The ancient shadows pressed harder against his mind, seething.Kill them all. Tear them apart. Spill their blood. Feed us.
The temptation sank deep into his bones. He could. He could lose himself to it.
But no. He didn’t want them all. Not tonight.
He wanted to drive them back. Break their spirit. Show them fear enough that they’d never dare return.
And he wanted one more thing.
To reach his brother.
To get to Kardoc and…
Do what? Kill him? His own blood?
There.
He saw him.
Rakhal pulled the shadows tighter around himself and vanished into them, sprinting across the churned earth as fast as the wind. To most eyes he was invisible, to others perhaps only a blur, a ripple in the darkness where no man should be.
His hand tightened on the hilt at his side, sword drawn, shadows coiling like serpents along the steel. It took more of his strength—more of his will—to contain the ancient, seething shadow that writhed within him. But he needed it. Needed its malevolent power now.
And there was Kardoc.
Huge, broad-shouldered, tusks gleaming. Fury in every line of him as he roared at the men behind him, his voice cutting through the clash. “Kill them! Traitors!”
His eyes burned with hatred.
Rakhal reached him first.
He let the shadows break. Released them all at once.
And in the sudden rift of darkness, he revealed himself.
Standing tall before Kardoc, blade in hand, his presence was a declaration: that he could pierce their lines at will, that no wall of steel or flesh could stop him.
The brothers locked eyes.
Rakhal took in the sight of him—Kardoc, broad as a warhorse, shoulders straining against leather armor that clung to his frame. Muscles thick with years of brutal combat. Blades strapped across his chest, a heavy axe gripped in one massive hand. His long hair was unbound, wild, streaming down his back like a dark banner.
He glared at Rakhal, tusks bared, hatred burning hot in his eyes.
And then—he smiled.
Kardoc’s words cut like an axe.
“So this was your intention all along,” he sneered, voice a low, poisonous thing. “To betray us? To these humans who have slain so many of our kin? They said the shadows were turning you mad, brother. I defended you… I was a fool. You’ll die for this, Rakhal. You and that cursed queen.”
Rage flared through Rakhal like wildfire. He tasted iron on his tongue and felt the shadows coil tighter around his pulse, whispering sweet, brutal counsel:Kill them. End the traitors. Feed the dark.His hands clenched on the sword until the leather bit the palms.
He remembered his father’s face—the promise, the assurance Draak had given him when Rakhal had first spoken of peace.Trust me,his father had said.Do this my way.If Draak had indeed turned his son’s words into a snare, then the betrayal cut deep. Now the choice would not be only his; every man here would be forced to pick a side.
Rakhal could have stepped back, surrendered to the easiest path: fall in line, bow to Kardoc, melt back into the war they’dalways known. He could have swallowed his oath to Eliza and let the fires of hatred burn unchecked. But the image of her—barefoot on Maidan soil, braids at her nape, the city behind her—seared through him. If he retreated now, the war would not cool. It would rage hotter than any of them could survive. The thought of that—of children burned, of villages razed—pushed him forward like a blade.
Kardoc loomed above him—bigger, crueler, the kind of beast who delighted in broken things. Rakhal noted the fine details with a calm that surprised him: the scar that cut through Kardoc’s eyebrow, the old nicked axe at his hip, the way his breath came ragged and eager. The hate in his brother’s eyes was simple and raw. It wanted blood.
Rakhal let the ancient shadow wash over him once more, tasting its terrible promise and then, with measured cruelty, denying it. He would not become the thing the wall urged him to be. Not tonight. Not for the price of everything he might yet build.
