Prologue

The sun kissed, then slipped inside the oceans turbulent horizon as Taphos watched. Hollow tears and Heaven's Compass obscuring his view as dusk rushed around him, Corpus Town, and the armoured corpse of his sister. 

Blinking away tears that wouldn't stop falling, he jerked his gaze away from Heaven's Compass, hanging so ominously over the harbour entrance; and towards its smaller cousin hanging above the lifeless head of Nekros Relictus. It pointed down and to the right, an arrow of flesh dripping the blood of abandoned brides down its damned stony tip. Taphos tensed as a drop welled up at the tip, then finally, awfully, fell down onto his sisters eyelid.

Damned.

A stifled shudder ran up his body; noticed only by Fortis who gave a cautioning glance.

'This was ridiculous. Disgusting. Unfair! and-...'

Taphos stopped and went hollow. His shoulders slumped and he killed a choking sob in the back of his throat before it could creep out his lips. It wasn't safe. There wasn't enough feeling left in him for that anyways. 

Fortis gave him a slight nod, it was meant as a reassuring comfort. But it just left him feeling vile, like he was complicit in this unclean farce of a funeral. Which... Taphos was in a way, he supposed blankly. There was his little sister, Nekros Relictus. Dead and gone but still made to suffer the wrong clothes, the wrong name, and the cruel false tears of a family who hated who this darling girl truly was. Not a Warrior of Decay. Just a girl who burned bright and far too fast the moment she tried to shine. Taphos was part of that family. He was to blame just the same as the rest of them. Complicit in Relictus' suicide. He hadn't been enough, hadn't even got to hear the name she'd decided on. Now that was gone too. All that could have been. The woman she could have become. 

A scream built up louder and louder inside his head, echoed by miseries and regrets stacked up high until it could only crush his mind. All the little things piling up. When she pushed too hard in training and would need to be physically dragged to bed, laughing and flailing the whole way. The annoying habit of avoiding the end pieces of any food that could have one. Her sheepish and excited look when asking him to cover for her when she stayed out late with her boyfriend. The absolute fire in her when someone treated her friends poorly. She needed more time, more love, more care. Just more. Instead here her corpse was, and that arrow showing that she wasn't anywhere safe or good. No place for her to be comforted and serene. No.

"Ohhh! NO! My sweet son! My baby boy how could Infernum have you?! Of all places your soul could be! How did I fail as a mother for this to be your fate!?"

Lady Nekros Ruina wailed on her knees before the open Rootgrave, hands clutching at her own chest and peering back and forth at the rest of her family, expecting them to come to her side and comfort her. Like clockwork, they did.

First Nekros Fortis, the elder brother of the family; tense and standing at shakily at attention. Breaking the pose to kneel by his mother.

"Mom, I'm so sorry. He... they weren't the easiest I know. I don't think that's enough to be sent to... Infernum. But you didn't do anything wrong. There's no way this is your fault ok?"

"It must be! Oh I'm such a terrible mother aren't I?"

Nekros Aspernari, the youngest sister, sitting idly on a root scoffed audibly. Not a shred of tragedy in her voice.

"You are the best mother anyone could ask for. This spoiled faggot had too light a leash if you ask me. ♩♫♪He should have tightened it earlier♩♫♪."

"Thank you girls. You are both so sweet! Really though. After all I did for him! I can't believe he'd just go and throw that all away!"

Fortis flinched at that, Taphos noted distantly. This conversation repeated in so many ways started to fade from his ears as he hollowed out. His sisters corpse taking up all his vision. Until his father Sir Nekros Tacetur, scowling and packing up the ritual circle used to summon the Arrow of Heaven's Compass, spoke up. Impersonal annoyance the only colour to his tone.

"The Barren Bridewell. That's where that failure of a backup heir went. Not Infernum. You should know this by now Ruina; it's an insult on our name that you don't as of yet."

"Of course I know that Tacetur! But that couldn't be right. Who cares anyways they're all close enough."

Sir Nekros Tacetur let air out through his mouth in what could be easily mistaken as a sigh.

"Right enough my dear. That brat already caused enough harm to our damaged name without having to go fuck it up even more by getting damned. The House of Nekros needs true strong elven heirs for the strength of our proud ancestors to inhabit them."

His gaze snapped for a moment to Fortis, and then rested on Taphos.

"Hear me boy. As heir you must be everything this whelp was not. Follow every tradition, and do what your mother and I tell you. Trust us, not yourself. We are your parents and we know better."

"..."

"TAPHOS! I am speaking with you! Answer me when I do."

A familiar ice flowed through Taphos' veins. He wasn't even sure if he was scared anymore. His body just knew how to react to that tone.

"Yes Lord."

"Good. Now keep that up."

Taphos started to drift, the words floating over and through him like a wind whipped in acid. A hand on his shoulder, Sir Nekros Tacetur's hand. Dad's hand. Taphos snapped back and focused on the face of its owner. The tall and broad man in front of him had a look of concern on his face. Was it concern for him? Or the future of their family? Taphos thought he'd stopped caring about wanting to know which one it was.

"Taphos. Son. I have such high hopes for you. I know you can surpass me, command the spirits of our dead, and lead Corpus Town until our nation claims victory against the Monsters of MaiÎdir."

The praise felt wrong. It hurt too. Taphos couldn't understand why, it seemed right. His dad's hand lifted and clapped down before withdrawing.

"You don't get any more do-overs or fallbacks. He's suffering like the bitch he pretended to be after all."

Sir Nekros Tacetur walked over to the rest of the Nekros family. Looking over his shoulder to check if Taphos would follow only once. A hint of a crinkle appearing in his nose when Taphos wouldn't. 

They all filed away, Fortis looking with concern and hurt at Taphos as they did. Leaving the Scholmorta Apprentices to clean up and bury Nekros Relictus under the roots of a Royal Willowail Tree. Leaving only Taphos to stare dazedly at his younger sister. Her face and armour so unlike her. Nothing like her.

Taphos stumbled forward, tripping over himself in a sudden panic and landing astride her waist, kneeling above her, face inches from her stubbled chin and cold rigorous frown. Nothing like her.

He fumbled with the armour straps binding his sister into such a boxy shape. Tears and snot flowing freely down his face and onto her chest as he scrambled to fix her before the Apprentices came. Taking the large sword from her hands and letting them rest gently on her chest. Cutting through the fabric of her pants and draping it across her legs like a skirt. Tearing his undershirt and stuffing it under her own to fashion a crude pair of breasts. 

He could hear footsteps now. He was running out of time.

Plucking the shovel from beside the grave, Taphos knicked his finger and slid the now bloody finger across her lips. Hesitated- then wrenched the shovel through the root of his own long black hair, laying it across her shoulders and the sides of her head; clumsily blending it into her own. And finally, Taphos moved to give her a smile instead of the misery stricken frown she'd been left with. But hesitated. Would it be alright? Should she look happy if all she could do and be now is suffering?

"HEY! Who's that? We have to work there, whatever scavenging you are doing you are in the wrong graveyard for that!"

Looking at Nekros Relictus, a beautiful woman now with a relaxed smile upon her lips. The smile she'd always deserved. It wasn't easy to answer that question anymore.

The guards yelled further. Their boots thudding in a quickening arythmic beat on the ground. Just like the panicked heartbeat of the surviving middle child of the House of Nekros. She leapt out of the grave and ran. Her blood, her tears, and her dead sister soon to be entombed together. Nekros Aionia ran into the night it had become. A night that would come to feel endless.