The Obsidian Dominion

The Price of a Secret

"I am the one who murdered your mind, Draven, and I would do it again tomorrow if it kept you from looking at me like this."

Jack’s voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the damp chill of the abandoned safe house like a heavy blade. He sat huddled on a wooden crate in the corner, his pale face half-hidden by the collar of his coat. His left leg was completely stiff now, a dead weight sprawled across the floorboards. He hadn't looked at Draven since they broke through the border of the high domains. He hadn't spoken a single word during the three-mile march through the choking fog.

Draven stood near the cold hearth, his right hand slowly rubbing the smooth, heavy void glass of his forearm. The fractures had closed, sealed by the crimson thread of Jesse’s artifact, but the weight of it felt twice as heavy. "You're speaking to me now. That's a start."

"Don't flatter yourself," Jack spat, his eyes flicking upward, dark and hollow. "I’m only speaking because the noble is finally asleep, and I can't look at your stupid, oblivious face for another second without throwing up."

"Jack, what happened in the tunnels," Draven started, taking a step forward.

"Don't you dare talk about the tunnels," Jack interrupted, his voice rising, sharp and jagged. "You took from me. Again. You let that silver-haired parasite drain my pulse so you could keep your precious head from cracking open. And you didn't even blink."

"I did what I had to do to keep us moving," Draven said, his voice dropping into that cold, rational register that made his own throat ache. "If I had broken down there, the guardians would have swallowed this entire sector. You know the math."

"Stop talking about the math!" Jack lunged forward, his good leg catching his weight as he dragged himself up from the crate. He stumbled, his shoulder slamming into Draven’s chest, pushing him back against the stone fireplace. "Stop hiding behind the numbers! You look at me like I’m a stranger. You look at me like I’m some bitter scavenger who sold you out in the canyon because I wanted a pocketful of coin."

Draven didn't push him away. He let Jack’s hand bunch into the fabric of his shirt, feeling the violent, desperate tremors traveling through the other man's arms. "The memories from my last shatter are fractured, Jack. I see the canyon. I see you holding the blade. What else am I supposed to think?"

"You're supposed to look at me and remember who I am!" Jack screamed, his face inches from Draven's. A tear cut a clean line through the ash on his cheek, his voice completely breaking. "I didn't betray you! You cowardly, selfish bastard! You begged me to do it!"

The words hit the room like a physical blow. The silence that followed was heavy, punctuated only by the soft, rhythmic breathing of Jesse sleeping on a pile of blankets across the room.

Draven froze, his heart slamming against his ribs. "What are you talking about?"

"The canyon," Jack choked out, his grip on Draven's shirt tightening until his knuckles turned gray. "Three years ago. The Dominion was unravelling your mind. You were screaming in your sleep, clawing at your own eyes because the voices of the dead gods wouldn't stop. You couldn't handle it, Draven. You came to me, you put the memory blade in my hand, and you wept. You begged me to wipe the slate. You told me you would rather hate me as a stranger than die screaming as a monster."

Draven stared at him, his mind spinning into a sickening void. He tried to search the chaotic flood of his past lives, looking for that moment, but there was only a vast, terrifying blank space where the canyon should be. "No. That... that can't be right."

"I carried that weight for three years!" Jack yelled, shoving Draven hard against the stone. "I let everyone in the lower realms call me a traitor! I let you wake up with empty eyes, looking at me like I was the villain who ruined your life! I took that hatred because I loved you enough to save you from your own power! And now you wake up on your final shatter, you get your magic back, and you treat me like a piece of meat to fuel your spells!"

"Jack," Draven whispered, his throat completely tight. A profound, suffocating weight settled over his chest. He looked at his own glass arm, suddenly feeling a disgusting wave of self-loathing. His past self had been too weak. He had broken under the pressure, and he had forced Jack to carry the guilt of his execution. "I didn't... I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know!" Jack laughed, a broken, hysterical sound that drifted up into the rafters. "Because you always get to forget! You get to wipe the blood off your hands and start over with a clean conscience! I’m the one who has to remember the sound of your skull cracking! I’m the one who has to live with the fact that I murdered my best friend's mind because he was too soft to carry his own destiny!"

"I am carrying it now," Draven said, his voice trembling, the detached mask completely falling away. He reached out with his good hand, his fingers catching Jack's wrist. "Jack, listen to me. I am so sorry."

"Don't say that name," Jack hissed, wrenching his arm away, his chest heaving as he backed toward the corner. "Don't say it like you care. The man who said it in the canyon is gone. You're just the weapon he left behind."

Before Draven could answer, a high-pitched, metallic wail pierced the dark.

The silver wards Jesse had placed around the doorframe flared a violent, blinding purple, then instantly shattered into a shower of dead sparks. The air in the room grew freezing cold, the floorboards groaning as an immense weight pressed down on the roof above them.

"Jesse!" Draven shouted, spinning around as the noble bolted upright from the blankets, their silver hair flying wild.

"They're here!" Jesse gasped, scrambling backward as the brass sphere in their lap began to spin erratically, spitting out sparks of dangerous golden light. "The perimeter is gone! It’s an elite... it’s a high-tier guardian!"

"Get behind me!" Draven commanded, his left arm instantly erupting into a fierce violet glow as the black glass hissed against the sudden temperature drop. He lunged toward the table where Jesse had left the stabilizing artifact, his fingers stretching for the brass casing.

He never reached it.

The entire center of the ceiling exploded inward in a chaotic avalanche of heavy timber, stone, and black ice. A massive, multi-limbed shape forged from pure void energy dropped through the ruin, its armored chest radiating a pressure that pinned Draven to the floorboards. The shockwave blew the table to splinters, sending the brass sphere bouncing across the room, far out of reach.

"Draven!" Jesse screamed.

The guardian moved with sickening speed, a heavy, crystalline limb slamming down directly onto Jesse's chest, pinning the youth flat against the floor. The wood splintered beneath them, a sharp, horrific crack echoing through the room as Jesse let out a choked, bubbling sob, their hands clawing uselessly at the massive void claw pressing the air from their lungs.

"Jesse!" Draven scrambled to his feet, his boots slipping on the rubble. He looked across the room, his eyes darting to the far corner. Jack was on the floor, his useless leg pinning him beneath a fallen beam, his face pale as he watched the monster raise its second blade to finish Jesse.

"The artifact is gone," Jack yelled through the dust, his voice raw with terror. "Draven, you can't fight that thing with a sword! It's too fast!"

Draven looked at Jesse, whose eyes were rolling back, their fingers losing their grip on the guardian's limb. There was no time to find the sphere. There was no time for math. The only way to stop the blade from descending was to issue a direct command to the Dominion, right here, with no anchor and no catalyst.

He looked at his left arm, the black glass groaning as the entities on the other side of the veil felt his desperation and began to scratch at the surface. If he spoke the word now, the price would be absolute. It would take a life, right here, right now. It would either erase Jesse, take the remaining spirit out of Jack, or tear Draven’s own soul out of his body.

Draven raised his glass hand, the violet fire blinding him as he prepared to speak the monstrous phrase.