Chapter 9 — Kabak, Body of Void
Arsanguir lay flat on the ground, his eyes clamped shut, his body refusing to answer him. Skin began to stir before muscle or bone, crawling across his frame as though it meant to cocoon him against the air. Each stretch stung sharp, like fishhooks dragging through his flesh, tugging skin over wounds that weren't ready to close. Heat rushed into the gaps, then a biting cold chased it, the two sensations snapping back and forth until his jaw locked tight.
He forced himself to wait it out. One breath. Two. His fingers curled when he told them to. Toes twitched against his boots. Clumsy, but his body had returned.
He opened his eyes.
The dragon's amber gaze burned down at him, steady and merciless. His throat quivered. He wanted to beg but only a raw rasp scraped out, weak as a broken reed. Helpless. Too small to fight. Too slow to run. The way an insect must feel when the boot finally hovers.
The claw lifted. His vision blurred, and darkness claimed him.
The entity lingered.
Its horned head tilted, as if considering whether to crush or to spare. Light rolled across the bronze scales, each plate bright as hammered coin. Arsanguir's chest rose and fell faintly, his breath shallow, threadbare.
"So fragile," the voice came, not through air but inside his skull, echoing through his bones. "And still you cling."
A flick of the claw and Arsanguir's body lifted from the grass, suspended on nothing. His limbs hung loose, head rolling forward, but breath carried on.
The dragon leaned close, its jaw yawning wide, teeth jagged as spears inches from Arsanguir's throat. Still it did not bite. It inhaled deep, hot air washing over him, stirring his hair, tasting something beyond blood.
"You don't even know, do you?" A low rumble that might have been laughter. "What you carry… what you are. You call yourself prey. Perhaps you're more. Perhaps less. We shall see."
The claw hovered over his chest. The air shimmered, then folded into black lines — a sigil traced from nothing. Its shapes flickered each time the eye tried to follow them. It sank into his chest with a pulse. Arsanguir jolted once, then sagged again.
"Rest," the entity murmured, its great bulk shifting away into the trees. "This is only the beginning."
When Arsanguir woke, the forest was quiet. The sun sat low, bleeding orange through the branches. His chest burned. He pressed a hand against it and felt warm skin, almost fever-hot, as though something had been pressed deep inside.
The memory of those eyes returned sharp and sudden. He scrambled upright, his pulse hammering. The dragon was gone. Nothing moved but the stream trickling nearby.
But something had changed. A hum vibrated in his bones, soft but constant, like a second heartbeat not his own.
A growl stirred, silkier than the one before, curling close.
"Awake at last?"
Arsanguir spun, scanning trees that held nothing. His throat caught. "Who's there?"
Amusement rippled through the silence. "Call me… a friend. Or a curse. That depends on you."
He turned in circles, panic rising. No one stood near.
Then his arms flung wide, his back slammed to the dirt. His legs stuck fast, though nothing touched him. His chest locked against the weight of a pressure that was not Kucholel. It crawled across his skin like acid, corrupt and sour.
The dragon loomed again. One talon pressed the mark on his chest.
Skin split.
Not a clean cut, but a slow unfurling, as though his body were a flower forced open. Petals of flesh, layers of muscle, ribs pried apart. His breath halted. The pain hadn't come yet, only the waiting silence — and terror sharp enough to freeze him stiff.
The fox's heart descended.
And pain returned.
It hit like fire poured through every nerve. The organ throbbed violently, slamming against his ribs, throwing shockwaves out through veins and marrow. His chest convulsed. Muscles tore themselves apart trying to fight the invasion.
Veins erupted from the heart, slick and glowing faint green. They lashed into him, tearing through flesh, snapping against cartilage, grinding into bone. Each strike sang wet and sharp.
Arsanguir arched, mouth wide, but no sound came. He tried to black out, but the pain was too exact, too bright. It dragged him back every second. His own blood was driven aside, overtaken by the rhythm of the new heart.
Then his chest broke wider.
From the seams, black growths pushed outward. Thin threads at first, wriggling like worms, then ropes thick as his arm. They crawled across the ground, twisting around each other, slick and wet, glowing faintly where veins bulged through their surface.
The air grew heavier with each one. They reached high into the canopy, spires writhing like towers in the wind. Some plunged deep into the dirt with a sound like roots splitting stone. Faces and shapes flickered in their folds — too quick to hold, too wrong to name.
The storm grew. The lattice of tendrils spread outward, cracking earth, blotting out sky. The weight of it crushed sound, leaving only the low throb of the heart. Arsanguir lay at its center, tethered to every coil.
And then — it stopped.
The tendrils began to withdraw, folding back toward him, collapsing into the wound. Spires broke apart like ash. The coils unwound. One by one they vanished, sucked into his chest until nothing remained but a faint glow beneath smooth skin.
His body settled. His breathing steadied.
To the eye, he looked whole again.
But the hum stayed. The alien pulse had fused with his own, patient and steady. The darkness hadn't gone. It had only hidden.
Arsanguir lay trembling, sweat drying on his skin. He was alive. Changed.
And something inside him had begun.