Page 30 of Stormvein

I drifted in and out of consciousness there, time measured only by the changing of guards’ footsteps and the sporadic visits from Sereven. His presence brought pain, not questions. He had no interest in information. Only in breaking what remained of me, piece by careful piece.

“He’s conscious again,” someone says, pulling me back to the present. “Inform the High Commander.”

Footsteps retreat, then return a while later. The tread is heavier, slower.

Iknowthat sound.

A shadow falls over me, and I lift my head to find Sereven standing over me, crimson robes a stark contrast to the dungeon’s gloom. I can barely focus on his face. My vision swims, doubles, then resolves into his cold, satisfied expression.

“String him up again,” he orders.

I’m dragged off the floor. My legs won’t support my weight, but it doesn’t matter. They chain my wrists to hooks in the ceiling, stretching my arms upward. The position pulls on my dislocated shoulder, tearing a sound from my throat I didn’t know I could still make. My feet barely touch the ground, forcing weight onto injuries that beg for relief.

The chamber is small, but well-equipped. A torturer’s workshop hidden beneath the outskirts of Ashenvale, refined through years of practice. The walls hold implements I’ve become intimately familiar with over days that blur into nightmares. Whips of varying designs, some for precise cuts, others weighted for maximum tissue damage. Blades both dull and sharp, devices whose purpose I didn’t understand until they were used on me. Each tool is placed with the care of an artisan’s workshop.

A brazier glows in the corner, metal rods heating within its coals, their tips already bearing the residue of flesh that isn’t mine. The floor is designed with channels to collect blood, to allow for easy cleaning between sessions.

Between bodies.

This isn’t improvised cruelty. It’s institutional.Practiced.Perfected through repetition on how many before me?

I am not the first to occupy this space. Nor will I be the last. I am merely its current offering.

Sereven circles me, examining the torturer’s handiwork.

The Authority symbol branded into my chest. My back flayed open by the whip. My fingernails removed one by one. The festering sword wound left deliberately untreated. Burns acrossmy ribs where heated metal was pressed against flesh. The purple-black bruising where internal bleeding spreads beneath the skin.

“You know, I’ve imagined this moment for twenty-seven years.”

He stops in front of me, tangles a hand into my hair, and wrenches my head back so he can study me. I dig deep inside and summon up a smirk. His features darken, and he releases my hair.

“I want him near death, but conscious for the journey to Blackvault.”

The torturer steps forward, a whip uncoiling from his hand. This one is different from the others. It’s designed for maximum damage, each strand weighted with tiny metal blades that catch and tear, extending the lashing pattern. My muscles tighten in anticipation, an instinctive response I can’t control.

“Count them, Sacha,” Sereven commands.

The first strike tears across my already destroyed back. Barbs catch flesh and rip free, taking strips of skin with them. A scream builds from somewhere deeper than my throat, but what emerges is a wet rattle. I have no voice left after days of this. My tongue, already lacerated from biting through it during earlier sessions, spills fresh blood into my mouth. The metallic copper mingles with bile rising up my throat, creating a paste that makes breathing feel like drowning.

“One.” Sereven counts for me when I remain silent. His voice carries an almost reverential cadence. This is a ritual to him. A ceremony of erasure.

The second strike crosses the first. Skin separates from muscle, muscle from bone. Fresh blood runs warm down my spine, a sharp contrast to the cold dungeon air that finds every open wound like seeking fingers. My body tries to curl awayfrom the pain, but the chains hold me suspended, stretched between floor and ceiling.

“Two.”

The third lands lower, across kidneys already bruised from earlier beatings. My body convulses involuntarily. The world whites out briefly—not from unconsciousness, but from pain so complete it temporarily overrides vision.

When sight returns, it comes in pieces. Stone walls. Dripping water. Blood pooling on the floor beneath my feet.Myblood, forming a grotesque halo. The torturer’s expression as he prepares for another strike, professionally detached, like a craftsman assessing his work. There’s pride there. In his precision. In the art of causing maximum damage without causing death.

I imprint his face into my mind.

“Three. You always were stubborn, Sacha.”

By the fourth, I’m hanging limp from the chains, consciousness flickering like a dying flame. The pattern of the lashes forms a deliberate design. Not wild strikes but placed with the knowledge of a master at his craft, creating a map of torment across my back. Each wound connects to the last like tributaries joining a river of pain.

My skin hangs in ribbons. I can feel it all. Every separation, every tear. Blood flows freely, soaking my legs, a growing pool beneath me that reflects the torchlight like a dark mirror. The pain has moved beyond unbearable into something transcendent. A white-hot clarity that strips away everything but pure sensation.

“Five.” Sereven pauses, circling to examine his torturer’s handiwork with the appreciation of a connoisseur. “Did you know that ancient texts speak of pain as purification? Each strike burns away another piece of your arrogance, your power,your very identity. Soon, there will be nothing left of the Shadowvein Lord. Nothing but meat and memory.”