CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Pale Children
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Lira couldn't breathe. The scream had caught halfway up her throat the moment their eyes met. Grey stood in the middle of the slaughtered pen, drenched in gore. Blood clung to his skin and mouth, and he had teeth now, jagged and misshapen. They stared at each other, neither moved.
Snow fell gently, silently, drifting over steaming entrails. Abo's tiny hand was pressed flat to his chest, right over his sternum.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The thunder in his ribs was was memory. His breath hitched, and his hands shook.
System: Cardiac escalation detected. Sympathetic override imminent. Host is experiencing irrational fear response.
Recommendation: Eliminate witness. Terminate caretaker.
Abo didn't move, as the piece of flesh in his hand slipped from his fingers and landed in the mud with a soft, wet splat.
System: KILL HER. Reduce threat exposure. Erasure is optimal.
Lira's lips parted as she snapped herself out of it and stepped forward. Abo flinched, but this time, she didn't scream, didn't run, and didn't reach for a weapon. She just stood there, trying desperately to make sense of what she was seeing. Maybe someone brought him here, maybe he was taken, maybe the monsters did this; none of it made sense, but she clung to the thoughts anyway.
"Powder…" she whispered. Her voice cracked on the name, and she took another step.
System: Kill her now. Strike. Bite. Crush the larynx. Blood loss will be swift. She cannot scream again.
Her hands trembled, her legs too, but she didn't stop. She stepped forward, then paused, remembering why she'd come, why she'd been assigned here in the first place. The dungeon break, the alarm, the children. Powder. She had to bring him back to the others, back to the safety of the underground, before it was too late. Her eyes widened again, this time with urgency, as she broke into a run.
⚠ SYSTEM ALERT
• Incoming enemy detected
• Race: Gargoyle
• Distance: 14 meters and closing
• Fatality Risk: High
• Time to Impact: 3 seconds
The System had intervened this time. Normally, Abo would have sensed it himself, his perception was sharp enough to catch a heartbeat in the dark. But not now, not with his mind drowning in static. He was in shock, paralyzed, so the System sounded the alarm instead. Abo's head snapped up, the sky cracked. A black shape descended, fast and furious, too broad to be any bird native to the region. Its wings were jagged slabs of stone, their edges honed sharp. Its maw opened wide, filled with broken, uneven teeth, and it let out a scream that split the air with a grinding scrape.
Lira didn't see it, but Abo did, and he moved.
ℹ SYSTEM NOTICE
Heightened Senses (C) Evolved → Noble's Senses(C)
Stealth Mastery(F) Evolved → Noble's Stealth (F)
Shadow Step (F) Evolved → Noble's Phasing(F)
Assassinate (F) Evolved → Heart Piercer (F)
Tactical Command (F) Evolved → Noble's Edict (F)
Evolution Complete:100% (6 / 6)
⋗ NOBLE'S PHASING
The world seemed to lurch as mist and black wind exploded from the empty space where he had stood. An instant later, Abo materialized in mid-air, transposed from the pen in a burst of displaced wind.
Time Fractured
The creature hurtled toward Lira with claws outstretched, its attack unfolding in a split second. Though Lira continued running toward Powder in what felt like slow motion, the beast was already inches from her neck.
Abo acted without thought - no plan, no weapon, only instinct, panic, and fangs. His mouth stretched unnaturally wide, the corners of his lips tearing toward his ears as serrated, sharklike teeth erupted from his gums and palate. When his jaws snapped shut, they sheared clean through the creature's neck. His Sacrifice passive triggered simultaneously, sending a secondary spray of blood from his own throat as blood answered blood.
The wet crack of separating bone and cartilage echoed through the air. The winged scour twitched violently for three agonizing seconds before collapsing face-down, its limbs splayed at unnatural angles, dead.
Abo collapsed with the corpse, his body slamming into the frozen ground before he rolled sideways and spat out a mouthful of foul-tasting flesh. Steam curled upward from the hot blood soaking into the snow, the crimson stain spreading in jagged tendrils across the white surface. When he raised his head, he saw Lira standing rigid, every muscle in her body locked tight, her boots rooted in place. Then her scream shattered the silence.
The sound was loud and unrestrained, unlike her earlier stifled scream, the pitch and volume made his ears ring. Her body jolted into motion, as her hand shot to the folds of her apron, yanking something free, a compact pistol, military-issue, concealed in a velcro seam near the hem. She raised the pistol with unsteady arms, but her grip was firm. Her stance was practiced, like someone who had been trained, even though her body was shaking.
Abo's jaw hung slack, broken in several places, with bone pushed out at an unnatural angle. His cheeks were torn, and the skin around his face was peeled from the impact. Blood ran down his chin in thick lines. And then... it began to close. The wounds stitched themselves shut, slow but sure.
