Taran’s heart raced as fast as his newly strengthened legs as what felt like hours passed before he saw the dilapidated village walls in the distance. Something was wrong. He felt it in his bones as he travelled, but his stomach still lurched when he saw the black smoke, curling into the air like twisted fingers. As he came closer, he noticed the telltale pock-marked scars of The Thousand-Hand Storm having come through. Far closer this time. The rot had already started to spread through the land itself, black tendrils oozing out from the the impact craters, crops withered where the tendrils grasped at them, trees had already collapsed under the weight of their dead or dying branches. Such desperation, he thought. Why was everything in this world so hungry?

  Chaos.

  The village was in absolute chaos. The terror in the village was palpable, thick as the creeping rot that threatened to swallow it, rivaled only by the stench of decay. As he approached the gates, the source of the smoke became clear. A raging bonfire, black-and-red flames surging far higher than they had any right to, as if in a futile attempt to burn the gods themselves. He knew what the black flames meant, they were burning bodies. Rot-taken bodies.

  Anya.

  He bolted down the Main Street, dodging villagers who wept or pointed accusingly. In his fear-induced haze he barely noted the rot-veins that slithered through the village. Guilt iced his veins—this was his fault. He’d spared the thief, and now… his golden veins flickered red.

  His house was sealed. Taran was all too familiar with the sigils, the Naga Spine Needles hammered into the door must have been simple for the Elders to drive in, as the holes in the wood were still clearly visible from the last time they sealed his house. Flashes of the days of the Vesakhanma Fracture threatened to overwhelm his already fragile mental state. The Sanskrit sigil for death, Mrtyu, glowed a sickly purple. He tore at the rot-leaf thread that comprised the sigil, ignoring the agony as the threaded-fibers shredded his hands. Red blood wept as it pooled at his feet, mixing with ash and tears.

  A brief moment of clarity shone through the panic as he stepped back and tried to use his new powers. [Dawnstrands] threaded together as they emerged from his palm, forming a thick whip as he stood back and cut through the rot-leaf thread with one desperate swing. The purple glow of the Mrtyu sigil faded immediately as the aged wood behind was cut through as easily as the threads. No light spilled from inside the house. Gods no.

  He kicked down the remnants of his own front door, the front door of the house he had once had such happy memories from, memories and a capacity for joy that seemed to fade more and more each day. The darkness inside the hut was oppressive, his newfound strength failing him as he dragged his fear-laden legs closer and closer to his sister’s room. “Anya?” Taran called out, his voice sounding muted and weak through the blood rushing in his ears. Nothing. Anya’s door loomed at the end of the hall, more terrifying than the men he had just dismembered. Dismembered. The truth battered his mind, but he barred it—not yet.

  Taran reached out his hand, the metal doorknob to Anya’s room sickly warm to the touch. He pushed and the door opened easily, the silence that greeted him as oppressive as the hungered-silence of the Ash Plains.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Taran swept into the room, his eyes rapidly adjusting to the darkness with his newly strengthened perception. The black Rot-veins snaked across the floor, clearly stemming from his sister’s bed. What he saw made him lament his new found powers, made him wish he could go back to a week ago when the worst of it was the ever-present pressure to keep Anya from dying, to keep her from leaving him. Made him wish he could go back to before The Fracture, before his parents caused one of the worst Void incidents in all of the Sundered Hills, back when everything was so hard but everyone was still here, everyone was still alive, their family was whole. Gods just let me go back to before…

  Tears sprung unwittingly to his eyes as he saw his sister’s Rot-wracked form. Fractal patterns of Rot riddled her skin. Taran had seen the progression of the Rot many times, seen fellow villagers succumb slowly over time, this was nothing like that. This was far worse.

  Taran’s trembling hand reached out towards his sister, any risk of the Rot spreading to him didn’t matter now, a not insignificant part of him welcomed it. If Anya died he had nothing left. Nothing.

  A sense of relief and sorrow came over him as he felt his sister’s weak pulse, the faint rhythm from her skin that burned with the heat of the Naraka-hells was the only connection he had left in this world. He knew she couldn’t hear him at this point, couldn’t hear or see anything through the thick blackened scabs of Rot that covered every inch of her.

  A wave of nausea washed over him as he sat in the creaking rocking chair across the room from her bed. The chair he had once watched their mother rocking Anya to sleep on when they were children.

  Closing his eyes, he did the only thing that could bring him even the smallest sense of peace in that moment, he meditated. However, peace was short-lived like all else in this world, as the golden Sanskrit lettering flooded his vision once again. The lettering felt almost soothing, but the presence of Mara as the beggar-child most certainly did not. Anger flooded his peaceful meditation.

  “What in the Naraka-blasted hells do you want with me, Mara? Haven’t you done enough already?”

  An unnaturally wide grin took shape on Mara’s face, “Me? Whatever have I done? I offered you a deal, you made your choice and now you suffer the consequences, I have done nothing to you.”

  The reality of Mara’s words cut deeper than any blade. Though he had not understood the consequences, the choice in the end had been his. His choice to accept Mara’s bargain, his choice to let the thief go, his mercy that doomed her. Deep sorrow, guilt, and shame rose in him as a tide of emotion.

  “I assure you, I take no pleasure in this. I play my role, as you do you.” Mara’s voice broke the silence of his internal suffering, “Burn your Dawnstrands into her flesh. It will cage the Rot… for a time. Cage the Rot and find a Godsplinter. Only the divine fire of a Karmic Rune can truly purge decay.” The small beggar-child in front of him disappeared, deep grin still unsettlingly plastered to his face.

  [Karmic Edict Issued: Purge the Rot or Perish in the Attempt. Reward: Anya’s life (???)]

  Taran opened his eyes and looked across the room at his sister’s feeble form, chest barely noticeable in the rising and falling rhythm that distinguishes life from death.

  “Such fine suffering,” Mara’s voice echoed in his mind with a sound as if the ignoble god was appreciating the scent of a fine wine.

  The God’s mockery caused hatred to fill Taran’s body, as a flooded dam within him finally broke.

  Taran stood up and left the room, unable to tell if his renewed conviction was one of redemption or one of desperation. Perhaps it didn’t matter.

  You want your suffering, Mara? Very well, feast.