💥 This is rough draft and is unedited. Each word is battle-born. Read at your own risk, be kind, and enjoy. You may have read this already, so feel free to jump into the shared drive to catchup on the lastest chapters, but I'm posting them here as well with a little behind-the-scenes look. 

P.S. You can read the Darkborn Origin Story here. Be sure to click on the tabs on left-hand side to access each "chapter" section. 

*A Wonder generated image of the Darkborn, created for writing inspo.

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Pain. Gut-roiling, skin-singeing pain lances through me. The heat is magma in my veins, ash in my mouth, and the melting of skin from my bones.

Milla. Letty.

Thoughts of them feel like the carving out of my heart, torn from my breast, yet distant and drowned away in the torturous, suffocating heat of Hel’s flames.

Death. That is what this is. But not a warrior’s death. There are no gods at my side, welcoming me to the afterlife. There is no axe in my hand.

Darkness consumes the white specks I drift toward in my mind, each jolt of agony so acute all I can do is silently scream. Head-splitting images flash through my mind, and a deluge of agony with it.

Milla. Letty. Again, their faces flash, but it is their cries, so loud it feels like my mind is splitting, that fill my thoughts.“No.” It’s a guttural sound, and I’m unsure if it is real. This is not the end. It can’t be.

The world spins as I pry my eyes open to find myself in utter darkness. But as the air stirs and a cool breeze envelops me, sending painful chills over my burned flesh, I’m keenly aware I am not alone.

On aching legs, I climb to my feet.

The dark world shifts to shadows and outlines until, soon, the pitch of a roof comes into focus. The acrid scent of burned flesh fills my nose, but there are no flames on the horizon. There are no echoing screams or smoke in the air. No ashes fall from the sky.

As I study the intricate onyx carvings of a threshold, another painful chill scores through me. It is not a pitched roof at all but the gates of Helheim. The entrance to the afterlife. I feel it in every tenuous coil of my body that hums with trepidation. I am in the underworld. A place of unrest and foreboding that plagued my nightmares as a child.

A whimper meets my ears, and the heavy thud of footsteps stirs my thoughts. Two red dots glow in the shadows, and a massive, four-legged form steps toward me—a huge black hound with blood-red eyes and saliva-drenched fangs.

I hold my breath as the hellhound moves closer, its snout nearly reaching my shoulder. To my surprise, it whimpers again and lowers its head. As its hot breath assaults my face, I lean away, and almost instantly, the beast transforms into the slobbery mastiff that showed up at our farm one day and never left.

My voice lodges in my throat. “Moose?” With a croak, I drop to my knees in elated confusion. “Is this a trick?”

As he licks my face, my fingers stroke his ears, far too relieved to see the damn mutt to be wary of how and why or what the hell is going on.

“So . . .” A familiar voice grumbles behind me, and Moose and I snap around.

“Thorne?” I use Moose’s massive body to climb to my feet, too shocked not to stagger.

Thorne stumbles on the hard, rocky earth, cursing under his breath as he meets my gaze. “How much did I drink?” he quips, and I mean to embrace him, but I’m too stunned. Thorne peers around. “Is this place what I think it is?” he utters, though it’s barely audible.

“I—” I swallow thickly, and while a twisted sense of elation fills me at the sight of my best friend, a wave of anguish replaces it just as quickly.

“Hel’s kingdom of death,” he rasps. Thorne’s eyebrows lower, and he runs his hand over his face. “If we are here, that means—”

”We are dead.” My voice breaks. “And Letty and Milla . . .” I peer around, squinting as another human form appears in the shadows, moving closer. It’s not my family, but a man with broad shoulders and silver-braided hair steps into the patch of dull light ensconcing the kingdom’s gates.

Lucian glowers as I rasp his name, holding the unconscious body in his arms closer. Arless.

“What the hell is this?” I bite out. My worst fears lodge in my throat as I try to comprehend why my best friends stand beside me in the underworld while my wife and daughter are nowhere to be seen.

“Milla!” I shout, stepping toward the shadows. “Letty—”

The cold wind whips through the air in answer, stirring up loose gravel and dead leaves that wind their way toward the gated entrance that suddenly—silently—opens.

I blink at the lithe figure standing there. “You have been called upon,” says a silky female voice. A woman in silver armor with pitch-black hair steps through the doorway, her dark gaze hard as stone and as cold as ice.

“Hel?” Lucian breathes a curse.

The goddess of death, queen of the underworld, dips her chin and peers at the four of us. When she notices Arless unconscious in Lucian’s arms, Hel snaps her fingers. Immediately, Arless wakes. “Much better.”

Arless startles when she realizes she’s in Lucian’s arms, and he helps her plant her feet on the ground as she gains her bearings.

I glare at Hel, wondering what game she is playing with us. “What have you done?” I take an angry step toward the goddess. “Where are our families?”

