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Since the day the mark of the Outsider was burned into his hand, Corvo knew one day he’d have to pay for it.

As he stared out the window on long nights like this, his mark burned. A phantom sensation, painful but familiar, like salt grinding into an old wound, whispers of writhing arcane energy woven right into his very flesh. If the Void was the sea, his mark was a goblet filled to the brim, and how often he drank from it...

He flexed his hand with memories; it allowed him to appear behind men with an unnerving amount of ease more times than he could count. One little pulse of energy, a Blink from one dark corner to another, and an opponent was in perfect position to choke or slice through their throat. A thing of infinite complexity, yet so simple to use.

Once, he'd told himself this power was strictly a tool used for justice, but now... he wasn't so sure. One moment he stood by a window, and the next, his fingers brushed a candle on the far wall to snuff it out. He hissed through his teeth, chastising himself for using it for another unnecessary thing. His body often moved before his mind caught up- another trivial Blink or Void gaze, another drop of power wasted. How many times had he done this without thinking? Like scratching an itch that only grew worse the more he touched it, an itch that lived somewhere beneath his skin.

The first mark hadn't been a choice, not truly. One did not bargain with gods- not when Dunwall was drowning in plague and blood, not when Emily's life hung on the edge of a knife. For what really was a brief moment in time in the grand scheme of things, the Void opened its maw and called him "Interesting". As if Corvo was nothing but a rat in a maze, allowed claws just long enough to play the game it happened to have its eyes on at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.

The second mark, however... he took it willingly. He hesitated this time, yes- but Delilah's laughter still echoed in streets gone red. Jessamine's ghost lingered in his dreams, her tears staining into his every thought. Emily had been stolen once, and he wouldn't risk it again. Never again. 

But his reasons didn’t matter. Nothing was free in this life, especially gifts from gods.

Corvo could’ve lived in blissful ignorance forever, could’ve pretended the invisible noose above him- which tightened with every quiet moment in the gardens, each hushed conversation- was only worries from a past full of hardships, ghosts of old fears.

But then the dreams began.

The Outsider- or was it the Void itself? Did the distinction even matter?- had always lurked somewhere in the edges of his sleep, perhaps since Coldridge. A shadow in the periphery, a weight of eyes on his back. At first, it had terrified him, and rightly so; his pulse would hammer him awake, hands clutching into sweat-stained sheets. But, as with all things, time dulled even the most foreboding of horrors. He learned to ignore it. To call it paranoia, his mind’s feeble attempt to grapple with the impossible, that he’d stood in the presence of something older than time, its mark still branded in his flesh even now.

For years, it was just a spectator, a silent watcher in the dark. Then, slowly, things began to change.

He didn’t dream of the Void often- strange, given how many times it swallowed him whole. But it started to seep into everything, like the slow creep of infection.

His dreams of Dunwall’s streets twisted, cobblestones melted easier than wax, air thickening till he gasped for air, a slow death of suffocation as he had no choice but to breathe in acrid smoke. Emily’s laughter in his ears would ring sweet as ever, then she'd freeze, breaths turning to wheezes, then gurgling. Then... forcefully stretched out into someone else’s voice. Her face would flicker, a stranger’s stare for a moment, then nothing the next. Just a gaping hole where her features should be, dripping black as a gutted fish left in the sun. 

And with every dream, every nightmare, no matter how brief, he could sense something coming just a little closer. Footsteps growing louder, a quiet scratching at the back of his mind into the incessant scrape of claws. There was no longer the gaze of some passive observer, but something actively hunting him. Or, rather, wanted him well aware of it.

He avoided sleep for as long as he could, till finally his body betrayed him. Days crept into nights, his vision blurring, his hands trembling harder each hour until he finally succumbed. It wasn't rest, he collapsed when the weight of exhaustion became too immense. He hated the dreams... but they were only dreams, or so he told himself, his teeth grinding together whenever he so much as looked at his disheveled bed. At the very least he knew morning would always come sooner or later.

But it didn't stop there. Cracks began to show, small at first... a shadow crossing a sunlit wall, though nobody stood there to cast it, his own shadow stretched too long behind him, fingers tapered to jagged points, a candle in his study snuffed itself out- but he'd just lit it, hadn't he?- and the smoke seemed to linger, burning the back of his throat. 

These things were easy to dismiss, easier to ignore. But then cracks grew deeper.

A whisper in his ear, words he couldn't discern, and a voice so detached it was uncanny. He spun, blade drawn, steel slicing into empty air. Nothing, only the echo of his own ragged breathing.

Then the reflections- his reflection blinked a split second too late, smiled a heartbeat too long. Sometimes, as the lamplight flickered, its eyes seemed to fill with black, before snapping back as if nothing had happened. 

The worst of it all... the figure. Always in his periphery, a silhouette too pale, too still, its edges fraying like smoke. He'd whip around, heart hammering, and then it was gone. But his mark would burn, just as it always did, a phantom sensation echoing a greeting to a phantom in his midst.

He knew, with absolute certainty, that the Outsider was behind all this. But... why? The creature had never bothered with subtlety before. It could have drowned him in madness with a thought, could have had him peel his own skin off, among any number of other horrific things if it pleased. The Void was endless, chaotic; if it wanted suffering, there were more compelling tragedies to pick from than an old man's nightmares. 

Yet here it was, so patient. Shadows gathering too deep in some forgotten corner, whispers that weren't quite a voice. His reflection, feeling each day more like a stranger. Not torment- not yet, anyway. Anticipation.

And the worst part... he couldn't stop thinking about it. Now it had not only burned a place for itself in his hand, but now his mind. And slowly, carefully, inconspicuously, it was burrowing deeper, taking up more space, till he could think of little else.

The mark throbbed as he pried his eyes open- a dull, sick ache, like pressing down onto a dark bruise. Long moments passed as he lay still, clinging to the last shreds of warmth beneath the covers. The cold seemed to cling to him, seeping into his bones despite the warmth this time of the year. It took effort for him to move, his limbs groaning like rusted hinges as he dragged himself upright. He'd thrown a coat over the mirror weeks ago, but he didn't need to see his reflection to know what state he was in. Bloodshot eyes burning at the light cast by the window, hands shaking as he fumbled with his shirt buttons.

His stomach twisted, empty, aching; he'd forgotten dinner again. The thought of food now... greasy stew meat, congealing gravy... ugh, his throat closed, and he struggled not to dry heave into his fist. Last week, he'd nearly accused the cook of serving spoiled meat, only to watch nobles devour it with delight. 'Delicious', they'd said, mouths glistening with fat. How, he thought, could anyone possibly eat around such swine? And then he mentally kicked himself for such a thought. Something was wrong, but not with the food, or the mirrors, or even the shadows. With him.

