The he sky was the same pale grey it’s been for a month. The morning was moving along as it always does at The Pillar. Deathlocks and psylocks going about their studies and running to classes. Martyrs in their uniform lines and perfect formations stood outside what we call the blood bank. All waiting to be used by deathlocks for their blood, sacrifices to Her Holy Grace.


Ives continued on his way into The Grey Pillar. Ancient, alien, and mysterious in its form. The Pillar standing just under six hundred feet tall loomed before him. The steps would not be easy for him today. Maybe if I could get some true sleep, he began to think, this walk wouldn’t be so terrible.


He entered the massive obelisk and started to make his way to the top. The steps were steep, narrow, and a definite hazard. Five years ago when Ives was chosen to care for Her Holy Grace, he would take the steps two at time. These days, more often than not, he was completely worn out by the time he reached the Temple of Slumber.


Nearly an hour after he began, with his water, mashed up food, and the key to the vault-like door that guards her, he finally reached the top. The door was very ornate with magic symbols inlaid into it’s shiny golden face. Gems adorned the circle where the rounded key fits.


Ives sat the tray of food and water down then reached into his pocket. The disc like key he laid into the middle of the door. The circle slid in like a puzzle piece. The rubies and sapphires that circle the lock began to glow brightly. The entire massive door rotated clockwise to reveal another door beneath.


Ives picked up the food tray and pushed his way through the door and into Her chamber. Inside was a very dark room. In the middle was a bed, surrounded and concealed by the most intricately woven tapestries anyone would ever see. Depicting battles, magic, and mythical creatures, some priests would study the tapestries based on the belief that they depict all of Icarian history. Ives never paid a lot of attention to them.


His feet scraped across the cold stone floor as he approached the bed. He moved a tapestry showing the dragon Vylandria breathing his eternal flames. Behind the tapestry laid Drucinia, Her Holy Grace of the Icarian Empire. Some say she’s been sleeping for centuries but no one agrees on exactly how long.


Even though he’d been here a thousand times, she looked especially beautiful today. Her full lips resting peacefully. Her black hair brushed and shining from the priest whose duty it was to do those things. Her black gown adorned with symbols of blood magic. Sewn in with bloodstained golden thread. Rumored to be the blood of some ancient king she’d slain a thousand years ago. The golden thread made from his melted crown.


Ives parted her lips and gently put some water into her mouth then closed it. As always, next came the mashed up food. Rice pudding this morning which Ives always believed she liked.


“There there, more water to get your pudding down” he said with a smile. He always enjoyed her company even though she could never respond. At least she listens, he began to think, I know she can hear me.


Ives finished with the last spoonful of pudding and wiped her chin clean. He looked into her closed eyes, wondering what color they might be. It was considered a great sin to ever touch her eyelids or especially open her eyes. Opening her eyes was punishable by death.


With the back of his fingers he gently began to rub her face. Stroking downwards repeatedly like you would pet a cat. Ives, forgetting himself, leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. Blood rushed to his face and his heart began beating rapidly. Her lips were softer and sweeter than anything in this world. Ives knew he should’ve been much more afraid, but the feeling of the kiss was too overwhelming to think about anything else.


He exited the room in a hurry. The priest pulled the lever on the vault door to make it spin back to it’s locked position. He retrieved his key from the hole as fast as he could and started making his way down the steps.


I shouldn’t have done that, he thought, or maybe she made me do it. The thought of her powers to control wouldn’t leave his mind. Replaying it in his head over and over while making the walk and wondering why he kissed her.


“Ives”, called a familiar voice, “Where have you been? You look like shit!” the man reminded him.


“Serving Her Holy Grace, Relka, same as always”, Ives said to the apprentice priest.


Relka was large, muscled and comely. Everything Ives was not. Honestly, it’s surprising Relka was chosen to train as a priest. His looks were that of a warrior. Not a warrior as the Icarians have but a warrior who fights with steel from the lands in the east.


“Yeah, yeah…” Relka paused, “And how is our goddess this morning?”


“Sleeping!” Ives said, harsher than intended.


“Well, I have to get to class. Good luck, Ives.” Relka ignored the tone in Ives’ voice.


