This is an entire new chapter for Game Content that began with the chapter, "A Bargain". This was my way of giving Malchior a little more depth for this story, bargaining with Raven, rather than just kidnapping her for no reason.
I hope you like it!
-Song
"Careful, Raven," he said, "a bargain once struck for your soul is a bargain eternal."
"Don't pretend like you're the only powerful sorcerer here, Malchior."
"Perhaps you understand the basics, love, but that doesn't mean you understand the cost, or that you are prepared to see it through."
Raven hesitated, and for the first time since the game had started she was standing up. They stood together in the red room at the top of the castle tower, before the fireplace, which was crackling with an intense heat that she could barely feel. He held both hands out to her, palms up, asking her to take them.
"Will it hurt?"
Malchior let out a small breath and then raised his right hand and rested it over his heart.
"Yes," he said, "it will. For me as well."
Raven wanted to ask 'how much' but considered it was better to keep a brave face. Malchior lowered his hand, both once more outstretched for her to take. Raven placed both of her cold, grey hands upon his, and he clutched her wrists and held her fast.
Malchior's expression did not go unnoticed as he watched her face; looking for any doubt that might be in her heart. There was doubt, of course, but there were also no options left.
"Right," he said, his mouth twisting slightly into a surprising, hopeful smile. "Right, well then, let's begin."
The fire dimmed down to smoldering embers, and beneath their feet, flaming symbols and letters began to etch into the wood of the study floor to replace the waning light. Raven recognized only a select few of them, but the rest were alien to her. The etchings encircled them, pulling them together into what seemed to be a summoning circle, or a faerie ring. She understood, very quickly, that she could not let go of him, and he could not let go of her.
Not until it was all done.
"Now, usually this would be in Latin, but for the sake of saving time-"
"Just get on with it," she said.
He smiled, then took a breath.
"I give and I invoke, upon my life's blood, and yours, a solemn vow," Malchior said, his voice firm and clear, "of mind, and body, and soul, until eternity has withered, or mine own self has departed for the next life. Antiquis magicae."
'Antiquis magicae', she thought. His mantra. 'Old magic'.
The letters beneath their feet shimmered and became even more vibrant, lighting up the half of the circle where Malchior stood; a bloody, fiery crescent moon.
"Now, you, Raven," he instructed.
"What about the oaths?"
"They come next," he said gently, pressing down on her wrist to keep her grounded.
Raven tried not to let her intentions show - there had to be an impossible oath she could ask of him; something that would prevent the actual binding of their souls, some way to trick the binding entirely.
She just had to think.
She swallowed and steeled herself for whatever was about to come.
"I give," she began, "and I invoke, upon my life's blood, and yours, a solemn vow… one of mind… and of body, and soul, until eternity has withered…"
He nodded for her to keep going.
"Or mine own self has departed... for the next life. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."
The letters beneath her feet glowed brighter, too, completing the circle. The symbols illuminated their faces, and Malchior was staring at her like no one had ever stared at her before. His life was literally in her hands; she felt his pulse beneath her thumb, and it was racing.
"Now," he said, "ask."
"For anything?"
"Anything."
Raven was shocked that he let her make demands for the oaths first; that he fully believed her to be so ready to join him that he didn't think to tie her to him right away. But these weren't easy oaths to make, not like asking him to leave her friends alone or to take her back to her body before she burned out.
No, these would be real, eternally binding oaths. Oaths they could never break if the ceremony concluded. The magic would make her give any oath if she were able, and if she were willing. If he asked for anything impossible she would have to deny it and the ceremony would break, her soul forfeit and, finally, consumed.
Antiquis magicae, she thought again.
"How do I ask?"
He smirked. "I thought you read the Grimoire?"
"Reading," she said, "and doing, are very different things."
He nodded, his smirk turning into a gentle, encouraging smile.
"I ask thee to give fully, an eternity of loyalty," he said as an example, but it was a true oath he asked of her.
Raven's skin prickled as goosebumps formed, and she could almost feel a pull at her bones when he spoke. The binding was beginning, tightening around her like a handfasting cord.
Or a noose.
Without thinking, her body made her say, "so truly I give."
And just like that, something in her was now his.
It isn't permanent, she reminded herself with a panic, not if I can break this.
He was about to speak again but she interrupted.
"I ask thee to give fully, an eternity of loyalty."
Malchior's snake eyes dilated for a moment as he, too, felt the pull in his bones.
"So truly I give, Raven."
And just like that, she had a part of him, too. She could almost feel it, like a small, beating light within her. The ultimate connection to another living thing.
It was thrilling, and terrifying.
Okay. An oath he can't accept, she concluded. That will break the ceremony, it has to.
She charged on before he could interrupt, confident she knew what he couldn't give.
"I ask thee to give fully, an eternity of selfless love!"
Malchior froze and his eyes flitted down to look at their joined hands. His grip didn't falter, but there was doubt inside him. Her hopes soared, but to her shock he relaxed, and was able to admit, "so truly I give."
What?
"You didn't think you could accept," she whispered, staring at his incredulous expression.
"No," Malchior hesitated, looking just as bewildered as she felt. "I did not think…"
He cleared his throat.
"I ask thee to give fully, a vessel of blood and bone to house my half of our soul."
"So truly I give."