The lump in his throat hardened to stone as morning dragged into midday. He barely registered the friendly greetings... smiles might as well have been painted on porcelain for all he cared. None of it felt genuine. He couldn't stop tugging at his collar, the fabric seemed to draw tighter with every shaky breath- though he hadn't even tied the lace properly in weeks.

By afternoon, his skin crawled. Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and conversations died whenever he was present in a crowded room. He could only imagine how he must look, his eyes darting past shoulders, into empty doorways, searching for something only he knew was watching him.

He walked the palace perimeter like a man possessed, checking every archway, alcove, every nook and cranny three times over. Shadows were no longer places the light didn't reach; they were places the light should be, swallowed up and digested. 

Emily noticed, of course she did.

"Corvo?" her voice, softer than her usual diplomatic tone, cut through his trance during trade delegation. He stood close, his palm pressed to his sword's hilt, eyes fixed on an empty room down a darkened hallway. He could've sworn something was there just a second ago, whatever light managed to find its way there reflecting off a row of something jagged and sharp.

Nobles murmured amongst themselves as he slowly lowered his hand from the handle of his blade, excusing himself the moment the audience ended.

Midnight found him slumped in his room, still in his mud-stained coat, muscles tensed locked rigid. The door was barred, the window covered, but he knew there was no point in it. None of it mattered.

What good were locks against a god? 

His leather-bound journal, the one thing the creeping dread had yet to steal from him, sat in its usual place, drawing him from his scattered thoughts. He grabbed his pen, gripping like till his knuckles grew white, its weight a familiar anchor when the world seemed to be unraveling. It lay open, with all its coffee-stained edges and blood-smeared margins and frayed blinding that split slightly at the sides but still managed to hold together despite it all. For nearly twenty years, this ritual had sustained him. When blades gutted the innocent in alleyways, when politicians' smiles hid poison, and when the Void whispered in the mind... he could always return here, if only for a short while.

The pen trembled in his grip, ink sputtering worse than a dying heartbeat. He bit down on the end of it, tasting bitter metal, pinky finger twitching against pages till little paper cuts formed. Ink blotted the paper, and words came out in jagged bursts. He scratched out most of it, finding the majority too messy to be legible.  

The shad ows are breathing- he scratched it out 

I saw somethin g in- it was torn through the pen's furious tip when his hand jerked

Emi ly m ust be s o disap po inted in-

His pen tip snapped with a sound like a breaking tooth, ink pooling across the page, spreading faster than he could wipe it away with a handkerchief. For a moment, he just stared at it, from now-ruined pages covered in black smears and his own hands where the ink seeped through the cotton onto his skin. It clung to him thick and oily, and, in the dim lighting, it gleamed like blood. He heard the call of a bird outside his window, and for a fleeting second, it sounded almost like the wet gurgles of one choking up lungfuls of black bile. The creak of wood... a dying breath. 

Resisting the urge to let panic take him again, he took a few long, deep breaths and settled himself. He was exhausted, overspent, and of course it was only natural his mind would play tricks on him.

But the next moment, the ink lifted, curling upwards into the air with as much grace as a candle that'd just been snuffed, each droplet hanging suspended in the air like glinting obsidian shards. His breath clouded in the suddenly frigid air, the room’s temperature plummeting far below what the season should allow. A pleasurable ripple ran down his mark- after so much ache, so much burning, the absence of pain felt blissful, euphoria washing through frayed nerves. 

The relief brought little comfort, because this time he knew, with such certainty it unnerved him, something stood behind him.

“Isn’t that a shame.” 

The voice hovered above, behind, next to and far away; a whisper from the walls, the ink, his own bones. Then close, far too close, the static-laden hum raising gooseflesh along his neck when it found a way into his skull.

“You were getting to the best part.” 

His body refused to turn. Muscles locked in place, eyes still fixed on the paper- which was now entirely spotless, as if the bloody fingerprints and splotched ramblings had never been. Ink continued to flow upwards, swirling around in the air, dancing around his head before ascending into a ceiling that stretched impossibly high, its edges dissolving into starless black.

Shadows bled from the corners of the room with as much as ease the ink, first a tendril, then a dozen, creeping across the floorboards without sound nor shape. They coiled around his boots, their substance not quite liquid nor smoke, but older.  

A terrible shudder wracked through him, the ache of cold petrifying him in place. Frost crackled up his trousers where they touched, stiffening leather as dead flesh. One slid higher, liquifying into a slick, black tongue, which lapped at his calf before dissolving, stealing away a fraction of his body heat with it. There a moment and gone the next, as if carrying a memory of his warmth into the dark.

"You've grown... quite comfortable with my mark," the voice continued; it managed to siphon the remaining warmth from him. Corvo didn't need a mirror to know his face had gone bone-white, pulse thundering in his ears. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

He looked down. The mark was still there; some nights he dreamed it wasn't. That it was split open into a hundred blinking eyes, staring up at him. Other times, consumed by darkness, inky tendrils rotting away his fingertips, crawling up his arm and spreading infection through the rest of him. Once, he dreamed there was nothing but a gaping hole left in it, as if the Outsider had grown bored and gouged it right out. Maybe that would've been for the best.

"How does it feel?" it continued, its voice scratching at the base of his skull, even as its source seemed miles away. "That thing that binds us?"

Was it a trick question? Of course it felt good. Addictively so.

That surge of boundless energy, his very will made manifest; muscles unraveling and knitting back together in the span of a second. For one moment, Void and flesh harmonized to perfection, as they might have been in some forgotten age before man first feared the dark.

But then came the nausea. The self-loathing, regret so thick he could choke on it. 

As if summoned by his guilt, the god disappeared from the air behind him. Cold fingers brushed his shoulder in some false display of comfort.

Corvo stiffened; the god rarely touched him. The first time had been years into their acquaintance, when the Void shattered and the Outsider's hand closed around his wrist to keep him from falling into oblivion. Since then, only fleeting contact. A fingertip grazing his nape, shoulder "accidentally" bumping his in passing. Always casual, always calculated. Every time, his skin hummed for hours afterward, his heart palpitating.

...Good, he signed at length, the motion stiff. Words failed him. What else could he say? That it felt like flying? Like divinity? The thing already knew, this conversation was merely a formality. It feels good. But you didn't come here to ask that.

The darkness breathed against his back, not quite touching, but near enough for cold to seep through his clothes. His skin prickled with phantom needles, every hair standing rigid.

"Correct." The voice wound around him, its presence caging him. "But I do wonder... when one is given a gift that lifts them from ruin, crowns them with power-" The voice shifted, passing behind him. The air grew heavier, Corvo's lungs laboring. "-Should they not repay that debt?"

There it was. The question that had hung like a noose over him for years.

Nothing was free in this life, especially ‘gifts’ from gods

The edges of the Outsider's mouth curled, just slightly. Corvo had never seen it smile, not truly. Only in warped stretches of shadows on the wall. Now, even that faint twist of lips looked less like amusement and more a wound splitting open. 

