ESKARINA

Four weeks had passed since Nova had attacked the city. The Emperor had covered everything up, telling the city that the Revenant who attacked had been killed by the city guard.

Most of the city guard did not recognise Nova's face as it shifted to something far more monstrous. Most. All who knew were quickly disposed of by the Emperor through much more...subtle means.

I lay in my bed,tossing and turning as the rain fell outside. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I sat,sighing heavily whilst I twiddled my thumbs together.

I wonder how everyone is...at least now it isn't a secret. I'm safe too...Nova can't hurt me now that he's been captured...but was he really going to kill me? He said he wouldn't hurt me...what if I was wrong about him?

My mind swirled with thoughts. I couldn't bring myself to sleep now. It was early. About seven in the morning. Most of the army were still asleep by now,except for those who were on patrols and some small escort missions.

It was my day off. No missions again. No requests...nothing. So you can imagine my suprise and annoyance, when I heard a knock on my door. I didn't even have time to answer it. My door simply swung open. I had forgotten to lock it. I sat upright to see Elena who stood in my doorway. She looked...horrible. Bags were under her eye's, her hair was a complete mess despite being rather short, her face showed signs of weariness,exhaustion.

"Get up Eskarina. I need you to come with us."

Pauline poked her head in through the side,her purple hair drenched from the rain. As always she had the widest of smiles plastered on her face.

"Sup baby." She said,still smiling.

I smiled back and slowly rose from my bed. Getting showered and changed was a hassle for someone as lazy as me, having two people who were waiting on me only made me feel more guilty.

When I was finally ready, I followed Elena and Pauline through the barracks.

Pauline and I walked a few steps behind Elena and I leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

"What's up with Elena?" I asked.

"She hasn't been able to sleep." Pauline whispered back. "She told me that she wants to see it for herself. That Nova is actually a revenant. She doesn't want to believe it."

Elena's back was hunched slightly. She was exhausted,dragging her feet across the floor as we walked. In the time I'd come to know her,I'd always seen her walk with an upright posture, always confident and determined. Now she seemed so drained. The girl needed sleep.

"Should we...start addressing Elena as your majesty? Since she's the princess and all..." I asked Pauline.

Pauline shrugged. "Honestly I couldn't give a shit less about whether she was a princess or not. She's still ol' Elena in my eye's. Nothing's changed that. Keepin' that big of a secret from us is definitely a kick in the gut baby,but you gotta remember that Elena is cautious about who she tells that she's a princess. Could you imagine the amount of people who'd want to use her just for her status alone? Girls cautious. I know I sure as hell would be cautious of anyone if I were royalty,not only royalty but the daughter to the most powerful Emperor in history?"

"Yeah that's a good point."

We continued to follow Elena until we reached the gates of the barracks. Rain drenched us as we began our trek to the palace.

When we arrived, our clothes were almost instantly dried up and heated as soon as we set foot in the palace. I felt my entire body heat up,steam rose from my clothing with a satisfying ssss.

Elena shivered slightly. She wore a simple shirt and shorts, with horse riding boots and that was all. In weather like this,I wondered why she didn't dress warmer,exposed so much of her skin...

She led us down the passageways of the palace until we arrived at a section known as the Magus Research Ward.

We entered through large blue doors, into a room which reeked of alchemical ingredients,concoctions and several spreads of paper scattered across the floor containing drawings,equations, notes. There was a large blackboard, filled with gibberish for all I cared. I could barely read it, the handwriting was illegible to my eye's.

We saw Hirovia sitting at her desk, in front of her was a set of alchemical mixing apparatus. A couple beakers, an alembic,mortar and pestle,Aludel,athanor, a complete set of alchemical apparatus was set in front of her.

Beside her was a paper which had plenty of scribbled notes, that she read while slowly throwing in a few herbs into her set.

"Four grams Hemlock,twelve Grams Jimsonweed,two grams of nightshade,four grams of white snakeroot." She said, with each word,she threw in a new herb.

"What you makin' there?" Pauline asked.

Hirovia leapt up from her chair,nearly knocking over her bubbling alchemical set. She quickly turned round,steadying her work before she turned back to us. She straightened her glasses, dusting her lab coat off.

"Hi! I didn't hear you enter! You...must forgive me I was in the middle of a very,very delicate process." She said. Hirovia mumbled something to herself and turned. She picked up a flask which contained her concoction. "Follow me now come,come follow me!" She said.

Hirovia ushered us through some doors not too far away from her desk. We entered a new room, however,this time it was a room with a window within it,which showed another room beyond.

Nova was chained to a chair, a tube ran from his wrists to the wall,wherein the tube vanished. There was a large contraption of sorts in the corner of the room we were currently in, and Hirovia quickly made her way to it. She opened a cylinder and poured her potion into the machine. She then pulled a lever and the machine coughed out a few puffs of smoke.

"That's...Nova..." Elena said.

