Nicolas DeSilva, the second son of Primus, embodies the fractured essence of Immortalis rule in Morrigan Deep. He writes laws that bind others while shattering his own with gleeful abandon, a duality that defines both his dominion over Corax Asylum and his chaotic influence across the kingdoms. To understand Nicolas is to grasp the tension between imposed order and primal excess, for he crafts systems of control only to revel in their subversion.
His primary edifice, Corax Asylum, stands as a testament to meticulously engineered tyranny. Acquired through a contract with Irkalla, sealed by the trade of six ravaged tributes, Nicolas wields a medical licence that grants him unchecked authority. Any thesapien or vampire may be declared insane at his whim, their freedom forfeit, their bodies consigned to cells or corrective facilities. Beds replace coffins for his nocturnal pursuits, straps and handcuffs ensure compliance, and surgical racks gleam with rusting instruments. The ground floor boasts a banqueting suite and library reserved solely for him, corridors lined with mirrors and clanging clocks to disorient and torment. Upper levels house bespoke horrors: the iron maiden, brazen bull, hall of mirrors, and open-plan washrooms spewing sewage over pre-cut inmates. No privacy exists; secret passages twist endlessly, known only to Nicolas, who rotates builders to prevent any full comprehension of the labyrinth.
This structure enforces his first rule: absolute possession. Inmates, tributes, even ghouls like Chives, exist under his gaze. He declares sanity or madness, life or unlife, cure or consumption. The Thesapien Medical Board bows to Irkalla’s endorsement, rendering his pronouncements unassailable. Yet Nicolas breaks this rule routinely, indulging whims that defy his own system. He spares volunteers who crave his bite, trades souls to Irkalla for bureaucratic leverage, and resurrects constructs like Arachron from mismatched limbs and sovereign serum, only to unleash them as zoo curiosities. His medical pretensions—Dr Shiverton Smythe extracting teeth or Nicodemus drilling skulls—serve amusement, not healing, inverting his authority into farce.
Mesmerism forms his second rule, a tool of effortless dominion. Eyes lock, will bends, and victims comply: sit, sleep, submit. He compels Lucia to dance in torment, forces thesapiens to confess imagined sins, and even directs horses to unnatural speeds. This power, innate to Immortalis, underpins his hunts—run rabbit, run—where false hope amplifies despair. But Nicolas fractures it himself, mesmerising Allyra to forget his infidelities or to dull her pain during marrow transplants, only for her resilience to erode the effect. He breaks his own command by granting her autonomy in croquet or theatre, watching her defy him with reluctant arousal, his control yielding to fascination.
Tributes embody his third rule: consumption as right. Red-haired thesapiens, bred for his appetites, fill cells for blood, flesh, and debauched release. He prolongs their suffering—nerve harps, void chairs, gurney compression—before devouring them, their remains redistributed to Kane or the void. Vampires feed his horses, their blood granting speed and longevity. Yet he subverts this voracity, sparing volunteers or diluting Allyra’s blood with inhibitors, his gluttony checked by strategy or sentiment. When jealousy flares, he flogs tributes collectively, punishing them for his own lapses, the rule bending to caprice.
Even Irkalla bends to his fourth rule: contractual supremacy. He trades souls for licences, declares insanity to feed the Ledger, and invokes debts to claim Allyra. The Ad Sex Speculum, once his surveillance tool, becomes a transit nexus. But Nicolas fractures contracts routinely, forging The Daily Nicolas to rewrite narratives or gifting Ibliss’s amulet only to reclaim it. His siege of Neferaten, a masterpiece of layered chaos—locusts, triffids, Rachnoc—exploits Ledger loopholes, sovereignty his prize through Allyra’s vessel.
Nicolas writes rules to cage the world, yet breaks them with the abandon of a god unbound. Corax thrives on this paradox, its filth and frenzy mirroring his psyche. He is the jester who crowns himself king, the healer who vivisects, the lover who chains. In Morrigan Deep, where Primus’s dusk endures, Nicolas reigns as both architect and saboteur, his contradictions the very engine of his power.
Immortalis Book One August 2026