DEVOUR THE GODS: They had all the power. He took it

Chapter 2: First Blood

I woke up choking on flowers.

Vines erupted from my throat, green and vital, forcing their way between my teeth. I rolled off the mattress, clawing at my mouth, tearing leaves that dissolved into smoke the moment they left my body. My fingers came away clean. No blood. No vegetation. Just the phantom sensation of roots growing through my lungs.

The locket burned against my chest.

I yanked it away from my skin. The metal had fused to the chain somehow, and the chain had become part of me. I could see where it disappeared into my flesh at the base of my neck, no seam or clasp visible. Like it had always been there. Like I'd been born wearing it.

Sunlight slanted through my apartment window. Late morning, maybe early afternoon. I'd lost hours. The last thing I remembered was Mrs. Chen's face, pale and shocked, her hand pressed to her chest as I stumbled away from the chapel.

I looked down at my hands.

Black veins traced across my right palm, spreading from where I'd first touched the crystal. They looked like roots themselves, dark and branching, disappearing under my skin about halfway to my wrist. When I flexed my fingers, they moved. Pulsing. Alive.

"What the hell did you do to me?" I whispered.

The voices didn't answer. They'd gone quiet after that initial flood of sound, but I could feel them. Presences at the edge of my consciousness. Watching. Waiting.

I stood on shaking legs and immediately stumbled. The room tilted sideways. Not from weakness. From wrongness. Everything looked different. The air itself had texture now, visible currents of heat and cold and something else. Something I'd never noticed before because I'd never been able to see it.

Magic.

It hung in the atmosphere like invisible smoke, thicker in some places than others. A faint green glow emanated from the wall I shared with Mrs. Chen's apartment. Her power, probably. Residual energy from decades of living in the same space.

I could see it. I could feel it. And somewhere deep in my chest, something hungry stirred.

My stomach cramped. Actual hunger this time. I hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. The magic I'd taken from Mrs. Chen filled a different kind of emptiness, but my body still needed food.

I pulled on yesterday's clothes and headed for the door. My legs felt strange. Too light. Too responsive. Like my muscles had been replaced with something more efficient.

The hallway was empty. Thank god. I didn't trust myself around other people yet. Not until I understood what had happened. What I'd done.

What I could do again.

The thought came unbidden, seductive. I pushed it away and descended the stairs two at a time. My body moved with a grace I'd never possessed. Not magic, exactly. Just the absence of whatever exhaustion had been weighing me down for years.

I felt alive.

Outside, the Dregs looked the same as always. Grey buildings. Greyer people. Everyone hunched against wind that carried the smell of factory smoke and desperation. But I saw the magic now. Threads of it connecting people to the world, thin lines of power that marked them as something more than mundane.

A woman passed me carrying groceries. Fire affinity, minor tier. Just enough to light cook stoves without matches. Useful but unremarkable.

I felt the hunger spike.

No. Not yet. Not until I understood the rules.

I walked to the public library on Fifth Street. Three stories of brick and ambition, built fifty years ago when the city still believed the Dregs deserved nice things. Now the windows were cracked and the steps were crumbling, but the books remained. Knowledge didn't care about property values.

Inside, the air smelled like dust and old paper. The librarian glanced up from her desk. Miss Orin. Ancient as the building itself, with spectacles that magnified her eyes to unnatural proportions. Divination affinity, or so the rumors claimed. Minor precognition. She could sense which books people needed before they asked.

She stared at me for three full seconds.

"You look different," she said finally.

"Bad night."

"Mmm." Her eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. "The magical theory section. Fifth row, middle shelves. You know where it is."

I did. I'd spent years there.

But today I headed for the restricted archives in the basement. The section that required special permission to access. The section that documented the city's magical history, including its darker chapters.

The door was locked. Enchanted lock, probably. I touched the handle anyway.

The locket grew warm.

I felt the magic in the lock. Simple ward. Designed to recognize authorized signatures and reject everything else. I couldn't bypass it. I didn't know how. But I could feel its structure now, see the weak points where the enchantment connected to the physical mechanism.

