[EP:02] Drezhal (Serax POV | Night I | Zealot | Unbound Mode)

I'll start by apologizing for the awkward spacing. I started this in one word processor and finished in another and my patience with coding and interfaces is at its limit today. If it's really annoying, I'll come back and update it.

This POV scene reveals several things I'd planned to reveal later in the IF, but I think it'll make for a more intriguing replay and puts an interesting spin on some choices you'll have going into Night VI. This excerpt is from Unbound mode and contains some references to NSFW content. Our patron MC belongs to Sian! Her name is Aurelia. I'll be putting the picture provided of her below. For everyone who has submitted profiles/pics/etc, let me know if you'd prefer I don't include your name and art/reference pics.

Sadly, Aurelia won't have too much to do in this alternate POV scene as she'll be unconscious for most of it, but hopefully we can see her in a more interactive scene later. Okay, here we go!

★★★

Valdricht says that sithrak smell like sulfur. It’s one of many things they disagree on. Serax has traversed plains where the stones sing, rattled by the seething pressure from the magma roiling beneath. To him, the scent in the air is that of spoiled eggs whisked in vinegar and dumped into a latrine.

Valdricht calls it drezhal.

It’s one of those odd Wyransith words that doesn’t translate into any of the languages Serax speaks. It encapsulates the disconcerting realization that one’s perception is wholly unique and can never be fully shared with another. Even when sharing a mind, drezhal will always be a barrier that neither of them can breach.

The drivagn has barely come to a stop when Serax climbs down, pulling his bow from his back and an arrow for good measure.

In the valley below, Kalat sleeps. The ruins of the village dot the landscape. If he loosens his focus, he can almost imagine that the edifices aren’t haunted husks.

Like Kalat, the town of Serax’s birth was raided. In Baniralt, the homes are made of wood that burns to ash. Even the bodies burn to dust in the night, carried away on the moonday wind.
In Nazralt, the frost has a way of preserving things. It’s a land that doesn’t allow things to be forgotten.

“Should we check for more trails?” Serax asks without looking back.

Valdricht is slow to answer today.

He’s slipping more than usual.

There must be a reason—something that exacerbates the cascade of memories that overtake his sire, rendering him paralyzed, entranced by the lure of the past.

Early on, Serax thought he couldn’t control it.

Now, he suspects Valdricht simply doesn’t care to.

Whatever is behind him holds more appeal than what’s in front of him.

“Tread carefully,” says Valdricht, his voice like a drawn string. “This feels wrong.”

Serax resists the urge to spit. “It’s just one sithrak. And if it felt wrong, why did we even bother coming this way?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and none comes. Serax takes a few steps down the slope and then stumbles, his chest constricting and his gut roiling. Clutching his abdomen, he turns back, already knowing what he’ll see.

Valdricht stands like a salt spire, eyes unblinking. The link between them isn’t cut—it’s simply gone. The familiar pathway between their minds ends in an impassable wall.

It’s been years since the first time Serax felt him slip, and he’s never gotten used to it. That first time made him realize just how much his being had become intertwined with his sire’s. The sudden disconnection is the loss of a limb, the dulling of colors, the dampening of emotions.

Sometimes, Serax wonders how much of himself is really him. When he thinks back to the night before Valdricht glided into his world, he hardly recognizes the man he was.

A caged animal.

A crude brute.

The son of a willful slave and a malleable master.

He had too much pride for the mines—and just enough education to know he was destined for them the moment his father’s wife stopped tolerating her husband’s indiscretions.

Becoming a darksinger should have sharpened his worst traits: impulsivity, lust, wrath—all of it magnified in the frenzied state of vyrdóthyn.

And yet, what he found on the other side of his ascent was peace, the kind he had never known. In his first year, he spent more time in Valdricht than in himself.

Whenever he panicked or raged, Valdricht would tighten the reins of their bond, drawing Serax into the tranquil, elegant citadel of his mind.

In Valdricht, he learned stillness. He learned that the world wasn’t always something to battle. He could simply watch it unfold, untouched.

