Thrum.
Now that I had noticed it, it seemed impossible to believe I hadn't felt it before. Hidden behind the pulse of my heart was a second, softer beat. So soft it was almost imperceptible.
It felt like a tremor. A muscle spasm.
My first thought was it was caused by the wound in my heart. But as I isolated its general location, it was deeper inside. I had thought the large chamber of my Coagulum was all that existed in my heart.
But this wasn't even connected to it. It was separate.
Frowning, I pushed my awareness into my heart, peeling back layers of muscle to see what lay within.
A vein.
That's all it was.
With every heart beat, blood was pulled from my stomach and into my Coagulum. That was the function of my heart. To feed my Coagulum. At least, that's what I believed now.
Concentrating on it didn't raise any new memories. I was sure that even before I lost my memories, it's what I had assumed that was all my heart did.
But, peering at this vein, I could see that a small, almost insignificant, portion was being siphoned away.
I felt a brief spark of shock mixed with hope.
It was as if I was discovering something new about myself.
Pushing the incessant pull to sink into Torpor, I instead pushed my awareness into the slender vein and followed it. First down to the base of my heart, where I confirmed it was indeed attached to the thick vein rising from my stomach.
Looking at the fragile join, it was no wonder I'd never noticed it before.
Following it back, I found a small chamber did lay within my heart. Smaller than a grain of rice. With every pulse, this precious drop was squeezed out into another vein which threaded out of my heart and into my body.
How could I have never seen this before?
It was so obvious now I saw it. Had I always been just too focused on the blood flowing to my True Body that I dismissed my Corporeal one?
The vein branched through my body, each branch getting even thinner as it divided itself. With so little being channeled out of my heart, its flow looked sluggish and thick.
I followed their paths, surprised to find nodes so small they could barely contain even half a drop of blood. These nodes were spread through my body, close to the nerves.
I had known I had nerves. And muscle, of course.
But these nodes were new to me. As was their function. It looked like they were distributing blood to vital points in my body.
My mind trembled at the sudden understanding that there was more to my body than I had known. It seemed impossible that I wouldn't know this!
Memories, shaken by this new discovery, swirled in the murky fog to give the impression that I had transformed myself from man into vampire through a complex web of Alchemy and Ritual Magic. In Alchemy, transformation is the goal. Often through sacrifice of base material.
I had a distinct feeling that I had thought my body sacrificed. I considered my body to be an empty dead thing, animated by my True Body. I had thought it to be nothing more than a vessel for my magic. Even now, I grappled with the idea that there was more to it than this.
The thought excited me.
If I was right, then my memory being fractured wasn't a bad thing. It would allow me to see things from a new perspective without the prejudice of my old self's expectations and learning.
Thrilled by new potential, I explored the veins further, finding they also led to a stunted growth in my throat. With growing surprise, I watched as, with every inhaled breath, the growth expanded slightly.
Then on exhale, air was released.
I had no lungs. I knew I didn't need to breathe except to talk. I still did breathe, but it felt more like an instinct than a necessity. But, I panted when exhausted.
Where was the air circulating from when I did that? I felt like the air had always been pulled into my stomach. Was it exhaling from there?
Or did this growth have more to do with it than I thought?
When I talked, where was the air coming from?
Why hadn't I thought about any of this before?
I grimaced. Because I had just trusted everything was magic. I had never had a need to understand my Corporeal Body this deeply. My True Body had always been strong. It had covered for the weaknesses of my Corporeal Body by performing its work for it.
And now it could no longer do so, my Corporeal Body was struggling.
A lethargic wave washed over me again, and I swayed gently with it.
Tired.
So tired.
Shaking my head to clear its insistent pull, I forced my concentration back onto my veins. I needed a practical solution. This knowledge, while exciting, wasn't helping my heart to heal.
And I didn't have much time.
Already my mind felt like it was walking through a forest of veils, each clinging to me and adding to the weight I carried.
There were no other immediate surprises, and the veins eventually returned to my stomach, depositing unused blood into it so it could begin the cycle again.
I chewed on my thoughts, trying not to let the craving for sleep distract me.
