The War For The Pallid Throne

Leviathan Inedia, Orion's Quiver

The transformation is slow at first. A mortal's flesh may sustain him but isn't the trigger for his metamorphosis. No, a resonant's flesh is the key. Yet, let me warn you. Like inducing a woman's labor, triggering the change too early can be deadly. So, bring him apples, milk, and salted pork. Let him cleanse his palate and balance his humors. Then, when his pupils dilate and he looks at you with hunger, you give him a taste. My dearest Ilene, I recommend giving him your wrist. It's much less painful than offering your thigh.       

9

Two days, that's how long it took to make it to the bottom of the gorge—two days with a blindfold and a mule for company. There was the voice, too, the one that ebbed and flowed like the tides of the ocean. Once Felix was curious to know what made those lonely cries, but now they drove him mad. He fell from the narrow path on the last day and broke his leg on the rocks below. His femur poked through skin and fabric, and his chest felt like it was going to cave in; three cracked ribs and a grazed lung.

The scholars found him there, barely conscious, but alive.

"Where are the others?" Felix asked as a woman wrapped his arms around her shoulder.

"They're gone, Felix."

He recognized her voice, Ilene. The woman who recruited him on the streets of Bruma, the woman who led him to that dark chasm and tightened the blindfold, telling him never to take it off. What happened to the debt collector, the doctor, and the innkeeper? What were their names again? Did he ever know? He shared a cell with them once, so surely he once knew.

There was that howl again, not like a wolf. No, that sound was familiar. This was alien. At first it was like a loon's cry; distant, unnerving, but with such depth of feeling. Then it was like the call of a whale that scraped the ocean floor and caused the ground to quake.

"Make it stop," Felix said, scratching the corners of his ear.

"You don't have to wear this anymore," Ilene said, touching the corners of his blindfold.

Our little secret.

"Don't touch it!" he screamed, slapping her hands away.

"Listen to me. It's over. You can open your eyes now."

Just one peek.

"No! Please, stop!" Again, he pushed her back.

"As you wish." Ilene lifted him out of the stones, and he screamed, his splintered bone poking through the wound in his leg.

The scholars carried him into the Astralarium while he shouted in delirium. Felix barely remembered the first night, save for the pain. White-hot agony shot through his leg as they pushed the bone back into place. He lost consciousness soon after.

Felix woke in a dark room, the air moist and heavy. There was a single candlestick at his bedside table, and the walls seemed to sweat, a heartbeat beneath him. Was that wood? He touched the bleached surface of the wall, soft and wet like the inside of his cheek. It took him a minute or two before realizing the blindfold was gone. The scholars removed it while he was unconscious.

"I can bring it back," Ilene said from the corner of the room.

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice, ripping the sheets off the bed but crying out in pain when he tried to move his leg.

"Please, relax. It will take a day or two for the bone to set correctly." Ilene stood from her stool, dropping her journal next to the candle and placing her hand on his forehead. "You're burning up."