Page 4 of Blood Lord

Thirteen help us when the other dark elves learn that secret. There will be no escape through death then.

So, when Nielmor says he will turn me into a harp, I have no doubt of his capabilities. I don't question if he has the motives or the sick imagination for it. I just have to lean into the hope that my act and all that it provides is enough to keep me safe.

So far, it has been.

HIs hands fall off of me as he starts to mutter to himself, and I turn to watch him pace the tent, muttering beneath his breath.

"...oddities…the numbers…no, no…but star…" And he keeps on like that for a few minutes, withdrawn into his mind.

Like I said, something's not right about that guy.

But then he stops, turning to look at me as his grin stretches across his face. "Don't forget. Big night. Harp."

And then he turns on his heel and leaves, and I laugh under my breath, even though my heart is pounding. As safe as I think I am, I can never be sure around him.

On Protheka, we never know what someone is going to do.

3

Raziel

Ifollow Brinda's new flavor of the month through the tunnels as if I don't know where the Council meetings are held, as if I didn't help carve out the grand cavern that they are seated in.

I bite back my annoyance as we pass other vrakken, and thankfully, it is clear that I have been summoned. No one dares to stop me when I am on the Council's business.

My wings ache as we pass beneath the hollowed out mountain, and I see the few vrakken taking flight there, showing off to those permanently grounded. I remember the days that we shared these gifts, back when not having wings was an oddity, and we'd carry others so they, too, could experience the gift of flight.

Now, it is a question of why Akeldama has taken away these gifts. Many say that those on the ground belong there.

As we turn the corner into the connecting cavern, one with carved tiers for an audience, I am overwhelmed by the lack of audience. Few vrakken sit on the rows before the Council, awaiting their meeting.

The meetings have always been public. It is one of the foundations we are built on: transparency. The Council never wanted their people to feel as if they are being kept in the dark—metaphorically, of course—and it helped to assure us all that our opinions matter.

These tiers used to fill up to the brim. There would even be an overflowing crowd in the connecting dome that whispered the Council's words down the line just so everyone could be included.

But I guess those were the days that I bothered to attend.

Now, more and more vrakken are like me. Though their apathy isn't born out of old age. No, we've learned that mixing more and more human blood with the First's venom as more generations were Made came with consequences.

Not only are the days of winged vrakken rare, but the newer population has grown full of rage and apathy. Either they don't care or they are ripping each other to shreds, and either way, their respect for structure has all but evaporated.

To further prove my point, I realize that I know every vrakken here. Most of them I know from before, from the surface. Only the Elders care anymore, and even sometimes we don't.

How the Council can tolerate themselves, I do not know.

It's not that I don't believe in the structure that we all built. I have firm values still, and I know that if the younger ones were to destroy any of that, we would descend into chaos. That would definitely get a rise out of me.

But I feel after thousands of years underground, there is little the Council can say that I haven't heard. I've seen and done it all; there is little to be offered to me down here that would actually interest me.

I wasn't born apathetic like them. I became it over time.

I take note of my surroundings, an old habit from the war that just never fizzled out, and I spot a familiar redhead sitting in the center of the Council. The other members, dull ashen figures that have been around since our discovery of the wildsponts, flank her.

Brinda has always stood out amongst them. She is fiery, in personality and looks, and she makes the perfect matriarch.

And I can't say she's bad in bed.

Too bad we outgrew that tryst after a few hundred years. Neither of us resent the other; that's the vrakken way. We all live too long to take lifelong mates, so it doesn't really matter who we tumble in and out of bed with. It will all become meaningless, and while I can tolerate her better than most others, I can't say I harbor any feelings for her beyond that.

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