Victor floated in a dark, timeless void, his meandering thoughts the only clue to his continued existence. His physical presence was gone; his inner self, the place where his aura and Cores existed, was gone. He drifted free, weightless, bodiless, a clump of thoughts held together by his conscious perusal of them. He looked at his youth, at his frustrations with identity, at his fear of being abandoned. He studied his teen years, his anger, his violence, and his desperate grasp at control and belonging in competitive sports. He reviewed his time on Fanwath and Zaafor and studied his growth, the relationships he’d made, and the control he’d gained over his raw emotions.

Victor, if he were able to mark time, would have noted the disparate length of time he spent watching, savoring, and rewatching his time with those he held affection for. He remembered Yrella, poor, kind, luckless, Yrella. He watched himself grow close to Edeya, saw himself lose his mind trying to protect her from the vile bastards that ran the mine. He saw himself befriending Thayla and then growing to love and respect her. Yrella and Edeya had been enough, but when Victor saw Thayla, he felt his heart would burst, and that’s when he remembered who he was and believed he still existed, still lived.

Still, the void lingered, and his mind continued on, reviewing his relationships. He saw Chandri, felt his infatuation with her again, felt a sting and warm glow in his shoulder, and that sensation nearly pulled him out of the void he lingered in; he had a body, he just couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. His heart was fit to burst, but then he relived his time with Oynalla, Old Mother, and a stinging, itching sensation reminded him that he had eyes and that they were weeping. His mind drifted on, and he remembered Valla. He saw her as he’d first met her, standing in the antechamber to Rellia’s quarters—prim, polite, stiff as a board. Again, his heart swelled to bursting as he relived his relationship with her.

He remembered getting to know her on the ride to Persi Gables, how she’d gone against Rellia to aid him in his quest for knowledge and vengeance. He watched as they were trapped on Zaafor and how they grew closer and closer, despite Tes or, perhaps, because of their mutual affection for her. Tes! Victor hadn’t thought of her in a while, but he did now, and his affection and love-swollen heart panged with a nostalgia his young spirit wasn’t used to. What could have been? What might be?

“Gods be good, lad; your tethers pull hard! I almost lost hold of you!” The voice shattered his reminiscence, pulling him back to the dark void, to the nothingness in which he drifted. He recognized it, a gruff, deep, manly voice—Golgothaz. He tried to respond, but, as before, he hadn’t the means with which to form words. “Don’t fight to speak. Just listen! I took an interest in you and told you I’d give you my mark, and I did. Through that connection, I felt a struggle within you, and now I’ve pulled you here to provide a warning. Hear me well: the spirit you’ve consumed and try to integrate into yourself will indeed grant you a boon, but it comes at a great cost. Gain the unnatural resistance to death of your foe at the expense of your vital force. If that isn’t something you desire, I suggest you fight it; battle the change, crush the spirit, and absorb only its Energy.”

Victor’s mind spun. Vital force? Did Golgothaz mean that literally, as in the attribute, vitality? Or did he mean vital as in life? Was Dunstan’s heart making him undead as he drifted in the strange, timeless void? Again, he wished he could speak, to question the powerful entity, but his drifting had taken on a different nature; he experienced the sensation of falling despite the lack of gravity or even a body, and Golgothaz’s final words came to him as though from a great distance. “You’ve been warned. Choose as you will.”

Suddenly, Victor was back in his body, fully cognizant of his flesh, his heart, his Core, his spirit, and his pathways. He could feel the burning, acidic touch of the heart’s strange brand of Energy as it worked to corrupt his cells, to change them into something more resilient, more dense, and capable of holding Energy, but thanks to Golgothaz’s warning, he recognized the cost; his body would become more immediately powerful at the expense of his vital, living force. What other costs would he have to bear? Would his unfeeling flesh affect his spirit? His heart? Would he lose the depths of his emotions? How different would a Victor, numb to his passions, be? Would he even be Victor?

These thoughts rushed at him, conclusions he leaped to by following logic that may be faulty but was surely grounded in anecdotal evidence. Victor was a man of passion and warmth, a man who loved deeply and rode raging rivers of anger like a mythical steed. He knew one thing for certain: he would never trade his life, his potential, his current dreams, and his goals for an undead existence, even if it strengthened him in the short term. Hadn’t he just beat the shit out of thousands of undead? Perhaps he’d not met their greatest exemplars, but there was no way he wanted to join that team.

With that conviction, Victor gathered his will. He turned his gaze inward and pulled on his indomitable aura for strength. He reached out beyond his pathways and pulled it in, using it to lead the charge against the foreign Energy he’d consumed, driving it out of his pathways, ripping it from the cells it had invaded, corralling it into his Core where he wound his furious hot rage-attuned Energy around it, then layered his other Energies, one after the other, around that cold, blue-black ball of death-attuned Energy that had exploded out of the heart. Within that ball of Energy, at the very center, a shard of Dunstan’s spirit burned like a white-hot coal, pulsing, and flexing, resisting his efforts to break it down.

