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Midday light spilled through beveled windows, gathering in brilliant puddles along the floor of the Keep. Though the warmth and brightness that it brought did little to improve the feel of the medical ward; large and echoing, the air turned astringent by healing herbs and tinctures. It was an experience he’d long since grown used to and one which, by now, Clive was more than able to push to the back of his mind. Focused intently on his brother’s thin form as he knelt beside the narrow cot.
“I don’t want you to go.” He spoke after a long period of silence, voice rough from a fit of coughing only recently passed. The handkerchief used to cover his mouth was still clutched in his hand, out of sight, for all that Clive knew it was speckled with blood. “The Phoenix tells me something terrible will happen if you do. Rosaria cannot lose her Shield. And I cannot lose my brother.”
The Phoenix, a Divine beast which had come down from on high to grace their people with the power of flame, as Bahamut had their neighbors with light, that they might fight against the Black King, his accursed Master, and their infectious legion of bloodthirsty thralls. A being whose blessing granted him strength enough to fight as Barnabas’ equal. And the malaise responsible for Joshua’s declining health, the strain of containing its full power too much for his body to bear.
For that much he hated the beast, but knew full well that, without it, they were lost. So Clive kept his tongue close and turned his focus instead to dissuading his sibling of whatever notion he’d been told.
“If I do not go, who will go in my stead? Ser Wade? Ser Tyler? The Lord Commander, perhaps? You know as well as I, as well as they, that they’d stand no chance against the Arm of Darkness.” He said. “If Tharmr is there I must be the one to face him. I’m the only one who can, perhaps aside from Bahamut’s chosen.”
For all that Joshua surely knew that he was right it did nothing to ease him. His brow creasing and expression drawing downward. “I should be the one to do it, not you. This burden was meant to be mine. It never should have fallen on your shoulders. Had I been stronger-.”
“Hush.” Clive took great pains to ensure his voice, though firm, remained gentle. “None of that. I was sworn to be your Shield, Joshua. Beyond that, I’m your older brother. To support you thus is my duty, not a burden. And you are plenty strong enough.”
“But Bahamut’s chosen fights, just like you do.”
“Aye. But Bahamut’s power is not the same.” Clive said, carefully taking his sibling’s hand. He was eighteen, now, at five years his junior yet everything about him still looked so small. So…fragile. By all rights, had a normal illness brought him to this, he’d already be dead but the very power that had done this to him was keeping him alive. Keeping him suffering even as it unraveled his body from the inside out. If only he could take on more of the burden. More of the pain. If only the Phoenix had chosen him, that his brother could be free. “Tharmr has taken up residence in Stilltide. No doubt the populace has already been afflicted with his taint. Someone needs set them free, lest they be left languish, and with the risk of an encounter with their Sire the only one able to do so is me.”
“Don’t ask for my approval in this.” He said. “Please. I won’t grant it. Not for a mission that will take you from me.”
There was so much desperation in his voice. An unvoiced plea to stay that they both already knew would not be answered. Because this, too, was his duty. “Then I ask only for your tolerance.”
His brother said nothing more, turning his head to hide the gloss of tears building in his eyes.
Fleet as flame and fierce as a wildfire, he’d come to be known. Wielding Invictus with a speed and strength to match his quarry in no small part thanks to the Phoenix’s blessing. But his speed in travel was wholly thanks to his Chocobo. Pale as fresh driven snow and more stubborn than a mountain, he’d raised Ambrosia from a sickly chick-an endeavor which had resulted in many nights of the bird sleeping with him in his bed to keep warm-and she’d never failed him.
She didn’t fail him now, ferrying her rider and all his supplies-sparse as they were; on the hunt it was paramount to move quickly-along the curving dusty roads into the marshlands surrounding the province. Stilltide stretching before him, fully in view beneath the hill he’d stopped atop. Still as the grave in the light of day but soon to come to life with the cursed, once the dying sun sank below the horizon.
How many people had lived there, before it had been ravaged by a beast? Three hundred? Slightly more? Memory failed him in that regard, but the numbers meant little. No doubt they were no more than brittle thralls, corrupted with venom but without being bestowed the ‘gift’ of the Dark One’s tainted blood, as Tharmr has been. Mere ghouls, as opposed to true Vampires. His flames would prove more than enough to release them. And once the Son of Ultima knew of his presence, he’d be sure to call them off.
