AU: Mended Circle

[wolfehawke]

It's quiet in Kinloch Hold.

Far too quiet for Adalwolfe, curled in the corner of his bed and trembling. There are no crickets, no night birds. No wind through drafty windows or his siblings' breathing from their shared bed across the room. Instead it's a hollow quiet. There are voices in it, soft whispers that he knows are other mages but instead sound a susurrus of demons to him in their unfamiliarity. Hushed enchanters' voices become that of rage and pride. And fear. Fear that he'd faced in his harrowing and was a thousand times worse than his father had even made it sound.

He'd thought himself ready for it because he knew what was coming, but even his father's stories of his own Harrowing could not have prepared him. Malcolm's Harrowing was different. A demon of pride, one that tempted him with power and taunted him with failure. But the demon for Adalwolfe was a soft, insidious thing, giving voice to every insecurity as he walked the Fade, trying to find it, telling him in hushed whispers what a disappointment he is, how he'd gotten caught. Stupid child, fearful child...

And then it had him.

Fear that stood over him and screamed, it's breath like rotting paper and grave dirt and the legs like needle pointed spindles protruding from its back and gripping his arms and shoulders, holding him in place so it could devour his mind and wear him like a second skin.

And in a burst of frozen magic, it didn't have him any longer.

He flung spells at it until he could no longer cast, until his mana ran near completely dry and long after the thing was done.

When he woke up, he was here. In silence save for far off voices through stone walls and solid book cases, around corners. It's all at once too private and not private enough and he trembles in the dark, unable to go back to sleep for fear of the demon again, but unable to will himself to get up and face the realities of his new life either.

Instead he lays there, huddled in a ball, and trembles in the dark.