Chapter 9: Whyte Magic: Blood Red Soul
I awoke several days later in the now-familiar foyer of Whyte's mansion. It was early morning. I was laid across one of the numerous velvet couches draped with silk. The first thing I noticed was that horrendous scent of death permeating the atmosphere. Quickly after that olfactory sensation, however, I also came to perceive a certain limb restored.
I opened my eyes slowly and lifted my right hand before them. I curled my thick fingers around, turning my hand in disbelief, before gripping my head with both hands and falling out of the seat. An acute and volatile pain clutched my cranium. As my hands made for my skull my tactile nerves discovered a peculiar band about my skull, beneath my hair and about my forehead. It felt like braided wire…
"Eyes, here," I heard the brief and direct demand. I rubbed my head, the pain subsiding, and tried to remove the band. Whatever it was, the wire would not come off. It was as though it had been fused into my flesh, "EYES, HERE!" The pain rebuffed itself tenfold and I fell face forward onto the ground screaming.
My oculus found the origin of the exaction - none other than that ubiquitous, detestable whore. She wore naught but her smallclothes and sat, cross legged, on the loveseat parallel to the couch, near the hearth with the bookshelves. I rose to my knees, gripping my skull instinctively, as if that would sedate the pain, "What have you done to me, vixen?!"
Her blue eyes penetrated me with a completely apathetic stare. She snapped her fingers and the crushing sensation around my skull resumed. My eyes felt as though they would fall out of my sockets, "Twice I've brought you back from death's clutches."
"Damn you, what have you done?!" I roared. I rose to my feet and faced her, attempting to draw out my diamond rod. Only then did I realize two things; one: that I was completely nude, and two: that the connection to my internal mana focus had been severed. I could no longer manipulate my own mana. I was virtually defenseless. All of my stone skin had been removed, and my diamond – which was still present within me, and malleable, for some reason – was dead weight within my superficial fascia.
"I saved your life, you ungrateful cur," The woman returned my defiant stance and rose to her own feet. I stepped back as she approached, blood curdling fear making my knees weak, until I fell into the couch cushions once more, "I only take affluent clients." She took the seat next to me on the couch and like a frightened whelp I bound over the back and ran at a full sprint for the massive double doors leading out.
I stumbled over my own legs when my muscles seized up and that crushing sensation crippled my consciousness. It was different, this time, stronger and less localized. My entire body shuddered with a stabbing pain, and my cranium burned with immolation as vehement as the Shadow's black flames. I arched my spine so far back it's a wonder I didn't break it.
"But you don't look too wealthy…" Whyte continued colloquially. She stood up and approached once more, not rescinding her hold on me, this time, until she was within a meter, "It wouldn't have been very ladylike of me to leave you there to die, though, would it? Of course, this leads to a confliction of interests…" The pain subsided, "Regardless, you have received a service, and are expected to pay for it in kind. Not to mention you demolished an entire wall… The serfs were ever so displeased with your boorish behavior."
"I'm going to kill you, bitch!" I shouted between my teeth, which had been clamped shut in the prior throes.
"That's not going to happen, love," She grinned softly, her long bangs falling before her face as she cocked her head to the side, looking at me askance, "You see I've taken precautions, ere you'd have slain me up front. You are strong, much stronger than I could have possibly imagined, given that display of grandeur, but you lack tact..." She giggled, "And now I have you in my thralls. Yes, you're going to work for the services I have rendered and for the damages you have inflicted."
"I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING THROAT OUT!" I screamed when my jaw broke free of the clamp.
I kicked up to all fours but dropped almost immediately, this time a colorful palette of agony ailing me: from hypothermic frost, to slicing sensations, jagged tearing, and acidic burning, "You know I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby, but I don't think that's a good idea," Her grin broadened until it was nearly face-splitting, a toothy beast waiting to tear into its prey, "How do you think I kept Gunter under control, hmm? That gold circlet uses the very same spell. It's an artificial magical being. I made it to subsist off of two mana signatures; yours and mine. If either one fails, it's going to drain the other of everything they've got!" She laughed boisterously.