If only because Barnabas Tharmr, in his dark obsession, would seek to face him himself. Just as he had countless times before.
But this time would be different.
This time, if it was the last thing he did, Clive would slay him and put a final end to all of this.
His boots clanked against the dust-packed road as he dismounted, their light platting rattling. Clive loosened his grip on the reins, allowing his hand to drop free of the leather in favor of stroking the soft feathers of her neck. Taking her beak in his hands when Ambrosia dropped her head down to him with a questioning croon.
I cannot lose my brother.
He wouldn’t. Joshua’s fears were unfounded. Clive had faced Tharmr time and again before that day. When he returned to Rosalith—hale and whole if a bit bloodied—it would be with the Black King’s head hung from his saddle horn. And his brother would at last be free of the Phoenix.
“Wait here, girl. I’ll be back by daybreak.”
They’d go home, then. Go home and rest.
He didn’t bother to tie her to any of the nearby trees, knowing she wouldn’t wander far enough not to hear him call, and set off down the slope of the hill. Moving as swiftly as he could but still failing to beat the fall of night.
As he’d expected, when he emerged from the marsh onto the travel-pounded road just outside the town, Stillwind had come alive with monstrosity. Glowing eyes turned toward the motion of his approach a split second before he was set upon. The turned flooding toward him in a tide of hanging jaws and glinting nails.
Invictus swung through the humid air and the dusk lit up like day. A whirl of red and green flame roaring out before him and reducing several dozen of the ghouls to ash. No pause was given by the others and they charged onward. Clive met their advance with a lung of his own, wings manifesting along the plating of his arms. Refulgent feathers slashing through flesh and bone. Burning away the curse-laced blood before it could touch him. Carving a path through the hoard as easy as breathing. The strain that should have come from such exertion was wiped away by the power flooding through his limbs, leaving each swing of his blade as strong as the last. Onward into the central square where the infected citizenry converged on him from all sides. Throwing themselves into the spinning conflagration all around him until their shrieking screams died down to silence and there was nothing left but flamewake and ash. The empty windows of the buildings, abandoned now that their occupants were gone, stared down at him like judgmental eyes. Reluctantly, tension drawing his body tighter than a bowstring, Clive allowed the power of the Phoenix to slip away. The night air suddenly cold against his cheeks. Eyes squinting into the blackness which insisted, stubbornly, on blinding him.
“ Barnabas!” He bellowed, voice echoing away from him and out into the dark. “ I know you’re here, damn you! Show yourself!”
Nothing moved. The oppressive quiet pressed in close as if to suffocate him. Clive gritted his teeth, certain the sensation of unseen eyes on his person was not merely a result of paranoia. He raised Invictus higher and took in a breath to shout again. But that shout became a cry of pain instead as his sword arm shattered beneath a heavy blow. The great weapon clattering, useless, to the ground before him. The shadows boiling and twisting about. Taking shape into the Vampire who’d, for years now, been his nemesis.
He lunged for where the sword had fallen. Intending to seize it with his weaker hand and continue to fight as best he could. Determined not to allow this unexpected ambush to be the death of him. But Barnabas was faster, or perhaps he’d simply anticipated the motion, and managed to grab him. Hauling him back against his chest—powerful and cold as stone—and wrapping his wings tight around them to stop him from struggling. Stop him from using his magic. Panic beginning a fevered whine in his ears Clive spat out a vicious curse and began to struggle wildly, heedless of the pain sent spiking along his wounded arm.
It was useless. He was dead for certain. Knew it already, even then. Knew it before a cold hand wrapped around his neck and squeezed, dragging him down towards the darkness. The last things he heard before he lost his grip on consciousness and went spiraling into the abyss were Joshua’s frantic pleas for him not to leave and the monster’s callous laughter.
Clive didn’t expect to wake up.
He didn’t know where he was, when he did. His wits returning to him slowly, though the awareness of the pain in his broken arm came back to him much faster. He was sitting upright in a lavish chair, his wrists bound behind the wooden back. A grand table stretched before him, decorated in the middle by a candelabra—heavy and cobwebbed—which shed a weak glow across the room. But still enough for him to see that he was not without company.
Barnabas sat at the opposite head of the table, dressed in fine silk with a plunging collar and nursing a goblet of wine. He hadn’t bothered masking his eyes, and they glowed a faint crimson in the half dark.
