"The vision..." Ochrehand began.
"Will die with him," Thornmaker finished. "As all false hopes must." But his voice held less satisfaction than expected. They had all watched Sebastian suffer. Had seen something more than a monster in his unconscious struggle.
Boarstaff's wrists ached with the memory of feedings. Of trying to keep Sebastian alive without truly understanding what that meant. "How long?" he asked Moonsinger. "How long can he endure this new torment?"
Her magic overlay shifted, revealing ugly truths. Several places,including deep in his heart, ugly blood red pulses had begun. "Hours. Days at most. But they will not be easy hours." The steam leaked from Sebastian's collar in irregular bursts, carrying sounds almost like whimpers. "The magic tears at him now. Burns through protections we thought we'd established."
"Then we face the truth," Rockbreaker said. "We sought to preserve him. To understand. Perhaps even to believe in change." His gaze went to Ochrehand. "But visions are not promises. And mercy takes many forms."
The word hung in crystal-lit air. Mercy. The same mercy their people had always granted to those who suffered beyond hope.
"No." Ochrehand struggled to stand. "The vision showed him standing with us. Fighting alongside us. If we kill him now..."
"Then we spare him a worse death," Thornmaker said, but gently. Even he had changed through the long day of watching Sebastian's struggle. "You've seen inside his fever dreams. Seen what they did to him. Would you have him suffer that torment again as the magic burns through every component they forced upon him?"
Sebastian's body seized again. The Heart Tree's crystals flared with answering pain, their light revealing tears that leaked from beneath his closed eyes. The steam rose in patterns that spoke of systems failing beyond their ability to repair.
"The scouts grow bolder as the sun gets closer to setting," Rockbreaker reminded them. "Their methods change with each attempt to breach our defenses. If they find him like this... find us helping him..." He didn't finish. Didn't need to. They all knew vampire justice.
Moonsinger's magic patterns told the same story. Sebastian's organic systems began to fail as the magic attacked his components with increasing violence. The careful balance they'd achieved through blood and ritual collapsed into chaos.
"A vote then," Rockbreaker said finally. "On whether we grant the mercy we would give our own."
The council members exchanged long looks. They had each watched Sebastian's suffering. Had seen something more than monster in his unconscious struggles. Had perhaps learned that hatred need not rule every choice.
"I cannot do it." Ochrehand turned her back on them. "Cannot be the one to destroy what the vision promised." Her magic flickered with exhaustion and grief as she laid her head against the wall. "But I will not stand against mercy, if that is what the council chooses."
One by one, they voted. Not with the hatred that had marked their first meeting about Sebastian, but with the weight of having watched something more complicated than enemy or ally struggle between life and death.
As Sebastian's gasps grew more desperate, his body clearly failing despite all their efforts, Boarstaff's hand went to his knife. The same blade that had drawn blood to sustain life now chosen to end it. "I’ll do it," he said quietly. "He has had enough of artificial precision. Enough of imposed death."
The council nodded, their silence holding acceptance and perhaps something like respect. They had learned things about vampires in these strange days. About suffering and mercy and what it meant to remain true to themselves even with ancient enemies.
But as they filed out, leaving Boarstaff to his grim task, Ochrehand's voice carried a warning. It reverberated off the crystals and walls, like she was speaking with the Heart Tree's voice. "The vision dies with him. Whatever hope it held, whatever change it promised... we choose the safer path. The easier path." She limped toward the exit. "I pray we do not regret turning from the harder road."
In the crystal chamber's solitude, the shadows painted the walls with images of what might have been. Of a child still holding a wooden doll, awaiting the same fate Sebastian had suffered. Of transformation unmade before it could reveal what vampire nobility might become without the chains of artificial precision.
Through everything, Sebastian's body continued its violent struggle against the magic attacking what remained of his father's design. The sound that escaped him held nothing mechanical or controlled. Just pure, animal suffering that spoke to something deeper in Boarstaff than he'd thought possible.
Time for choices had run out. Time for mercy had come.
Chapter Ten
Shadows fell differently in the sacred chamber beneath the Heart Tree. The crystal light created patterns Boarstaff had learned to read over a lifetime of visiting their sacred spaces - warnings, welcomes, reminders of what the Heart Tree meant to his people. But that night the shadows spoke of something else. Something between mercy and murder, between ritual and necessity.
The chamber lay quiet except for Sebastian's labored breathing. The council had departed, their footsteps fading up the worn spiral stairs carved into the living wood. Distant horn signals echoed from above - vampire scouts still probed their borders, growing bolder with each passing hour. As the darkness deepened and Sebastian's brother emerged from the safety of his tent, they would push stronger than ever before. The old magic helped some, but it didn't protect them fully. It left them weak, nearly human.
Boarstaff walked the path Sebastian had forced him down, alone. His fingers traced familiar markers carved into the chamber walls, each one bearing the names of those who had been granted mercy in the sacred chamber. He'd participated in such ceremonies before. Warriors with wounds beyond healing. Elders whose pain had grown beyond bearing. Always with family present. Always with proper ritual. Always with songs to guide the passing.
But he couldn't ask that of his people. Not for this death. Not for this mercy.
The knife's worn handle felt wrong against his palm. Their ceremonial blade would have been properly blessed, would have carried prayers carved into its hilt to help ease the final journey. This blade was just steel that had drawn blood to keep Sebastian alive the past day. His wrists ached with the memory of those feedings - eachscar a testament to what they'd tried to achieve. What they'd failed to do.
The crystal light pulsed slower in the chamber, as if the Heart Tree itself understood what approached. The ancient power that had fought so hard against Sebastian's synthetic components seemed muted, waiting. Steam hissed from his collar in weak bursts. His skin had taken on a grey cast that even untainted blood couldn't touch. Whatever balance they'd achieved between the organic and the artificial had finally broken beyond repair.
Boarstaff knelt beside the vampire's still form. Sebastian looked different than when they'd first bound him to the chamber floor. His brass components had changed under the Heart Tree's influence - no longer purely artificial, but something that reminded Boarstaff of metal ore in mountain stone. The seams where brass met flesh had shifted too, metal and skin blending in ways vampire artificers had never intended.
The chamber itself felt different than it had during the feedings. The crystals that had once pulsed with curiosity at Sebastian's transforming brass held a somber dark yellow glow, like stars dimming before dawn. Their light caught the seams where metal met flesh, highlighting every place vampire artifice had carved away humanity and replaced it with synthetic precision.
