And someone had triggered it.
The curse was inside someone now; spreading through their veins, cold and wrong and unmistakably mine. I could feel their heartbeat thirty meters away, see the poison working through their blood like dirt covered glass.
"Someone's using the route to the Portal chamber," Malgrin said, his voice suddenly sharp with urgency. "Right now. During the day. They're not supposed to be there."
I dropped the servant disguise and pulled my real clothes from the pack I'd hidden behind a loose stone. Moved fast; not running, not yet, but walking with purpose toward the hidden door. The tapestry. Through.
The passage was dark and cold, ancient stone that had been carved before the current dynasty's grandparents were born.
I descended in silence, following the curse signature like a bloodhound following a scent. The heartbeat was getting closer with every step, but it was moving wrong; coming up from the Portal chamber rather than going down. Whoever had triggered my trap had already been there and was now returning.
They'd already done whatever they came to do.
I pressed myself against the wall and waited in the darkness, letting my breathing slow until it was barely a whisper.
Footsteps approached from below. Careful and professional, the measured tread of someone who had been trained to move quietly but wasn't expecting to encounter anyone in this forgotten passage.
A figure emerged from the shadows. Robes in the style of a palace scribe, the kind of minor official who processed documents and took notes and was utterly forgettable in the machinery of imperial bureaucracy.
I'd seen him before during our reconnaissance. Hadn't given him a second thought.
Except now he had my curse spreading through his blood.
He passed within arm's reach without seeing me; his eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, and I was just another shadow among shadows. I waited until his footsteps had faded up the passage, then activated Blood-Sense fully and followed.
The curse signature blazed in my perception like a torch in darkness. His right hand; a shallow cut across the palm where he'd brushed against the trapped blade, already festering as the withering curse did its work. He had maybe a day before it killed him, maybe less if it spread faster than I'd calculated.
Got you.
I followed him up through the hidden door and into the palace proper. He turned left toward the administrative wings and I stayed back, tracking him through Blood-Sense alone. Thirty meters. Twenty. Fifteen.
He stopped at a door in a quiet corridor. Knocked twice, paused, knocked once more.
Good to know that code now.
The door opened and he slipped inside.
I moved closer and found a servants' alcove with a clear line to the door. Pressed myself into the shadows and listened.
"The ritual components are confirmed and in place." A woman's voice; calm, controlled, familiar. The Grey Hand operative we'd overheard in the passage days ago.
"And the backup?" The scribe, his voice tight with nerves.
"Ready. If the pact-bearer actually manages to steal the Tear, we activate the contingency. The pretenders still die. The Portal still opens. Nothing changes except the method."
"You're certain?"
"I'm certain. The blood rites are prepared. The Vverlord has everything ready."
Footsteps moved toward the door. I pulled deeper into the shadows.
The door opened. The scribe emerged alone, his cursed hand tucked against his chest, his face pale with pain he was trying to hide.
I waited. Counted to thirty.
Then I took him.
Hand over his mouth before he could scream; blade to his throat before he could struggle. Not the cursed blade, just steel, cold and persuasive against the vulnerable skin of his neck.
I dragged him into the servants' passage to the deepest corner, into the warren of forgotten corridors where no one would hear anything that happened. His struggles grew weaker as the blade pressed closer, as he realized that fighting would only make the end come faster.
"The cut on your palm," I said quietly. "That is a withering curse. You've got maybe a day before it kills you, and that's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, you've got hours."
He went very still against me.
"I'm going to ask questions. You're going to answer. Every honest answer buys you a little more time; every lie will cost you something you'll miss. Understand?"
A muffled sound against my hand. I chose to interpret it as agreement.
"Who was that woman?"
I loosened my grip slightly, just enough to let him speak.
"I don't know." His voice was thin with terror. "She doesn't give names. None of the handlers give names."
Blood-Sense showed his pulse; elevated, hammering with fear, but steady in the way that indicated truth rather than deception. He wasn't lying.
