Blood Bond

Agony radiated outwards with my failed attempt to draw air. My lungs seized, spasmed, and then a raw, wet cough ripped through me uncontrollably. Hot blood sprayed out of my lips and onto my murderer's face, splattering his grinning, scarred features.

He blinked, blood dripping from his chin, seemingly startled by the intimacy of the assault. Then, his eyes widened with a cruel, almost surprised amusement. Instead of recoiling, he leaned closer, his gaze fixed on mine, and slowly, deliberately, licked the blood from his lips.

"Well now," he chuckled, the sound thick and low, vibrating horribly through the steel still impaling me. "Thought I might get a taste of a princess... didn't expect it quite like this." A burst of laughter erupted from the mercenaries behind him.

With that, he braced himself and wrenched the broadsword free with a brutal, sucking heave.

A fresh wave of agony tore through me, as a plume of blood gushed out of the wide-open wound, misting the air. The world spun. But as pain and that ravenous hunger ate away at the frayed edges of my consciousness, I became aware of each pin-point of blood flying away from me. I was connected to the mist settling on the ground, on the dead… on the Kael. I was one with the droplets splashing down upon the blood in their open wounds. My blood cells absorbed theirs, squeezing out the very essence of them, and that essence came flowing back through the connection to me.

This essence from blood now running through me, this blood essence, it felt so vibrant and rich, that I could almost physically taste it amongst the salt of the blood that coated my mouth. I felt it holding me upright. The world stilled, and my consciousness stayed as the flow of blood essence pushed back, no, fed my ravenous void.

The more essence I drew, the more I could control my blood, pushing it to consume more of their blood, to multiply, to spread within them. I coursed through their arteries and seeped into their organs, taking them over one by one—heart, lungs, muscles, and then brain.

Eyes of the dead snapped open. Through them, I saw myself standing. I willed them to rise, and all around me, the fallen mercenaries got onto their feet.

The hunger, however, still gnawed at me, not fully satisfied. My awareness shifted, drawn inevitably to where my blood had entered the torn flesh of Kael's stomach wound. His blood essence felt different from the others—brighter, warmer, startlingly alive.

Horror dawned slowly, sharper than the pain. I was already drawing his essence; my own invasive presence was deep within him, multiplying, driven by my insatiable hunger. I felt his heart stutter under my control. I had his heart. The realization hit me like a physical blow. The takeover was automatic, instinctive. My blood was already snaking upwards through his veins, reaching for his brain. Still living. Still Kael.

"You are not useless, Your Highness." Kael's voice echoed in the temple corridor.

No! A violent recoil ripped through me, slamming against that all-consuming instinct. With a choked gasp, I fought it, fought myself, desperately forcing my blood back from the threshold of his mind. The hunger screamed in protest, a physical torment, but I held on, shaking.

He was still dying. I panicked. Focusing again on the wound, I pushed my blood, now bright and vibrant with stolen essence, toward the mangled edges of his flesh. I willed it to close. Strands of blood reached out of the open tissue, joining and pulling the open wound together from the inside with this terrifying, alien-like control. It felt clumsy, like trying to sew with puppet strings in the dark, unsure if I was mending or mangling him further.

Against all odds, the seam of his flayed flesh pulled back together, knitting closed as the bleeding stopped. A wave of dizziness washed over me from the effort, the hunger still a raw ache despite all the essence I'd drawn. My attention snapped outwards.

The clearing was unnervingly silent, save for the ragged breathing of the living mercenaries. I looked over to the dead that Kael had killed. They were now my puppets, standing motionless, eyes vacant, limbs held at unnatural angles. The remaining sell-swords, who had been leering moments before, were frozen, their expressions shifting from cheerful bloodlust to confusion, then dawning horror as they stared at their zombified comrades.

"Eh, boss?" one of them stammered, looking nervously at Trevor. "What... what's going on? They ain't..."

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Trevor, who had been wiping his blade with satisfaction, slowly lowered his sword arm. His gaze swept over the risen dead, then landed on me, swaying on my feet, the gaping hole in my chest still visible. His cruel grin vanished, replaced by slack-jaw disbelief, then a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes.

And in that moment, I felt it: my blood flowing within him. It must have been from when he'd licked my blood from his lips. I could just imagine my blood seeping into him through the sores in his disgusting mouth. His blood essence pulsed differently than the ones of the dead or even Kael's. He wasn't dead or dying, his blood was fresh.

The hunger surged again, demanding more. This time, there was no hesitation. I opened the gates and let my blood run rampant through him, drawing in as much of that rich essence as I can. In an instant my blood was pumping out of his heart and into his extremities, and upwards to his brain.