A shadow tapped between his shoulder blades. He jerked forward, boots skidding on what was now shifting to basalt. By the time he caught his balance, his hands were already moving. 

You never mentioned a price. Even as he signed it, the childishness of the words left a bitter feeling in his chest. As if gods could be bargained with. Stories had warned him since he was a boy: never bargain with what you don't understand.

The cold pressed closer, and it was then that it struck him, as if finally surfacing from murky waters. He'd forgotten. That this thing was not a specter, not some passive being to chronicle his suffering. It was the Void given form, unbound by mortal ethics. Not cruel, not kind. Simply... other. 

And that made it infinitely more dangerous.

"And I've given you many gifts." Its voice crept into his left ear, close enough to feel the absence of breath, which felt somehow colder. His body tensed tighter; he couldn't so much as turn to face it. "I've spoiled you," it continued, a chilled fingertip tracing the outline of his mark, setting it alight with a pleasurable, but entirely artificial warmth. "Men have burned cities for a fraction of what I've allowed you."

His mind filled with all the possibilities: Sacrifices of animal or man. Dunwall in flames. Emily's crown taken, or... Void forbid, her life. Her throat slit ear to ear.  

You never mentioned a price. His hands curved the signs with the strength of a blade cutting through the air, sweat rolling down his back and freezing in motion.

"Didn't I?" The Void itself seemed to grin. "Jessamine's heart, beating in your palm when yours had fractured. The timepiece that let you unstitch fate itself. My mark- twice given. And the second time... you chose it of your own volition."

He’d hoped above all hopes it wouldn’t consider that any different from the first time. But it was. He’d had a choice. And he chose to take it, and any potential consequences that lay ahead.

Stop. Corvo's hands trembled between them, with no more strength than a beggar's plea. Please. He sucked in air, but each breath only seemed to feed the shadows coiling around him. Manacles that cinched tighter with every ragged exhale. There was nowhere left to run, and no air left to breathe. What do you want? The signs came jagged. Runes? Prayer? Entertainment?

He could almost laugh at himself. As if the god craved discarded bones, dusty altars... As if he could buy redemption by playing hero. 

"Trinkets? My dear Corvo..." Blackened lips curled, but it wasn't amusement that crept over its expression this time. "They litter gutters, wash up from bloated bodies drowned in rivers. Prayers are no better, they don't so much as hold a candle to the weight of your score. And entertainment?" It paused to savor Corvo's flinch, a thin trail of some black, oily substance trickling between its teeth, down its chin. "...Wasn't why I chose you. You've always known the price, just as you've always known you cannot pay it."

Nausea surged through him, stomach knotting into thorns, bile stinging the back of his throat. He clenched his jaw so hard his jaw ached... anything to keep from retching at the god's feet.

Take it back. His hands moved slowly, solemnly, offering his mark as one might a limb to sever. I don't need it. I don't want it. None of your gifts.

A futile plea, he knew. He might as well return an empty plate to someone who fed him and ask to walk away without paying despite a full belly. Return gnawed bones to a wolf and expect it to lick his palm. But he'd do anything.

"I don't give marks lightly." The Outsider took his hand, but only held it in its own brumal palm, petting over the mark, tracing every line. The touch swept currents of energy through him, gathering restless beneath his skin. "Nor do I revoke them. Overseers could carve it from your very flesh, a witch could boil it from your bones, but this..." Its nails dug in, drawing blood that blackened beneath its touch, "...Will never fade. I chose you, and I will keep you."

Then what? His boot cracked against the basalt, the sound echoing endlessly as the Void stretched higher around him, reshaping what remained of the room into an endless expanse. What could I possibly-

"Yourself."

All the coiled dread in his muscles melted at once- not vanished, but flooded out in a wave of feverish sweat. A hysterical laugh burst from his lips, gulping air, or whatever passed for it here, into lungs with the same desperation as a man half-drowned. Less relief and more delirium.

Worship? His hands jerked out the signs, still trembling as adrenaline drained from his system. Prayers? But you just said-

"No." The Outsider blurred, appearing suddenly nose-to-nose with him. Frost bloomed where their breath should've met. "You. Not your words, nor your rituals." A glacial finger tapped his sternum. "The understanding that I own you." The Void hummed, as if savoring the sentiment. "That every breath since Coldridge has been by my allowance."

Corvo's fear flared into something sharper, hotter. Irritation. How many times had the god spun this same threat into prettier words, with riddles and half-truths? As if he were some half-chewed bone to be gnawed at.

"I could simply take you," the god continued, "Keep you here in the Void where I'll never lose you and nobody else will ever look upon you again, willingly or not... It's the least I'm owed... But no." Fingers tilted Corvo's chin up, forcing his gave to meet bottomless black. "I want your knowing. Your surrender. The scales have been weighed down for too long, Corvo. It's time to balance them." 

He searched that face for mockery, for any deception, but found only patience, and something beneath it that he didn't want to ponder.

"You may refuse." The shadows curled around his boots, as if waiting for the word to clamp down. The Void darkened imperceptibly, beginning to suffocate him again. "But my alternatives... hm. You've never had much of a taste for cruelty, have you?"

I'll do it! His hands slashed through muted air, the signs as reckless as the flailing limbs of a drowning man. Eyes burning hot, but not with tears, but defiance. He carried the same wild look of a man betting his last coin. Take whatever you want from me, but leave the others out of it.

The air thickened, buzzing like heat over stone. Shadows pressed against him, each a hand reached out to grasp at him. The hum of energy increased till it just about hurt his ears, as if the Void itself was ready to swallow him whole and slowly pick his heart out for centuries to come. 

"As you wish." It 'smiled' again, wider, but it looked even more wrong this time. A mask hung loosely on a face it didn't own, the glint of teeth peeking out beneath pallid skin stretched too tight. "This will be your home now."

Corvo tensed, hands reaching out instinctively- towards what? He couldn't say. There was nothing but empty space and infinity wrapped crudely in human-looking flesh staring back at him. 

Let me prepare-

"For what?" It let out a laugh as toneless as its expression. "A tearful farewell? Some distant holiday when the weight of your surrender will settle fully upon you? No." Its hand closed loosely over his temple. "You're already perfect, and even my patience wears thin."

Time moved differently here- he'd learned that long ago. A century in the Void might as well be a blink in Dunwall; no farewells were needed. The thought should've comforted him, but it didn't. Not at all.

There were a million things he could ask, or bargain, or anything really. Empty words to fill the space and give him something to lean on, if only for a while. But the space was Void and the Void devoured all his fearful thoughts like it always did.

The shadows struck without warning. 

