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.
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
The boy is tired, sand smudges his skin in brown and sweat glistens like glue. The gold of his armour chinks and gleams. It flashes like a dragon’s hoard and for a moment Raum wonders if a Night dragon might descend with eyes gleaming to claim this boy and his treasure for its own.
Raum’s skull tilts as the boy’s lips twist in distaste. Something violent thrums within the Ghost’s veins. It echoes a carrion cry of death and that sound rattles bones like bars of a cage. Can Rufio feel that dangerous hum – the song of lands quaking as the earth moves. The air trembles, it hangs heavy and thick and all between them is bated breath. Far away the sound of building clangs and bangs and hammers on. It is Raum’s Regime ascending, it is the sound of war with its metal teeth and rule of steel.
The boy speaks with a tongue he can ill afford. “Talk like that again,” Raum hums, “and you will have no tongue to speak with.” There is no deception hidden within those words. Each one is stone and oh how Rufio is set for stoning. “Blinded lizard.” The king corrects gently, each word a potent promise. “Carry on as you are and you will discover just how well the lizard can see.”
And how Legion claws at the earth, how restless he grows when he thinks of his sight restored. The creature’s feathers rustle like the voices of the dead, his teeth are the clacking of the chains that bind them to Sheol.
The boy curses this land of sand – sand that reaches from horizon to horizon. Oh how such words might bring a smile to the Solterran king’s lips! Raum knows those feelings, the disdain for this land of sunbaked earth and banished shadow. “You are in Solterra and I am its king. You would do well to be silent and let me ask the questions. Freedom has no value to those who have never lost it. Do not lose yours because you are a fool who cannot restrain their tongue.”
@Rufio
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
in his catastrophic plan
