Lastlight's Revenant #8

The banquet hall had descended into chaos. Nobles scrambled over overturned tables, their screams blending into a single, mindless cacophony of terror. Servants bolted for the doors, only to find them sealed by some unseen force. The air reeked of spilled wine, sweat, and the metallic tang of blood.

Garran did not move.

His hand instinctively dropped to his hip—where his sword should have been. But the Duke’s guards had disarmed him before the feast, as was custom for all but the highest nobility. 

Fools. 

His fingers twitched, empty.

The Hollow King watched him, his blindfolded face tilted in eerie curiosity.

Garran’s gaze flicked to the dead guard nearby. A sword lay beside the corpse, its blade smeared with gore but otherwise intact.

Three steps.

He could reach it in a heartbeat. If the demon let him.

The Hollow King’s too-wide smile deepened, as if reading his thoughts.

Garran took a deliberate step forward. "What are you?"

The creature’s voice was disturbingly sweet, like honey laced with poison. "Just a boy, out to please his mothers."

Another step. "What’s your purpose here?"

"Observation. Measurement." The Hollow King gestured lazily at the carnage around them. "I had hoped your kind would put up more of a fight. But this?" He sighed. "Disappointing. I may just end it all now and spare us both the tedium."

Garran took a third step—his boot now inches from the dead guard’s sword.

The Hollow King’s head snapped toward him. "Ah-ah." A single, clawed finger wagged. "I know what you’re doing. And I’ll allow it…" He leaned forward, the shadows of his blindfold writhing. "...if you answer my questions first."

Garran froze.

"You intrigue me, Garran Dornblade. Almost too much." The Hollow King circled him, his tattered robes whispering against the floor.

Garran didn’t answer immediately.

First, he bent down and took the dead guard’s sword, his fingers curling around the hilt with deliberate slowness. The blade was serviceable—not his own, but steel was steel.

The Hollow King watched, amused. "Such defiance," he mused. "Like a child brandishing a stick at a storm."

Garran straightened, rolling his shoulders. "Ask."

The Hollow King’s grin widened. Then, abruptly, he sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring like a beast catching a scent. His blindfolded face tilted, shadows writhing.

"There’s a certain smell to you, Garran Dornblade," he murmured. "Faint. Lingering. Frostbloom."

Garran said nothing.

"You’ve met another elf," the Hollow King purred.

Garran nodded. "Yes."

Then—he took a step forward.

Not toward the exit. Not toward the cowering nobles.

Toward the Hollow King.

The demon went very still. "...What do you think you’re doing?"

Garran’s grip tightened on the sword. "Abiding by our bargain."

For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then—

The Hollow King laughed, a sound like bones rattling in a hollow tree. "Oh, you presumptuous little worm." His voice dropped, suddenly venomous. "You do not bargain with your betters. You exist on my whim. On my curiosity."

The air turned to ice.

A suffocating pressure slammed into Garran, as if the weight of the entire Maw had settled onto his shoulders.

The stone beneath his boots cracked. Around them, nobles who had been too slow to flee collapsed mid-step, their bodies crumpling like puppets with severed strings. One man clawed at his throat, his eyes bulging before he toppled, blood trickling from his nose.

Garran’s knees buckled. His vision blurred at the edges, his bones screaming under the crushing force of the Hollow King’s malice. His teeth ground together so hard he tasted blood.

But he did not fall.

The Hollow King leaned in, his voice a whisper. "If I wished it, your flesh would peel from your bones. Your soul would unravel like rotten thread. You are nothing before me."

Garran forced his head up, his breath ragged. "If you’re so powerful… then there’s nothing for you… to fear."

The pressure intensified. Garran’s muscles trembled, his veins standing out like cords under his skin. Something warm and wet trickled from his ears.

Then—

The Hollow King laughed again, the malice evaporating as suddenly as it had come. Garran gasped, nearly stumbling as the weight vanished.

"Oh, child," the Hollow King sighed, wiping an imaginary tear from his blindfold. "In all my centuries, I have seen everything this world has to offer. But human audacity? Human arrogance?" He shook his head, grinning. "That never ceases to amaze me."

