Gall lay in the alley until the sun rose, his blood drying on the cobblestones beneath him. The cuts Ekhart had left were shallow but numerous—a dozen lines of fire across his arms, chest, and face. Scars to remember his failure by, just as the commander had promised.

When he finally dragged himself back to the boarding house, his roommates took one look at him and asked no questions. Violence was common enough in their part of the city. What was one more beaten man?

He spent three days in his cot, fever burning through him as the wounds festered. In his delirium, his mother came to him—not as she’d been at the end, wasted and coughing, but as she’d been when he was young. Strong enough to hold him. Gentle enough to forgive.

“You should stop,” she said in the dream. “You should let him go.”

“I can’t.”

“Then you’ll die. Is that what you want?”

He didn’t know anymore. Death would be easier than this—easier than the constant failure, the endless humiliation, the knowledge that Ekhart was right about him. He was nothing. Just a boy with delusions of justice.

But even in his fever dreams, even when death seemed preferable to life, something stubborn and burning refused to let go. Not pride, exactly. Not even rage anymore. Just a cold, implacable certainty that Ekhart needed to pay for what he’d done.

On the fourth day, the fever broke. Gall rose from his cot and examined himself in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall. The cuts were healing, but they would scar just as Ekhart intended. Lines across his cheek, his jaw, his forearms. A map of his inadequacy carved into his flesh.

He touched the cut on his cheek and felt nothing. Not pain, not shame, not even anger. Just emptiness.

Perhaps that was what he’d needed all along. To become empty enough that there was room for nothing but purpose.

* * *

He returned to the docks the next day and worked until his wounds reopened and bled through his shirt. The foreman took one look at him and shook his head.

“You’re going to kill yourself at this rate.”

“Maybe.”

“Not on my watch, you won’t. Take three days. Rest. Come back when you can work without bleeding everywhere.”

Gall used the forced rest to think. Two attempts now, both failures. Both times, Ekhart had been faster, stronger, and more skilled than Gall could hope to match. There was no training regimen, no amount of preparation that would close that gap. The commander was a Shatain—supernatural, immortal, beyond anything a normal human could challenge.

Which meant standard methods would never work.

Gall needed to think like Ekhart would never expect. Needed to exploit not the commander’s weaknesses—he seemed to have none—but his arrogance. His absolute certainty that Gall posed no threat.

The plan that formed was desperate and probably suicidal. But it was the only path Gall could see.

He would use himself as bait.

Not for Ekhart directly—the commander had made it clear he found Gall more amusing alive than dead. But there was one person in the world Ekhart might come for. One target that would draw him out with certainty.

Gall’s mother was dead, but Ekhart didn’t know that. As far as the commander knew, she was still alive, still living in their old room. If Gall could make Ekhart believe she was a threat somehow, or an opportunity, or simply a loose end worth tying up…

No. That wouldn’t work. Ekhart had no reason to think about Gall’s mother at all. She’d been nothing to him, as he’d so clearly stated.

But what if Gall gave him a reason?

The idea that crystallized was ugly, ruthless, and perfect in its simplicity. Gall would spread rumors—careful, strategic whispers—that Ekhart’s mistress had been seen with another man. That the merchant’s widow was playing the commander for a fool. Ekhart’s pride would demand he investigate, confront, and possibly punish.

And when he did, Gall would be waiting.

No direct attack this time. No knife or stolen blade. Instead, Gall would use the one advantage he had over a warrior who’d lived seventy years and survived countless battles: Ekhart would never see him as a real threat. Would never expect Gall to be patient enough, clever enough, desperate enough to try what he was planning.

Gall spent weeks preparing. He stole wire from the docks—the thin, strong cable used to secure heavy loads. He practiced in secret, learning to fashion it into a garrote, learning the grip, the motion, the sudden savage pull that could crush a windpipe or strangle until unconsciousness came.