Lira's breath hitched again.
No. No, no, no.
He wasn't a baby, he wasn't even a child.
A monster.
Like the one she saw during the first rifts. She remembered standing her ground, hands shaking on the rifle, voice hoarse from screaming. The breach had split open with a loud crack, and the thing came through. Its jaws were oversized, filled with rows of sharp teeth. It hadn't even looked at her.
It had gone straight for the boy. She fired. Again. Again. And again. But it wouldn't die. She watched it tear into him while her bullets struck its hide and did nothing. She could still see it, his small body twitching, his screams cut off mid-breath, blood pooling fast. And now... Powder... No, that infant, that thing, looked just like it.
Back then, she saw Abo in that little boy, so small and fragile it felt like the world could snap his bones with a breath. Grey reminded her of that, and his condition only deepened the illusion: white hair, pale skin, brittle limbs that looked vulnerable and breakable.
She hadn't wanted this assignment, not after what happened. She told them she wasn't stable, that she might panic, relapse, or snap. But the world didn't care. The rifts were spreading, soldiers were stretched thin, and the higher-ups had made it clear: if you could still hold a gun, you were needed.
So she'd come. And when she saw him, this strange little thing swaddled in silence, she thought maybe this was how she could make it right. Maybe if she could protect something so weak, so barely alive, it would undo a fraction of what she saw. Maybe this time, she could save someone.
Now it was dying,
She pulled the trigger. One shot. Then another. Then another. Her arms shook, her ears rang, her vision blurred, but she couldn't stop.
"Die," she choked. "Die—just die—"
Abo kept walking as Lira screamed, a raw, strained sound forced from her constricted chest and throat. When he reached her, he paused. With his small arms, he wiped her tears even as she kept firing into his gut. His face was still healing, skin knitting over broken bone, teeth shifting back into place beneath torn gums. His expression held no anger or aggression, only an incomprehensible stillness.
He exhaled slowly. Then he moved with one clean motion.
Lira didn't feel pain, just a cold exhale before she collapsed into his arms. For a brief moment, he held her as snow drifted down around them. Then her eyes dimmed, and he let go.
Abo looked down at the bloodstained snow where Lira's life mingled with the creature's, the white now a deep, mottled red. The color reminded him of his twin sister.
Their mother had named them Ash and Cinder. When he'd asked why, she said it was for their hair, like the powder left after fire dies. Ember's eyes, she'd told him, looked like fresh blood. His, she said, resembled pale sky. Though he'd never seen any of it himself, he remembered how she'd described them.
"Even in this life," he murmured, "I still can't escape this cursed appearance."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
She haunted him still: his mother, the seer who never lied. In all her years of reading signs, bones, smoke, whispers, she had always spoken truth. They had seen her visions prove true. Her eyes would darken, her voice heavy as she foretold the flood that ruined the eastern fields or warned of the blight before the first stalk fell. She was never wrong, but today, she would let the village believe a lie.
The scaffold creaked beneath her as the crowd pressed closer, their eyes wide with fear. From the moment her children were born, the people had called them cursed, their pale skin and light eyes were unlike anything they had seen before. When the drought came, the villagers blamed the children, convinced the gods had sent the disaster as punishment. They demanded a sacrifice, and she would give them one herself.
The elder raised the ritual knife, its edge catching the fading sunlight. "Speak."
She closed her eyes, not to summon a vision, but to hide the lie. When she spoke, her voice carried the same low rasp that had always chilled warriors. "One of the children I bore is marked by ash, born cursed, born beyond death. The first undying walks among us, and the world will crumble beneath their steps."
The crowd stirred. Abo tightened her grip on her sister's hand. Their mother had never called them cursed, not even in the quiet moments.
The elder's grip on the knife tightened. "What do the gods demand?"
She paused, then said what needed to be said. "Not the child. The child cannot be undone. They want the mother."
A gasp spread through the crowd, restless and uneasy. The elder hesitated. "Sacrifice our seer?"
She met his gaze, steady and unflinching. "My blood will seal the curse. My death will bring the rain."
"Nonsense! We kill the blind child, he's the cursed one! He will bring ruin to us all!" the people in the crowd shouted.
"He's not a child, he's a devil in skin!" a woman cried out. "You all remember what he did to my boy! He gouged his eye out just for looking at him wrong! What kind of child does that?"
"And sickness followed him! My youngest fell ill after Abo brushed past him. Fevered for days!"
Another voice rang out from the back. "My rice spoiled the moment he stepped into my field. The gods rot whatever he touches!"
