The plunge

The plunge was never the worst part.

Arn learned this the moment the ship tipped forward, and the Maw swallowed them whole, with a smooth, terrible inevitability, like a breath being drawn in. The Veil’s black waters rushed past the deck, muffling sound and light alike, and for a heartbeat Arn thought they had drowned.

Then the world turned itself inside out, uncaring of his rasping breath.

The ship burst free into open air, its hull groaning as it struck water once more. Not the goddess’s Veil—but a wide, slow-moving river that shimmered like molten glass. The sky above was vast and bruised with color: purples, golds, and impossible reds streaked like oil across an endless dusk, where purplish shadows flew unpossibly fast. The shores on either side rose in elegant, spiraling stone formations, carved as if by a loving but alien hand. Crystalline growths pulsed softly, casting gentle light across the water, the Maw, so ugly from the other side, here represented their only lifeline, a portal of blue and life amidst this strange land.

It was… beautiful.

That was the lie.

“Hold fast!” Sir Lora barked, already moving. “Shields up! You know the drill!”

Arn’s heart hammered as demons poured from the banks.

“Recruits, to me!” Sir Lora kept shouting, sword and shield in hand, unfazed by the horrors climbing on the deck. “This is only the first layer, and the only one you will see today, but goddess forbid any of you die from stupidity!”

They came leaping and skittering, howling with voices that scraped at the mind rather than the ear. Some were crude and misshapen, while others were disturbingly refined, long-limbed, and masked in bone or glass, their movements as graceful as dancers. Arrows hissed. Spells cracked the air. Steel rang bright and true.

This was as beautiful as it was terrifying; the knight's coordination an ode to the goddess, their strength a testimony to the alchemical treatment the Maw Knights were so famous for. Arn had yearned to see it, to be part of it. He had dreamed of this through all his meager years.

And so, Arn chose to fight, awkwardly clutching his sword, desperately looking to the other knights for some sort of guidance, but with a fire in his chest that burned hotter than fear. Sir Lora remained at their side, looking for something small enough to drive the lesson home to the boys. Arn did not freeze when a smaller demon scrambled onto the deck and sir Lora let it into their circle, gurgling like a fish, but looking as a big, deformed dog with spikes for paws and gills on his sides, he drove to it, alongside the braver boys with him, his sword skidding in its plate, unable to find purchase into it.

"Careful, boys, it may be small, but it is vicious; aim for the eyes and gills". Sir Lora barked as the boys peppered the creature, their swords acting as spears in their untrained hands.

With a cry that tore itself from its lungs, the creature launched itself at the baker's son, standing just next to Arn, and by the time it landed on his chest, Arn was sure the boy's screams would haunt his nights forevermore. But before the creature could end the poor boy's life, a massive arrow tore the demon from his chest, launching it back to the middle of their circle. A look to the higher deck showed the archers, each bearing a bow as tall as himself, flinging many arrows each draw, and with a coordination that made him want to stop and stare. And perhaps he even would, if in this moment, the only mage on deck had not decided to show him what awaited him in the future.

A massive ray of lightning descended on the demons on deck, scorching each of them to husks, bouncing from one to the other without even licking the men on the ship.

"Boys, carve them open and remove any bright stone you can find, before they can return".Arn could not even gasp, as Sir Lora's shout put them in motion.

"This is just as essential as the culling of their numbers; the tower needs gold to sustain itself, and this is our trade," Sir Lora said as his piercing eyes found those of a boy who stood petrified in place, unable to move. "And you, to work!"

As Arn carved the body of the "dog" that jumped on them, along with two other boys, he could not stop smiling. He would be trained to wield such power, to scorch the very enemies of mankind, to uphold the goddess truth even here, on this hellish place.

"I think I found the stone" the boy closest to him whispered, his hands elbow deep in the creature.

"What do they call you? I am Arn". He said as the boy removed what seemed like a thumb-sized crystal from the thing's bowels.

"Georg". The boy answered curtly, passing his bloodied hand through his disheveled blond hair.

Before Arn could say anything, the river darkened even further.

The current slowed, though the oarsmen strained harder. The crystalline lights along the shore dimmed, one by one, as if something vast had leaned close enough to blot them out.

“That’s not expected here,” one knight muttered.