They were nearing the end now, what more could he ask of her? He was getting what he wanted: her power, a body, and her unwavering loyalty to him. It was now or never.
As she tried to consider something clever enough to stump him, Malchior asked something very quietly.
"I ask thee to give fully... a chance at true love."
Raven's mouth fell open but no words came out. Her bones pulled and her skin stretched, and she burned as if touched by the sun for too long. Love him? Him? After everything?
"Just a chance, Raven…"
She twitched and shook. She could not speak unless she either agreed, or gave up the fight. Finally, because she had to keep the ceremony going longer, to give her more time to make him break the binding, she agreed.
"So t-truly I give! Gah!"
Malchior pressed her wrists gently to comfort her as she stood there panting from the effort of giving something she had never thought she could.
"W-why," she gasped, "d-did you make me d-do that?"
"I am sorry," he said, and he moved in closer to her and pressed his forehead against hers, their hands still locked in a magic bind. "It sounds so good in the fairy tales, doesn't it?"
She glared up at him and he relented.
"I just… eternity is a long time for you to hate me, Raven."
She closed her eyes and leaned heavily against his forehead and fought hard to think, think, think.
If she failed and the ceremony concluded, she would have to give him everything he asked of her, whether she liked it or not.
He'd already given her selfless love, his mantra, his loyalty, what more could she try to get out of this selfish, secretive, evil, hateful creature of magic?
Old magic, she reminded herself. Antiquis magicae.
The sort of magic that had been trapped in a grimoire for over one thousand years. She needed to ask for the one thing that Malchior could not give; the thing he wanted, above all else, and would tie his soul to a mortal sorceress for.
Yes. That was it.
"I ask thee to give fully…" Raven began, whispering against him as he, too, closed his eyes, forehead still pressed against hers, gentle pressure caressing her wrists, and she said, "your freedom."
As though she had burned him, he jerked back and away from her, eyes wide.
He opened his mouth, no doubt to express the shock he felt, the betrayal; you ask this of me, he wanted to scream, of all things? But he could not speak until he either agreed, or forfeited the binding.
Understanding tore over his face agonizingly as he gaped at her, and Raven stared back bravely, chin high. Inside she felt deep sorrow and regret in her throat when Malchior, the Dread Dragon, slayer of men and sorcerers alike, looked as though his heart had just broken.
The betrayal in his eyes cracked, then crumbled and instead fury took its place. The symbols in the floor began to fizzle and dim, and Malchior gripped Raven with his blackened, dragon claws, pressed deeply into the flesh of her forearms as he fought to hold onto the binding. She screamed and tried to pull away but there was nowhere to run to.
Even as the ceremony began to break, and Malchior truly couldn't give what she asked, he did not let her go. The symbols were nothing but ash etched into the floorboards, Raven's red blood pattering down upon them, mixing in like blackened paint.
Malchior pulled her into him, and a long, snake-like fang brushed her ear as he said, "I will let you die, don't you understand. Don't you understand!"
He shook her violently, his claws still digging into the muscle and sinew of her arms and tears sprang to her eyes, but she did not speak.
"Can't you comprehend that we are the perfect pair? Do you deny the unmatchable likeness of our souls, of who we are, Raven? We could have wrought unbelievable power upon this world! Now I..."
With a rip, he dislodged his claws and she screamed again, gasping, holding her arms close, the damage ugly and painful.
Raven collapsed on the floor, the shock, the pain and the blood running down her arms were making her feel faint. She tried to summon some strength, but her powers were only a small shimmer inside her, as though a candle flame was flickering out.
His voice was deadened, softer, inhuman.
"Now I have to kill you…"
He kept repeating himself over her, like a madman, pacing before the empty flames of the hearth, his steps wobbly and uncertain. His host body was ripping away, black scales shining through tanned skin, fangs and claws bared, and his horns grew high above his head, nearly complete.
He was breaking. The reality he had created was deteriorating, and Raven was still stuck there, her mind trapped inside with him.
"Malchior, stop!"
It was like he couldn't hear her. She could not pull him back, could not stop him from tearing the dimension apart.
Raven had hoped if she broke the binding spell she would have disoriented him enough to get her mind out of his reality; prepare herself for battle back at the Tower, but she couldn't find the avenue of escape.
There are always threads in a spell, in an illusion; like a ley line that you use to draw power from a Source of magic. Here, it was all cloudy and grey, muddled by her sickness and seemingly impossible to see through.
Where is the thread?
Raven glanced around the room wildly.
"Malchior, please, you're going to transform, there isn't any room!"
He screamed in agony, his claws ripping at his human tendons, trying to shed the mammalian skin he wore like a mask.
"Get out!" she screamed.
Somehow, it was as though he understood what she was saying, even if he couldn't respond. One massive wing erupted from his back with a ripping sound, and he roared like a demon set free from Hell. He turned quickly, crossed to the wall and placed a hand over the painting that Raven had been admiring when she'd first woken up.
His bloody hand marred the image of the black and purple castle with the bramble garden and the rainy sky, and in a fluid, fast motion, he stepped through the painting, and disappeared from the room entirely.
Raven gasped.
Of course there was a portal!
She'd been folded into the paper of Malchior's reality in the bottommost layer. Her friends had been just outside, a reality closer to their own than she.
As soon as Malchior was gone, the flames in the fire went completely out, and Raven was plunged into darkness alone.