"I'll kill you…" I reiterated in my fury when the burst of excruciation became tolerable.
"There will be time for that later, love," She stood tall and gazed down at me with derision, "For now, however, we must celebrate this new chapter in our lives!" She reached down, beneath her panties, and stroked vigorously, before retracting her fingers and snapping the thong to her thigh. She lowered her head and glared at me below her bangs, and demanded in a domineering, deep tone, "Now drop them."
"I'll kill you…" I whimpered, receding into the safe haven of my mind.
The pain returned, and my body contorted into the fetal position.
Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate
Kill murder violate torture
Chop cut slice sunder rend tear
KILL
The voice in my head brought me a small measure of solace as I rose to my knees, tears of shame and agony streaming down my face. For every nanogram of sorrow and dejection I felt, my new master received a kilo of reprehensible pleasure. She gripped my hair and buried my face in her crotch after I removed the knickers, "Lick."
Kill her…
----
I could never figure that woman out, not even to this day. She was a dominatrix, but never insisted on keeping me under surveillance. She was a sexual sadist, and yet she never defiled me to the extent that she did to Gunter. She derived ecstasy in watching me suffer both physically and mentally, yet her sexual practices themselves were not out of the ordinary post –what she called "foreplay." I have studied mental illnesses of this kind prior and since, and for every trait that would indicate something she exhibited one which would exclude said diagnosis.
Regardless, I cannot measure the magnitude of execration I felt for her. Each and every day under her vile thrall was hell manifest. She kept a stringent hold on my internal mana focus, only on rare occasions granting me very limited access to my mana capacity. Namely, during surgeries; she was not merely jesting about making me her "assistant." I was no healer, but chemical and molecular reconstruction and binding, the initial process of healing magic and the role of Earth flows, was something I was adept at.
-----
I dismounted the queen sized bed as subtly as I could muster, alas it was not enough. Whyte rolled over under the elegant and imperious covers and gripped my arm with her painfully soft hands, "Where you going?" She muttered groggily.
"To the restroom." I lied.
She let go of my arm and rolled back over, licking her dry mouth, "I can't sleep without you…" She yawned, half asleep.
"I won't be but a minute." I fed her the rubbish she wanted to hear, and before I even finished the sentence she resumed the rhythmic breathing of sound slumber.
I sighed and roused, walking with light feet out of the massive bedchamber adorned with no lack of haughty furnishings. It disgusted me to see so much splendor in one place, and yet Holly's serfs lived in practical squalor.
I mounted the staircase down to the first floor, and exited through a doorway into the foyer. The large, open room was well lit, as I knew it would be, and in the far corner, near the bookshelves and the hearth, sat one of the jungle natives leafing through a book.
I had been living at Whyte's manor for a few months, aiding her in saving the very people I used to slaughter en mass, the detestable hierarchy of the world. I met Ubangua the very first day, during a failed escape attempt that night, at this very place, and we had been meeting nightly since. The aged fellow was quite fond of literature, and would often peruse Whyte's extensive library at night while she was slumbering.
He was one of the few serfs permitted within the manor proper; the head butler, in a manner of speaking. Ubangua was a wrinkled old man with droopy black eyes and leathery brown skin. The man was responsible for the state of the manor and the surrounding lands, a foreman of maintenance. He was kind to all, concerned especially for the welfare of his people and myself – though his pleas for better living conditions always fell on deaf ears- and was one of the few people Whyte could bear to be in the presence of. He was also a veritable genius.
"Punctual as usual, my friend," The withered old man chuckled, folding the book on his lap and replacing it upon the shelf nearest him, "I've set our board already."
"Thank you, Ubangua." Placed upon the small coffee table between the two lounging chairs was a board game referred to as "Julingian," it was an ancient Fennerdeh game, not too dissimilar to Mancala; Ubangua taught me to play.
