In A BALLAD OF BROTHERS, fifteen-year-old Achim Arbitor searches for the last living member of his family; his brother. To that end, he wanders the ruin of an old world aided by powers believed to be a gift of God.
Years have passed since his quest...
Adlai awoke in darkness. Blinking into a realm drowned in shadows, his sight, usually quick to capture the faintest light, could not penetrate the void. Left to wonder and reach, Adlai clenched the cushion beneath his hand and quietly surmised a resting bed. When the room finally came into view, the impression of furniture revealed itself. There was not a lot to see, but an empty chair sat by his lonely resting place. As he stared at that empty bedside seat, his hallowed mind filled with questions of what had been. His memory was a grungy gaggle, but it spat small details of his experience. They came in pieces that required puzzling, but soon Adlai saw her: Nadine.
In the moments preceding his collapse he had not been allowed to look upon her - The weight of her will did not offer him the luxury – but he clearly recalled her contempt. Hers was a potent rebuke for acts she had not even known. She crushed him under evidence no more credible than a fleeting feeling. Even now, as the eldest Arbitor pulled himself out of bed, his arm ached in a shoulder socket that still felt wrong. Stretching his back shot a pain up his spine, but Adlai bit his tongue and limped his way out of that solitary room.
The eldest Arbitor did not wade through the short halls long before he realized where he was. Thatch and Stone Inn as told by the signature squeak of its floorboards. Adlai combed the dark corridors until he saw a light slithering from a crack in a closed door. The soft beam caught his curiosity and so the eldest Arbitor limped toward the opening. A gentle push was all he needed to enter and inside he saw Nadine speaking before Brielle's bedside.
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Adlai heard her calling upon her God with whispering chants and Slavic tongue. The dimly traced scene was the stuff of religious depiction – A forlorn mother hailing the heavens for her sickly child – but Aldai was left with a feeling of loss. It was alright though. The whispers told him so. There would soon be no need for her or the things she never offered him. Adlai could watch now, the two of them together, clad in the mettle of resignation. But still he called her. "Nadine," said Adlai.
The black witch continued her praying prostration. She heard him. From this distance, she had to have heard; but still she made him wait until after she was done. "You are awake," said Nadine. "That is good. Very good." Her kind words belied a tonal disinterest. One did not require superhuman ears to hear it. Adlai was not offended when Nadine turned her concern toward Brielle. He no longer could be.
He asked her plainly. "What happened to Brielle?"
"...She lost control again," Nadine responded.
Adlai's was caught by the short statement. As told long ago, the condition required to conjure Brielle's shadow half was always the same: Starvation. It seemed like a simple problem with an easy solution, but Brielle did not hunger for the same sustenance as ordinary men. Her demonic body craved human flesh and it was a gnawing hunger that was both painful and perpetual. The black witch taught the shy girl to curve the craving with regular meals, and that system proved effective if only by thinning margins. Food was not scarce when the black blood made them the highest of hunters, but that was only a small consolation when the devil's venom was the source of her affliction. Brielle had not known true satisfaction for years, yet her dark desires rarely took the reins. It was an event when The Beast broke free, so when Nadine said what she said without a reason closely attached, Adlai knew something was amiss.
