The King’s Mask Act 1: The Sanity Ledger 1. The Memory Bleeds The memory bled out of him like wine from a cracked vessel. Varek crouched in the Drowning Throat, that black artery where Threadbare's offal slouched toward the bay. His fingers raked the slick stone as the tax came howling down. He paid it in his mother's face. The crinkle of her eyes vanished first, ripped into the void behind his thoughts. Then the shape of her smile dissolved like flesh in acid. His gasp rang through the drainage channel before the endless dripping of the Veins above swallowed it whole. When the seizure passed, he stared at hands gone pale as drowned meat. Blue veins writhed beneath skin crawling toward translucence. He could not remember why this should matter. The Yellow Sign burned in his marrow, and somewhere in the Deep Undervaults, Mina waited. 2. The Mask with No Face The hovel squatted in Threadbare's heart like a tumor fattened on misery. Varek shouldered through the rotted door a...
Original Dark Fantasy Fiction