I pulled.

Something inside the lock snapped. Not the metal. The magic. It unraveled like thread, and the door swung open.

The voices whispered approval.

I descended into the archives.

Shelves stretched into darkness, packed with books that nobody read anymore. Historical records. Criminal proceedings. Incident reports dating back two centuries. Everything the city wanted to remember but preferred to keep buried.

I found what I was looking for in the crime section. A leather-bound volume marked with the year 2485. Forty years ago.

The Phantom Thief incident.

I'd heard rumors. Everyone had. A mage who could steal powers had terrorized the academy for three months before vanishing. Seventeen students injured. Three dead. The city had mobilized every resource to find the culprit. Then the attacks stopped, and the case went cold.

I opened the book.

Crime scene photographs spilled across the pages. Black and white images of hospital rooms. Students lying comatose in identical beds, their faces slack and empty. Beneath each photo, a name and a description of their lost power.

Thomas Aldric - Fire Manipulation, Combat Class

Sarah Venn - Truth Sensing, Administrative Class

Marcus Venn Sr. - Lightning Generation, Combat Class

The name stopped me. Venn. Marcus's father? The timeline fit. If this happened forty years ago, and Marcus was in his early twenties now...

I turned the page.

A wanted poster. Artist's sketch of a woman in her thirties. Sharp features. Dark hair. Eyes that seemed to follow you across the page.

ELARA MOURNE. WANTED FOR THEFT OF MAGICAL ESSENCE. DANGEROUS. APPROACH WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

My grandmother.

The text beneath the image detailed her crimes. Seventeen confirmed thefts. Pattern suggested she was building a collection of abilities. Possible motivation: creating a permanent enhancement ritual. Danger level: Catastrophic. Last seen fleeing the Garden District on foot.

Then nothing. Case suspended. Trail went cold.

Because she'd hidden. Changed her name. Lived quietly in a care home for forty years while wearing the weapon she'd used to destroy those lives.

And now I had it.

My hands shook as I turned more pages. Witness testimonies. Victim interviews. One statement caught my attention.

"It felt like something was ripped out of me. Not physically. Deeper. Like she took a piece of my soul and left a hole behind. I can feel it every day. The phantom pain of something that should be there but isn't. Sometimes I wake up trying to use my power, forgetting it's gone, and the absence is worse than any wound."

That was what Mrs. Chen felt right now. That was what I'd done to her.

I should have felt guilty. Should have felt horror or remorse or something human.

Instead, I felt the hunger grow stronger.

I needed more.

The realization terrified me. This wasn't me. I wasn't a thief. I wasn't violent. I'd spent my whole life following rules, believing that good behavior and hard work would eventually be rewarded. That patience would manifest into power.

But patience had given me nothing.

The locket had given me everything.

I closed the book and climbed back upstairs. Miss Orin watched me emerge from the basement, her expression unreadable.

"Find what you needed?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Good." She removed her spectacles and cleaned them with a cloth. "Some knowledge comes with a price, Mr. Thorne. Make sure you can afford it."

I left without answering.

Outside, the sun had reached its apex. Noon. The streets were crowded now. Workers on lunch breaks. Shoppers haggling at market stalls. Children playing in the gutters because there were no parks in the Dregs.

Magic everywhere. Hundreds of threads connecting hundreds of people to their powers. Some bright and strong. Most dim and flickering. All of them calling to the hunger in my chest.

I walked faster. Got away from the crowds. Headed toward the industrial district where the factories belched black smoke into grey skies. Fewer people there. Less temptation.

My apartment building came into view. Almost home. Almost safe.

A man blocked my path.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing clothes too nice for this neighborhood. His right hand glowed faintly blue. Water manipulation, maybe. Or ice. Hard to tell without seeing it active.

"You're Kael Thorne," he said. Not a question.

"Do I know you?"

"No. But I know what you did to Sarah Chen." He took a step forward. The glow intensified. "I felt it. Yesterday, outside the chapel. Someone severed a magical thread. First time that's ever happened in this city. First time in recorded history."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie to me." His voice dropped to something dangerous. "I'm a thread-mage. Trained at the academy, specialization in magical forensics. I can see the connections between mages and their power. And yesterday, I saw one get cut."

He raised his hand. Ice crystals formed in the air, sharp and gleaming.

"The thread led back to you. So I'm going to ask once, and I suggest you tell the truth. What did you do to Mrs. Chen?"

The locket pulsed against my chest. Hot. Eager.

"It was an accident," I said. "I didn't mean to hurt her."

"Accident." He laughed without humor. "You don't accidentally sever a magical thread. That requires conscious effort and power so rare it might as well be theoretical."

The ice crystals multiplied. Dozens of them, hovering around his hand like frozen insects.

"Give it back," he said. "Whatever you took. However you did it. Reverse it."

"I can't."

"Then I'll take you to the Council, and they'll extract the information. One way or another." The crystals began to orbit his hand, picking up speed. "Your choice. Cooperate or bleed."

I should have run. Should have surrendered. Should have done anything except what I did next.

I reached for his magic.

The connection appeared instantly. Thicker than Mrs. Chen's thread had been. Brighter. More substantial. I grabbed it with something that wasn't quite my hand, something that existed in the same space as the magic itself.

And I pulled.

The thread-mage screamed.

His ice crystals shattered, falling like glass rain. The blue glow around his hand flickered, dimmed, died. He stumbled backward, clutching his chest, eyes wide with shock.

"What are you?" he gasped.

Power flooded into me. Cold and sharp and infinitely more complex than plant magic. I could feel it settling into my bones, teaching me its secrets. How to freeze moisture from the air. How to shape ice into any form I desired. How to kill with a touch.

The thread-mage collapsed to his knees. "Give it back. Please. I need it. I need..."

His eyes rolled back. He hit the ground face-first and didn't move.

I stood over him, breathing hard. My right hand had gone completely black. The veins had spread past my wrist now, crawling up my forearm like infection. But I felt incredible. Strong. Alive. Full in ways I'd never imagined possible.

Around us, people had stopped to stare. A woman with a child. An old man leaning on a cane. A shopkeeper standing in his doorway.

They'd seen everything.

"He attacked me," I said. My voice sounded wrong. Too calm. Too steady. "You all saw it. Self-defense."

Nobody argued. They just backed away slowly, giving me a wide berth.

I looked down at the unconscious thread-mage. His chest rose and fell. Still breathing. Still alive. That was something, at least.

I hadn't killed him.

Yet.

The thought whispered through my mind in a voice that might have been mine or might have been something else. The line between the two was already blurring.

I walked away before anyone could stop me. Climbed the stairs to my apartment. Locked the broken door behind me out of habit.

Then I stood in the center of the room and felt the power coursing through me. Two abilities now. Plant manipulation and ice generation. Small magics, but they were mine. Nobody could take them away. Nobody could tell me I didn't deserve them.

I raised my right hand. Black veins covered it entirely now, spreading across the back of my hand in intricate patterns.

Ice formed at my fingertips. Perfect crystals that caught the light and scattered it into rainbows. Beautiful and deadly.

I smiled.

Outside my window, a crow landed on the fire escape. It tilted its head, studying me with eyes too intelligent for a bird.

The voices in the locket whispered.

More. We need more. This is just the beginning.

I knew they were right.

Whatever I'd become, whatever I was becoming, there was no going back. The thread-mage would report me. The Council would come. They'd try to take this away from me, lock me up, execute me for crimes against the natural order.

I wouldn't let them.

I'd spent twenty-three years being nothing. Being powerless. Being invisible.

Not anymore.

Never again.

I looked at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The black veins had reached my neck now, visible above my collar. My eyes looked different too. Darker. Hungrier.

I looked like my grandmother's wanted poster.

Good.

Let them see what they created. Let them understand what happens when you tell someone they're worthless for long enough. When you take everything and offer nothing. When you build a world where power is the only currency that matters.