Nova's skin was pale. Far paler than I was used to seeing. Black sacks hung beneath his eye's, and his face was almost skeletal-like, his teeth replaced with razors.

Elena rushed Hirovia, shoving her against the wall and pinning her to it. "What the fuck have you been doing to him you sick bitch?!"

"Nothing! Merely necessary experimentation to learn all we can about Revenants as per your fathers orders your majesty."

Nova's cries of agony soon came from the other room. All our heads turned to see him struggling in the chair while the substance Hirovia placed in her contraption slowly entered his arm.

He was wriggling like a worm, jumping and throwing his body to try and escape the chair which was nailed to the floor. With each time Nova tried to throw himself off the chair, a blue wall of force shoved him back onto it, keeping him pinned to it as his screams continued to grow louder.

"What the fuck did you give him?! Tell me! Right now!"

"Oh its rather simple princess,I poisoned him. I gave him a mixture of some of the most deadliest poisonous herbs in nature. It's enough to kill a dragon in a few seconds."

Elena dropped her and ran to the machine,shoving the lever back up.

"It's too late. The poison has already entered his blood stream." Hirovia said.

Elena watched as Nova writhed in pain in his chair, screaming as his shoulders dislocated from his tugging. He yelped as his shoulders clicked back into place.

For a few seconds Elena was silent while Nova's screams continued. Then,before I knew what had happened, she had Hirovia on the floor beneath her,her knee on her neck.

"You've been torturing him for four weeks!" She said.

Hirovia struggled to breathe,placing her hands on Elena's thighs as she attempted to push her off.

"Wa-wait...you must...see!"

Nova's screams suddenly came to a halt. Elena bolted to her feet, leaving Hirovia coughing beneath her.

All eye's were now on Nova, who was silent now.

Hirovia got to her feet,straightening her glasses.

"No...he isn't dead..." Elena said,shaking her head.

"You're correct he isn't." Hirovia said.

Nova coughed not long after and threw up a few litres of blood. It spewed out in projectile like vomit of pure crimson and yellow. It was over not long after.

"See?! Isn't that spectacular? That yellow? It isn't vomit,that is the poison I injected into his system mere moments ago! The boys immunity to poison is unrivaled! Now, observe this."

Hirovia made her way past me, to a small box filled with ice. From the box she pulled out a small bag of blood which seemed ordinary at first until I saw something slowly swirling around within the bag.

"What are you doing?"

"Feeding him. Within this bag is Nova's diet. Small chunks of the Larynx and Trachea organs within blood to satiate him." She said.

She opened the bag with a scalpel and slowly poured the contents into a different part of the contraption than where she poured the poison. She then pulled the lever once again, which summoned a tube which descended from the ceiling. It slowly made its way to Nova's mouth as he eagerly bit onto the opening. The contents of the bag seeped into his mouth and Nova suckled on the tube eagerly. As he did, Nova's veins on his body became all too vivid,yet in a different colour than the green or blue veins found in human skin. Nova's veins were as black as the night sky.

Just as they were that day in the caves...when Nova bit me.

"Do you see? His veins?! They've changed colour!"

"We see that."

"When he eats what is in his diet, Nova's body changes the blood,transmutating it within his body,converting it from normal human blood, to what I call Revenant Black Blood. His intake of it is oral, yet as soon as Nova feeds,the blood is spread all throughout his body equally. They almost melt into his veins and spread evenly to the rest of his body. How they do this is still unknown to me and requires additional research, however I do know that unless he feeds, Nova is unable to summon that magnificent sword of his we know as Nightmare. You see,Nightmare," Hirovia began as she straightened her glasses. "Nightmare is a weapon which appears to be a blade,it contains a hilt, a grip, and a blade to slice with, contains all the designs of a sword, YET Nightmare is not a blade. While it is, it isn't actually steel is what I'm saying. The sword is comprised entirely of sharpened bone. So sharp and hardened that it's able to slice cleanly through metal."

"A sword made out of bone thats strong enough to cut through steel? Bullshit."

"Oh on contrare my dear, no shit. You remember the large tendrils in the square from a few days ago? Those are comprised completely of Nova's own muscle and sharpened and strengthened bone. Yet he cannot access it unless he has fed. Every time he does consume black blood, each time his body feeds, he grows stronger. Faster reflexes, superhuman strength, the ability to run so fast that he practically becomes a blur. However,the most intriguing part of this boy,is his ability to consume biomass."

"You've lost me." I said.

"Yeah I just haven't been listening really I don't understand a word."

