The Darkborn Saga: Interlude
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Interlude
From the Journal Archives of the Berserker King…
Summer 828
Since those first weeks of unending torment, I have practiced my letters, a skill I need when intercepting correspondence, seeking vessels for feeding, and coordinating armies. And if I am honest with myself, I am uncertain how else to track the days or measure our efforts. As time stretches on, I worry my memories will begin to fade. So it is in these letters and reflections I find a sliver of sanity. I cannot sleep. When I close my eyes, I see my family lit with flames. Food tastes like ash on my tongue. And I have not fed the bloodlust in days. I cannot. I will not if it means desecrating my vow to my wife, even if her words haunt me. I promised to never forget her, to never forget who I am and what I fight for. And I will not, no matter what it costs me in this hellish life.
-S
Summer 828
I killed an innocent man today. It was not my intention, but the thirst was too strong. In witnessing the toll my defiance has taken on the Darkborn, I gave in to the need to feed. Though I tell myself I did it for my friends to release them from my pain and hunger, it was out of weakness and desperation to feel something other than anguish as well. But in allowing the monster to surface, I took a man’s life. A man with a family. A man with a whole life ahead of him, gone in mere moments. No matter how many times Constance has cleaned the stains of blood off the study floor, it’s still there, remnants only I can see, that I cannot take my eyes away from. This cannot be my life. I must find another way.
-S
Winter 828
If the Darkborn could kill me, I think they might. My erratic feeding has taken its toll on the brotherhood. I know I am selfish, for my pain is theirs, and yet, I cannot bring myself to feed and fuck as they do, even if it means innocent life must be sacrificed to sate me. Something prevents it in my very core and as much as I want to give in and put us all out of our misery, I cannot. I have never loathed this life so much as I do now. It is misery. It is pain. And it is never ending.
-S
Winter 828
A caravan of travelers arrived today, one among their party a powerful seer. She has been touched by the gods. I sensed them around her the moment they entered the city. I have only seen her from afar and still her eyes found mine. Her gaze unnerves me to the bone, and she has requested an audience with me alone. I have learned to be wary of those not born of night, and yet, I sense the seer has been brought to Frail Valley for reasons not yet known to me.
-S
Winter 828
I have found a way to endure the hunger, keep my strength, and spare innocent life as well as my conscience. Through her riddles and vagueness—her knowledge of the future she keeps close to her breast—the seer has helped me find balance, and in turn, she has helped all of us find a sense of peace. For I now have a vessel, one I have no wish to fuck, that I can feed from regularly to keep the blood-thirst in check, and spare the others my moods and hunger pains as well. It is a simple solution, one I can see so clearly now above the haze of hunger. And for the first time in many moons, I feel hope.
-S
Summer 829
It has been one winter since we woke as Darkborn. In the first days, we tried to fight the creatures living within us. But as time wore on, and we found ourselves at our worst, we learned to embrace the darkness instead of shun it. We pushed our limits, reveling in how fast we could run, how high we could jump, and how unstoppable we were at the pinnacle of our strength. We discovered Thorne’s primordial tracking skills, his sense of smell the most potent. Arless was easily the fastest, her agility far superior to any of ours. And as for Lucian, of course, he has always been the strongest Nordman I’ve ever known. Though, I’m not sure we could ever be called that again.
Despite the growing pains, it has become easier for us to embrace those parts of us as we find a rhythm in this new heartbeat of life. For the first time in our rebirth, I think we feel as Hel intended, her immortal instruments of fury and death. For seeing what we can achieve together makes the hope of what’s coming more promising as we build an army to have at our backs.
But every ounce of strength comes at a cost. A cost that requires daily replenishing, especially in battle. A cost that weighs on me daily, and through our preternatural connection, my deficiencies weigh on the others as well.
Arless claims my self control is what makes me the leader, but I feel anything but in control. Every part of me teeters on the edge of hunger and self loathing, and it is all I can do to keep myself in check.
For the memory of my family.
For the honorable man I used to be.
If I cannot seek justice in their name, it is I who becomes the monster.
Vampires. Those are the whispers spread throughout Barron the Butcher’s ranks after we raided the Torchkeeper camps months ago. The four of us ambushed three hordes and two scouting parties, preventing them from advancing west toward the Winksyn Woods, where men, women, and children did not seek cleansing, nor a war they were not apt to win. Though we saved some, it is nothing compared to those Barron’s forces have massacred and tortured in pagan sanctuaries and peaceful lands.
Still, our victory did not go unnoticed. A strange turn of events followed, for when we returned to the keep after months of learning the land with our new senses, the village did not stare and whisper with fear, but with a quiet reverence. A respect. I might go so far as to say that word of our victories has turned into loyalty at last. They leave us gifts during a full moon, which they are convinced we are born from, since our strength and victories rise with the moon. Virgins, livestock, jars of blood. No matter what we tell them, the gifts appear, so we have stopped saying anything at all. They place it at the altar of the Darkborn King. Arless insists I accept the moniker and show gratitude.