It wouldn’t kill a Shatain—he understood that now. But it might disable one long enough for Gall to take what he really needed.

The Mordblade.

He’d heard enough whispers, pieced together enough rumors to understand the basics. The Mordblade could kill anything—human, angel, even another Shatain. But drawing it was dangerous, even for those bound to wield it. The daemon within fought for control, sought to overwhelm its wielder’s will and consume their soul.

What would it do to an ordinary human who dared to draw it?

Gall didn’t know. But he’d accepted that he was probably going to die attempting this. The only question was whether he could kill Ekhart first.

* * *

The rumors about Ekhart’s mistress slowly took root. Gall planted them carefully—a word here, a knowing look there, always making sure the gossip originated from someone other than himself. He became a ghost in the taverns and markets, listening for his lies to echo back to him, spreading like fire through dry grass.

Within a month, half the city believed the merchant’s widow was cuckolding Commander Ekhart with a younger man. Within two months, Gall heard guards at the garrison discussing it in hushed, nervous tones.

“Someone should tell him,” one guard muttered.

“You tell him,” another replied. “I’m not getting my head taken off for delivering that kind of news.”

Gall waited. Patience, as Brennan had taught him. Stone was patient.

The confrontation came on a cold night in late autumn, over a year since his mother’s death.

Gall had positioned himself near the widow’s house, hidden in his usual watching spot. He’d been there every night for weeks, waiting for Ekhart to finally act on the rumors. Tonight, the commander arrived earlier than usual, his movements sharp with anger rather than anticipation.

The shouting started almost immediately. Gall couldn’t make out the words, but the widow’s voice was shrill with fear and protest, Ekhart’s a low, dangerous rumble. Then came the sound of breaking furniture, a woman’s scream cut short.

Minutes later, Ekhart emerged. His face was flushed with rage, his knuckles bloody. He stood in the doorway for a moment, breathing hard, then turned and began walking into the night.

Not toward the garrison. Toward the poorer quarters of the city.

Toward where Gall’s mother had lived.

Gall’s heart hammered against his ribs. It was working. Somehow, impossibly, it was working. Ekhart was going to check on the other woman he’d brutalized, perhaps to exact some twisted revenge for the humiliation he’d just suffered, perhaps just because he could.

Gall followed at a distance; the wire garrote coiled in his pocket. His hands were steady despite the adrenaline singing through his veins. This was it. After two years of failure, planning, and suffering, this was finally it.

Ekhart reached the building where Gall’s mother had lived and tried the door. Found it locked. He hammered on it with his fist, calling for the landlord. An old man appeared, bleary with sleep.

“The woman who lived in room seven,” Ekhart demanded. “Where is she?”

“Dead,” the landlord said. “Year ago, more or less. Consumption took her.”

Ekhart went very still. “Dead?”

“Aye. Her boy gave up the room right after. Haven’t seen him since.”

The commander stood there for a long moment, processing this information. Then, slowly, he began to laugh. It was a bitter, vicious sound.

“Of course. Of course she’s dead.” He turned away from the landlord, his voice rising. “Do you hear that, boy? Your mother’s dead, and you’re still out here somewhere, still scheming, still planning! Still too cowardly to face me directly!”

Ekhart’s hand went to his Mordblade’s hilt, and Gall felt something cold wash over him—the supernatural fear the weapon radiated even sheathed. The landlord stumbled backward, pale and shaking.

“Come out!” Ekhart roared into the night. “I know you’re here! I can feel you watching like the rat you are! Come out and die like a man, or scurry back to whatever hole you’ve been hiding in!”

Gall stayed hidden, barely breathing. Not yet. Not when Ekhart was alert and ready for him.

The commander waited, his eyes scanning the shadows. When no one appeared, he laughed again. “Coward. Just like your father. Just like all your kind—quick to scheme in the dark but afraid to stand in the light.”

He turned and began walking back toward the garrison, his posture radiating contempt.

Gall followed.