“Ah, my guest wakes. Apologies for the…rough welcome, but you’re far from reasonable at the best of times.” There was a purring note to his voice when he spoke, lips pulling back to reveal the razor points of fangs. Clive twitched. Tugging at his bonds, rattling the chair, and growling when a fresh stab of pain shot along his arm. “I do hope the decor, at least, is to your liking?”
“I’m not going to play games with you, Tharmr!” He snarled, baring his teeth like Torgal did when he felt cornered. The vampire simply returned a mild stare, which only served to infuriate him further. “Either kill me, or give me back my sword so we can finish the fight you started!”
“I will not.”
“ What?”
“I will not.” Barnabas repeated. “Kill you. Your death is the furthest thing from my desires.”
Then what did he want? What could he possibly want other than to kill him? Clive had nothing to give. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have been willing to.
The Vampire, it seemed, could sense his train of thought. Or, more likely, he’d simply read it in his expression. Carefully, taking great pains to align the rim up with the edge of the table, Barnabas set his goblet down. The heavy clank of metal on wood terribly final in the drafty room.
They weren’t near Stilltide anymore. They couldn’t be. There were no castles for miles.
He’d been taken elsewhere while he’d been unconscious. But why?
“Long have I lived bereft of purpose. As a man, I had nothing. Even after the Master granted me his gift, I was…unfulfilled. To a fashion. Until I first laid eyes upon your flame. Time and again have we fought. Time and again have you, a mortal, proven an equal to the son of darkness. Never had I desired something with such fervor, and at length I managed to convince the Master to agree.”
Maybe it was the expression of utter shock he could feel unfurling on his face. Maybe it was the scoff of confused revulsion he couldn’t suppress. The Vampire, no doubt in some attempt to emphasize the point, leaned further toward him. Hunching over the table like some strange bird of prey. His red eyes alight with a maddened fervor.
“Join me. Drink deep of His blessing and rule at my side.”
Clive’s mind went entirely blank in the face of the suggestion, but the stunned silence lasted only for a moment before the recognition of the goblet set before him, and the black sludge inside it, clicked into place in his mind. Fury so intense it almost blinded him erupted through his body and he threw himself forward, slamming his chest against the rim of the table and shunting it a few centimeters forward but failing to upset the damnable goblet.
“ Never! ” Join him! Become a vampire ? A son of Ultima, just as Barnabas was and rule beside him? As what? His mate? Companion to a monster and a monster himself? He’d sooner leap from the top of Rosalith to see if he could fly. “ Fuck you! And fuck your Master’s ‘gift’!”
Barnabas’ face contorted in rage, lips twisting back over his glittering teeth. Eyes glowing in the dark like the embers of a banked fire as he rose from his seat, a rattling growl in his throat. He was defenseless, without anything that might pass as a weapon, and bound, unable to run or use his magic. This would be where he died, his neck snapped or skull crushed between the hands of the furious self-proclaimed ‘King’ of the monsters he’d taken up arms against at only fifteen. But it was better dead than one of them. And better to look death in the face than cower in his final moments. So he stared him down, defiant, as the monster thudded to a stop beside him. So close the tips of his boots pressed against his own.
He stopped there, and stared at him. Motionless for a long time. Then, he smiled. A harsh cruel twist of pale lips which accompanied a sound Clive recognized a moment later, with a sinking heart, as laughter.
“Stupid boy. There was never the option to refuse.”
A clawed hand seized him before he could react, twisting in his black hair and wrenching his head back at a sharp enough angle to make his neck twinge in protest. The heavy goblet lifted with the other and raised above him. Knowing what was coming and in a last desperate attempt to prevent it, Clive clamped his mouth shut only to have Barnabas shift his grip from his hair to his jaw. Snapping bone like dry kindling and pouring the foul liquid into his mouth. The angle his head was being held at, the blinding pain and the sheer volume swiftly rendering his efforts to hold his breath—not to swallow—moot. His body betraying him to its natural impulses, first, and then to delirium as the transformation set in. The efforts of the Phoenix’ blessing to fight back against the curse setting him alight from within. He thrashed, throwing his head back and at last managing to wrench himself free of his captor’s grip, only to leave himself open to the brutal snap of teeth. Fangs sinking deep into his throat.
