1. Sun

Chapter 1

Sun

I t had never been this dark before dawn.

“Haaaaah…” I stumbled on a stone and slumped against a tree with a ragged sigh. Brushing off my dusty pants, I couldn’t suppress my gasping breaths. I greedily sucked in frosty air as we continued our journey north from the prison.

Mere hours ago, I was filled with righteous rage and determination. Now, on the verge of collapse, I wondered how I’d survive the journey to Yin Valley, let alone face off with the hordes of monstrous creatures resting underneath the frozen soil.

We had walked for some time now toward Tsuki’s stone. Toward salvation. Or, toward humanity’s ultimate destruction if I didn’t find a way out of my bind.

“Sun? Are you okay? Do you need to rest?” Clem asked me as he crawled down Bracken’s shoulder and glided to the ground, falling into lockstep by my side.

Then he gasped and looked down at the ground beneath our feet.

Like a show horse, he lifted his pronged toes too high with each step, mouth falling open in shock. It made me chuckle a bit, bemused by the fact a mere mothian had never had to touch snow if the bewilderment on Clem’s face was any indication.

As his body became more solid, just like the rest of my nocturnal harem, Clem seemed in awe of mundane things, like touching snow as now we were ankle deep fighting against a light storm.

“I’m fine,” I lied, wiping a copious amount of sweat from my forehead, which was odd in the cold. “We move. There’s no time to rest, and we’re still too close to Black Lantern for comfort.”

Pushing aside Clem’s protests as he failed to drag me back to rest, I pressed on.

Indeed, there was no time to rest as the sun was beginning to set. Time was not on our side.

My side, I reminded myself. No matter how much I wanted to consider Kiar, Bracken, and Clem as my allies, they weren’t.

Not with the new knowledge I possessed that their undead king was nearly resurrected, my very soul used to nurture my immortal enemy’s new body.

Freed from bondage in my enemy’s prison, it was time to complete my mission, and end the war on humanity that had ravaged Naran for decades.

I was taught to walk with confidence and follow orders, not to forge my own uncertain path. But now, shunned and bound to the monsters I sought to destroy, I had no choice but to carve out a path no man had taken.

Or, for that matter, survived, seeing as I knew no man who’d kept the company of nocs as long as I had.

Though, that ends tonight, I thought, jaw clenched, as I tripped once more.

Kiar’s glossy black tail shot out and held my midsection as Bracken caught my chest with his enormous, clawed hand. Clem fluttered fitfully beside me.

“Please, Sun, you are tired,” Clem began again. “Let us rest.”

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. So, I pushed them all away and kept walking.

I’d sleep when I was dead. The final phase of this endless war had already begun, and now I had to figure out how to win.

Alhadya, the former king of the nocs, was an obstacle to peace, even in death. My eyes flicked to a puddle of melted snow, suppressing a shudder of revulsion as an inky spider-shaped shadow transformed into a fanged smile.

I smashed the puddle with my foot in rage. His shadow lingered beside me, even as his voice grew quieter and quieter as our journey through the Celestial Forest brought us closer to the valley with each step.

He had to be stopped. And yet, even as we marched through the forest to our destination, I could not think of an answer to my most urgent mission and most pressing question.

I must sever the tether binding our souls or risk revealing my people’s mightiest weapon to the true King of the Nocturnal Kingdom. I knew this. We all knew this, and the uneasy tension in the air was a testament to that fact.

But how was the question at hand? How were we to break the tether? And, afterward, how would I escape from my nocs with my head still attached to my shoulders?

No easy answers came as my sandals dug into dirt mixed with snow until my feet were raw, buzzing in pain before going numb.

My frustration would kill me before the choppy, frigid winds encasing the forest could freeze me to death. My body ached, and so did my flesh, coated in a thin layer of frost, as I pressed in close to the trees.

About an hour later, I finally succumbed to my need to rest, though I was unwilling to admit it to my companions, who came to a halt beside me.