They surged around him, waves of living darkness that sent him staggering back. Cold braced against his spine when he stumbled, only to shove him forward again with equal ease. When he turned, trying to regain balance, the shadows herded him back. With a gasp, he fell backward, back hitting stone. The chill bled through his coat before he even looked, before he recognied the familiar grooves. It was the same sacrificial altar he'd seen during Delilah's reign. Its surface burned with cold beyond frost, beyond winter, beyond death. 

"I had a future once, too." The voice came from the edges of the abyss, "When they pinned me to this stone." The darkness shifted, tightening, squeezing out the air in his lungs. "For a hundred years or so, I heard their chants echoing in my bones." Shadows flowed upwards with grace, before slamming Corvo onto the alter, locking down on his elbows, his waist, his thighs. His chest heaved against darkness made solid, fingers twitching in useless protest. The god materialized at his feet- though that wasn't quite the right term. It was more that the Void parted to reveal it had been there all along. Hands closed behind its back as it observed him.

"Do you understand what it means," it continued, "To see your entire world laid out before you? For me, that's less than a glance." The shadows tightened just enough to choke Corvo's next breath. "I hear every sob. Count every heartbeat. I've watched even the grandest of empires rise, only to fall and be buried beneath the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." 

Its eyes drank in the light, till Corvo could barely anything but its mouth as it moved in quiet utterance. "All that knowledge... and still, I find myself watching you."

The shadows pinned him- not the fleeting brushes of past visits, but intentional grip of ownership. Corvo's breath came short, ribs straining against their weight.

"You fascinate me."

The voice rippled through darkness, till it emerged at his left ear. It loomed above him, eyes bleeding a kind of dark that consumed all light. 

"I found you hollow. Gave you power. And you..." Icy fingertips traced his jugular. "Spared. Even the man who carved your beloved Empress's last scream into your memory." The shadows tightened, so tense now they might snap him if he dared move. "I've dissected your choices for years. Taken them apart like clockwork. Humans given power will always drown in it. They paint the streets with blood and call it justice." Its voice quieted, barely audible above the arcane hum. "I waited for your breaking point, when you'd snap, succumb to the desire ton wet your hands with their blood." It leaned closer, its presence seeming to mute the surrounding sounds. "But you didn't."

The shadows relented just enough for his hands to move. Corvo swallowed, fingers shaping signs softly. "It was never about them. Only her."

His hands clenched, the memory flashing in his mind; Emily's small fingers clutching his, her eyes losing their childhood glimmer in one day. The way she'd looked at him then, not only as a father, but as her last shield against the weight of the world.

"Why not slaughter every threat?" It moved closer, shadows lapping at his wrists with every sign, wringing out shivers across chilled palms. "Even pacifists will break when the world burns. Yet you sheathed your blade before the ashes even cooled." The frozen surface beneath him was nothing compared to the weight of its gaze. Every tremor, every twitch, laid before beneath those eyes.

The world wouldn't be remade with violence. It wouldn't... it wouldn't bring Jessamine back. Nor would Emily recognize her father drenched in blood.

The shadows twitched, constricting till his breath came in shallow gasps. The Outsider stepped close enough to see the subtle swirl of black ichor in its eyes. Flowing, pooling, before a droplet slipped free and froze on Corvo’s skin.

Its finger traced his throat. Careful, gentle. Then it wrenched his collar open, baring his neck to stagnant cold. 

For a few long moments, it only studied him; the flutter of his pulse beneath paper-thin skin, the way his carotid artery jumped when its thumb pressed against it. His heartbeat slowed, only to hammer harder than before when lips sealed over it, neither warm nor thrumming with a pulse.

"I recall... fragments." The words vibrated against his skin. "A tradition. When famine came, the devoted would offer their flesh. To be consumed was..." A tongue flicked at the pounding vein. "...The highest sacrament."

The absence of breath was the first wrong thing. Corvo braced for warmth, the ghost of an exhalation against his skin. Instead, there was only stillness, the arctic press of lips, and beneath it all... that hum, the Void's energy throbbing through every point of contact.

"The old went first," it carried on, scraping his pulse. "Then the wounded. Mothers baring forearms to hungry children's teeth. Lovers trading last kisses for last meals. Villages would reek of metal from all the spilt blood." The next moment, there was pressure, light as it was. Its teeth were all wrong, Corvo knew that before he saw them. 

He'd caught glimpses before- a flash of white, a jagged edge, but now... pressed against the thinnest flesh, he could feel them in detail. Too many. Too sharp… tapered like a fisherman's blade, crowding the mouth that housed them. The tips dimpled his skin, not quite breaking yet.

The words cut through his skin before the teeth did.

"I hunger for you, Corvo."

A pop, that first breach of flesh... it was far too easy, like puncturing parchment. Then there was a wet crack of the Outsider's jaw unhinging to allow for ease of movement as it fully bit into him.

Blood cascaded hot down his shoulder, a shocking contrast to the Void's chill. No pain, just blooming numbness, the wound knitting itself shut even as the god fed. Glowing blue veins pulsed where teeth had been, then dissolved faster than ink in water.

Corvo's body betrayed him with a cry, hands flying up, only to find unbroken skin. No wound, not even a scar, aside from the old ones that had been there for years. 

The god retreated just long enough to let him catch his breath, its thumb still stroking the unmarred skin where his artery had just a moment ago had been gaping. A forked tongue, black as night, swiped across its lips, which were still wet with blood.

His blood, Corvo realized with a lurch of his stomach, wine-dark and wrong against a pale mouth. Heart hammering against his ribs, sweat beaded and rolled down to freeze on basalt. Logically, he knew this god could unmake and remake him with less effort than a sigh. But his body raged against this knowledge, lungs heaving, limbs locked in place.

"I've wanted this," it murmured, licking the last crimson droplets from its chin, "Since Coldridge. Since you were nothing but shattered bone and fury." Its eyes sharpened as Corvo's breathing slowed. "I can see you were well worth the wait."

There was no warning. Just pressure as jagged teeth found his other artery, and no pain... only the uncomfortable clarity of each barbed point parting flesh, the wet click of it swallowing around the wound.  He waited for dizziness, the creeping dark at the edges of his vision that should follow blood loss, but it never came.

The sounds were the worst. The wet shredding of muscle just inches from his ears. The pop of tendons snapping, the hiss of Void energy stitching in back together in the fraction of a second. 

Then, the god migrated downward, to shoulder, then collarbone, the junction where neck met arm... it let no available skin go to waste. Not only that, but it ate with all the voracious appetite of a famished beast, jaws cracking bone, throat working with each heavy gulp. That tongue, dry and cat-like, left the skin feeling raw wherever it lapped at him, tasting him, before gouging in.

Corvo felt everything. The angle of each tooth. The rhythmic swallow vibrating through ruined flesh. The way his blood pooled warm on the basalt, only to dissolve into black mist. Most of all, that low, pleased hum as the god devoured him alive.