This time, when the darkness took him down, it was less a veil of shadow and more a swirling pit of tar. His last thought as a man a desperate prayer that, when Tharmr buried him, he wouldn’t wake as something else.
The First Shield of the Phoenix had left nearly a week ago, now, and no trace of his return had yet to be found. It was no surprise, as far as the Lord Commander was concerned, and Wade was inclined to agree. Hunts, after all, weren’t unknown to draw long from time to time. Especially when one was seeking prey as high as the self-made ‘King’ of the monsters that had battered their borders for nearly as long as he’d been alive. The young Arch Duke, though-ailing now more so than ever as the strain of the Phoenix’s presence had come to prove itself not without toll-seemed convinced that his brother would not return. Had gone into a state almost like mourning the moment Clive had ridden off toward Stilltide astride Ambrosia. Needless to say, it had had a…poor effect on morale, overwhich Rhodney had attempted to talk to the youth; his nephew in all but blood, just as Clive was.
Nothing had changed.
Joshua hadn’t emerged from his chambers, into which he’d retired the moment the chirurgeon’s had released him from the infirmary of the Keep which rose above Rosalith’s walled streets.
Admittedly, for all that he’d tried not to let it get to him, he was starting to become concerned himself. Clive was the Shield of the Flame. The Champion of their people and the sword against the darkness, who wielded the Phoenix in battle in Joshua’s place and who, alone, stood to give Tharmr pause. If he were to be lost…
They’d fight.
Of course they’d fight. There was nothing more for them to do but fight when the other option was laying down and dying, or being turned into monsters themselves.
They’d lose, unless Joshua chose another or their neighbor’s guardian was feeling particularly generous.
There was no one else who could possibly prove strong enough.
Bahamut wasn’t charitable.
They’d be better off pleading with Tharmr for mercy. It was an endeavor more likely to succeed.
Huffing, catching Ser Tyler’s raised eyebrow in the periphery of his vision but deinging not to answer. He shifted his weight, relieving his aching heels for a moment, and adjusted his position leaned against the side of the gate. Squinting down the road, passed the roaring torches flanking it on either side, in hopes of picking out any threats that might be lurking beyond it. Finding nothing. Stiffening a moment later when the sound of something, almost indistinct enough to convince him he’d imagined it, reached his ears and looking toward the sky. His certainty that he had, indeed, heard something more than wind solidifying when Tyler did the same. Joining him in scanning the moonless firmament above them.
“Did you hear that?”
“Aye.” Wade said. “Wings. But that means-.”
“Tharmr.”
The Last King had come? Without Clive, they were all but certain to be slaughtered despite the best efforts of their fellow Shields. The question of what they should do, whether they should abandon their post in order to raise the alarm or attempt to hold their ground in hopes a lucky shot might end the menace at long last, springing to his lips. But before he could ask it, something crashed to the ground. Landing just beyond the reach of the light with a metallic clang. The sound of wingbeats once more retreating into the distance before dropping away into silence.
He lurched forward the moment the last traces of the Vampire’s presence had vanished. Ignorant to Tyler’s efforts to call him back as his boots thudded against the road. Halting just beyond the firelight when he caught sight of the sword embedded, point down, in the rutted dirt. Willing the familiar shape and coloring of the hilt and guard to reveal themselves as an effect of the darkness. Horror setting in when the image of Invictus refused to peel away.
Behind him, low in his throat, he heard Ser Tyler swear. “Take that to the Keep. The Arch Duke ought to know. That his brother…”
“But Tharmr-.”
“It’s rather clear what his reason was for coming here.” Tyler said. “He’s made his point. There will be no attack beyond this tonight. Go.”
The ease with which Clive had always carried the weapon belied how heavy it truly was and it was only with a great heave that he managed to dislodge the blade from where it had become embedded. Pausing long enough to wrap it in his cloak before bundling it in his arms. The journey to the Keep was one he’d made several times before, usually accompanied by either Lord Murdoch or the Fallen First Shield, if not both of them. Now it seemed as if the familiar sprawl of lanes and thoroughfares stretched on forever, and yet passed by far too quickly. Seeing him into the throne room, and before Joshua, long before he’d found the words to possibly be able to convey the horrible truth.