I felt so lost. Not because I didn’t know my destination—far from it—but because my mind was a mess. My nocs were attached to me, for better or for worse. Finally, I was confronted with the worst aspect of this odd arrangement.

Unfortunately, there was no way to carry out my covert mission for the empire with the loyal servants of our sworn enemy by my side. So, I had to think!

“What’s wrong, Sun?” Clem, the weakest of my tethered companions, asked again, clicking nervously as I thumped my head against the trunk of a sturdy tree, trying to knock some sense into my sluggish mind.

“I just need a second to breathe,” I lied, trying to fight through my exhaustion, knowing we would need to make camp for the night sooner rather than later.

“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep banging your head against the tree,” Kiar stated the obvious, his mismatched eyes gleaming like gemstones in the fading light.

“My heart aches more than my head,” I replied as I finally slid down to the ground to take a break.

The cold hard ground offered little reprieve, but I could not keep my eyes open a second longer.

Crossing his arms, Bracken knelt until he was eye level with me, humming, the vibration jolting me wide awake. Rubbing his chin, he nodded towards Clem and then Kiar.

“Poor thing. I told you I’d carry you. Tomorrow morning, I won’t allow you to refuse me. Kiar, I think our pet needs water. And food,” Bracken declared after some time observing me.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion until Clem folded into me, obviously weary as he clung to my robes. He pulled on my left sleeve, sucking the tip, and I realized he was hungry.

They probably all were, seeing as they had solid bodies once more. I acknowledged the gnawing ache rumbling in my own stomach for the first time. I was starving.

“Should we hunt?” I asked though I knew I’d have trouble catching a termite with a twig in my weakened state.

“I’m not sure that’s wise in your condition. Rest a while, and we’ll decide later,” Kiar commanded, curling his tail until it acted as a chair on which he could rest.

Kiar sat to my right as Bracken lifted Clem and me into his lap, stroking us both simultaneously on our backs as if we were pets of sorts or small children. Tucked into his fur, I was too warm to protest the intimate treatment.

I nodded off, awakening with a foggy mind, trying to shake away my embarrassment at being attended to by nocs.

Atlan, Jia, Tao, and a few other men escaped the prison. Surely more had evaded the rats, but I would suffer death before I allowed a fellow soldier to see me colluding with nocs again.

Or worse, snuggling with them, as I was doing now. The image of Atlan’s absolute disgust was still burned into my mind and made my heart heavier than it already was.

I didn’t know how long we stayed like that, bundled up in Bracken’s embrace with Kiar guarding us, pretending to be unbothered, as the batbeast held us.

But I could tell something was wrong with Kiar, his expression stormy, mood even worse as his gaze kept flicking to me, then Bracken’s arms, and then back to me. But I paid him no mind, more concerned with not being cold. However, after enough warmth sunk into my bones, I regrew my backbone and struggled out of his embrace.

Bracken let me down, huffing as they all turned their undivided attention to me.

Well, that was good because my wits were finally returning to me. If Clem had made this bond, he could undo it. I faced him, raising my chin resolutely.

“Clem, it’s time now,” I murmured, unable to look him in his solid black eyes, fists balled at my sides.

“Time for what?” he asked in a measured tone, and I knew he knew what I was after.

“It is time for me to be free. For you all to be freed from me, ” I responded, my eyes locked on my frozen toes, hesitating before I continued. “It is time to break the tether, Clem.”

After a prolonged silence, I finally looked up at them. Bracken and Kiar eyed me curiously, a bit of concern gleaming from their narrowed eyes while Clem’s face was a veil of dismay.

“I’m… we’re not strong enough yet! The spell can only work when th-the vessel is stable,” Clem said, leaping from Bracken’s lap and clutching me with all four of his hands. “Let’s think about it some more in the morning…”

I felt like it was a lie, but who was I to argue with him? I was not a court magician. What I knew of magic was bestowed knowledge from those much more experienced than I.

Still, there had to be something we could do in the interim that wouldn’t involve me leading myself into a trap, putting myself at a disadvantage, against four nocs with the ultimate prize between us.

