My eyes open, though all remains black. The torn and bloodstained strip of linen which serves as my blindfold ensures that is the case. My arms are outstretched. They hurt. There is a slight clink of steel on stone as I shift my weight, causing the thick steel manacles and chains which bind me to scrape on the cold stone floor. There is a commotion from outside, raised voices, a sense of panic and fear. The door to the cell creaks open, the hinges protesting the strain against the rust which has formed through years of disuse.
The pulling on my arms lessens a touch as someone provides some slack to the chains. My physical form crumples to the stone floor. I barely feel it.
All I can feel is the excitement which courses through my frail body like wildfire. It is nearly time once more. I am needed again.
They are coming.
So say the panicked guards anyway, their confusing and garbled chatter a mere irritating buzz to my senses. Ilaena, presumably, from the plains to the south, an ever-encroaching horde of savage beasts. Some great matriarch has likely united the clans, brought them under her sway with promises of violence and plunder. I have witnessed this before. It is not uncommon here in the Granica, what the northern heathens call The March of Sothbayne. This place, where the civilisation along the Sjeverni Coast gives way to the wide-open grasslands of the nomadic horselords. This place, where the blood of the ancient Deliverer still flows strongly through the veins of the Roanfaille.
This place, where the Ilaena come to die.
As I am removed from my bare, stone cell and emerge into sunlight for the first time in many years, I try to just enjoy the feeling. The warm kiss of sunlight upon my skin, the touch of a cool breeze, the smells of dust and grass, anything other than the dark, featureless stone which has been my home.
All I can smell is the unmistakable scent of smoke and the iron-tang of blood on the wind. All I can hear is the terrified screaming of thousands of people. The scent of blood is so thick I can taste it. The dull red of my vision, hidden as it is behind my blindfold, takes on a new meaning, not the red of obscured light now, but a rain of vitae pouring from the skies. I can feel it on my very skin, a slick, sticky coating of gore.
I am pulled along by my chain, blind, helpless, relying entirely on the man in front of me, presumably a guard. As we walk together, stumbling through the sounds of chaos, I can hear a quiet weeping, beneath the cacophony of panicked screams from all around us. I think it might be the guard. I can hear them too now, the Ilaena. I can hear the snarls, the whooping calls, the shrill peals of mocking, bestial laughter which hang in the smoke-filled air.
We come to a stairway, crafted of stone. We must have reached the outer wall. I hear a voice telling me to keep going, though I pay it no mind. My thoughts are of the Ilaena, of their cruelty, their savagery, their strange, haunting laughter. I remember their eyes, which glint with a terrible, animal intelligence, their crude weapons and their powerful sorcery.
I remember burning them.
I remember their hideous forms being consumed by the violet flames, their cackling laughter transmute into howls of pain and terror as their bodies withered away to nought but char and ash. Those glinting eyes, which promised such hateful savagery, could not withstand the fury I unleashed.
It is time to do so once more.
One at a time, I take the stairs. One step after another, I slowly gain the top of the wall. It is a little quieter here, only a little. The sound of conflict so very far away. Hands still bound by thick steel chains, I flare my inner fire for a brief moment.
The chains fall away, molten and dripping, leaving terrible disfiguring scars upon my wrists and forearms. The steel drips upon the stone below me, sizzling and slowly cooling.
I remove the blindfold. I know I should not, but I want to see. Not just see, but see.
I stand atop the pale stone parapet, looking out over the golden grass sea. Above, the sky pulses like a dark, reddish bruise, and thick, dark globules of rain fall in scattered showers, staining the pale stone of the city and the golden grass of the plains both in streaks of dark gore.
Upon the plain are gathered the horde of the Carrion, the Ilaena clans which have come together to pillage this place, to destroy it. Vlasko, I believe it is called.
I do not rightly care. My eyes close. I have seen enough for now. Now they are to become the reaping scythe, and I, the reaper incarnate.
Unbound, unfettered, uncontrolled, I begin to cast. Arms outstretched, my wasted body stretched and pulled to the point of failure by the aethyric forces I begin to bring to bear, I intone the ancient incantations.
There is a crack as my body shifts and warps. Bones break, reform and then break again as my physical shell cannot contain the power I begin to cultivate. Flesh tears and re-knits in a single moment. The pain is both unbearable and welcome. Terrible, and intoxicating. Murderous, and addictive.
I know I should not. I know I am taking too much. Drinking too deeply.
Risking all.
Why should one such as I care? Why should I fear to draw upon this power, this fire? It is mine after all, mine to do with as I please.
My eyes open and blazing light flares forth from my outstretched hands. The incantation rips forth from my lungs, an exhalation of exultation, which acts as the catalyst for the blazing devastation which is the power I wield. The act feels superfluous. What need have I for a catalyst?
I am power. Not merely powerful, but the embodiment of power. My eyes are a curse, my thoughts are lightning, my words the thunder of an inclement stormfront. My will is destruction, and the firmament itself affirms my desires.
I feel alive. Even now, wreathed in destruction, I can feel nothing but life. The incessant beating of my heart, faster now, and faster again, the pace rapidly increasing with every moment. The globules of blood raining from the heavens drip into my eyes, stinging them, blinding me in a sheet of crimson gore. I care not. I feel nothing but the glory of obliteration.
I laugh with the sheer heady intoxicating fury and wonder of it all, and the crackling flames laugh with me.
Reality burns, and I burn with it.