Chapter Four

Grief changes shape,
But it never ends.

. . .

Raziel was jostled out of his light rest when the chariot came to a rather brusque halt. His eyes snapped open and in mere moments he switched from doze to complete wakefulness, body strung tight and ready to battle. He took a single moment to berate himself for his lack of prudence; he should have never allowed himself to lower his guard like that. Rohan had stopped the chariot in the middle of the forest, not far from the path they'd been following for the past seven hours. The wraith could see it, white among the greens and browns of the trees. The soft moonlight cast pale light over them, making Raziel's skin gow unhealthily.
«Well?» he snapped, though there was no real bite behind his words. Rohan was way too naïve to try anything funny. Of course he could also be faking everything and be the most skilled vampire hunter Raziel had ever met, but the once-vampire couldn't help but snort a laugh at the thought.
Rohan smiled apologetically, embarrassed. «I am only human, my Lord. It's been hours.»
Right. Human. That meant he'd get tired even if he'd been sitting all day.
Was I really this weak when I was mortal?!
Yes, said a voice in his head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Kain's. We've all been human at some point. Sorry if that's a disappointment.
«Go to hell, kid» he muttered, jumping down from the chariot. He heard Rohan sigh, but read more relief than anything else in it.
He let the boy wander around in search of dry branches to make a bonfire. He watched as Rohan set up camp and took out his food and several leather canteens. He offered Raziel one.
The wraith took it in his taloned hands and opened it. The sweet scent of freshly spilled blood filled his nose even through the rough fabric of his cowl. It awoke no hunger in him and he stared wistfully at the canteen, his gaze not lost upon the young human. Rohan wasn't able to rein his curiosity in anymore, apparently, because after a moment he quietly inquired about his tattered appearance.
«Water. And mind your own business» Raziel lied curtly, making Rohan shrug as he bit into a strip of dried meat.
«Can't blame a man for being curious, my Lord. Your appearance is... unusual, to say the least. Your blue skin and ruined wings made me wonder.»
Raziel hissed at him, pulling the cowl down to bare his remaining teeth. Rohan seemed impressively unfazed, frustrating the wraith even further.
«In a good way, my Lord. Blue skin and wings are uncommon. I wondered whether you were a fallen Ancient.»
«No, I am not» the wraith replied tersely. «Now, if you don't mind, I'd like for you to keep your questions to yourself. I'm not interested in mindless chit-chat.»
Rohan acknowledged his words with a nod of his head and focused his attention on his meal again. Satisfied, Raziel turned his head towards the sky, not bothering to cover up with the cowl again. Let the boy look, if he so wished, and take in what monster Raziel had become -and what that monster was capable of doing to him.
Let the boy look, and gaze into the bottomless pit that, he'd decided, would devour his soul when this was all over.

