Guilt

Guilt's story

He closed his eyes to feel the cold thin airflow over his wings and their new slashes of deep red. The striping that marked him as a necromancer stung in the icy air. A slow smile curled his lips, he wasn't sure if the giddiness he felt was from the altitude or the wonder of his life. He'd passed the trials, a hard-won triumph, just a few days from failure.

He'd even found the energy to laugh as he drew the fever from his body, consolidating it into an infectious ember. What a delightful gift, heating the body to parch or stew. He'd sat studying this kernel of illness until another necromancer found him. He hadn't heard them approach, still in deep contemplation. Rather he had felt the drawing of power around him and bumped back to reality to see the loveliest little Mirror leaning over him, her glimmering red eyes wide with surprise.

Since he was still weak from the illness Dyshidr had allowed him to share her den. And as he regained his strength her bed. He had lingered several delightful days before reluctantly winging home. Now the Ashfall Waste spread out below him. He folded his broad wings and arrowed down into the smoke.

Something was wrong. It wasn't the smoke rising from his clan's hold, but how cleanly the plumes lifted into the sky. No currents of movement from within the hold, meaning no one was there. He dropped heavily from the sky, lumbering over the charred rubble of what had been a neat stone and brick dwelling.

It was as if the air had thickened and it choked him going down. He could see the burnt meat and charred bones that had been his friends. But no sign of his family. Not his parents or sister. They ought to have been here. His beloved sister, always the overachiever, had completed the trials and gone home long before him so why hadn't she-

The door to the underground workshops trembled under a massive impact. His head swung around as the next impact shook the ground. The obsidian door shattered. Something black and massive poured through it, it's cry starting on a roar and ending on a shriek. He fell back as the scent of illness and decay hit his nostrils.

Surging forward, He reached desperately for the disease in the thing. It turned and he fumbled the power.

Three heads, three beloved heads. Mother on the left, her jaw torn and hanging loose with dripping shadows obscuring the damage. Father on the right his eyes burned out, trails of gore on his cheeks the same plague-born color as the stripes on his son's wings. And in the center crying white fire down sanguine black cheeks, black veins pulsing with infection was his sister.

His sister's head screamed, the other heads howling along. The tongue of the head that had been his mother's wriggled, wet with blood and mucus. He looked - transfixed- and a claw tore through his shoulder, ripping off a huge chunk of hide. The blow flung him through the air.

He pushed up, the injured arm dangling uselessly. But he didn't need his hands to fight. He used his power, reaching for the infection inside the Emperor. The infection that had thwarted his sister could not overpower him now.

It twisted and writhed, the barely alive creature containing it flailed It crushed buildings and burned corpses alike into ash and dust. But it couldn't attack him. There was too much of the disease in it. And he was a master of disease. Finally, the Emperor stilled. He opened his eyes, frowning at the bright light around him. It dimmed as he narrowed his eyes. Then he remembered Dyshidr telling him a story… about necromancers whose eyes glowed with the power they could wield.

Tears filled his eyes, shining like gems in the new light. He stumbled to the inert form of the Emperor and fell onto it weeping. He could hear a faint whisper from the center head.

"I should have been here. I should have… this is my fault. My fault."

The disease, the life, in the center head began to fade. He wrapped in power forcing it, and the dragon who it infested, to live.





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