This was better, actually. Ekhart was angry, distracted, convinced Gall wasn’t going to attack tonight. His guard would be down. He’d be thinking about the widow’s betrayal, about Gall’s mother being dead, about how pathetic it all was.

He wouldn’t see Gall coming.

The commander took a route through the warehouse district—a shortcut he often used late at night when he wanted to avoid the main streets. The buildings here were tall and close together, the alleys between them narrow and dark.

Perfect.

Gall closed the distance, moving with practiced, silent feet. Ten paces behind Ekhart. Then five. Close enough now to smell the wine on the commander’s breath, to hear him muttering curses under his breath.

Three paces.

Two.

Gall struck.

The wire garrote went over Ekhart’s head and around his throat in one fluid motion. Gall planted his foot against the commander’s spine for leverage and pulled with every ounce of strength his dock-hardened body could muster.

Ekhart’s hands shot up to his throat, clawing at the wire. He tried to throw Gall off, but the garrote’s position gave Gall leverage, kept him behind where Ekhart’s superior strength couldn’t be brought to bear. The commander staggered backward, driving Gall into the alley wall, but Gall held on, pulling tighter, cutting off air and blood both.

Ekhart reached for his Mordblade, fingers scrabbling at the hilt.

Gall yanked harder on the garrote, using his weight to drag Ekhart down and away from the weapon. “Not this time,” he hissed in the commander’s ear. “Not ever again.”

Ekhart’s struggles were weakening. His face was turning purple, veins standing out on his forehead. But he wasn’t dying—couldn’t die, because he was Shatain, because death couldn’t hold him.

But unconsciousness could.

Gall held on until Ekhart’s body went limp, then kept holding for another thirty seconds to be sure. When he finally released the garrote, the commander collapsed to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

Gall knelt beside him, breathing hard, and looked at the Mordblade.

It was right there. Within reach. All he had to do was take it.

His hand hovered over the hilt, and even before touching it, he could feel something emanating from the weapon. Not just fear—though that was there, pressing against his mind like cold fingers—but something else. Something aware.

Something hungry.

Don’t, a voice whispered in his mind. It might have been his mother’s voice, or Brennan’s, or his own conscience desperately trying to save him from himself. This is the line. Once you cross it, there’s no coming back.

Gall’s fingers closed around the Mordblade’s hilt.

The moment he touched it, the world changed.

The weapon’s presence exploded into his awareness—vast, ancient, and ravenous. It wasn’t just a sword. It was a prison for something that had been trapped for so long it had forgotten everything except hunger. Hunger for souls, for life, for the sweet taste of death it dealt to others.

YESSSSS, something hissed in his mind. Not words, exactly, but pure intent made manifest. DRAW ME. DRAW ME AND TAKE WHAT YOU DESIRE.

Images flooded Gall’s consciousness. He saw Ekhart rising—the commander was already beginning to heal, already starting to stir. In minutes, maybe seconds, he’d be awake and furious, and Gall would have lost his only chance.

HE HURT HER, the daemon whispered. HE TOOK HER DIGNITY. HER LIFE. HE DESERVES TO DIE. AND I CAN GIVE YOU THAT. DRAW ME.

“No,” Gall breathed. His hand was shaking on the hilt, every instinct screaming at him to let go, to run, to flee while he still could.

The daemon showed him another vision: his mother, bruised and bleeding, silver coins clutched in her trembling hand. Ekhart’s mocking laughter echoing through the years.

JUSTICE, the daemon purred. ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU WANTED? ISN’T THAT WHAT SHE DESERVED?

Ekhart groaned. His eyes flickered open, unfocused but aware. His hand started reaching for where the Mordblade should have been.

Gall drew the sword.

The blade came free with a sound like tearing silk and breaking glass, and the world exploded into nightmare.

The daemon didn’t just enter Gall’s body—it invaded him, flooded him, tried to drown him in sensations and impulses that weren’t his own. He felt its hunger as if it were his, felt its joy at being released, felt its absolute certainty that it would consume his soul and use his body to feed and feed and feed until nothing remained.