Ives walked on without saying a farewell. Relka meant well but he was young, arrogant, and most of all, annoying in the mind of Ives. He didn’t need to be reminded of how he looked. With his trouble sleeping, the middle-aged priest had massive bags under his blue eyes that absolutely did not look well with his large, hooked nose and spare lips. His long brown hair was greasy and unwashed as well.


That night as he laid his head down, sleep came immediately but so did the dreams. Famine and death and gore and then he was awake again. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.


He rose from his bed and made his way to the desk across his small room. The room was minimalist, plain stone walls, plain stone floor, a desk filled with alchemical devices and ingredients, and the plain bed where his night terrors plagued him.


Ives began to mix Sweet Silk, named for it’s slightly sweet taste and the uncharacteristic quality of a potion that goes down smooth. Twenty drops and you’ll never wake, but five will relax and calm the mind. It’s a potion he’s had to make nearly every night for weeks.


His hands worked with a deftness only a man of a certain age can attain. A master at potions from the time he was very young, Ives had no trouble whipping up any potion or poison, this one especially.


"Alright”, he spoke aloud to his empty chamber, “eight drops this time and maybe a dreamless sleep should come.”


He drank the concoction, a small shot of water with the eight sweet drops in it, and returned to his bed. When he closed his eyes, sleep once again came easily. This time, his head spinning from the Sweet Silk. Suddenly, there she was.


“Ives,” her soft voice and soft lips began, “my child of blood. Bring me life and bring me death. Bring me love and bring me hate. Bring me hope and bring me despair.”


Confused and amazed, he sat up in his bed. He gazed longingly into her pale grey eyes. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Drucinia, Her Holy Grace of Icaria. Goddess of Blood and Goddess of Death.


Why would she be here in my chamber? How can sh…


“Child,” she interrupted his thinking, “I know the deepness of your love. Your kiss…”


Fear, that’s the only feeling he had at that moment. Absolute fear and terror. I shouldn’t have done that, he repeated over and over in his mind.


“I… I… I’m sorry, your grace” he said with a voice that shook with every syllable.


He closed his eyes tightly and waited for his punishment. After a few moments he opened his eyes but she was gone.


Was it a dream? Was she here? Did she know my mind? Does she always? Does she know I love her? That I want her?


That morning, after another night of gore and destruction in his mind, Ives began making his way to the kitchens to retrieve her breakfast. The air was thick with dew, the weather terrible as always. The smell of bread and meat cooking was strong.


“Any rice pudding left?” Ives asked the cook.


“Always, but she needs her protein today, does she not?” the cook replied.


“Thanks Jion,” Ives began, “that’s true. Maybe you could fix something up for Her?”


“Anything for you, my man!” Jion said, “Oh… and Her, of course, for Her!”


Jion handed him the bowls. One full of rice pudding and the other with some mixture of meats and what Ives believed were mashed turnips. Jion was the favorite, and in Ives’ opinion, the best cook at The Pillar. He had a big belly, bald head, and massive beard. The kind of face that was welcoming to everyone.


“A chunk of black bread for an old friend?”


“You know it, your excellence!” Jion said, his huge, contagious smile lighting up the room. The use of Ives formal title a sarcastic joke. Both smiled to one another. Jion’s big belly shaking with each booming laugh.


Ives arrived at the steps. In his mind, the bane of his existence but they are the only path to Her. The Locks have magic lifts and levitators to make their way through the pillar where they learn their craft. Things of that nature are strictly banned on The Path of Slumber. A priest must sacrifice for Her, too. The steps remind them that they are Hers. A priest serves, nothing more.


He ate his black bread as he carried Her food and water up and up and up. About halfway through, that familiar voice called out again.


“Hey Ives,” Relka belted out in his deep, loud voice. “Her meal is looking good this morning. I have half a mind to take it from you.”


“Stealing from Drucinia is treason, the punishment for that is nearly unspeakable,” Ives reminded.


“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I’m joking.” Relka smiled, “So what was with all that noise last night from up top?”


“Noise?” Ives asked with no clue of what Relka was talking about.


“Yeah brother, up top there was bangin’ and clangin’ for hours. No one awake was of high enough rank to enter the chamber so we’ve just been waiting on you to go feed Her.” Relka said, in one of his rare moments of seriousness.