Teeth met bone. Flesh parted, healed, then parted again.  Rend, swallow, restore. The creatures hands grew feverish, talon-like fingers clenching down and shredding fabric to create new paths for its teeth. The scent of metal was thick for brief moments before it faded into the Void just as the wounds themselves. Had it been hours? Days? Corvo couldn't be sure, everything slowing down to a crawl. Throat, shoulders. arms, ribs, thighs... Each bite deeper, each swallow more ravenous. He could only watch, detached, as his own muscle peeled away like a ceremonial offering, only to knit itself whole beneath a blue glow that might've been pleasant if he wasn't petrified in the horror of it all. Each bite in and of itself was a contradiction- violence made ritual, destruction turned devotional, his very flesh an offering. 

Finally, it returned to his neck- but this time it didn't bite. Instead, it opened its mouth wide enough to cradle his entire throat, jaw resting there. The most vulnerable point. The easiest to break. Minutes passed, Corvo's pulse frantic against its teeth... but then it pulled back. Its tongue flicked out, too long, too pointed, lapping at the air like a serpent. 

With a drawn-out sigh, the god sank beside the slab, licking blood from its lips. "I should have done this far sooner." Its expression was sated, eyes half-lidded and studying Corvo's body- which was close to new considering everything- before catching on his face. On the tears.

Corvo hadn't noticed. The sheer primal horror of it all had gotten to crawled in too deep; the memory of teeth on his liver, the gap where his throat had been... His sobs came soft and shameful, stinging the corners of his eyes. The shadows retreated, leaving him to tremble against the basalt, each gasp burning his lungs like he'd run for hours. The stone beneath him was the only anchor, proof he hadn't dissolved into the Void entirely. 

"You aren't in pain." The god's thumb smoothe a tear across his cheekbone. "Nothing has been taken from you that hasn't been remade, and there's no audience to manipulate. Yet... you weep?"

There was little Corvo could do to stop the tears. The Outsider's form moved closer, cradling his face, wiping away damp streaks as it looked over his healed flesh.

"See?" It lifted his hand, pressing his palm to its lips. Then, a gentler bite, just enough to prick the skin. A single bead of blood welled before the Void stitched it closed. The god kept his hand trapped, fingers kneading unmarked skin. "There was no threat," it murmured, voice vibrating against his knuckles, "In ages past, to be consumed was worship. And to be chosen by a god..." It let out a breath, features softening. "You belong to me, crow. Death will not claim you." 

Jessamine, Corvo hands signed before his mind could catch up, I was only ever hers.

The words hung in the air, and the Void grew still. False stars snuffed out, smothered beneath an invisible tide. Shadows convulsed- but not retreating. Reconfiguring, swelling, as if something older than thought turned its eye upon him. 

And the Outsider... For a moment, the man-shaped thing wasn't. Edges blurred, features dissolved to static that tasted of burnt copper on Corvo's tongue. When it spoke again, its voice unraveled into a chorus of whispers, a whale song, the hiss of a freshly-sharpened blade. They threaded through needle-point teeth slowly, quietly.

"Did she?"

Corvo's mark seared suddenly, with the viscous heat of a branding rod. Shadows, thicker than blood, cinched into his limbs, threatening to crush him. The god's tongue flicked out, tracing his neck where scars should've been; as before, the touch left no moisture, only a crackling numbness that burrowed into the base of his skull. 

"You think a dead woman's claim outweighs mine?" The Void's ambient hum pitched into a tinnitus shriek. "You've had decades to mourn her passing. You're not weighed down by grief anymore... yet you carry her memory as if she still breathes?"

Blackened tar streaked down its cheeks. Droplets struck Corvo's cheek, congealing and burning like dry ice before dissolving into smoke that stung his eyes. 

"Even the Heart has crumbled to silt. She's been scattered to currents even I cannot swim." Its fingers pressed over Corvo's sternum, nails becoming fishhook-sharp as they dimpled flesh. "Yet, you still chain yourself to a ghost. If you insist on lying..." Its voice shifted, quieting, "At least try to make it convincing. You wear my mark like a lover's ring. Spend my gifts like a drunkard, always reaching for just a little more." The talon edge of its fingernail traced the stubble on his jaw. "I've witnessed how you adore it. You feel most alive when using my gifts; your pupils blow wide as a whore's each time you call the Void."

Corvo's hands shifted up to sign an instinctive denial, but the god caught his wrist, forcing his palm flat against his mark, which thobbed to life with a near-painful current, flickering light that shifted between violet and cerulean. "

You pet the mark, you treasure it. Press it to your frantic heart when nightmares haunt you. Lift it to your eye when you feel alone in the world. And, sometimes... you press it to flushed skin when you-" 

Enough, Corvo's hands slashed through the air, fingernails drawing blood from his own palms- the Void healed them before he could take comfort in the pain. No distractions, nowhere to hide. His face burned, not just from shame, but the mark's heat. It spread through him, creeping down his limbs, and... he wished it hurt. Pain was familiar, he could handle that. But instead, it was blissful, drawing him in, making him stifle a groan.

He’d always been careful- or tried to be. Let himself enjoy the power, but never relied on it. But the Outsider was right. It was addictive. Each use left him craving the next. The more he used it, the more he craved it, the sweeter the rush.

“You were mine before the mark,” it continued, drawing him out of his thoughts, “A brand like this, it was merely meant to act as a conduit. The real mark is something that exists far deeper than flesh. You know it, beneath all these fanciful words and denials. You feel it.” 

The air thickened, and the space around him began to distort. First came the scent: rust and cold blood, the stench of death and suffering. Then the sound, the drip-drip-drip of water echoing out of sight. A mockery of a memory he'd tried to forget. He thought he had, the images just blurry shapes somewhere in the back of his subconscious... till now.

Corvo's breath grew quicker as he felt it, the altar beneath him softer. Basalt shifted into damp straw, shackles materialized around his wrists. Not shadows, but real iron, crusted with frost and speckled with black.

The Outsider watched from afar, with the same unknowable expression as when he'd first laid eyes on it.

"You remember this place," it said, but its voice sounded detached from its body, echoing from some shadowed corner.  "When you first drew my eye." 

A rat skittered over his boot, only to dissolve into shadows at the edge of what he now realized was a cell. The ceiling stretched too high above, half rotten away, dripping more than just water. Thick, blackened resin oozed down over his shoulders, now fully bare and covered in goosebumps.

"You were beautiful here," came its voice, which lapped at his ears from every direction. Corvo's hands jerked to his chest. Not against the god, but a memory of fists, of ribs cracking. The wet pop of a finger twisting backwards and breaking.

They'd thought him silent from bravery, from strength, or perhaps just arrogance... All of it was wrong. Jessamine's death had hollowed him. Pain was just background noise in something already dead. His heart continued to beat, but any life in him had long since withered. 

