Abolisher
HUNGER.

Lenkson jerked awake from the table when thunder clapped outside again, illuminating the library.

He grumbled to himself, rubbed his drooping eyes and stretched in his chair.

When he opened his eyes, though, he noticed someone had turned off the lights, leaving only the moonlight—and lightning, apparently—to brighten the library. Nersem, probably, he thought with a pang of irritation as he began assembling the pile of papers on the table. Lenkson frowned. There was drool on his notes, smearing the ink of scrambled words.

Weeks of work on this damned device and his carelessness will have it doomed in a matter of seconds.

Lenkson had never fathomed why his master was so utterly obsessed with Drothiker … not until he’d begun his research on it anyway, for his master of course. He’d been hired to get to the depth of Drothiker’s mystery weeks ago, but the world’s knowledge on it extended only to a certain degree.

Lenkson had only accepted the job because he was desperate for the money his master had offered, had to pay for his studies. But three weeks into the research, he was just now gleaning this was a fool’s errand. His master’s obsession was no more than absurdity—

His heart plunged to his stomach when the thunder illuminated the library again. Lenkson leapt to his feet, heart hammering.

He could have sworn he saw someone in the corner—behind a shelf.

“Who—who’s there?” His voice was thick with the terror now seizing him.

When no one replied, Lenkson began scrambling for his notes—everything he could clutch and began striding to the doors.

He was being foolish, a coward, but growing up with Nersem—the Teller of Horror, they called her thanks to her bone-chilling tales—even the chatting of insects led to murder somehow. And seeing a figure when lightning flashed outside … a cliché in almost every tale Nersem had ever told.

Terror ruled everyone, pulled strings.

Lenkson’s heart was in his throat, route to the doors suddenly unending.

“Oh, boy.”

His feet balked. He didn’t know why—it was as if that … that voice had gripped his legs, his very will.

There was no way to describe that voice. It was a horrific definition of beautiful. It was a flower with thorns in its petals. It was … disgustingly enchanting. No Vegreka bore such mejest—no Vegreka could sound like that, Lenkson knew that even being a Grestel himself.

Fool, he cursed himself. Run, fool, run.

But his curiosity got the better of him—his curiosity that was sure as Saqa to be his death today. Still, even acutely conscious of that, even as his terror was roaring at him to dash out of this otsatyasforsaken library, Lenkson found himself turning to that figure. He was shaking as he did, his mind seemed to be buzzing.

“Who’s—there?” he called again.

This time when the lightning roared its assault, the windows rattled.

And in its wake, Lenkson caught the figure again.

All he perceived was a woman clad in all black before dark shed the corner again, and dread looped him like a piercing metal coil. Still, he did not bolt.

He felt—rather than saw—the woman stepping towards him, like something horrid approaching him. Like death approaching him.

She advanced in a feline grace, and stepped into a block of moonlight flowing in through the floor-to-ceiling windows lined along the wall. Lenkson’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t know what he’d expected her to look like.

But an utterly human, absurdly beautiful woman had not been it. Her hair so white that he was almost sure the moon had reshaped itself to settle atop her head. Her extraordinarily beautiful dark skin seemed to be gilded even in direct moonlight. Black leathers clung to her lithe body like second skin.

Lenkson might have found himself compelled by her beauty, might have lost his senses to just how wonderful a woman could look, had it not been for the eyes.

They were pools of obsidian; a starless night sky; a black, endless void. Veins visibly pulsed inky black beneath those eyes, in her neck and in hands.

She looked as if she’d been hauled straight out of Nersem’s tales.

That was when Lenkson’s horror spiked and all his senses rushed back to him.

The scream that left his lips was pulled from somewhere very deep in his chest, as he turned and practically lunged for the enormous doors. But—

She appeared between him and the doors. It was so sudden and so shocking that Lenkson fell to his ass, began shrinking back from her. “No,” he cried. “Please, please …”

The woman was smiling cruelly as she looked down at him; it had the hair on Lenkson’s arms rising.

“Hold still, Grestel.” Long gone was the serenity from her voice, it was now a snarl and a growl and a hiss all at once.

She advanced a step towards him, that smile on her face not faltering even a bit. Then she crouched. She lifted a hand, and dark fog spiraled her arm up to the elbow. Before he could even brace himself, that despicable fog came hurling for him.

It looped his whole body like tight ropes, constrained him in one place. And where it touched, his skin burned.

Lenkson screamed in agony, his skin felt like it would melt in seconds, tears skittered down his face. He should have run—he should have run when he’d had the chance—

The woman’s hands came to cup his face. It almost felt like a tender touch.

Until his cheeks began burning too. White glazed his sight at the blinding pain.

Lenkson’s screams went unanswered, his struggles against this abhorrent mejest proved fruitless.

After a long, agonized eternity, he felt life dwindling from himself, felt his limbs growing heavy. Lenkson shut his eyes, waiting for dark to claim him. But then—

Vaguely, he heard a gasp, and those terrible hands withdrew from his face.

Lenkson opened his eyes. His vision had darkened. But through the gloom, he saw the woman’s horror-struck face, her hand was on her full mouth. Eyes … lilac. No darkness, but normal human eyes. Sorceress eyes.

“No, no, no, no—” she began chanting as her hand approached his face.

But halted.

Lenkson fell to his side as dark shed his sight wholly.