"Uh..." The memory of that fragrant roast goat must have come back to her, because Kai'Sa swallowed without thinking.
Seeing her hesitate, Zihark rested a hand on her flat stomach and gently rubbed it, his voice low and hungry as he tempted her. "I know you like these goats, but how are you going to keep them alive? There's no grass down here to feed them."
"And if we don't eat them, the Void creatures will chew them to pieces sooner or later. No matter what, we can't just leave them for those monsters."
"Eat them. Just imagine that long-lost aroma of meat bursting across your tongue."
"Eat them. Wasting food is a crime."
"Come on. Eat them..."
Kai'Sa could resist the hunger sent through her second skin, but she had no guard at all against Zihark's coaxing.
Her resolve was never that firm to begin with, and it did not take much for him to wear it down. She licked her lips, clearly tempted now, and finally gave in. "Fine. Wait here. I'm stronger than you. I'll carry one up myself."
"No. I'm coming too," Zihark said, a strange note in his voice, as if he had thought of something.
"Then let's see who gets there first."
With that, Zihark let go of her hand. He already knew he would lose, so he was in no hurry.
Kai'Sa sprang across the rocks with easy agility and dropped into the rubble below in the blink of an eye. She even turned back to wave at him, making sure he was watching.
Zihark narrowed his eyes with a pleased smile, openly satisfied.
The current Kai'Sa was hardworking and capable. She was loyal, she could protect him, and when she behaved, she was practically his little angel.
So this was what it felt like to raise a beautiful girl. He was starting to love it.
He quickly wiped that creepy grin off his face and made his way carefully down the slope before climbing over the rubble himself.
Kai'Sa tried to move a rock pinning down one goat's hind legs, but the moment she got close, the animal began struggling wildly and bleating in terror, as if it had encountered something even worse than a natural predator.
Hearing those shrill cries, Kai'Sa froze on the rubble, suddenly doubting herself and not knowing what to do.
As if he had expected this all along, Zihark said, "Kai'Sa, it's the smell of your voidskin..."
At his reminder, Kai'Sa lifted her arm and sniffed at it, but she smelled nothing strange.
In truth, any normal living thing would catch the heavy scent of fear clinging to her armor. It was the kind of smell you did not need a nose to sense. Set even a slug at Kai'Sa's feet, and it would instinctively twist away from her.
"Watch me instead." With his hands behind his back, Zihark walked over to another goat. This one was a ram, horned, with none of the swollen udders that hung from the ewes' chests and bellies.
The "Void smell" on him was lighter, so even when he walked right up to it, the ram showed no sign of resisting.
That lasted only until he suddenly grabbed it by the horns.
The ram instantly went berserk, kicking and thrashing while driving its head forward. Zihark was still only an eleven-year-old boy, and the sudden jerk nearly threw him off balance. He tightened his grip to avoid being flung aside, only to tear one of the horns clean off with shocking ease.
"Was this thing glued on or what?"
Zihark stared at the horn in confusion, only to watch it melt in his palm like ice cream and get completely absorbed by his voidskin.
"Stop devouring every weird thing you touch!"
Absorbing the horn had been completely unconscious. He instinctively tried to shake it off, and as he flicked his hand, a bony spike suddenly shot out from the back of it.
About thirty centimeters long, curved forward, sharp at the tip, with a spiral pattern running through it, it looked almost like a unicorn's horn.
And that was not all. The moment he stopped moving and looked closer, his voidskin rippled again. More curved bone spikes burst out one after another from his wrist, elbow, and up toward his shoulder, making his whole arm look even more grotesque.
Zihark had no interest in carrying around useless, freakish growths like that. For him, they were more trouble than they were worth. He fixed his Abyssal Eye on the voidskin, and the spikes slowly withdrew one by one, never growing back out again.
"Is that one of your voidskin abilities?" Kai'Sa asked, looking over.
"Probably. Devour... then imitate?" Even Zihark was not sure. It felt to him as though his voidskin learned by consuming things. Once it fully digested a certain biological structure, it could reproduce it on the surface of the armor.
So far, the ram was the only living creature he had ever absorbed. He would need to consume something else before he could be certain.
"Forget that for now. Catch the goats first. This place isn't safe." Nothing had stirred inside the abyss yet, but his instincts told him nothing good ever came from lingering at its edge.
"Leave it to me. I'm stronger than you anyway."
Kai'Sa approached the goats again. After what had just happened, she decided she would knock one out first and drag it away after. And if she misjudged the force and killed it by accident, that was fine too.
But the moment she drew near, the frightened goats started struggling even more violently, recoiling on pure instinct. One of the less badly injured ones managed to kick the rocks off its body in the chaos and bolted away in blind panic, leaping in the opposite direction from Kai'Sa.
Unfortunately, the abyss lay directly in its path.
In that instant, Zihark wondered whether he should order Kai'Sa to kill it before it got there, just to avoid drawing out whatever predator lurked in the Void.
But it all happened too fast. He had no time to get the words out, and Kai'Sa had no idea what kind of threat a fleeing goat could provoke. Even if he had managed to shout the order in time, there was no guarantee she would strike without hesitation.
So the two of them could only watch as the goat sprinted for its life to the edge of the abyss, and called forth the horror lurking beneath the surging Void.
Crack!
A half-transparent tentacle wreathed in black flame burst out of the sea of energy without warning and punched straight through the goat's chest in an instant.
"Hiss..." It was as though some forbidden line had just been crossed. The aftershock of that power brushed over Kai'Sa's body and made her take an involuntary step back.
The goat did not even have time to scream before death took it. It was lifted into the air, the tentacle coiling around it and tightening in pulses like a beating heart. Its four legs twisted into grotesque angles.
Black flames spread across the goat's body, igniting everything at once—fur, flesh, bone, horns, hooves. All of it melted like wax, turning into a pale, reflective liquid.
As the tentacle continued to squeeze, that glistening, amniotic mass stretched and bulged, malformed limbs beginning to emerge from it in a hideous outline.
Dissolution.
Reshaping.
For some reason, the image of a goddess molding life flashed through Zihark's mind. But this was nothing like any sacred act of creation.
This was blasphemy against life itself.
He forced down the acid rising in his throat and shouted Kai'Sa's name in a hoarse voice, telling her to get out now. They could not stay here another second.
Kai'Sa heard him. Keeping one eye fixed on the tentacle extending from the abyss, she backed away slowly, feeling for footholds with one hand against the rocks.
[End of chapter]