Each year, Serax needed him less. And the less he needed him, the more Valdricht began to slip away.

Now, standing on the precipice of their final season, Serax wants nothing more than to take hold of Valdricht’s reins and pull him back, yet he knows he can’t.

A love so profound that one is willing to stand back and watch their lover drown. There must be a Wyransith word for that.

He fights back nausea as he regains a semblance of equilibrium. As always, without Valdricht, the world is slightly off-kilter. He turns, gazing about the landscape dispassionately. In the distance, he spies the sithrak, a shadow shambling through the snow. It’s too far away to get a clean shot, and he isn’t interested in moving closer.

Or doing anything, for that matter.

He’s a drunkard waiting for the tavern to open.

Serax has his own version of slipping. Without the flow of purpose from his sire, the act of living breaks down into a series of tasks. He must remind himself to close his eyes and reopen them. Every intake of breath comes with effort. Exhalations are sighs that speak of relief and quiet dread. Each beat of his heart is the banging of a drum struck by a tired slave waiting for permission to take his leave.

When Valdricht slips away, Serax doesn’t stand alone. He stands with a truth that he’s too numb to be frightened by.

He will not survive Valdricht’s death.

Swallowing, he prepares himself for his sire’s return. His back straightens, and his shoulders sag into a relaxed posture. He contorts the muscles of his face into an approximation of annoyance, as if Valdricht’s slip—the third one today—was nothing more than an inconvenience.

Valdricht will know better.

There’s no part of himself that Serax can keep from him.

But he’ll allow Serax the dignity of feigned indifference.

Valdricht’s return starts with a prickling sensation across Serax’s body, as if all his nerves are lifting in unison. At the same time, he sees a shadow darting below. Its movements are nothing like the shambling gait of the sithrak. He narrows his eyes.

Is that…

Serax begins to move—slowly at first, but quickly accelerating. The instant he feels Valdricht’s return, he fires his realization into his sire’s mind.

‘A woman!’ At the same time, he recognizes the sithrak lumbering behind her. ‘It’s hunting a woman!’

As is often the case when pursuing prey, no other thoughts cloud Serax’s mind. He doesn’t question who the female might be, why she might be in this forsaken place, or how she can be alive without a stitch of clothing. He’s single-minded as he runs, nocks an arrow, takes aim, and fires.

His first arrow hits the sithrak in the head. He’s nocking the second when Valdricht passes him in a blur of motion. He manages to fire off two more before his sire reaches the creature. It’s a measure of Valdricht’s confidence in him that he doesn’t so much as touch the hilt of his sword.

Serax is still jogging to catch up as the beast slumps over, collapsing atop the slight figure of the female. He slows his pace, watching as Valdricht kicks the beast aside. He thinks he hears her protest, but then all he hears is a ringing in his ears.

He comes to a stop as a word ricochets through his mind.

Svetlodyn.

It’s another one of those words that doesn’t translate well, and Serax can’t recall its meaning. He slows to a stop several spans from Valdricht.

‘What?’ His mental question receives no response, and he’s too distracted to ask again.

Valdricht crouches before a shadewalker female. Serax recognizes her race by the long rope of her silver hair and the wide, amber eyes with which she regards Valdricht. He’d liken her to a spooked deer, but her pale skin and slight, trembling figure remind him more of a lamb separated from the herd and gazing into the jaws of a wolf.

He stiffens as Valdricht pulls her into his lap. There’s something about the gentleness with which he maneuvers her and the way she slumps against him that tugs at the strings of Serax’s temper.

“Luthen ywen tharrah?”

Valdricht speaks the high form of his language, as he sometimes does in his own mind when he wants Serax to puzzle over his meaning. It isn’t until he brings his wrist to his mouth that Serax discerns his intent.

His gut constricts as he watches his sire bite his wrist and offer it to the female.

The next few moments pass like a dream. Valdricht continues to murmur things to her while Serax stands rigid, struggling to contain the mounting pressure within. The female is a leech, sucking eagerly from his sire’s body, taking what she has no right to.