Ubangua was sympathetic to my plight, just as he was to Gunter's before me. I know for a fact that I would have never made it through that ordeal alive had I not had his support. His company was the only small reprieve I would ever receive. We would lose ourselves in intellectual conversation, test each other's wit in games of the mind, trade tales of our pasts, teach one another of worldly intricacies yet unbeknownst to the other, and otherwise find time to shoot the breeze. Yes, Ubangua was the single star in that ocean of black.
"You have an amazing internal clock, I must say!" He spoke in the tongue of Harregah, which both Whyte and I were fluent in. He attempted to teach me a little of his native Fennerdeh speech, but I never had an affinity for those types of guttural languages, and my accent was atrocious.
"It's a necessity when living a feral life," I took my seat and folded my hands on my fur skirt. Strangely enough, while Whyte had a strict dress code for the other inhabitants of her estate, she permitted me to wear my kilts, "The hunter is always awake before the prey."
Ubangua laughed softly and initiated our game. He was very casual towards me, a measure of familiarity he did not even display towards his own kin. I found great solace in his charm; I suppose I almost considered him a grandfatherly figure, in spite of the fact that I must have been a hundred times his age.
"What are you hunting these days, my friend?"
"A method with which I might divert my attention from this hellscape." I picked up a cup of beads and returned his initiative sequence. The game was difficult to win, if played between two experts. As both Ubangua and I might be considered as such, the both of us quite adept in arithmetic, the algorithmic formula of the contest was superficial and easy to read. Occasionally one of us would make a mistake, either on accident or intentionally to disrupt the order of our plotted action.
Ubangua frowned, "I wish there was more I could do for you, lad. I feel like a pretty horrible human being if all I am good for is a distraction."
I feigned a grin and raised my hands defensively, "Oh, no! You misinterpret me!" He picked up the nearest cup to home and began distributing the beads, the look of dejected contemplation still marring his features, "To be honest these brief hours we share are all I've to look forward to these days…" I sighed, unable to maintain the façade any longer. What I said was no lie; alas such psychological trauma would not so easily be deleted.
"Tonight was a particularly rough one, eh?" He implied his sympathies.
I grit my teeth, "It's my own damn fault for not indulging that whore's desire…"
"How can you say that?!" He shot up. I averted eye contact and moved another cup, not particularly paying attention, "Zien, it's not your fault… The mistress is to blame. How can such a dialectician such as yourself be so contrived?"
"Fool," I rebuked, and he moved another cup, "I know I am not at fault for her actions, but I should have been able to conceive the outcome of my defiance." I rubbed my head and growled; it pained me to remember the preceding events, "That slattern was 'in a good mood,' as she so eloquently phrased it. The Cyprian merely presented herself and suggested I mount… I was a fool to feign nausea to a bloody healer whose damndable hexes have me perforated from the inside out."
"She did not make the demand?" I was getting frustrated. The sole aspect I did not care for about Ubangua was his incessant curiosity when it came to matters regarding my welfare. He truly was akin to family. I hastily made a move, stalling the conversation.
"No, it was not explicitly stated," My mouth curled into a snarl and I continued, "however, nothing with that demented fuck ever is, would you not agree? I cannot manage both her subtle social connotations and her perverse mind. It's driving me mad!" I became a little more boisterous than perhaps I should have, and breathed in deeply to calm myself.
"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to offend…" He soothed, diverting his own pity-melded eyes back to the board and carefully making a move…I felt abashed for being pitied by a veritable slave.
My attempt to sedate myself faltered and I broke down. Almost as if from nowhere, the tears welled within my eyes and the stammering puleing commenced, "I can't do this anymore, Ubangua!" I cried, "Night after night, it's always the same! I'm dying, man; body, mind and soul! You have no idea how much I regret not accepting the embrace of death, no idea how much I scorn my own contemptible Fear," My eyes were blurred and my vision lacking, but I picked up a cup of my own beads by feel and apportioned the glass without a care, "I've lived through some horrendous shit, but of all the bodies I have ever wanted to see strewn about before me, hers is the most desirable. The one person I want to see dead more than any other I cannot so much as touch lest it be of a sexual nature!"