“I’m on my way up,” Ives said, his thin lips nearly trembling as he stated the obvious, “I’ll see you on the way down and let you and the other apprentices know.”


“Thanks Ives,” Relka slapped Ives, maybe too hard, on his back, “I knew you’d get it done.”


He continued his way up the steps. Each one seeming like a knife driven into his back at this point. His nerves, due to what Relka said and the vision from the previous night, completely on edge.


As the circle door swung clockwise to reveal Her door, Ives could feel his guts clenching up. A mixture of excitement, fear, and curiosity.


With a deep breath, Ives pushed himself through the small, wooden door and stepped inside. The room smelled of cloves. It was dark and cold as ever. He stood deathly still, gazing at her tapestries for quite some time. Almost too frozen to walk forward.


I can do this. She is asleep. I love her. No I don’t. I shouldn’t have done that. He thought, scatter brained and filled with fear.


He pulled back the dragon tapestry, slower than he usually does. Moving it just enough so he could see the bed, he peeked inside. Drucinia lie there, still as ever, terribly beautiful and most importantly, sleeping.


Beautiful as she may be, if the history can be believed she is the most powerful and terrifying sorcerer to ever exist. She won this land from the dragon Vylandria in The War of the Gods thousands of years of ago. It’s believed in some battles, she didn’t even have an army but laid waste to her enemies with just her own powers.


As he sat feeding, Ives thought back on those histories and wondered how much of it actually happened. No one can actually know. Drucinia sleeps here in the Grey Pillar and the dragon, Vylandria, sleeps in a land of his own as well. There’s no asking them.


Ives decided most of it must have happened. The magic we have in the world now is a result of their battle. The Vylantians fire magic exists from the scale Drucinia tore from over the heart of Vylandria. Our blood magic was born from the single drop of blood he lost from that wound. It was said Drucinia, underneath the massive beast, caught the drop in her mouth.


Ives finished feeding her the meat and turnips and her small serving of rice pudding. He gazed lovingly at her and rubbed her cheek again as he had the day before. The urge to kiss her was strong but he resisted this time.


I shouldn’t have done that, he thought again.


Halfway down The Pillar, just as half way up, he saw Relks tinkering with some machine he was making.


“Relks!” Ives yelled across the massive room.


“Hey brother, anything up there?” Relks asked, looking like a child who won’t stop asking “why?” to everything.


“Yes, your goddess and empress, Drucinia.” Ives said sarcastically. “Everything is as it always is.”


“I know it, I knew it” Relks said confidently with that stupid grin his face.


Finally at the bottom of The Pillar, Ives saw a psylock controlling a group of fifteen or twenty martyrs. The martyrs, all armed and armored, training and fighting one another. Every movement a result of the psylock controlling their minds.


A professor of deathlocks, a powerful sorcerer named Ignartius had a large group of martyrs, maybe fifty, in a star like formation that Ives had never seen before. The deathlock raised his hand to the sky. His students sat twenty feet away, studying this new formation with excitement and anticipation in their eyes.


Ignartius lowered his open hand slightly. His fist snapped shut. Instantly, every martyr in his formation hit the ground, their lives ended. From them rose a tornado of blood and souls. Ignartius held it still, the awful thing swirling violently in the middle of the training grounds.


The psylock Ives saw earlier, with a deep mind control spell on his units, marched them directly into the wicked cyclone. The martyrs tore apart instantly, their lives, souls, and blood adding to the mass of swirling destruction.


Ives moved on, spells that powerful tended to frighten him. Martyrs were born only for the purpose of death but something always still bothered Ives that so many get sacrificed to create these spells.


This night, when Ives entered his room, before even laying down he began mixing another batch of Sweet Silk. A wonderful potion to him, but one with an extremely short shelf life. It is consumed immediately after it’s finished and goes deadly within two hours. In that form, the potion is called Death Silk. Any amount, even if it just touches the skin, means death. Same sweet taste, very different results.


Alright, maybe nine drops tonight, Ives thought as he filled his dropper very carefully. Tonight he put them in a glass of watered wine. A strong wine was never a good idea to mix with Sweet Silk, let alone a dose this large.