There seemed to be no moment of transition when Nerissa Graves woke. One moment she was asleep, looking almost dead bathed in moonlight, and the next she was perfectly awake, large green eyes open and aware, calculating and stone-cold despite the flames she coated herself in.
A dead body was breathing softly next to hers. They were not Azrael, because his scent was different -more calm and wisdom than what she liked in a bed warmer. This scent was metal and wine and freshly spilled blood, and it was just another meaningless face in a stupid sea of worthless creatures. Nerissa was suddenly seized with the furious, mindless desire of grabbing that body and smash its face against a wall, again and again and again until it was nothing but pulp beneath her hands, her fingers gloved in sticky red that dripped on the floor for the servants to clean. The urge was something fierce and feral, something that bit and scratched and howled, and that was the reason why she chose not to satisfy it. She didn't trust sudden bursts of too-strong feelings. They clouded her judgement too much for her tastes.
Almost eerily slow, she rose from the bed. Her enormous wings dragged behind her, ghosts on her dark blue figure that clothed her in white. She walked on bare feet to the spacious balcony that opens on the farthest wall of the room, a mirror to the one Janos had centuries ago. This one had been built at such an angle that she could observe the whole of Scarborough Fair just by standing in its middle.
The city was a dark mass of shapeless buildings, crawling with flaming lights and sparkles of metal. Most of its inhabitants were sound asleep in their beds, her guards patrolling on the large wall separating them from the rest of Nosgoth. Children and women and men, both old and young, warriors and smiths and farmers and whatever they were, all enclosed beneath the burning invisible barrier of the Dome.
Her eyes, which had inspired many a poet, observed it all with the cold detachment that's become the only emotion she ever showed. She absently wondered how it would feel if she were now to set the whole city on fire. How would she feel as she smelt the smoke, the flames, the stench of charred flesh and pain? How would she feel, knowing those screams belonged to vampires that called her their Queen?
A pang of regret. A hint of sadness, perhaps. But mostly relief and completion, because slaughtering them all had been the plan all along.
Not yet, though.
Nerissa smiled softly.
She turned away from the beauty of the starry sky. It was a beauty she could not put into words, a beauty so great that it became incomprehensible and unspeakable. The moon casted shadows and pale lights on her dark, firm flesh as she dressed and silently left the room.
She nodded her head to the vampires standing guard in front of her doors. They nodded back in silence and she walked on, down the empty stone corridors of the enormous castle. It had high ceilings, high enough that she could take flight and twirl and dance gracefully in the air for hours without ever touching them. The glow of the few lit torches was dim, warm and inviting like the flames of a fireplace in a cozy home during a cold winter night.
The fire brought her a joy she rarely experienced these days. It filled her heart with its scalding heat, swallowing it whole, infecting her blood and coursing through her veins, pulsing behind her eyes. It made her chest feel as if it was about to beat again, alive and warm like the life she'd had millenia ago.
When the open night air greeted her dead lungs, she drew in an unnecessary sigh. A faint breeze caressed her face.
Unsurprisingly, Azrael was up too. He was standing at the foot of the flight of stairs that led to the entrance of the castle, speaking softly with another vampiric guard, a woman she recognized but could remember the name of. Nerissa knew she was the one who built the city's very first cut-heads machine, providing it with stronger, sturdier blades so as to effortlessly cut the neck of both vampires and humans. When submitting Nerissa the projects, she'd been alive with a savage glee the Ancient had rarely seen, and in that moment Nerissa had understood she was the executioner.
Nerissa glided down the stairs soundlessly, letting them finish their conversation as she kept staring at the peaceful stars. The night made no sounds apart that of the crickets, who sang ceaselessly in the background as if to make music in lieu of the instruments that are now asleep. Nerissa laced her hands behind her back, smiling imperceptibly up at the sky.
Azrael joined her after a while.
«Couldn't sleep, my Lady?»
Nerissa's smile widened a hair and she turned at her lieutenant. He was beautiful and mysterious in the moonlight, which gave his pale cheekbones an opalescent glow and his hair a dark blue hue. His golden eyes were like candles in the night, sunk in his ageless, angular face, both beckoning and terrifying.
«Something like that, yes» she answered quietly, as if wary of disturbing the peace of this moment. «Is this your watch, Azrael?»
The other vampire smiled, leaning on the large helberd he was carrying. «My Lady, I wouldn't be a lieutenant if I ever slept.»
Nerissa laughed softly at him, grin glinting white in her dark face. «Walk with me, will you?»