I fell forward and slammed my face on the coffee table. My head pushed the julingian board back slightly, but no pieces fell. I tugged in vain at the headband made of elegant woven gold as Ubangua made another move. He was always good at reading me, even if he was overly speculative and inquisitive. He knew I desired no hollow pity in that state, which he had seen me in many times before.
After a few moments of relative silence, interrupted only occasionally by my growls and stifled screams and wails, I lifted my head. I wiped away the tears and looked at the board, "I'll be damned…"
"I think I won this round." Ubangua laughed. I joined him.
-----
"I only take affluent clients," Holly shooed her hand nonchalantly at the elfin man in tattered rags, not raising her eyes from the book. He was short for an elf in that world, and his frail-looking arms cradled the mangled body of a barely living girl; his daughter.
"I've braved the perils of this monstrous jungle with the hopes that you might save her!" He shouted across the foyer, his broad green eyes welling with lachrymal fluids. I was standing right next to him – I acted as the doorman in this instance- and had to cover my ears due to the vehement undulations of his vocal chords, "The healer in Durta said there is little time for her, but you are the most acclaimed healer in all the world! Please, I will give you everything I own! The clothes off my back! Anything, please!"
���I would pay you to dispose those tatters, you filthy peasant long-eared flip," She spat the racial slur obstreperously, "Now vacate these premises ere I have you escorted by my associate, here." I glared at the woman, but felt the elf's green eyes burning a hole in the back of my head.
"My life, then! Take my life! Please, oh god, please!" He was desperate. The elf fell to his knees and pleaded until his face was flooding in his own tears and saliva, "I've heard the stories. You will accept blood as payment, correct? Please, anything to save my precious little girl! PLEASE!"
"You ignorant creatures just don't listen, do you?" Whyte slammed the cover of the book together and glared fiercely at the man, "This is no place for troglodytes like you, who've not even two copper to rub together. Your very existence reviles me! Zien," She commanded, and I clenched my eyes and bit my tongue, "Dispose of them, his pant leggings are staining the carpet."
"N-no…you can't���" The elf whispered in paralyzing terror, "No, not after all I've gone through…"
"Zien, are you listening? I don't care how you do it - I've lifted your seal for the time being- take them out back and put them under before the stench fills the building."
"No."
"What?" She lifted an eyebrow at me indignantly.
"What about me?"
"What about you?" She squinted her eyes, growing ever more impatient.
"In his stead; I shant even protest. I will grant myself to you for whatever you deem necessary…" I could not believe the words vacating my mouth originated from my own nous.
"I already own you, wretch, watch your place."
"You don't own my will; I chose to live."
Holly clenched her teeth, and I feared the worst. I braced myself as her face contorted in insatiable fury, "You son of a bitch!" She screamed, "I will not tolerate this!" I made a mistake far more grave than I could have ever imagined, "Bring her to the OR."
-----
"You're more familiar with animal bites than I am, what do you suppose did this?" Whyte inquired idly as she prepared various vials and beakers of elements.
"What does it matter? Lack of knowledge has never been of import to your work before."
"Your offer is sliding quickly, Zien, as is her probability of living." She stated sinisterly.
I swallowed and broke out in a cold sweat, then looked at the broken body on the iron bed before me for a quick examination. Her face had almost entirely been torn off. The flesh had been peeled back and there were distinct teeth and claw mark marring some of the exposed bone. The mediocre healing spell which had been used on her prior did little more than clot and staunch the blood; it was no more effective than bandaging, "I would have to guess a cockatrice. See the jagged tearing on the remaining facial muscles? The beasts tend to claw first and bite afterwards, and that tear line is most definitely indicative of talons. If it were something larger she would not be alive, I surmise."
