Gall returned to Master Brennan’s workshop the next morning with his decision already made. The master stonemason looked up from his work, and something in Gall’s expression must have told him everything he needed to know.

“So you’re leaving then,” Brennan said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I’m grateful for everything you’ve taught me, but—”

“But your mind’s already gone, even if your body’s still standing here.” Brennan wiped stone dust from his hands and crossed to a chest in the corner of the workshop. He retrieved a small leather pouch and pressed it into Gall’s palm. “Three months’ wages. For the work you’ve done, and for what you might have become.”

Gall stared at the pouch, feeling its weight. “Master, I can’t—”

“You can and you will. Whatever darkness you’re chasing, you’ll need resources.” Brennan’s jaw tightened. “I won’t pretend to support your choice, boy. But I won’t send you out empty-handed either. Call it a final lesson—even when you disagree with someone’s path, you can still show them kindness.”

The generosity hit Gall harder than any rebuke could have. “Thank you,” he managed.

“Don’t thank me. Just… try to stay alive. And if you ever come to your senses, if you ever decide you want a different life, my door will be open.” Brennan turned back to his work, his voice gruff. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

Gall left the workshop for the last time, Brennan’s coins heavy in his pocket and heavier on his conscience. The master stonemason had offered him everything—honest work, dignity, a future—and Gall had thrown it away for vengeance.

No. Not thrown away. Traded. One future for another.

He spent the rest of the day wandering the city, his mind racing with plans and possibilities. Without the structure of the apprenticeship, his days were suddenly, terrifyingly open. He needed work—something that would let him eat while leaving him free to pursue Ekhart—but nothing that would demand the commitment stonework had required.

The answer came from an unexpected source.

“You looking for labor?” A grizzled man called from the entrance of a warehouse. “We need strong backs for loading. Four coppers a day, paid at sunset.”

It was brutal work—hauling crates and barrels from dawn to dusk, his muscles screaming by day’s end. But it required no skill, no apprenticeship, no master to answer to. When the work was done, Gall was free to pursue his real purpose.

And the work itself served him. Where stonework had built his arms and shoulders, dock labor hardened his entire body. Within weeks, he could carry loads that would have staggered him months before. His hands, already calloused from the mason’s tools, became like leather. His endurance grew.

He was becoming dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with raw physical capability.

His mother watched this transformation with quiet dread.

“You’re not sleeping,” she observed one evening, noting the shadows under his eyes. “And you barely eat. You’re going to work yourself to death.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re obsessed.” She set down her mending, her movements slow and careful. The consumption had progressed despite the healer’s herbs, stealing her strength bit by bit. “Gall, please. It’s not too late to go back to Master Brennan, to—”

“I can’t go back, Mother. I made my choice.”

“Then make a different one. Choose to let this go. Choose to live.”

But they both knew he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The need for revenge had roots too deep now, wound too tightly around his heart to be torn free without destroying what remained of him.

She coughed then, a wet rattling sound that went on far too long. When she finally caught her breath, blood flecked her lips. Gall moved to help her, but she waved him away.

“I’m fine,” she lied, just as he had moments before.

They were both liars now, pretending everything was fine when the truth was obvious: she was dying, and he was walking into darkness, and neither of them could save the other.

* * *

The rumors about the Shatain grew more specific as Gall learned where to listen.

In the taverns where off-duty guards drank, he heard whispered tales of the Forsaken—angelic beings of terrible beauty and power who had rejected the Caretakers’ authority. The Shatain hunted them, dragging them back to face judgment or destroying them outright.

“Saw Commander Ekhart return from a hunt last month,” one guard murmured to his companion, voice low with something between fear and awe. “His armor was scorched black, his face cut to ribbons. By the time he reached the garrison, the wounds were already healing. Just… closing up as they’d never been.”

“And his blade?” the other guard asked.

“Drew it just for a moment to clean it. The fear that rolled off that thing…” The guard shuddered. “Every man in the courtyard felt it. Like ice water in your veins. Like knowing you’re about to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

Gall filed the information away. Healing wounds. A blade that radiated supernatural fear. These weren’t just rumors anymore—they were tactical intelligence.

