Sebastian blinked again. Boarstaff's worried expression appeared. On the other side of him, Ochrehand looked less concerned.
"Even the burns are healing," Ochrehand pulled back her rag that was covered with cooling brass.
"I can see again." Sebastian continued to blink, his vision slowly returning to focus. The pain in his face was lessening, but as it receded, a different sensation took its place. Hunger. Raw and primal, it surged through him with an intensity he'd never experienced before. Without his synthetic regulators, the need for blood burned pure and savage through his veins. The memory of Boarstaff's blood awakened something primitive within him.
"The systems..." he gasped, fangs descending involuntarily. "They never removed the hunger. They just..." Vapor escaped from his collar in uneven bursts as he struggled to explain what was becoming clearer with each moment of transformation.
"They controlled it," Boarstaff finished for him. "Made you forget what you truly are. What you've always been." His gaze held something Sebastian couldn't quite name. Not fear, not hatred, but deep understanding. "Your mechanical parts didn't make you a predator. They just let you believe you could master it."
Sebastian gave a bitter laugh. "You think our improvements exist to cage our nature?" Mist rose from everywhere metal melded to flesh. "No. They sharpen it. Focus it. They don't suppress the hunt, they perfect it. Make hunger serve purpose rather than rule without direction."
Boarstaff nodded, as if Sebastian had confirmed something important. "And now that control is failing. You're caught between what your father made you and what you truly are." His free hand moved to Sebastian's collar where dead metal met living flesh. "That transition can kill you... or transform you into something new."
The touch sent magic surging through failing components. The sound that escaped him was raw. Just pure vampire agony that made the chamber's crystals pulse red with ancient power.
And through it all, Boarstaff held him steady. Not forcing, not restraining, but anchoring him through a transformation that threatened to tear him apart from within.
What terrified Sebastian most wasn't the pain. Wasn't the failing systems or the burning magic or even the distant scouts searching the forest. What terrified him was how raw everything felt without artificial bounds. How every surge of power stripped away more synthetic control and left him exposed to sensations his father's improvements had carefully regulated away.
And in Boarstaff's gaze was the recognition of that terror. Understanding of what it meant to face truth without protection.
"Your father built your society on careful control," Boarstaff said quietly. "On processing away everything that threatened that control. On pushing outward rather than facing what you truly are."
Another tremor pulsed through the ground. Sebastian's body instinctively tensed at the sensation, yearning for return to regulated existence. But the movement sent fresh waves of agony through failing systems.
"Let me go back," he gasped between waves of pain. "Let me return to-"
"To what?" Boarstaff asked. "To your processed blood? Your artificial control?" He shook his head slowly. "Look at yourself. Your synthetic parts are mostly dead. You wouldn't survive the journey back."
That was right. Sebastian knew it as deeper components failed with each passing moment. The Heart Tree's magic burned throughartificial systems with increasing speed, leaving him caught between vampire nature and dying mechanics. The transformation had gone too far. Had stripped away too much careful regulation. Even if one of his father's artificers had been there in the chamber, the odds were that the vampire magic wouldn't be enough to save his life by reviving the components that were already dead.
"Then what happens to me?" The question emerged vulnerable, honest in a way Sebastian would never have allowed before. "What am I becoming?"
"Something between," Ochrehand answered before Boarstaff could speak. "Neither fully what you were, nor entirely what your father made you.."
"The transformation must run its course," Boarstaff’s voice was steady. "Your mechanical parts are mostly dead, but they didn't simply fail, they changed. They're becoming something neither fully metal nor fully organic."
Sebastian's body shuddered as another wave of transformation swept through him. The chamber's crystals pulsed in response, their light shifting from reds to blues that spoke of possibility rather than merely destruction.
"The ancient magic here is perfect for this," the witch, Ochrehand, they called her, explained, weaving magic that helped stabilize the process. "It doesn't just strip away mechanical components, it helps bridge the gap between what was and what could be."
"Will I..." Sebastian struggled to form the question. "Will I still be myself when it's done?"
"You'll be more yourself than your father ever allowed you to be," Boarstaff answered. "But who that is..." He shook his head slightly. "That's something you'll have to discover."
The council members exchanged glances. Even Thornmaker's expression held more uncertainty than hostility. They must never have witnessed a transformation like this, never seen vampire nature awakening to something beyond mechanical precision.
Another vibration signal pulsed through the floor from above, but Sebastian barely registered it. The hunger still burned, but it had changed somehow, become less desperate, more focused. As if it too was transforming into something that might eventually be controlledwithout artificial regulation.
"Rest now," Boarstaff said, his hand steady on Sebastian's shoulder. "The worst is passing. What comes next requires strength you need to gather."
Sebastian let his eyes close, surrendering to the transformation in a way he never would have believed possible days earlier. His blood awakened to truths that processing had stripped away.
Boarstaff remained nearby, his presence a complex puzzle Sebastian was too exhausted to solve. Enemy, captor, reluctant caretaker, none of these labels seemed adequate, yet all of them applied in ways that defied the neat categories his education had taught him to expect.
As consciousness faded, Sebastian felt the Heart Tree's magic working deeper, calling his components to remember their origins. The transformation would continue with or without his permission, stripping away his father's careful improvements layer by mechanical layer.
What would remain when the process finished? Would he recognize himself? These questions followed him into darkness as he surrendered to whatever he was becoming.
