THEY THREW ME INTO THE ABYSS, SO I DEVOURED EVERYTHING

BLOOD AND GOLD

Julian’s frantic sobs echoed off the damp granite walls of the vault as the black tendrils pulled him tighter against the stone.

"Felix, please!" Julian choked out, his eyes wide with wild, unadulterated terror as the razor-sharp claws on Felix’s scaled hand hovered inches from his eyes. "Take the gold! Take the estate! Just let me live!"

"You left me to rot in the ravine, Julian," Felix said, his voice dropping into a hollow, reverberating register. "You watched them throw me into the abyss. Blood meant nothing to you then."

"It was Sarah!" Julian shrieked, his legs kicking uselessly in midair. "She planned it all! She wanted your core out of the way!"

"I do not care whose idea it was," Felix said.

He pressed his scaled palm flat against Julian’s chest. The black mark beneath Felix’s shirt flared with blinding dark heat. The tendrils holding Julian pulsed, turning a deep, lightless violet as they began to siphon the golden magic straight out of Julian’s body.

Julian let out a sharp, strangled scream. Bright strands of liquid gold light bled from his eyes, nose, and mouth, flowing along the shadow tendrils directly into Felix’s chest. The golden core Julian had cultivated for years withered like a scorched leaf.

Felix’s lungs expanded as the pure, stolen magic surged through his veins. The black chitin scales on his right arm crept higher, spreading past his shoulder and anchoring over his collarbone in thick, interlocking plates of natural armor.

The tendrils dropped Julian. He crumpled onto the stone floor like a sack of wet rags, gasping weakly, his golden magic completely drained, leaving his eyes dull and hollow.

Felix did not look back at him. He reached down and picked up the torch hanging beside the door, holding it over the open wooden chests containing the Vane family deeds and land titles.

"Burn it," the Void Sovereign commanded softly. "Turn their lies to dust."

Felix tossed the torch into the center of the paper stacks. The dry parchment caught instantly, roaring into a towering column of orange flame that spread rapidly to the wooden shipping crates and velvet-lined coin trays. Felix slipped the silver Vane family crest ring onto his left pinky, pulled his heavy hood over his face, and walked toward the exit.

As he pushed open the outer iron doors, the cold night air hit him, thick with the smell of river salt and burning oil.

The stone quay outside was illuminated by a blinding, brilliant silver light.

A dozen elite guards wearing the white cloaks of the Northern Reaches stood in a tight semicircle around the vault entrance, their heavy steel shields locked together. At the center of the formation stood Lady Sarah. Her pristine white cape fluttered in the sea wind, and her cold, pale face was twisted in silent fury.

Above her head hovered a terrifying mass of silver fire shaped into the broad wings and talons of a Sun-Griffin, casting long, harsh shadows across the wet docks.

"I knew you would come here, rat," Sarah said, her voice sharp as broken glass. "Julian was always weak, but you are a disease that needs to be cauterized."

Felix stepped out onto the rain-slicked stones, the flames behind him roaring through the vault windows. "You brought a torch to a flood, Sarah."

"Kill him!" Sarah commanded, pointing her silver-trimmed staff straight at his chest. "Leave nothing but ash!"

The winged griffin of silver flame let out a deafening, silent roar and dove straight down the quay toward Felix, melting the rain into thick clouds of white steam as it rushed forward.

Felix did not draw a weapon. He stepped directly into the path of the flaming beast, raising his scaled right arm to meet the strike.

"Drink," Felix whispered.

The moment the silver fire hit his dark scales, the flames did not burn. The interlocking chitin plates opened slightly, acting like hungry mouths. The dark void energy inside Felix’s arm swallowed the divine light instantly, absorbing the heat and turning the roaring griffin into thin, gray smoke that vanished into the cold sea wind.

The sudden backlash struck Sarah like a physical blow. She gasped, staggering backward as her staff shattered into splinters in her hands. She fell hard onto her knees against the wet cobblestones, clutching her chest as her face went paper-white.

"My... my spell," Sarah whispered, staring up at him in complete disbelief. "You swallowed a Tier-Four core with your bare skin."

The elite guards took three frantic steps back, their locked shield line breaking as terror took hold of them.

Felix walked up to Sarah, his heavy boots coming to a stop inches from her trembling hands. He reached down, grabbed her by the collar of her white cloak, and yanked her up until her pale face was inches from his glowing purple eyes.

"Why..." Sarah choked out, her cold confidence completely shattered. "Why aren't you killing me?"

"Because I need a messenger," Felix said softly, his voice carrying over the crackle of the burning vault behind them. "Go to the High Priest. Go to the grand council. Tell them the disgraced son of Vane has returned."

He tossed her backward onto the wet stone floor. Sarah scrambled away on her hands and knees, shivering in the rain as her remaining guards grabbed her arms and dragged her back toward the safety of the city streets.

Felix turned away from the docks, looking up toward the high peak of the mountain where the royal palace sat crowned in storm clouds. The heavy iron warning bells of the city cathedral suddenly began to toll, their deep, rhythmic booms ringing out across the rooftops.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

"They ring their bells for us," the Void Sovereign laughed in his mind. "Let them pray to their stone gods."

Felix crouched low, his scaled legs flexing with dark energy, and launched himself forty feet straight into the air, landing silently on the high roof of the dock warehouse as he

set his eyes on the palace gates.