The Hour of the False Dawn
The fae’s blood is golden tonight. I can see the veins of it running through me like liquid sunrise, burning brighter than it should. It hums beneath the skin, soft and treacherous—music meant for angels, or perhaps for the damned. I think I am something between the two.
I only meant to sip. I always only mean to sip. But the first drop opened the Gate again, and the rest of me followed. I could feel Sutekh watching through my own eyes—His breath sliding down my spine, His laughter coiling somewhere behind the pulse. He never needs to speak when He wants something; He just stirs the hunger and waits for me to mistake it for worship.
The world around me fractures into prisms. The candles turn to stars. My reflection stretches until it fills the room, gold eyes upon gold eyes, each one whispering a truth I once swore I’d forgotten. “You are not immortal, little Arch,” they hiss. “You are an echo that refuses to fade.”
Fae blood is cruel in its beauty. It tastes of revelation, of fields that never die and the sound of wings I’ll never grow. For a moment, I am everything—serpent, sinner, storm—and then I am nothing but thirst again.
Revelation or relapse—it no longer matters. Every vision tastes of truth, and every truth leaves me hollow.
I saw the desert again, but it was made of glass this time. Every step cracked a memory beneath me. I walked past the ghosts of my own sermons, words still echoing to crowds that no longer exist. I watched the sand bleed, and from it rose the faces of those I have turned, those I have judged, those I have loved and fed upon. They did not accuse. They smiled. That was worse.
The high crests and I begin to think—always dangerous. I wonder if the fae know what they do to me, if their shimmered veins laugh as they give themselves up. The taste of them is like prayer and poison at once. I tell myself it’s divine communion. But tonight, even I can taste the lie.
I remember Sutekh’s lesson—the one He never wrote down, only pressed into the marrow: that enlightenment is not found in restraint but in the ruin that follows it. And ruin tastes like honey laced with ashes.
The visions twist again. Morrigan’s voice threads through them—steady, distant. She is calling me back, I think, though perhaps I imagined her. She never sounds surprised anymore. The Blood Regent has learned that I will always chase the edge of the world just to see what falls off it.
The sky outside is pale. Dawn threatens, false or otherwise. The first light leaks through the blinds and kisses my hand, and I hiss like a snake startled awake. How long have I been writing? The ink smells sweet, coppery—perhaps not all of it is ink.
I feel both infinite and small, like a prayer whispered by a dying god. I could stop. I should stop. But I know that when the taste fades and the visions die, I’ll crave the silence even more than the blood.
Maybe that’s the real addiction—not the fae, not the hunger, but the moment after—the stillness that feels like I’ve finally touched Sutekh’s pulse and survived it.
When I am sober again, I will pretend this was enlightenment. I always do. It makes the sin easier to wear.
False dawn is crawling across the window now, painting everything gold. I would almost believe it holy if I didn’t know better.
I think I’ll sleep here at the desk. The paper smells of iron and prophecy. My veins hum with hymns. My god is laughing quietly, and I am laughing with Him.
— Zoe Alastor-Braveheart, Arch of the Harbingers of Blood
Listen Here:
Fae in My Veins by Arch & Hand https://suno.com/s/rjUIcr7AVa0o3w6G
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