The Outsider materialized outside the bars, fingers dragging down rusted iron.

"Broken," it murmured, "But unbreakable." A nail snagged on a chip in the metal, the sound too sharp in Corvo's ear. "I wanted to live in your ribcage even then. Burrow in deep, find a place for myself where I could taste your rage. How strange it was... to find there was something sweeter beneath it all."

The god moved through the bars as if they were smoke, crouching beside him. Its hand rested over his heart.

"It still beats warm, despite it all." Its thumb pressed just hard enough to feel his heartbeat. "They left you to freeze. Rats had begun to gather, gnawing at your ankles, your hair..." Its gaze lifted. "You would've died, had you stayed much longer. Not from the cold, nor hunger. You'd have simply... stopped."

Corvo couldn't remember how to swallow, his throat raw despite not opening his mouth even a moment. He remembered the fade of sensation, slow, creeping numbness into his fingers and toes. The way his breath fogged less and less with each exhale. Rotting away as he lost count of days.

The god's hand curled, clenching fabric, resting there for a moment- then pulled away, leaving only a ghost of sensation. Its gaze weighed on him; not comforting, not judging. It felt... familiar. Not the usual sense of its eyes lingering on him when he was alone in a dark corridor, but a feeling he'd forgotten in the past. In this place.

He'd felt eyes back then too, in this very cell- weaved together as this one was, a well-crafted mimickry of buried memories. He'd thought it was the torturer or perhaps another prisoner. Even a rat peeking from a crack in the wall. 

Now he knew.

Long minutes passed, and Corvo's breath stilled, though the shudders still came- now mainly from the cold. The Outsider remained silent through it all, close enough to share warmth- as if it had any. Really, its existence was a paradox; warmth flowing stronger through his mark the closer he was to it. Part of him wanted to spit at it for showing him this place; another part wanted to demand answers to a hundred questions. All of them died in his hands, slumped in his lap.

The cold bit deeper here than it had in memory... Coldridge's chill couldn't hold a light to the Void. Without thinking, he shifted closer. Just an inch, it could be excused as him adjusting his position. Then another. The mark's heat grew incrementally, a comfort he wanted to hate. Exhaustion weighed heavier than the chains ever had. His eyelids soon drooped, the line between the mark's sweet warmth and the creature's proximity blurring. When was the last time he slept? And when was the last time he did so without nightmares coming to chase him?

He remembered nothing after that for a long while. The world growing darker, his eyes slipping shut, jerking awake every now and again... but it was a futile fight. His body might as well be made of lead, even as he clenched his teeth and rolled his hands into fists, even as anxiety fought at the pull of sleep. Cold, warmth. A hand trailing down his shoulder. 

The scent hit him first. Lilac, jasmine, rain... melding with the crisp, salty air before plague and death stole Dunwall's glory. It was so vivid it momentarily stole his breath. Her breath was warm against cheek, though her fingers were cold as ice, too sharp as they threaded through his hair.

"Finally up?" she murmured, rubbing into that at his temples as she did when she knew there was stress to melt away. The voice was hers. Her countenance the same. But beneath it, there was dissonance, two conflicting parts joined to create something uncanny. No gulls called outside, no sounds of the sea crashing against shore. If anything, it was deeper, like they were underwater. "You always sleep better when I'm here, don't you? Stubborn thing... I told you you need to rest." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Something about her eyes were just... hollow.

He knew. Void, he knew. But her nails scratched his scalp just the way he remembered and the bed smelled of her, and for a moment... he let himself pretend. 

"...One minute," he signed, blinking up at her. The laugh that followed... it was perfect, but the expression didn't make it to her eyes. Her face still wrinkled in the places he remembered, the same smile lines, the same dimples, but darkness flickered into her eyes the moment he blinked. Yet, he shifted his face into her palm anyway. His hands curled into the sheets, fabric that felt more like a funeral drape, but he didn't pull away. "Just one more minute." 

"Of course," she said, continuing to idly play with his hair, "You've more than earned it." She leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead; it burned like ice, but he didn't flinch. "You've been so strong for me. For Emily, for Dunwall." Her breath stopped, and a full minute passed. Two, three, the air stale in her lungs before she exhaled, as if she'd forgotten how.
 "I'm so proud of you."

The words were all wrong. Jessamine often praised him in the moments they got alone together, but somehow... perhaps it was the pronunciation of each word. Mimed, each syllable too precise. But he still closed his eyes and sunk into her touch. Just a little more, he told himself. Just a while longer. 

Her hands pet at his shoulders, his back, then slid to his chest. Achingly familiar, knowing all the places that made him twitch, resting her hand to his heart. "Hm... when was the last time...?" Despite the amusement in her tone, she was careful with him, pausing whenever he trembled. "All these worries, all this stress... Don't you think you've earned a reward?"

Shifting closer, she planted a kiss over his ear, smiling against him. "Don't you miss me?"

Corvo tensed, instinct warning him and drawing him in with equal measure.

As her lips met his, he didn't stop her. He couldn't. let her push him back onto the pillows with a gentle thud; even the pillows were how he remembered, silk and lace brushing against his cheek as she leaned down. This time, he kissed back, desperately. Frost grew over his lips, artificial body heat doing little to help. 

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. A shadow, undulating against a corner and disappearing back into a crack in the paint. 

"Shhh," she whispered against his chin, tilting his face back to face her. "Everything is alright. Breathe, darling." Her robe slipped down, shimmering like an oil spill in a dying ray of sun. Clouds were rolling in outside. Or maybe it was nightfall. Did it matter?

Her fingers grazed over his waistband, playing with buttons, whispering little praises against his ear. "There we go... let me take care of you. No need to do anything but relax for me." Her voice was soft, but the next moment her nails snagged the fabric like claws- only to relax a moment later and smooth it back out. 

He shut his eyes, feeling cool air over his stomach. It was difficult to concentrate, but he tried his best to follow her words, just as he used to. This isn't her, he thought dimly, even as his body arched into her touch. It didn't take long for her to finish with his trousers, letting them fall to the floor... which, he realized with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, was growing darker. Shadows seeped up through the floorboards, gathering into a low tide that withdrew when he looked at them. Slowly. Careful. Testing.

Hands traced his face, too perfect, too unmarred by the years she'd missed. "There's my noble protector," she cooed, grinding down just a fraction, a thin layer of fabric separating them. Corvo choked out a gasp, conflicting emotions spiraling as he tried to steady himself, only growing as she rocked against him again. "You've been so good for me, haven't you? You deserve this." She stroked her hands through his hair again, but this time it scratched, coming back with a thin trail of blood dripping down one fingernail. Before he could react, she ground down harder, his cock swelling despite himself.

Shadows crept up the bedframe, curling around his legs, but they were hidden from view by Jessamine's body. Cold and hungry.