A dark, delicate eyebrow lifts as she slowly descends the stone steps. “They are gone, just as your past lives no longer exist.”

“But you saved his stray dog?” Arless utters, staring at Moose, incredulous.

Hel smirks, and Moose looks up at her. “Garm is no stray dog,” she says as he trots to her side. Her long black fingernails scratch the top of his head. “He is my eyes above when I cannot be.”

I frown. “And you sent him to live with my family? Why?”

She drops her hand at her side, her fingernails clicking as they tap her silver armor. “I needed to ensure you were who and what you were supposed to be.”

“You took my wife on our wedding night,” Thorne whispers. The pain in his voice only deepens my sadness.

Hel’s brow lifts slightly, and her sharp gaze narrows on us. “I took nothing from you,” she says coolly. “That was your enemy who you let into your village. The same enemy who has been killing pagans for decades and tearing our world to shreds.” She stops so close to me I see the red rimming the darkness in her eyes and smell jasmine clinging to her skin.

Her silver crown glistens in the gray atmosphere around us. “The same enemy,” she continues, “who is eradicating our people from existence. And,” she continues, her eyes resting on each of us, “I will no longer stand for it.”

“What do you mean?” Arless asks, more tentative than I feel as my thoughts reel in a vicious circle.

“I did not take your lives,” Hel repeats, “but I am offering them back to you.”

“I don’t want it,” I spit out. “If my family is dead, I—”

“That life was not your fate, Sylas Von Wolfsson,” Hel’s voice booms over us. Each word cuts through me, making my eyes burn and hatred harden inside me.

“Not my fate?” I grit out. “I had a wife and daughter. An unborn babe.” My chin trembles, and as I feel my knees weaken, I clench my jaw to the point of pain.

You were meant for more than this life. That’s what Milla had told me. Did she know it would come to this? Did she see me standing at Hel’s gate?

“Your time has come,” Hel proclaims, just as Milla did when she’d said those exact words to me in the fire, and a searing dread trickles down my spine.

“For all of you,” I finish for her.

The goddess stares at me. “Ah, yes. Your wife was a seer,” she muses.

I gulp. Was. My hands clench into fists as my nostrils flare, breathing out the pain.

“What would you have us do?” Arless asks, her voice still raspy from the smoke. “All we’ve known is fighting and war, and it was all for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” Hel counters. “And now you must take back what was stolen from you. Only together can you stop the spread of conversion and reclaim this land for your people.”

Thorne takes a step closer, his jaw tight. “All we have ever done is fight for our people.”

Hel looks directly at him. “Perhaps. But you have not had my help. Until now.”

“With respect, Goddess,” I bite out, “we have lost the only people in our lives worth living for.” Each word burns like acid in my throat, and I have to clear the ache away. “What makes you think we give a goddamn about anything else now?”

Hel smirks. “Revenge, of course.” Her lip twitches. “Hatred. Justice that must be served. For your families, for your people. What happened to you is nothing that hasn’t happened a thousand times over to other innocents. If given the chance,” she continues, weaving her way between us. “Would you not put an end to the wars and the death? Would you not take back the land and provide a safe place for your people, with no threat of death to any of you in the process?”

“You would make that possible?” Lucian says, his skepticism a bellow in the strangely still air.

She dips her chin again, and my eyes trail each of her movements. “With my help, the four of you will be invincible.” A cruel smile lifts her cheek. “When I am finished, our enemies will not only fear you, but the world will forever bear your mark.” Arless and I exchange a confused look, though I see the intrigue shining in her eyes and the thirst for vengeance.

“They will write ballads and spread stories about your armies for eons to come,” Hel continues. “You will not only have glory. You will not only have justice, but, in the end, you will have peace. You will become legend.”

Every Nordman seeks eternal glory, to be remembered and celebrated for their deeds in this life. While I was content to farm the land and lead a village, even my ego swells at the promise that I might actually make a difference to our people.

The four of us stand in silence, but the unshakable truth is louder than a bullhorn because my reality remains: I am dead. My family is gone, and as the weight of everything barrels down on me, I fall to my knees. The love of my life was not killed honorably, but murdered. My daughter and unborn babe will never draw breath. They did not grow old or die peacefully in their sleep. Milla and Letty’s final moments were riddled with terror and insurmountable pain. Nothing I do changes any of that. And the memories—no matter what Hel promises—will haunt me forever.

Promise me you won’t forget us.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I wail into my hands. Weariness riddles my bones, and I wish for nothing else than to sleep. To let the darkness envelop me so I never have to feel such misery again.

“This, Sylas Von Wolfsson, is your destiny. You will lead the dark army, and you will right the wrongs of those who have come before you. All of you. Together.”

I peer up at her. “And if I do not wish to lead your dark army,” I say, anger seeping through the hurt.

