In the shadowed annals of Morrigan Deep, few figures embody the inexorable pull of dominance as vividly as Nicolas DeSilva. Son of Primus and Boaca Baer, forged in the wilds of Varjoleto and tempered in Irkalla’s unforgiving forges, Nicolas stands as a colossus of control, his every whim a decree that reshapes the world around him. To grasp the essence of his realm is to confront a truth as unyielding as the bars of Corax Asylum: dominance is not merely exercised, it is the very architecture of existence.
Nicolas’s life, from its brutal inception, pulses with this imperative. Ripped from his mother’s arms at twelve, thrust into demonic tutelage, he emerged not merely scarred but sculpted for supremacy. Rumours persist that this severance birthed his peculiarities, whispers of insanity that he wields like a crown. Yet insanity, in Nicolas’s hands, is no affliction; it is armament. As proprietor of Corax, he declares the sane mad, the free captive, transforming the asylum into a labyrinth where will crumbles under his gaze. The Thesapien Medical Board, bought with tributes ravaged by moons of debauchery, rubber-stamps his edicts. Cure? Anathema to his enterprise. Madness sustains him, a perpetual harvest of souls for Irkalla’s ledgers.
His dominion manifests most acutely in the asylum’s bowels, a crypt of calculated cruelty. Cells boast beds laced with straps and cuffs, corridors gleam with surgical relics rusted to perfection, torture chambers house bespoke horrors: the iron maiden, brazen bull, hall of mirrors where reality fractures. Washrooms spew sewage upon the cut and festering, underfloor heating blisters bare soles. Mirrors and clocks clang ceaselessly, eroding sanity drop by tick. Nicolas prowls these halls, a jester in plaid, his pocket watches ticking discordant symphonies. No inmate escapes his design; even the dead linger as trinkets, vampire blood feeding his steeds to unnatural speed.
Yet Nicolas’s pull extends beyond stone and steel, threading through his fractured self. The Vero, refined and rational, converses via glass with Webster, his sharper reflection. Together they birth abominations: nerve harps plucking agony from flesh, void chairs convulsing the damned. Dominance is collaboration, a duet of destruction. Even Demize, the severed head perched on his gramophone, mocks and goads, a chorus to his command. Chives, the rotting ghoul, shuffles through the mire, his immortality a curse of ceaseless toil, ear stapled, limbs failing, yet bound by Nicolas’s whim.
In relationships, too, Nicolas asserts unyielding claim. Tributes, red-haired favourites, endure his whims until exhaustion claims them, bodies dispatched to Irkalla or Kane’s thicket. The Immoless challenge him, yet succumb: Lucia, hunted through mirrors, branded and broken; Stacia, rent asunder in fraternal tug-of-war. Even Allyra, the third anomaly, dances his games before yielding. His mesmerism bends wills, his gaze extracts surrender. Love, to Nicolas, is possession, fleeting until secured by chain or contract.
Irkalla bows to his ledger, The Rationum inscribed by his hand, binding souls and fates. Primus’s bastard, he watches via Ad Sex Speculum, six mirrors in the Anubium tracking his kind. Behmor, his lesser son, rules hell’s circles, yet defers to paternal decree. The Deep’s kings complain to Tepes, Tepes to Theaten, Theaten to Nicolas, a chain culminating in his caprice. Sabotage ripples from his touch: hats plague Khepriarth, anchors crush Sapari, aardvarks pit Neferaten.
Dominance, for Nicolas, is symphony and scourge. Corax endures as testament, a monument to his mastery where chaos bends to will, pain to pleasure, rebellion to restraint. In his world, submission is salvation, and all paths lead inexorably to him.
Immortalis Book One August 2026