Lifting his hand to her lips, she planted a kiss over the mark. She traced it with a fingertip as she slowed her movements, gaze flicking up. This time, her smile was genuine. "This thing... it's given you so much." She kissed the mark, and it hummed for a moment with more pleasure than even her hips rubbing down into him. It was enough to take his breath away, and he found himself gasping to catch it. "You wear it beautifully..."

Adjusting her angle, Jessamine's fingers dug into his waist and increased the pressure as she ground down, Corvo's breath hissing through his teeth. "You've always been so strong," she continued, petting at his chest, "So patient, a good partner and a good father. But you don't have to carry all of it alone anymore."

Darkness gathered behind her, coiling more strongly around his legs, drawing his thighs apart. 

Fabric grew slick between them, dragging coarse along his swollen cock. Heat and a cold older than time collided, shadows creeping further up the bed and lapping against his arms, his chest, one wrapping snugly around his throat. It wasn't tight, but he still felt it vibrate against him when his throat bobbed in a heavy swallow. Despite how his muscles twitched and tensed, he didn't try to move away. 

For her, he told himself, as shadows tightened their hold. Even a ghost of her.

"Let go, dear," she continued, a hum in her voice that sounded distant. Like something far more vast, like the Void's drone. The mark flared when her thighs brushed against it, light flickering into the encroaching dark. "It only wants to cherish you, you know," she said even as she leaned over him, moving in just enough to kiss him. Something dripped from her mouth, and when she withdrew, he saw a streak of a substance black and viscous trailing down her chin. His tongue swept over his lips and felt something tar-like, tasting like the moments before rain. He bit at it, rubbed his wrist across it, but found it wouldn't wipe away.

Corvo twitched as the shadows at his legs thickened and brushed over his hole, drawing away warmth, leaving his skin cool and hypersensitive. They traced with experimental strokes between between his inner thighs; he could've closed his legs, jerked away from the touches. Made it all stop, but... he didn't. He should've, but he didn't. 

His hips jerked upwards, involuntary, a moan caught behind teeth he clenched shut. His face burned from the shame of it, but his cock throbbed harder with every brush of soft skin through fabric and each lap of shadow against heated skin. Instinct told him this needed to stop, logic told him to resist, but he gulped all the hesitation down. Hid it somewhere that couldn't be reached beyond the pleasured gasps. 

"See?" Jessamine purred, hand drifting down to stroke the tip of his cock that peeked out beneath her. "It feels good. You've earned this, don't you think?" He arched into the touch, even as his mind recoiled, reason scratching at the back of his thoughts. "Do you want this, dear?"

The shadows pressed closer, beginning to sink in before retreating. Giving him a chance to say no. To back away. Instead, he leaned himself down, seeking out the cold, giving a silent head nod. 

The darkness didn't wait for further confirmation. There was a sensation of glacial cold as it seeped inside, alive and viscous. Corvo jolted, body instinctively clenching down around the intrusion- but there was nothing to clench. It was neither air nor solid, a substance that managed to gradually fill him without the unrelenting stretch of a cock or even a finger. 

Jessamine's form stuttered for a brief moment, teeth too sharp and too many behind her soft lips, and then she was the same again. "Look at you..." she said, eyes darkening just a fraction, "Inviting me in."

He scarcely had a moment to adjust before the shadowed mass moved, coiling, molding to his walls as Jessamine gripped his hips and ground down on him. Her movements weren't so gentle anymore, dragging across him with near-bruising force, nails gouging into tender flesh till blood pricked up. Corvo cried out, less from pain and more from the sudden sensation of cold pressure against his prostate. His mark flared, little shocks of pleasure zapping through his palm in time with shadows and the rock of hips.

His heart raced, every pulse accompanied by shadow working him open with a deep, aching fullness that left him clawing into sheets. It They were alive, writhing, seeking out every sensitive spot with ease. Corvo kept trying to hold back noises, and failed miserably each time they brushed somewhere that sent a tremble through him. Jessamine's praises poured forth, breathy and sweet, "Good boy," she cooed, static between words, "Just like that... Breathe..." Her hands on his hips paled, elongating. Corvo's mind clouded, muscles growing tighter, the fabric between them soaked through. His cock throbbed, precum leaking onto his stomach as he neared the edge. 

The tendril quickened, fucking into him without mercy, its rhythm nearly matching Jessamine's movements. He was so taken up in it he hardly noticed as the bed hardened beneath him, a cold surface pressed against his back. Chains materialized around his ankles, his wrists- though this time weren't restrain, but to bind.

Pleasure only coiled tighter and tighter, his mark burning with a euphoric sort of bliss that had him clenching his hands into fists and tossing his head back. All the while, Jessamine's voice, though distant through his haze, continued to sound more and more detached; fraying at the edges, syllables stretching too long, scratching at his mind. Around him, shadows curled, blanketing him till he could barely move, till he shivered uncontrollably at the cold. Walls around them dissolved into damp stone, then starless expanse as the space seemed to shift from one place to another, reality itself unraveling. 

Jessamine's voice grew distant, echoing, as if from the end of a long tunnel, her form shifting just like the smoke around them. "...So perfect for me..." came her fading words, each more strained, more detached from her flickering form, "It's going to be alright...Let it... cherish..."

Her fingers brushed his face one last time before they too dissolved into smoke, the bed fully giving way to frigid basalt that bit at his bared flesh. 

Two black eyes opened in the dark.

Corvo barely had time to process the way shapes shifted and merged into something vaguely humanoid- too many limbs snapping together, a thousand wide eyes closing and sinking down beneath translucent flesh. Beneath, blackened veins like the roots of some plant that'd grown far too deep beneath the earth and rotted away. The next moment, it was buried in him.

He thought he'd come then and there, body hypersensitive and thoughts a haze, but some unseen pressure held the base of his cock with an iron grip even as it jerked and spasmed. The noise that almost escaped him was borderline inhuman; he bit his lip till it bled and clenched his jaw shut. 

The thing in front of him didn't have a mouth, despite all the teeth, but it spoke anyway. Through layers near and far, some so high he could barely hear and others low enough to rattle the stone beneath him. 

"Look at me."

Not a request, not a plea, the words forcing their way through his skull and prying his eyes open when he tried to squeeze them shut. The Outsider was... not quite in front of him, but behind him, beside him, in a distant corner; defying geometry, creating new rules for itself with a form refused to settle. And he felt it everywhere too, pressing him down, down, closer to iced stone till he thought his spine might snap. 