“During the battle, we were stronger when we fought …” Kiar offered, pausing, eyes darkening as he slithered beside me in a flash.

“And when we fucked, ” Bracken chimed in, his gleaming white fangs on full display as he too, stood and boxed me in.

Suddenly backed into a tree on the opposite side of the pathway, I reached for Clem, pulling him to my chest as a shield. Kiar’s tail curled around my ankle and when Clem pulled far enough away for me to see his face, I saw that he was wearing the same lascivious smile as the others.

I released him, sneering at them all, even as my heart skipped a beat.

All they ever had was sex on their demented minds! I thought I was too easily aroused at times until I met them. I was no match for their sexual drive.

“No. More. Fucking ,” I gritted out, even as my chest clenched, my body remembering the feeling of all of them, all at once, consuming me last night. I wanted that again, to feel that high, that sensual rush.

I knew I’d be chasing that feeling over and over again for the rest of my life after we parted ways. That’s why it was better to stop them now. I had already let it all go too far.

“How else can we give you enough power to break the tether?” I demanded, clutching Clem’s shoulder.

“Why so soon?” Bracken cooed. “Birds of a feather should flock together. We can help you along the way. You won’t be able to grab the stone in that state, in a noc-ruled territory, right, Sun?”

Help? I thought, fury and bitterness overwhelming me because Bracken was right and that pissed me off even more.

I glared up at him, and he smiled down at me, but it was anything but friendly this time. I wasn’t stupid enough to underestimate a noc who was so intimately connected to me. Afterall, their alliance was with their undead king.

“How about we hunt?” Kiar suggested, curling around a tree as he raised up, propelled by his tail, plucking a withered bellfruit from a branch. “Killing. Fucking. Eating. I’ve noticed all three of these things strengthen Clem’s spell, and us in turn. And it’s better than standing here arguing.”

“…Sounds like a plan for now. The night approaches and we will be more powerful. It would be nice to fatten Sun up so we don’t have two bony pets,” Bracken mused, rubbing his chin again.

I blinked up at him, shocked, as he and Kiar shared a look, and I realized the extent of what he meant when he called me a “pet,” that he meant it in the literal sense.

Tensing, ready to argue, I was stopped by Clem tugging on my hand. He knelt and healed the bruises on my knees and rubbed his heated palms over my feet, before whispering, “Let them go. We need mana before it’s too late to restore the spell.”

Bracken and Kiar turned to leave before I could get a word in with them, though it didn’t matter. Clem didn’t need to elaborate on what would happen to us if we didn’t secure the mana he so desperately craved to keep our souls tethered.

“Just scream if you need us. But don’t you worry your handsome little head, Sun. We’ll stick close and protect you two if trouble finds you,” the batbeast chirped over his shoulder, followed by a cackle as they disappeared into the thicket of leaves, leaving us all alone.

“Ugh!” I punched the tree behind me, infuriated because I genuinely did need their protection. I was left behind and compared to a mothian in terms of strength. A level-one noc! How absurd.

No, what was more absurd was the fact that I was weaker than Clem in that moment, since punching the tree hurt me more than it should’ve as I crouched in defeat, nursing my self-inflicted wound. Fed up, I tried to focus on something else so I wouldn’t rage, hurt myself, and drain Clem’s magic even more.

Clem twiddled two sets of thumbs besides me as I adjusted my clothing, and my sword. My captivity had made me rather bony, truly, and whoever wore this uniform before me had to be much taller and broader. I was practically swimming inside of it compared to my former tattered robes.

Digging into the pockets to warm my hands, I was startled when something sharp nicked my fingertips.

“Huh?”

Carefully this time, I reached inside, shocked to find shards of Blood Onyx in my pants pockets as I yanked them out.

“How hadn’t I noticed?” I thought, gathering them into one fist, slapping my forehead in disbelief with my free hand.

I had completely forgotten stealing the sharp pieces of noc weaponry.

