Chapter 14, The Blackout
Darkness is never just absence, it’s weight, memory, the taste of things lost and never buried deep enough. For a time, was it minutes, hours, centuries? that’s all there was. Blank heaviness, a sensation not of sleep but of drowning in black wool, a thick velvet curtain wrapped tight around bone and mind. My body was a rumour, my nerves the last echo of distant thunder. Cold bit at my skin, cold not of winter air, but of something older, rawer, the chill that seeps up from stone and into the heart.
Then, a throb, a pulse of pain, faint but real, shuddered in my chest, and the world began to drag me back. Not in a rush, but like drowning in reverse, weight giving way, layer by layer, to the intolerable sharpness of reality. The darkness wasn’t gone, only receding. Cold came next, crawling along my arms and legs, making the little hairs on my tail stand up, making my claws flex, scraping against the stone beneath me.
Somewhere, far away, I heard the wet slow drip of water, steady, mocking, like an indifferent clock marking time in an oubliette. I tried to breathe. Air entered, thick and wrong. It carried not life but the reek of things long dead, rotten, left behind. My nose wrinkled, a reflex older than fear, and I gagged, every muscle in my face twisting. The smell was overwhelming, a riot of decay and clotted blood and something sweeter, putrid, crawling into my mouth and ears. I tasted death before I could see it. I tasted the history of a hundred bodies, a hundred betrayals, spilled and left to fester. Feline senses are a curse in a charnel pit.
My mind thudded, thick and sluggish, but through the fog something burned bright and steady, impossible to ignore, impossibly comforting even now. The Bond. Master. I could feel it, a current running from my chest outward, a pulse of certainty and fire threading through the dark. It didn’t matter if the rest of me was dust; the Bond meant he was near. No more than a few heartbeats away, close enough to touch if I could only move.
My tail twitched, but the motion was weak, uncoordinated, as if my own body had forgotten how to obey. My left leg ached, a bruised, gnawing pain radiating up from my thigh to my hip, where the memory of steel lingered, cruel and insistent. My side throbbed in time with my heart. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry, tongue swollen and heavy. My ears flicked, catching every echo: the slow drip, the hush of air, the distant rustle of something that might not be entirely dead.
With a monumental effort, I forced my eyes to open. Slits at first, burning, watering, stinging from the miasma in the air. Light was scarce, only a faint phosphorescent shimmer glowing in seams along the stone. I let my vision adjust, hating every second, resenting the world for demanding I return.
The first thing I saw was a corpse, a dwarf, I think, face gone purple-black, eyes wide, lips curled back in a rictus of surprise and agony. His hands were up near his throat, fingers twisted in their last desperate plea. Next to him, sprawled half atop a boulder, an Alderian woman, throat cut so deep her head lolled almost backwards, hair stained red, dress caked in old mud. Beyond her, the carnage multiplied, a goblin curled on its side, tiny hands clutching its belly, guts spilling out in loops, mouth open in a forever scream; a catgirl, ears askew, fur matted and stiff, face unrecognisable except for the collar still around her throat, a faded tag, a word I couldn’t make out.
The cavern stretched out, deeper and wider than it first appeared. Stalactites dripped slowly, each droplet making a tiny crater in the grime. The walls were smeared with black and brown, shadows or stains, I couldn’t say, and I didn’t care to look closer. Piles of bodies formed islands in the muck, limbs tangled, some stripped naked, others still dressed in rags or fine clothes or nothing but the remnants of pride. Alderian, goblin, elf, dwarf, even another catgirl. Every race, every age, all rotting together, time erasing the lines that divided them. Some had been here longer than others, bones picked clean, others just beginning the journey from flesh to nothing. Some were headless. Some were just heads.
The smell pressed down, heavy as wet fur and fear. I gagged again, body arching, but nothing came up, my stomach was empty, or too numb to answer. My nostrils burned, eyes streaming, the world a blur of rot and loss and the static hiss of adrenaline trying to kick my body back into action.