It moved in him, but it wasn't quite its hips that snapped forward, as it didn't seem to have an equivalent close enough to anything that ever was to compare it to. It just moved, only a little, putting in as much effort as breathing, and Corvo genuinely thought break. Not physically this time, but mentally, denied release even when his mark flared to a molten pleasure that had his vision whiting out, even when its every touch knew exactly where he needed it, even when its voice welled into the edges of his consciousness and said "mine"

Corvo couldn't tell if he was screaming or not, sound muted and lost to the Void, but the god drank them all in and carved its way deeper. Its presence pressed against every inch of him, inside and out, as if it sought to burrow its way down to marrow and replace the very notion of anything else with pleasure. The mark was no long confined to his body, a violet glow crawling down his veins, filling everywhere it infected with bliss a human mind wasn't equipped to handle. The god didn't relent, never paused, its shapeless form shifting and undulating around him as smoke given sentience. Whispers found their way into his every scattered thought, needling themselves deeper each time he tried to claw back to coherance. 

"Say it."

The pressure in Corvo grew, thicker, deeper and deeper, till a bulge formed in his lower belly. His vision blurred, tears lining the edges, body reaching its limit... yet he still moved closer. Perhaps because there was nowhere else left to go.

"Say it."

The words vibrated his bones, splintering muscle and sinew till his very blood hummed with them. His lips parted, a ragged gasp escaping him as the pressure became unbearable. His cock jerked violently, desperate and dripping, but was held tight by an unrelenting grip. Tears streamed down his face now, mixing with sweat and drool, dripping onto stone older than time. 

"Say it."

The command wasn't a voice but a force, peeling back layers of willpower he no longer possessed. And so, Corvo broke, not with a shout but a whisper only it would ever know.

"Yours"

The word hung in the air between them for a long moment. Everything went still, the Outsider's form knitting itself back down to its shape that might've looked human if he didn't know better. 

The Void shuddered around them, the god's form collapsing in on itself till it resembled something closer to its human-shaped form- save for smoke bleeding from the edges and eyes that flickered in and out of existence like distant stars.

All at once, the pressure around Corvo's cock dissolved, and everything went static. His entire body went rigid, shadow filling his lungs and drinking in his cries as ever nerve lit up, searing away thought until there was only sensation. Even as his body convulsed, the god milked pleasure out of him, smoke curling around his cock in featherlight touches that drew sob after choked sob. Its hands gentled on him, holding instead of clawing, lazily fucking him through the aftershocks, as if it'd forgotten its own pleasure.

By the time Corvo came back to his senses, his throat was raw and his mind blank. His own cum dripped down his stomach, the heat of it making him shiver harder than the adrenaline as it left his system. What have I done? The thought slipped away before it could take root.

The Outsider's gaze never left him, every eye staring as he came apart and melted back down into its grip. The space grew quiet, the Void gradually weaving itself back into focus, the pitch black nothing and everything smoothing out into familiar greys and blacks. For once, the cold basalt beneath him was a welcome thing, sapping the warmth from his overheated body.

"You admitted it," it murmured, voice finally eminating form one source instead of thousands, though some aspects of itself had yet to catch up. Shadows stayed buried in him for another moment before withtreating, leaving him with a sweet ache and some faint glow benenath his belly. It slowly pet through his sweaty hair, darkness blanketing the rest of him to cool him the rest of the way. "It's all I needed." Its other hand drifted to his mark, resting it there; the touch made him shudder, but there wasn't pain nor overwhelming pleasure, just a steady warmth that grounded him. 

Shadows pooled all about them, swirling together to form an imitation of his own bed- too soft, too uniform, but everything else was identical. It guided Corvo onto the surface, which molded to his shoulders, his body sinking down into fabricated pillows without resistance. He wanted to pull away. He wanted to lean in. In the end, exhaustion kept him still.

"Rest," it said, neither a command nor an offer, just... a word in his mind, quiet yet inescapable. It lingered at the edge as if it didn't quite know what to do with itself, its form shifting restlessly before settling into its usual man-shaped guise. Sitting beside him, it reached out to trail across his forehead, but stopped itself short, fingers curling back into the dark.

"You admitted it," it repeated, quieter, "And yet... you remain just out of reach." Its eyes narrowed. "I consumed you. I loved you in her voice, with her hands, gave you pleasures she never could. Still, you still slip through my hands. There's a space between us, and I can't fill it, even when I've eaten your heart and taught it how to beat again."

Corvo closed his eyes. He had no answer, and he wasn't sure he wanted one.

The Outsider exhaled, a hollow sound, and gestured vaguely. A blanket materialized over the royal protector, weighted, scratchy, smelling of Dunwall's smog-laden rain. "She would... hold you afterward." It spoke more to itself than him. When he didn't respond, it leaned closer, no breath escaping its mouth as it spoke. "Your heart beats faster when I'm near. Is it fear? Desire? Even you don't know."

The god lingered, neither gentle nor cruel, just a presence. Corvo didn't pull away, fatigue softening his edges till nothing sharp remained... and a part of him, a shameful part, craved the company. Any company, he told himself, even this.

The air shifted first, the Void's metallic hum thinning to something warmer. Shadows flowed down from walls, revealing their rich, peeling paint he knew by heart. Doors materialized where they should be in the real world, bleeding into the cracks of a room that had only existed before as a painted copy. The ambient pressure gave way to the resounding creak of Dunwall Tower's timbers, the sea's rumble against stone far below. Corvo breathed in, not the Void's borrowed air,but the real thing. Salty air, aged oak, whale oil burning out somewhere farther away. Sunlight, true and unfiltered, spilled through the windows. Home. 

He'd begun to think he'd never see it again.

Yet, as relief washed over him, his limbs stayed heavy, his mind adrift The weight of the Void clung like resin, and his body still fought against the pull of sleep, exerted beyond what its mortal constraints should allow. The god was at his side one moment and across the room the next, its silhouette flickering against the far wall just as the flame in the lamp next to it. It took its usual formal stance, arms folded behind its back, but sunlight didn't touch it. Shadows swept around the room where its feet should've met the floor.

"Go, then. Sleep, celebrate... do as you wish. But know this," It started to fray at the edges, smoke billowing around it, only partially there. "You'll dream of me." It wasn't a threat, not quite a promise, but a fact as certain as the fall of night. 

Months passed since then, the memory just as vivid as though it had hapened mere moments ago. He stood atop a balcony, looking down on Dunwall's streets as twilight coated the buildings in orange and purple. Cool night air drew a shiver out of him, making him burrow deeper into his coat. Not that it ever helped. Not when the cold always trailed behind him.

There was work to do, he should've been inside right now. But he still found himself clutching at the railing as shadows curled around his wrists. The itch came again, a crawl beneath his skin, teeth grazing at his veins. His mark flared like a second heartbeat, a dim glow beneath his skin even when he hadn't used it for days. It wouldn't be long now, he could never last much more when it started to tug at him like this. 

He didn't flinch when the darkness pressed to his back, leaning into him. Always seeking to close some distance he'd never see. 

"Missed me?" The voice had no tone, no source. It lived in his mind, in the wind, in his bones.

He didn't bother trying to deny it. It already knew.

The dark pressed closer, and so did he.