Heroes can fall in more ways than one.
Demigod Xaray is sent on a quest to kill after he massacred a whole town. Weakened by the strain, he falls prey to a haughty vampire and is cared for by a fellow prisoner, the nagi Vasa. Torn between his orders...
Xaray meets a girl in the vampire's cave and they plot their escape together.
Darkness engulfed him again, darker than a moonless and starless night, as cold as the deepest part of the ocean. He would have shivered, but he couldn't feel his body anymore, like it had all frozen over and gone numb. It was as if Daskil, the God of Darkness, and Bleoles, the God of Cold, had joined forces.
He floated weightlessly in the silence, unseeing and unfeeling. The quiet was almost peaceful, in a way. He couldn't feel the pain from his overuse of mana or see the corpses he left behind. The thought of having to create another ten thousand corpses made him queasy.
Suddenly, his body reformed, along with all the sensations that came with it. The humid, cool air of a cave. The sweet floral scent of vanilla. The quiet, steady dripping of water. Cold hands on his body, holding him up. A pair of glowing red eyes.
The vampire grinned merrily at him, revealing her sharp and slightly bloody fangs. "From that stunned look on your face, I'm taking it you've never teleported before. Have you, little demigod?"
Xaray tried to raise his sword, but his arms only trembled. He was even weaker than before. Athua only tskt again, annoyance coloring her features. "So that's how it's going to be? Fine. You see that cage over there? Walk into it."
Even though he tried to stop himself, his body somehow found the strength to move over to the cage in the back of the cave. It felt like he was in a rip current, fighting futilely against a force far stronger than him. Every step brought him closer to the pen made out of solid shadow.
The bars parted for him as he approached, moving aside soundlessly. Only the uncomfortable prickling sensation at the nape of his neck told him they closed behind him again. A moment later, his body was released from the spell the vampire put on him, and his trembling legs could no longer keep him up.
His arms barely broke his fall as he dropped to the ground, but if his landing caused any pain, he didn't feel it. The stone floor was cold to his body as he lay there, not even bothering to move off of his wings to prevent pain. For a moment, he considered playing dead to trick the vampire, but he abandoned the idea. It was no use if she could hear his heartbeat.
Unable to find the will to move, he stayed there, listening to the beat of his heart and the rhythmic dripping of water. Somehow, there also seemed to be breathing, but he dismissed it as his own. Vampires didn't need air, so they only ever breathed to talk.
Xaray drifted in and out of consciousness as his body tried to preserve energy. Several times, he woke up shivering from the cold, only to wake up again and find that a woolen blanket covered him. He didn't even question where it came from, instead simply appreciating its existence before the dripping water lulled him back to sleep.
