Lastlight's Revenant #7

The banquet hall was a symphony of clinking crystal and hollow laughter, a grotesque pantomime of normalcy while the Maw gnawed at the edges of the world. Garran stood in the shadow of a marble pillar, his back to the wall, fingers curled around the rim of an untouched goblet.

The wine inside was dark as old blood, its surface reflecting the flickering torchlight—and the faces of the nobles who drank themselves into oblivion, their jewels glinting like the eyes of carrion birds.

'Gods above.'

If the peasants’ revelry had been a spark of ignorance, this was a pyre of delusion. Lords and ladies draped in silks that cost more than a village’s yearly harvest, trading jests and gossip as if the war beyond their walls were nothing more than a bard’s tragic tale.

Even the Duke’s high table, where the aging ruler sat flanked by his brood, felt like a stage play—all grand gestures and empty words.

Only Edric moved with purpose, weaving through the crowd, his smile sharp as a knife’s edge. He clasped forearms with a baron here, murmured in the ear of a countess there, never lingering long enough to be drawn into the stupor of wine.

Garran’s grip tightened on the goblet. Maybe we’re already damned.

A scent cut through the haze of roasted meats and perfumed oils—something floral, undercut with the acrid tang of grief.

A woman in mourning black stepped into his periphery, her gloved hands cradling a goblet like a relic.

“Sir Dornblade,” she said, her voice low, measured. “I wondered if the stories were true.”

Garran turned. The woman’s face was a study in controlled sorrow, her dark eyes sharp beneath the delicate veil pinned to her silver-threaded hair.

The cut of her gown marked her as highborn, but the way she held herself—like a blade balanced on its edge—spoke of something harder.

“My lady,” he said, dipping his head. “What can I do for you?”

She took a sip of wine, her gaze never leaving his. “Lady Isolde de Veyne. Widow of Viscount Reynard.” A pause. “And a woman who knows better than to mistake silence for safety.”

Garran stared at Lady Isolde, his face an unreadable mask. Her words were smooth, her tone measured—but he had spent enough years in the courts of kings to know the difference between a noble’s honeyed speech and their true intent.

Words were currency here, traded for favor, for power, for survival. And he was no longer in the business of bartering.

She stepped closer, the scent of bitter roses and something sharper—wolfsbane, perhaps—clinging to her. The candlelight caught the silver threads in her mourning gown, making her seem like a specter draped in shadow and starlight.

"They say you moved like a shadow given teeth," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the din of the feast. "Even wounded. Even outnumbered." A faint, mirthless smile touched her lips. "And yet, the scouts barely survived that skirmish. One less man, and none of you would have made it back to tell the tale."

Garran’s fingers flexed, the old wounds beneath his gambeson aching in silent agreement. "Soldiers exaggerate," he said flatly. "Especially when they’ve had too much to drink."

Lady Isolde’s gaze sharpened. "About you?" she asked. "Or the demons?"

A beat of silence. The air between them grew taut, like a bowstring drawn to its limit.

Garran exhaled through his nose. "What do you really want from me?"

She didn’t flinch. "I buried a husband who thought himself invincible," she said, her voice dropping lower, colder. "I’d rather not bury a kingdom next."

Garran studied her again, more carefully this time. She was not like the other nobles—no simpering laughter, no drunken flush, no glazed eyes lost in the illusion of safety. Her posture was too rigid, her gaze too focused. And her eyes…

Too sharp.

They were the eyes of someone who had seen death in droves. But how? She was a noblewoman, a widow of some dead viscount—what slaughter had she witnessed that left her with the stare of a battlefield surgeon?

Something was off.

Garran sighed. "Just say what you mean to say."

Lady Isolde’s lips parted—

—but before she could speak, a sharp clink of glass cut through the hall.

All eyes turned toward the high table, where the Duke stood, goblet raised, his face a portrait of practiced authority.

The chatter died, replaced by the rustle of silk and the creak of chairs as the nobles straightened in their seats.

Lady Isolde’s expression darkened. Without another word, she turned and melted into the crowd, leaving Garran standing alone, the weight of her unanswered question still coiled in his chest like a serpent.

The Duke of Vaeldrith—Edric’s father, Lord Torvain Vaeldrith—stood at the high table, his goblet raised, his voice cutting through the hall like a war horn.

"My friends," he boomed, "we are not gathered here merely to celebrate our unity—but our resolve! For soon, we will drive the demons back into the Maw where they belong!"

A smattering of applause, hesitant at first, then swelling as the wine-loosened nobles rallied to the call. But one voice cut through the noise—a sharp, skeptical tone from a hawk-faced lord in forest-green velvet.

"Easier said than done, Your Grace. The Repentants held the line for a thousand years, and even they fell."

The Duke’s smile didn’t waver, but his knuckles whitened around his cup. "The Repentants were not an army. They were exiles, barely armed, with no discipline, no strategy. We, however, have proper soldiers. Steel forged by the finest smiths. Armor that can turn a demon’s claws."

The hawkish lord scoffed. "Our men are trained to fight men, not the Maw's monstrous spawn."

"Which is why," the Duke said, his voice dropping into a deliberate pause, "I have sought the counsel of an expert."

His gaze locked onto Garran.

"Sir Garran Dornblade. The last living Repentant. A former Radiant Knight of the Court, and the only man alive who has faced the Maw’s horrors and lived to speak of it."

A ripple of shock spread through the hall. Gasps. Hushed curses. A woman’s gloved hand flew to her mouth.

"The Oathbreaker?" someone hissed.

"They say he gutted his the—"

"Kingslayer—"

Garran stood motionless, letting the whispers slither around him like serpents. He had heard them all before. Oathbreaker. Traitor. Butcher. The titles meant nothing.

