"Hold him down! Now!"
That scream echoed off the cold stone walls of the ritual chamber. Before I could even blink, four guards slammed me onto the altar. My wrists were pinned by iron shackles that burned into my skin, freezing me in place.
"Get off me!" I thrashed, my boots scraping against the granite. "Victor, you son of a bitch! Look at me!"
Victor didn't look. He stood at the head of the altar, his face a mask of clinical boredom. He wasn't even sweating. He looked like he was about to perform a routine check-up, not rip the soul out of his own blood relative.
"Stop struggling, Cain," Victor said, his voice flat and devoid of any emotion. "It only makes the extraction messier. And we wouldn't want to waste a single drop of Heavenly Marrow, would we?"
"You’re stealing it," I spat, tasting copper in my mouth. I’d already bitten my tongue in the scuffle. "My own marrow. My own rank. You’re a fucking thief!"
Victor finally looked at me. His eyes weren't human—they were shimmering with the gold light of a rank he hadn't earned. He stepped closer, the scent of ozone and expensive incense clinging to him. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could see the tiny pores of his skin, the arrogant curve of his lip.
"Thief?" He chuckled, a dry sound that grated like sandpaper. "I'm simply redistributing assets. You were always too weak to hold onto something this precious. You’re a leak in the bucket, Cain. I’m just plugging it."
"I’ll kill you," I hissed. "I’ll find a way to rip it back out of your chest."
"With what?" Victor glanced at my shaking limbs. "You have nothing. You are nothing."
He signaled the priest. A man in white robes stepped forward, holding a needle made of black glass. It wasn't a needle for medicine; it was a siphon. I knew what it did. I’d seen it done to prisoners. It didn't just take the energy—it tore the marrow from the bone, leaving the victim a hollow shell of a human being.
"Wait!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "Victor, please! We’re family!"
Victor paused, his hand hovering over the priest's shoulder. For a second, I thought I saw a flicker of something. Regret? Doubt? Then he laughed. It was a loud, genuine laugh that filled the room, mocking the very idea of kinship.
"Family?" he whispered, leaning in so close I could feel the heat of his breath. "Family is for people who can't survive on their own. I don't need family. I need power."
He nodded to the priest. "Do it."
The black glass needle drove straight into the base of my spine.
I didn't scream. I couldn't. The pain was too fast, too absolute. It felt like a white-hot iron rod was being shoved through my marrow, boiling my blood from the inside out. My back arched so violently I thought my ribs would snap. I could feel it—the Heavenly Marrow, the golden essence that gave me strength, speed, and a future—being sucked out of me like water through a straw.
"Yes," Victor murmured, his eyes widening. He wasn't even watching me; he was watching the vial the priest held, which was slowly filling with a shimmering, iridescent gold fluid. "Look at it. Pure. Untainted. Finally mine."
I tried to fight, but my muscles were turning to water. The strength was leaving me. Not just the power, but the very will to breathe. My vision blurred, the edges turning gray. I felt the void opening up inside my chest, a cold, echoing emptiness where my core used to be.
"Is that all?" Victor asked, sounding disappointed. "I expected more from a 'prodigy' like you."
"Go... to... hell," I wheezed.
"I'm already there, Cain," he said, stepping back. "And I'm the one holding the keys. Throw him in the pits. If he survives the night, he’s a miracle. If he doesn't, he’s fertilizer."
The guards didn't even untie me. They just dragged me across the floor, my body limp, my skin pale as a ghost. I remember the sound of the heavy iron doors slamming shut. I remember the smell of damp earth and rotting meat. I remember the feeling of being tossed into a heap of other 'failures' in the dark.
I lay there for hours. Or maybe days. Time didn't exist in the pits. There was only the cold and the crushing weight of my own uselessness. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. I was a marrow-stripped outcast. A zero. The lowest form of life in a world that only valued rank.
Then, the hunger started.
It wasn't a hunger for food. It was a void in my bones that screamed. It felt like a black hole had opened up where my marrow used to be, and it wanted to be filled. I tried to curl into a ball, shivering, my teeth chattering so hard I thought they'd shatter.
"Please," I whispered to the darkness. "Anything. Just make it stop."
Suddenly, something shifted. Deep inside the marrow of my spine, something that wasn't human—something that had been dormant, waiting for the void—snapped awake. It wasn't gold. It wasn't light. It was a jagged, obsidian presence that felt like a thousand needles stitching themselves into my nerves.
*Hungry...*
I froze. The voice didn't come from the air. It came from my own bones. It was a guttural, ancient sound, like two mountains grinding together.
"Who's there?" I gasped, looking around the pitch-black pit.
No one answered. But the obsidian presence surged. It didn't feel like a gift; it felt like a parasite. It wrapped around my spine, fusing with the empty spaces Victor had left behind. The pain returned, but it was different now. It wasn't the pain of being emptied—it was the pain of being filled with something forbidden.
*Devour...*
I felt a sudden, violent pull. Beside me, another outcast—a man who had been moaning in his sleep—suddenly jerked. I didn't even realize I had reached out. My hand had brushed his shoulder, and in that instant, a thin, black thread of energy leaped from his skin into mine.
It was a tiny spark. A fragment of leftover marrow. But to me, it tasted like a feast.
My heart hammered against my ribs. The cold vanished, replaced by a searing, dark heat. For the first time in days, I felt a surge of strength. Not the clean, bright power of the Heavenly Marrow, but something predatory. Something hungry.
I sat up, my movements fluid and sharp. I looked at my hands. They looked the same, but beneath the skin, I could feel something humming. A dark, forbidden bone was knitting itself into my frame.
"I'm not dead," I whispered, a grin spreading across my face. It wasn't a happy grin. It was the look of a man who had just found a way to turn his executioner's weapon into a blade.
I started to crawl toward the edge of the pit, my eyes scanning the dark for the next thing to eat. But as I reached the ledge, a sudden, blinding light flooded the pit.
I squinted, shielding my eyes. A silhouette stood at the rim, framed by the glare. A woman. She was wearing high-collared black leather and a heavy cloak that snapped in the wind. In her hand, she held a long, serrated blade that pulsed with a dim, violet light.
She didn't look at the other outcasts. Her eyes—sharp, piercing, and utterly unimpressed—locked onto mine. She jumped, landing silently on the heap of bodies with a grace that screamed 'high rank.'
She didn't say a word. She just stepped forward, the tip of her blade humming as it hovered exactly one inch from my throat.
"You're the one they stripped," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr. "The one who should be a corpse."
I glared at her, the dark bone in my spine vibrating. "Get out of my way."
She tilted her head, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. She pressed the blade just a fraction closer, cutting a thin line of blood into my skin.
"Interesting," she whispered. "Tell me, little ghost... what exactly are you?"