Serax regards the leech with new eyes, his hands clenching into fists. Her pallor and scant form speak of a life spent indoors, subsisting on meager rations. Her face is long, brows wide, and her chest flat. Nothing about her holds any appeal, and yet he can easily imagine her human master lusting after her exotic features.

Not a human master.

Heart thudding, Serax takes a step in their direction.

Valdricht turns, his stare once more halting him. He speaks calmly while giving him a look that warns of violence.

“The other sithrak will know this one has died. More will come. We shouldn’t linger here.”

Unable to contain himself any longer, Serax blurts out, “That… That’s a female.”

The woman—the female darksinger—growls. Just like that, Serax is forgotten as Valdricht rushes to comfort her.

“Hush, little one.”

A rock drops in the pit of Serax’s stomach as he watches his maker cradle her neck.

“Sleep now,” says Valdricht. His words hold the weight of compulsion. Her eyes roll back in her head and then fall shut, her body going limp in Valdricht’s arms.

Valdricht rises to his feet, wrapping his cloak tightly around her. He gestures to Serax.
“Give me yours. She’s as cold as frost.”

With numb fingers, Serax complies, detaching his cloak and approaching them on stiff legs. The closer he gets, the more pungent the odor of the sithrak becomes. But there’s something else in the air—a thread of a scent that conjures memories of summer nights.

She smells nice enough, if nothing else.

Valdricht wraps the second cloak around her until only her face is visible in the bundle of furs. Then he starts walking in the direction of the drivagn, Kalat at his back. The faint scent of his arousal trails behind him.

Serax bristles.

“Where are you going? She came from the village. We should put her back.”

He catches up in time to see Valdricht’s scowl.

“You want to leave her to die?”

Yes.

“That’s not what I said. She must have a maker nearby—someone who will be furious when they find that she’s gone.”

“Why should that concern me?”

Valdricht doesn’t press into his mind. In fact, he’s unusually self-contained. Guarded, even. Still, Serax knows he sees right through him, so he abandons pretense.

“I don’t want her coming with us.”

Valdricht stops and searches his eyes. His gaze softens in a manner Serax has come to despise.

“Here.”

He tenses as Valdricht passes the female to him, accepting her more on reflex than anything else. Her weight is at once insubstantial and overbearing.

Pointing to the ruins behind him, Valdricht says, “Why don’t you go and find one of those hovels to take her to? I’ll wait in the drivagn and keep watch over the valley while you exsanguinate her.”

Serax blinks at him. “You want me to drain her? Be serious, Valdricht.”

“Have I been in a jesting mood as of late?” Valdricht asks, his face hardening. “If the woman is an imposition for you, she will not come with us. But at least have the decency to kill her before the sithrak arrive. I doubt they know our females can’t be bred, and she is too young and weak to stop them from trying.”

Serax looks down at the female once more, his upper lip curling even as he mutters, “She can stay with us until her maker returns. But I will feed her. Your blood will just fuck her up.”

He doesn’t look at Valdricht as he trudges toward the drivagn. The other male has the grace to remain silent and walk a pace behind him.

Back in the drivagn, Serax is quick to pass her off, as if merely holding her might infect him with a disease. As soon as she’s back in Valdricht’s arms, he regrets the decision. His maker cradles her with such attentive care that Serax begins to suspect he’s being mocked.

In fact, he’s almost certain of it.

He knows Valdricht too well.

His sire’s inner peace comes at a price. Just as he’s seldom swayed by anger or lust, so too does he remain unmotivated by pity and compassion. He’s seen Valdricht step over the moaning bodies of the dying, only to complain about their stench sticking to his boots. He’s never seen Valdricht heed the pleas of the starving, and he’s urged Serax to do the same.

‘They were born to survive and they have failed, eri na’Serax. Give them bread today, tomorrow they will beg for blankets. There is no end to their need. Do not prolong their suffering. Let Death wash them clean of this life so that they may begin again.’

The only thing that gives Valdricht pause is that she’s one of their own. Serax has never seen him interact with a new darksinger, let alone a female one. When he stretches his mind back, he struggles to conjure clear memories of his own early days, but he knows Valdricht was a constant fixture—always present and prepared to attend to him.

