Ansel Veyne (Knight)

Betrayal burned through Ansel‘a veins, a realization so sharp it was worse than any blade. He spun toward the ridge, toward the commander who had sounded the retreat and saw the cold, knowing stare of the man who had ordered his death. His brother–not by blood but by the years they’d spent training and fighting together. Lord Joah Daine. The next moment, pain exploded through him. A spear—no, three—pierced through his body, driving him to his knees. He gasped, blood bubbling at his lips, but still tried to rise. A sword plunged into his shoulder. Another tore through his gut. Hands wrenched at his armor, forcing him down as his vision blurred with agony. Around him, his men fell. Cut down as they called for their brothers-in-arms to save them. No one came. Ansel collapsed beneath the weight of the dying, his body impaled, his strength fading. The world narrowed to sound—screams, steel sinking into flesh, the sickening crack of bones breaking beneath boots. Then, silence. Time had lost meaning. He had died a hundred times. A thousand. Maybe more. Pain. Cold. The weight of bodies pressing down, the scent of rot seeping into his lungs. The slow, aching fade of life as his breath shallowed, his pulse stilled. And then—again. A spark. A ragged inhale that shouldn’t have been possible. His heart, sluggish and unwilling, thudding back into motion. The first time it happened, he thought it was the cruelty of dying. The way a body clung to life, even when there was nothing left to cling to. But it happened again. And again. He should be dead. But he wasn’t. And if he didn’t free himself, he would stay like this—trapped in the cycle of death without release, feeling the rot consume him piece by piece. A low, guttural sound escaped his throat, more beast than man. He clenched his jaw, forcing feeling back into his hands. His fingers twitched against wet earth. Nails scraped against shattered armor. The spears still pinned him in place. Metal and wood driven deep into flesh and bone. He had been left to bleed out. He had bled out. His hand found the shaft of one, gripping weakly. A slow, excruciating breath burned in his chest. He pulled. Fire tore through his side, black spots flooding his vision. The pain was unbearable. With a final, strangled cry, the spear wrenched free. Blood, thick and black, spilled from the wound. It smelled wrong. Foul. Not the blood of a man. Not anymore. Ansel barely had time to register the horror before the next spear came loose. He tore it from his shoulder, biting down against the scream. His body felt like it was unraveling, but still, he pushed forward. The last spear ripped from his gut. He doubled over, coughing something dark and vile onto the corpses beneath him. The stench of death was overwhelming, but he could move. His body was failing him. He could feel it, the unnatural rot crawling through his left arm, his leg. The flesh was blackened, brittle, the infection eating through it like fire through dry wood. He clenched his jaw, trying to move, but his limbs no longer obeyed him. His right hand found his belt, fingers curling around the hilt of his dagger. The first cut stole his breath. The steel bit into dead flesh, severing what no longer belonged to him. His body spasmed, but there was no blood—only that black sludge, thick and slow, dripping like oil onto the ground. His mind screamed that this should be killing him. But it didn’t. His fingers dug into the nearest corpse’s armor, tearing it free. He did not stop to think. He did not stop to breathe. Piece by piece, he built himself anew. Metal plating bound to his ruined body, a gauntlet twisted and reshaped to fit where his left arm had been. A shattered greave, warped by fire, took the place of his missing leg. He expected it to be dead weight, for his body to reject the crude prosthetics. But it didn’t. As if sensing his desperation, his flesh clung to the metal, the black substance threading through the cracks, binding it to him like sinew to bone. He flexed his fingers. The metal moved. He had become a thing of constant dissonance. His left arm—now a crude metal appendage—felt heavier than it should be, his movements awkward and unnatural, the weight of his body never quite syncing with the armor that had fused to him. He had no control over when his body would flicker, when the world would fade and reappear. Sometimes he would reach out for something, only for his hand to pass through it like smoke. Other times, when he was least expecting it, his feet would slide into the earth beneath him, his body slipping through as though he were a shadow, or worse, a ghost. But worse than that were the voices. Sometimes they were clear—sharp, distinct, whispering at the edges of his thoughts, speaking in hushed tones, as if someone were standing right beside him. Other times, they were louder, a cacophony, all speaking at once, too many voices to understand, too many to decipher. Each one was an echo of someone who had died, someone whose breath had faded from the world, yet whose soul lingered. Ansel would press his hands to his temples, trying to block them out, but it never worked. They followed him, wrapped around his mind like a noose. He would find Lord Daine. And then he would make him pay.