Page 4 of The Hollow King

It was human blood I craved, the copper-thick warmth of it, not my creatures’ repugnant sludge.

Borin scuttled away and I heard the scrape of the bucket and scrubbing begin. His head was so deformed that I had long stopped trying to tell him not to bash his head on the surfaces of my castle as self-flagellation.

I stood and walked to the window.

They would begin their celebrations on the last day of the month. Such vile and filthy creatures. Each year they proved that humans were all the same.

I had seen it all over three hundred years.

They tried to send multiple sacrifices, children, pregnant women, and elderly parents who had become a burden.

They had clear instructions. Any man or woman between the ages of twenty and forty. Yet I was the one who had to remind them that there should be no children, elderly people, or pregnant women.

They rejoiced in their own ignorance, selfishness and wickedness.

✛ ✛ ✛

I was in my apothecary preparing for this year’s revival. I had been creating the potion for so long that it became a habit. My appearance had altered gradually until I became the monster they claimed I was.

My smooth hands grew longer. Tufts of hair came next, but it was the long sharp claws that I loved. The sorcery had made me bigger and stronger than any human. I remembered the name because I wrote it down while I still could.

Morana.

I could not remember anymore. My mind was blank. But she must have been important to me in the past.

Time was a strange companion.

“Master?”

I almost dropped the vial.

I turned to glare at him. But I required silence. Not dull thuds.

“What is it, Borin?”

“The new sacrifice is leaking.”

“That’s what humans do, Borin.”

“No, Master. This one has red leaking from the head,” he said before touching the swollen side of his forehead. “Like mine.”

I placed the vial in the wooden holder.

“They had better not have sent me a defective sacrifice,” I growled, turning to check on it while Borin sank back into the shadows of the hallway.

I went deep into the dungeon. It was dark, foul-smelling, and the only place for humans, the air thick with damp stone and old rot, torchlight guttering along walls slick with moisture. I unlocked the door and stepped inside the cell.

It lay on the floor.

It didn’t matter if it was a man or a woman they always dressed them in grey clothing as if their rituals would keep them safe. This one was small. It looked like a fully grown one judging by the breasts.

It was leaking precious blood.

I crouched down and saw the jagged scar along its face. No claw did that. It was a blade.

“Borin?”

“Yes, Master?” he said eagerly.