Page 37 of Captive
Sebastian grabbed that scrap of information through the haze of unwanted sensation. It gave him something to focus on while his body sizzled like blood dripped onto hot stone. More dangerous? How? His body remained perfectly still, bound by ancient magic that knew exactly how much freedom a vampire could be allowed. Unless...
A new feeling crawled through his spine where copper threading met nerves. Not pain, but something almost worse, awareness of pathways that were never meant for conscious thought. Systems that should have operated automatically now singing with remembered life.
"Secondary wards holding?" The other guard again, responding to something Sebastian couldn't see. Something about the way his components were changing.
The need to deny it, to cling to precision, warred with curiosity that burned almost as fierce as hunger. What was he becoming? What had his father's improvements stripped away? What would return as brass became something more and copper did something beyond what it had been for hundreds of years?
And most terrifying of all, would anything of him remain when the transformation finished?
Quick boot steps approached, more than one set. The guards' tension transmitted through their quickened heartbeats.
"You can relax," Ochrehand sounded tired. "Do I need to send an apprentice down here with you so they can watch him and you don't have to worry about him trying to escape? For guards, you're acting like scared rabbits. He won't bite you when you're not looking." She sighed and shook her head. "It's a good thing he's totally helpless. Even if he wasn't tied up, he's in too much pain to really be a threat."
"I can hear you," Sebastian snapped, his tone sharper than he intended, fueled by the growing hunger that made everything more irritating. "Talking about me like I'm some experiment. Some specimen to—" His words cut off as sensation blazed through thecopper threading in his spine, making him gasp in pain.
"You are an experiment." Ochrehand's magic danced across him, reading changes that made even the guards step back. Her hand touched his forehead and rolled it to the side. "The first of your kind to experience this particular awakening. The others all died before the brass could fully remember and convert."
Even as the bright crystal light blasted through his blurry vision, fear cut through everything else, through pride, through hunger, through the endless awareness of what his components were becoming. "The others? How many—" His question ended in a growl of hunger and frustration.
"Enough." Her magic reached out, and Sebastian's brass components responded, stirring with recognition that had nothing to do with the chains' control. "Enough to know that the ancient texts say fighting the transformation only makes it worse. That trying to cling to artificial precision only tears you apart faster."
The crystal light shifted, catching something that made Ochrehand draw in a sharp breath. Sebastian felt it too. Things weren't just conducting magic. It was like the little bit of remaining metal was becoming something alive as it spread through his body.
"Get the warchief," Ochrehand's magic wove patterns that made Sebastian's awakening components sing with dangerous recognition. "Now! It's been hours since he's fed. He needs blood again. The hunger's making him unstable."
One of the guards hurried out while the others tightened their grips on their weapons, watching Sebastian more closely. Time stretched like heated metal as they waited, marked only by the increasing awareness of his final failing mechanical parts and the maddening scent of the guards' blood. Shivers danced through him, making him want to get up and charge them, but the bindings held him tight.
Ochrehand's magic kept probing, but with a lighter, more gentle touch. "You've replaced too much natural function with brass and metal. If the components wake too quickly—"
"Then what?" Sebastian fought to keep his voice steady as more shivers shook through his whole body. "What happens when brass stops working entirely?"
"Historically?" Something in her tone struck through him. "The metal tears free. Returns to its natural state too quickly for organic tissue to adapt. That's how the others were lost, their bodies couldn't survive."
Fresh fear cut through the endless sensation of change. "And you think I'm different? Special somehow?"
"We think," Boarstaff's voice came from the entrance, steady and solid as stone, "that you've already survived changes that killed the others. The question is whether that survival was luck, or something else entirely."
The warchief's boots scraped against wood as he entered, a deliberate sound, Sebastian realized. Letting the prisoner track his movement. Even knowing Sebastian's previous attempt to strike.
"Be still," Boarstaff ordered as he knelt next to Sebastian. "Fighting only makes the transformation tear faster."
"Easy for you to say," Sebastian hissed through clenched teeth. "You're not the one being ripped apart."
"By the old magic," Ochrehand's sharp intake of breath and backward step carried clear warning.
Sebastian wanted to demand what they saw, but pain lanced through the delicate machinery in his face. The foreign sensation threatened to tear through living tissue.
"The change moves too fast," Ochrehand's magic crackled. "If the copper tries to reclaim its nature while still embedded—"
"Hold." Boarstaff's command cut through the rising panic. His hand gripped Sebastian's jaw, forcing his face up despite the bindings' restraint. "Look at me. Show me what's happening."
The pain intensified as Boarstaff turned him toward the light. Sebastian's fangs descended at the double insult, a prey species handling him so casually, and his own helplessness to respond. The bindings contained even that small rebellion.
"The metal veins," Ochrehand whispered. "They're becoming something—"
"Like lightning caught in stone," Boarstaff finished. His thumb pressed against Sebastian's temple, ignoring the vampire's obvious rage. "I thought all this had fallen away when I last fed you, but there's more metal than I ever thought possible in your body, and some of itwants to stay and become something new."
Sebastian tried to deny it, but another surge of pain blazed through his body. The crystal light fractured into impossible patterns; colors no careful calibration had ever permitted him to see. His body jerked against the restraints. The sound that escaped him made the guards shift uneasily, reminded of what vampire pain could mean for those nearby.
