The Voice
Doya's POV
A person who doesn't know death is coming gets to live happily, unaware of the day everything ends. But when you can actually feel your life slipping through your fingers, all you can do is dread the moment death finally catches up to you.
That became my greatest fear.
I never thought I would be someone terrified of dying, but ever since this plague came over me, it was the only thing I could think about — my death.
I kept the secret buried for far too long, and it slowly ate away at me. Telling Dana lifted some of the weight off my chest, but there was still something I couldn't bring myself to tell her... there was another way to save me. Though I wouldn't really call it saving. It would mean giving up who I was, and selling my soul.
The first time I heard the voice was after the Forsaken captured me and dragged me back to their camp. I was exhausted, barely conscious, drifting somewhere between sleep and waking when it whispered to me.
Give in to the darkness.
I'd heard the stories before. The warnings of people being lured and manipulated when they were at their weakest. Most of them eventually gave in, but everyone knew the voice belonged to Balshak.
At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I remember jerking awake and looking around, hoping someone else had heard it too, but nobody reacted. So I brushed it off and ignored it.
But moments before Dana and Kumbuye came for me that night, I had heard it again. Clearer this time. That was the moment I truly broke. My life force was fading fast, burning out from the inside, and for the first time I genuinely believed that was it — that I was about to die there. Then Dana came.
I survived, but the voice never left.
Even after I recovered, it stayed with me. Whispering promises at my weakest moments.
It promised me power. Immortality. Freedom from death.
All I had to do was switch sides.
And the worst part... I was actually tempted.
That night in the Forsaken camp, I almost gave in. I was weak, terrified, desperate to live. The voice pulled at me so strongly that even my body began to surrender to it.
But then she came.
And she saved me.
"Oh, did I interrupt something?"
Kumbuye stood at the doorway, his eyes moving between Dana and me.
"No." Dana responded, lifting a hand to rub her temple. "Did you need something?"
"I just came to check if you were okay."
"I'm fine," she retorted.
The atmosphere in the room changed, and I didn't want to stay any longer. Besides, there was someone I needed to see urgently.
"Um..." I started, already moving toward the door. "I should go check on something."
The door swung shut behind me.
As I walked down the corridor, I ran into Corvessa. We both slowed awkwardly, just staring at each other in silence. Neither of us made any move to speak.
I still hadn't thanked her for helping rescue me from the Forsaken. Truthfully, we hadn't spoken at all since everything happened.
I just simply gave her a small nod before continuing on my way.
---
When I reached Thornwick, I made my way down into the dungeons of the Black Hold. The guards led me to his cell and unlocked the cage door.
His head lifted the moment he sensed my presence.
"Doya," he croaked.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself down here, Darveth."
He looked terrible. His skin was marked with torture, chains binding him to the wall so tightly he could barely move. The air reeked of blood, sweat, and urine. His eyes were swollen and sore, his lips blistered, and cuts and burns covered his arms.
If he hadn't been a traitor to our cause, I might have felt pity. But he was a monster.
"Never been better," he replied, coughing hard as blood spilled from his mouth before he began to wheeze.
I stepped further into the cell, and the guards locked the door behind me.
"Why are you here, Doya?" he growled.
I let my eyes linger on him longer than intended. My hand slowly curled into a fist, turning my knuckles white. I was angry — burning with fury — but I forced myself to keep it under control.
He was the last person I wanted to see about this, yet he was the only one I could turn to. The only one who might know something beyond what everyone else already believed.
"I came to ask you something," I said at last.
He let out a small chuckle, which quickly turned into another harsh cough. "You need me," he rasped.
"What do you know about the voice?"
Darveth's lips curled slightly as he shifted against his chains. "The voice..." he repeated slowly. "You mean the whisper that keeps you up at night? The one that makes strong men shake?"
I held his gaze without blinking.
He chuckled again. "Funny thing, that voice... It finds people when they're already halfway gone." he wheezed. "You look tense... that's not good for you."
I stepped closer and crouched in front of him, holding his gaze.
His eyes flicked to mine, but the grin never left his face. "Careful now. Wouldn't want you getting emotional in front of me."
I held onto his collar, and it tightened around his throat, squeezing and burning into his skin. He gasped, letting out a sharp scream as he jerked against the chains. Then I let go.
"What do you know about the voice?" I repeated.
He let out a bitter laugh, still struggling to catch his breath. "You think this will make me talk?" he said, followed by another mocking chuckle. "You're really foolish, Doya."
"Don't make this hard on yourself," I hissed.
I really didn't want to involve Kumbuye in this. With the collar clasped around his neck, there was no mental wall left sealing his thoughts. There was nothing stopping Kumbuye, with his abilities, from slipping into his mind.
"...I know for a fact," I added slowly, "...that you wouldn't like a mind-hearer crawling through those little thoughts of yours now, would you?"
His expression shifted slightly, but he still held my gaze.
"Now, tell me everything you know about the voice."
He tilted his head. "He is speaking to you..."