The Arch Duke was thin and drawn. Blue eyes—a lighter shade than Clive’s—hemmed in bruises and set above gaunt cheeks. Pale, and in a strange way. Not the same sort of strangeness as a vampire, like all the blood had been drained out of his body to leave his skin almost blue, but more like a burning lantern; paper lit from the inside. It was plain, already, that he knew. That no words he might have to offer could hold any explanation, nor any sort of comfort, so he simply held out the sword for him to take and left when he was dismissed.
The sound of muffled sobbing followed him back down the echoing hallway.
It felt like a dream when he woke. Stirring to the sensation of earth against his face. Of grit between his teeth—too sharp and too large in his mouth—as he struggled to inflate lungs that no longer needed breath. The weight of the grave against his chest. The burning.
Drink.
He needed to drink.
Needed to drink more than he’d ever needed to do anything else. Needed it so much that it didn’t matter he’d been buried by someone who’d then gone on to leave him there. Didn’t matter that he couldn’t make his mind clear enough to remember who he was.
Water.
The thought of it made his teeth ache and his throat burn hotter but it was enough to drive him to move. Aware, in only the vaguest sense, that so much earth atop him should have left him pinned and paralyzed beneath its weight even as he managed to bring his arms up and start to dig. Fingers curling in soft soil. Clawing. Carving a tunnel through which he was able, at long last, to surface and pause to get his bearings.
It was dark, but he could see. He could see without the moon and stars. The night steeping his surroundings in shades of blue and purple, alongside several other colors he didn’t think anyone had names for. Or maybe it was just something else he couldn’t remember.
Whoever had done this to him had left him in a forest, the wind whistling through the leaves carrying with it the scents of loam and nuts and moth dust, but he couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t focus on anything except the thirst that had begun gnawing at his sanity. An itch inside his skull he couldn’t scratch unless he cracked it open, further blurring all awareness.
Drink. Have to drink.
But where. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t know where he could find water. Didn’t know why the thought of water made it all so much worse. Made his body recoil and hiss and spit and his too-big too-sharp teeth hurt so badly.
Home.
He didn’t know where home was either. Didn’t know why he was so set on a place he couldn’t remember beyond the hazed echo of walls and a big white Keep. Didn’t know why he was so deeply, desperately certain that he’d find what he needed there and nowhere else. Didn’t know why a part of him was so terrified of going, progressively getting smaller and quieter as the desperation grew. But his feet knew. And they carried him forward, one stilted step at a time, into the night. Unsteady and snarling in discomfort. Until the last dregs of reason left within him trickled away.
It was a month after Invictus had been brought to him that the bells began to ring. A clamorous warning that echoed the Phoenix’s song in his veins and filled him, not for the first time, with a mix of fear and anger. Anger at himself, for not being strong enough to be of aid to the Shields and his people. Anger for not being able to fight, like Clive had been, despite the weight of Burning Thorn at his belt. Maybe if things had been different, his brother would still be at his side. Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to bury a sword instead of a body.
But it wasn’t to be. He was weak and growing weaker. Soon even the Phoenix’s power wouldn’t be enough to keep him from cracking apart. Flesh charring from bone to leave naught but a blackened skeleton behind. At least he’d be with his family again, then.
Maybe sooner than that, even, if…
No. The Shields were strong and loyal and true. Even without Clive’s strength, even without his magic, they’d prove enough to rebuff Tharmr’s attack. Rosaria would be safe. His people would live to see the dawn. He had to believe that.
Torgal curled against his legs, pressing him further back into the bed he sat on. Growling. Hackles raised. Yellow eyes set on the door as the sounds of fighting grew steadily louder. Grew steadily closer. And then cut off into silence. A terrible sudden cloying silence which made it horrifically plain that the Shields, and likely most of Rosalith’s citizens, were dead. The sound of footsteps, carrying the achingly familiar click of light plate, becoming audible over the rapid pounding of his heart. Torgal curled down further, his ears laying back, and whined before dropping pitch into a vicious growl.
He lunged when the door flew open, all sight of the attacker blocked out behind a bulwark of muscle and fur. Fangs snapped shut with a clank of bone on metal and then the loyal hound was flying through the air. Slamming into the stone wall and dropping into a crumpled heap.
“Torgal!”
But Joshua couldn’t spare any focus for the wolf, no doubt badly wounded, and leapt to his feet. Fighting for balance against how heavy his limbs felt as he drew his sword and leveled it at the beast. Heart in his throat and threatening to suffocate him. Grief cold in his chest, and so intense it nearly drowned his fear.