"The gods are punishing us!" a woman cried. "And now the drought! Look at the sky! Not a drop since the solstice!"
"He brings misfortune with every move!" someone else shouted. "The gods never meant him to live!"
"Give him to the gods!" someone else screamed. "If he's undying, let the gods prove it!"
Then a different voice cut through the noise, high with fear. "What about the sister? They were born together, how do we know which one's cursed? Kill them both! It's the only way to be sure!"
The crowd grew louder, frantic, each voice sharpening the fear. The mother stood tall, though her legs shook. Her fists clenched so tightly that her nails broke skin, blood dripping from her hands. Then she lifted her head and shouted above them, voice cutting through the noise like a blade.
"You want blood? Then hear me. Spill the cursed one's blood, and the gods will take it, and the world with it. The skies will crack, the bones of the earth will scream beneath your feet, and beasts from the underworld will rise to roam the land. That is the curse."
The crowd fell silent, fear gripping their hearts. She drew a breath, steadying herself.
"But the gods have offered another path. They ask for me, my death in their place. My blood, not theirs. That is the only way the drought will end. That is the only way your children survive the year."
It was all a lie, but they would never suspect. A lifetime of truth had led her here. She had spared her children's lives, but she knew it would not save them from the people. They would be hated, watched, and blamed. Still, no mother could watch her children gutted and offered to the gods. She glanced at her husband, his eyes were as cold as ever. He would let them die without hesitation; had cursed Abo the day he was born, said a blind son was worthless in a warrior's lineage.
She was afraid. Her children knelt at the front of the crowd, pinned in place by the hands of others. A tear escaped as she looked at them. How could anyone believe they were cursed? To her, they were beautiful. Guilt twisted inside her. Her womb had brought this scorn upon them, and soon, that same womb would be torn open. Her lips formed silent words—"I'm sorry"—as she met her children's eyes.
They tied her upright to a bamboo frame, arms stretched wide, ankles bound at the base. Then she began to sing, it wasn't the voice she used by the fire, the one that soothed Abo and Agiw during storms. This voice was thin, barely a voice at all, just breath pushed through a tight throat.
"Sleep now, little blaze,
born in the black of dying hearth"
The knife touched her skin.
"the gods stole your eyes,
but gave you the spark that eats the dark."
The blade pressed in, just below her navel. She gasped but didn't stop.
"Oh, I know you.
I know the furnace in your ribs,"
Her voice caught, and she let out a raw, wrenching scream, a sound torn straight from her body. But she kept going, even as her throat strained to hold the words, carried by force of will alone.
"the way your teeth bite the wind,
how your fists hold thunder."
"They will tell you to choke it down—
this rage that licks your bones clean."
The blade moved in a shallow arc, cutting through muscle and the thin membrane that held it together. Agiw could see everything, their mother was bound, and her belly opened, blood already spilling. She screamed, her cry cut through the drums, as it meld with her mother's hymn torn from the throat. She kicked and fought against their father, Datu Katio's grip. Abo couldn't see, but he knew. He'd heard the drums before, he knew the chants, and he understood the words.
This was no mere sacrifice. It was an execution meant to draw out her death. They would cut her shallow to keep her alive, but deep enough to bleed. They would open her body, hang her intestines across her shoulders, and force her to look at the people who watched her die. Only when every piece was in place, only when the drums had marked every moment of her pain, would the gods accept the offering.
Abo's fragile heart thundered in his chest, and he couldn't name what he felt.
Fear?
Rage?
It pressed against his ribs like fire and ice at once, tight in his chest, hot in his throat, too much to hold.
"Do not listen.
Their hands reached inside.
"You are the wildfire no hand can smother,
the ember that outlives the pyre.
As they pulled her intestines free, her voice faltered and went silent. The light in her eyes began to fade, but the drums and chanting carried on.
"Let them fear how you burn."
They draped each length across her, around her waist, over her shoulder, one wrapped twice around her neck. Her body sagged against the frame.
"And when the night comes gnawing,"
"remember, your sister—"
The drums stopped, and that was when her voice finally left him. It hadn't come from her mouth in a while, not since they pulled the first length of her open, but Abo had still heard it, clear as anything, whispering behind the drumbeats, threading through the air like it belonged there. Now it was gone, silenced not by death, but by the ending of the rite.
Because that was the rule. No one ever truly lived past the unraveling. Once the intestines were drawn, the body would fail. It always did, but the gods didn't care about the death itself. What mattered was the offering: to die without fear, to keep the eyes open even when the breath was gone.
With the fading of her voice, something in Abo shifted too.
Maybe that was the moment it began.
The first fracture in whatever soul he had left.
✦ ✦ ✦
End of Chapter