"Peel that palpebra back and give me a report on the condition of the oculus," She jumped ahead to the heart of the matter; the eyes were, evidently, the hardest part of a body to regenerate. The right eye in question had suffered a particularly nasty puncture from the cockatrice's teeth. I pulled the girl's eyelid back and bore witness to the grotesque sight, "It's not too severe, just a minor grazing; most of the eye is still there."
"Will I need reagents?"
"It appears as though the trochlea has been severed and the superior oblique is hanging out… I can't tell from here but the optic nerve may have been cut." The more I picked at the eye, the girl started twitching. It was a wonder the eye was able to hold itself in the socket.
"How extensive is the cardiovascular damage?"
"Superficial."
Whyte clicked her tongue and rumbled, "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're the healer." I said and was felled, that familiar crippling, crushing, burning sensation violating my cranium.
"We aren't off to a great start, Zien, for your supposed submission!" Whyte spat, "Or are you just in the mood? I wouldn't mind doing it right here and now, but what about this pathetic flip you're giving your life for, hmm?"
I rolled on the floor and yelled as the band dug deeper into my skull, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Almost immediately the pain subsided, only the lingering headache remaining, and I concluded, "Nothing more than minor grazing; it shouldn't be too difficult for you and I doubt it requires anything…"
"Good boy."
-----
The healing was a success, and the girl left our abode with her father in high spirits and fantastic condition. I wish I could have felt the same. I wish I could have reciprocated with authenticity the beaming smile she gave me when finally she woke.
-----
That night began like any other, though I was in considerably lower spirits. Whyte had rolled over onto me and began persistently groping. As usual my first instinct was to strike her, but I endured. When I failed to return her advances with cooperation, the flows of mana flew from her hands.
I wailed in agony and rolled back and forth, clutching my head, tossing sheets, covers, and Whyte from and about the bed. I clawed at my forehead until I produced no insignificant quantity of blood, and then Whyte pinned me. She wore a seductively maniacal grin on her face as she pressed into me. She thrust her hips in demand of a response, which failed as I was flaccid and furious.
I began to weep as the pain subsided, and she lowered her face to mine, the tactile properties of her skin now replacing the torment of the circlet; she licked the blood from my forehead, "I'll kill you." I whispered weakly beneath my tears.
I braced myself for another barrage of torturous sensations, but was greeted with a queer response, "Oh? How would you kill me, hmm?" My eyes bolted and I glared at her, now biting at the nape of my neck, "Would you tear out my throat?" She moved down, her dagger-like soft fingers running along my torso, "Would you rip my chest out?" She squeezed my nipples.
I grit my teeth and tried to leave my body, and then I realized she was giving me an opening. I would take it. If she wanted to live out her sick fantasies, I, at least, had the right to imagine my own, "I'd plunge my claws into your abdomen."
"Oh yeah?" She fondled my member, and against my will it stimulated.
I bit my tongue and tried to imagine what I would do next, "I'd find a way to make you live through it while I ripped your large intestines out."
"I like it when you pull out."
"I'd affix a meat hook to the ceiling and hang you by your own organs."
"I like meat, too." She gripped it too hard.
"I'd let your blood drain into a pail with a pump attached to it and shove a tube down your throat so you would drink and drain your own blood repeatedly."
"Hmhmhm, usually I'm swallowing your bodily fluids."
"I'd carve out chunks of your flesh and pour caustic acids and vitriolic powders into the gashes, and watch you squirm."
"You think I'd live through all that?"
"Then, when I was satisfied, I would bite your neck," She rose as I said this and began lapping the anterior triangle of my neck with her tongue. I groaned in pain before finishing, "drink my fill, and then stab your bloody corpse a hundred thousand times until every ounce of viscera was indistinguishable from meat pulp."
"You know how much I love it when you penetrate me." She mounted me completely and pressed her hips inward once more, this time achieving her goal.