His body jerked. The fear on his scarred face went slack. His eyes glazed over. From his eyes I saw myself standing, with a wall of blood now sealing the hole in my chest. Through his hands I felt the rough grip of his sword hilt. With his arms, I raised his sword, and swung it downwards with the skill that had been ingrained in the muscle memory of a lifelong killer.

He was mine now.

His vision and senses joined a kaleidoscope of others swirling in my mind. Pins of pain stabbed my forehead. It seemed that each additional puppet I controlled, each ambling dead, including the blank-eyed Trevor facing me, added to the intensity of the pain. The strain staggered me; holding five felt like the absolute ragged limit of my control.

"Come on, Boss. This isn't funny anymore," another voice pleaded from the remaining mercenaries.

Nothing registered on Trevor's face, for I was the one holding his thoughts.

He and all of my other visions turned and zeroed in on the source of the sound. They weren't people anymore, just… sacks of blood essence, throbbing, waiting. The hunger flared.

I sent Trevor forward, and with a strangled cry, he surged toward their ranks. Metal rang against metal as his blade crashed into theirs. The other puppets shambled forward, a macabre dance troupe swinging swords, spears, and axes like stumbling harlequins.

A burst of flames consumed one of my puppets—a desperate spell from one mercenary—and my connection instantly disintegrated. A clean slice through another's neck, and I lost control like its strings were cut. I siphoned the last dregs of essence from the falling corpse before releasing the desiccated husk.

Replacements. I need replacements.

My eyes landed on a mercenary writhing on the ground, his side skewered by a broken spear shaft. His eyes bulged at the sight of me, sheer terror stark on his blood-drenched face. A distant part of me registered that he was young, barely older than me, a teenager with dirt smudged like a mustache above his lip.

"Please… gods, no, Feora, great mother, please save me, mercy!" he gurgled, trying feebly to ward me off.

Mercy? I had none to give. Neither was I a goddess, certainly not that one. I dabbed a finger on the blood still soaking my torn blouse and dripped it on his wound. The connection flared as my blood seeped in. His essence was vibrant, his pulse strong despite the injury. My blood flooded his veins, silencing his pleas. He rose, eyes vacant but limbs moving with the ingrained skill of a fighter, and charged into the fray beside Trevor.

I repeated the process with another wounded man, finding these newer puppets faster, more capable than the ones Kael had killed earlier. Commanding them took less conscious effort, and the stabbing pain in my forehead eased the barest amount as I swapped the clumsy dead for the responsive living.

Soon, I commanded six puppets, and only four living mercenaries remained. Dried husks littered the ground around them. Trevor, riddled with wounds but still moving under my command, took down the majority. He towered over one more wizened mercenary, pleading on his knees.

"Please, boss, don't do this! Remember—"

Of course, there was no recognition. It was me behind Trevor's eyes. His broadsword stabbed through the old mercenary's chest, and pulled back, leaving a spray of red mist. As the man fell, Trevor stepped back. I moved forward in his place, sprinkling a few drops of my blood over the body. The gash in my own chest had closed on its own, but there was plenty left in my drenched blouse. Still hungry, I absorbed his fading essence, leaving another empty shell.

The last three survivors howled, cornered and terrified, their cries barely registering as the background din. I waved a hand—a meaningless, unnecessary gesture—and my puppets' blades fell.

I wandered over the fresh bodies like a grotesque priestess, offering alms of blood, and took their essence in return. Finally, my hunger was sated. All that was left were the now-still figures of the puppets connected to me. Their kaleidoscope of visions blinked out one by one, as I emptied each of their essence in turn, setting them free.

The connections to my blood in their bodies vanished, and my body's physical exhaustion, which must have been held back by the pain and hunger, settled deep in my bones. The sharp pins of controlling the puppets lifted off of my mind, but in its place was a throbbing headache hammering away at the back of my head.

I had pushed myself too far.

A stir in the sudden silence behind me made me turn. Kael. He was standing, pale faced, his recovered sword gripped tightly in his hand, knuckles white. His heart thumped hard against his chest, near bursting. His eyes were wide, staring past me at the husks littering the ground, then flicking to the unnaturally sealed wound on my chest, then back to the carnage. Raw horror warred with something else in his gaze.

Monster. The word echoed not from him, but from within me, a truth reflected in his conflicted eyes. He'll kill me. The strength drained from my limbs, the mental and physical toll crashing down simultaneously. The world tilted. I sank to my knees. The ground came up fast to meet me.