Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

Unwritten Designs

A vast obsidian sky stretched without horizon, a black so complete it felt like the inside of closed eyelids made real. Far to my left a white flaming colossus blazed, a sphere of fire so large its glare scraped streaks of light across everything it touched. Below, distant beyond measure, hung a tiny blue‑and‑green marble veiled in shifting swathes of grey. I stared until colors swam, trying to decide whether that living speck was truly small or only dwarfed by the furnace beside it.

But right next to me was… my master, Omen. He floated in the void with the calm poise of a stone idol, eyes closed, arms loose at his sides. Even here, where the world was not a world, his presence steadied me. I felt his gentle touch in places no hand reached, a coaxing pressure inside bone and sinew, nothing like the turbulent agony other orcs had described when they spoke of crossing into Vadruk. None of them had spoken of a black sky or a blazing giant ball of fire; perhaps only he could call such a place into being. He was not yet a God, or so he said, but what else could bend reality this way?

I knew his mana the moment it threaded through me: the smooth certainty with which it reshaped flesh, the patient way it dissolved sensation until I was no more, only to gift it back sharper than before. Currents surged around us like unseen rivers, a constant downward roar without sound, and beyond that torrent I searched for the warm glow of my core. It was… gone.

In its absence my blood‑source — the heart as my master called it — throbbed with alien force. Each beat loosed a tide of mana so strong my vision fogged white around the edges. Power should not have come from there, yet it did, radiating outward, piercing every part of me. The sheer vastness of it staggered me; the essence of life that came from one of his many blessings now blazed through me, something I could feel as clearly as a limb of my own, seeping into muscle and marrow faster than I could hold a thought.

A heartbeat later the so‑called call arrived: that feather‑light nudge of my master's will guiding the changes. For an instant I dissolved entirely, every sense fading into brilliant blankness, then slammed back together, rebuilt and humming. Others had warned the passage to Vadruk happened fast; still, this was too fast. My eyes flew open, lungs aching, while exhaustion tugged at every joint. I groped for the lost core and found instead the pulsing blood‑source, altered, deepened, swollen with both mana and something stranger I could not name.

Before I could puzzle it out, the great ball of fire rippled across the obsidian sky. A wave rolled along its surface like molten silk, and I felt an eyeless gaze settle upon me. I jerked toward Omen for protection, but he remained motionless, eyes shut, wholly absorbed in whatever act held his focus.

From the fiery colossus a hand unfurled — five vast fingers of white flame so bright the edges bled into nothingness. Desperation struck like a hammer. I tried to run but drifted weightless, legs kicking void that offered no purchase. There was nowhere to flee. The blazing hand closed, and in the next moment white fire swallowed me whole.

"This is it. I'm dead," I mouthed, yet no breath moved, no sound formed, not even the raw rasp of terror. Heat scoured every nerve; flesh bubbled, liquefied, then reknitted in the same instant as life essence ballooned from my blood‑source. The same vitality Omen had once pressed into me now spread like roots through scorched tissue, but the fire's hunger outpaced every graft.

Connection deepened. I felt the pulsing lattice of life mana latch to the invading blaze, two rival rivers twisting together inside my veins. Pain followed, colossal and unrelenting, a living creature gnawing from the inside. The white flames burned without mercy; the life mana healed without pause. Death itself was denied, pinned between furnace and fountain. I screamed into silence, throat tearing, yet sound remained a stranger here. Essence warred within me while the void looked on, impassive.

The duel raged until torment blurred thought. White flame flayed nerves bare; emerald warmth stitched them closed; again and again in an endless loop that mocked beginning or end. I felt my will unravel, fray, reform—each cycle stripping certainty until only raw instinct clung to form. Somewhere, distant as memory, I knew Omen still labored, but the awareness was a fading ember amid the blaze.

At last the overload of fire and bloom met some unseen threshold. Agony dulled, not gone but pushed to the far edges of perception, a thunder heard through walls. Even the roaring rivers of power within me seemed to slow, settling into a tense, smoldering truce. I floated, half‑ash, half‑seed, while numbness crept in like nightfall, and the unending struggle slid into deep, empty quiet until pain numbed my senses.

Then the two essences twined together, not clashing but… feeding each other. The white flames no longer scorched; they folded themselves around the rushing life mana, coaxing it faster, deeper. Heat seeped beneath my skin and sealed tears the instant they formed. Fire was healing me.

I blinked. When my lids lifted again, the obsidian emptiness had vanished. Rough stone vaulted overhead, damp and dark, lit only by the faint shimmer that still danced along my arms. I lay on a ledge halfway up the cavern wall where the ascent had begun, grit biting my palms.

No one in Vadis had ever spoken of flames that mended flesh. This had to be another blessing from my master. What else could explain it?