It would have been a great aid during the revolt. But it seemed my nocs had fucked my common sense out of my head, just as I’d suspected, seeing as I didn’t think of it even during the heat of the battle.

Clem pursed his thin lips as I picked up two shards carefully so that I wouldn’t slice off my fingers. Jia had used them as weapons in the battle, filling me with pride. Maybe I, too, could figure out how to turn my folly into a blessing. But how? She and Atlan must have taken many moons to sharpen the tips into the shapes they wanted, as they planned out how to overpower the rats.

“...You can sharpen them, you know, without an axe. It’s better too, seeing as striking the bloodstone with a shard of bloodstone is how you unlock its power,” Clem paused to click. “That’s why you all had common tools for such hard metal, or you prisoners could have turned its power against your captors. That shard is large enough I think to spark. It won’t hold Dio’s blessing, but it’ll be sharp enough to kill most nocs, I think.”

Clem stated all that as if it were common knowledge. And maybe it was. Or maybe inside Bracken’s infamous cave, he took up smithing and spell casting. Only the Gods knew.

A flash of anger heated my chest. This was yet another lie of omission. If I’d known what the Blood Onyx was called, and how to power it, maybe just maybe I could’ve pulled off a revolt sooner than expected.

But then I would have probably been killed, and if nothing else, I couldn’t fault Clem’s need for self-preservation.

“Hm, well, let’s see if you’re telling the truth for once,” I said, and it came out more bitter than I intended.

Clem’s antennas drooped, and his body flashed green and then a dark shade of blue as he crouched beside me.

“Sorry,” I whispered as I plopped down on my butt from my crouching position, exhaustion finally winning out, no longer trying to hide it since only Clem and I were here. I felt less on guard with him.

He didn’t respond, and I didn’t know how to comfort him, so I allowed the uncomfortable silence to stand between us like a wall.

Clem helped me tear large strips of cloth from my uniform in silence, and I covered my hands with them before I went to work. My back against the bark, I struck the nocturnal stone together hesitantly, hopeful that Clem’s words rang true.

To my surprise, just as my mothian instructed, the strange nocturnal stone sparked when I struck them together. Curiously, as I sharpened a shard into a dagger, the edges began to glow, changing from a faint dark purple hue to…

“Woah!” Lightning danced in the palm of my hand. My eyes widened with wonder as Clem grinned at me.

Whittling the edges, and honing the tip, I kept my hands and mind preoccupied with this newfound power, however short lived. Soon, it would just look like a very sturdy dagger, but I was enchanted by the lightning despite knowing it wouldn’t last.

I still missed my deer-horn dragon blades, but this was a worthy substitute. My hands as well as my soul buzzed with the prospect of harnessing its full potential, as I quickly fashioned an arrow, and went back to sharpening my main weapon.

Jia and Atlan were better archers than I, but I thought it wise to prepare for close and long distance combat with the stone. In prison, picking up an ax had been difficult when I had been worked to near starvation. Even the meager weapons my comrades managed to make couldn’t fight off our captors. But now I knew we could turn the tide of the war with this knowledge. If only I could get this information to Emperor Gaulu, or at the very least, Atlan or Jia who could reach a military base to pass it on to our emperor. Dio knew I couldn’t step foot on a human encampment without being killed, visibly tethered to my trio still.

“Ah,” I thought, holding my new weapon up to the setting sun, a dark purple blade that had lost its electric luster. “This is why you call it Blood Onyx.”

I assumed it was because it tore flesh like a paddle gliding through water when handled without care. But on closer inspection, the edges turned crimson when exposed to the light, a current of electricity sparking from the tip one final time before petering out.

Fascinating as it was deadly. I stored this new knowledge away, eager to make more weapons before two sets of palms landed on my shoulders and squeezed.

Glancing upward, I frowned as Clem beamed down at me from above.

“Now that you are done, I need your help to gather mana,” my mothian whispered with an eerie smile. “Let us work together, Sun, until master and Kiar return.”