Sova went rigid, the air locking in her lungs. The markings on Halldor’s back, shimmering scarlet beneath blistering skin, matched her own scarred flesh. Reagent symbols. Bastion designs. Dr. Morvan Vhol. The name was a venomous whisper in her mind, a taste of ash on her tongue. Halldor groaned, a guttural sound that tore through the air, and pitched forward. He wasn’t just a protector; he was a mirror reflecting the twisted artistry of her tormentor. Without a conscious thought, Sova moved. Her hands, usually quick to draw a knife, settled flat against the searing skin of his broad back, fingers splaying over the etched, fiery sigils. The heat threatened to blister her palms, but she held firm. Her touch, always so carefully guarded, was now an involuntary anchor against his agony. The black veins on her wrists throbbed once, then receded, a familiar pull of the bond asserting itself, drawing some of the fire, some of the terrible energy, into her. The proximity tore open a buried memory beneath the reek of ozone and singed flesh. *** The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the sickly-sweet aroma of narcotic fumes. Sova’s head lolled, her vision swimming, the cavernous chamber of the Chymic Bastion blurring around her. Chains scraped against damp stone, and the metallic clinking of Vhol’s scalpels echoed through the vault. “Observe, subject. The power within you is a gift, a tool of order in a chaotic world,” Vhol’s voice, a silken whip, cut through the haze. He stood before her, a grotesque silhouette against the flickering alchemical lamps. His clawed gauntlet, tipped with a needle, punctured the raw skin of her forearm, pumping an infusion of jade-green fluid into her vein. Her muscles spasmed, her mind fractured, but the images Vhol projected into her consciousness were chillingly clear. Before her, strapped to a grimy dissecting table, was a man. His hair was the colour of dried kelp, his face haggard but defiant. A rebel, Vhol had snarled, one of the 'Free-Breathers' who dared to challenge the Bastion’s dominion over the Drowning Skerries. His eyes, though swollen, held a fierce, unyielding light. “Release the tendrils, subject. Show him the true nature of his defiance.” Vhol’s command was a psychic probe, pushing, forcing her will. Sova tried to resist, a whisper of nausea rising in her throat, but the drug had stripped her of all agency. Her body moved as if on strings. Her hands, translucent and shimmering with a deep, abyssal glow, rose. Dark, ethereal tendrils, like wisps of oceanic shadow, snaked from her fingertips, swirling with ancient, forgotten energy. They pulsed with a cold, malevolent light, drawn from the deepest, most primordial currents of the Skerries. Deep-magic. Vhol had found a way to siphon it, to weaponize it through her. “The brand, subject. Leave your mark,” Vhol hissed, his voice laced with unholy glee. He projected the precise shapes into her mind—the geometric runes and interlocking lines. Guided by the narcotic compulsion, her hands wove the shadow-strands into scorching arcs. They descended upon the rebel’s bare shoulder, glowing with an internal, hellish fire. The man on the table screamed. A sound of pure, unadulterated agony that ripped through Sova’s drug-addled mind, momentarily clearing the haze. His body arched, straining against the restraints, as the deep-magic, channeled through her, seared itself into his flesh. The air filled with the stench of burning skin, the sizzle of raw magic, and the rebel’s choking cries. He thrashed, his eyes locking with Sova’s, a silent plea, a profound accusation. Sova watched as the shapes solidified, glowing red beneath his split flesh. Those same cuts now scarred Halldor’s shoulder. Those same scars marked her own ribs. Her own hands had done this. Her own hands had branded him. Halldor. He had been that rebel. He had been the man on the table. The man she had been forced to scar. The man she had been forced to curse. *** Sova gasped, a raw, strangled sound, pulled violently back to the present. Her hands were still pressed to Halldor’s back, the burning sigils searing into her palms. The pain was irrelevant. The heat was a distant sensation compared to the icy dread that had seized her heart. Her body shuddered from core to fingertips, every intake of air catching rough in her throat. She was the witch. She was the monster. She was the one who had condemned him. “Sova?” Halldor’s voice, rough with agony, rumbled beneath her hands. He shifted, trying to turn, to face her. “The… the pain… it’s lessening…” His words were a fresh spike of guilt. Her touch, her accidental connection, was easing *his* suffering, a suffering she had inflicted. The irony was a bitter, suffocating taste. She had to tell him. She had to rip her hands away, confess the unspeakable truth. She had to. But the thought of the condemnation in his eyes, the immediate loss of the only solace she had found in years, paralyzed her. The stubborn wall she had kept between herself and the world cracked. She could not bear to face the revulsion that would fill his eyes. She tried to pull her hands away, a frantic, desperate urge to flee, to disappear, but her muscles locked, unresponsive. Halldor, sensing her sudden distress, not through their bond but through the violent shaking of her body, managed to twist, reaching out with a heavy arm. He pulled her against him, a fierce, grounding embrace that swallowed her whole. His chin rested on the crown of her head, his broad hand stroking her hair. The brand on his back seared through cloth against her chest, yet his hold remained steady. Unquestioning. He drew her close while his pulse thudded a slow tempo beneath his ribs. His kindness was a torment. It was a fresh, searing wound, deeper than any physical pain. She felt like a viper warming itself in the sun, ready to strike the very hand that nurtured it. From the corner of the room, Kelp, who had been huddling beneath a heavy timber bench, let out a sharp, distressed squeak. His six legs scrabbled against the stone floor. He had been quiet since Vhol’s retreat, but now his fur bristled, his small head turning sharply towards the hearth. With a frantic whimper, he scampered out, clutching something small and gleaming in his mouth. He dropped it with a clatter onto the flagstones. It was a vial, no bigger than his paw, made of dark glass with fine chemical glyphs etched across the surface. As it landed, the fluid inside flared emerald, answering the red glow across Halldor’s shoulder. The vial and the brand. In sync. Connected. The glow from the vial flared once, sharply, and Sova felt a sudden, sickening lurch within her own chest, her heart seizing, a familiar, terrifying spike of cold. Halldor’s brand flared in response, blazing a defiant ruby. Her affliction, his brand, and this glass phial belonged to the same ledger. It was a link to whatever Vhol had engineered. Yet the truth remained an unvoiced wedge between them. His arms held her in a sanctuary built upon an injury she had carved into him. A sanctuary that would burn to ash the moment she confessed. And if she didn’t, if she kept silent, then the curses would consume them both, leaving nothing but dust and ash in their wake.

Scars of the Deep