Talia didn’t scream
that was the only good thing about the entire situation, she was frozen with one hand half raised to the short blade at her hip, staring at the unmoving Corin who stood over the two grey, empty corpses as if he couldn’t decide which of the horrors he should think about first, when the sound of approaching footsteps made them all duck behind cover.
“Patrol sweep, east lane,” someone announced, their voice muffled by the cloth mask of their armor as they passed the mouth of the alley, their torchlight slicing through the fog already.
“Anyone still out past curfew bell better have a good reason.”
[Warning: External observer approaching.
Estimated time to visual contact: 6 seconds.]
Six seconds.
I can’t even lift my own arm properly and I’ve got six seconds.
Talia was already moving, instinct overriding any shred of loyalty, because no matter how far she ran this would look far too much like a woman in an alley with a dead man and a very disoriented friend.
She pressed herself tight against the opposite wall, her breath held.
Good.
Stay there.
But just stay quiet.
Kaelen forced Corin’s rigid, half numb legs to move, his joints screaming in protest from the reversion’s aftermath.
He had no strength, no coordination.
Only a skill he had bled for in a dying wolf, humming in his borrowed instincts.
[Ding!
Passive Skill Active: Shadow Fade.]
The alley didn’t get darker, not precisely, just that the darkness already there seemed to cling to Kaelen’s body, bending the torchlight just enough for it to pass over him untouched.
The husks were harder.
They weren’t vessels anymore, not truly, with nothing remaining in their skulls to control, nothing left to answer his call.
But the thread of connection still left in them, the tiny fraction of what had been their minds, still gave the illusion of intent when he pulled once again at the strings.
[ D ing!
Residual Thread Connection Severed.
Secondary Hosts Fully Expired.]
Rest in whatever is left of you.
Kaelen didn’t let himself dwell on the thought.
He couldn’t.
With a torch only four paces away sweeping the length of the alley floor.
The guard entered the mouth of the alley, torch raised, gaze sweeping from one stack of crates to another, from one patch of dark shadow to another, all seemingly identical to the tired human mind.
[Detection Chance: 14%.]
Kaelen didn’t breathe, Corin’s chest didn’t breathe.
Every borrowed muscle tensed, every instinct focused on being nothing, being the emptiest vessel of men.
Sharply the guard exhaled , and turned away while he muttered a curse.
[ Ding!
Threat Passed.
Detection Failed.]
There was a long silence after the sound of the retreating footsteps.
It stretched, far too long.
And then Talia was peeling herself off the wall, her fingers wiping damp palms against her trousers as if she could erase the memory of what she had just seen, or rather what she hadn’t seen, because Kaelen knew exactly what was in Corin’s eyes and she didn’t seem prepared to ask.
“We aren’t talking about this here.” She said, already backing towards the mouth of the alley.
“You get back to the inn, clean yourself up.
Whatever is happening to you Corin, I want answers before sunrise.”
She disappeared around the corner before Kaelen could think of a lie to follow her with.
Sunrise.
Kaelen let Corin’s body slide down the length of the alley wall until he was seated next to two corpses that had once been men, and allowed himself to feel the weight of what the last hour had done to him, because thirty hours was not nearly enough time.
[ Ding!
Vessel Integrity Report Requested.]
Yes, go ahead.
Tell me how wonderful it is.
[Host Vessel —
(Corin) – Structural Decay: 22% and rising.]
[Cause: Crude Infection Method – Neural pathways rejecting foreign biological matter at cellular level.] .
[Estimated Time to Total Vessel Failure: 30 – 36 hours.]
Thirty hours.
Kaelen looked at his own hand in the dim mana lantern light.
His nails had gone faintly grey at the edges, a thin dark vein pulsing in time with his borrowed heartbeat, running up the inside of his wrist to disappear beneath the sleeve at his elbow.
I’m rotting from the inside out .
“Correct,” Nix said.
“The first hijack method you used, the brute force invasion of a fatal wound, was efficient but crude.
It has its own advantages, but as usual it comes at a price.”
The wolf method doesn’t scale to people.
“Not unless you refine the infection method, or acquire a new vessel before this one reaches full decay.”
Thirty hours to find another body that doesn’t come with a self destruct timer built in.
That’s wonderful.
Kaelen pushed himself up from the alley floor, forcing Corin’s useless legs to hold his weight, and walked away before he let himself think about what the word ‘vessel failure’ meant for the man buried beneath him.
The town square stretched out ahead, busy even this late at night, torches swaying on merchant stands that would soon close up for the night, off duty soldiers shouting loud enough to drown out the town.
Kaelen kept to the edges, hood drawn low over eyes that still occasionally flashed the wrong color when he wasn’t careful.
And that was when the horns sounded.
Three long notes, deep and resonant, the kind of sound reserved only for something worth seeing.
Heads turned towards the sound and Kaelen followed the movement, an old human instinct overriding thirty hours of his own, ever tightening dread.
An armored procession was coming through the eastern gate, six riders in white and gold, a banner overhead bearing the crest of something Kaelen’s borrowed memories recognized immediately, a cold certainty settling in the pit of his stomach.
A rising sun, wreathed in a sword.
The Aurelian Order.
And at the center, a pale horseman in a golden haired mane, his horse passing close enough that Kaelen could see the amused smirk on his mouth, the bored look in his eyes as he listened to one of his guards.
A man with the look of someone who had spent a lifetime being worshipped, and never once having to consider that he might be food.
[System Note: Target Identified – Sir Valen, Knight-Commander, Aurelian Order.]
[Assessment: High-Tier Host.
Cosmic Potential – Exceptional.
Current Vessel Compatibility: Unknown.]
Kaelen’s borrowed heart beat, fast enough to make his rotting veins hurt, in a body that would stop working in thirty hours.
Him.
This was his next vessel.