Faust rubbed the bridge of his nose, watching the young swordsman steam with defensive pride. The sheer immaturity radiating from Isfrid was almost exhausting.
"I can assure you, young man, when I was in my twenties, I was a model of absolute aristocratic decorum and scholarly restraint," Faust complained softly, his gravelly voice carrying a dry, mocking edge. "I certainly wasn't stomping my boots at my elders. Now, let us drop the theater. What exactly am I supposed to do with this deck?"
Isfrid let out a heavy, deeply annoyed sigh, rolling his eyes toward the sky.
"Just follow me."
He turned on his heel, gesturing toward the center of the flagstone courtyard where the drilling knights were finally scattering for a scheduled midday break.
Faust raised an eyebrow, stepping into stride beside him.
"Did you seriously just sigh at your godfather, boy?"
Isfrid ignored the jab, leading the doctor down the narrow, winding stone steps of the castle-like structure until they stood dead in the center of the sweeping training grounds. The air here smelled of black powder, sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of cold iron and moldy wood.
Once they reached the gravel center of the yard, Isfrid turned around, his boyish face turning unusually serious.
"First of all, the last time you unboxed or used those Tarot cards, did you hear anything? A whisper? A voice inside your skull, or even a distant, distorted echo?"
Faust's posture stiffened imperceptibly beneath his heavy traveler's coat.
He had heard a voice. In fact, he was currently waging an hourly, agonizing war against a chorus of malicious whispers that demanded violence. But Faust deeply doubted the source was a mere deck of cardboard and silver. Besides, Faust believed that it was highly unlikely that the holy Tarot Cards which reacted whenever and wherever he met evil, would be of... such cruel and malicious nature.
It was far more logical to deduce that the madness was a direct result of the parasitic shadow curse the goat-headed fiend, Baphomet, had buried inside his abdomen.
Or was it possible that the two were interconnected? Had his corrupted, volatile physical state allowed his mind to become uniquely vulnerable to the latent echoes inside the relic?
The analytical questions piled up rapidly, but Faust decided to lock them away for later. He had no intention of sharing the terrifying state of his mind with a hot-headed youth. If he was going to unburden his secrets, it would be to Isbert, who actually understood the true weight of the supernatural world.
"No," Faust lied smoothly, his expression a mask of pure, academic indifference. "I felt a strange spiritual density in the air, but I heard absolutely nothing of the sort."
Isfrid rubbed his chin with his thumb, his eyes narrowing as he parsed the answer.
"Then it's one of two things. Either the Relic has already bound its soul to another living master, or the spirit within is trapped in an exceptionally deep, catatonic slumber."
Without a single syllable of warning, Isfrid reached into his belt, flashed a small, razor-sharp hunting knife, and grabbed Faust's right hand. With a quick, practiced flick of his wrist, he sliced a shallow line across the doctor's palm.
Isfrid tilted his head, staring down at the wound in utter bewilderment. Only a single, tiny, incredibly dark drop of blood managed to well up from the cut.
"What in the world...?" Isfrid muttered, leaning closer. "Your flesh feels like carving oak."
Faust quietly pulled his hand back, maintaining his absolute composure. Of course it did. His supernatural physiology meant his skeletal structure was vastly sturdier than any mortal's, and his blood was far more concentrated, running thick with a dense, ancient vitality. Under normal circumstances, he didn't even bleed from surface wounds, and his rate of cellular regeneration was easily thrice as fast as an ordinary human's. The shallow cut was already beginning to knit itself back together beneath the skin.
But the young swordsman didn't need to know a single detail of the Duke's child's anatomy.
"It is merely a lingering side effect of your grandfather's specialized sleeping mixture," Faust lied effortlessly, adjusting his sleeve. "The apothecary fluids tend to aggressively contract the blood vessels and numb the skin's surface."
Isfrid blinked, completely open to the explanation.
"Right... Grandfather's winter drafts are notoriously brutal on the humors."
The boy sheathed his blade and pointed toward Faust's pocket.
"Take out the Tarot cards. You need to pour a drop of your blood directly onto the silver filigree of the box. We must check if they can be officially blood-bound to your soul. For example, our ancestral sword, Frost, will only awaken or react if it tastes the direct bloodline of the Frost family."
Isfrid paused, his gaze drifting to the gravel as he recalled his studies.
"Well, there have been a few exceedingly rare historical exceptions, but those are legends. While a vast majority of master forgemasters suppose that a draft of a Somnolent rank can be forced into a binding through blood, you must be exceptionally careful. I heard that some of the older, corrupted Relics can actually—"
Before Isfrid could finish his warning, a sudden, thunderous roar detonated within the confines of Faust's skull.
The white fabric wrapping his left eye burned with a savage, blinding heat as the gold iris beneath began to throb in a frantic rhythm. The parasitic, malicious voice inside his head commanded him with a terrifying, absolute clarity.
"SPILL IT. LET THE REED TASTE THE MARROW. FEED THE DECK."
It wasn't that the voice possessed an irresistible, hypnotic allure. Rather, it was a terrifying alignment of intent. The dark entity's command perfectly matched Faust's own deep, burning, desire to see what the silver cards would do.
His own scientific curiosity rose to the surface, mixing with the madness and rendering his caution entirely useless.
Faust didn't hesitate. With a swift, theatrical flourish, he slid the silver-encrusted Tarot box from his coat.
Before Isfrid could even reach out to stop him, Faust squeezed his sliced hand, forcing the single, potent drop of dark, concentrated blood to fall directly onto the center of the silver casing.
The moment the dark fluid touched the metal, it was instantly violently absorbed, vanishing into the silver lines like water into parched sand.
A suffocating, absolute silence fell over the training grounds.
Then, the world vanished.
Without a sound, a massive, tide of bloody, ink-black darkness erupted from the cards, rising up like a monstrous wave to swallow Faust's physical body whole, plunging his consciousness into a void of absolute, terrifying nothingness.