Garran’s grip on the sword tightened until his knuckles turned bone-white.

"Ask your next question," he growled.

The Hollow King’s smile was a razor’s edge. "It hasn’t been long since you met this elf," he mused, tilting his head. "So tell me... why did she approach you?"

Garran shook his head. "I don’t know."

Another step forward. Then another. And another.

The Hollow King watched, less amused but still restrained, shadows writhing beneath his blindfold. "I’ve flayed men alive for less irresponsible answers," he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "You should be very, very careful with your next one." He leaned in. "What did you talk about with her?"

Garran took three more strides, closing the distance between them.

"Philosophy," he answered.

For a heartbeat, the Hollow King went utterly still.

Then—his face twisted.

The air itself seemed to recoil as his amusement curdled into rage. "My disappointment now outweighs my curiosity," he hissed, the words laced with venom. "And the weight of disappointing me—"

Garran didn’t let him finish.

"The weight of your whim is no longer my concern," he snarled, "now that I’m within reach of your neck."

He was already moving before the first word left his lips. His blade flashed in a silver arc, aimed straight for the Hollow King’s throat—

—and stopped.

Midair.

As if it had struck an invisible wall.

The Hollow King let out a shriek—not of pain, but of outrage, the sound scraping against Garran’s skull like nails on stone. "I allow you to live for a few more precious moments," he spat, "and what do I receive? Defiance!"

His hand turned, fingers curling like a puppeteer’s strings—

—and Garran’s breath vanished.

An unseen force wrapped around his throat, lifting him off the ground. His boots kicked at empty air as the pressure mounted, his vision darkening at the edges. The Hollow King’s blindfolded gaze bore into him, cold and pitiless.

"I could rip the blood vessels from beneath your flesh," the demon whispered. "I could fill your lungs with shadows and let you drown in the open air. I could unravel your mind until you forget your own name." Each word was a lash, a promise of agony. "You are nothing, mortal. A speck of dust before the tides."

Garran choked, clawing at the invisible vise around his neck—but even as his muscles screamed, even as his lungs burned, his fingers never loosened around the sword.

He would not drop it.

Not even in death.

Garran's vision swam, the edges darkening as the Hollow King's grip crushed the breath from his lungs. The banquet hall blurred into a haze of torchlight and terror, the screams of fleeing nobles distant as the roar of blood in his ears.

Then—

A surge of power split the air like lightning.

The doors exploded inward, and she strode through, her raven hair whipping as though caught in an unseen storm. The elf sorceress, her runes now alive with pulsating light, her black eyes fixed on the Hollow King with lethal focus.

Her hands moved in sharp, precise gestures—one wreathed in crimson flame, the other in golden radiance.

"Enough."

The red magic lashed out first, striking the Hollow King's outstretched hand. The demon hissed as his grip faltered, the invisible force around Garran's throat flickering like a dying candle.

The golden energy followed, slamming into Garran's blade with a resonant chime. The steel erupted in light, the edge gleaming as though forged anew in divine fire.

"Strike him down!" the sorceress commanded. "Now!"

Garran didn't hesitate.

The moment the Hollow King's grasp weakened, he was already moving. His sword carved through the air in a blazing arc, aimed straight for the demon's throat—

—only for the Hollow King to dissolve into a sulfurous cloud of smoke, reappearing several paces away. The blade missed by a hair's breadth, its golden light searing the air where he had stood.

The Hollow King turned toward the sorceress, his blindfolded face twisting into something disturbingly close to recognition. For a heartbeat, his monstrous features softened—nostalgia? Amusement?

"You—"

He paused.

A slow, sizzling sound filled the silence. The Hollow King raised a clawed finger to his cheek—where a thin, smoking line of black liquid welled up. The golden blade had grazed him.

He stared at the dark ichor on his fingertips as it evaporated into the air, his expression shifting from shock to something far more dangerous.

"How... interesting," he murmured.

Then his gaze snapped back to the sorceress, his voice dripping with venomous delight.

"You always did have a flair for the dramatic."