Page 4

Chapter Four

Victor

W ater surrounds me, I am held suspended in it. And yet I feel nothing.

“Such a pity… such a waste.” The voice doesn’t come from the outside world. Instead, it seems to permeate from within, rattling around in my skull. As if it was my own thought, maybe it was…

But yet at the same time there is also a sense of otherness to the voice.

I know it doesn’t make any sense, but then not many things make sense. After all, I’m dead. And that in itself is madness.

This does not look like Skyhold…

Suddenly I have a thought that would jolt my heart if it still beat. Am I a ghost now? Was my death so sudden and so violent that not even my spirit will find rest?

“An intriguing idea, to think that my all-powerful father would allow lost souls to slip through his grasp. Do you ever consider that? Would that not make him malevolent? That is unless he is not as all-powerful as he leads you foolish mortals to believe.”

I’m confused, but I can’t speak.

“But listen to me prattle on, you are probably wondering what I’m doing here.”

If I had a body, I would nod. But somehow my spirit mimics the motion and whatever entity I am speaking to seems to be able to see my spirit because he continues.

“I am Likho, the demigod of chaos, but more importantly for you I’m also the patron of dark fates. Of sudden deaths. Of shall we say… you .”

Suddenly, I see myself as if I am looking through a mirror, only I am viewing from above. My body lies in the water. I can see the shore as my body bobs against the sand. We weren’t close to shore when I died, but somehow my body has made it back.

It only makes the pain all that much worse. Would I have lived if not for that prisoner who broke my neck? I could have survived the shipwreck, even the kraken attack, only to fall by violent hands.

I avert my gaze from my body’s neck, his head twisted at a horrid angle. I can still hear the snap.

The last sound I’ll ever hear. I hate it. It haunts me now even into death.

That is until the entity, this Likho speaks again, its voice drowning the sound out.

“But now that leaves us in a precarious position where we are actually able to help each other. You see, I have long been imprisoned, and you have only shortly been dead. It’s a perfect pair, because why else would you have died so suddenly, so violently, at the hands of one who was meant to save you—”

My confusion is rising, but still, I can’t speak. If I could, I’d shout, “what?!”

“I need a host to be able to exist beyond my own death. My power is growing, but my father is still more powerful than me,” the bitterness in the voice is clear. It echoes my own bitterness I feel over my fate.

“And I’m sure you’d like to not be dead anymore.”

I whip my gaze up, forgetting for a moment that I’m not actually speaking to a being. Just the voice in my head, and yet I can’t seem to stop paying attention to it as it says, “Here’s a deal, Victor Andreev, you unlucky guardsman. Be my vessel of chaos, be my living host, and I’ll make you, well, living. What do you say, little mortal? Will you cheat mortality for me?”

I can’t believe what this voice is saying. That it is a demigod, one of the most feared and revulsed beings in existence? So horrid were they that their own parents killed them at the dawn of civilization so that humans could live…

And it’s offering me my life?

It’s giving me a chance to see my father and sister again; to make it so I’m not a name on a list of casualties?

Even though I can’t speak, I find myself saying yes. As if my very soul has reached out to wrap around the word and just in case the entity cannot hear my silent cry, I nod my proverbial head in affirmation.

“I had a feeling you would be reasonable. Something tells me that this is the beginning of something great. Even if it is only until the end of the world.”

Before I can question that, my neck snaps back into place with another horrendous cracking sound, and suddenly I feel my spirit jolted downward, back into my body.

I sit up with a gasp, nearly falling out of my chair. I grapple for a second until I manage to catch the arm of the chair. I lean over it, heaving for breath as I struggle to figure out where I am. Slowly as my senses return to me, I realize that I’m in my father’s inn. Sitting near the fire, the dry crackle of the wood in my ears and the heat against my face.

A stark contrast to the memories I was lost in.

I reach up, rubbing my forehead with a groan. No matter how far I try to get from that day, I can’t seem to escape what happened to me. If it isn’t Likho’s voice in my head, then it’s the dreams that haunt me in my sleep.

I sit up further, allowing my hand to trail down my face. The scruff of my beard prickling the palm of my hand as I glance around. It must be late, no one else appears to be up in the room which was far busier earlier.

Well, no one except for Talyria and my father. She is still seated at the bar, listening to my father give my whole life history. Give or take a few details that he doesn’t know, such as my death and my more recent less than noble thievery exploits.

I push to my feet stretching as I twist my face into a frown. Ah, yes that’s right. I fell asleep because I was waiting for my father to stop talking to my wife so that we can actually have a wedding night. If I’d known that he was going to stay up all night talking to her, I would have rented a room at a different inn.

I press my palm against my forehead as I try to figure out how to tell him that I’d like some time with my wife now without dying from the mortification of it all.

“So, your father was a Lower Elf?” my father asks, leaning forward his eyes earnest, and I realize that the conversation has moved to Talyria. Things that I don’t technically know. I lean closer, to catch her response.

“Yes, and that’s where I get my coloration from,” she says reaching up to run a hand through her hair. It is black as the night despite the blue tone of her skin distinguishing her as being of Higher Elf decent as well. It’s obvious that this is a conversation she has had many times.

I’ll admit that I wondered myself, but I hadn’t wanted to pry. I flex my jaw as I realize the ridiculousness of it all. I married the woman, and yet I didn’t want to seem like I was prying by asking about her past and family.

“But I thought the Higher Elves hate the Lower Elves,” my father presses. “And vice versa.”

Talyria shrugs. “Oh, they do, but that was a long time ago. And my parents’ marriage was arranged. It didn’t necessarily end well. I have a half-sister who can attest to how little my mother loved my father.”

My father’s eyes widen. “How long ago was this?”

Indeed, there are many arranged marriages in Ruskhazar, especially between the noble families, but the animosity between the Higher Elves and Lower Elves is so strong, so deep, and so steeped in blood that I’m not sure if any High Elf has married a Lower Elf in, well…. centuries. Even if it was arranged, I think that either participant would rather die than be forced to marry each other.

Talyria tilts her head enough that I can see the mysterious smile that graces her lips. “Some time,” she says simply. I think she will leave it at that, but then she adds. “I got my father’s lifespan it seems.”

It’s true that Higher Elves live longer than humans; they have about twice our lifespan. Lower Elves are actually virtually immortal. After they reach maturity, they will not age and remain untouched by time no matter how much of it passes them by.

I feel my eyes widen as I suddenly wonder just how much older my wife is than me. Likely a detail I should have found out before I married an elf…

Ah, well, we live and learn.

Suddenly I can see why Likho thought I’d be a good vessel for chaos.

Apparently, I need to work on thinking through my actions.

I’m still standing there wondering if it’s worth enduring all the wedding night jokes my father can hurl my way, or if I should just call it a night and retire now. When suddenly the door bursts open.

Howling wind rushes into the room, bringing a flurry of snow with it. I stare in shock as a hooded figure steps into the room and struggles against the wind to push the door back shut. Just as the wood clicks back into place and the sound of the howling wind is muffled on the other side, a scream sounds from somewhere in the inn.