Vessel of the Fractured Void

The marsh parts under Surazal’s hands, and the last mat of rot peels away. Beneath it, the Void-Bloom swells black as a bruise, its petals drinking the cold and the decay around it.

The flower pulses once, and the poisoned mud around Surazal hisses harder. His body answers the bloom at once, hungry and strained.

He takes the Void-Bloom in hand, and the petals collapse inward as if recognizing a greater void.

Power floods into him. His chest tightens, then steadies. The curse in his flesh lurches, then begins to knit at an impossible pace.

Elsewhere in the fog, heavy boots splash closer. An Inquisitor of the Holy Order emerges, staring at Surazal with sudden, exacting dread as the bloom’s final pulse dies in his grasp.

The marsh goes still around them, as if waiting to see whether Surazal claims the last of the bloom’s gift, or whether the Order takes him here.

Surazal crushes the Void-Bloom to his mouth and swallows the black, bitter heart of it.

The necrotic charge drops through him like cold fire, stitching into the seam in his chest and hardening the dark rhythm under his skin.

The marsh answers with a wet hiss. Blackened mud caves around his knees, and the flower’s thorn slips bloodlessly from his fingers.

The Inquisitor halts, blade lifting as the bloom vanishes from sight, his stare sharp with sudden suspicion.

Surazal remains crouched in the sucking mire, power taken in, throat burning, while the marsh gives way beneath him and the Inquisitor closes the distance.