"Your name."
"Karmin. Karmin Drell."
"What's the backup plan, Karmin?"
"I can't; they'll kill me if I tell you."
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I pressed the blade and drew a thin line of blood. "I'll kill you if you don't, and I'm the one who's here right now. Tell me about the backup."
"Blood sacrifice." The words came out in a rush, desperation overcoming loyalty. "Someone with imperial blood. They can force the Portal open even without the Tear if they have the right sacrifice."
"Who?"
"I don't know. I swear on everything I have, I don't know. They don't tell me everything; I'm just a messenger, just a pair of hands that moves documents and carries information."
"The Overlord. Who is it?"
"Nobody knows." His voice cracked. "That's the whole point. Only Valric and Mordris and Selyse have direct contact. Everyone else just follows orders that come down through the chain. The Overlord could be anyone. Could be no one. Could be a god for all we know."
"Where are the ritual components?"
"Portal chamber. East wall. Hidden alcove behind the third pillar."
His pulse was spiking toward panic, but everything he said had the texture of truth. Low-level operative with partial knowledge; useful but not irreplaceable, trusted with tasks but not with secrets.
"He doesn't know much more than he's told you," Malgrin confirmed. "Everything important is compartmentalized above his level."
I considered my options.
Kill him and the information died with him; clean, but we lost potential value. Let him go and he'd warn the Grey Hand within the hour; they'd know we were onto them, know about the trap in the passage, know how much we'd learned.
So how about...
"You're coming with me," I said.
"Where? Why? I've told you everything I!!"
I hit him at the base of the skull, hard and precise, and he dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
I hoisted him over my shoulder. Dead weight; maybe sixty kilograms of unconscious traitor that I needed to move across Zetun, up through the terraces, to somewhere we could extract everything else he might know.
Too much to carry normally. Especially through streets full of guards on high alert.
But I didn't need normally.
I bit my lip until blood welled. Let it pool on my tongue, copper and salt and iron. The taste of life itself.
Activated Raubtier Speed.
The world shifted around me like reality taking a breath.
Colors became vivid and sharp and unbearably real; the grey stone suddenly showing veins of mineral I'd never noticed, the distant torches burning with individual flames I could count. Sound stretched and slowed until I could hear individual heartbeats through walls, could track the footsteps of guards three corridors away. My own heart thundered in my chest like a war drum calling soldiers to battle.
And the taste. Blood and sweat and sand is delicious.
For the first time in days, I could taste something. Could feel something beyond the grey numbness that had become my constant companion.
"Go," Malgrin whispered, and there was something like joy in his voice. "Go now."
I ran.
Not human speed. Something liquid and flowing, the world stretching and blurring around me as I moved through it like a fish through water. Through the servants' entrance and up; over walls that should have stopped me, across rooftops that should have been impossible to reach.
Guards below moved like statues, their heads turning in slow motion to track sounds they couldn't quite identify. By the time they looked toward where I'd been, I was already gone; a shadow that had passed through their awareness without leaving enough impression to remember.
The Upper Terraces rose ahead of me, gleaming with wealth and privilege, and I ran toward them with an unconscious man over my shoulder and blood singing through my veins.
I jumped gaps between buildings that should have been too wide. Landed with perfect balance. Jumped again. Karmin's weight meant nothing; my legs were springs compressed and released, my lungs were furnaces burning fuel that wasn't quite physical. The wind tore at my face and I welcomed it, welcomed the sensation, welcomed anything that made me feel alive.
This was the trap. The addiction. The price hidden in the gift.
Violence and speed and blood were the only times I felt human anymore. The only times the world had color and taste and meaning.
And gods help me, it felt good. It felt so good that I understood, in that moment, why pact-bearers eventually went mad. Why they sought out conflict. Why they burned through their lives in search of moments like this.
I felt alive.
I felt like myself.
I never wanted it to end.