The hallway was steeped in darkness, leaving the vampire little more than a black silhouette. But even then, he recognized him. He’d recognize his brother anywhere, after so long.
“Clive.”
He stepped forward, then, into the faint light of the candles. The dancing glow revealed his torn clothing and dirt-smeared plate. The blood which soaked his front in viscous scarlet. The hungry crimson of his eyes. The bite which had cursed him was clearly visible against his throat, raised and silver, and Joshua gripped the hilt of his blade tighter.
Tharmr had made him a Lord, rather than a mere thrall.
His reasoning for such a choice mattered little to Joshua, in the end, in the face of the knowledge that his brother had been forced into drinking vampire blood. Forced, because there was no realm in which he’d ever have done such a thing willingly. He was young to his new life. All but fresh from the grave he’d surely been dumped in. Feral with thirst, but not unreachable.
His brother was still in there.
He wouldn’t want to live like this. Certainly not after what he’d already done.
Joshua couldn’t lose him. Couldn’t bear to be the one to cut him down.
If anyone could reach Clive, even in this state, it was him.
“Brother.” He relinquished his hold on Burning Thorn, allowing the blade to clatter to the floor. Red eyes shot to it but only lingered for a moment before returning to his face. “Don’t you recognize me?”
There was no answer given, and none in his face. Clive stepped closer. The motion unsteady, lacking all of the grace he’d once possessed. All of the grace he should have had as a vampire. So unsteady it almost looked drunk. His body swayed faintly, side to side. The cloying scent of graveturn and blood overpowering as he examined him intently from so close Joshua could feel the chill of his skin. The crease in his brow was still the same one that it had always been. The thought tugged at his already aching heart.
“It’s ok.” He had to fight off the tears which threatened to blur his vision. Struggling to keep his voice from shaking. “I know. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you can’t control it. Flames, please, don’t blame yourself for this.”
Clive would blame himself, he knew.
Regardless of whether he succeeded in bringing his brother back to awareness here and now or he failed and was torn limb from limb Clive would eventually return to himself. And when he did, he’d all but surely attempt to take matters into his own hands.
He’d never want to live as one of them.
Selfishly, even if he wouldn’t live to see it, Joshua couldn’t bear to see his brother die.
Another step closer. Their bodies pressed together; Clive’s sheer height and width becoming shockingly apparent then as he stared down at him with those fierce devouring eyes. Red eyes. Red smeared lips. Red stained fangs descending on him in a strike too swift to track.
The pain was sharp, but easy enough to push away alongside the panic and the mounting dizziness. Less easy to ignore was the distressed noise that he was making in between heavy swallows and the way clawed fingers twisted in his finemade clothing which suggested Clive was, to some degree, aware of his actions but unable to stop them. He wanted to comfort his brother but there wasn’t time. Wasn’t time or space for anything but grasping at the Phoenix’s fluttering power. Pressing brilliant flames against the first part of him that he could reach; his gloved fingers finding the curve of his brother’s jaw. Willing the embers to leave him, to find a new home and keep him even from himself, with the last of his strength. A crippling cold settling in the hollow parts of him in its wake.
His hand fell as Clive wrenched away to look at him, face streaked in gore and tears. His eyes were no longer red, but wide and blue and ashy, and the Phoenix’s reluctant imparting upon him—in a form nearly spent—had charred his cheek black though he couldn’t make out the details through his fading vision. Couldn’t hear what Clive said to him as he was hoisted upward against his body, limbs hung limp toward the floor. Couldn’t say the words that he wanted to, because they got caught in his throat like an old blood clot. It would only be a moment now. Merely a moment and his brother would be alone in the world.
A cruel fate he didn’t deserve.
I want you to go on. His vision had gone completely now. If there was meant to be light, he didn’t see it. I want you to be happy, someday.
His thoughts scattered into nothingness, then, little more than ashes blown along on the wind, and Joshua Rosfield knew no more.
He’d come back to himself in Rosalith Keep, soaked in the blood of his people and with his dying brother in his arms.
Monster.
Murderer.
No better than Tharmr, now. Because he’d been afflicted with his taint.
But Barnabas hadn’t been there. Hadn’t tricked him into this. Everything he’d done had been his own actions. The blood on his hands only the fault of himself.
