Recent content by Alarak

A simple gesture, that nod. But it spoke far more. She was hungry for what came next. Ravenous, the Shrike thought, watching as her breath stuttered and her eyes fluttered and her body relaxed under the euphoric effects of his blood and the cloying shadows. “Good.” He withdrew his hand...

A sharp and pained hiss escaped from between the Shrike’s clenched teeth as her own bit down. Hard. They cut deeply into his thumb and his blood poured into her mouth. The familiar coppery tang, yes, but also a sickly-sweet, euphoria inducing after taste that somehow left a longing for more...

“Oh, I will.” He drank in her seething hate and spite like a venomous tonic, rejuvenating to one such as he. The Shrike did not draw away, he pressed the handle of the lash against her cheek, dragging it down the length of her throat and across her chest, letting the length of rope uncoil and...

An explosion of mental strength struck Shrike's mind in an instant, like a sudden gale springing upon an unready ship. He found his sails shredded and the vessel of his thoughts sent spinning without direction, cast out of her mind in an instant. Alarak took a physical step back and blinked...

"Is that so?" The words ground from his lips. Only she could defy him so and escape alive. He still had need of her talents. Worse yet, the way she rebelled excited a fire in him that he had not felt in seventy years. His teeth grit together and he bared them in a mirthless smile. The Shrike...

“I gave you a choice.” The Shrike’s lips curled in a sneer at her impudence, masking the sudden spike of desire that drove through him. This woman. “Again,” he hissed. The whip whirled through the air. Crack. “Again.” Crack. But the Anirian thrall did not have the skill, or the...

Each crack of wood on flesh made the Shrike’s lips curve upward the barest fraction, though he found it lacked the screams and protestations. Those which pleased his vile heart most of all. “Stop.” The Anirian thrall paused mid swing. There were tears standing in his eyes, though he said and...

“No, I see that I have not,” his voice was as cold as steel and it bore a similar edge. He glanced at the thrall. “Your attachment to him is a weakness. One that can be turned against you until you realize that no one is worthy of your mercy or your empathy. Until you harden yourself, you are...

Every sneer, every spiteful snap, every syllable of defiance tallied up a cost that she knew would come due. A butcher's bill. The thrall stopped choking and dropped to his hands and knees, wheezing for air. Alarak looked at the single manacle fettering her, then gestured. The other came...

Once more her words fell as waves slapping upon the coastal cliff of his utter apathy. He watched her, hands behind his back, features carved from marble and just as unfeeling in their expression of mild disdain. “No?” He echoed her word, a curious note in his voice, as if turning it over and...

For a long moment, there came no answer. Indeed, as she looked up she would not find the eyes of the Shrike. He had turned his back to her and faced the sea, his gaze distant and far away. Callous to the sounds of her labored breathing and pain. The crowd gathered before the scaffold dispersed...

You let them writhe within you. You still see them as people, as individuals. That is why you cannot control their power. He watched the limp bodies hanging from the two stocks. Look how their corpses sag now, untethered sails with no wind. Their souls are the same. They are refuse. Whatever...

"Good," a cold croon in her mind. The elf's life force roiled within her. Alarak could feel the thrum of it. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, the ghost of a smile flitting through his features. She possessed far more talent than she understood. No wonder the Radiant Church had hunters...

“Yes.” Satisfaction rippled through the Shrike as he watched her from the battlements. He could feel how she wielded her sorcery, how she drew upon the very essence of the condemned prisoner. A pulsing, ephemeral tendril of aphotic power ran from her to the prisoner, invisible to all but those...

“If you want to use the knife, use the knife.” The reply came with a cold, detachment as if neither way mattered to him. He cared little. She would not be the first dead speaker to fail him. Alarak would watch as he always watched, from the battlements. His distance bred fear and awe...