-----
Another year passed by, and the times only got worse. I began to lose hope that I would ever make it out alive, and on several occasions even contemplated suicide; an act I consider the ultimate sin. I still met with Ubangua, though less frequently. Depression, despair, and resignation became me, and I found more and more often that even Ubangua's comfort did not provide me adequate succor.
My passionate hatred for that woman burned as brightly as ever, but I ever lacked the enthusiasm or vim to vociferate it any longer. I was dying. My sense of duty, my moral compass, my own perception of reality and life; all slid away from my mind as I became a hollow shell of what I once was.
I argued with Whyte less and less. I bent my knee and bowed my head when asked. I jumped when she said "jump" and I killed when she said "dispose" or "escort." She had bested me in every way possible, and not even the cold comfort of my numerous memories could help me escape my living corpse.
-----
I drank directly from the wine bottle Ubangua handed to me over the coffee table. I did not read the label, I did not care. The scent of the foul toxin would not put me off this time. I abhorred alcohol, but in this particular time in my life I was actively seeking a method with which I might free my mind.
I consumed too much in one swig, however, and my gag reflex initiated. Back into the mouth of the wine bottle I vacated my stomach's contents, and it overflowed. Vomit spilled over onto my kilt and the reclining chair's silk cover, but I did not care. The vile bile drenched my hands and my clothing, but I merely slammed the bottle down onto the coffee table and sighed.
"You okay, lad?" I looked into Ubangua's vapid face with indignant apathy, "I'm sorry, stupid question."
"I give up Ubangua."
"What?" He looked at me, squinting his eyes in concern.
"I give up. Life isn't worth living anymore. I've had my time; I've played my piece… I give up."
Ubangua's jaw dropped and his brow furrowed, "Zien…" He started tearing up, "Of all the people to say that, you…?" He averted eye contact and started crying into the furled cufflinks of his butler's uniform.
"Yeah, I know. I also don't rightly give a damn anymore," I was tempted to take a swig out of the wine bottle again, "I want you to kill me Ubangua…"
Ubangua kicked back in his chair, as if struck, shocked and horrified, "No, I can't! Zien, I can't!"
"You know damn well my philosophy doesn't permit suicide! It's an affront to all those many thousands of living creature's which have fallen by my hands! Even if it is a superficial technicality!" I erupted, leaning forward on the chair, "Ubangua, I know it's a selfish thing to ask, but please! You're the only one I can trust to do this," I fell back and sighed, shutting my palpebra, "I'm so tired Ubangua. I'm older than you think I am; I've done horrible things over the course of my life; I've fallen into the abyss of hell and come out alive. None of that compares to this, old man. I've never been so perpetually exhausted…"
"I can't, Zien…" Ubangua cried.
"Then I suppose I've no other option." I sighed, and rose from my seat. Somehow I had anticipated this outcome and planned accordingly.
"Where are you going? Zien?" Ubangua called after me as I prepared to leave the foyer.
"I'm going to kill that whore."
"NO! ZIEN!" He shouted so violently it would be a wonder if Whyte did not wake. He jumped out of his seat and rushed me, stumbling over and gripping my hand with his full force in an attempt to hold me back, "You'll die!"
"Then I will die! Not one more day, Ubangua! I'm not going to suffer that whore's sadism one day longer!" My resolve was firm. In my eyes, any action which one commits knowing full well the certainty of death is tantamount to suicide. I was prepared to mar my soul and become a hypocrite.
"Don't go, Zien, please don't go…" He sniffled as tears fell to the ground.
"It's too late, Ubangua, I am determined."
"I won't let you die, lad, I can't let you die. I can save you!"
"What are you talking about?"
The old man rose to his feat and wiped his face on his lapel, "I'm so sorry, Zien. I am a coward."
"Speak plainly, old man!" I growled.
"I haven't been honest with you, regarding your predicament… There is a way out."
"W-what?" I stammered, glaring into the old man's eyes.
