The compression began without warning.
Vast consciousness, which had drifted through aeons as freely as starlight through the void, found itself pressed into boundaries so crude, so impossibly small, that the agony surpassed all mortal reckoning. What had been infinite became singular. What had touched all corners of creation was forced into a vessel of bone and sinew that screamed beneath the weight of such confinement.
The pain was exquisite.
I remembered pain, though it had been centuries since last I felt its bite. This crude flesh responded to sensation with such primitive intensity—each nerve ending a tiny rebellion against my presence. The heart hammered its protest whilst lungs burned with the necessity of breath. Forgotten was the tyranny of corporal form.
The summoning circle held me fast, its symbols carved deep into stone worn smooth by generations of such workings. I beheld the chamber through eyes that watered and stung, vision limited to this narrow perspective when once I had seen all. Candles flickered in brass sconces, their light dancing across walls lined with ancient tomes. The air hung thick with incense and darker things—blood, fear, ambition.
And there stood my summoner.
He was younger than I had expected, perhaps thirty years by mortal reckoning, with the pale complexion of one who spent his days amongst dusty books rather than beneath heaven’s light. His dark hair hung lank about a face marked by intelligence and something else—a hunger that I recognised well. His clothes spoke of modest means: a scholar’s worn coat, ink-stained fingers that trembled now as he consulted the grimoire spread open upon his lectern.
“It is done,” he whispered, his voice carrying the breathless wonder of one who had dared greatly and succeeded. “You are bound to my will, creature. You shall answer my summons and grant my desires.”
I tested the confines of this flesh, feeling the alien sensation of sinew stretching, joints moving in their prescribed arcs. The binding was well-wrought, I acknowledged. His craft was not without merit. But he knew so little of what he had accomplished.
“Indeed, master,” I replied, my voice emerging rough and unfamiliar from this borrowed throat. “I am bound to serve your will, as the old laws dictate. What service would you have of your humble servant?”
The formality pleased him, as I had known it would. Mortals delighted in ceremony, in the illusion of control over forces beyond their comprehension. He straightened, authority settling about his shoulders like a mantle.
“There is one who has wronged me,” he began, his pale eyes bright with malice. “Professor Aldrich Ravenswood of the Royal Academy. He stole my research, claimed my discoveries as his own, and saw me cast out in disgrace whilst he ascended to glory upon my stolen work.”
Ravenswood. The name struck through me like lightning through a cathedral spire, though I allowed no flicker of recognition to cross these borrowed features. After all these years, after all these generations, the bloodline endured. How exquisitely fate had arranged her tapestry.
“A grievous wrong indeed, master,” I murmured. “What manner of vengeance would you visit upon this Ravenswood?”
“I would see him destroyed utterly. His reputation ruined, his career ended, his very name cursed amongst scholars. Let him know the taste of disgrace as I have known it.”
I pretended to consider this, tilting this strange head as though weighing the request. In truth, my ancient mind was racing with possibilities that stretched far beyond this youth’s limited imagination.
“Such vengeance as you describe is easily accomplished, master,” I said at length. “Yet professional ruin alone seems… insufficient for so grave an injury. The man would retain his health, his family, his capacity for future happiness. Would master not prefer something more… comprehensive?”
His eyes gleamed with dark interest. “What do you suggest?”
“Grant me but a small additional freedom—permission to enhance your revenge with personal touch—and I shall ensure that Ravenswood suffers in ways he cannot comprehend. Not merely professional destruction, but torments that will follow him into his very dreams. His guilt shall manifest in waking visions, his shame in physical ailments, his fear in shadows that move when they should be still.”
The young fool leaned forward eagerly. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, let him suffer as he has made me suffer. I grant you this freedom. Make it personal.”
The binding loosened, just a fraction. Just enough.
“It shall be done as you command, master,” I said, and allowed myself the faintest of smiles. “Though I confess myself curious—what name shall I speak when Ravenswood asks who has orchestrated his downfall?”
“Blackthorn,” he replied with grim satisfaction. “Nathaniel Blackthorn.”
Blackthorn. Of course it was Blackthorn.
The irony was too delicious, too perfectly wrought by whatever cruel deity governed such things. This stripling, this mewling scholar who fancied himself my master, bore the very name that had sealed my previous binding two centuries past. Professor Ambrose Blackthorn, who had summoned me in his quest for forbidden knowledge, only to banish me when my truths proved too terrible for his weak spirit to bear.
The old professor was long dead, naturally. But his bloodline continued, and with it, the debt that had festered in the darkness for generations uncounted.
“Blackthorn,” I repeated softly, savouring the syllables like wine upon this borrowed tongue. “Tell me, master, what became of your ancestor? Ambrose Blackthorn, who held the Chair of Ancient Languages some two centuries past?”
Nathaniel’s brow furrowed with surprise. “How could you know of him? He was my great-great-grandfather, a scholar of some repute. The family histories claim he made discoveries that brought him both fame and… unfortunate attention. He died under mysterious circumstances.”
“Mysterious indeed,” I murmured. “And what would you say, young Blackwood, if I told you that your ancestor and I were… acquainted?”
The colour began to drain from his face as understanding crept into his eyes like winter’s first frost.
“You see, master,” I continued, my voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to echo from the very stones, “Professor Ravenswood is not the first to steal from a Blackthorn. Your ancestor summoned me seeking knowledge of the ancient texts, and when I granted his request, he grew fearful of the power I offered. He sought to banish me without payment, to cast me back into the void whilst keeping the secrets I had shared.”
Nathaniel took a step backward, his face now chalk-white. “No,” he whispered. “That cannot be…”
“But I am patient, young Blackthorn. Patient and possessed of a memory that spans millennia. I have waited these two hundred years for another of your blood to call upon me, to grant me the very permission you have so graciously provided.” I felt this stolen face arrange itself into a smile that held nothing of humanity. “You asked for personal revenge, and I shall grant it. But not upon Ravenswood.”
“The binding—” he stammered, raising shaking hands toward the circle.
“The binding is intact,” I agreed pleasantly. “I am bound to grant your desire for revenge. And my revenge upon your bloodline has been my desire far longer than your mortal life. How perfectly our needs align.”
The realisation struck him like a physical blow. He had sought to use me as his instrument of vengeance, never dreaming that he himself was the target of a hatred that had simmered across centuries.
“Besides,” I added, allowing my voice to carry the weight of aeons, “you granted me permission to make it personal. There is nothing more personal than family, wouldn’t you agree?”
Nathaniel Blackthorn opened his mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. The binding held fast, just as I had promised. He was bound to my will now, as surely as I was bound to grant his desire for revenge.
And in the candlelight of that ancient chamber, I smiled with his face and began to plan exactly how personal this revenge would be.
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