But Serax was his.

Valdricht didn’t make this female. They share no bond.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ he says to his sire.

Or at least, he tries to. Valdricht’s mind is walled off so thoroughly that Serax finds himself searching his face, seeking evidence that he’s taken another slip.

Valdricht stares down at the woman intently. As Kerach begins to move, Valdricht places his hand in front of the woman’s face, shielding it from the sharp wind.

Seldom does he go where he is uninvited, at least when it comes to Valdricht. But the pressure within him is reaching its zenith, and he can’t continue to contain it.
He sends another message across their mental channel, this one shooting with the force of an arrow. It slams into Valdricht’s wall, breaking the barrier between them.

It strikes too deep.

When desires pull Valdricht, he seldom does more than sway. For years after he was made, Serax endured the mild agony of desiring his maker—of being so connected with him, yet one step apart.

He remembers the night it came to a head, when he woke in a cold sweat, his cock hard and his need a beast apt to consume him. Silently, he’d begged for Valdricht, deliberately vague yet knowing he’d understand—because there wasn’t a part of him Valdricht didn’t know. Benevolent deity that he was, Valdricht slid into his bed furs and whispered into his ear:

‘Esha, eri na’Serax.’ Hush, my Serax.

The first time he took hold of him, Serax wept. Scarcely a moment passed before he was finished. Climax hit him with the force of revelation, though shame was not far behind. In spilling his seed on his maker’s hand, Serax defiled him—not merely with the sin of taking pleasure in a man’s touch, but by defiling the bond between them, his own weakness turning Valdricht from companion, mentor, and friend into a lover.

Peering back with nearly a century between that night and now, Serax knows he didn’t coerce Valdricht into doing anything. Such a thing isn’t possible. But he sometimes suspects that he wore him down—because Valdricht was in his mind, too. And for years, Serax’s mind had been a theater of depravity, imagining all the ways in which he could debauch his maker.

In the years that followed, Serax’s lusts ruled their nights. Valdricht was far from a reluctant participant, but he also was never the one to reach. It was always Serax, grasping at him, pulling him in, and then holding him lest he drift away.

There were times when Valdricht let him into his mind, permitting Serax to wade through the warm waters of his passions. It always fascinated him to feel the subdued pleasure of his maker. Even during the rare times when Valdricht climaxed, it was a rolling wave of satisfaction—so far from Serax’s own frenzied peaks.

Despite reassurances that Valdricht desired him more than he merely tolerated him, Serax always had his doubts. When he spoke of former lovers, they were always females. The few times he mentioned lying with men, it was during his early centuries when, by Valdricht’s own admission, he was an insatiable fiend, fond of orgies and all manner of deviancies.

Long ago, Serax had learned not to fixate on his insecurities. He packed them into a mental box and stowed it in the corner of his mind. Now and then, they broke free, erupting into a feeding frenzy—not satiated until he’d screamed vitriol, hurled accusations, and then collapsed in Valdricht’s arms.

Now, as he strikes deep into the core of Valdricht’s mind, the box does not merely open. It splinters into fine, needle-like shards that lance his brain.

Serax wheezes as if he’s been punched. His vision swims for an instant, then goes dark. He feels a sensation of falling, then being wrenched back into his body—a body suddenly gripped with the most powerful lust he’s ever felt.

“Sila.”

It’s a song he normally relishes—one he begs Valdricht to sing to him. Today, it’s cold comfort. However he might have reacted, he’s now still, his passions corralled. The song of peace does nothing to quell the erection that strains within his leathers, though it does dampen his burning need to resolve it.

He’s panting as his vision clears. The artificial placidity isn’t enough to stop him from glaring at Valdricht.

“What is that?” he grinds out.

Valdricht’s calm demeanor gives him away. Few things can rile his anger, but barreling into his mind is a sure way to set him off. He should be seething, even flinging a few choice words at his progeny. Yet the look he gives Serax is apologetic.

“You should not have done that,” says Valdricht, his fine brows drawn together.