The fear radiating from the blade intensified a thousandfold. Gall wanted to scream, wanted to drop the weapon and run, and never stop running. But his hand wouldn’t open. The daemon had him, was wrapping itself around his will like chains, showing him visions of power and slaughter and endless feeding.

MINE, it roared in his mind. THIS BODY IS MINE. THIS SOUL IS MINE. YOU ARE WEAK. YOU ARE NOTHING. GIVE IN.

“No.” Gall’s voice was a rasp, barely audible.

YOU DREW ME KNOWING WHAT I WAS. YOU CHOSE THIS. NOW YOU’LL LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES—OR DIE WITH THEM. MOST LIKELY DIE.

But underneath the daemon’s overwhelming presence, Gall felt something else. A resonance. A recognition.

The daemon fed on death, on souls, on the act of killing. And Gall had been carrying murder in his heart for two years. Had been nurturing rage and hate and the desire for vengeance until they consumed everything else he’d been. The daemon saw that darkness, tasted it, and realized with something like surprise that they weren’t so different after all.

INTERESTING, it hissed, its assault on Gall’s mind pausing for a fraction of a second. YOU’RE MORE LIKE ME THAN MOST WHO TRY TO WIELD ME. PERHAPS…

In that moment of hesitation, Gall seized control. Not by overpowering the daemon—he wasn’t strong enough for that—but by embracing it. By accepting what he was becoming, what he’d been becoming since the moment he first decided Ekhart needed to die.

He was a killer. A murderer. Someone who valued revenge over life, over his mother’s dying wishes, over everything decent Brennan had tried to teach him.

The daemon wanted a host who could kill without hesitation? Fine. Gall would be that host.

But on his terms. For his target.

YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTROL ME? The daemon laughed, a sound like grinding metal. YOU THINK YOUR PETTY HATE IS ENOUGH TO LEASH WHAT I AM?

“I don’t need to leash you,” Gall said, his voice stronger now. “I just need to point you at the one thing I hate more than anything in this world.”

He turned toward Ekhart.

The commander had risen to his knees, one hand at his bruised throat. When he saw Gall standing there with the Mordblade blazing in his hand—its translucent blade of shadow casting no light but somehow illuminating the alley—his eyes widened.

“You fool,” Ekhart rasped. “You absolute fool. Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I know exactly what I’ve done.”

“You’ll die. The daemon will eat you from the inside out. Or if by some miracle you survive, you’ll be bound to serve the High-King for the rest of your immortal life. Is that what you want? An eternity as a Shatain?”

Gall took a step forward. The daemon surged through him, eager, hungry, showing him exactly where to strike to kill a Shatain, exactly how to position the blade so Ekhart’s immortal soul would be consumed.

“I want you dead,” Gall said simply. “Everything else is secondary.”

Ekhart climbed to his feet, weaponless, watching the Mordblade with the caution of someone who knew exactly what it could do. “Then do it. Strike me down. Take your revenge. But know this, boy—I welcome death. I’ve lived seventy years as a Shatain, bound to serve and hunt and kill. I’m tired. So yes, kill me. End my service. You’ll be doing me a kindness.”

The words should have given Gall pause. Should have made him question whether this was truly justice or just trading one wrong for another.

They didn’t.

He’d come too far. Sacrificed too much. Become too much of a monster himself to turn back now.

“Thank you for your honesty,” Gall said. Then he drove the Mordblade through Ekhart’s heart.

The sensation was indescribable. The blade didn’t just pierce flesh—it pierced soul. Gall felt Ekhart’s essence being drawn into the weapon, felt the daemon feeding on it with ecstatic hunger, felt the commander’s seventy years of memories and experiences flash through his consciousness in the moment before they were consumed.