He couldn’t remember clearly what had happened.
He remembered enough.
Wade shattering beneath his hands just like the ax he’d wielded. The Lord Commander ablaze in the dark flames his curse had twisted his blessing into. His brother, Burning Thorn raised and fear in his eyes. If any of the citizens had escaped they’d fled into the surrounding countryside and wouldn’t be likely to return. Not any time soon.
He burned the city. Burned it and everything in it because he couldn’t bury so many dead and because he couldn’t bear to simply leave them for the birds. And then, with flames leaping into the air and a smear of soot painting itself across the sky above him, he’d gone to the highest hill that he could find and waited for the sun.
It trimmed the sky in pink when it first rose, and brushed burning spindles across his cheeks. A discomfort which soon turned to agony as the light spilled in torrents across the hilltop. Burning him away like so much shadow. Turning his body to ashes and dust which scattered in the grass, leaving only his ruined clothing and stained armor behind.
But it wasn’t to be.
When night fell again he awoke lying on the ground, the brand splashed across his cheek burning.
In his final moments, Joshua had cursed him to suffer.
After what he’d done, being forced to wallow in his sin was the least punishment that he deserved.
If such was the final wish of his liege, of the brother he’d sworn to protect, the kin he’d failed, how could he refuse?
Clive wanted to remain on that hillside forever but he forced himself to rise and dress. Leaving the armor behind in the grass. He was no longer a hunter. Had no right to their trappings. And he had no need of armor, now, when the Phoenix’s curse would keep him shackled to the world regardless of the damage that he took.
The next twenty years he spent haunting the less traveled country roads and the deep parts of forests. Wandering, restless, and feeding off the dead left behind by crime or justice or war. Not seeing any trace of his own kind until the winter of his twenty-first year when he was hunted down by one of them.
Clive had expected violence. Instead, he’d been all but hoisted up out of the mud by the stranger, roughly beaten free of dust, and set on his feet. His name had been Tiamat-or, at least, that was the name he’d been willing to give him-and he, too, had been a hunter before he’d been turned. Though he’d been of Bahamut’s kind, and not the kin of flame. He wasn’t the blood of Ultima, like him, nor a Lord, but he was older. More experienced in that life. Abrasive, to say the least of it, and was insistent on teaching him to ‘eat properly’ in a way more suited to his morals.
The targeting of criminals was something of an art form for Tiamat, by that point, and he taught Clive everything he needed to know to pull it off. Though it would take time before he had nearly as much grace. It served his purposes, at the very least, and that was all that mattered. And, as his companion was careful to remind him time and again was his sole reason for taking such care, it kept the hunters off them.
He stayed with him for the next forty years, going by the moniker of Wyvern that he’d been given out of exasperation when he’d refused to share his name one too many times. Through that time they picked up two others, who similarly came to take the names Aevis and Biast, and taught them how to cope with their condition. Clive let his guard down, a part of him foolishly believing that, perhaps, fate would simply leave him to subsist like this in peace.
Then Barnabas had reappeared and killed his companions and Clive had been forced to flee again. Taking unsteady flight for the first time in utter desperation and managing, at last, to shake the Black King’s trail.
He never stopped moving, after that. Constantly roaming from place to place. Hiding from the sun and taking wing come nightfall, only feeding when he truly had no other choice and often settling for animals. Pushing his body until it gave out and he plummeted from the sky somewhere in the bitter north.
Clive expected to wake up in a crater in the permafrost, perhaps with parts of his body still reforming out of ashes. Instead he found a low hung roof over his head, strung with bundles of dried herbs along the rafters, and the young woman who lived there alone.
Charity toward a parasite wasn’t something Clive thought wise, but she was kind to him. Loneliness had begun to eat at his heart alongside the ever bleeding gashes of self loathing and grief and so, against his better judgment and despite his fear that Tharmr would hunt him down again, he stayed. Helped her as best he could. Tried to keep himself mostly unnoticed by the inhabitants of the village Jill lived so clearly on the outskirts of.
He didn’t even make it a year. But it wasn’t Barnabas this time. Just human fear.
He’d been gone for several days, having to travel quite far afield with settlements as scattered as they were in that area to locate a suitable target. When he returned the hut had been a smoldering ruin and she was lying on the road outside, the snow around her body speckled red.
