Page 31 of Marked By His Hunger
No fire. No light. No hope.
They began with flesh.
But flesh froze too quickly.
So they drank.
Blood kept warm in veins.
Blood kept them breathing.
Blood damned them.
The All Father saw.
And he judged.
They were dragged to the underworld for cannibalism. Their descendants cursed to always hunger for blood.
Yet one rose and made the pact.
One volunteered.
Free us. Let one bear it.
Let one thirst so the rest may live.
Let penance stretch across generations.
And so the Draugr was born.
Three thousand years of inheritance.
Three thousand years of one son after another cursed above all.
Three thousand years of unbearable hunger.
The Norns—those Nordic weavers of fate Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos—weave.
The Norns cut.
The Norns do not pity.
My line is small.
We were once conquerors.
But we were not tyrants.
We were survivors.
And that survival came with a cost.
Flashes of memories. Of myth and lore. Of pain flitted through my mind as I stood on the precipice of the castle amid the raging storm.
My wings twitched violently as lightning cracked across the sea.
The hunger surged.