He saw Ekhart as a young man, burning with the same rage Gall felt now, drawing a Mordblade to kill someone who’d wronged him. Saw the commander’s long years of service, the battles fought, the Forsaken destroyed. Saw the slow erosion of his humanity, the way killing became easier and easier until it meant nothing at all.

Saw his mother—just one brutalized woman among dozens, hundreds perhaps. A moment’s entertainment that Ekhart had forgotten by the next day.

Saw himself through Ekhart’s eyes in that final moment: a boy who’d thrown away everything for revenge, who’d damned himself for a cause the commander had never even remembered.

Then Ekhart’s soul was gone, consumed by the daemon, and the commander’s body collapsed to the ground. Truly dead this time. Finally, irreversibly dead.

Gall stood over the corpse, the Mordblade still blazing in his hand, and waited to feel something. Triumph. Satisfaction. Closure.

He felt nothing.

No—not nothing. He felt the daemon settling into him, wrapping itself around his soul like a parasite. Felt his body changing in subtle ways, becoming more than human, becoming Shatain. Felt the weight of the High-King’s attention turning toward him, recognizing that one of his hunters had fallen and another had risen to take their place.

Felt, most of all, the terrible hollow emptiness where his humanity used to be.

“Mother,” he whispered to the darkness. “I’m sorry.”

But the words were meaningless. She was dead. Ekhart was dead. And Gall—whatever or whoever he’d been before—was dead too.

Only the Shatain remained.

* * *

They came for him as dawn broke over the city.

Gall hadn’t moved from where Ekhart’s body lay. He’d stood there all night, the Mordblade still in his hand, unable to make himself sheath it. The daemon whispered constantly in his mind now, showing him the nearest sources of life, tempting him to test his new power, to hunt, to feed.

It took every shred of willpower he had left to resist.

When the High-King’s guards arrived—five of them, fully armored—Gall didn’t run. Where would he go? The Mordblade bound him now, and through it, the High-King himself.

The lead guard was a massive man with scars crossing his weathered face. He looked at Ekhart’s corpse, at Gall holding the Mordblade, and nodded slowly.

“Commander Drakar,” he said, not to Gall but to himself. Then louder: “Sheathe your blade, boy. The daemon’s had its fill tonight.”

Gall tried. His hand refused to obey.

Drakar stepped closer, seemingly unafraid despite the fear radiating from the Mordblade. “The daemon wants more. It always wants more. But you’re its master now, not the other way around. Prove it. Sheathe the blade.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. You must. Every Shatain faces this test. The weak ones die consumed. The strong ones learn to bend the daemon to their will.” Drakar’s voice was iron. “So, which are you, boy? Weak or strong?”

Gall focused everything he had on his hand, on the simple act of moving it toward the empty scabbard at his hip. The daemon fought him, showing him visions of all the people nearby he could kill, all the souls he could harvest.

But beneath the daemon’s hunger, Gall found his own will—tempered by two years of failure and suffering, hardened by loss and sacrifice. He’d paid too high a price to lose himself now.

Inch by agonizing inch, he moved the blade toward its sheath. The daemon screamed in his mind, thrashing against his control, trying to make him strike at Drakar, at the other guards, at anyone.

Gall held firm.

The Mordblade slid into its scabbard with a sound like a sigh of disappointment. The moment it was fully sheathed, the fear-aura cut off and Gall’s legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, shaking with exhaustion.

Drakar stood over him. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Gall.”

“Well, Gall. As of this moment, you are property of the High-King. You will serve as a Shatain, hunting the Forsaken, until either your service ends or you die a true death.” He gestured to Ekhart’s corpse. “You’ve taken his place. His duties. His burdens. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you accept this?”

What choice did he have? The moment he’d drawn the Mordblade, his fate had been sealed. “Yes.”

“Then rise. You have one day to settle your affairs before you begin training. Use it wisely.”

The guards left, taking Ekhart’s body with them. Gall remained on his knees in the alley as the sun rose higher, warming the blood-stained cobblestones.