As soon as his head hit the pillow, Ives was gone. The dreams came stronger than ever tonight, even with the Sweet Silk. Ives was standing on a field, a large one where a battle had just taken place or was going to take place.


The grass was burned and black. There were thousands and thousands of corpses littering the ground around him. Martyrs used for magic and enemies carrying steel lying face down in the muck.


Drucinia stood twenty feet from him on a mountain of martyr corpses. Her eyes lit up, completely white this time. Her face no longer showing the warmth it had the night before. The bloodstained runes on her dress glowing bright gold. Ives had never seen a more intimidating sight in his life.


When Ives looked away from her, off into the distance in the east he saw the largest army he’s ever seen. The banners showed a deep violet dragon on a white background. The sigil of the Imperial Dragon, the most elite army of the Empire of Vylantia.


“Child,” a soft voice began, “look away from your enemy.”


Ives turned back and met the eyes of Drucinia, now the soft grey color he’d seen before. He felt his heart beating in his chest, loud enough that he could nearly lose her voice in the drumming.


“Meet my eyes, child of blood. Gaze deeply.” Drucinia spoke so softly he could barely hear her. Her voice much sweeter than the pile of corpses and destruction surrounding her would have you believe.


Ives raised his head slowly and met her eyes again. Immediately he was no longer on the field. He saw a young, strong, good looking man with a white streak in his pitch black hair sharpening a violet dragon hilted, black bladed sword. Next was a beautiful woman with pointed ears wearing a tabard showing a symbol for every element circling a tree. Finally, he stood in near darkness, yet he knew the sun was up here. A shadow, he thought to himself as he raised his eyes to the sky. Looking up, all he saw was a nearly black, yet violet tinted dragon. Vylandria himself flying over him, blocking the sun with his tremendous size. His wings spread in flight, the breadth of them covering what had to be a thousand feet.


Ives woke, covered in a cold sweat and shaking. He went to his desk and sat. His mind a scattered mess. A prophecy? A vision? Maybe just a dream. His thoughts uncontrollable at this point.


He gathered himself and put on his priest robe. A fine piece of black and red cloth adorned with the Dread Owl of Icaria crying his single tear of blood on the back. A symbol of death only worn by high ranking priests.


As he made his way through the training yard, he couldn’t shake the dream he’d experienced last night. The image of Drucinia standing on what must have been a thousand corpses burned hot in his brain. He shivered at the thought but the air was warm today.


“You alright, Ives?” asked Jion as he entered the kitchen.


“Yeah, I’m fine. I’d like the food please.” Ives said, all business this morning.


“Whatever you say, guy” Jion seemed not to notice or ignored Ives’ icy demeanor as he gathered the normal food and water. Jion was never one to notice that sort of thing. He always just projected his own jolly demeanor on everyone.


The steps were hell that day. It wasn’t fatigue or the pain in his back that bothered him this time. It was a deep, true fear that burned inside of him. An instinctual reaction to the dream. With every step up the tower, it became worse.


When he reached the rounded door, he was shaking. His hands trembling as he fumbled for his disc like key to open the chamber. The door rolled in it’s normal clockwise motion to reveal the smaller wooden door behind it.


Ives paused for a moment, a dream, just a dream, nothing more, he thought to himself. Steadying his hands, he turned the knob to open to the wooden door.


The room was as it has been for all the years he had come here. Dark and dank with large circle of tapestries concealing the resting place of Drucinia herself. The most holy place in the Icarian Empire. The most holy place in the entire world, as far as Ives was concerned.


Ives approached the tapestry of the dragon he always moved to feed the empress. He noticed a sweet smell in the air, almost like cookies baking, as he reached for the tapestry to move it.


“What?” was all he manage to say. The bed he’d been feeding her in for years was, for the first time in centuries, completely empty. Absolute shock was the only reaction he could muster, although in a way, he somehow knew she wouldn’t be there.


Ives heart began to pound furiously as he dropped the food he’d brought for Drucinia. Rice pudding splattered on the cold stone floor as the water puddled at his feet. As he turned he saw long, slender fingers stretched out from a perfectly pale hand raised high into the air.


He began to turn to look. From the corner of his eye he saw movement. A great calm came over him as the hand snapped shut into a fist. Only darkness followed…