The Duke raised a hand for silence. "Enough. Sir Dornblade’s past is not our concern. His knowledge is." He turned to Garran, his expression unreadable. "Tell them. Can we win?"

All eyes burned into him.

Garran stepped forward, his voice low but carrying. "The demons are tenacious. Fearless. Tireless." He let the words sink in, watching the nobles stiffen. "But they are not unbeatable."

He swept his gaze across the room, meeting the doubt in their eyes head-on. "I’m already transcribing everything I know—their weaknesses, their tactics, how they hunt, how they bleed. Train your soldiers properly, and there are more than a dozen ways to kill them."

The hawkish noble opened his mouth to object again, but the Duke raised a hand, silencing him with a single, imperious gesture.

"That is not all I’ve gathered you here to discuss," the Duke said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial hush. "Because the reinforcements from the capital will not linger once the demons are defeated. In fact, they will leave in a hurry the moment Lastlight is reclaimed."

A murmur of confusion rippled through the hall. A young baron near the front dared to speak. "What do you mean, Your Grace?"

The Duke’s lips curled into a smile that did not touch his eyes. "It is a well-kept secret, but the first pirate armada of the Blacktide Dominion—led by Admiral Veyne the Bloody—is preparing to invade the kingdom’s eastern shores. In fact, there have been whispers that they moved the moment Lastlight fell."

Gasps. A goblet clattered to the floor.

"Pirates?" someone sputtered. "The Blacktide scum would never dare—"

"They dare because the Radiant Court is weak!" the Duke snapped. "For too long, we of the Northern Reaches have suffered under their injustices. The heavy taxes, the forced levies, the decrees that favor the central nobles while our people starve!" 

His fist slammed onto the table, making plates rattle. "It is time we take matters into our own hands. Time to declare our independence—not as rebels, but as a free and sovereign Grand Duchy of the North!"

The hall fell deathly silent.

Then, from the back, a voice rang out—"Long live Duke Torvain, King of the North!"

The Duke’s expression flickered—a fleeting glimpse of hunger, quickly smothered. He raised his hands, shaking his head. "No. I will not tolerate such treasonous words. I do not seek kingship. Only freedom from the Radiant Court’s yoke. A Grand Duchy, ruled by and for the people of the North."

His gaze swept the room, lingering on the faces of the nobles—some alight with fervor, others pale with shock. "And mark my words… once we hold Lastlight, once we’ve proven our strength against the Maw, there will be nothing the Radiant Court can do to stop us."

A slow, thunderous applause began—first from his staunchest allies, then spreading like wildfire as the realization took hold. They were not just fighting demons.

They were forging a new future.

Garran stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the Duke.

So this had been the man’s game from the beginning. Not survival. Not even victory. Just another lord grasping for power while the world burned around him.

Garran wanted to feel something—rage, disgust, betrayal—but the hollowness in his chest refused to stir. This was the way of things. Kings and dukes, crowns and thrones, men who would trade lives like coins if it bought them an inch more glory.

He had given up on them long ago. The moment he raised his sword against his king, he had severed himself from their games.

Let the kingdom rot. Let the nobles tear each other apart.

As long as the demons were driven back.

As long as the Repentants rose again.

That was all that mattered.

Then—

A wet crunch split the air.

A noblewoman’s head burst like an overripe melon, shards of bone and flecks of brain spraying across the horrified faces around her.

For a heartbeat, no one screamed. The smell hit next—iron and rot. Then—

Pop.

Another head exploded. A man this time, his body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

Screams erupted. Guests scrambled back, knocking over tables, goblets of wine shattering like blood against the marble floor. The crowd surged in panic—until a path cleared, and she emerged.

Lady Isolde.

Except her eyes were no longer sharp and knowing.

They were black.

Not just dark—void. Pupilless, depthless, swallowing the light like pits into the abyss.

Her lips curled into a smile too wide for her face as she strode forward, her body shifting, elongating, the illusion of humanity sloughing away like dead skin.

Her gown melted into tattered robes, her fair skin hardening into pallid, corpse-gray flesh. A blindfold of woven shadows wrapped around where his eyes should have been, seeping tendrils of darkness that slithered like living things. His true form was gaunt, towering, his limbs too long, his fingers ending in jagged, claw-like nails.

The Hollow King.

Ancient. Elven. A being who had tasted the Maw’s heart and found it sweet.

"How utterly human," he mused, his voice no longer Isolde’s refined cadence but something layered, echoing, as if a chorus of dead throats spoke at once. "How utterly boring."

Guards rushed him, blades drawn.

The Hollow King flicked a finger.

The first man’s ribs caved inward, his body hurled across the hall like a child’s discarded toy. The second raised his sword—only for his arm to twist, bones snapping like dry twigs before his torso split open in a grotesque blossom of gore.

Step by step, the Hollow King advanced, nobles and soldiers alike collapsing, rupturing, as unseen forces crushed them like overripe fruit.

Until he stood before the Duke.

Torvain Vaeldrith, the would-be king of the North, trembled, his face drained of color.

The Hollow King tilted his head, his blindfolded gaze somehow piercing.

"The sin of disappointing me," he whispered, "is heavy."

Then—

The Duke’s mouth opened in a silent scream as his body folded, bones snapping, flesh contorting, until he was nothing but a writhing, grotesque mound of meat at the Hollow King’s feet.

The hall fell silent.

The Hollow King sighed.

"I had hoped for a war. For rivers of blood. But you mortals…" He shook his head. "You won’t even last a day."

His void-like gaze swept the room—then settled on Garran.

A smile.

"Ah. But you…"