Ersia: Raven Dawn

Syamrin’s hand drew closer to Viena’s face.

Touch was one of the entity’s methods for claiming a new vessel. A single contact was enough. Once his hand reached her skin, the child’s soul would be consumed beyond recovery, its place taken by the sinister consciousness that currently inhabited the knight’s body.

His fingers were scarcely thirty centimeters from her face when something happened.

The flesh of his hand suddenly split apart.

It did not tear like ordinary flesh. The skin seemed to fold and separate as though an invisible beast had raked its claws through it, shredding the hand in a grotesque instant. Blood sprayed across the corridor, and Syamrin recoiled sharply, clutching the ruined limb.

A low, otherworldly growl rolled from his throat.

He stared at his hand.

Then at Viena.

His eyes narrowed.

For several seconds, Syamrin said nothing. His mind raced through every possibility he could think of. A seal? A protection spell? Some form of incantation embedded beneath the skin that had activated the moment he attempted contact?

He could not determine the answer.

His power had been greatly diminished ever since his sealing, and the repeated changes of vessel had weakened him further. Nine bodies in two weeks had come at a cost even an entity such as himself could not simply ignore. Whatever had protected Viena had reacted before he could even understand what he had touched.

But Syamrin was far too impatient to retreat.

There was another method.

More dangerous. More difficult. And considerably less certain.

He could forcibly overtake Viena's Anima.

The technique bypassed ordinary physical contact and attempted to seize control of the vessel's ethereal core directly through forceful intrusion of her inner magical canals. Had it been under normal circumstances where Syamrin possessed all of his power, it's a fairly easy procedure. However, in his current condition, attempting it was bordering on recklessness.

Syamrin did it anyway. His expression twisted with hunger as he reached for Viena's Anima.

The consequence was immediate.

The veins beneath his arms darkened as though ink had begun spreading through them. The discoloration travelled rapidly toward his hands, while the flesh around his fingertips began to deteriorate. Necrosis appeared at the extremities and advanced with alarming speed, consuming the living tissue before his eyes. Syamrin's body stiffened as an immense pain seized him, forcing a ragged sound from between his teeth. For several moments the agony was almost unbearable; then, gradually, the pain began to recede into something far more disturbing. Sensation itself was disappearing. His fingertips became numb, followed by his palms and wrists, until both hands hung uselessly at the ends of his arms.

Syamrin stared at them in disbelief. He had attempted the technique with the expectation that whatever had protected Viena might try to resist him once more. Despite that, he had not anticipated being repelled so violently that his own body would begin to die. His expression twisted from disbelief into fury, and when he finally looked at the child again, whatever amusement had remained in his face was gone.

“You! You damned little cur! What did you do?!”

Viena could only tremble.

She had no answer because she had done nothing. She did not understand what Syamrin had attempted, nor did she possess the slightest knowledge of why his body had reacted in such a grotesque manner. She could barely process what she had already witnessed: the knight being murdered beside her, Lisabelle being thrown unconscious across the corridor, and now the strange deterioration spreading through the hands of the creature who had revealed himself as Syamrin. Fear had reduced her thoughts to little more than fragments, leaving her unable even to imagine what she might possibly say to him.

Then she heard something that changed Syamrin's expression.

Footsteps were approaching from somewhere deeper within the palace. There were several of them, heavy and rapid, accompanied by the unmistakable rhythm of armored men moving at speed. The knights were coming.

Panic finally entered Syamrin's expression as he immediately understood the implications. If they arrived before he could finish what he had begun, the entire arrangement he had so carefully engineered would collapse. The isolation of Viena and Lisabelle, the impersonation of the knight, the opportunity created by the palace's unusual routines—all of it had depended upon a narrow window of circumstances. There was no guarantee that he would ever find Viena alone again—or even find her at all.

Worse still, the hunger inside him had become unbearable.

He could feel the power within Viena.

Whatever she was, whatever lay dormant inside that small body, it was unlike anything he had encountered during his long existence. He had already risked too much to abandon it now and he would never allow an unforeseeable detour to his plan.

Syamrin's eyes shifted toward Lisabelle. The girl remained unconscious where she had fallen, apparently unaware of anything occurring around her.

Thus, a final possibility remained.

His third technique.

And his last resort.

Moving with considerably more difficulty than before, Syamrin approached her, his damaged hands hanging uselessly at his sides. Every movement caused another wave of pain to pass through his body, though the sensation in his hands themselves had almost entirely vanished. His breathing had become uneven, and there was an unmistakable strain in his movements now, but he forced himself onward until he stood directly beside Lisabelle.

“Let us make a contract, Viena,” he said, his breath coming in short, uneven intervals.

He placed one armored foot against Lisabelle's neck.

The sole of his steel boot settled against the girl's skin, making the threat immediately comprehensible even without further explanation. Syamrin did not need to raise his voice. His earlier attempts had already failed, his pursuers were drawing closer by the second, and the last thing he possessed that could still be used against Viena was the one person she had spent the past week protecting.

“Pledge me your soul and your body,” he said. “In exchange, I will not hurt this girl until the universe turned dark as the sunlight fade and the moons crumble.”

His gaze remained fixed upon Viena while his foot pressed down just enough to make his meaning unmistakable.

“Should you refuse, I will break her neck and snap it in two. She will die here, and she would spend an eternity in the afterlife as a headless wanderer, unrecognizable even by her ancestors. And all of it will be your responsibility.”

The approaching footsteps grew louder.

Viena looked at Lisabelle, then at Syamrin, and finally toward the corridor from which the knights would soon emerge. Her sister was unconscious and defenseless beneath the monster's foot, while the only people who might save them were still too far away. Whatever strange protection had prevented Syamrin from taking her by force had given her no explanation and, more importantly, no indication that it could save Lisabelle.

Syamrin watched her struggle to understand the choice he had placed before her.

For the first time since revealing himself, he did not smile.

He simply waited, menacingly.