The Lands Between - Age of Dragons

Chapter Three - Dynasty of Blood

"The squires have vanished, the servants are gone,

Even the kings and the queens are just pawns,

Kingdoms may rise, dynasties fall,

But the love of a mother will outlive them all,

Find beauty in sorrow, find laughter in pain,

Let the blood fall from the sky like the rain,

Let the rain flow through the streets in a flood,

An eye for an eye, for blood must have blood."

Blood Matron Ixquic gazed down from the towering balcony of Mohgwyn Palace onto the spacious valley below. Her scarlet kingdom was truly a beautiful sight to behold, although she doubted much of civilized society would agree. Large pools of crimson blood stretched across the landscape as far as the eyes could see. Gigantic malformed crows with blisters covering their bodies battled with scores of red-tinted Albinaurics for the favor of their goddess, the Formless Mother. Up above, the artificial sky shone with the starlight they had come to rely upon so deep below the earth. Across the great chasm lay the rugged banks of the Siofra River, where the wild followers of the Ancestor Spirit prepared for the day's hunt. In the distance, she sighted dreaded Nokron, the Eternal City, looming over the sacred Hallowhorn Grounds. On the terrace below she saw her elite guard of Sanguine Nobles offering up human sacrifices to the goddess of Blood. Ixquic took immense pleasure in their screams as her keen senses felt the life energy depart from their frail bodies. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Ixquic looked down at her own pathetic cockroach of a man currently strapped onto her sacrificial altar. The fool had yet to awaken from the sleeping draught she had slipped into his ale back at the tavern. A distant descendant of Godrick the Grafted, the half-wit fancied himself a prince and rightful ruler of Limgrave. To Ixquic, his heritage did not matter in the slightest. Whether royalty or peasant, they all bled just the same.

She turned her attention from the altar to the grand cocoon containing the half-complete form of the great Miquella, the Unalloyed. Since the Lord of Blood's defeat by her hand, she had been tasked with carrying out the grand plan of the Formless Mother. The Empyrean's transformation had halted, and the ancient rites required for his metamorphosis must yet again be woven into his being. Unlike her predecessor, Ixquic would ensure that this time there would be no failure.

Ixquic took a moment to reflect on the path that had led to her becoming a Blood Matron of the Formless Mother. Not long ago she believed her life to be nothing but one tragedy preceding the next. How foolish she had been. Those dark days felt like they happened a lifetime ago to a different person. Standing here now before the coming of their dynasty she understood the truth: what she once interpreted as curses were in fact blessings, given to her by the Formless Mother to harden her innocent heart and set her soul aflame.

Again she examined the fool prince. Despite being overwhelmingly plain in all aspects, no other being in the Lands Between was suitable for the rite she was about to perform. It had to be him specifically. Mother's directions were clear: the sacrifice must be the person she loathed more than anyone else in the world. This was not merely some mundane business transaction. She would take great pleasure in personally administering the existential torture upon the insect. The feelings of anger, pain, and hatred would fuel the ritual and allow Miquella to reach heights even Lord Mohg himself was incapable of taking him.

Ixquic recalled back to when she was just a young girl and first had the misfortune of encountering this plague of a human being. Her father had left her when she was born, and her mother got a job as a serving girl at the old tavern in Limgrave to keep their bellies from being empty. Mother could put a smile on the face of even her most morose patrons, and her ale could quench a thirst dryer than the Wilds of Caelid. She loved her mother with every ounce of her being, from the day she gave Ixquic life until the day Prince Geoffrey ended hers.