“Then,” the goddess replies coolly, “you will never reunite with your soulmate.”

My body stiffens. “Milla?”

Hel blinks at me, which isn’t exactly an answer, but she does not deny it either.

“If we do this,” Thorne edges, “all of us will be reunited with our families?”

Hel studies him for a moment, her head canting to the right ever so slightly. “It’s far more possible than if you don’t. Would you not agree?”

I frown at her vague, emotionless reply. “This is not a game!” I shout.

A harsh wind prickles over my skin. “No, it is not,” she seethes, and her voice seems to echo everywhere all at once. “I must keep balance, and I cannot do that when my people are being slaughtered in their sleep or burned without honor—the more pagans converted to Krosses, the more danger our people are in. Even now, Barron the Butcher’s Torchkeepers arrive on our shores, Krosses armies in tow. So, will you do your part and help me, or will you let their power continue to grow and consume us all?” She glares at all of us. “You have my word. You will have all you desire when the time comes.”

I don’t trust Hel. And yet, she has chosen us for her dark army. Even if her twisted words only mean she will give me death in the end, I would gladly end our enemy before eternal sleep.

“Why are you asking us to lead your army?” Thorne asks, and my eyes snap to her, watching the goddess closely. “Surely, you have the power to force our hand in this.”

“I considered it,” Hel admits, but when her gaze drifts to me, I see something curious in her eyes. Something . . . amused, perhaps. “But I have faith in you, even if you do not yet trust in me.”

Her word games are tiresome, but the gods are known for their riddles, and I am too exhausted to consider what else I could possibly have to lose at this point.

When I look at the others, I find them already staring at me. “If there is even a chance I might see my sister again,” Thorne states, walking over to me. “That I might hold my wife, I would do anything for it,” he says, his voice breaking. I can feel his anger and agony coiling through him like it’s my own. “I would burn all of Soothlund to the ground. I would show them we will not perish without taking them with us.”

Arless steps forward as well, and though the sadness in her eyes is anything but certain, I already know what she will say. “I have never known a life without the three of you. I will not abandon us now.”

She looks at brooding, silent Lucian expectantly, and he nods.

Inhaling a deep breath, I steel myself before turning to meet Hel’s gaze again. “If we do this,” I clarify. “You will—”

“I will give you precisely what you wish for when the time comes.” Her brow lifts impatiently. But I have one last question before handing my afterlife to the goddess of death.

“Ask what plagues you,” she commands, and if I’m not mistaken, there is another amused glint in her eyes, as if she already knows what I will say.

“Why me—of the four of us? Why do you want me to lead your army?”

Hel smiles fully at that, baring unnaturally white teeth. “Because,” she says with far too much satisfaction, and the hair raises on the back of my arms and neck in warning.

“Because why?” Arless prompts.

Hel glances at her, then at Thorne and Lucian before her gaze steadies on me. “You, Sylas Von Wolfsson, have the most to fight for.”

I don’t know what she means by that, exactly, but it’s only a matter of time before Hel grows weary of our questions and indentures us instead.

Grunting, I shake my head. “We will regret this,” I mutter.

Thorne grips my shoulder in earnest. “Then we regret it together.”

Arless and Lucian both nod at me, the four of us resigned to our fates.

“As it will be,” Hel says, and before I can look at her, a burning sensation tingles my skin. The others curse and gasp around me, but all I can focus on is the way the heat curls its way from the middle of my chest and over my arms, along my biceps, swirling and etching in what feels like fire.

“You are the Darkborn,” Hel intones, though her voice sounds caverns away. “The only of your kind. You will thrive by night and become the shadows our enemies fear.”

Tugging my shirt over my head like it might burst into flames, I watch runes, glowing like enlivened embers, appear on my skin, painting the lengths of both of my arms from shoulder to each of my fingers. My head pounds, and a searing pain shoots through my chest. Every muscle hardens and expands, my entire body beating with the barely restrained power vibrating through me.

As my senses explode—sight, smell, touch—my jaw tightens, and my teeth feel as if they are being wrenched from my mouth. I taste blood. Air feels like ash on my tongue, and amid the pain, I cry out along with the others.

Red fills my vision and in my agony, I lament whatever we’ve just agreed to.

“It is done,” is the last thing Hel says, and her appreciative grin is the last thing I see before the world implodes around me.

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I know, I know - I’ve done it AGAIN! What will the Darkborn be like? What will the Darkborn do? What is this story even ABOUT?

But fear not, darkling!

I’ve got a new “chapter” scheduled each Friday, so be sure to subscribe if you want it sent directly to your inbox!

There’s more Darkborn coming next week!

Until then….

xo, Scarlet

P.S. If you want to read ahead in the Darkborn’s story, you can find more chapters here in my Scarlet Hearts After Dark reader community. 

The places:

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💋Join the Scarlet Hearts After Dark Community

Alter Ego:

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