It takes almost a full week for the nightwash to appear. Previously, he might have regarded that as some kind of miracle. Before he was summoned to Abraxas, death had always been just hours away, and the only thing that could delay his impending doom by a few more hours was dreaming or ley energy. But for over nine months in Thorne, he's been able to live a normal life. He's been able to forget the feeling of wasting away, the desperate hunger, the quiet terror.
Now it's caught up with him.
The first time it slips, he's in the dining hall. A drop of inky liquid blackens his stew. He freezes when he sees it, watching it contaminate the food that was failing to satisfy him anyway, his stomach turning with dread. Within seconds, the nightwash is flowing from him like a bad nosebleed, spilling over his mouth and down his chin.
It comes and goes after that, severity rising and falling with the fluctuations of the Singularity. When magic is surging, he's temporarily cured. When it dips again, his starvation returns — and the nightwash with it.
People start to notice it immediately. It's impossible to ignore, after all. When he's walking down the corridor and the black starts to spill from his ears or from his eyes, the courtiers stare and scuttle away from him, whispering to each other about a curse, it must be a curse. When he's in the training yard and he doubles over retching on the toxic stuff, the guards order him away and tell him not to return until he's recovered. When he's in the library, searching frantically for answers in the mages' books, they're snatched away from him after his black tears stain the pages.
As the week progresses, he can't pretend to keep living his life. He's confined to his dormitory because he can't walk, can't see, can barely breathe around the fluid bubbling up from his lungs. The sheets of his bed are stained with it, a black so dark all light seems to disappear into it. The moment it's wiped away, more of it spills out of him. It's a horrible, grotesque sight to behold.
The nightwash is eating him away from the inside out.
open to all; nightwash
Now it's caught up with him.
The first time it slips, he's in the dining hall. A drop of inky liquid blackens his stew. He freezes when he sees it, watching it contaminate the food that was failing to satisfy him anyway, his stomach turning with dread. Within seconds, the nightwash is flowing from him like a bad nosebleed, spilling over his mouth and down his chin.
It comes and goes after that, severity rising and falling with the fluctuations of the Singularity. When magic is surging, he's temporarily cured. When it dips again, his starvation returns — and the nightwash with it.
People start to notice it immediately. It's impossible to ignore, after all. When he's walking down the corridor and the black starts to spill from his ears or from his eyes, the courtiers stare and scuttle away from him, whispering to each other about a curse, it must be a curse. When he's in the training yard and he doubles over retching on the toxic stuff, the guards order him away and tell him not to return until he's recovered. When he's in the library, searching frantically for answers in the mages' books, they're snatched away from him after his black tears stain the pages.
As the week progresses, he can't pretend to keep living his life. He's confined to his dormitory because he can't walk, can't see, can barely breathe around the fluid bubbling up from his lungs. The sheets of his bed are stained with it, a black so dark all light seems to disappear into it. The moment it's wiped away, more of it spills out of him. It's a horrible, grotesque sight to behold.
The nightwash is eating him away from the inside out.