Page 16 of Marked By His Hunger
Every struggle only tightened their design.
Every breath I took only dragged me deeper into it.
And in the end—I became exactly what they intended.
A vessel.
A warning.
Monster.
The truth of it settled slowly. Not in one shattering moment, but in a thousand quiet ones.
A glance at my reflection.
The way people recoiled.
The way the hunger never left.
It hollowed me out.
Left something else behind.
Endless.
Unforgiving.
Hungry.
And alone.
“The Institute Academy has the honor of hosting the very last Draugr of the Clan Draugen.”
I remember the first time I spoke those words.
The room had been quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that listens.
Professor Kenna had regarded me with that same measured calm she wore like armor, her hands folded neatly atop her rune-veined desk.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
She already knew.
“I will not procreate,” I said.
The words tasted like iron and finality.
“I will not ever breed with a female.”
Her expression did not change.
“But how can you say that?”
Because I had already seen the end.
“Because I refuse to pass this curse on to a son,” I replied. My voice had sharpened then—honed by something deeper than anger. “My father before me was a servant to it. His father before him. They called it duty.”
My jaw tightened.