Victor growled, clenching his teeth as sweat exploded from his pores. His face turned bright red, and the veins in his eyes burst, turning the scleras crimson. He pressed his mountainous will down on the ball of Energies, exerting such a psychic pressure that he felt certain its collapse would cause an implosion that might be his undoing. Still, he focused and squeezed, pouring more and more of his Energy into the ball, and finally, with a release that felt like death, the fragment of Dunstan’s spirit broke apart and bled into the death-attuned Energy. Without the wampyr lord’s spirit providing resistance, his other Energies crushed the death affinity out of the ball, converting it to roiling, pure golden Energy that he carefully fed into his four affinities.

Victor sighed, releasing his hold on his Core, relaxing his aura, and letting himself breathe. When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness but, bright against that black landscape, was a System message:

***Congratulations! Your Core has leveled: Advanced 8.***

“No ‘unnatural resistance to death,’ but two Core levels. I’ll take it.” He sighed heavily, sat up, and cast Globe of Inspiration. He still sat in the depths of the massive cavern beneath Dunstan’s castle. Not far away was a vaguely humanoid-shaped pile of ash, and he knew it was the wampyr’s remains. The idea that he’d almost joined the ranks of the undead sent an involuntary shiver up the nape of his neck, and he said, “Fucking hell. Thanks, Golgothaz.”

Thinking about it, though, he wondered why he hadn’t had any trouble consuming the lesser wampyr hearts. Were the shards of their spirits too weak to begin the process? Had they simply collapsed under the weight of his will? One thing was sure: Dunstan’s will had been prodigious. He’d fought off his Aspect of Terror for a long, long time, only succumbing when he’d been nearly cooked to death. His shard had put up a hell of a fight, too, not wanting to be broken down to pure Energy. “Note to self: Don’t eat powerful undead hearts.”

Victor stood up and walked over to the pile of ashes. He dragged his boots through them, sifting for anything the creature might have left behind. He was about to give up, finding nothing but rocks and fungi beneath the remains, but then a tinkling clink of metal caught his ear, and he reached down to snag up a large, silver key with four sets of teeth. It hung from a finely crafted, jewel-studded chain. Victor held the key and its lovely chain up in the bright light of his orb. “I wonder what you’re meant to open.” He stored the key away, and then he sent more Energy into his light, growing it to floodlight proportions and sending it as high as he could with his will.

In the brighter light, he could just make out the extremities of the cavern in front of him and on his left. Looking up, he saw the distant ceiling and, scrutinizing it, didn’t see the hole he’d fallen through. He turned toward what he thought was the center of the enormous space and started walking, scanning his surroundings for clues and constantly looking up, trying to see the hole that would be his exit back to the keep above. It only took him a few minutes to see it. The opening might be small, a square shadow among other shadows, but Victor had good eyes, and his light touched the ceiling just enough to highlight the contours of the opening.

“How the hell am I supposed to . . .” Victor let his words trail off as he contemplated how he’d get up to that distant opening. It had to be a thousand feet high. Could he leap that far? He didn’t think so. He supposed he could summon his Aspect of Terror, but he was loath to. He hated the feeling of being locked away in a corner of his mind while the Aspect did its thing. Worse, he knew the Aspect would be focused on finding spirits it could absorb. Would he be able to steer it up to that hole, into Dunstan’s underground throne room where nothing lived?

Victor growled in frustration and, on a whim, extinguished his Globe of Inspiration. In the pitch black that resulted, he slowly turned in a circle, staring into the depths of gloom, wondering if he might have missed something, some clue to navigate the buried recesses of the ancient cavern system. He knew from experience in the Greatbone Mine that the depths of Fanwath could be very deep indeed. He was already a tremendous distance beneath the surface, but if he tried to explore, he could find himself going into places from which egress might become nearly impossible. Still, something in his chest didn’t want to allow the Aspect loose, didn’t want to fight that battle of wills again so soon.

He was about to give up, a half-baked idea of stacking boulders into a platform from which to leap forming in his mind, when he saw a faint flicker of yellow light. It was well beyond the opening above, high in the cavern wall but not nearly as high as the ceiling. Grunting with surprise and renewed hope, he started toward it. He didn’t resummon his globe, fearing it would make his surroundings so bright that he wouldn’t be able to navigate to the faint, distant light. Instead, he worked his way through the darkness by feel, walking slowly and carefully, trusting his incredible senses and instincts to help steer him around obstacles.

After a while, he realized he wasn’t just “instinctively” walking around boulders, fungi patches, and pools. There might not be any light to speak of, but the shadows where objects existed had a different depth to them. It wasn’t something he could readily see, or at least consciously point out, with his eyes, but he felt them. That said, he made good time over the cavern floor, and the tiny spot of light gradually grew more prominent and easier to see. It stretched into a circle, and then, as the minutes dragged on, and he felt he’d been walking more than an hour, he could clearly make out an ovoid tunnel opening, something like a hundred feet up the cavern wall.