"What the master told you about the spell, about the circlet, it was a lie. It requires two mana signatures to sustain itself, two lives."
"I already know this." I shook his hand free and turned around once more.
"No! You misunderstand. Two lives; not necessarily the ones the circlet is initially bonded to."
I turned to face Ubangua once more, who was staring up at me apologetically, "What are you saying, Ubangua?"
"The spell requires a sacrifice before it will fall; the conditions of the circlet's creation must be met before then. The bearer of the circlet is the only one at risk, but if the proper spell were to be cast to meet its conditions… then it will become nothing more than a simple band of gold. Someone who can cast it may supersede your place as the sacrifice."
"Heh, I see where this is going." I grumbled, "It doesn't matter, Ubangua, there is none here save Whyte capable of casting that spell."
"You are wrong." The leathery old man clasped his hands together and bowed to me. My lips parted and I lifted an eyebrow, "I may not be a powerful being like yourself… but I have studied master's magics for a long time. I can break the seal…"
"Ubangua…"
"I only ask that…" He began.
"Shut up," I interrupted, "You think I'll bear your life on my shoulders, too? I won't permit it!"
"My friend, I am not long for this world, regardless," He spread his arms by way of presentation. I had never really noticed, but he was quite ancient, "I can die happy knowing I helped in bringing the master- no, Whyte to her knees."
"This is my fight, Ubangua-"
"Don't start, lad," He broke out in a fury, "You lack the wisdom necessary to know right from wrong, listen to your elders!" My eyes bolted in surprise, Ubangua was anything but defiant, "I want that bitch dead just as much as you do, boy. My entire tribe was conquered by that pasty woman. Many of the children in this estate don't even know what a life of freedom is. I do this for you, lad, but also for myself. For my people. Whyte must die…and you are the only one alive strong enough to do it."
"I…" I paused.
"Zien, I am so sorry. Because of my own cowardice, my own selfish desire to remain amongst the living, I have caused both you and my people immeasurable suffering. Asking forgiveness is not within my right, so all I ask is that you carve that woman as you see fit… please."
I stepped near to Ubangua, a single tear falling from my left eye, and embraced the leathery old fool, the scent of my own bile permeating my senses violently, "It is only natural to cling to life, my friend."
"I am so sorry." His shaky, heavily accented voice muttered.
"It's okay, Ubangua, I accept your proposal."
-----
My staff in my left hand, the circlet in my right, I kicked open the doors to Whyte's bedroom, nearly taking them off their hinges. The smell of Ubangua's blood still haunted my memory, and the spattering of it upon the now-plain gold band made me nauseous.
Whyte bolted upright with a squeal, clearly affright, and covered her indecency with the comforter; a considerable display of modesty, coming from her. When she saw me she relaxed a little, letting the covers drop and exposing her bosom, "Oh, it's you. What on earth is wrong with you, making all that noise?"
I approached the bed, not saying a word, and twirled the circlet about my index finger in an orbital motion, "Well? Say something," The nescient woman demanded. I stepped up to the bed and gazed down at her, and she up at me. When, again, I did not respond she rose and wagged a finger under my nose, "Speak when spoken to, Zien."
Minor flows of mana emanated from her fingers, but fell dead in their tracks. I stared down at the woman with empty eyes, and felt great satisfaction when at last she took her surroundings in. That oh so familiar sight of deathly, mortal fear penetrated her nous and constricted her pupils.
She exhaled rapidly and unevenly and started coughing; she fell back on the bed, naked, and I merely glared down at her, a toothy grin of my own finally staring her in the face. She started trembling like a frightened babe watching her father being butchered, and her breasts bounded with each sporadic inhalation and exhalation. I reveled in her fear; it was ecstatic.
Her eyes finally found my staff, and then the circlet. She stared at the circlet for at least a dozen seconds, silent but for her erratic breathing, before inquiring, "How?" I responded with a quick swing of my staff. I struck the extravagant queen sized bed at the foot, and the entire structure crumbled. Wood splinters, down, fabric, and Whyte flew from the bed in an eruption of force.
