The sky above us is choked with smoke, glowing orange, the air hangs heavy with ash and the stink of burning men.
An order of Blades stands ready outside, the line of Reapers behind them rigid as stone and at their feet, on his knees, trembles a lone male.
His dark hair is thick with blood and soot, his body shuddering with each sob as he stares at the ground. His armor is scorched, his blade discarded.
But it’s unmistakable.
House Taramethos.
Crafters of relics. Masters of transmutation. The forge-born. His dusksteel breastplate, though battered and burned, still bears their mark. A single anvil wreathed in flame.
The Eternal Forge.
And now, its loyal son kneels in the mud.
“They caught him trying to flee into the mountains,” Arax says.
I step forward, casting a long shadow over the trembling figure. He shivers, shoulders hunched, spine bent beneath shame.
“You desert not only your prince,” I snarl, “but your house?”
“Mercy, Your Highness,” he gasps, daring to lift his gaze, but not quite meeting mine, as if he knows what lives behind them will be his undoing. “My family. My wife and children. I was only trying to protect them.”
Arax leans in, his voice low at my ear. “We found them with him. A female and three young ones. They’re in the camp, down in the valley.”
“Please,” the deserter whispers, his voice cracked and raw. “Do what you must with me. Just let them live.”
I raise my hand. Smoke coils between my fingers and in the next breath, the hilt of Death Singer nestles into my palm, its silver edge humming with hunger.
“You are a coward,” I growl, dragging the blade’s tip across the stone until it screams, “and a traitor. For such things, you forfeit your life.”
He nods. Not in defiance, but acceptance.
The sobs still, hollowed out. He looks up, finally, and though his eyes are slick with tears, there’s a brittle calm in them.
“As you wish, Your Highness. But my family… please.”
But the void stirs in me.
Tendrils of shadow crawl up my spine. My vision darkens. My eyes roll black.
Death Singer arcs.
One clean strike.
His head topples from his shoulders with a wet thud, rolling across the stone. His body slumps after it, like a puppet whose strings were cut mid-beg.
I stand over what remains, breathing hard.
Then I lift my hand, and with a flick of my wrist, a veil of smoke rolls over the corpse, swallowing it whole.
Meat for the beast.
The Father Below, Gygarth, stirs inside me. That ancient, hungering dark that no offering can ever satisfy. Even now, after the kill, he leans close to my soul with clawed talons and a low, insatiable whisper:
Feed me, Favored One. Feed your master.
My jaw locks. Eyes squeeze shut. I fight to surface, to tear myself free from the abyss that claws at my ribs and would gladly drown me.
