Page 73 of Eldritch
He frowned back at the older man, who stood over the girl, looking down on her. “Yes. I’m bored of this.” Even so, he waited and watched as the girl pushed up from where she had knelt moments ago.
“Your Grace,” she said, giving a small bow before exiting the nave.
The old man sneered after her as she made her way out of the temple, then turned back toward the curtains from where he’d emerged earlier.
Zevander lifted another of the anointing bowls.
“Do not—” Alastor had scarcely spoken the words, when Zevander threw the bowl to the ground, and the old man spun around, nearly tumbling backward with a hand to his chest.
“Who is there?”
“You’ve had your amusements,” Alastor said. “It is time to begin your first lesson.”
Lips pulling to a smile of satisfaction, he watched the older man lift the bowl, his brows pulled tight.
“And what lesson will you teach?” Zevander asked, not bothering to look at Alastor.
“The most powerful weapon you possess. The ability to destroy.”
The words intrigued him, and he abandoned his amusements for what Alastor could’ve possibly meant by that.
The church faded for a field of black roses. Alone, they could not be considered remarkable, if not for the silver along the edge of their petals casting a soft glow in the moonlight—the same flowers said to grow only in Nethyria.
“Every rose you see represents those who will harm, or fail, you. Every flower is a soul that has plotted against you.” He held out his hand, and a flame flickered across his palm. An orange glow trailed his fingers as he drew a strange symbol, which hung in the air before Zevander’s eyes. “Exitiusz. Remember every line and point. Where they begin and, particularly, where they end. Let it sear itself into your mind and commit it to memory.”
Fascinated by the way it continued burning before his eyes, he couldn’t help but study it. When he closed his eyes, it remained there in the forefront, blazing across his mind. Every line. Every detail. A perfect image in the darkness of his thoughts.
“Raise your hand,” he heard Alastor say in the blackness of the void.
A blistering flame sizzled across his palm when Zevander raised it.
“Do you seeexitiuszas clearly as it was before your eyes moments ago?”
“Yes. I see nothing else.”
“Now kill them all.”
The heat at his palm intensified, and Zevander opened his eyes to see the roses had wilted, their petals browned, the buds slumped over.
He glanced down to the glowing blue across his palm, the same symbol he’d seen in flames only moments before. “What is this? This is not my blood magic.”
“No. Your blood magic is incapable of something so impressive. Outside of Caligorya, you will struggle with this glyph. It is not an easy one to learn. But your mind is focused here. There are no distractions.”
“It’s real, then. Not just a god’s vision.”
“Of course it’s real. Do you not feel the burn upon your flesh? The power vibrating across your bones?”
“Yes, but this is a dream.”
“It is a dream. And now you must wake.”
“And if I want to stay?”
“Too long in Caligorya would kill you. Go. And you will return.”
Zevander opened his eyes to the dim light of the room where he’d been brought earlier. He glanced toward others who lay across the many pillows set about the room. Pain at his thigh urged him upright, and he looked down at blood seeping through a cloth wrapped there. The flesh between his thighs throbbed with the kind of ache he’d never felt before, and he didn’t dare lift the cloth covering his manhood, for fear of what he’d remember.
Instead, he lay back on the pillows, his muscles shaking with rage.