He could remember seeing many tunnels in the walls when he’d been a passenger to the Aspect of Terror, but he didn’t remember seeing light in any of them. What was this place so deep under the keep’s grounds that was illuminated? When he made his way through the wampyr lair, it had been clear that they didn’t value light. Why would they illuminate this buried passage?

He might not feel confident about leaping a thousand feet into the air, but he knew he could make it to that tunnel. Rather than cast Iron Berserk, Victor formed the pattern for Titanic Aspect. He didn’t feel like getting pissed off again so soon after his ordeals with the wampyr. His body enlarged, he felt his perspective change, and then he squatted low and exploded into the air, hurtling toward that glowing opening in the darkness. The cool air rushed past him, whistling in his ears, and then he landed on hard, dusty stone, sliding several yards into a well-lit passage.

The mystery of the light’s source was immediately cleared up. An ancient-looking glow lamp hung from the stone ceiling, and Victor could see in its illumination that the dusty corridor had been crafted, or at least refined; it wasn’t a natural tunnel. The floor was solid stone, but gray granite blocks made up the walls. They were thick with rusty-orange mold, and Victor could smell a strange sulfurous odor in the air as he walked, kicking up little clouds of dust with his boots.

Despite his titanic size, the ceiling of the passageway was several feet overhead, and he didn’t feel cramped by the walls. Whoever had crafted those stone walls had built something impressive. He didn’t feel nervous, didn’t feel watched, but he still reached up and loosened Lifedrinker in her harness, pulling her down into his hands. She was a comforting presence, and holding her reminded him of their last interaction, the one where she’d practically begged him to leave a fragment of his spirit with her. How was he going to deal with that? His approach to a T-junction chased the quandary from his mind as he slowly advanced.

When he reached the junction, he looked left and right and contemplated the choice. The tunnels looked identical, save the one on the left seemed to have a very slight downward grade. “What the hell am I doing? Dummy!” He laughed, shook his head at his behavior, and summoned his coyotes with inspiration-attuned Energy. They came into the world from a cloud of white-gold mist, yipping and crying, walking close to him, rubbing his legs as they circled. “All right, muchachos, find me the way out of this place.”

As they yipped and barked, charging into the branching tunnels, he sat under the faint, yellow glow of the ancient crystal and brass glow lamp and took a long, deep breath. He didn’t want to lean against the weird orange mold or fungi, or whatever it was called, so he sat in the middle of the floor and pulled a still-warm loaf of bread and a tall copper bottle of water from his storage ring. Five minutes later, he was munching on slices of bread spread with butter and jam and taking long, satisfying gulps of water from the bottle. “Damn, that’s good. Thirsty work messing up all those vampiros.”

He got the impression from the feelings his pack sent his way that they were traversing a lot of ground and not finding much. Sometimes, he’d sense that one of the coyotes was chasing something small, probably a rat, but never that they felt any threat or alarm. It probably took an hour before he finally felt a surge of excitement and a sense of success from one of the pack; the faithful companion had found a way up and out. Victor stood up and turned right, instinctively knowing the coyote who’d signaled success could be found in that direction.

He only walked up that passage for ten minutes or so before it started to slope upward gradually. He continued, and slowly, one by one, his coyotes found their way back to him. The last one to rejoin the pack was the one he’d been waiting for, and when it saw him, it turned and started trotting ahead. Victor broke into a jog, following it through ancient, dusty tunnels, turning again and again, gradually working his way up and up through the bedrock beneath the mountain on which the wampyrs’ keep had been built.

Eventually, he came to an ancient stone stairway and noted the different nature of the mold clinging to the stones and the damp, seeping water that shimmered in the still-present glow lamps. He wondered how old those lamps must be, silently praising the long-gone individual who’d crafted them. With his pack at his heels, he climbed those steps, two at a time; his titanic aspect had long since faded. After a hundred steps or so, he came to the rotten, partially petrified timbers of an ancient, iron-strapped door. He tried to open it, but it was swollen, wedged to the stone by moisture and moldy growths.

Victor smashed a boot into the ancient, rusty latch, and the door broke apart, fragments flying off into the dark room beyond. “No more ancient lamps?” As his coyotes, panting, yipping, and crying, rushed past him into the new area, Victor summoned his Globe of Inspiration. The light revealed an ancient stone room, and Victor could see large gaps in the walls, through which, he was quite certain, stars flickered. He stepped through, turned left, and saw an archway beyond which he could see the light of the Sisters glimmering on silvery waves as they crashed with a distant roar on a beach.

Victor hurried out and stood on the crumbling landing of a long-forgotten stairway. Behind him rose a similarly crumbled tower, and to his right, half a mile along the slopes of a tall, granite cliff face, Dunstan’s keep rose against the mountainside. “Huh. Well, chica, let’s go see how those wampyrs feel about me killing their padre.”