Slowly, piece by piece, sensation returned, each nerve reporting in, each joint sending pulses of pain, cold, and something older, more primal: terror. Not for myself. Never for myself. For him. The Bond thrummed in my chest, wild and insistent, a beacon I clung to like a drowning thing. I forced myself to turn, dragging my head up inch by inch, the room swimming, vertigo threatening to roll me back into unconsciousness.
My ears strained for more. I caught the ragged rhythm of his breath, the near-silent intake and exhale, and felt it inside me, heartbeat matching, the pulse of the Bond keeping time with my own. If he was alive, I was alive. Nothing else mattered.
I tried to move again, an arm, a paw, anything. My fingers twitched, my claws attempted to drag through the filth, nails catching on bone, skin, something soft and yielding. I recoiled, every nerve screaming at the violation, but I forced myself not to cry out. My head lolled, chin brushing my collarbone, the world a patchwork of horror. My eyes scanned, more corpses, so many it was impossible to count. Some recent, blood still tacky, others so old they were no more than brown shadows on the stone.
Something scurried near my foot, a rat, or something larger, bolder. It sniffed at my leg, whiskers trembling, then darted away, vanishing into the gloom. My tail curled in, defensive, muscles tight as wire.
I tried to speak, nothing but a cracked, dry rasp escaped. My tongue felt like it belonged to someone else, my throat raw from whatever scream had torn out in my last moment of consciousness. The silence pressed in, thick and alive, every breath an ordeal.
But the Bond held. The Bond burned. I closed my eyes, just for a second, drawing strength from that link. I let it steady me, let it push the fear and sickness aside, just enough to remind myself: I am here.
I am Aliza. I am his.
A single word crashes through the bond, blunt, sharp as a gunshot in a midnight alley, undeniable.
"HEEL"
It is not a request. Not a plea. Not a suggestion. Just an order, and I freeze as if I’d swallowed a live wire. Muscles lock, heart skipping, breath caged somewhere between panic and obedience. That single syllable drowns the chaos, cuts through pain, through the cold, through the nightmare stink of rot and blood and dead things whispering in the dark. For a moment, the bond is a chain around my throat. For a moment, I belong to that word, and nothing else.
Then, before my muscles can even twitch in rebellion, I feel it: an arm sliding round my shoulders, sudden and hard, not Master’s, too small, too quick, too impersonal. Panic flares, my body screaming to move, to fight, to break free. My claws flex, tail lashing, every instinct shrieking at the restraint, but my body is sluggish, nerves refusing to answer, the world spinning in slow, sickly revolutions. The stranger’s grip is vice-tight, pressing me into the earth, pinning me between corpse and stone, and all I can manage is a low, animal growl. The bond thrums, desperate and wild, but the order binds me heel, heel, heel again and again, an iron mantra in my skull.
Suddenly, a prick, sharp, cold, deep in my arm. I hiss, but it’s feeble, the sound barely rising above a whimper. There’s a strange fizz behind my ears, a tingling that slides down my spine, making my vision stutter, edges blurring into a shimmering haze. My hearing fizzles, everything distant and tinny, as if I’ve been dropped into a pool and the world is somewhere on the other side of the water. For a heartbeat, I can’t tell if I’m dying or waking.
But then clarity. Sound returns in a rush, all at once, as if someone’s spun the world back up to speed. Master. His scent cuts through the putrid haze, crisp and undeniable, as welcome as rain in a drought. I fight to lift my head, to drag in the air that carries him, my entire body straining toward him with the mindless loyalty of the condemned.
And then his voice, not in my mind, not through the bond, but out loud, rough, sardonic, a tired sneer layered with something only I am allowed to hear. “Looks like you, my wife, were… well, my wife. Mireclaw ended up falling back, and luckily for me, us, the Black Fang just dragged you next to the iron mine.”
The noise of the world recedes, the feverish panic draining away, replaced with a hollow exhaustion that makes my bones feel too heavy to move. I blink, vision still flickering at the edges, trying to piece together how I got here. Master’s hand finds me in the dark, gentle, almost clinical. He pats me, reassurance, possession, affection measured and precise. The kind that tells the world: This is mine. This broken, twitching wreck is mine.
