The Blessed (Tales from the Mythusian Empire) by Remy Apepp

Author:Remy Apepp [Apepp, Remy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Over time, Illiaz would become familiar with the iridescent black-and-gold arachnoid appendages that emerged unconsciously from all over Lux’s body and crawled over his skin. They wrapped around him like so many centipedes and millipedes, of all different sizes from tiny worms to giant pythons, emerging and then burrowing, sewing up the flesh they tore through with glittering strands like spiderwebs.

At times, the iridescent limbs of exoskeleton would twine around Lux like the gold jewelry with which he used to adorn his body, and he’d look at Illiaz from within the crawling mass with eyes as emotionless as the patterns of insect carapaces.

Illiaz had seen the cursed appendages in the Arena and during the Calamity, but other Accursed had only ever exhibited a handful of them—never anywhere near so many as Lux, who at times seemed to be covered in hundreds, if not thousands. It made the gladiator look dead, like a corpse being devoured, and it gave Illiaz shivers because he related.

Maybe it was because there was, for the first time, someone in a worse state than he, but Illiaz found himself trying to make up for Lux’s morbid state. He forced himself to eat, forced himself to sleep, forced himself to engage in light exercises. Because of that, he grew measurably stronger. The deterioration of his body slowed and even reversed slightly, and he felt well enough to move about the mansion and venture into the gardens. He covered his deathly appearance with makeup, and he chewed rose petals to smother the stench of blood on his breath, though it couldn’t seem to do anything about the taste in his mouth.

He’d used to wear light clothes so as not to accentuate the deathly pallor of his skin. Now, he wore only dark clothing so as to hide the staining of blood.

None of the illusion of life that he drew back into his appearance dulled his keen awareness of his death. If anything, it made him even more afraid of it. Every time he succumbed to sleep, it was a small death that he happened to be fortunate enough to wake up from.

He had Lux stay in the same room as he, share the bed with him, lie next to him—partly to make sure he was there to calm Lux should he fall into a fit, but mostly because he was afraid of dying alone.

He slept next to Lux in the king-sized bed, but he did not ask for the gladiator to hold him. He was terribly self-conscious of the way his cold body was reaching the temperature of a corpse.

Sometimes, though, he would awaken with some of the accursed arachnoid appendages wrapped around him. He figured that was okay; their hard, smooth exoskeletons were as without warmth as he was.

The arachnoid appendages were, for the most part, benign. Most of the time when they appeared, it was to curl around Lux’s own body, protectively or supportively. They became violent only when he was provoked or desperately hungry—the ironic

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.