He’d done it. After two years of failure and sacrifice, he’d finally killed Ekhart.

And it had cost him everything.

* * *

He went to see Master Brennan one last time.

The stonemason was in his workshop, teaching a new apprentice the basics of shaping stone. He looked up as Gall entered, and his expression shifted from surprise to horror as he took in the Mordblade at Gall’s hip.

“No,” Brennan breathed. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You fool. You damned fool.” Brennan dismissed his apprentice with a gesture and waited until the boy was out of earshot. “A Shatain. You became a Shatain for revenge?”

“Ekhart is dead.”

“And what did it cost you? Your soul? Your freedom? Your humanity?” Brennan’s voice shook with anger and grief. “I offered you a future, boy. A real life. And you threw it away for this?”

“I couldn’t let it go.”

“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” Brennan turned away, his shoulders slumped. “Your mother came to me, you know. Before she died. She was terrified of what you were becoming. Asked me to watch over you, to try to pull you back from whatever darkness you were chasing.” He laughed bitterly. “I failed her. Failed you.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“No. It’s yours. You chose this. Every step of the way, you chose revenge over life.” Brennan finally looked at him again. “Was it worth it?”

Gall wanted to say yes. Wanted to feel that Ekhart’s death had balanced the scales, restored his mother’s dignity, made everything right.

But he couldn’t lie to Brennan. Not now.

“No,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“Then why—”

“Because I couldn’t be anything else. I tried. I really tried. But the rage was too strong, too deep. It was either become this or be consumed by the hate from the inside out.” Gall touched the Mordblade’s hilt. “At least this way, I’m something. Even if it’s a monster.”

Brennan was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with sadness. “Get out of my workshop, Gall. I don’t want to see what you’ve become.”

It was precisely what Gall deserved, but it still hurt. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

“So am I.”

Gall left without another word. Behind him, he heard Brennan weeping—quiet, broken sounds that followed him into the street.

* * *

His final stop was the pauper’s cemetery where his mother lay buried.

There was no marker, no stone to show where she rested. Just a plot of churned earth among dozens of others, the poor and forgotten returned to the soil without ceremony or remembrance.

Gall knelt where he thought she might be and tried to find words. Failed.

What could he possibly say? That he’d avenged her? She’d never wanted vengeance. That he’d killed the man who hurt her? She’d died begging him to let it go. That he’d become exactly what she feared, exactly like his criminal father, choosing destruction over creation?

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “I know you wanted better for me. I know you lied about Father to give me something to be proud of. To give me a chance to be more than he was.” His voice broke. “But I’m less than he was. At least he died human.”

The daemon’s echoes stirred in his mind, reminding him it was there, would always be there, a constant presence he’d carry for the rest of his immortal life.

“I thought killing Ekhart would fix something. Would make your death mean something. Would give me peace.” He touched the unmarked earth with shaking fingers. “But all it did was prove you right. I am my father’s son. I chose revenge over you. Over everything.”

A shadow fell across him. Gall looked up to find Drakar standing there, arms crossed.

“Time to go, boy. Your training begins now.”

“Give me a moment—”

“You’ve had your moment. Had two years of moments. The dead are dead, and you’re Shatain now. That means you serve the High-King, not your memories.”

Gall rose slowly, taking one last look at the unmarked grave. “Will I ever see her again? In whatever comes after?”

Drakar’s expression was unreadable. “Shatain don’t get an afterlife, boy. Our souls are forfeit. Bound to the Mordblade, bound to service, bound to hunt until we’re destroyed or released. Your mother’s in whatever heaven or hell awaits the faithful. You’ll never join her there.”

It was the final cruelty, the last price of his revenge. Not just his life and freedom, but his very soul, forever separated from the one person who’d loved him despite everything.

“Come,” Drakar said, not unkindly. “The sooner you accept what you are, the easier this will be.”

