Verse 8:4 — The Harbinger

My vile transformation is complete. What was foretold, what was feared, is now true: Eris Morn has given in to the Hive's endless hunger. She has taken up the mantle of a Hive queen and leads vast armies of acolytes into war.

Inevitable. Inimitable. Who else but her? What else but this?

(Ikora believes my transformation was not necessary. It was.)

I hear whispers, but when do I not? They have been with me since the Hellmouth. This is what I am. It cannot be refuted or denied. This is the shape I have chosen for myself: my morph, the Harbinger.

(Ikora believes I will martyr myself. But what martyr walked towards oblivion with a knife in hand? I will not go so serenely.)

In my morph, I am unafraid. In my morph, I wield fear, that earliest of fears: fear of devourment. Since we ourselves were prey, we have felt terror at the gaping maw, at the hunger gazing at us with delight.

I have stared that hunger in the face. I have endured it for too long. Now, I will be the predator. I will devour. I will instill that first fear.

I hunger, but that hunger has always strained against the limitations of my Lightless body. But here, in the Witch Queen's endless hypogeum, that hunger has bloomed. This part of me has erupted from my body as from the earth, like one of those obscene, carnivorous corpse flowers—dark cores swallowing sunlight, plush petals open to death.

Ridiculous. Who would compare hunger to a flower? I do not wait passively for my prey. No—no—it is a worm. A worm I have a desperate urge to feed.

It can be nothing else.