Reximus Boneclaw's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

By dusk the stolen life turned on him. Reximus felt it first as a hot itch under his ribs, then as a black stain spreading down his arm. The dark magic he had drained from the survivors was eating him from inside. He halted the column beside a cracked stone basin where wilted flowers floated in still water — the last place he had fed. He could not lead an assault rotting like this. He found a chained brick tower nearby and shoved the door open. Inside, he stripped his sleeve and saw the rot crawling. He drove his lightsaber tip into the worst of it and burned the corruption down to bone. The pain was clean. He poured the loose, foul energy out of himself and into the crystal at his belt, locking it away. The black stain slowed, then stopped. A shadow stepped through the door. The shape was almost his own — same jaw, same dead stare — but feathers ran down the neck and blue flame burned in the eye sockets. The figure knelt. "Brother," he said. Reximus stared. A name surfaced from a life he had buried. Fluffy Mac Fluffs had found him. He had never stood against Reximus. He had only been lost. They took a cracked concrete building with barred windows as their den. Reximus trained harder, drawing dark energy in measured pulls now, never more than he could cage. His brother trained at his shoulder, blue fire sharpening with every drill. The rot was beaten. The army was still small. But Reximus no longer marched alone, and rumors of his rising had begun to crawl toward Blightburn's gates.