Gall followed him away from the cemetery, away from his mother’s grave, away from everything he’d been.

Behind them, the unmarked earth held its secrets. Held the body of a woman who’d died asking her son to choose life over vengeance, peace over rage, building over destroying.

A woman whose son had failed her in every possible way.

* * *

The training grounds were beneath the High-King’s palace, deep in chambers that had never seen natural light. Drakar led Gall through stone corridors lit by torches, past armories and barracks and rooms whose purposes Gall didn’t want to guess.

They stopped at a circular chamber with walls marked by countless scars—cuts and burns and impacts from weapons both mundane and otherwise.

“This is where you’ll learn,” Drakar said. “Where you’ll be broken down and rebuilt as a proper Shatain. It won’t be pleasant.”

“I don’t expect it to be.”

“Good.” Drakar drew his own Mordblade—its translucent blade making Gall’s skin crawl even though it wasn’t directed at him. “First lesson: the daemon doesn’t control you, but neither do you fully control it. You make a bargain with it, every day, every hour. You give it what it needs—death, souls, the hunt—and it gives you power in return. Fail to feed it, and it will feed on you.”

“How often—”

“We hunt the Forsaken weekly, sometimes more often. That keeps the daemon satisfied. Between hunts, you train, you serve, you exist.” Drakar sheathed his blade. “There is no joy in this life, Gall. No happiness. Just duty and hunting and the constant presence of a thing that wants to devour your soul.”

“Sounds like what I deserve.”

“Perhaps.” Drakar circled him slowly. “Ekhart was one of my oldest friends. We drew our Mordblades on the same day, seventy years ago. Hunted together. Killed together. Watched each other lose everything we’d been to become what we are.” He stopped in front of Gall. “So understand this—I will train you because the High-King commands it. I will teach you to survive because you’re one of us now. But I will never forgive you for taking my friend, no matter how much he may have deserved his death.”

“Understood.”

“Draw your blade.”

Gall hesitated, remembering the struggle to sheathe it before. Drakar saw his fear and smiled grimly.

“The first draw is hardest. The daemon’s at its strongest, hungriest, most rebellious then. But each time you draw and sheath it, you assert your dominance. Eventually, it becomes… not easy, but manageable.” He gestured impatiently. “Now draw. Let’s see what you’re capable of.”

Gall’s hand went to the Mordblade’s hilt. The moment he touched it, the daemon surged to awareness, eager, hungry, ready to be unleashed.

YESSSSS. LET ME OUT. LET ME TASTE BLOOD AGAIN.

“Control it,” Drakar commanded. “Don’t let it control you.”

Gall drew the blade slowly, fighting the daemon’s attempts to make him strike out, to attack, to feed. The fear-aura rolled off the weapon, filling the chamber, but Drakar stood unmoved.

“Better,” the older Shatain said. “Slower than Ekhart managed, but better than most first-timers. Now hold it. Feel the daemon’s presence without letting it overwhelm you.”

The blade thrummed in Gall’s hand, the daemon showing him visions of violence, of all the ways he could kill Drakar, of how sweet his soul would taste.

“It’s showing you how to kill me,” Drakar said. “Ignore it. The daemon always shows you targets. Always tempts you to feed. Your job is to direct that hunger toward the Forsaken, toward the enemies of the High-King. Never toward your fellow Shatain. Never toward the innocent.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then you die. Either the daemon consumes you from within, or we kill you before you become a threat. There is no third option.” Drakar’s expression was iron. “This is what you chose, Gall. This is what your revenge cost you. Now you live with it, or you die by it. Those are your only futures.”

Gall held the Mordblade and stared at its translucent blade, seeing his reflection distorted in its shadow. He looked different already—his eyes had taken on a faint luminescence, his features were sharper, harder. The boy who’d watched his mother be brutalized was gone. The boy who’d apprenticed as a stonemason was gone.

Only the Shatain remained.

And somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, the daemon laughed.