[P] when we all fall asleep

[Raum]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

 

The Blood King.
 
If Raum is aware that is what they call him, he does not let it be known. Neither does the mercurial crow let it sway him from his deeds. Flowing from him is a river of blood indeed. His sins are vast and judgement, he feels, presses closer upon his flesh each day. She comes with wicked teeth and claws. She is the predator he cannot slip and death has marked him out as prey – just as it has with everyone else Raum shares breath with. Who is he, judgment asks, to decide to bring them to death at a time of his choosing? It is not his right.
 
Yet here is Raum and beneath his feet he builds a road of shattered bone and glues it together with blood. He is the monster that should not have a crown, not when his people thirst and hunger and destitution prowls rabid through his dirty, cobbled streets.
 
Raum is no king of excess. He does not indulge himself when the doors of the citadel close behind him. His blood does not know rich liquor nor his flesh the attention of women. No, Raum is focused and quiet and… predictable.
 
He moves through the halls as he does each night. Moving from his throne to his study and each night he wonders and waits. Never be predictable a thief might whisper in warning for then they know just when to strike. Raum was a pickpocket of Denocte’s streets. He was silent and deadly and little more than a phantom as he stole from his victims trinkets and jewels, money and, eventually, lives. The boy would watch, wait for tells upon his prey, wait for a pattern of behavior to emerge. You see, Caine’s game was Raum’s long before Caine ever arrived in Denocte. Then he was a spy in Solterra’s dust bowl and he knows never to be predictable. Except when he wants to be.
 
Raum has been waiting, he has walked the shadowed halls each night waiting to see if he has acquired a scout to watch his every move. He waits for the spy to come requesting his death with a weapon in their grasp. So the Crow is not surprised when the darkness laughs and shifts and draws back. From it Caine appears, stood at his desk.
 
The door had opened like a mere whisper and the king had not breached its threshold. Rather he stands, swathed in shadow, and watches the Denoctian man in silence. Somewhere a midnight bell begins to toll and Raum’s eyes gleam blue, blue, blue.

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@Caine - let's go!