“You need a short rest, at least,” he says. His voice is so close, so real, it makes the memory of that command, heel, loosen its grip on my lungs. I want to snarl, want to bite, want to rage at the indignity of being ordered down like a hound, of being drugged, dragged, left helpless. But it’s Master’s hand. His scent. His presence. And so every twisted instinct inside me howls to submit, to cling, to make sure nothing in the world can ever wedge itself between us, not even a memory, not even death.
It’s then that I notice I’m not on the corpse-strewn stone anymore. The earth beneath me is softer, deer leather, thick and familiar, the sleeping roll Master made from the carcass of a hunt. It’s warm, lined with old furs, still stained in places with the dark flecks of blood, and smelling faintly of venison, fire, and him. My tail curls into the folds, seeking warmth, seeking safety, but mostly seeking him.
The air is cold, sharp and mineral with the breath of the iron mine, but it’s nothing compared to the pit. There’s space here. There’s hope. Master is kneeling beside me, cloak draped around his shoulders, crossbow slung, eyes rimmed in exhaustion and a bruised sort of anger. He’s alive. I’m alive. The bond is steady, a quiet throb instead of the wild, desperate scream it had become.
My mind is heavy, slow, battered as if I’ve been tumbled in a barrel with stones. Every part of me aches. My ribs burn where the spear or blade, or whatever it was, punched through. My leg throbs, muscles swollen and tender. My mouth is dry, tongue thick, but his scent is everywhere, anchoring me. The rank stench of corpses lingers in my nose, but now it’s only a memory, a background hum to the living, hot animal presence of my Master.
I don’t try to speak, there’s nothing left to say. I let out a broken, shuddering breath, my body finally remembering how to let go. Tears prick my eyes, anger, humiliation, relief, all braided together. I nuzzle into his side, inhaling deeply, desperate to fill myself with the only thing that matters, the only thing that can drive out the lingering death, the only thing real enough to prove the world hasn’t ended, him.
His cloak is rough under my cheek. His hand moves, hesitating, then settles in my hair, fingers brushing my ear, gentle, awkward. That’s all I need. My tail snakes around his thigh, tight as a shackle. My claws curl into the leather of his tunic, marking him. I rub my face against his hip, leaving fur and scent and claim, no subtlety, no pride, only need. I feel every tremor in his muscles, every ragged breath, and it feeds the old hunger, the old possessiveness.
He shifts, and I press closer, burying my nose in the hollow beneath his ribs, letting his scent fill me, letting the Bond flood every aching nerve. I bite, gently, at the fabric, not to hurt, but to leave a trace.
MINE, MINE, MINE
There’s no room for rivals here. Not Mireclaw, not the Black Fang, not even the ghosts in my memory. I will not be denied. He is mine. His pulse, his warmth, his fear and fury, all of it, mine.
The word slips out, thick and desperate, barely more than a gasp. “Mine.”
It’s a curse, a prayer, a promise carved in blood and bone. The world could end here and I would not care, as long as I could hold him, as long as the bond burned. I cling, tighter and tighter, the weight of exhaustion bearing down, my vision swimming, breath hitching, eyes fluttering closed.
Master’s hand strokes my head, heavy and certain. “Rest, kitten. I’ve got you.”
The words echo down, washing away the last of the terror. My grip slackens, tail draped across his lap, claws retracting, my body melting into the deer hide, the world dimming, receding. All that matters is his presence, his scent, the Bond. All that matters is that I am here, and he is here, and nothing, not death, not betrayal, not the ghosts of the pit, can take that away from me.
Sleep is a river, pulling me under. For a moment, I try to fight it, eyes fluttering, mind refusing to let go, every old fear clamouring for another moment of closeness. But Master’s hand is steady, his warmth real, his presence absolute. I yield, not to weakness, but to trust. I let myself go. My last breath is a whimper, a sigh, a benediction for all the dark things that tried and failed to take him from me.
The world fades, and I am lost in him. I am his. And that is enough.