“What is that?” Serax repeats, now speaking in a whisper.

Valdricht’s gaze shifts back to the woman, and Serax sees red. His claws extend. He isn’t going to drain her. He’s going to tear her apart piece by piece until she’s nothing but meat for Kerach’s evening slop.

“Do you see now?” asks Valdricht.

“What?”

Serax looks down, and his throat constricts.

It’s the same woman, and yet it’s not.

He blinks, his hands going limp as he regards her flushed cheeks and plump, pink lips, the thick fringe of pale lashes at the seal of her eyes—eyes which Serax wants to reach over and pry open. He wants her to wake so he can peer into their golden depths and see her peering back at him. In the space where his wrath brimmed only moments ago, anxiety begins to twist.

Who is she?

Where is her maker?

Why would he leave her alone and vulnerable?

What if she wakes unstable and Valdricht is unable to soothe her?

Without the blood and the connection to her creator, will her mind break down into madness?
Will I lose her?

Serax jerks back, baring his teeth. “What is this? What are you doing?”

Valdricht doesn’t look up at him this time. His words slither into Serax’s head.

‘Do not break into my home and demand I explain myself.’ Valdricht allows the strike to burn before soothing it. ‘What you feel right now belongs to me. It will pass in a few hours. Until then, consider it a reminder not to tread where you have not been invited.’

The words carry the tension of a curt dismissal. They’re still echoing in Serax’s head when Valdricht slams the link between them shut.

He’s left alone in the cold, staring at his maker and the woman. His temper flares and his claws twitch, yet as he looks between them, he can’t remember which one he wants to tear apart.

Drezhal (noun) /DREZH-hal/

The unsettling awareness that one’s perception of reality is singular—an inner world shaped by memory, instinct, and experience that no other being can fully access or understand.

My thoughts:

The theme of this scene is perception and it's a doozy. I'm glad this POV came after Valdricht's, because it allowed me to focus less on the logistics of what's happening in the scene and delve deep into Serax's inner world, which is very complicated.

One of the earlier lines that made my heart ache for Serax was him saying that the less he needed Valdricht, the more Valdricht slipped away. But it hints at a relationship that can be twisted in some problematic ways. Like a kid who acts out for their parent's attention, we'll see the many ways in which Serax, despite what he might tell the MC or even himself, works to keep Valdricht at his side.

The start of their sexual relationship in Unbound mode is also intriguing. For Bound players, my crossroads for the Bound route is on that night. In Bound mode, Valdricht ignores Serax's desires and doesn't permit their relationship to become sexual, though as you will see it isn't something that Serax has entirely let go of. The paragraphs describing that night and the dynamic of their relationship were tricky because it's like trying to condense a novel of character development into a few sentences. If any aspect of it makes you uncomfortable, in part it was intended, but also wait a bit until we explore it in further depth, particularly from Valdricht's POV.

Meeting the MC (poor Aurelia) might have been jarring for some readers. This is one of several reasons I was hesitant to do Serax MF/monogamy route, and why I'm still certain it'll be a rocky road. At the start of the story, Serax isn't attracted to your MC and on some level, regardless of your game mode, he deeply resents her. But what he loves is experiencing her through his bond with Valdricht. It's Valdricht who's attracted to the MC and it's through Valdricht's attraction to her that Serax begins to fall in love with her in a manner that resembles addiction. It's why sometimes Serax seems aloof and disinterested in the MC, and others he seems deeply invested in her. More often than not, he's simply mirroring the emotions that Valdricht is repressing.

I'm sorry to dash the Teddy Bear Serax fantasy, but maybe you can fix him.

In the books, it wasn't meant to be a twist, as the story was told in alternating perspectives. I think the suspense of the story is wondering, as Serax does, how much of his love for the MC is really his own, and how much is he simply indulging in the emotions Valdricht is sharing with him.

I'm so excited to share more alternate POV scenes with you guys. I feel like this is a way in which I can share my original vision for the story, piece by piece. The next scene will be a Valdricht Heretic POV and will be out after the next IF update.

-Mortish