Martial Demons Ascension

Rhyka staggered through his front door just past dusk muscles screaming lungs scraped raw with every breath He didnt even bother kicking off his shoes Mud tracked in behind him each step leaving a broken imprint on the warped wooden floor The door creaked and clattered shut behind him the frame swollen from years of rain and rot the latch barely catching

He stood there swaying in the dark

The silence was total Heavy The kind of silence that presses against the ribs and creeps into the teeth A dead silence No fire no lantern no familiar hum of magical energy like in the dorm halls Just his own ragged breathing echoing off stone and timber like a strangers voice in a hollow house

His forehead touched the door The wood was cold Real Solid Something to ground himself on His shoulder pressed into it his weight leaning hard as if he might fall forward otherwise He didnt cry He was past that There were no tears left Just the steady deep throb of shame and pain moving through him like a second heartbeat

His thoughts werent words they were pulses Echoes Emmets voice Rinntes voice laughing somewhere in the back of his skull

"Youre not a mage"

"Youll never be one"

"This is your ceiling"

He pushed off the door with a grunt and stumbled to the cot in the corner The old thing creaked as he collapsed into it bones jarred by the contact breath knocked from his lungs The mattress was thin the frame bent from too many nights spent lying awake on it just like this

He lay there unmoving staring up at the ceiling Watching cracks that branched across plaster like dead branches Watching them shift with the flicker of his own pulse behind his eyes The pain was everywhere now not sharp but deep A sickness A heaviness His ribs ached his joints burned and his muscles spasmed every so often with phantom memories of the classroom wall

The humiliation lingered worst of all

The laughter

The looks

The silence from Eto who didnt speak Didnt stand

His pride was shredded piece by piece and left scattered across the classroom floor like scraps of discarded cloth

Sleep didnt come Of course it didnt The thoughts were too loud

Theyre right

The words pressed against his skull Theyre right No matter how hard he pushed No matter how far he dragged his broken body Hed always be behind Always be chasing something he could never reach The only thing he was good at was enduring and even that didnt win him respect only pity

Something inside him twisted A low awful tension

He sat up Slow Labored His shoulder flared white hot as he moved but he didnt care The storm inside was growing He needed to let it out Needed to spit it out Anything to feel like he still had some say in what happened to him

So he tried to curse

Not a spell Just a word An act of rebellion no matter how meaningless

He opened his mouth

And nothing came out

His throat tightened His lungs stuttered Something invisible pressed against his chest hard like a hand made of stone His breath caught halfway and stopped

He blinked eyes adjusting to the dark confused

He tried again

Still nothing

It was like the words had been yanked out of his throat before they could form Like something knew what he was about to say and clamped down to stop it

And then he felt it

Not a sound Not a whisper in the room

A pressure Just behind his eyes

A thought A question

Who are you cursing

His blood went cold

He looked around instinctively but the house hadnt changed Not yet The shadows stayed where they belonged the cracked walls remained silent But something was different He could feel it Not in the air but in him

The question echoed Who was he cursing

His teeth clenched

He knew

He didnt want to admit it not even to himself but deep down under all the pain and frustration and bitterness he knew exactly who

The Goddess

The radiant figure on every shrine The source of magic The matron of fate and power and purity The one who for reasons no one ever explained had passed over him

Hed been told his whole life it was his fault That her silence was a lesson That he wasnt worthy

But the more he suffered the more he broke the harder that story was to believe

Others didnt work half as hard and still shone like suns Even the monsters in his class had magic Even those who mocked her name had power she gave them

And him

Nothing Not a flicker Not a whisper Not a single gift

She had abandoned him from birth No explanation No apology

Just absence

And they had dared to tell him to be grateful

He looked to the corner of the room There barely visible in the dark was the tapestry Faded with age its once golden threads dull and flaking It bore the glyph of the Threads the holy symbol Her symbol Her mark of divine presence

He stared at it teeth grinding

And then his lips curled

"Grateful"

His voice was hoarse Dry Something bubbled up from deep inside bitter and hot He leaned forward eyes locked on the tapestry His breath trembled

"This Goddess of magic and sorcery" he hissed "…kind of a"

The word caught in his throat again

Something resisted Something inside him recoiled

But then he felt it

Encouragement Not his own Something else Something ancient and subtle and not entirely safe

Say it

He didnt know where the voice came from It didnt matter He let it push him

And in a breathless rasp the word fell from his lips

"…bitch"

The moment shattered

The air snapped Not with sound but with sensation

The temperature didnt drop But the warmth in the room vanished The walls pulled away from him not physically but spiritually like the space itself had warped to make room for something

From the corner of the room where the shadows gathered thickest the world began to ripple

The distortion wasnt light or sound It was wrongness A warp in the pattern Like something had been sleeping under the skin of the world and now opened an eye

The ripple twisted Deepened Space itself seemed to breathe

Rhyka's limbs froze

A pressure pushed down on the room slow and suffocating His skin prickled with a cold sweat Every instinct in his body screamed to run but he couldnt move Couldnt blink Couldnt even turn his head

He was being watched

Not from above Not from some far divine plane

From here

Something ancient

Something interested

It wasnt cruel

But it was curious

Excited even

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