Zerith Stormveil hated the quiet.
The woods had given way to a blighted marsh, the water stagnant and choked with bck lilies that pulsed like diseased hearts. Seraphine walked ahead, her fingers brushing the cracked Veyne star on her wrist. Behind them trudged Garrick, the ex-priest they’d found half-dead in the ruins of a chapel. His robes were tattered, his voice roughened by smoke and cynicism.
“You’re staring,” Garrick said, spitting into the muck. “Never seen a man of faith before?”
“Never seen one who worships a corpse god,” Zerith shot back.
Garrick barked a ugh. “Ain’t worship. Just survival. You think the Blight cares if you pray?”
Seraphine paused, her boots sinking into the mud. “What is the Blight exactly?”
The question hung in the air, sharp as a bde.
Garrick crouched, prying a lily from the water. Its petals crumbled to ash, revealing a writhing mass of bck worms beneath. “The Blight’s a curse. Centuries ago, a dying god choked on its own venom and spat its st breath into the world. That breath? It’s alive. Hungry. It twists everything it touches—trees, beasts, people into puppets for its rage.”
He tossed the dead lily aside. “The Eclipse Sanctum thinks they can tame it. They’re fools. The Blight don’t bow. It consumes.”
Seraphine’s tattoo flickered. “And the Crown of the Abyss?”
Garrick’s gaze hardened. “A relic. The god’s fang, forged into a crown. Wearing it lets you command the Blight… for a time. But it eats you from the inside. Turns you into a hollow thing, like that stag in the woods.”
Zerith’s grip tightened on Stormhowl. “Veyne knew this?”
Garrick’s gaze drifted to the cracked road beneath his boots. “He came to my chapel months back, asking about the crown. Thought he was just another fool chasing power. But his eyes…” The ex priest grimaced. “They had that same hollow look as the Blight’s victims. I warned him it’d eat him alive. He said he didn’t care so long as it bought you two time.”
Seraphine’s breath hitched. “You never told us you met him.”
“Didn’t know who ‘him’ was till I saw your tattoo.” Garrick tapped the fractured Veyne star on her wrist. “But I’d recognize that crown’s stench anywhere. It’s how the Sanctum marks its pawns.”
The marsh gave way to a crumbling road, its stones cracked and veined with glowing green moss. In the distance, the silhouette of a town jutted against the horizon roofs colpsed, walls streaked with bck resin.
“Valenor’s edge,” Garrick said. “Was a trading hub once. Now? A tomb.”
Zerith kicked a rusted helmet. “Why’s the Blight spreading now?”
“Because of him.” Garrick nodded to Seraphine. “Emberhearts are the only ones who can slow it. Their light’s a thorn in the Blight’s side. But every time she uses her power”
Seraphine flexed her blistered palm. “It costs me.”
“The Blight’s got a taste for tragedy. The more you fight, the hungrier it gets. Like it’s… feeding on something.”
“Feeding on what?”
Garrick spat into the muck. “Pain. Memories. The parts of you that makes you, you.”
Zerith scowled at the crimson star glowing above them, its light staining his scarred knuckles red. “And the crown?”
“A leash,” Garrick said. “The Sanctum thinks they’re taming the Blight. Really, they’re just giving it sharper teeth.”
Later, at Camp.
The ruins of the bcksmith’s forge reeked of rust and rot. Seraphine traced the cracks in her tattoo, her voice brittle. “He’s still in there. I felt him.”
Zerith sharpened Stormhowl, the rasp of steel cutting the silence. “That wasn’t Veyne. Just the Blight wearing his skin.”
Outside, the wind carried a sound like ughter gss sharp and wrong. Seraphine shuddered. “What if it’s the same thing now?”
Zerith had no answer.
Veyne’s POV (Miles Away)
The Crown of the Abyss seared Veyne’s brow as he knelt in the ruins of a shrine. Shadows slithered around him, whispering lies in Seraphine’s voice.
“You abandoned them.”
“They hate you.”
He clutched a fragment of memory Zerith’s ugh, bright and reckless—and clung to it like a lifeline.
But the crown hissed, and the memory dissolved to ash.
