The worst always comes for those who wait for it.
Isakk still hasn't made peace with that. He thinks about it too much, whether killing Wideroth quietly, in the dead of night, would've changed anything. Would he still have been arrested? Still dragged through the mud, disgraced, for the crime of defending a child's life?
He never expected the demon he killed to end up in his head instead of in the ground. Talking to him. Telling him her name, like he gives a shit what she's called.
But she's offering something else now. Magic. The kind that could save his body from the torture waiting for him.
"And what do you get in return," Isakk asked.
"Nothing. I've already told you. Or are you as dense as you are disciplined?" Xerile said.
Isakk stared at her, not knowing whether to curse at her or lunge. All he knew was that she was helping him now, and that was more than the world had ever given him. But he wasn't a fool. No. He wasn't a fool, and he wouldn't trust her fully.
"Fine, demon. Help me use magic."
"Yay! Now all I need is for you to keep calm. No unnecessary thoughts."
"What—"
Before he could even finish the thought, she tapped his forehead lightly. Pure information flooded his mind, magic, raw and endless, and he was overwhelmed instantly. He found himself in the clutches of death's cold doorstep, until she pulled her hand back. He stared into the void, then at her, as she laughed.
"You're most definitely weak willed," Xerile said. "Now you're about to wake up, so make use of what you learned, or your body will be rendered useless."
Isakk wakes not to comfort. No, he never had any of that. What he woke up to was worse. His body lay in a pile of rotting corpses, beaten, broken, and bloodied. He gasps as white hot pain floods his body, but he doesn't scream. No, he acts, trying to make sense of what the demon forced into his brain. He finds nothing. It's there, but buried under a veil, like a stolen victory against a noble, felt for a few seconds then swallowed whole by pain right after.
He bites down on the bone of a rotting corpse to keep from screaming, and he starts chanting the incantation, what little he managed to gather and remember from the demon in his head. He spoke it once, low: "Kaes'thorra Vel'nyxeth Zuur-Akh."
The bodies around him rot faster as his own body heals. Slow, but definitely better than when he first woke. He stands, trying to make sense of where he is. He looks around, touches what surrounds him, feels dirt walls packed tight around a grave that isn't his yet. He remembers now. The disposal pit. Where they throw dead soldiers, dead monsters, dead men nobody bothers to bury properly. He wretches onto the floor, disgusted, then crawls out through the bones, slow but steady, like something being born wrong.
He reaches the lid and pushes it lightly, checking for guards. When he's sure it's clear, he crawls out and covers it back. He looks over the campsite. The soldiers' quarters. The scouts' and workers' quarters. And that damned pig's tent.
For the first time in his life, Isakk is not waiting for misfortune to fall upon him.
This time, he's going in head first. And killing a damned pig.