Kael awoke to a world of stark, clinical brightness—a searing contrast to the oppressive gloom of the sewers. His eyes snapped open to reveal a cold metal ceiling and the relentless buzz of fluorescent lights overhead. He lay strapped to a cold, unyielding table, his body heavy and aching like a battered war veteran. The room around him was a grim workshop hidden beneath the refinery—a macabre domain lined with glass vials containing pickled organs, scattered shard fragments, and tools that hinted at unspeakable experiments.
His left arm throbbed with a dull ache. The black veins had faded into numbness, but the decay had left its mark. Kael tried to lift his head, but every muscle screamed in protest. A voice—dry, dispassionate—cut through the silence.
"You're awake already?"
Kael's vision focused on a woman standing at a cluttered workbench. She was methodical in her movements, stirring a thick, green liquid in a beaker. One eye was a deep, unsettling brown; the other milky white with a tiny, glowing shard that seemed to burn with its own secret. "I'm Mira," she said. There was no warmth in her tone—just an unmistakable note of clinical detachment. "Shardwright. And if I may add, currently your only hope."
Kael's throat burned as he rasped out, "Hope? You're no angel. What do you want?" His words were rough, laced with defiance and the raw edge of someone who'd been through hell.
Mira arched an eyebrow, a faint, humorless smile twitching at her lips. "Your venom is more refined than most. Fascinating, really. And if you don't want to die a forgotten casualty of Shardblight, you'll supply it to me." She nodded toward the tools around her—a shard-grafting needle buzzing with stolen venom, a small cage where a twitching mass of tentacles hinted at a Progenitor spawn, and numerous vials already filled with blood layered in sickly hues.
"You want my blood—and my venom—so you can experiment with it? Sell it to the Inquisition or who? Jarek?" Kael spat the name as if it were a curse. His eyes burned with a mix of anger and despair. "I'd rather die than be your lab rat."
Mira's gaze turned steely, and then almost, briefly, there was a flicker—a flash of something uncertain that she quickly covered with cool detachment. "Then you're a dead Shardbearer. Trust me, kid, I'd rather save your miserable carcass. This silver injection," she said as she held up a syringe filled with a shimmering, silver liquid, "will keep you alive for a week, maybe two. With regular doses, I might stretch it to six months. In return, I need a pint of your venom each time." She paused, letting her words sink in. "Or you can just die here, letting the Blight consume you."
Kael's laugh was hollow, tinged with desperation. "A pint of my venom? You're insane." His voice cracked—a mix of incredulity and fury.
Mira tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "The option isn't insane—it's the only chance you've got. Your body's already screaming its last. I can delay that, as long as you cooperate." Without waiting for a response, she pressed the silver-filled syringe into his arm. The liquid burned through him, and Kael bit back a cry as raw relief mingled with agony.
Once the injection had done its work, Mira produced a long, gleaming needle. With deliberate, measured movements, she pressed it against Kael's chest. "Now, let's harvest some of that evolving venom, shall we?" Her tone was cool, even as a hint of a cruel joke twitched at the corners of her lips. "I promise you, you'll hate me for it."
The extraction was brutal—a raw, wrenching ordeal. Kael's insides roiled as his venom fought to burst free, his body convulsing violently under her unyielding, practiced hands. Mira worked with the precision of someone who had seen too many lives hang in the balance, her gaze never wavering even when Kael's body erupted in shock and pain. When she finally withdrew the needle, she held up a vial glowing with angry, swirling green energy—the very essence of his corrupted power captured in its tumult.
Kael's stomach heaved, and he emptied the contents of his agony over the side of the table. The room fell silent except for the soft hum of machinery and Mira's measured breathing. After a long moment, she set the vial aside, her voice now almost tender in its clinical detachment. "Rest now, little Shardbearer. We start again at dawn."
Left alone in a small, copper-lined room meant to mute the volatile energy of his Shard, Kael curled onto a creaking cot and let the darkness wash over him. His thoughts were fractured—raw outbursts of anger, flashes of betrayal, and the grim promise of survival twisting into a silent vow. Fuck it, he thought bitterly, clenching his fists, I'm not going to die like this. I'll beat it. I'll outlast them all.
Above him, the refinery groaned with ancient memories of power and ruin. Somewhere in the distance, Jarek's specter loomed—a ghost of ambition, betrayal, and vengeance. In that fragile, haunted silence, Kael's resolve hardened. Alive, scarred, and unwilling to yield, he would forge a future from this cursed blood—even if every shot of venom dragged him deeper into darkness.