He turned her, that night, to save her life. And he stayed with her for as long as he could, doing his best to teach her all he knew. But ten years on from making that fateful snap decision Clive was confronted with the unexpected reality that Barnabas wasn’t the only one who’d been hunting him.
Bahamut had been seeking vengeance for destroying its kin, driving its chosen to seek his blood for several generations to no avail before the latest one had found him. He stayed behind to fight while Jill fled, but subsisting off of minimums had left him weak and he was ashes before sunrise.
Whether it was his flagging strength or the dragon’s holy light that caused it, he remained that way for an entire generation before his body pulled itself together again. He immediately sought out his childe to ensure she’d escaped but this time he didn’t remain with her. Returning to roving the various lands and kingdoms or Storm and Ash until the Black King’s hunt forced renewed flight or Bahamut’s brilliant breath reduced him yet again to cinders.
Time ceased to have meaning after his third century.
He’d long stopped keeping track of things like kingdoms and rulers and wars. Human movements meant nothing to him beyond the ease of scavenging when he couldn’t find a criminal. Nothing more than a vulture in a human skin. A mangy dog sucking dead meat in the dark. He usually didn’t wander close enough to encampments to be spotted. So it came as something of a surprise when a voice called out for him to stop.
Outrunning the human would have been easy, even astride a horse, but Clive couldn’t scrape together the desire to put in the effort to do so. Turning, instead, to face him and finding the owner of the voice looking down at him with a mix of suspicion and concern.
“What are you doing out here, lad? Are you alone? Are you lost?”
“Alone? Yes.” Alone for a long time now. Alone, as he deserves to be, for even his own kind weren’t safe near him. “But lost? No. I’m merely passing through, Sir, and I apologize for any fright I may have caused.”
“Passing through?” He sounded incensed. “I can’t leave you to wander about in the forest like this when the place could become a bloody war zone at any moment.”
He was aware, if not of the finer details. That was why he’d come, after all. To eat properly. Purge himself of the near-to-toxic animal blood his body could only barely run on. Still, he had a part to play, and so Clive turned his head as if to examine the empty trees around them before returning his eyes to the other man.
“If it could truly devolve on such short notice I’d best be going.” He tried to sound nervous but was certain he only succeeded in sounding exactly as exhausted as he felt. “Goodbye.”
But the man wasn’t content to leave him be, it seemed. Nudging his horse to step closer. Holding the reins tightly to maintain control when the animal, knowing what he was, attempted to shy. “Wait, lad. Do you have anywhere in particular you’re going?”
It had been a long time since anyone had cared to ask that question of him. Longer still since he’d been able to answer it. “Wherever the wind sees fit to take me, I suppose.”
“And nowhere to stay?”
He measured the man for a long time before shrugging. Taking in the strong cut of his jaw. The two swords at his belt, one placed just atop the other. How green his eyes were. Handsome. Enough so to set his cold heart yearning for times long dead to him, where companionship might have been an option. If only for a night. “A cave. A hollow tree, if it comes to it. I find my way.”
This was the point where the human was supposed to leave him. To pick up on the queuing of his instincts that something about him was terribly off. To let him go, or bolt away in fear.
He didn’t.
“I can’t leave you to do that.” He said. “Come up on my horse and I’ll take you back to town. There’s not much there now that it’s become a soldier’s barracks but I can get you a warm meal at least. And a night with a roof over your head.”
He’d not been offered kindness since Jill had found him, when he’d tumbled from the sky in exhaustion.
It hadn’t ended well for her.
The broken shards of his soul shifted out of place, cutting into the flesh around them, and his ancient body ached at the thought that, for this man, this stranger, it wouldn’t end well either.
“You’re kinder than most.” He said. “Mind yourself that it doesn’t get you killed.”
Most would quail at such a thing, sounding almost like a threat. All his companion did was laugh, though Clive could sense there was no amusement in it. “I rather think a sword will catch me first, lad.” He said, transferring the reins to his other hand and reaching toward him. “Come on, then. Up you go.”
He should leave. Flash his eyes or his teeth. Spread his wings and send the human screaming back through the trees.
Maybe he would have if he hadn’t been so tired. So worn down. So utterly ruined by the weight of the years he’d had to bear. A weight he’d never escape even after it had grown so heavy he could no longer get up.
Against his better judgment, Clive reached out and took the human’s offered hand.