tales-from-the-echoes

[tales-from-the-echoes]

Velidros Argent | 3040-3071 A.C.

We try our best to be good. We sign up to fight for what is right, to protect the people who depend on us. To prove to ourselves that we are of the light. We are promised glory: To be martyrs for the hope of a better tomorrow for the ones we love, and to right the wrongs for the ones we lost. We are taught that we must walk the burning path because each step frees a lifetime of pain for those who walk behind us. And at the end? When the work is done? We are promised the sun will set, and we will find peace, and all will be good, and all will be right. 

That's how it’s supposed to go.

My name is Velidros Argent, and this is my story.

3071 A.C.

——————————————————————————————————

I kneel on the cold stones before the tree. The sounds of the city silent before the pounding of my heart, the rush of its blood in my ears. There are precious few things I know in this moment; aware of them through a muffled screen of static. But the truth of what lays before me cannot be denied. 

Ames is dead. his body hangs limp and rotting from the tree before me. The steel wire knotted and wrapped around his neck as it cuts into his throat in angry crusted and festered lines. His eyes bulging and face frozen in a slack-jawed scream. His naked skin is pale and bloated, marred by blotches of blue and green and yellow bruising that all sinks to muddied gray tones in the winter gloom. My eyes run from his sagging face to his neck where jagged gashes run across his throat and shoulders, cross-hatched in delicate marks that run their blood in crack-like crimson lines into the words scribed in black ink and blood across his bare torso.

"And the light taught: Cowards and traitors will be hanged in the most common square, that all might look upon them and learn. That to abandon your charge, is to murder in sin. And as such, is to abandon yourself." -Akaban 3:14 

Hanged for the Murder of Velidros Argent, Disgraced Junior Inquisitor of The Shell

A passage I knew by heart. For I had hunted those by its very decree. Now, it was used to murder my friend. Hanged. Hanged for the murder of me. Hanged for a crime he did not commit. 

The freezing air does little to soothe me, nor little to shake the numbness that hides what boils beneath. I look down. They killed him. I know my cheeks are wet from tears even as I begin to shake. For the first time since I swore my oath. I think not of The Shell above. Nor of my redemption.  I slam my fist against the cobblestone street. They killed him. He came here doing only what they asked of us and they killed him. Black hate sprouts in my mind and I know in that moment I will find my vengeance. 

But then I look back up, and I’m frozen as I meet his milk-white eyes. His corpse overlayed with the memory of the boy I had seen just a week prior. Shoulder-length black hair that falls in messy curls beneath the hood he’d always wear. A young face with a sharp jaw and deep, clever brown eyes. He would’ve been nineteen in two weeks. I was going to get him a new carving knife. He…

The anger washes out of me as sudden and violent as it first came. It burns as it leaves and takes all else with it in its passing. Left behind is a hollow pit. Almost like hunger, it sits in my stomach and I know I cannot bear to be here any longer. My plate mail creaks as I stand.

“I will make this right, nephew. Even if It means I must burn it all down.”

[tales-from-the-echoes]

Tales from the Echoes | An Anthology

Hi everyone! I'm Vercynthix or Vercy. I'm starting this project to motivate myself to write a bit more and share some of the many stories I've had about the characters from my worlds. I don't know if any of it will be good, but the only way to start is to start. So. What is Tales from the Echoes? It is a collection of short stories of characters from the dead. They aren't all from the same setting, and still I don't know if I'll organize them by setting (if it gets confusing... I probably will). I think the hope is that they all can stand completely independently but can kinda optionally work together to paint some bigger picture that hopefully makes someone feel something. I have very little story written so far. Just worldbuilding and many many thoughts in my noggin. I hope this ends up being a wonderful project. For me, if for nothing else. -vcx