I bowed my head, silent thanks spilling through the bond. He had poured so many gifts into a creature of the lowest kind. Why? Even cradled in his favor, I had crawled toward Vadruk slower than every tale suggested. And if I were honest, the thought of trudging back to Vadis felt… hollow.

Omen's power filled the air like warm breath, his earlier touch still echoing beneath my ribs. I wanted to follow that warmth, wherever it led.

The wish barely formed before his voice brushed my mind: "Perhaps one day."

My pulse leapt. He heard me—he heard me. Of course he would not want a mere Vadruk trailing him yet. But once I became a Baruk, a true crimson worthy of his path, things might be different.

***

Time in the Abyss was becoming more peaceful by the day, each cycle of breath measured in drifting snow rather than in screams. The Frostkin not only grew in number; they learned, refining tactics I had never imagined when I first coaxed will into ice.

A hierarchy I had nothing to do with—nor any wish to guide—took root like hidden roots beneath permafrost. Some patrolled the far rims of the mist, silent silhouettes that tested for breaches; others stationed themselves nearer, a living bastion whose sole duty was to keep claws and fangs from me. And beyond those simple roles, subtler ranks sprouted in ways I could not predict.

As I watched through the mist I saw two Frostkin, one of the earliest titans I forged, its endurance beyond any norm, hold back a four-legged beast triple their size, while a cluster of leaner Frostkin harnessed the power of my mist to conjure a torrent of frost so harsh it limned the air with cracking light.

The monstrosity that challenged my domain thrashed, cords of muscle straining like ropes, but the two stalwarts acted as living bulwarks, absorbing every hammering strike. Their layered cuirasses rang with each blow, yet they never relinquished their grasp. Over their shoulders the lean Frostkin—those I once thought merely swifter—directed converging currents that spiraled into a blue-white cyclone. Shards of rime hissed across the beast's hide, seeping cold through sinew, dulling the frantic power in its limbs.

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Slowly, relentlessly, the creature's motions dulled, each convulsion shorter than the last. I felt the temperature around the struggle plummet until even the ground groaned, brittle cracks spider-webbing outward. The Frostkin stood amid the maelstrom untouched; the frost did not consume them, it exalted them. At last the beast froze solid, an ice-locked statue so still it invited doubt it had ever lived.

"The challenger is no more, Master," one of the lean titans said. Their grasp of the human tongue surpassed any expectation I once set, though perhaps more cycles had slipped past than I cared to count.

Those lithe figures carried the same spears as every sibling, forged to balance reach and weight, yet some had chosen a different path. Instead of relying solely on speed, they bent the mist itself, calling frost as a mason calls stone. They named themselves mages. Their self-selected title marked only one of many branches that had sprouted without my design: shield-bearers, trackers, runners, specializations born of necessity and curiosity both.

I imposed no chains on their choices and freedom. Though I birthed these beings from shard and breath, I would not forbid departure if one wished to wander beyond the mist. None had tried, and most times I only replied through sentiment alone, the same simple manner of communication the Frostkin had once used in their earliest days.

A vast share of the Abyss now belonged to the mist, and those who stood in our way had to fight for their place or relinquish their claim. Any new arrivals seeking a portion of it would have to do the same.

With their steady progress, I soon found that will no longer set the ceiling on how many new Frostkin I could call forth; instead the bottleneck became the sheer labor of shaping fresh frost‑vessels.

Furthermore, progression of our territory certainly fed will, but nothing swelled it so violently as the moments a Frostkin perished. In those instants a surge of will slammed through the link, raw power that warred with the grief seated behind my sternum.

I always pushed that bright, cruel rush aside. I would never rejoice in the death of one of my own. Children? The word slid in unbidden, and its weight chilled me more than any rime. When had I begun to see them as such?

"Master, are you okay?" asked Ciren, one of our sculptors. Sculptor, another specialization two Frostkin had claimed for themselves. Ciren and his sibling Miran were leaner than most, with an enclosed, almost simian spine that let them hunch low and balance atop narrow footholds. Most striking were their nail‑thin digits, icy claws so precise they could pare slivers of crystal without leaving a blemish.

They were survivors of my ill‑fated claw design, a form meant to emulate the leaping agility of crimson hunters and to wield their own fingers as weapons. On paper it seemed elegant; in battle it proved disastrous. Armor too thin, reach too short; one by one, the claw‑born fell.

Eventually, all of them died—except for these two. But I knew it was only a matter of time, so I forbade them from venturing beyond the mist's core or joining their brothers in battle. I would not watch their bright cores shatter for my hubris, not when the outcome was already written.

Perhaps one day I could revisit the concept with sounder geometry, thicker joint struts, wider claws, but Ciren and Miran were forever bound to their present vessels. Wanting to ease my burden after so many losses, they turned those razor digits toward gentler purpose: helping me sculpt the Frostkin.