He began following Ekhart more systematically, no longer driven by blind rage but by cold calculation. He noted the commander’s patterns, his habits, his vulnerabilities. Where he went alone. When his guard was down. The routes he took through the city.

And most importantly, Gall watched for any sign of the Mordblade.

Ekhart wore it always—a sword sheathed at his left hip, its scabbard made of some dark material that seemed to drink in light rather than reflect it. The commander’s hand never strayed far from its hilt, even in the supposed safety of the garrison quarter.

Gall needed to understand that weapon. If the rumors were true, if it really could kill anything—including another Shatain—then it was the key to everything. But he’d also heard enough whispers to know that drawing a Mordblade was dangerous even for the Shatain themselves. Something about the blades resisting their wielders, fighting for control.

What would such a weapon do to an ordinary human who dared to touch it?

He didn’t know. But he was willing to find out.

* * *

Six months after leaving Brennan’s workshop, Gall turned fifteen. His mother baked a small cake with their dwindling supplies, her hands shaking with the effort. They sat together in their cramped room and pretended things were normal, pretended she wasn’t dying, pretended he wasn’t planning murder.

“Make a wish,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Gall closed his eyes and wished for the strength to do what needed to be done. When he opened them, his mother was watching him with an expression of profound sadness.

“You wished for revenge,” she said. Not a question.

“I wished for justice.”

“There’s a difference?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. Her fingers were thin as bird bones, her skin papery and pale. “When I’m gone—and it won’t be long now, so don’t protest—promise me you’ll at least try to find happiness. Not vengeance, not justice, just… peace. A moment of it, somewhere.”

“Mother—”

“Promise me, Gall.”

He squeezed her hand gently, afraid of breaking something. “I promise.”

Another lie. But this one was merciful, meant to give her comfort in her final days. Surely that counted for something.

She died three weeks later.

Gall came home from the docks to find her slumped in her chair by the window, her mending fallen to the floor. For a moment, he thought she was sleeping, exhausted from the day’s labor. Then he saw how still she was, how her chest didn’t rise and fall.

He knelt beside her and took her hand. It was already cooling.

“Mother?”

No answer. Would never be an answer again.

He stayed there for a long time, holding her hand, watching the last light fade from the sky beyond the window. She’d wanted him to find peace. Wanted him to choose life over revenge. Wanted him to be better than his father, better than the darkness that had been consuming him.

He’d failed her in all of it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her corpse. “I tried. I really did try.”

But trying wasn’t enough. It had never been enough.

The Grand Council sent someone to take her body—a blessing for the poor, they called it, though Gall knew it just meant another pauper’s grave. They asked if he wanted to say words over her.

He shook his head. What words could possibly suffice?

After they took her away, Gall stood alone in the empty room and felt something inside him finally break. The last chain holding him to the person he might have been snapped, and what remained was colder, harder, and more focused than before.

His mother had been his anchor to the light. Without her, there was nothing left to pull him back from the abyss he’d been approaching for the past year.

Ekhart had set all of this in motion. If the commander hadn’t brutalized his mother that day, if he’d shown even a shred of mercy or decency, perhaps she would have lived longer. Perhaps the shame and trauma hadn’t hastened her decline. Perhaps things could have been different.

But they weren’t different. They were exactly this—his mother dead, their room empty, and Gall alone with nothing but his rage and his plans.

He gave up the room the next day. Without his mother’s mending income and with his own meager wages from the docks, he couldn’t afford it anyway. He moved into a boarding house in the rougher part of the city, sharing a room with five other men who asked no questions and expected none in return.

It was perfect. Anonymous. A place to sleep between the work that kept him alive and the work that gave his life meaning.

Hunting Ekhart became his singular focus.

* * *

The first real opportunity came eight months after his mother’s death.

Gall was sixteen now, lean and dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with age. The boy swatted aside by a riding crop was gone, replaced by someone harder, someone who moved through the city’s shadows like he belonged there.

