who's dying?! As quickly as he dared, Carth rushed to the area where the voices were coming from. Moonlight shone from the cracks in the decaying building, providing him with all the light he needed. It wasn't long before he found a doorway with light pooling out of it, and he stopped just before reaching it. There, he listened.

"I got to hand it to them, Carvolier knows what they're doing when training these kids. The first may have gone down easy, but the rest immediately started fighting back. I expected them to freeze like a thief in the window."

The second grunted. "I suppose. The Time Mage was the most troublesome. If I knew he would be part of the squadron, I would've left them be. He wants the Time Mage alive."

So the Kinsmen are after Nagan...

Carth gathered up his courage, inching closer to the door to peek through. What he saw shocked him to his very core.

The room was large and lit by candlelight, and only two men stood in it. A large runic circle was traced on the ground in a deep red. Despite studying runes for years, he could only recognize a few, and none meant anything good. Blood. Sacrifice. Binding. Void. But that wasn't what caused rage to boil deep within his veins.

At the center laid Bizo and Ivisian, Gath and his dragons. Alchemically enhanced chains bound them to the ground, their muzzles sealed shut. Neither of them moved, and their eyes were closed tight.

He prepared to rush into the room, his hand raised and a spell ready to pass his lips, but when he leaned against the wall next to the door, he fell through with a surprised yelp. That was when he realized three things at once:

One, he fell through a solid wall. Two, his skin was near translucent and even gave off a slight, glowing sheen. Three, he was now face to face with his own image with Gath besides it. Both bodies had a purple tint to their skin. Their muscles were tight. Skin clung gaunt to their faces while their eyes had sunken into their sockets. Blood no longer flowed from their open wounds. It was at that moment that everything came back at once.

He was dead.

"What the hell?!"

His head shot up to look at the two Kinsmen, both horrified at the sight of him. They could see him, he realized, and time seemed to happen in slow motion.

With a terrified shout, the first man urged the second to activate the circle, and soon the runes glowed an unnatural shade of red. Black smoke billowed around it, rapidly engulfing the two men and the dragons. Carth reached blinding to where his sword, still in its sheath by his body's side, was and drew it. Without thinking, he flung it into the thickening smoke, hearing a satisfying shick and a cry of pain.

The smoke cleared after that, and the only sign that anything had been there in the first place was a small pool of blood amongst the runes. The candles had been blown out by the ritual, leaving only the same dreary moonlight overhead.

Carth stumbled to the center of the room blindly, falling to his knees in shock. He didn't know when he started trembling again.

His hands crept into his hair, his grip near hard enough to tear it out, and screamed.