05-31-2025, 06:04 PM
Nikolai stared.
The words fell from Nox’s mouth like ash, dry and impossible. Severed. Gone. Cannot feel it.
There was a moment, a flicker between seconds, where he did nothing but listen to the sound of his own pulse beating behind his eyes. He had endured terrible things in his time. Threats. Warnings. Prophecies. Assassinations.
No. No, this was not a message. This was not a confession.
A lie. An impossible lie.
His palms remained still on the desk while every other movement was outwardly composed, but he felt the tautness building in his spine, the way a cable holds just before it snaps. He exhaled once, long and slow.
“You can’t feel it,” Nikolai repeated softly, more to himself than Nox. “You say it’s been taken. As if it were a coat or a watch mislaid.”
He looked at Nox, this rumpled shadow of a man who had, for better or worse, been of use to him. Who had bled for him. Who had killed in the name of order. Nikolai could not allow what he was hearing to be true.
Because if Nox could lose this Power, then it was not eternal. Then he—Ascendancy, the light and shadow of an empire—was not invincible. A tension curled behind his teeth, and he drew in the breath like a man swallowing lightning.
The lights dimmed.
No. He dimmed them.
The air in the room thickened. Like ink, like tar sliding into the corners of the chamber. It wasn’t darkness in the ordinary sense. It was deeper than that. The shadows did not fall across the walls, they consumed them, crawling outward until the walls themselves were erased. The gilded fixtures and polished stone were devoured in silence until only two souls remained untouched: Nikolai Brandon, sitting in his chair like a statue of a long-dead god, and Nox Durante, seated before him like an accused man waiting for the sentence to fall.
Then a thread of something darker than shadow wove itself into the air. It was obsidian, sharp and silent. It spiraled upward from the floor and formed a perfect wire. It hung in the air around Nox’s head for a moment before descending in an elegant, murderous curve around his throat.
Nox’s chair tipped back, not with a jolt, but with precision. Engineered. Designed. Steady. Nox reclined unnaturally, his head craned back to expose his neck to the cool caress of that black wire. Nikolai remained seated.
The obsidian wire touched skin.
A line of blood appeared where the obsidian kissed flesh, red against pale, delicate as a lover’s stroke and just as personal.
“Defend yourself,” Nikolai said softly. There was no anger in his voice. Only clarity. Cold, bright, inexorable.
“Channel,” he whispered.
The wire drew in a hair tighter. Just enough to sting. To promise.
“Channel, or I will kill you where you sit.” The air in the room was still. Heavy with promise.
“Because if what you say is true…” Nikolai leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his desk now, hands still open but rigid, “…then it means our power is not divine. It means it can be severed like a leash. And I do not wear leashes.”
His voice dropped into something more intimate as if he didn't realize it was said aloud. “It means I am not what I am suppose to be.”
Another breath. Slower now, as he climbed to his feet.
“And I will not allow that to be true.”
The wire trembled, as if awaiting its cue.
Nikolai studied Nox, eyes hard as granite. All natural light in the room was gone, banished by this unnatural shadow that curled around them both. Not angry. Not even afraid. But desperate. The kind of desperation that lives only in those who believe they were born to greatness. And who now see the cracks in their crown.
The words fell from Nox’s mouth like ash, dry and impossible. Severed. Gone. Cannot feel it.
There was a moment, a flicker between seconds, where he did nothing but listen to the sound of his own pulse beating behind his eyes. He had endured terrible things in his time. Threats. Warnings. Prophecies. Assassinations.
No. No, this was not a message. This was not a confession.
A lie. An impossible lie.
His palms remained still on the desk while every other movement was outwardly composed, but he felt the tautness building in his spine, the way a cable holds just before it snaps. He exhaled once, long and slow.
“You can’t feel it,” Nikolai repeated softly, more to himself than Nox. “You say it’s been taken. As if it were a coat or a watch mislaid.”
He looked at Nox, this rumpled shadow of a man who had, for better or worse, been of use to him. Who had bled for him. Who had killed in the name of order. Nikolai could not allow what he was hearing to be true.
Because if Nox could lose this Power, then it was not eternal. Then he—Ascendancy, the light and shadow of an empire—was not invincible. A tension curled behind his teeth, and he drew in the breath like a man swallowing lightning.
The lights dimmed.
No. He dimmed them.
The air in the room thickened. Like ink, like tar sliding into the corners of the chamber. It wasn’t darkness in the ordinary sense. It was deeper than that. The shadows did not fall across the walls, they consumed them, crawling outward until the walls themselves were erased. The gilded fixtures and polished stone were devoured in silence until only two souls remained untouched: Nikolai Brandon, sitting in his chair like a statue of a long-dead god, and Nox Durante, seated before him like an accused man waiting for the sentence to fall.
Then a thread of something darker than shadow wove itself into the air. It was obsidian, sharp and silent. It spiraled upward from the floor and formed a perfect wire. It hung in the air around Nox’s head for a moment before descending in an elegant, murderous curve around his throat.
Nox’s chair tipped back, not with a jolt, but with precision. Engineered. Designed. Steady. Nox reclined unnaturally, his head craned back to expose his neck to the cool caress of that black wire. Nikolai remained seated.
The obsidian wire touched skin.
A line of blood appeared where the obsidian kissed flesh, red against pale, delicate as a lover’s stroke and just as personal.
“Defend yourself,” Nikolai said softly. There was no anger in his voice. Only clarity. Cold, bright, inexorable.
“Channel,” he whispered.
The wire drew in a hair tighter. Just enough to sting. To promise.
“Channel, or I will kill you where you sit.” The air in the room was still. Heavy with promise.
“Because if what you say is true…” Nikolai leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his desk now, hands still open but rigid, “…then it means our power is not divine. It means it can be severed like a leash. And I do not wear leashes.”
His voice dropped into something more intimate as if he didn't realize it was said aloud. “It means I am not what I am suppose to be.”
Another breath. Slower now, as he climbed to his feet.
“And I will not allow that to be true.”
The wire trembled, as if awaiting its cue.
Nikolai studied Nox, eyes hard as granite. All natural light in the room was gone, banished by this unnatural shadow that curled around them both. Not angry. Not even afraid. But desperate. The kind of desperation that lives only in those who believe they were born to greatness. And who now see the cracks in their crown.