Damian's outer wall rose before me and I jumped along it without slowing, my fingers finding holds that shouldn't have existed, my body moving with a grace that wasn't quite mine.
I dropped into his garden and guards shouted behind me, too late, always too late. I was already at the balcony, already at his study window, already kicking it open with a sound of shattering glass that seemed to happen in slow motion.
Damian was at his desk with a wine glass in hand. He looked up at the sound of breaking glass. Saw me standing in the frame of his ruined window. Saw the unconscious man over my shoulder. Saw my eyes still black with Blood-Sense, blood still wet on my lips, the Raubtier Speed fading but not yet gone.
I must have looked like a monster. A demon wearing human skin. Something that had crawled out of creepy bedtime stories.
Damian greeted me with a big smile on his face.
"You brought me a gift," he said calmly, as if armed intruders crashed through his window every day. "How thoughtful."
I dropped Karmin on the expensive carpet. "Part of the grey Hand. Low-level messenger. Knows about their backup plan."
"Backup plan?"
"They're going to open the Portal anyway. Even if we steal the Tear. They have a contingency."
Damian set down his wine with the careful precision of a man who never did anything by accident. "Explain."
I told him everything. The trap I'd set in the passage. The curse signature that had alerted me. The overheard conversation about blood sacrifice and mysterious leaders. The Overlord that no one had ever seen.
Damian listened without interrupting, his silver eyes occasionally flickering red as Azrathel paid attention through them. When I finished, he looked at Karmin's unconscious form sprawled across his carpet like a piece of forgotten luggage.
"You want me to interrogate him."
"I'm sure Azrathel will make it happen. Pull out everything he knows. Every name, every location, every piece of the plan he's been trusted with."
"Of course he can make that happen. But the process is not gentle."
"I don't care."
Damian's smile sharpened into something that wasn't quite human. "Neither do I."
He stood and walked to where Karmin lay. Crouched beside him with the easy grace of a predator settling next to prey.
His eyes went fully red; no silver remaining, just the ancient burning gaze of something that had existed since before humanity learned to write its own name.
Azrathel's voice emerged from Damian's throat, deep and layered and wrong in ways that made the air itself seem to flinch. "Wake up, little messenger. We have so much to discuss."
Karmn's eyes snapped open. He tried to scream but no sound emerged; Azrathel's hand was already pressed against his forehead, and whatever was happening inside his skull had stolen his voice along with everything else.
Karmin convulsed on the carpet. His mouth opened and closed in silent agony. His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.
I watched.
Felt nothing.
The Raubtier Speed was fading now; colors dulling back to grey, tastes vanishing into the familiar numbness that had become my constant companion. The world losing its edges, its sharpness, its meaning.
Back to ash. Back to nothing. Fuck.
But for those few minutes; running across Zetun with blood on my tongue, carrying an unconscious man through the night, my heart singing and my senses alive and everything feeling real and present and meaningful...
I'd felt everything.
And I'd do terrible things to feel it again.
That was the real curse. Not the black veins spreading across my skin. Not the dramatic demon whispering in my thoughts. Not the corruption slowly washing away my humanity.
I am addicted. No need to sugarcoat it. This need for violence and blood and speed just to feel alive.
The addiction would destroy me in the end.
I hope I still have a few doses left before that happens.
--- SPECTACLE REPORT: THE ADDICTION ---
Performance Rating: ????? (5/5) - HIGH Malgrin's Note: "The truth can be so sweet Yozi. You didn't run that fast just to carry the body. You did it to taste the iron in the air and hear the drum-beat of his pulse. You're not fighting the curse anymore, you're dating it. And honestly? You two make a cute couple."
EXPENDITURES:
- Ability Used: [Raubtier Speed] (High Output).
- Fuel: Self-inflicted tongue bite (Classic).
SENSORY LOG:
- Taste/Touch/Sound: RESTORED (Duration: 8 minutes).
- Aftermath: The grey world feels greyer now, doesn't it?
Asset Secured: Karmin (The Messenger).