"Say Nova were to kill someone and eat his diet of them, their larynx and trachea. With that,Nova would also,strangely enough, consume a full portion of their biomass, which is why the bodies in the alleyway turned into husks but a few hours after we saw them. His strengthened muscles come from small portions of the human waste that he consumes. Not fecal matter , but specifically dying blood cells in the body, or viruses which his body, converts into pure black blood and strength for Nova. He is therefore able to control his entire body at will. He has several more muscle and biomass than a normal human, yet it is stored within his original muscles instead of growing over it as normal muscles do. He doesn't get bigger, but he does gain increased strength,speed and agility. The biomass can be extracted through his body however. You see every few days, Nova releases a sort of gas, which kills off anything within its vicinity,hence all the dead spiders. I wondered what it was until I realised it was Nova releasing excess muscle and blood cells which his body no longer required. Since Nova is able to have complete control over his body, he can fire out these excess muscles as well as attach some of his excess bones to them to make extremely deadly makeshift weapons out of his own body. He can shape shift in other words,yet only if he consumes and meets his dietary requirements."

Hirovia straightened her glasses. "But you want to know the real facts don't you. You want to know how Nova became a revenant. Well, I will tell you."

Hirovia clicked her fingers,summoning a chair which she sat down upon. She clicked her fingers once again, and this time a large projection of a human body appeared. "Projection magic. This here is Nova's body," she said before clicking her fingers again. When she did,another body appeared beside Nova's projection. It was different than Nova's, and had a heart beat as well as several different parts of the body which were lit up. "This is my body. As you can see,my body has far more functioning organs than Nova. He has none. He has no heart beat,his lungs do not work, yet he still lives. He is still able to think and function despite his brain having little to no activity. This is beyond science and my understanding,was what I thought at first until I realised I was looking at Nova the wrong way. I was comparing Nova to a human subject, not to what he truly was...which was a Revenant. I looked at the child and the woman you brought in all those years back and compared the two. Nova was young, and the child was far younger than he was. Yet they shared one particular thing in common. I didn't realise it at first,but the child's father whom you killed, was extremely abusive towards them. The boy showed clear signs of post traumatic stress disorder. He remained inside,had trouble socialising, and was rather shy. Nova was similar,yet I didn't notice it until Nova would fall asleep. I realised Nova would have recurring nightmares, at times he would have flashbacks and scream at things which weren't with him in the room, he'd struggle,telling someone to get away from him. Now, what I concluded, was that in order to become a revenant, it has something to do with the soul. When someone dies, we know the soul leaves the body. When they die,their soul leaves their bodies in a peaceful state. However,when they're soul is in an agitated or agonised state, they do not die. Instead,reincarnated-"

"As a Revenant..."

"Precisely!"

"Does that mean...if Nova comes to terms with what happened to him...that he'll die?"

"No no. The boy you brought back,lives happily with his mother to this day. He has accepted the fact that his father is out of his life, yet while his thoughts know and accept that he's moved on, its his soul that will never forget the horrors his father inflicted upon him. In order to become a revenant, you have to die first. Yet unless you're in a complete state of absolute agony in your life, you will not be reincarnated, and you will die peacefully. Nova is fairly different than the boy however. Most Revenants have two pitch black eye's, so why does Nova only have one? Well, fifty percent of Nova's blood cells in his body are comprised of human red blood cells, and fifty percent are comprised of Revenant black blood cells. Nova is half human. Which might make him stronger and faster than a normal revenant but at a cost. He is actually far weaker than a normal revenant in the sense that Revenants are able to heal almost instantly from broken bones, torn muscles or even whole limbs can be recovered in a matter of seconds. However with Nova, while he may heal faster than a normal human, he cannot heal instantly like his revenant brethren. If he were to break a bone it takes him at least three weeks for it to heal entirely regardless of whether it was medically treated or not. Feeding does speed up the process,but Nova has been starving himself for such a long period of time that I simply cannot make an estimate. His taste buds are dead, so he cannot taste any human food aside from his diet. Eating anything besides his diet of the larynx and the trachea, so say for example,consuming the lungs,could actually be detrimental to him. It causes Nova to become rather sick in a plethora of ways. Vomiting,break outs in his skin, sudden malnutrition. There are plenty of things about Revenants that I have been able to sort of explain with the knowledge and the resources I have at my disposal but for the most part, they remain somewhat of a mystery. Now...Elena, since you're the closest to Nova,I'm sure you want to know how he died. How he became a revenant."

Elena was silent for a short while before she took a breath and spoke.

"Tell me..."

Hirovia straightened her glasses, staring at Elena with an intensity that I had never seen from her before. "I'm sure you noticed the purple ring around Nova's neck. As much as I hate to admit this, those aren't any external strangulation marks. When he is in his "revenant" form, Nova's neck is disfigured entirely, his larynx and trachea when he shifts becomes compressed,hence why his voice becomes so shallow when he changes. The mark on his neck is self inflicted, and the way his neck moves when he shifts is a clear sign that its snapped."

Elena went pale as the grave. "What...what are you saying..."

"I'm saying that Nova's death prior to becoming a Revenant is a tragic one."

"Just tell me...please..."

"It's simple. Nova became a Revenant when he committed suicide."