"EVERYONE, GET DOWN NOW!" The mage hollered.

Then the demon rose from the water.

It did not climb aboard. It did not need to.

The river itself recoiled from it, pulling away as if in reverence or fear. The demon stood upon the surface as though it were solid ground, towering over the ship. Its form was tall and deliberate, horned like a crown, its skin etched with symbols that shifted too slowly to be runes and too purposefully to be scars, his bulging muscles flexing as if in hunger.

Its eyes passed over the knights.

Over Sir Lora.

Over the mage’s magic flared bright at the stern.

And then they stopped on Arn.

Arn’s breath caught.

Something in him answered.

The demon's eyes narrowed to slits.

Yes, it is you who called me here. The demon said, not aloud, but directly into the marrow of his bones. You were awaited.

“No,” Arn whispered, though he did not know why. His hands trembled around the hilt of his sword. “I want to be a knight, I can't die here.”

The demon’s mouth curved—not into a snarl, but into something like amusement.

You can, but you will not.

As for the rest...

Before the mage's ray of lightning could even touch the demon, the deck exploded.

The demon moved with a casual flick of its will, and the ship’s protective runes screamed as they shattered. Knights were hurled aside like dolls. Wood splintered. Fire and river water collided in violent steam.

Arn fell hard, the wind driven from his lungs. He tried to crawl, to reach his sword—but a presence loomed over him, and suddenly the world narrowed to the demon and himself.

A clawed hand pressed against his chest.

Piercing, drawing forth his heart.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever known; his very soul burned at the intrusion, as if something was being pumped into it.

The demon began a chant in a guttural language. Arn could not discern a word of it, but the world itself, especially in this dark place, seemed to heed it, and everything seemed to twist and turn in his vision.

Pain flooded him again, renewed. Sigils burned into his skin, then sank beneath it, coiling around his bones and heart. Arn screamed, finally screamed, because now he understood.

This was worse than ****.

Worse than failing the tower.

If he became a demon—if the Maw twisted him—then he could never be a knight. Never serve the goddess. Never stand as a shield between mankind and the dark.

Everything he had ever wanted would rot inside him.

“Please,” he sobbed. “I don’t want this. Stop!”

The demon leaned closer.

I am not taking your life, it said. I am investing my power in you, awakening what is already there.

The curse settled, cold and patient.

Grow. Fear it. Fight it.

When you finally break… I will be waiting, Aelantach.

A **** seized Arn—not the demon’s, but something else. The Veil flared in the distance, radiant and furious, and the river-world screamed as space tore open.

Arn was pulled.

The demon watched him go, smiling, and Arn could see the ship sinking ever deeper in the dark waters, and the corpses of the men being dragged to shore and torn apart as he tore through water that was not water, light that burned like judgment, and then—

He hit the ground.

Hard.

Grass dug into his cheek, and blackish water at his feet. The familiar scent of earth and livestock filled his lungs. Above him, stars wheeled calmly, indifferent to hells and gods alike.

Arn lay at the edge of the Veil, the very thing that should have protected him, should have protected them.

But no, they went to the other side. The veil only guarded the realm of the Goddess, nothing else.

The tower loomed in short distance, whole and silent. Below it, the town slept—tomorrow’s festival already half-built, banners folded, barrels waiting to be tapped.

And Arn laid down and cried long and hard, for his future, for the people on the ship, and for whatever was done to him.

He could no longer return to the tower, not without understanding what had happened; he would not die for this, not without going back there and shoving whatever he could put in his hand down that demon's throat, be it steel or magic, he would learn it; he would go back.

But those were things for tomorrow; today, he needed to go home, to find solace in the only world he had left, to lick his wounds, to understand.

His arm throbbed. When he pushed back his sleeve, faint black sigils pulsed beneath his skin, slow and steady as a second heartbeat.

Arn began to shake.

He had wanted to be a knight more than life itself.

And something in the Maw had decided to make him the one thing he hated most.

Hiding his borrowed sword and robe deep in the sand, he ambled back to the farm, to his warm bed and loving family, from where he should have never left.

Going through the dark corridors of his house and passing out immediately upon hitting his straw bed, his whole body hurting deeply, Arn could only lament at his fate and rage at that cursed demon, who had changed his life forever.