Chương 23: Tasting Souls

Kaelvorn had just raised a hand to explain he wasn't actually working for whatever Trigon was, when Raven, after studying him a little longer, shot the theory down herself.

"No, wait. Your soul's soaked in blood, but you genuinely don't know a single scrap of magic."

"Uh... that's a pretty sharp read." Seeing that Raven seemed at least willing to talk now, Kaelvorn lowered his hand. The girl's brow drew tight, and a fresh burst of purple light flickered under her feet again out of nowhere. Kaelvorn sighed and shook his head.

"If that escape trick is genuinely the only move you've got, you should already know it's not getting you away from me." Raven fixed him with a cold, faintly irritated look. After thinking it over for a couple seconds, she killed the spell under her feet with clear reluctance. She had to admit he had a point. That inhuman speed, and whatever bizarre sense let him lock onto her position out of nowhere. If this guy was actually committed to chasing her down, she genuinely had no good way out of it.

Her expression soured into open annoyance.

"How did you even find me? What do you actually want?"

"Got some help from someone. And now I need help from you."

"Hm?" Seeing that the girl had at least stopped trying to bolt, Kaelvorn pulled the golden apple out of his pocket.

"It's a bit of a story. A few days ago, out of nowhere, I ended up on the radar of a goddess out of the Greek pantheon. We had a conflict, I destroyed her mortal vessel, and I walked away with this. Her apple." Raven glanced the apple over a few times, frowning as she thought it through.

"There's real divine power packed into that thing, and the magical structure underneath it is genuinely complicated. Sorry, but whatever level I'm at, it's not enough to deal with an actual goddess." Raven had half-expected this strange boy to look crushed hearing that. Instead, Kaelvorn's expression didn't shift at all. He just tucked the apple back into his pocket without much ceremony.

"Wasn't planning on asking for anything that big. Honestly, what I actually want is just to consult with a magician who knows what they're doing." Kaelvorn scratched at his own arm as he said it. The strange itch that had been crawling under his skin these past three days was finally starting to fade, though some faint discomfort still lingered.

"Is there something specifically off about my soul? Gods, master magicians, whatever's out there. Including whatever just happened with you." He took a second to find the right words.

"Like, in your world's eyes, I'm just... unusually visible?" The cold set of Raven's expression shifted, subtly, as she took in the question. She looked him over again, something between mockery and genuine confusion crossing her face.

"You don't actually know what's going on with yourself?" Kaelvorn opened his mouth, and found the question genuinely tripped him up. Of course he knew why. These past few days, any magic user who so much as looked at him could see the blood soaked through his soul. Whatever past he'd hoped to keep quiet apparently showed straight through to a very specific slice of the population. But how was he supposed to actually explain that to the girl in front of him? This book was originally published on Royal Road.

Check it out there for the real experience. Compared to Earth, Viltrum ran on a completely different set of rules. Even mid-civil-war, Viltrum had already conquered several hundred planets within a decent light-year radius. And not once had some righteous magician ever shown up screaming at Viltrumites about it. No man-demon, no your sins run too deep speeches. None of that. Kaelvorn found himself circling a vague theory.

Maybe, sometime during his unconscious drift through space, something else had happened to him. Something that had dropped him specifically into a DC-flavored universe. That theory let him temporarily set aside the thing actually worrying him most. But this place was crawling with magic users, every single one of them looking at him with open wariness and rejection. Doctor Fate had come close to actually attacking him outright.

It was easy enough to predict that if he didn't find some way to handle this, whatever was unusual about his soul was going to keep dragging every flavor of mystical weirdo out of the woodwork to mess with his life going forward.

"I was born somewhere with no magic at all." Kaelvorn chose his words carefully. Raven still looked impatient, her slender, pale fingers clenched tight around the stolen bread and milk, listening with a flat coldness.

"Where I'm from, or, my people, all of us are built like this. That's just the culture. Soaked in killing. Soaked in blood." Something in Raven's eyes went visibly colder. If Kaelvorn hadn't stayed completely nonthreatening this entire exchange, she probably would have already thrown something considerably more dangerous his way by now. But his next line shifted something in her expression.

"So I ran. I want a peaceful, normal life on this planet."

"But like you can see, and like I just told you, here on this place called Earth, my past still marks me out as different, at least from where anyone on the magic side is standing." Kaelvorn's account stopped there. Whatever distance Raven had been keeping between them had thinned out considerably. If anything, something close to sympathy had crept into her eyes now. She tucked the bread and milk a little more carefully against her chest, watching Kaelvorn stand there with his hands at his sides, and bit her lip.

"You want your soul hidden?" Something shifted in Kaelvorn's chest, hope creeping in despite himself.

"If that fixes my problem, then yeah, I think so."

"And why exactly would I help you with that? We've got no connection to each other." Huh. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Kaelvorn could have sworn something faintly calculating tugged at the corner of Raven's mouth right as she said that. His mind spun fast, running through whether he could offer some kind of fair trade. Or, alternative option, pull the apple back out, lay out exactly how dangerous the thing was, and lean on her conscience a little.

She was going to end up a superhero eventually, presumably, and even now, homeless and stealing food to get by, she still had it in her to show mercy to beggars. That kind of empathy had to run deep. He couldn't just cling to her indefinitely though. Couldn't stick to her like gum on a shoe until she got so sick of him she caved out of sheer exhaustion, just to make him go away.

"You know Superman?" Kaelvorn asked carefully. Raven blinked, apparently not immediately following where this was going.

"Obviously. Newspapers, every TV set in every shop window, it's Superman this, Superman that." Something settled in Kaelvorn's chest. He rolled up his sleeve and gave a small demonstrative flex.

"My species is called Viltrum. My ability runs pretty close to his. Down the line, I could end up matching him. Maybe surpassing him."

"I don't need a bodyguard." Raven cut him off flat, along with whatever intention had been baked into the pitch. Kaelvorn dropped his arm, a little embarrassed. Looked like guilt-tripping was genuinely the only card left to play.

"I'm interested in your soul. And your memories."

"What?" Whatever Raven had just said made something in Kaelvorn tense up fast, some instinct kicking in immediately telling him to say no. His ability could handle purely physical threats right now. Anything soul-related was a real, glaring weakness in a world this thick with magic and witchcraft. But Raven's whole demeanor shifted, oddly, right around this point.

"Setting aside my own reasons for a second, first thing you should know is your soul has an actual problem. Without a proper look at it, I still can't help you." Kaelvorn blinked. For some reason, the second the topic turned to souls, Raven seemed to loosen up considerably.

"And if we don't set it aside?"

"... It's a personal interest of mine." Raven's voice dropped small, something that read like genuine embarrassment behind it. Then the girl raised a hand quickly, offering reassurance.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to go digging through your secrets. This isn't a one-sided, malicious kind of magic. Anywhere you don't want me looking, you can push me out just by willing it, and I'll skip straight past anything you're hiding. I'm just curious about your soul."

"You look about my age on the outside. But your soul's nothing like it." Raven swallowed, quietly, though nowhere near quietly enough to slip past Kaelvorn's senses, which made his own expression go a little strange.

"Your soul's got decades of fra... thickness to it. If you'd let me use soul magic to just, barely, just barely make contact." Raven held up her thumb and index finger, showing a tiny gap between them, something openly hungry in her eyes now.

"Then I'd be willing to help you sort your problem out." Kaelvorn couldn't shake the feeling that the way this girl was looking at him right now was exactly the look he'd seen on strung-out addicts in Gotham's worst corners, staring at a little white pill. What in the world kind of hobby was this?..... +40 advanced chapters on Patreon [email protected] /YATOOOO