Ciren and Miran, as I named them, became the frost's artisans. They could not conceive new models; their craft was replication, turning raw mist‑ice into perfect echoes of patterns I gave them. Yet the pace at which this fledgling race evolved left me uncertain how long that limit would bind them.

"Master?" Miran ventured, voice low enough to avoid echoing off.

"It's nothing," I replied, though my temples ached. "Too much weighing on my mind. Please finalize this one." I indicated a nascent tank‑frame, broad torso, layered plating, shoulders built to shoulder storms.

"Yes, master," they answered in unison, and I found myself silently cursing Sharn for planting that word.

Sharn's fanatical adoration had clearly seeped into Rogara, and from Rogara's nightly prayers the word spread outward like lichen on stone. I knew it was unwise, but at the time I had larger predators to stalk. Now her whispered devotions echoed everywhere, and the Frostkin heard each one through our shared current.

They heard her call me master far more often than Omen. Many of them likely believed the term my given name. That misunderstanding ranked low among my troubles, yet it hinted at currents I had not charted.

Without noticing, I had sparked something I could no longer fully steer. In the beginning the Frostkin were simple, each action predictable because I had etched it into their marrow. Now their paths forked faster than I could trace, sprouts of behavior flowering in every corner of the mist.

As I watched Ciren and Miran work, their mirrored silhouettes carving flawless ribs and vertebrae, I knew it was only a matter of time before they attempted shapes I had never drafted. And though the prospect unsettled me, the idea of children outgrowing their architect, I understood instinctively that I must let it happen. To deny their urge to create would be to halt the very evolution I once sought.

Despite my unease, I would not act against that tide. The frost itself would decide which visions endured, and I would learn alongside it.

Our numbers grew daily, but still Frostkin deaths were common. The Abyss was relentless, its stone gorges and yawning voids grinding every newcomer the moment they tested their footing. Their place of birth gave them no rest or chance to learn from mistakes; the ground itself seemed to whisper that error meant extinction.

At first not a single Frostkin could defeat even the weakest crimson beast alone, despite sharing a core of equal tier. The great majority still had little hope one‑on‑one. They lacked experience, inherited flaws of my design, and the certain intuition predators honed over centuries. Teamwork—cooperation that broke the Second Rule—remained the single lattice holding them together.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, another Frostkin fell. A crystalline tremor rang through the bond, and the entire mist hushed for a single, aching minute. Even Ciren and Miran froze mid‑stroke, chisels poised above the half‑formed torso they carved. In the next minute they resumed; loss had become a drumbeat none of us could ignore yet none could let halt the march.

A fresh report followed like a snow‑split echo: "Master, another … defier … slain. Brother, avenged." Haldrin's voice, scraped and stunted, but unmistakably proud. He was one of the earliest vessels I ever sculpted, dense plates, trunk‑thick limbs, a mind built more for resolve than subtlety. Against all likelihood he had survived when sharper minds and lighter frames shattered.

He was also one of the few who could stand toe to toe with a crimson beast and prevail; once he had dragged such a creature down alone, splitting its head with his bare hands. "Haldrin, the strongest of the Frostkin. Thy vengeance shall not go unrewarded," I answered, letting the words vibrate across the mist. "Come to me."

"Yes, master," came the gravel reply, and great footfalls began their distant cadence toward my perch of ice.

While the Frostkin were forever bound to their vessels, I could still reshape the outer crust of those bodies, thickening pauldrons, extending tusks, even rerouting circulation channels, so long as I touched nothing vital to the core's harmony. Sometimes I adapted shell and limb to match the fighter's growing style, knitting new ridges where muscles needed purchase, sanding edges where speed mattered more than mass.

Haldrin was one such case. Where he lacked cleverness he held unmatched strength, and that strength I rewarded with layered armoring and broader stance plates. He became the bulwark many aspired to emulate. Survival was its own scripture here; improvements were verses they memorized with hungry eyes.

Yet no matter how far the Frostkin climbed, none compared to Rogara. My warlock's mana reserves stretched far beyond what onyx should contain, and the alterations I wove through her frame had turned her into a perfect executioner.

She would stand no chance against any of the Frostkin in her current state—still onyx, and not yet fit for the deep Abyss. But I knew she wouldn't remain at that tier for long. The only reason her ascent beyond ebony had taken time was because she was simply too strong for the lower caves, finding no true challenge there.

Then something stranger arrived. It was, by my best reckoning, a few months ago when I first saw it: the white flames. Creatures often gained a personal essence during evolution, but I had guided every heartbeat of Rogara's change. I purposefully denied her the frost aspect, fearing the burden of raw power she would be unable to control.

Instead she emerged wreathed in fire so pale it gleamed like starlight, a heat that sang rather than roared. A kind of flame I had never witnessed, even here where demigods walked in flesh and stone.