But I will not, lest she refrains from berating me, insisting I take a vessel the way she does. No matter how necessary she thinks it is for me, I am not ready for that, nor do I think I ever will be.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson
Summer 833
It has taken weeks, not months, for our enemy to whisper about the dark ones roving the land, capturing innocents. They fear us, for we grow stronger by the day, our minds and bodies in tune with one another in a way we never expected. With Hel’s power coursing through our veins, we are connected, and at night, when the runes are their most powerful and the bloodlust the most insatiable, we feel that in each other, too.
Perhaps that was part of Hel’s plan all along, to bind us together in the most fearsome way, so our senses alone would drive us to do her bidding. But with each passing moon, we hone our skills more, wielding our acute senses to our will, becoming unstoppable. We have left battlefields drenched in the enemy’s blood. We have ravaged their land, leaving nothing behind when it suits us. That is the power of the Darkborn. We are the night. We are the vengeance and wrath of those unjustly slain. We are the villagers who cannot fight for themselves and our names are feared throughout the kingdom. Soon, the Torchkeepers will be no more.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
Summer 834
We have amassed an army, greater than anything the North has ever seen. Shieldmaidens and warriors from all over the land come to fight with the Darkborn army. While their instinct is to fear us, their respect and thirst for vengeance outweigh their nature. They want to fight the evil that continues to spread across Nordholm, consuming the weak, the unprotected, and the misguided.
In all of my years in this cause, I finally have hope that it will soon end. Our enemy is torn between disbelief that we exist and curiosity, and both will get them killed.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
Winter 838
The years weigh heavy. This life is unnatural. Some days I don’t know myself. I don’t recognize the man I have become—a creature who lives by day but stalks the night. Who feeds on blood—who would lose my mind in the thirsty haze without it.
The feeling was indescribable at first—addicting and impossible to ignore. The raw power that hums in my body and sings through my veins on the onslaught feels tainted, and yet, I cannot live without it. The others have given in to all of their base needs, and though I have yet to fully embrace the darkness inside of me, I pay the price for it every day. I can feel their hunger, just as I can feel when it’s sated, different from mine. Always different—complete. A purring cat of content. And just as they sense the lack of satisfaction in me. It unsettles them, but bound as the Darkborn or not, I will not be swayed.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
Winter 841
There is no end in sight. For every Krosses army we eradicate, another arrives on our shores, knowing us and understanding our battle tactics more completely. The slaughter continues. Innocent people’s blood stains the snow and anger and resentment stews throughout the North. The Torchkeepers struggle in the harsh Winter Lands, but it is not enough to deter the generals who have only become more hungry for pagan blood than ever. In the wake of our resistance, the Torchkeepers have resorted to torturing those who will not be cleansed as an example of an alternative penance, which the God of Penance and Light requires. Where are our gods in this? How can they allow their people to suffer? The northern lands are vast and Barron the Butcher’s army advances tenfold.
Rage is all that fills me anymore, and I have made it my single mission to find and eradicate the Butcher’s newest general, Blackhorn. It is his armies that are smarter and more equipped to fight and succeed in our lands of late. It is his missionaries who come not only with books, but with swords and arrows. Only, he remains at the border of the Winter and Summer Lands, so we must sail to Swindfell if we are to stop him. Unlike the others, Blackhorn breathes battle. His every move is calculated and strategic. He is a man of patience and a patient man in the throes of war is a dangerous man.
My spies tell me he has studied every account he could find of our kind, studied every battle the Nordmen have ever won, and that converted pagans support him. He uses our strategies against us.
Whether it is my senses warning me, or my instinct, this man will ruin me. But until that day comes, I will make him suffer as our people suffer, and I mean to blot him out before he can do worse. For General Blackhorn has not yet seen all the Darkborn are capable of, though he soon will.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
Winter 845
It is as I feared. Lucian intercepted correspondence today, headed for a ship sailing to the Summer Lands. It was addressed to General Blackhorn, giving away our numbers and locations near the southern borders. Blackhorn has spies everywhere. Some of our own men turned against us. We may be revered by many, but we are hated and feared by others, and Blackhorn has used that to his advantage.
I have patiently waited for him to make a false move, but even now, something feels off. He is clever, and this oversight could be a trap. Nonetheless, he is at a disadvantage too. For now, we know the location of his stronghold and that he holds a treasure he is certain will change the tide of this war, whatever it may be.
Still, the letter sails with the ship for the Glass Shores on the morrow, as if nothing is amiss. Only, we will be right behind it.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
Winter 845
We have found Blackhorn, and while there is no doubt he knows of our arrival after today, he is not ready for the hell the Darkborn will unleash this night. His keep is three hundred strong and while they outnumber us by nearly a hundred men, the rest of his army pushes north where he expects we’d remained. And now the Darkborn army is on his shores.
Tonight, I vow to suck the life from Blackhorn to show the south what the Darkborn army is capable of, lest they forget.
-Sylas Von Wolfsson, General of the Darkborn Army
There’s more Darkborn coming next week!
Until next week….
xo, Lindsey (and Scarlet)
P.S. If you want to read ahead in the Darkborn’s story, you can find more chapters in my Scarlet Hearts After Dark reader community. Create a free account and read for free.
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