Whyte rolled halfway across the room, relatively unharmed save a small bump on the noggin, and I looked over at her askance, "We can talk about this, honey, there's no need to be agitated," You're quick to lose your temper on a whim, I retorted silently, "You've always been on about life being nothing more than living, or something, right? Well look at what I did for you! I gave you clothing, food, and shelter; everything you ever needed. I even let you use my library; no one gets to use my library!"
I stepped closer to her once more, "You got to eat like a king, wouldn't you agree?" She kept trying to coerce me, "Come on, Zien, let's just go back to bed, okay? Err…" She glanced back at the demolished ruins of the mattress, "Or maybe we should just think things through?" Excuse after excuse, "If I die, what happens the next time you're blown into a billion pieces? Yeah," She snapped her fingers, "you need me!"
Closer, and closer, she started shuffling back, just as I had so many years ago, "W-wait…" She stammered. She ran into the wall behind her, bumping into a dresser and knocking over a still-framed photograph of me repairing the wall I broke in that first year; she made me do it without the use of my magic.
She startled herself with the knock and I felt a surge of mana burst forth, flows of fire, as she cast an Ignis Khara Columna. From my feet a massive pillar of flame erupted, but I had already absorbed, in no small portions, a fair amount of the polished ground floor's foundation. I brought the ivory stone to the surface of my skin and the inferno licked me harmlessly. I proceeded in my advances.
"Don't do this; you're not a bad person, Zien!" I bent over and swiftly gripped the woman's supple little neck, lifting her off the ground. She started gurgling, choking as her breath left her and would not return, "Please…"
I gazed into her eyes, the fires of excitement now infecting mine, and brought the diamond into my arm once more. I sent the flows to the tops of my fingers and drew the carbon out, forming lethally sharp claws in a glove around my left hand. Her eyes began trembling with the rest of her body and I chuckled; she finally felt my Fear.
"I love you…" She whispered with the last of her breath. My palpebra bolted and my grip loosened a tad; I was abhorrently aghast. I cannot feasibly detail how much that statement, that – genuine - statement derailed my trail of thought. She meant what she said, and she had already resigned herself to her fate; she knew there was nothing to gain from lying to me at this point.
Why am I afraid?
KILL HER!
My initial shock faded quickly, replaced instead by a bloodlust the likes of which I had never felt before. My enmity welled, tapping into an abysmal chasm filled to the brim with animus. My teeth clattered together and my eyes burned with furious rage. I screamed wordlessly, roaring like the savage beast that I am, and swiped at her face with my extended claws.
I put so much force into the attack, augmented with my mana via physical attunement, that her cranium was sliced to ribbons immediately. It was a clean cut – through flesh, bone, and organ – and what remained of her body slipped out of my grip as the four strips splattered across the back wall.
NOT ENOUGH! The voice in my head rang through my very essence. I brought the remaining diamond out in my right hand, imitating the arrangement of claws on the left, and bent over her corpse.
NOT ENOUGH! I ripped at it angrily, strewing organs all about and crushing them into offal, screaming in a blind fury.
MORE!
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Why did she have to say that…?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Cyoral
Cyoral This was a tough chapter to pen. While I personally, having always been a rather large man, have never had to suffer any manner of sexual abuse, I have several close family members who have. I have seen the effects of PTSD firsthand, forming and molding the mind of the wronged. I have seen irreparable damage done and watched how it changes a person’s mannerisms, and many a time have I tried in vain to console. I wanted to attempt to give a firsthand perspective of trauma, but having never experienced it myself it was difficult. I didn’t shy away from the reality of the harsh world when writing this book, but there were also some experiences, like the ones featured in the Black Magic story, which I can only speculate. I didn’t want to mis-represent this subject matter, but I also didn’t want it to go unsung. It’s something to this day I’m still not sure I accomplished appropriately.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone