THEY THREW ME INTO THE ABYSS, SO I DEVOURED EVERYTHING

The knife went in smooth, right below his third rib, before the boot sent him rolling into the mud.

Felix did not scream. His throat was too full of silt and rain, the cold water washing over his cracked teeth as he tumbled down the steep lip of the ravine. He crashed against a rotting log at the bottom, his spine snapping against the wood with a dull thud that stole whatever breath he had left.

Above him, two dark figures stood at the edge of the cliff, framed by the grey sky and the steady, miserable downpour.

"Look at him," Julian said, wiping his bloodied knuckles on a silk handkerchief. "He looks like a drowned dog. I told you we should have just burned the signet ring into his palm first. It would have saved us the trouble of forging his seal."

"He is useless, Julian," Sarah replied. Her voice was light, almost bored, unaffected by the wind whipping her white velvet cloak against the mud. "A man who cannot summon a basic spark has no right to hold the Vane family deeds. The council will sign the transfer by nightfall. They always do when there is no living heir to object."

Felix tried to push his hands into the dirt, but his fingers were numb, slippery with grease and his own blood. He spit a mouthful of red rainwater onto his boots.

"Sarah," he croaked, the sound barely carrying over the storm. "You took my mother’s ring yesterday. You promised."

Sarah stepped closer to the edge, looking down at him with those pale, icy eyes that had mesmerized him for three years. She tilted her head, a soft smile touching her lips, though her eyes remained entirely dead.

"I promised I would wear it to the ritual, Felix. I never said I would wear it as your bride. Your half-brother has a three-star earth core. You have a hollow chest and a dead name. Did you truly think a title was enough to keep me?"

"You used him," Julian laughed, adjusting the heavy leather scabbard at his hip. "He actually thought you loved him, Sarah. Look at his face. He still thinks this is a mistake."

"It is no mistake, Felix," Sarah said, turning her back to the pit. "You are simply in the way of a proper lineage. Let the rain wash you out to the river. It is the only useful thing your body will ever do."

"Wait," Julian said, reaching for a heavy stone near his boot. "Let me crush his knees first. I do not want him crawling back up to the manor while the council is still sitting."

"Do not waste the energy," Sarah said, her voice drifting back as she began to walk away. "The cold will finish him in twenty minutes. Come along. The High Priest expects us before the storm passes."

Julian lingered for a second, spat into the ravine, and turned away. Their boots crunched softly against the wet gravel until the sound was swallowed entirely by the pounding rain.

Felix lay pinned against the rotting wood. The cold was a heavy blanket, thick and suffocating, settling into his joints until his legs felt like stone. Every breath felt like dragging broken glass through his lungs. His vision began to narrow, the edges of the grey sky turning dark, closing in like a tightening fist.

They took it all, he thought, his fingers twitching helplessly in the mud. The house. The name. Her.

He did not feel sad. The sadness had burned out hours ago when Julian had dragged him out of his bed chamber by his hair. What was left inside him was cold, sharp, and filthy. It was a black weight behind his ribs, pressing outward against his crushed bone.

"You are weak," a voice rasped.

Felix blinked, trying to clear the mud from his eyes. There was no one in the ravine. Just the gray trees and the falling water.

"So weak," the voice repeated. It did not come from the woods. It came from beneath his collarbone, right where the knife had bitten into his skin. "You let them take the ring. You let them take the breath from your mouth."

"Shut up," Felix whispered to the empty air.

"Why?" the voice hissed, growing louder, vibrating through his jaw like a struck tuning fork. "They are already at the gates. They are drinking your wine. They are laughing at your corpse. Will you rot here for them?"

Felix clenched his teeth so hard his gums bled. He forced his left hand to move, dragging his body an inch through the muck. Then another inch. His fingernails tore against a jagged stone, pulling back from the quick, but he did not feel it. The heat in his chest was spreading, hot and acidic, burning away the ice in his blood.

"I will kill them," Felix gasped into the mud. "I will tear Julian’s throat out with my teeth. I will burn her white cloak in her own blood."

"Good," the voice whispered, sounding almost delighted. "That is a start. Give me the rest."

A sharp, searing pain exploded behind Felix’s sternum. It was not the dull ache of his broken bones or the sting of the knife wound. It was a blinding, unnatural heat, as if someone had dropped a lit charcoal straight into his stomach. A black mark, shaped like a shattered star, began to burn through his wet shirt, glowing with an oily, light-devouring darkness.

The mud beneath his chest began to sizzle. Steam rose from his skin, smelling of sulfur and burnt iron.

"What are you?" Felix grunted, his body locking up as the black light spread down his arms, turning his pale skin a mottled, bruised violet.

"I am what you asked for," the voice laughed, deep and echoing inside his skull. "I am the end of your hunger."

The ground beneath him gave a sudden, violent shudder. The mud split open with the sound of snapping timber. A narrow, bottomless crack tore through the earth directly beneath his body, swallowing the rainwater in a frantic, gurgling rush.

Felix tried to dig his heels into the dirt to stop his fall, but his legs refused to answer. He looked down into the fissure. There was no stone, no roots, no bottom. There was only a thick, swirling vortex of liquid darkness, heavy and suffocating.

A massive, shadowy arm, composed entirely of shifting black smoke and long, skeletal fingers, thrust upward out of the tear. It hovered over him for a single, terrified second before its wide palm slammed down onto Felix’s chest.

The impact forced the last drop of air from his lungs. The shadow fingers wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders, cold as glacier ice, dragging him downward into the black mouth of the earth.

Felix opened his mouth to scream, but the darkness rushed in to fill it, tasting of metal and deep stone, pulling him down into the lightless deep.