What if this network of veins and nodes was in a state much like Torpor? The sluggish blood in its veins seemed to point to this. It wasn't active. I had never used it.
But, unlike the isolated Arteries in my True Body, these weren't rotted away. He constant trickle of blood had kept them intact.
My head lolled, and I realised my pulse was slowing. It was getting harder to resist the call to Torpor.
This wasn't good.
"Rise," I rasped. "Always rise."
I shifted my awareness outward, gazing at the overall web within me. Barely visible. Fragile. Weak. I felt ashamed by my failure. I had effectively crippled myself.
But I didn't have time to rage at myself. What would it take to Awaken it?
Given I hadn't even noticed it in my past, no memories glinted beneath the fog.
I was running out of time. I would need to try something.
But what?
"When in doubt," I murmured. My tongue tasted the words like an old mantra. I had used this philosophy when working on my True Body. Using brute force to tear my way through transformation. "Use more blood."
My lips curled into a bitter grin as I decided to try something my former self would never have considered. I could almost feel him like a separate being in my head, shivering in horror at what I was contemplating.
But as far as I could see, I had two choices.
Do nothing and let myself sink beneath the waves of Torpor and possibly never wake again.
Or, risk permanently crippling not just my Corporeal Body, but my True Body as well. A memory cracked across my conscious mind with the sharpness of a whip.
Myself, laying in a magic circle and stabbing myself in the chest with a dagger.
The remembered pain rocked me hard enough for the lassitude to be cast aside. Then, as the memory was whisked away, I felt Torpor begin to creep into me once more.
My heart was dangerously slow.
I didn't have much time.
I reached out my awareness, diving into my Coagulum. The gateway between it and my Meridians was open. Without that flow, my Meridians would begin to decay. And then?
Then my True Body would die.
Grimacing, I willed the gateway to close. I felt pressure as my heart, pumping blood through the channel, built up pressure. It felt like I was trying to squeeze my hand into a fist, but my palm was flat against a stone wall.
My fingers wouldn't bend.
I didn't have the strength to restrict the flow.
I grit my teeth and focused harder. I couldn't remember how I'd created this channel to my True Body, but I knew it was my work. Snarling, I squeezed with all my will, feeling the pressure build as I struggled to gain control of what was, in my mind, my own domain.
The Flow was mine to control.
"Hngh…" I hunched over, clutching my chest.
Slowly.
Painfully.
The gateway started to close, shutting off the flow to my True Body. But holding it shut took every ounce of my concentration. And all of my willpower.
I clenched it shut, groaning with the effort.
As my heart pulsed, trying to push blood through the blocked passage.
Torpor pulled at me. I could feel it stripping away my willpower. Slashing at my concentration.
"Rise," I hissed. "I always rise…"
Another pulse. Slower.
Weaker.
Thrum.
The pressure built, my Coagulum full to the brim. My body shook with the effort of holding it as my heart tried to squeeze it onward.
But with the gateway blocked, my blood had nowhere to go.
Except through that small vein.
As the pressure built, with more blood being pulled from my stomach, the blood was forced into the vein's meagre channel.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I watched as the slender thread filled with blood. I couldn't hold on much longer. My willpower was draining faster than I could have imagined. The gateway was slippery in my grip.
More blood flowed into the delicate channel, then out to my nodes.
The old sluggish blood was pushed along as the veins turned red. My pores started to burn and I felt shock as I saw the old blood being pushed out of my body.
The gateway writhed like a snake in my grip.
My willpower was swamped by the spreading numbness of Torpor. Shutters on the windows began to close, heralding the coming dawn.
"Rise," I spat. "Rise!"
More blood. Filling my veins.
Slowly.
Completing the circuit.
As it emptied back into my stomach, I felt my whole body vibrate like a tight string. I stared at the red lines through my body and suddenly, a word filtered up from my shattered memory.
Bloodline.
This.
This was my Bloodline.
Torpor pounced, ravaging me like a tiger as I lost control over the gateway and it blew open with a hiss to let the blood flow once more into my True Body.
I had done what I could.
The rest was up to Fate.