He’d learned that Ekhart had a mistress—a merchant’s widow who lived in the nicer part of the city. The commander visited her every few weeks, always late at night, always alone. He never took guards on these visits, perhaps because he valued discretion or perhaps because he didn’t fear anything the city might throw at him.

That arrogance would be his downfall.

Gall positioned himself in an alley near the widow’s house, a knife stolen from the docks tucked into his belt. Not a chisel this time—a real weapon, sharp and balanced. He’d practiced with it in secret, learning the weight, the way it moved in his hand.

This time would be different. This time, he was ready.

The hours crawled past. Midnight came and went. Gall’s legs cramped from standing still, but he didn’t move. Patience, as Brennan had taught him. Stone was patient. Stone endured.

Finally, near dawn, Ekhart emerged from the widow’s house. He moved with the casual confidence of a man who owned the world, his hand resting on his sword hilt more from habit than concern.

Gall waited until Ekhart passed the mouth of the alley, then stepped out behind him.

“Commander Ekhart.”

The man turned, one eyebrow rising in recognition. “Well. The street rat. Still alive, I see. Come for another beating?”

“I’ve come to kill you.”

Ekhart laughed—actually laughed, as if Gall had told a particularly amusing joke. “Have you indeed? With what, boy? That pig-sticker you’re so obviously hiding?”

“With whatever it takes.”

“Bold words. But we both know how this ends. You’ll attack, I’ll disarm you, and this time I won’t be so merciful. This time you’ll learn what happens to those who persistently annoy their betters.”

Gall didn’t respond. Didn’t give Ekhart the satisfaction of angry words or threats. He drew the knife and lunged.

This time, he was faster. This time, his strike was precise, aimed at the gap in Ekhart’s armor where neck met shoulder. The blade should have sunk deep, should have severed the major vessels there.

Instead, Ekhart’s hand snapped up and caught Gall’s wrist in an iron grip. The commander twisted, and Gall felt his bones grind together. The knife fell from his nerveless fingers.

“Disappointing,” Ekhart said. “I expected better after all this time. Have you done nothing but brood and plan?”

He drove his knee into Gall’s stomach, then released him. Gall staggered back, gasping for air, and watched in horror as Ekhart drew his sword—not the Mordblade, just an ordinary blade.

“I’m going to hurt you now,” Ekhart said conversationally. “Not kill you—that would be too quick. But hurt you enough that you’ll remember this every day for the rest of your miserable life.”

The sword’s edge kissed Gall’s cheek, drawing a line of fire. Then his shoulder. His arm. Minor cuts, precise and deliberate, meant to scar without killing.

Gall tried to fight back, tried to use the techniques he’d imagined in his head, but Ekhart was too fast, too skilled, too far beyond him. Every attack was turned aside. Every desperate grab found only air.

“The problem with you, boy,” Ekhart said as he worked, “is that you think wanting something badly enough makes you entitled to it. You think your rage gives you power. But rage without skill is just noise. Fury without strength is just pathetic flailing.”

He sheathed his sword and grabbed Gall by the throat, slamming him against the alley wall. “I’m a Shatain. Do you understand what that means? I’ve lived for over seventy years. I’ve killed Forsaken that could tear you apart with a thought. I’ve survived wounds that would drop an ox dead in its tracks. And you—you’re just a boy with a knife and a grudge.”

Ekhart’s grip tightened, cutting off Gall’s air. “Your mother was nothing. A moment’s entertainment, quickly forgotten. And you’ll be nothing too—a cautionary tale about what happens to those who reach above their station.”

Black spots danced in Gall’s vision. His lungs screamed for air. This was it—after everything, all the planning, all the preparation, he was going to die in an alley like his father before him.

Then Ekhart released him.

Gall collapsed to the ground, gasping and retching. When he could finally see again, Ekhart was walking away.

“Come back when you’re ready to die, boy,” the commander called over his shoulder. “I’ll be waiting.”