I'd play by their rules now.

I'd take everything.

A knock sounded at my door. Soft. Hesitant.

"Kael?" Elena's voice. "Are you in there? We need to talk."

I froze. She shouldn't be here. The Garden District elite didn't visit the Dregs. It wasn't safe. It wasn't proper.

"Kael, please. I know you're in there. I can hear you moving."

I approached the door slowly. My hand hovered over the handle.

"What do you want, Elena?"

Silence. Then: "Marcus told me about the incident outside the chapel. About Mrs. Chen losing her magic. He says you were there."

Of course he did. Marcus Venn. Lightning mage. Son of Marcus Venn Sr., who'd lost his power to my grandmother forty years ago. The symmetry was almost poetic.

"I didn't do anything," I said.

"Then let me in. Let me see you. If you're innocent, you have nothing to hide."

I could feel her power through the door. Telekinetic energy, controlled and precise. She could tear the door off its hinges if she wanted. She wouldn't, but she could.

I opened the door.

Elena stood in the hallway, beautiful and concerned. She wore simple clothes, probably trying not to draw attention in this neighborhood. It didn't work. She glowed with health and confidence. Everything about her screamed privilege.

Her eyes went to my hand immediately.

"Kael. Your veins. What happened to you?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me." She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "Something's wrong. You look different. You feel different."

She was close enough now that I could sense her power properly. Telekinesis. Moderate tier, excellent control. She could manipulate objects up to fifty pounds with thought alone. Useful. Versatile. Worth taking.

The hunger surged.

I stepped back, putting distance between us.

"You should leave, Elena."

"Not until you tell me what's happening." She reached for my hand. "Let me see."

"Don't touch me."

But she already had. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, cool and gentle. Concerned. Caring.

I felt her power. Right there. So close. So easy to take.

The locket burned.

"Elena. Let go."

"I'm trying to help you."

"Let. Go."

She must have heard something in my voice. Some edge of warning or desperation or hunger. Her eyes widened and she released me, stepping back.

"What are you?" she whispered.

The same question the thread-mage had asked. I didn't have an answer then. I didn't have one now.

"I'm nothing," I said. "Just like always. Powerless. Broken. Remember?"

"You're not powerless anymore. I can see it. Whatever's happening to you, it's magical. Dangerous."

"Then leave."

"I can't. Marcus is already investigating. The Council is getting involved. If you did something, if you hurt those people, you need to turn yourself in before this gets worse."

I laughed. Couldn't help it. The absurdity of her standing in my apartment, telling me to surrender to the same system that had rejected me for years.

"Turn myself in. Right. So they can execute me for having power when I'm not supposed to."

"So they can help you."

"Like they helped me at the academy? Like they helped when I couldn't manifest? When I begged for guidance and got expulsion notices instead?"

Elena flinched. "That's not fair."

"None of this is fair." I could feel my control slipping. The voices getting louder. The hunger demanding satisfaction. "You have everything, Elena. You were born with power. You'll never understand what it's like to be empty. To watch everyone else matter while you're invisible."

"I'm trying to understand now."

"Too late."

The locket pulsed. The room grew cold. Frost formed on the window, spreading in crystalline patterns.

Elena backed toward the door. "You're scaring me."

"Good. You should be scared."

She ran.

I let her go.

When the door slammed shut, I collapsed against the wall and tried to remember how to breathe. The hunger was overwhelming now. All-consuming. I needed more power. More abilities. More everything to fill the void that had been eating me alive for twenty-three years.

But I couldn't take it from Elena. Not yet. Not while some part of me still remembered what it felt like to care about someone other than myself.

I looked at my hands. Both completely black now. The corruption spreading faster.

My grandmother's letter had warned me. Don't open it. Don't wear it. But she'd known I would. She'd known because she'd felt the same emptiness. The same hunger.

We were the same, her and me. Voids trying to fill ourselves with stolen light.

Outside, sirens wailed in the distance. Coming closer.

The Council was coming.

And I wasn't ready.

Not yet.

But soon.