Azrael complied with a nod. His steps were light despite the large talons on his feet, which were significantly different from her own. He had no flesh on his feet, only the hard tissue of chitinous claw. Nerissa had honestly no idea how he manages to walk on them, but she refrained from asking.
They walked in silence for a while, climbing the stairs that led on the high, thick walls surrounding Scarborough Fair. From up there they could see the Labyrinth, its walls dark in the pools of moonlight that had formed among the eerie corridors. The Seven were howling in the distance, lost somewhere in the middle of the maze, their voices echoing in the night. Nerissa smiled fondly.
«The make wondrous music, don't they?» she asked softly. Azrael said nothing and she turned to look at him. «I can hear you thinking, young one.»
Azrael shifted beside her, eyes trained on the walls of the Labyrinth. His shapely black mouth tightened in a thin line, his jaw setting. Nerissa smiled a bit at his well-concealed discomfort.
«What is that you wish of me, my Lady?»
Nerissa hummed and one of the Seven howled in response. She could hear their panting, their scratching, their growling. One of them was probably directly beneath the two vampires, whimpering and barking as it dug and scratched against the wall.
«Something's about to happen» she said, her tone falsely light. «I heard from Vorador a few days ago. He spoke of a demon-like blue creature who asked him about the Reaver. Vorador gave them no answer.»
«You believe they're coming here.»
«Mmh-hmm. It'd be the next logical step, wouldn't it?»
«Indeed it would be, my Lady. You need not fear for your safety.»
«Oh, I am not worried about myself. I am more concerned about you and your people, actually.»
At that, Azrael turned towards her. His body was strung tight, Nerissa noticed with coldness and simmering malicious glee. She could almost hear his thoughts, fighting to keep him calm while at the same time being wrecked by fear.
«And why is that, my Lady?»
His voice was impressively calm. Nerissa appreciated that. It showed all of his skill at thinking, turning matters over and over in his head until he's solved them. People painted him as her cruel sword, her right-hand man, when in truth he was the calm and pensive word that stayed her hand when it was about to strike.
Even so...
«You're going soft, Azrael.»
There. Secret's out, she thought. Azrael stiffened imperceptibly, eyes searching her face wih an unreadable expression. He said nothing, but then again, Nerissa wasn't expecting an answer.
«It began with that child, right? Of course it did. The child I killed a year ago. You've been staring at me with new eyes since that kid. You've been afraid of me ever since.»
Slowly, she prowled around the younger vampire, her movements as fluid as a hunting feline's. Azrael didn't move and didn't attempt to turn around when she got behind him. He was tense, strung tight with the need to face who he perceived as a threat, but to his credit didn't act on the urge. Nerissa smiled, unseen.
Her hand on the back of his neck came as a surprise to Azrael. He restrained a brusque intake of breath, exhaling slowly through his nose as the hand touched lower. It was a slow caress that caught on the collar of his coat, pulling it down.
The breeze kissed the burn scar with cool lips.
«Remember who you belong to» Nerissa murmured, tracing the mark with a taloned fingertip. It followed the contours of the pale flame that was forever etched in his otherwise tanned skin.
Azrael lowered his head, giving the cool hand more room to explore. Nerissa's touch was gentle, even though Azrael knew it could turn scalding hot in mere seconds.
«I pledged my immortal fidelity to you, my Lady» he said, and he was sincere. «And with that, my whole's clan's. We will fight for you down to the last man, to our last breath. You own our lives as our ancient Lord did.»
Nerissa hummed again. She had to be satisfied with his answer, though, because the hand retreats with one last rub on the scar.
«Good» she said simply. She clasped her hands behind her back once more and looked serenely out at the Labyrinth. Azrael breathed again and imitated her, but his gaze was worried as it touched the dark ominous walls.
«How long have you been with me, Azrael? One, two hundred years now?»
«More than three centuries, my Lady.»
«Hmmm...»
Nerissa sighed and gently wrapped her white wings around her slim figure.
«You are the most loyal vampire I know, and the one I trust the most» she began. «I might not show it often, but it's true. You proved your loyalty more than once, over and over, so I think you deserve to know...»
It is strange, how nasty times are difficult to recognize. Azrael sure didn't recognize his, nor had he any idea of just how nasty his times were going to get. He had no idea that he was going to end up crushed and broken and smashed up, but he sure felt something was not right.
«Our time's over» Nerissa said very softly, young and serene in the moonlight.

. . .

Authoress' note:
Thank you to Nintendoman01 for favouring and following Legacy of Sorrow! Love you!
This is more of a filler chapter, I'm still figuring out where I want to go with this. Please bear with me! Also, if you wanna chat, I now have Kik: you can find me at Nox_Arkana :)
I do not own in any shape or form the characters featured in this story -this also applies to the story's image cover and to the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I only own my OCs and the story's plot.
Comments please!
Have a nice day/night and love Legacy of Kain!