Page 36 of Captive
Something that might, with time and understanding, bridge worlds that had known only hatred for generations.
If they dared risk everything on that fragile, unexpected possibility.
Chapter Sixteen
Sebastian couldn't track time anymore, couldn't track anything except the constant press of ancient magic against his skin and the failing parts inside him. His father's carefully installed improvements now only conducted magic that kept him perfectly still, perfectly helpless.
The blood Boarstaff had given him after the council meeting wasn't nearly enough. Hunger gnawed at him with vicious intensity, growing stronger with each passing hour. His temper shortened as the need intensified, making even his thoughts jagged and hostile. He needed to feed again soon, but the warchief hadn't returned since leaving to check the village defenses.
"Look at him now," one of the guards said, his voice carrying poorly hidden satisfaction. Not a guard Sebastian recognized from before. New shift, then. Though how long since the last rotation, he couldn't tell. "The ancient bindings work better than any fancy upgrades."
"Careful," another answered. "The warchief said not to get too close. Even tied up, they're still—"
"Still what? He can't even lift his head without permission." A laugh. "Not so scary now, is he?"
Sebastian wanted to show exactly how dangerous he still was. But his body refused to obey, held motionless by magic flowing through his lingering components, turning every careful improvement into a conductor for his captivity.
Without his enhancements, everything blurred into an endless present of hunger and restraint. Even closing his eyes brought no relief from the constant awareness of heartbeats he couldn't reach.
New footsteps approached the chamber, lighter, familiar.Ochrehand? The chamber's magic pulsed a little faster as the steps paused at the doorway. If it wasn't Ochrehand, then it had to be one of the other shamans.
"The transformation's speeding up," Ochrehand didn't bother lowering her voice. "The bindings convert his parts faster than the chambers alone. Soon there won't be enough function left to—"
"To what?" Sebastian's voice came out raw, unused. "To keep my father's careful upgrades working? To keep me civilized?" A laugh that held no artificial smoothness somehow escaped his dry throat. "Isn't that exactly what you want?"
"What we want–" Ochrehand's magic reached out, riding the binding's magic down into his systems "–is exactly what's happening. The question is whether you'll survive it with your mind intact."
Her words hit hard. Sebastian had assumed the failing parts would be replaced eventually, that his father's artificers would simply rebuild whatever the orcs' magic destroyed. But if the transformation went too far, if too much of his machinery got stripped away...
"You can't take out two centuries of improvements without killing me," he struggled to keep his voice steady. "The modifications go too deep. They're too tangled up with vital systems."
"No one's removing anything." Ochrehand's magic crackled closer, probing changes he could feel but couldn't see. "The bindings aren't destroying your brass and copper, they're converting them. Changing artificial parts back into something that remembers being ore in living stone. You were human once, weren't you? Your body remembers, even if your mind fights it.The only things that are being removed are the parts that aren’t essential. The decorative ones."
"That's impossible." The word came out more desperate than defiant. "You can't change metal back to—"
"Not changing, reminding." Sharp amusement colored her voice as she did something that made the crystal light shift bright enough to make him close his eyes. "Like the chamber remembers containing pure vampire nature. Everything remembers, if you wake it properly."
Fresh sensations crawled through his brass components, not pain exactly, but awareness. As if metal that had been dead and cold for centuries was slowly, inexorably, waking up. Did that mean he was going to have to work with the metal left in his body instead of beingcontrolled by it?
Sebastian felt the changes differently, really felt them. A creeping sensation shivered through his brass collar, his copper-threaded spine, every carefully crafted component that had regulated his existence for two centuries. The metal wasn't just conducting the bindings' magic anymore, but responding to it. The final parts were connecting with something older than artificial manipulation.
"Legend has it that the vampires who stayed too long in the chambers," one guard said after Ochrehand left, his voice pitched for Sebastian to hear. "The ones before the upgrades. They changed too. Not all of them made it."
"Good thing the warchief knows what he's doing then." The other guard's boot scraped against stone, shifting position, nervous despite Sebastian's complete containment. "Imagine if all their kind lost their control. Went back to pure hunger and instinct."
"That's why they process everything now. Blood. Emotions. Their own nature." A harsh laugh. "Can't have their precious nobility remembering what they really are."
Sebastian wanted to snarl denials. To prove how far they'd evolved beyond mere predators. But a growing awareness in his components whispered other truths. What everything artificial in him knew of existence before precision stripped away such dangerous memory.
The crystal formations' magic shifted, catching something that made both guards tense. Sebastian felt it too, metal that should have been dead and cold beginning to pulse with recalled life. With natural rhythms that had nothing to do with carefully calibrated systems.
He couldn't stop it if he wanted to, although he desperately wanted to get off the floor and flee the sensations burning through him. But something in him was transforming. Changing into something his father's improvements were never meant to become. Something that remembered what it meant to be real and untamed.
The sensation spread deeper, following paths his father's artificers had laid through flesh and bone. Each carefully placed component stirred with unwanted awareness. Sebastian tried to focus on anything else, the guard positions, the chamber's layout, strategic details that might matter later. But the feeling of metal waking beneath his skindrove coherent thought away.
"His brass looks different now," one guard murmured. "More like water through stone than steam through pipes."
"Keep your distance." The other guard's voice held new tension. "The warchief said the awakening makes them unpredictable. More dangerous in some ways, even with the bindings."