"I want it stopped," I cut in. "How do I stop it?"
"What did he promise you?" His eyes held a strange glint of awe. He was insane.
"How do I stop it, Darveth?" I snapped back.
"Why? Why would you want to stop it? You've been chosen."
I couldn't quite place what his expression held, but if I could read his mind right now, I would believe he looked at me with astonishment. My stomach twisted.
I snorted in disbelief. "Chosen?"
"You say it like it's a curse," he rasped. "But it's not. It's power. You're just too afraid to understand what that means."
"Well, I don't want it. How do I stop it?"
"You should give into it, Doya... accept him, and he'll save you."
"Give me what I want, or I'll take it by force," I warned.
He hesitated and exhaled slowly. "Whether you want it or not, the voice has chosen you. It's only a matter of time before you understand just how important this is."
Perhaps I really needed Kumbuye to handle this. I turned toward the door when he spoke again:
"You're asking the wrong question."
I turned around.
He exhaled slowly. "You don't stop it... you accept it. And when you do, it stops affecting you."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
He gave a faint smile. "It means you should stop fighting it in your mind," he said quietly. "Stop treating it like something separate from you... and start seeing it as part of you." He paused, taking in a deep breath. "Once that happens... it no longer has anything inside you to twist against you. Nothing left for it to manipulate."
He wasn't offering me a way to stop it. He was telling me to give in, to surrender. To stop resisting and accept the voice as part of me. There was no way to get rid of the voice without giving in to the darkness.
I turned away from him and knocked on the door. A moment later, the guards unlocked it from outside, and I stepped out of the cell.
I made my way to the Sanctum's archives, searching through books, scrolls, and anything that might mention the voice. It took hours before I found something.
An old, dust-covered manuscript.
The Forbidden Art of Mind-Thralling.
I opened it carefully, turning through the pages.
A specific passage caught my attention.
I read it slowly, trying to make sense of it...
The art of Mind-Thralling does not begin as an art.
It begins as something far more subtle.
The hearing of minds.
The manuscript spoke of it as something once natural to a few. An ability that did not yet carry a name or fear. Those who possessed it could slip past the barrier of thought and listen into the minds of others.
But that was not where it ended.
With time, some of these hearers learned to press further. Not just to hear, but to push back into the space they listened to. A breach that went beyond mere thoughts.
And from that breach... something new emerged.
What was once hearing became intrusion.
What was once awareness became influence.
That was the birth of what they called Mind-Thralling.
It was not a gift. It was nothing but a corruption of perception itself.
Those who could hear minds were no longer seen as rare. They were seen as dangerous and unstable. Fear spread faster than understanding, and that fear demanded removal.
They were hunted and silenced.
And over time, they began to disappear, not because the ability died... but because those who carried it learned to hide it better than they learned to live with it.
Until it became something almost forgotten. Something not to be spoken about. Something not to even possess as an ability. Something... that was FORBIDDEN.
My grip on the manuscript loosened slightly.
Kumbuye could possess this ability.
I turned the pages again, faster now, searching for something more urgent. Something that could stop it. Stop the voice. Balshak's voice.
Then I found it. A page about the effect that the voice has on people. It looked like a warning:
At first, it speaks to you.
Then it speaks as you.
And finally, there is no difference between the two.
I stared at the lines and re-read it multiple times. It didn't fully make sense, until I remembered Darveth's words.
Accept it... and it stops affecting you.
I read on, paying close attention to the passage before me.
The voice does not cease on its own. It persists until either the speaker withdraws... or the mind's resistance is fully broken. When that happens, the walls of thought collapse, and access is granted without resistance and control becomes inevitable.
My heart stuttered. That was it. There was nothing else in the manuscript about the voice. Nothing about stopping it. Nothing about escaping it.
Now I understood why this ability had become forbidden.
In my current state, I didn't know if I was strong enough to keep resisting. What made it worse was that a part of me wanted it. I wanted the power it promised. I wanted to feel like myself again — strong and alive.
Slowly, I let the manuscript slip from my hands and sank to the floor, resting my head against my palms.
I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Trying not to let the fear consume me.
I returned to my room in the Sanctum — the same room I had before the expulsion. Everything that mattered to me from my cottage in Harrowfen District had already been moved back to my room in the Sanctum.
I went straight to my bed, trying to fill my head with anything that could drown the voice out. Happy thoughts... so I thought about Dana.
At that moment, she was the only thing that still made me feel at peace.
I held onto the thought of her until sleep finally took me.
---
Let me in.
I woke instantly.
Ah, that voice was loud and clear.
For a moment, I just lay there staring into the darkness, the fear creeping back in. I could no longer tell what was real anymore. This thing in my head was driving me insane.
I stayed awake, staring into the endless dark. The night dragged on for far too long.
Eventually, I got out of bed and reached for wine. Maybe it would silence the voice. Maybe it would numb my thoughts enough for me to breathe.
I drank through the entire night until sleep finally found me again.