Chapter 2

Vedrac

If I still had a working heart, it would have been racing like a train. I'd never been in prison before. Thousands of living bodies crammed into one square mile of building. And the energy. My gods, it was making me feel drunk just being around it. The adrenaline-soaked monsters constantly existing on a knife edge of anger and sadness. The guards awash with cortisol from the stress. And all of it tinged with darkness. A menace. I could feel it all.

I wanted to drink it all in. It was like a buffet laid out in front of me for the taking. But then that darkness would seep into the corners of my being. For a lich, the saying ‘you are what you eat' is painfully true. I'd only eaten dumb animals for nearly a decade. No people or monsters since I had taken the last soul of the Legreman mages. Now I was not only hungry, but purposeless. I didn't care that I was in prison for my final years. I'd done everything I'd intended to.

I stood in the cell block, taking it all in. Assessing which characters were going to be the most trouble. I spotted an orc watching me. Large and confident. His energy field felt vibrant and filled with passion and purpose. Things I had left behind now. He smiled at me. I gave him a smile back. No point in making enemies for no reason. And genuine smiles were probably going to be rare to find here. The noise of the other monsters and the tempting energy was quickly too much for me. After years of being alone and moving in the shadows, it was hard to handle all of this. I retreated to my cell and hoped for quiet.

It was a tiny stone room with one bed. At least I had a place of my own. During nearly a century of hunting, I'd rarely returned to the home I had as a human. Eventually, I came back to find a small family there, rebuilding the damaged roof and making it livable again. I didn't have it in me to turn them out into the snow. And the object that held my soul was deep beneath the foundations. So, I'd left it behind for good. It was perhaps the last time I'd really felt anything close to empathy. I was empty now.

I lay down on the dusty bed. It was hard and uncomfortable, but it was mine. The bed I would sleep on until lack of food turned me into dust, too. With the door closed, I felt almost snug. My body was weary, but this was all too new and noisy for me to fully relax and sleep. I wrangled my mind into a meditative state, chanting the words that I knew like the back of my hand until eventually the noise fell away.

As my mind observed the magical weave that flows through all of reality, I felt a tugging on my focus. Even before my transformation, I'd practiced meditation extensively. I could usually push away these things. But it kept pulling at me. I thought it might be another magic user in the weave. But it kept up its distraction with a rhythmic quality, like a heartbeat. Curiosity got the better of me. I turned my attention to it properly. It kept thrumming. I rode the threads until I saw the one that was calling to me. It was both dark and bright, like lightning in a night sky. In all my years, I'd never seen anything like it. Whatever it was attached to was nearby. In the prison. I walked the thread and at the end, I fell into what felt like a storm.

Energy buffeted me, turning me over and over. It was feminine. Beautiful. Powerful. Endlessly turning, changing. Emotions I hadn't felt in a long time laced through it. Love. Caring. Concern. Tenderness. I was spinning wildly. Caught in the tempest, but not wanting to escape. Lavender clouds enveloped me softly, easing the wildness of the storm.

I bathed in it. It was the closest to being alive that I'd been since the ritual. Feelings that I hadn't let in for a long time infused me. The cold couldn't touch me here. If there was such a thing as perfection, this was it. Whoever this was, I had to meet them. The energy bored into me, penetrating the place where a living soul had once resided, and wrapped its tendrils around the remnants of my being. We joined in the most intimate manner, me and this person I had never met. But somehow it was like this storm had always been waiting for me.

Shouts tore me from my meditation. My eyes flew open, and it took a moment for the disorientation of the disruption to ease.

"Time for food."

I wanted to return to the weave and my storm.

"Not now," I snapped.

Ice needles of pain pierced every inch of me as a shock from the collar at my neck ran through me. I let the feeling fade before I stood. A fight wasn't something that interested me, so I wasn't going to object again. We'd been warned on arrival that if we didn't do as we were told, then we'd be locked up in solitary confinement. I couldn't afford that. I had to meet her, whoever she was. The beautiful storm, somewhere in this prison. There was a tang of fate in my mouth.

I pulled myself to my feet and nodded sourly at the guard before stepping forward. He leapt back, trying to maintain the distance between us. No one wants to risk contact with a lich. We can drain the life energy of anyone with a touch. If we are feeling really nasty, we can even absorb their soul. I'd swallowed several. So, there are no friendly hugs or casual arm brushes for liches. Only an eternity of space between you and every other living creature. Even animals knew to keep their distance from me. I gestured for the guard to go first, and he backed out, keeping an eye on me.

"Forward."

He moved behind me and directed me out of the cell block. I walked as slowly as I thought I could get away with and observed the other inmates we passed. They peered at me. Some with disgust. Some backed away into the depths of their cells as soon as they saw me. I didn't think I'd have much trouble with the other inmates. But I wouldn't make any friends either. Nothing unusual there.

As we walked, I realized no one else was moving the way I was. The guards directed me down some stairs and into a basement. It was dark, but that didn't bother me. I could see well enough in any non-magical darkness. The guard prodded me with the baton again.

"If you can catch any rats, you can eat 'em."

I turned and stared at the guard at the door. His hand rested on the control for my shock collar.

"So, I am to be your glorified prison cat, then?"

The guard snorted.

"It's the best you are going to get in here. This or die of hunger. Either is fine with me."

"Such gracious hospitality."

The sarcasm dripped out of my words, but the guard said nothing more. I turned back into the darkness of the room. The rats scuttled about in the dark corners. I stood. My body felt tight. Hunger gnawed at me. I'd planned to die here as quickly as possible. I thought of the beautiful storm waiting somewhere here in the prison for me. For now, there was something to live for. Rats would have to do.